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Managing the information that drives the enterprise
STORAGEVol 10 No 1 March 2011
MOBILE BACKUP bull QUALITY AWARDS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
ALSO INSIDENetworks Whatrsquos old is new again
Storage virtualization doesnrsquot have to be so hardTime to take the cloud seriously
Want more capacity hellip or performanceStriving for storage efficiency
The best storage for
virtual desktopsTherersquos a lot more to know about
storage for virtual desktop infrastructures than boot storms and linked clones
ALSO INSIDENetworks Whatrsquos old is new again
Storage virtualization doesnrsquot have to be so hardTime to take the cloud seriously
Want more capacity hellip or performanceStriving for storage efficiency
STORAGEinside |March 2011
STORAGEinside | March 2011
4 Storage March 2011 Illustration by Enrico Varrasso
STORAGEinside | march 2011
For networks whatrsquos old is whatrsquos new6 EDITORIAL As Ethernet continues to navigate its roadmap on the way
to 100 Gbps it looks like it might take over all networking chores in the data center by RICH CASTAGNA
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization9 STORWARS Are you still confused about server virtualization There
are some good alternativesmdashwith solid benefitsmdashto virtualizing storage systems by TONY ASARO
Managing storage for virtual desktops13 Watch out for boot storms Configuring storage for virtual desktop
infrastructures can be tricky but there are creative ways to help ensure that your virtual desktops get the performance they require by ERIC SIEBERT
Backup for remote and mobile devices25 Backing up remote sites and mobile devices has always been a
challenge But with a workforce thatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups by W CURTIS PRESTON
Quality Awards VI NetApp tops enterprise arrays field again36 NetApp once again leads a very strong field of enterprise
array vendors that racked up some of the highest scores wersquove seen to date by RICH CASTAGNA
Cloud projects climbing IT priority lists45 HOT SPOTS A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloud
services and infrastructure will increase in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world by TERRI MCCLURE
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 201150 READWRITE For the last few years wersquove been preoccupied with
storage capacity and astronomical data growth rates In the process wersquove overlooked storage performance by JEFF BOLES
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiency55 SNAPSHOT Our latest survey finds most respondents feel their companies
use storage pretty efficiently but disk capacity is still wasted because administrators donrsquot have the right tools by RICH CASTAGNA
From our sponsors57 Useful links from our advertisers
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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)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storageefficiency
Sponsorresources
6
tHE NETWORK IS still the Rodney Dangerfield of enterprise storage infrastructuremdashit just canrsquot seem to get the respect it needs and sometimes doesnrsquot even getthe attention it deserves Sure you care about the network when it gets toocongested to carry data around efficiently or when you run out of places toplug things in but for the most part itrsquos just there
But a couple of developments in the last few years have generated moreinterest in the neglected network Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) toutedas the great storage uniter offers a way to knit together otherwise disparatenetworks making Fibre Channel and Ethernet networks function as one (atleast in theory)
FC has been the de facto stan-dard connective tissue for enter-prise-class storage environmentsand with its storage-centric proto-col design itrsquos generally acceptedas the performance leader But Ethernetrsquos stake in the storage shop has grown significantly overthe last five or so years as NAS systems have proliferated in re-sponse to the ever-rising tide of filestorage Ethernetrsquos reach has also been extended as iSCSI continues to gain ashare of the block storage market iSCSI didnrsquot exactly take the data center bystorm but based on our research its incremental growth puts it in more than40 of the countryrsquos data storage shops
That makes Ethernet-based storage a player for both file and block And italmost makes it the default candidate for multiprotocol storage where blockand file share the same system which is quite possibly the fastest growingsegment of the storage system market
Every IT shop has years of Ethernet experience and the hardware it hangson is tried true and pretty cheap Fibre Channel aficionados will say thatrsquos alltrue but you donrsquot get the performance of a network specifically designed for
editorial | rich castagna
For networks whatrsquosold is whatrsquos new
As Ethernet continues to navigate its roadmap on the way to 100 Gbps it looks like it might take over
all networking chores in the data center
Every IT shop hasyears of Ethernetexperience and thehardware it hangs on is tried true andpretty cheap
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
7 Storage March 2011
storage Well now you do get that performance (or nearly so) as 10 GigabitEthernet (10 GbE) gear begins to replace the old 1 GbE stuff in most shopsEven at a slightly slower 8 Gbps Fibre Channel might still have the perform-ance edge because of its storage pedigree But itrsquos not that much of an edgeand the Ethernet roadmap bolstered by the ratification of the IEEE 8023bastandard last year has 40 GbE on the near horizon with products already being demonstrated and 100 GbE to follow hard on its heels
Add the emergence of SAS disks as a replacement for FC disks on theback end and how SAS can easilycombine with SATA drives for tieredmultiprotocol storage and it lookslike the NASiSCSIEthernet combowill be pretty tough to top
Where does that leave Fibre Chan-nel over Ethernet If Fibre Channel isgetting squeezed out of the storagepicture and Ethernet is destined to be the data center-wide network ofchoice why should we even bother with FCoE FCoE appears to be a bridgetechnology (pardon the pun) that does a good job of linking FC and EthernetThe question is how long will we need that bridge and how many companiesneed to connect those two environments Is it worth investing in CNAs andspecial switches and new interfaces Wersquore not seeing a ton of FCoE storagesystems so maybe storage vendors donrsquot see a lot of potential for a big pay-back on that investment
Of course there are some shops that can use FCoE now use it effectivelyand save money in doing so But I donrsquot expect theyrsquore in the majority
Ultimately it looks like itrsquoll be an Ethernet world which will certainlymake things simpler And as IO virtualization catches up with server andstorage virtualization working with a single network architecture will makeit even easier to virtualize and share network resources and to use themmore efficiently 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the April 2011 issue
Even at a slightlyslower 8 Gbps FibreChannel might stillhave the performanceedge because of itsstorage pedigree
HP Converged Infrastructure makesstorage agile and efficient so your data center is ready for whatrsquos next
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Reduce acquisition and operational costs by 50 bull Reduce storage management time by 90 bull Cut storage capacity requirements by 50bull 1
Are you ready for whatrsquos next
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1 Based on documented client results that are subject to unique business conditions client IT environment HP products deployed and other factors These results may not be typical your results may vary
copy Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP The information contained herein is subject to change without notice Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
9 Storage March 2011
eXTERNAL STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION (ESV) is the use of intelligent storage controllersthat provide volume management data management and protection featuresby creating a virtual storage system using external hardware and capacity Thegoal of ESV is to consolidate management and intelligent features and to enabletiering and heterogeneous replication If you implement a high-end intelligentESV system you can scale with lots of dumber and less-expensive systemsbehind it creating a great balance of high-end capabilities with lower costhardware This all looks good on paper but if the value proposition is so apparentwhy hasnrsquot ESV become the dominate storage infrastructure in our data centers
There are several reasons why ESV isnrsquot pervasive The first is that there areonly a handful of leading vendors pro-viding ESV solutions including HitachiData Systems IBM and NetApp Onecould argue that if EMC Corp decidedfive years ago that ESV was the new vision for storage it would probably bethe dominant architecture embraced by IT professionals today
Hitachi was the first to combine itsleading enterprise-class storage systemwith support for ESV technology back in2003 The company has done a great job of implementing ESV technology and in many cases has taken business away from the likes of EMC because of this unique capability The Hitachi ESV story has been getting better over timebecause of new technology that clearly quantifies its value Itrsquos able to providethin provisioning reclaim unused storage capacity and provide sub-LUN tieringto external storage systems
Sub-LUN tiering could be a ldquokiller apprdquo for external storage virtualization butusers are cautious of an idea that scatters their data across virtual volumesspanning multiple storage systems If Hitachi can validate that sub-LUN tieringis highly reliable when combined with ESV it could save customers millionsand enable them to further leverage their unique architecture
StorWars | tony asaro
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization
Overwhelmed by all the buzz around server virtualizationThere are still solid alternativesmdashwith real benefitsmdash
to virtualizing storage systems
Hitachi was the firstto combine its lead-ing enterprise-classstorage system withsupport for ESVtechnology back in 2003
However while ESV technology has helped to keep Hitachi in the enterprise-class storage game it hasnrsquot been enough to make them dominant The enter-prise-class storage system market is still a toe-to-toe battle with gains andlosses measured in inches not miles
IBM has offered its external SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance for anumber of years and itrsquos been adopted by a sizable number of IBM users Themost frequent complaints I hear from IBM SVC users center around its costto the point where price has been the key deterrent to taking advantage ofsome of SVCrsquos coolest features like heterogeneous replication One IT profes-sional asked me for advice about performing data replication between an IBMDS8000 and a DS4000 even though his company has an SVC deployed The ITpro said it was too expensive to use theSVC so they were seeking alternatives
I rarely run into non-IBM storageusers who have implemented SVC so itdoesnrsquot look like IBM has done a partic-ularly good job increasing its footprintbeyond its existing customer base
NetApprsquos V-Series has been a popularproduct enabling companies to leveragethe intelligence of NetApp FAS usingSAN-attached storage on the back endItrsquos actually a more popular approachthan you might think Again itrsquos not NetApprsquos primary strategy but it pro-vides a smart alternative for users whohave already invested a ton of money in their current SAN infrastructure
Those three products from major vendors arenrsquot all that competitive witheach other The Hitachi USP V and VSP are high-end enterprise-class systemsfocused on SAN storage providing a storage system that also enables externalstorage virtualization IBMrsquos SVC seems to have been designed as a complementto IBMrsquos DS8000 and DS4000 storage systems And NetApprsquos V-Series is more ofa midrange appliance that provides both NAS and SAN external storage virtual-ization I doubt these three vendors ever run into each other in competitivesituations
External storage virtualization has made an impact and will continue to doso but it has failed to establish any sort of dominance in the data center Costcomplexity and the risk of the unknown are still major impediments to itsadoption
Another reason ESV isnrsquot more pervasive is that only Hitachi has made thistechnology a core part of its strategy IBM and NetApp have it in their portfoliosbut itrsquos not a top priority in terms of growth or vision The other major storagevendors including Dell Inc EMC Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co and Oracle Corp
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
10 Storage March 2011
External storage virtualization is realand widely adoptedwith thousands of companies andorganizations usingit courtesy of thesethree vendors
donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
11 Storage March 2011
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
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
Iron Mountain has a proven track record of intelligently managing enterprise information and pioneered cloud information management over 15 years ago Our underground data centers provide an unprecedented level of security reliability and protection Trusted by over 90 of the Fortune 1000 with 140000 clients in more than 40 countries we go to great lengths to protect our customersrsquo information their reputation and ours
Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
Having trouble deciding whether to migrate to the cloud
DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
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to the scalable SmartStyle Cloud Servers It is expandable up to 100
reliable than RAID 6
Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
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NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
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bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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STORAGEinside |March 2011
STORAGEinside | March 2011
4 Storage March 2011 Illustration by Enrico Varrasso
STORAGEinside | march 2011
For networks whatrsquos old is whatrsquos new6 EDITORIAL As Ethernet continues to navigate its roadmap on the way
to 100 Gbps it looks like it might take over all networking chores in the data center by RICH CASTAGNA
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization9 STORWARS Are you still confused about server virtualization There
are some good alternativesmdashwith solid benefitsmdashto virtualizing storage systems by TONY ASARO
Managing storage for virtual desktops13 Watch out for boot storms Configuring storage for virtual desktop
infrastructures can be tricky but there are creative ways to help ensure that your virtual desktops get the performance they require by ERIC SIEBERT
Backup for remote and mobile devices25 Backing up remote sites and mobile devices has always been a
challenge But with a workforce thatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups by W CURTIS PRESTON
Quality Awards VI NetApp tops enterprise arrays field again36 NetApp once again leads a very strong field of enterprise
array vendors that racked up some of the highest scores wersquove seen to date by RICH CASTAGNA
Cloud projects climbing IT priority lists45 HOT SPOTS A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloud
services and infrastructure will increase in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world by TERRI MCCLURE
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 201150 READWRITE For the last few years wersquove been preoccupied with
storage capacity and astronomical data growth rates In the process wersquove overlooked storage performance by JEFF BOLES
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiency55 SNAPSHOT Our latest survey finds most respondents feel their companies
use storage pretty efficiently but disk capacity is still wasted because administrators donrsquot have the right tools by RICH CASTAGNA
From our sponsors57 Useful links from our advertisers
Efficient Enterprises do more with Dell EqualLogic
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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)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storageefficiency
Sponsorresources
6
tHE NETWORK IS still the Rodney Dangerfield of enterprise storage infrastructuremdashit just canrsquot seem to get the respect it needs and sometimes doesnrsquot even getthe attention it deserves Sure you care about the network when it gets toocongested to carry data around efficiently or when you run out of places toplug things in but for the most part itrsquos just there
But a couple of developments in the last few years have generated moreinterest in the neglected network Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) toutedas the great storage uniter offers a way to knit together otherwise disparatenetworks making Fibre Channel and Ethernet networks function as one (atleast in theory)
FC has been the de facto stan-dard connective tissue for enter-prise-class storage environmentsand with its storage-centric proto-col design itrsquos generally acceptedas the performance leader But Ethernetrsquos stake in the storage shop has grown significantly overthe last five or so years as NAS systems have proliferated in re-sponse to the ever-rising tide of filestorage Ethernetrsquos reach has also been extended as iSCSI continues to gain ashare of the block storage market iSCSI didnrsquot exactly take the data center bystorm but based on our research its incremental growth puts it in more than40 of the countryrsquos data storage shops
That makes Ethernet-based storage a player for both file and block And italmost makes it the default candidate for multiprotocol storage where blockand file share the same system which is quite possibly the fastest growingsegment of the storage system market
Every IT shop has years of Ethernet experience and the hardware it hangson is tried true and pretty cheap Fibre Channel aficionados will say thatrsquos alltrue but you donrsquot get the performance of a network specifically designed for
editorial | rich castagna
For networks whatrsquosold is whatrsquos new
As Ethernet continues to navigate its roadmap on the way to 100 Gbps it looks like it might take over
all networking chores in the data center
Every IT shop hasyears of Ethernetexperience and thehardware it hangs on is tried true andpretty cheap
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
7 Storage March 2011
storage Well now you do get that performance (or nearly so) as 10 GigabitEthernet (10 GbE) gear begins to replace the old 1 GbE stuff in most shopsEven at a slightly slower 8 Gbps Fibre Channel might still have the perform-ance edge because of its storage pedigree But itrsquos not that much of an edgeand the Ethernet roadmap bolstered by the ratification of the IEEE 8023bastandard last year has 40 GbE on the near horizon with products already being demonstrated and 100 GbE to follow hard on its heels
Add the emergence of SAS disks as a replacement for FC disks on theback end and how SAS can easilycombine with SATA drives for tieredmultiprotocol storage and it lookslike the NASiSCSIEthernet combowill be pretty tough to top
Where does that leave Fibre Chan-nel over Ethernet If Fibre Channel isgetting squeezed out of the storagepicture and Ethernet is destined to be the data center-wide network ofchoice why should we even bother with FCoE FCoE appears to be a bridgetechnology (pardon the pun) that does a good job of linking FC and EthernetThe question is how long will we need that bridge and how many companiesneed to connect those two environments Is it worth investing in CNAs andspecial switches and new interfaces Wersquore not seeing a ton of FCoE storagesystems so maybe storage vendors donrsquot see a lot of potential for a big pay-back on that investment
Of course there are some shops that can use FCoE now use it effectivelyand save money in doing so But I donrsquot expect theyrsquore in the majority
Ultimately it looks like itrsquoll be an Ethernet world which will certainlymake things simpler And as IO virtualization catches up with server andstorage virtualization working with a single network architecture will makeit even easier to virtualize and share network resources and to use themmore efficiently 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the April 2011 issue
Even at a slightlyslower 8 Gbps FibreChannel might stillhave the performanceedge because of itsstorage pedigree
HP Converged Infrastructure makesstorage agile and efficient so your data center is ready for whatrsquos next
Highly virtualized HP 3PAR Storage Systems are designed from the ground up to deliver transformative levels of agility and efficiency to virtualized data centers Exclusive thin technologies and autonomic management capabilities built into HP 3PAR Storage Systems deliver unique benefits
Reduce acquisition and operational costs by 50 bull Reduce storage management time by 90 bull Cut storage capacity requirements by 50bull 1
Are you ready for whatrsquos next
raquo Learn more about HP 3PAR Storage Systems
1 Based on documented client results that are subject to unique business conditions client IT environment HP products deployed and other factors These results may not be typical your results may vary
copy Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP The information contained herein is subject to change without notice Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
9 Storage March 2011
eXTERNAL STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION (ESV) is the use of intelligent storage controllersthat provide volume management data management and protection featuresby creating a virtual storage system using external hardware and capacity Thegoal of ESV is to consolidate management and intelligent features and to enabletiering and heterogeneous replication If you implement a high-end intelligentESV system you can scale with lots of dumber and less-expensive systemsbehind it creating a great balance of high-end capabilities with lower costhardware This all looks good on paper but if the value proposition is so apparentwhy hasnrsquot ESV become the dominate storage infrastructure in our data centers
There are several reasons why ESV isnrsquot pervasive The first is that there areonly a handful of leading vendors pro-viding ESV solutions including HitachiData Systems IBM and NetApp Onecould argue that if EMC Corp decidedfive years ago that ESV was the new vision for storage it would probably bethe dominant architecture embraced by IT professionals today
Hitachi was the first to combine itsleading enterprise-class storage systemwith support for ESV technology back in2003 The company has done a great job of implementing ESV technology and in many cases has taken business away from the likes of EMC because of this unique capability The Hitachi ESV story has been getting better over timebecause of new technology that clearly quantifies its value Itrsquos able to providethin provisioning reclaim unused storage capacity and provide sub-LUN tieringto external storage systems
Sub-LUN tiering could be a ldquokiller apprdquo for external storage virtualization butusers are cautious of an idea that scatters their data across virtual volumesspanning multiple storage systems If Hitachi can validate that sub-LUN tieringis highly reliable when combined with ESV it could save customers millionsand enable them to further leverage their unique architecture
StorWars | tony asaro
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization
Overwhelmed by all the buzz around server virtualizationThere are still solid alternativesmdashwith real benefitsmdash
to virtualizing storage systems
Hitachi was the firstto combine its lead-ing enterprise-classstorage system withsupport for ESVtechnology back in 2003
However while ESV technology has helped to keep Hitachi in the enterprise-class storage game it hasnrsquot been enough to make them dominant The enter-prise-class storage system market is still a toe-to-toe battle with gains andlosses measured in inches not miles
IBM has offered its external SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance for anumber of years and itrsquos been adopted by a sizable number of IBM users Themost frequent complaints I hear from IBM SVC users center around its costto the point where price has been the key deterrent to taking advantage ofsome of SVCrsquos coolest features like heterogeneous replication One IT profes-sional asked me for advice about performing data replication between an IBMDS8000 and a DS4000 even though his company has an SVC deployed The ITpro said it was too expensive to use theSVC so they were seeking alternatives
I rarely run into non-IBM storageusers who have implemented SVC so itdoesnrsquot look like IBM has done a partic-ularly good job increasing its footprintbeyond its existing customer base
NetApprsquos V-Series has been a popularproduct enabling companies to leveragethe intelligence of NetApp FAS usingSAN-attached storage on the back endItrsquos actually a more popular approachthan you might think Again itrsquos not NetApprsquos primary strategy but it pro-vides a smart alternative for users whohave already invested a ton of money in their current SAN infrastructure
Those three products from major vendors arenrsquot all that competitive witheach other The Hitachi USP V and VSP are high-end enterprise-class systemsfocused on SAN storage providing a storage system that also enables externalstorage virtualization IBMrsquos SVC seems to have been designed as a complementto IBMrsquos DS8000 and DS4000 storage systems And NetApprsquos V-Series is more ofa midrange appliance that provides both NAS and SAN external storage virtual-ization I doubt these three vendors ever run into each other in competitivesituations
External storage virtualization has made an impact and will continue to doso but it has failed to establish any sort of dominance in the data center Costcomplexity and the risk of the unknown are still major impediments to itsadoption
Another reason ESV isnrsquot more pervasive is that only Hitachi has made thistechnology a core part of its strategy IBM and NetApp have it in their portfoliosbut itrsquos not a top priority in terms of growth or vision The other major storagevendors including Dell Inc EMC Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co and Oracle Corp
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
10 Storage March 2011
External storage virtualization is realand widely adoptedwith thousands of companies andorganizations usingit courtesy of thesethree vendors
donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
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Networking Old is new again
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Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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11 Storage March 2011
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
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arrays
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Storage efficiency
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
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14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
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Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
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DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
23 Storage March 2011
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rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
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leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
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To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
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Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
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Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
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STORAGE
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STORAGEinside | March 2011
4 Storage March 2011 Illustration by Enrico Varrasso
STORAGEinside | march 2011
For networks whatrsquos old is whatrsquos new6 EDITORIAL As Ethernet continues to navigate its roadmap on the way
to 100 Gbps it looks like it might take over all networking chores in the data center by RICH CASTAGNA
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization9 STORWARS Are you still confused about server virtualization There
are some good alternativesmdashwith solid benefitsmdashto virtualizing storage systems by TONY ASARO
Managing storage for virtual desktops13 Watch out for boot storms Configuring storage for virtual desktop
infrastructures can be tricky but there are creative ways to help ensure that your virtual desktops get the performance they require by ERIC SIEBERT
Backup for remote and mobile devices25 Backing up remote sites and mobile devices has always been a
challenge But with a workforce thatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups by W CURTIS PRESTON
Quality Awards VI NetApp tops enterprise arrays field again36 NetApp once again leads a very strong field of enterprise
array vendors that racked up some of the highest scores wersquove seen to date by RICH CASTAGNA
Cloud projects climbing IT priority lists45 HOT SPOTS A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloud
services and infrastructure will increase in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world by TERRI MCCLURE
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 201150 READWRITE For the last few years wersquove been preoccupied with
storage capacity and astronomical data growth rates In the process wersquove overlooked storage performance by JEFF BOLES
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiency55 SNAPSHOT Our latest survey finds most respondents feel their companies
use storage pretty efficiently but disk capacity is still wasted because administrators donrsquot have the right tools by RICH CASTAGNA
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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)
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6
tHE NETWORK IS still the Rodney Dangerfield of enterprise storage infrastructuremdashit just canrsquot seem to get the respect it needs and sometimes doesnrsquot even getthe attention it deserves Sure you care about the network when it gets toocongested to carry data around efficiently or when you run out of places toplug things in but for the most part itrsquos just there
But a couple of developments in the last few years have generated moreinterest in the neglected network Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) toutedas the great storage uniter offers a way to knit together otherwise disparatenetworks making Fibre Channel and Ethernet networks function as one (atleast in theory)
FC has been the de facto stan-dard connective tissue for enter-prise-class storage environmentsand with its storage-centric proto-col design itrsquos generally acceptedas the performance leader But Ethernetrsquos stake in the storage shop has grown significantly overthe last five or so years as NAS systems have proliferated in re-sponse to the ever-rising tide of filestorage Ethernetrsquos reach has also been extended as iSCSI continues to gain ashare of the block storage market iSCSI didnrsquot exactly take the data center bystorm but based on our research its incremental growth puts it in more than40 of the countryrsquos data storage shops
That makes Ethernet-based storage a player for both file and block And italmost makes it the default candidate for multiprotocol storage where blockand file share the same system which is quite possibly the fastest growingsegment of the storage system market
Every IT shop has years of Ethernet experience and the hardware it hangson is tried true and pretty cheap Fibre Channel aficionados will say thatrsquos alltrue but you donrsquot get the performance of a network specifically designed for
editorial | rich castagna
For networks whatrsquosold is whatrsquos new
As Ethernet continues to navigate its roadmap on the way to 100 Gbps it looks like it might take over
all networking chores in the data center
Every IT shop hasyears of Ethernetexperience and thehardware it hangs on is tried true andpretty cheap
STORAGE
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7 Storage March 2011
storage Well now you do get that performance (or nearly so) as 10 GigabitEthernet (10 GbE) gear begins to replace the old 1 GbE stuff in most shopsEven at a slightly slower 8 Gbps Fibre Channel might still have the perform-ance edge because of its storage pedigree But itrsquos not that much of an edgeand the Ethernet roadmap bolstered by the ratification of the IEEE 8023bastandard last year has 40 GbE on the near horizon with products already being demonstrated and 100 GbE to follow hard on its heels
Add the emergence of SAS disks as a replacement for FC disks on theback end and how SAS can easilycombine with SATA drives for tieredmultiprotocol storage and it lookslike the NASiSCSIEthernet combowill be pretty tough to top
Where does that leave Fibre Chan-nel over Ethernet If Fibre Channel isgetting squeezed out of the storagepicture and Ethernet is destined to be the data center-wide network ofchoice why should we even bother with FCoE FCoE appears to be a bridgetechnology (pardon the pun) that does a good job of linking FC and EthernetThe question is how long will we need that bridge and how many companiesneed to connect those two environments Is it worth investing in CNAs andspecial switches and new interfaces Wersquore not seeing a ton of FCoE storagesystems so maybe storage vendors donrsquot see a lot of potential for a big pay-back on that investment
Of course there are some shops that can use FCoE now use it effectivelyand save money in doing so But I donrsquot expect theyrsquore in the majority
Ultimately it looks like itrsquoll be an Ethernet world which will certainlymake things simpler And as IO virtualization catches up with server andstorage virtualization working with a single network architecture will makeit even easier to virtualize and share network resources and to use themmore efficiently 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the April 2011 issue
Even at a slightlyslower 8 Gbps FibreChannel might stillhave the performanceedge because of itsstorage pedigree
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1 Based on documented client results that are subject to unique business conditions client IT environment HP products deployed and other factors These results may not be typical your results may vary
copy Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP The information contained herein is subject to change without notice Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein
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9 Storage March 2011
eXTERNAL STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION (ESV) is the use of intelligent storage controllersthat provide volume management data management and protection featuresby creating a virtual storage system using external hardware and capacity Thegoal of ESV is to consolidate management and intelligent features and to enabletiering and heterogeneous replication If you implement a high-end intelligentESV system you can scale with lots of dumber and less-expensive systemsbehind it creating a great balance of high-end capabilities with lower costhardware This all looks good on paper but if the value proposition is so apparentwhy hasnrsquot ESV become the dominate storage infrastructure in our data centers
There are several reasons why ESV isnrsquot pervasive The first is that there areonly a handful of leading vendors pro-viding ESV solutions including HitachiData Systems IBM and NetApp Onecould argue that if EMC Corp decidedfive years ago that ESV was the new vision for storage it would probably bethe dominant architecture embraced by IT professionals today
Hitachi was the first to combine itsleading enterprise-class storage systemwith support for ESV technology back in2003 The company has done a great job of implementing ESV technology and in many cases has taken business away from the likes of EMC because of this unique capability The Hitachi ESV story has been getting better over timebecause of new technology that clearly quantifies its value Itrsquos able to providethin provisioning reclaim unused storage capacity and provide sub-LUN tieringto external storage systems
Sub-LUN tiering could be a ldquokiller apprdquo for external storage virtualization butusers are cautious of an idea that scatters their data across virtual volumesspanning multiple storage systems If Hitachi can validate that sub-LUN tieringis highly reliable when combined with ESV it could save customers millionsand enable them to further leverage their unique architecture
StorWars | tony asaro
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization
Overwhelmed by all the buzz around server virtualizationThere are still solid alternativesmdashwith real benefitsmdash
to virtualizing storage systems
Hitachi was the firstto combine its lead-ing enterprise-classstorage system withsupport for ESVtechnology back in 2003
However while ESV technology has helped to keep Hitachi in the enterprise-class storage game it hasnrsquot been enough to make them dominant The enter-prise-class storage system market is still a toe-to-toe battle with gains andlosses measured in inches not miles
IBM has offered its external SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance for anumber of years and itrsquos been adopted by a sizable number of IBM users Themost frequent complaints I hear from IBM SVC users center around its costto the point where price has been the key deterrent to taking advantage ofsome of SVCrsquos coolest features like heterogeneous replication One IT profes-sional asked me for advice about performing data replication between an IBMDS8000 and a DS4000 even though his company has an SVC deployed The ITpro said it was too expensive to use theSVC so they were seeking alternatives
I rarely run into non-IBM storageusers who have implemented SVC so itdoesnrsquot look like IBM has done a partic-ularly good job increasing its footprintbeyond its existing customer base
NetApprsquos V-Series has been a popularproduct enabling companies to leveragethe intelligence of NetApp FAS usingSAN-attached storage on the back endItrsquos actually a more popular approachthan you might think Again itrsquos not NetApprsquos primary strategy but it pro-vides a smart alternative for users whohave already invested a ton of money in their current SAN infrastructure
Those three products from major vendors arenrsquot all that competitive witheach other The Hitachi USP V and VSP are high-end enterprise-class systemsfocused on SAN storage providing a storage system that also enables externalstorage virtualization IBMrsquos SVC seems to have been designed as a complementto IBMrsquos DS8000 and DS4000 storage systems And NetApprsquos V-Series is more ofa midrange appliance that provides both NAS and SAN external storage virtual-ization I doubt these three vendors ever run into each other in competitivesituations
External storage virtualization has made an impact and will continue to doso but it has failed to establish any sort of dominance in the data center Costcomplexity and the risk of the unknown are still major impediments to itsadoption
Another reason ESV isnrsquot more pervasive is that only Hitachi has made thistechnology a core part of its strategy IBM and NetApp have it in their portfoliosbut itrsquos not a top priority in terms of growth or vision The other major storagevendors including Dell Inc EMC Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co and Oracle Corp
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
10 Storage March 2011
External storage virtualization is realand widely adoptedwith thousands of companies andorganizations usingit courtesy of thesethree vendors
donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
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Sponsorresources
11 Storage March 2011
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
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
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DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
THERErsquoS A FASTER WAY TO IDENTIFY THE ISSUES IN YOUR IT ENVIRONMENT
copy Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2011 All rights reserved
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will give you the insight to successfullymonitor your infrastructure Every component server or storage device can be displayed and monitored through a single dashboard so you can
bull Improve effi ciency of your network
bull Minimize downtime of IT and applications
bull Identify critical issues
bull Make effective decisions based on real-time data
Take a free trial today at
itoperationshdscom
With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
catch-up we were creating the next breakthrough in business continuity
MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
to the scalable SmartStyle Cloud Servers It is expandable up to 100
reliable than RAID 6
Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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Download a complimentary white paper Bringing an End to Storage Wastewwwpillardatacomendwaste
CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
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The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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4 Storage March 2011 Illustration by Enrico Varrasso
STORAGEinside | march 2011
For networks whatrsquos old is whatrsquos new6 EDITORIAL As Ethernet continues to navigate its roadmap on the way
to 100 Gbps it looks like it might take over all networking chores in the data center by RICH CASTAGNA
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization9 STORWARS Are you still confused about server virtualization There
are some good alternativesmdashwith solid benefitsmdashto virtualizing storage systems by TONY ASARO
Managing storage for virtual desktops13 Watch out for boot storms Configuring storage for virtual desktop
infrastructures can be tricky but there are creative ways to help ensure that your virtual desktops get the performance they require by ERIC SIEBERT
Backup for remote and mobile devices25 Backing up remote sites and mobile devices has always been a
challenge But with a workforce thatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups by W CURTIS PRESTON
Quality Awards VI NetApp tops enterprise arrays field again36 NetApp once again leads a very strong field of enterprise
array vendors that racked up some of the highest scores wersquove seen to date by RICH CASTAGNA
Cloud projects climbing IT priority lists45 HOT SPOTS A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloud
services and infrastructure will increase in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world by TERRI MCCLURE
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 201150 READWRITE For the last few years wersquove been preoccupied with
storage capacity and astronomical data growth rates In the process wersquove overlooked storage performance by JEFF BOLES
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiency55 SNAPSHOT Our latest survey finds most respondents feel their companies
use storage pretty efficiently but disk capacity is still wasted because administrators donrsquot have the right tools by RICH CASTAGNA
From our sponsors57 Useful links from our advertisers
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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)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storageefficiency
Sponsorresources
6
tHE NETWORK IS still the Rodney Dangerfield of enterprise storage infrastructuremdashit just canrsquot seem to get the respect it needs and sometimes doesnrsquot even getthe attention it deserves Sure you care about the network when it gets toocongested to carry data around efficiently or when you run out of places toplug things in but for the most part itrsquos just there
But a couple of developments in the last few years have generated moreinterest in the neglected network Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) toutedas the great storage uniter offers a way to knit together otherwise disparatenetworks making Fibre Channel and Ethernet networks function as one (atleast in theory)
FC has been the de facto stan-dard connective tissue for enter-prise-class storage environmentsand with its storage-centric proto-col design itrsquos generally acceptedas the performance leader But Ethernetrsquos stake in the storage shop has grown significantly overthe last five or so years as NAS systems have proliferated in re-sponse to the ever-rising tide of filestorage Ethernetrsquos reach has also been extended as iSCSI continues to gain ashare of the block storage market iSCSI didnrsquot exactly take the data center bystorm but based on our research its incremental growth puts it in more than40 of the countryrsquos data storage shops
That makes Ethernet-based storage a player for both file and block And italmost makes it the default candidate for multiprotocol storage where blockand file share the same system which is quite possibly the fastest growingsegment of the storage system market
Every IT shop has years of Ethernet experience and the hardware it hangson is tried true and pretty cheap Fibre Channel aficionados will say thatrsquos alltrue but you donrsquot get the performance of a network specifically designed for
editorial | rich castagna
For networks whatrsquosold is whatrsquos new
As Ethernet continues to navigate its roadmap on the way to 100 Gbps it looks like it might take over
all networking chores in the data center
Every IT shop hasyears of Ethernetexperience and thehardware it hangs on is tried true andpretty cheap
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
7 Storage March 2011
storage Well now you do get that performance (or nearly so) as 10 GigabitEthernet (10 GbE) gear begins to replace the old 1 GbE stuff in most shopsEven at a slightly slower 8 Gbps Fibre Channel might still have the perform-ance edge because of its storage pedigree But itrsquos not that much of an edgeand the Ethernet roadmap bolstered by the ratification of the IEEE 8023bastandard last year has 40 GbE on the near horizon with products already being demonstrated and 100 GbE to follow hard on its heels
Add the emergence of SAS disks as a replacement for FC disks on theback end and how SAS can easilycombine with SATA drives for tieredmultiprotocol storage and it lookslike the NASiSCSIEthernet combowill be pretty tough to top
Where does that leave Fibre Chan-nel over Ethernet If Fibre Channel isgetting squeezed out of the storagepicture and Ethernet is destined to be the data center-wide network ofchoice why should we even bother with FCoE FCoE appears to be a bridgetechnology (pardon the pun) that does a good job of linking FC and EthernetThe question is how long will we need that bridge and how many companiesneed to connect those two environments Is it worth investing in CNAs andspecial switches and new interfaces Wersquore not seeing a ton of FCoE storagesystems so maybe storage vendors donrsquot see a lot of potential for a big pay-back on that investment
Of course there are some shops that can use FCoE now use it effectivelyand save money in doing so But I donrsquot expect theyrsquore in the majority
Ultimately it looks like itrsquoll be an Ethernet world which will certainlymake things simpler And as IO virtualization catches up with server andstorage virtualization working with a single network architecture will makeit even easier to virtualize and share network resources and to use themmore efficiently 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the April 2011 issue
Even at a slightlyslower 8 Gbps FibreChannel might stillhave the performanceedge because of itsstorage pedigree
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Reduce acquisition and operational costs by 50 bull Reduce storage management time by 90 bull Cut storage capacity requirements by 50bull 1
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1 Based on documented client results that are subject to unique business conditions client IT environment HP products deployed and other factors These results may not be typical your results may vary
copy Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP The information contained herein is subject to change without notice Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein
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9 Storage March 2011
eXTERNAL STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION (ESV) is the use of intelligent storage controllersthat provide volume management data management and protection featuresby creating a virtual storage system using external hardware and capacity Thegoal of ESV is to consolidate management and intelligent features and to enabletiering and heterogeneous replication If you implement a high-end intelligentESV system you can scale with lots of dumber and less-expensive systemsbehind it creating a great balance of high-end capabilities with lower costhardware This all looks good on paper but if the value proposition is so apparentwhy hasnrsquot ESV become the dominate storage infrastructure in our data centers
There are several reasons why ESV isnrsquot pervasive The first is that there areonly a handful of leading vendors pro-viding ESV solutions including HitachiData Systems IBM and NetApp Onecould argue that if EMC Corp decidedfive years ago that ESV was the new vision for storage it would probably bethe dominant architecture embraced by IT professionals today
Hitachi was the first to combine itsleading enterprise-class storage systemwith support for ESV technology back in2003 The company has done a great job of implementing ESV technology and in many cases has taken business away from the likes of EMC because of this unique capability The Hitachi ESV story has been getting better over timebecause of new technology that clearly quantifies its value Itrsquos able to providethin provisioning reclaim unused storage capacity and provide sub-LUN tieringto external storage systems
Sub-LUN tiering could be a ldquokiller apprdquo for external storage virtualization butusers are cautious of an idea that scatters their data across virtual volumesspanning multiple storage systems If Hitachi can validate that sub-LUN tieringis highly reliable when combined with ESV it could save customers millionsand enable them to further leverage their unique architecture
StorWars | tony asaro
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization
Overwhelmed by all the buzz around server virtualizationThere are still solid alternativesmdashwith real benefitsmdash
to virtualizing storage systems
Hitachi was the firstto combine its lead-ing enterprise-classstorage system withsupport for ESVtechnology back in 2003
However while ESV technology has helped to keep Hitachi in the enterprise-class storage game it hasnrsquot been enough to make them dominant The enter-prise-class storage system market is still a toe-to-toe battle with gains andlosses measured in inches not miles
IBM has offered its external SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance for anumber of years and itrsquos been adopted by a sizable number of IBM users Themost frequent complaints I hear from IBM SVC users center around its costto the point where price has been the key deterrent to taking advantage ofsome of SVCrsquos coolest features like heterogeneous replication One IT profes-sional asked me for advice about performing data replication between an IBMDS8000 and a DS4000 even though his company has an SVC deployed The ITpro said it was too expensive to use theSVC so they were seeking alternatives
I rarely run into non-IBM storageusers who have implemented SVC so itdoesnrsquot look like IBM has done a partic-ularly good job increasing its footprintbeyond its existing customer base
NetApprsquos V-Series has been a popularproduct enabling companies to leveragethe intelligence of NetApp FAS usingSAN-attached storage on the back endItrsquos actually a more popular approachthan you might think Again itrsquos not NetApprsquos primary strategy but it pro-vides a smart alternative for users whohave already invested a ton of money in their current SAN infrastructure
Those three products from major vendors arenrsquot all that competitive witheach other The Hitachi USP V and VSP are high-end enterprise-class systemsfocused on SAN storage providing a storage system that also enables externalstorage virtualization IBMrsquos SVC seems to have been designed as a complementto IBMrsquos DS8000 and DS4000 storage systems And NetApprsquos V-Series is more ofa midrange appliance that provides both NAS and SAN external storage virtual-ization I doubt these three vendors ever run into each other in competitivesituations
External storage virtualization has made an impact and will continue to doso but it has failed to establish any sort of dominance in the data center Costcomplexity and the risk of the unknown are still major impediments to itsadoption
Another reason ESV isnrsquot more pervasive is that only Hitachi has made thistechnology a core part of its strategy IBM and NetApp have it in their portfoliosbut itrsquos not a top priority in terms of growth or vision The other major storagevendors including Dell Inc EMC Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co and Oracle Corp
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10 Storage March 2011
External storage virtualization is realand widely adoptedwith thousands of companies andorganizations usingit courtesy of thesethree vendors
donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
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11 Storage March 2011
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
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
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14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
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Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
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DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Storage efficiency
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
STORAGE
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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Storage for VDI
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Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
23 Storage March 2011
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rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
Networking Old is new again
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
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Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
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Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
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Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
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Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Reliablebull 5 year warranty
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
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51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
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STORAGE
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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)
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6
tHE NETWORK IS still the Rodney Dangerfield of enterprise storage infrastructuremdashit just canrsquot seem to get the respect it needs and sometimes doesnrsquot even getthe attention it deserves Sure you care about the network when it gets toocongested to carry data around efficiently or when you run out of places toplug things in but for the most part itrsquos just there
But a couple of developments in the last few years have generated moreinterest in the neglected network Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) toutedas the great storage uniter offers a way to knit together otherwise disparatenetworks making Fibre Channel and Ethernet networks function as one (atleast in theory)
FC has been the de facto stan-dard connective tissue for enter-prise-class storage environmentsand with its storage-centric proto-col design itrsquos generally acceptedas the performance leader But Ethernetrsquos stake in the storage shop has grown significantly overthe last five or so years as NAS systems have proliferated in re-sponse to the ever-rising tide of filestorage Ethernetrsquos reach has also been extended as iSCSI continues to gain ashare of the block storage market iSCSI didnrsquot exactly take the data center bystorm but based on our research its incremental growth puts it in more than40 of the countryrsquos data storage shops
That makes Ethernet-based storage a player for both file and block And italmost makes it the default candidate for multiprotocol storage where blockand file share the same system which is quite possibly the fastest growingsegment of the storage system market
Every IT shop has years of Ethernet experience and the hardware it hangson is tried true and pretty cheap Fibre Channel aficionados will say thatrsquos alltrue but you donrsquot get the performance of a network specifically designed for
editorial | rich castagna
For networks whatrsquosold is whatrsquos new
As Ethernet continues to navigate its roadmap on the way to 100 Gbps it looks like it might take over
all networking chores in the data center
Every IT shop hasyears of Ethernetexperience and thehardware it hangs on is tried true andpretty cheap
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7 Storage March 2011
storage Well now you do get that performance (or nearly so) as 10 GigabitEthernet (10 GbE) gear begins to replace the old 1 GbE stuff in most shopsEven at a slightly slower 8 Gbps Fibre Channel might still have the perform-ance edge because of its storage pedigree But itrsquos not that much of an edgeand the Ethernet roadmap bolstered by the ratification of the IEEE 8023bastandard last year has 40 GbE on the near horizon with products already being demonstrated and 100 GbE to follow hard on its heels
Add the emergence of SAS disks as a replacement for FC disks on theback end and how SAS can easilycombine with SATA drives for tieredmultiprotocol storage and it lookslike the NASiSCSIEthernet combowill be pretty tough to top
Where does that leave Fibre Chan-nel over Ethernet If Fibre Channel isgetting squeezed out of the storagepicture and Ethernet is destined to be the data center-wide network ofchoice why should we even bother with FCoE FCoE appears to be a bridgetechnology (pardon the pun) that does a good job of linking FC and EthernetThe question is how long will we need that bridge and how many companiesneed to connect those two environments Is it worth investing in CNAs andspecial switches and new interfaces Wersquore not seeing a ton of FCoE storagesystems so maybe storage vendors donrsquot see a lot of potential for a big pay-back on that investment
Of course there are some shops that can use FCoE now use it effectivelyand save money in doing so But I donrsquot expect theyrsquore in the majority
Ultimately it looks like itrsquoll be an Ethernet world which will certainlymake things simpler And as IO virtualization catches up with server andstorage virtualization working with a single network architecture will makeit even easier to virtualize and share network resources and to use themmore efficiently 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the April 2011 issue
Even at a slightlyslower 8 Gbps FibreChannel might stillhave the performanceedge because of itsstorage pedigree
HP Converged Infrastructure makesstorage agile and efficient so your data center is ready for whatrsquos next
Highly virtualized HP 3PAR Storage Systems are designed from the ground up to deliver transformative levels of agility and efficiency to virtualized data centers Exclusive thin technologies and autonomic management capabilities built into HP 3PAR Storage Systems deliver unique benefits
Reduce acquisition and operational costs by 50 bull Reduce storage management time by 90 bull Cut storage capacity requirements by 50bull 1
Are you ready for whatrsquos next
raquo Learn more about HP 3PAR Storage Systems
1 Based on documented client results that are subject to unique business conditions client IT environment HP products deployed and other factors These results may not be typical your results may vary
copy Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP The information contained herein is subject to change without notice Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein
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9 Storage March 2011
eXTERNAL STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION (ESV) is the use of intelligent storage controllersthat provide volume management data management and protection featuresby creating a virtual storage system using external hardware and capacity Thegoal of ESV is to consolidate management and intelligent features and to enabletiering and heterogeneous replication If you implement a high-end intelligentESV system you can scale with lots of dumber and less-expensive systemsbehind it creating a great balance of high-end capabilities with lower costhardware This all looks good on paper but if the value proposition is so apparentwhy hasnrsquot ESV become the dominate storage infrastructure in our data centers
There are several reasons why ESV isnrsquot pervasive The first is that there areonly a handful of leading vendors pro-viding ESV solutions including HitachiData Systems IBM and NetApp Onecould argue that if EMC Corp decidedfive years ago that ESV was the new vision for storage it would probably bethe dominant architecture embraced by IT professionals today
Hitachi was the first to combine itsleading enterprise-class storage systemwith support for ESV technology back in2003 The company has done a great job of implementing ESV technology and in many cases has taken business away from the likes of EMC because of this unique capability The Hitachi ESV story has been getting better over timebecause of new technology that clearly quantifies its value Itrsquos able to providethin provisioning reclaim unused storage capacity and provide sub-LUN tieringto external storage systems
Sub-LUN tiering could be a ldquokiller apprdquo for external storage virtualization butusers are cautious of an idea that scatters their data across virtual volumesspanning multiple storage systems If Hitachi can validate that sub-LUN tieringis highly reliable when combined with ESV it could save customers millionsand enable them to further leverage their unique architecture
StorWars | tony asaro
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization
Overwhelmed by all the buzz around server virtualizationThere are still solid alternativesmdashwith real benefitsmdash
to virtualizing storage systems
Hitachi was the firstto combine its lead-ing enterprise-classstorage system withsupport for ESVtechnology back in 2003
However while ESV technology has helped to keep Hitachi in the enterprise-class storage game it hasnrsquot been enough to make them dominant The enter-prise-class storage system market is still a toe-to-toe battle with gains andlosses measured in inches not miles
IBM has offered its external SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance for anumber of years and itrsquos been adopted by a sizable number of IBM users Themost frequent complaints I hear from IBM SVC users center around its costto the point where price has been the key deterrent to taking advantage ofsome of SVCrsquos coolest features like heterogeneous replication One IT profes-sional asked me for advice about performing data replication between an IBMDS8000 and a DS4000 even though his company has an SVC deployed The ITpro said it was too expensive to use theSVC so they were seeking alternatives
I rarely run into non-IBM storageusers who have implemented SVC so itdoesnrsquot look like IBM has done a partic-ularly good job increasing its footprintbeyond its existing customer base
NetApprsquos V-Series has been a popularproduct enabling companies to leveragethe intelligence of NetApp FAS usingSAN-attached storage on the back endItrsquos actually a more popular approachthan you might think Again itrsquos not NetApprsquos primary strategy but it pro-vides a smart alternative for users whohave already invested a ton of money in their current SAN infrastructure
Those three products from major vendors arenrsquot all that competitive witheach other The Hitachi USP V and VSP are high-end enterprise-class systemsfocused on SAN storage providing a storage system that also enables externalstorage virtualization IBMrsquos SVC seems to have been designed as a complementto IBMrsquos DS8000 and DS4000 storage systems And NetApprsquos V-Series is more ofa midrange appliance that provides both NAS and SAN external storage virtual-ization I doubt these three vendors ever run into each other in competitivesituations
External storage virtualization has made an impact and will continue to doso but it has failed to establish any sort of dominance in the data center Costcomplexity and the risk of the unknown are still major impediments to itsadoption
Another reason ESV isnrsquot more pervasive is that only Hitachi has made thistechnology a core part of its strategy IBM and NetApp have it in their portfoliosbut itrsquos not a top priority in terms of growth or vision The other major storagevendors including Dell Inc EMC Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co and Oracle Corp
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
10 Storage March 2011
External storage virtualization is realand widely adoptedwith thousands of companies andorganizations usingit courtesy of thesethree vendors
donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
STORAGE
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
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11 Storage March 2011
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
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
Iron Mountain has a proven track record of intelligently managing enterprise information and pioneered cloud information management over 15 years ago Our underground data centers provide an unprecedented level of security reliability and protection Trusted by over 90 of the Fortune 1000 with 140000 clients in more than 40 countries we go to great lengths to protect our customersrsquo information their reputation and ours
Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
Having trouble deciding whether to migrate to the cloud
DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
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Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will give you the insight to successfullymonitor your infrastructure Every component server or storage device can be displayed and monitored through a single dashboard so you can
bull Improve effi ciency of your network
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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23 Storage March 2011
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Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
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MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
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Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
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33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
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Storage for VDI
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37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
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bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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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)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storageefficiency
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6
tHE NETWORK IS still the Rodney Dangerfield of enterprise storage infrastructuremdashit just canrsquot seem to get the respect it needs and sometimes doesnrsquot even getthe attention it deserves Sure you care about the network when it gets toocongested to carry data around efficiently or when you run out of places toplug things in but for the most part itrsquos just there
But a couple of developments in the last few years have generated moreinterest in the neglected network Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) toutedas the great storage uniter offers a way to knit together otherwise disparatenetworks making Fibre Channel and Ethernet networks function as one (atleast in theory)
FC has been the de facto stan-dard connective tissue for enter-prise-class storage environmentsand with its storage-centric proto-col design itrsquos generally acceptedas the performance leader But Ethernetrsquos stake in the storage shop has grown significantly overthe last five or so years as NAS systems have proliferated in re-sponse to the ever-rising tide of filestorage Ethernetrsquos reach has also been extended as iSCSI continues to gain ashare of the block storage market iSCSI didnrsquot exactly take the data center bystorm but based on our research its incremental growth puts it in more than40 of the countryrsquos data storage shops
That makes Ethernet-based storage a player for both file and block And italmost makes it the default candidate for multiprotocol storage where blockand file share the same system which is quite possibly the fastest growingsegment of the storage system market
Every IT shop has years of Ethernet experience and the hardware it hangson is tried true and pretty cheap Fibre Channel aficionados will say thatrsquos alltrue but you donrsquot get the performance of a network specifically designed for
editorial | rich castagna
For networks whatrsquosold is whatrsquos new
As Ethernet continues to navigate its roadmap on the way to 100 Gbps it looks like it might take over
all networking chores in the data center
Every IT shop hasyears of Ethernetexperience and thehardware it hangs on is tried true andpretty cheap
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7 Storage March 2011
storage Well now you do get that performance (or nearly so) as 10 GigabitEthernet (10 GbE) gear begins to replace the old 1 GbE stuff in most shopsEven at a slightly slower 8 Gbps Fibre Channel might still have the perform-ance edge because of its storage pedigree But itrsquos not that much of an edgeand the Ethernet roadmap bolstered by the ratification of the IEEE 8023bastandard last year has 40 GbE on the near horizon with products already being demonstrated and 100 GbE to follow hard on its heels
Add the emergence of SAS disks as a replacement for FC disks on theback end and how SAS can easilycombine with SATA drives for tieredmultiprotocol storage and it lookslike the NASiSCSIEthernet combowill be pretty tough to top
Where does that leave Fibre Chan-nel over Ethernet If Fibre Channel isgetting squeezed out of the storagepicture and Ethernet is destined to be the data center-wide network ofchoice why should we even bother with FCoE FCoE appears to be a bridgetechnology (pardon the pun) that does a good job of linking FC and EthernetThe question is how long will we need that bridge and how many companiesneed to connect those two environments Is it worth investing in CNAs andspecial switches and new interfaces Wersquore not seeing a ton of FCoE storagesystems so maybe storage vendors donrsquot see a lot of potential for a big pay-back on that investment
Of course there are some shops that can use FCoE now use it effectivelyand save money in doing so But I donrsquot expect theyrsquore in the majority
Ultimately it looks like itrsquoll be an Ethernet world which will certainlymake things simpler And as IO virtualization catches up with server andstorage virtualization working with a single network architecture will makeit even easier to virtualize and share network resources and to use themmore efficiently 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the April 2011 issue
Even at a slightlyslower 8 Gbps FibreChannel might stillhave the performanceedge because of itsstorage pedigree
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1 Based on documented client results that are subject to unique business conditions client IT environment HP products deployed and other factors These results may not be typical your results may vary
copy Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP The information contained herein is subject to change without notice Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein
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9 Storage March 2011
eXTERNAL STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION (ESV) is the use of intelligent storage controllersthat provide volume management data management and protection featuresby creating a virtual storage system using external hardware and capacity Thegoal of ESV is to consolidate management and intelligent features and to enabletiering and heterogeneous replication If you implement a high-end intelligentESV system you can scale with lots of dumber and less-expensive systemsbehind it creating a great balance of high-end capabilities with lower costhardware This all looks good on paper but if the value proposition is so apparentwhy hasnrsquot ESV become the dominate storage infrastructure in our data centers
There are several reasons why ESV isnrsquot pervasive The first is that there areonly a handful of leading vendors pro-viding ESV solutions including HitachiData Systems IBM and NetApp Onecould argue that if EMC Corp decidedfive years ago that ESV was the new vision for storage it would probably bethe dominant architecture embraced by IT professionals today
Hitachi was the first to combine itsleading enterprise-class storage systemwith support for ESV technology back in2003 The company has done a great job of implementing ESV technology and in many cases has taken business away from the likes of EMC because of this unique capability The Hitachi ESV story has been getting better over timebecause of new technology that clearly quantifies its value Itrsquos able to providethin provisioning reclaim unused storage capacity and provide sub-LUN tieringto external storage systems
Sub-LUN tiering could be a ldquokiller apprdquo for external storage virtualization butusers are cautious of an idea that scatters their data across virtual volumesspanning multiple storage systems If Hitachi can validate that sub-LUN tieringis highly reliable when combined with ESV it could save customers millionsand enable them to further leverage their unique architecture
StorWars | tony asaro
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization
Overwhelmed by all the buzz around server virtualizationThere are still solid alternativesmdashwith real benefitsmdash
to virtualizing storage systems
Hitachi was the firstto combine its lead-ing enterprise-classstorage system withsupport for ESVtechnology back in 2003
However while ESV technology has helped to keep Hitachi in the enterprise-class storage game it hasnrsquot been enough to make them dominant The enter-prise-class storage system market is still a toe-to-toe battle with gains andlosses measured in inches not miles
IBM has offered its external SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance for anumber of years and itrsquos been adopted by a sizable number of IBM users Themost frequent complaints I hear from IBM SVC users center around its costto the point where price has been the key deterrent to taking advantage ofsome of SVCrsquos coolest features like heterogeneous replication One IT profes-sional asked me for advice about performing data replication between an IBMDS8000 and a DS4000 even though his company has an SVC deployed The ITpro said it was too expensive to use theSVC so they were seeking alternatives
I rarely run into non-IBM storageusers who have implemented SVC so itdoesnrsquot look like IBM has done a partic-ularly good job increasing its footprintbeyond its existing customer base
NetApprsquos V-Series has been a popularproduct enabling companies to leveragethe intelligence of NetApp FAS usingSAN-attached storage on the back endItrsquos actually a more popular approachthan you might think Again itrsquos not NetApprsquos primary strategy but it pro-vides a smart alternative for users whohave already invested a ton of money in their current SAN infrastructure
Those three products from major vendors arenrsquot all that competitive witheach other The Hitachi USP V and VSP are high-end enterprise-class systemsfocused on SAN storage providing a storage system that also enables externalstorage virtualization IBMrsquos SVC seems to have been designed as a complementto IBMrsquos DS8000 and DS4000 storage systems And NetApprsquos V-Series is more ofa midrange appliance that provides both NAS and SAN external storage virtual-ization I doubt these three vendors ever run into each other in competitivesituations
External storage virtualization has made an impact and will continue to doso but it has failed to establish any sort of dominance in the data center Costcomplexity and the risk of the unknown are still major impediments to itsadoption
Another reason ESV isnrsquot more pervasive is that only Hitachi has made thistechnology a core part of its strategy IBM and NetApp have it in their portfoliosbut itrsquos not a top priority in terms of growth or vision The other major storagevendors including Dell Inc EMC Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co and Oracle Corp
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Storage efficiency
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10 Storage March 2011
External storage virtualization is realand widely adoptedwith thousands of companies andorganizations usingit courtesy of thesethree vendors
donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
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11 Storage March 2011
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
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
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14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
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Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
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DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Storage efficiency
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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Storage for VDI
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
23 Storage March 2011
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rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
Networking Old is new again
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Storage efficiency
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
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37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
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ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
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STORAGE
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Storage efficiency
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7 Storage March 2011
storage Well now you do get that performance (or nearly so) as 10 GigabitEthernet (10 GbE) gear begins to replace the old 1 GbE stuff in most shopsEven at a slightly slower 8 Gbps Fibre Channel might still have the perform-ance edge because of its storage pedigree But itrsquos not that much of an edgeand the Ethernet roadmap bolstered by the ratification of the IEEE 8023bastandard last year has 40 GbE on the near horizon with products already being demonstrated and 100 GbE to follow hard on its heels
Add the emergence of SAS disks as a replacement for FC disks on theback end and how SAS can easilycombine with SATA drives for tieredmultiprotocol storage and it lookslike the NASiSCSIEthernet combowill be pretty tough to top
Where does that leave Fibre Chan-nel over Ethernet If Fibre Channel isgetting squeezed out of the storagepicture and Ethernet is destined to be the data center-wide network ofchoice why should we even bother with FCoE FCoE appears to be a bridgetechnology (pardon the pun) that does a good job of linking FC and EthernetThe question is how long will we need that bridge and how many companiesneed to connect those two environments Is it worth investing in CNAs andspecial switches and new interfaces Wersquore not seeing a ton of FCoE storagesystems so maybe storage vendors donrsquot see a lot of potential for a big pay-back on that investment
Of course there are some shops that can use FCoE now use it effectivelyand save money in doing so But I donrsquot expect theyrsquore in the majority
Ultimately it looks like itrsquoll be an Ethernet world which will certainlymake things simpler And as IO virtualization catches up with server andstorage virtualization working with a single network architecture will makeit even easier to virtualize and share network resources and to use themmore efficiently 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
Click here for a sneak peek at whatrsquos coming up in the April 2011 issue
Even at a slightlyslower 8 Gbps FibreChannel might stillhave the performanceedge because of itsstorage pedigree
HP Converged Infrastructure makesstorage agile and efficient so your data center is ready for whatrsquos next
Highly virtualized HP 3PAR Storage Systems are designed from the ground up to deliver transformative levels of agility and efficiency to virtualized data centers Exclusive thin technologies and autonomic management capabilities built into HP 3PAR Storage Systems deliver unique benefits
Reduce acquisition and operational costs by 50 bull Reduce storage management time by 90 bull Cut storage capacity requirements by 50bull 1
Are you ready for whatrsquos next
raquo Learn more about HP 3PAR Storage Systems
1 Based on documented client results that are subject to unique business conditions client IT environment HP products deployed and other factors These results may not be typical your results may vary
copy Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP The information contained herein is subject to change without notice Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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9 Storage March 2011
eXTERNAL STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION (ESV) is the use of intelligent storage controllersthat provide volume management data management and protection featuresby creating a virtual storage system using external hardware and capacity Thegoal of ESV is to consolidate management and intelligent features and to enabletiering and heterogeneous replication If you implement a high-end intelligentESV system you can scale with lots of dumber and less-expensive systemsbehind it creating a great balance of high-end capabilities with lower costhardware This all looks good on paper but if the value proposition is so apparentwhy hasnrsquot ESV become the dominate storage infrastructure in our data centers
There are several reasons why ESV isnrsquot pervasive The first is that there areonly a handful of leading vendors pro-viding ESV solutions including HitachiData Systems IBM and NetApp Onecould argue that if EMC Corp decidedfive years ago that ESV was the new vision for storage it would probably bethe dominant architecture embraced by IT professionals today
Hitachi was the first to combine itsleading enterprise-class storage systemwith support for ESV technology back in2003 The company has done a great job of implementing ESV technology and in many cases has taken business away from the likes of EMC because of this unique capability The Hitachi ESV story has been getting better over timebecause of new technology that clearly quantifies its value Itrsquos able to providethin provisioning reclaim unused storage capacity and provide sub-LUN tieringto external storage systems
Sub-LUN tiering could be a ldquokiller apprdquo for external storage virtualization butusers are cautious of an idea that scatters their data across virtual volumesspanning multiple storage systems If Hitachi can validate that sub-LUN tieringis highly reliable when combined with ESV it could save customers millionsand enable them to further leverage their unique architecture
StorWars | tony asaro
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization
Overwhelmed by all the buzz around server virtualizationThere are still solid alternativesmdashwith real benefitsmdash
to virtualizing storage systems
Hitachi was the firstto combine its lead-ing enterprise-classstorage system withsupport for ESVtechnology back in 2003
However while ESV technology has helped to keep Hitachi in the enterprise-class storage game it hasnrsquot been enough to make them dominant The enter-prise-class storage system market is still a toe-to-toe battle with gains andlosses measured in inches not miles
IBM has offered its external SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance for anumber of years and itrsquos been adopted by a sizable number of IBM users Themost frequent complaints I hear from IBM SVC users center around its costto the point where price has been the key deterrent to taking advantage ofsome of SVCrsquos coolest features like heterogeneous replication One IT profes-sional asked me for advice about performing data replication between an IBMDS8000 and a DS4000 even though his company has an SVC deployed The ITpro said it was too expensive to use theSVC so they were seeking alternatives
I rarely run into non-IBM storageusers who have implemented SVC so itdoesnrsquot look like IBM has done a partic-ularly good job increasing its footprintbeyond its existing customer base
NetApprsquos V-Series has been a popularproduct enabling companies to leveragethe intelligence of NetApp FAS usingSAN-attached storage on the back endItrsquos actually a more popular approachthan you might think Again itrsquos not NetApprsquos primary strategy but it pro-vides a smart alternative for users whohave already invested a ton of money in their current SAN infrastructure
Those three products from major vendors arenrsquot all that competitive witheach other The Hitachi USP V and VSP are high-end enterprise-class systemsfocused on SAN storage providing a storage system that also enables externalstorage virtualization IBMrsquos SVC seems to have been designed as a complementto IBMrsquos DS8000 and DS4000 storage systems And NetApprsquos V-Series is more ofa midrange appliance that provides both NAS and SAN external storage virtual-ization I doubt these three vendors ever run into each other in competitivesituations
External storage virtualization has made an impact and will continue to doso but it has failed to establish any sort of dominance in the data center Costcomplexity and the risk of the unknown are still major impediments to itsadoption
Another reason ESV isnrsquot more pervasive is that only Hitachi has made thistechnology a core part of its strategy IBM and NetApp have it in their portfoliosbut itrsquos not a top priority in terms of growth or vision The other major storagevendors including Dell Inc EMC Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co and Oracle Corp
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
10 Storage March 2011
External storage virtualization is realand widely adoptedwith thousands of companies andorganizations usingit courtesy of thesethree vendors
donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
11 Storage March 2011
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
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
Iron Mountain has a proven track record of intelligently managing enterprise information and pioneered cloud information management over 15 years ago Our underground data centers provide an unprecedented level of security reliability and protection Trusted by over 90 of the Fortune 1000 with 140000 clients in more than 40 countries we go to great lengths to protect our customersrsquo information their reputation and ours
Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
Having trouble deciding whether to migrate to the cloud
DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
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copy Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2011 All rights reserved
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will give you the insight to successfullymonitor your infrastructure Every component server or storage device can be displayed and monitored through a single dashboard so you can
bull Improve effi ciency of your network
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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23 Storage March 2011
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Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
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MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
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Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
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Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
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37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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HP Converged Infrastructure makesstorage agile and efficient so your data center is ready for whatrsquos next
Highly virtualized HP 3PAR Storage Systems are designed from the ground up to deliver transformative levels of agility and efficiency to virtualized data centers Exclusive thin technologies and autonomic management capabilities built into HP 3PAR Storage Systems deliver unique benefits
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raquo Learn more about HP 3PAR Storage Systems
1 Based on documented client results that are subject to unique business conditions client IT environment HP products deployed and other factors These results may not be typical your results may vary
copy Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP The information contained herein is subject to change without notice Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein
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9 Storage March 2011
eXTERNAL STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION (ESV) is the use of intelligent storage controllersthat provide volume management data management and protection featuresby creating a virtual storage system using external hardware and capacity Thegoal of ESV is to consolidate management and intelligent features and to enabletiering and heterogeneous replication If you implement a high-end intelligentESV system you can scale with lots of dumber and less-expensive systemsbehind it creating a great balance of high-end capabilities with lower costhardware This all looks good on paper but if the value proposition is so apparentwhy hasnrsquot ESV become the dominate storage infrastructure in our data centers
There are several reasons why ESV isnrsquot pervasive The first is that there areonly a handful of leading vendors pro-viding ESV solutions including HitachiData Systems IBM and NetApp Onecould argue that if EMC Corp decidedfive years ago that ESV was the new vision for storage it would probably bethe dominant architecture embraced by IT professionals today
Hitachi was the first to combine itsleading enterprise-class storage systemwith support for ESV technology back in2003 The company has done a great job of implementing ESV technology and in many cases has taken business away from the likes of EMC because of this unique capability The Hitachi ESV story has been getting better over timebecause of new technology that clearly quantifies its value Itrsquos able to providethin provisioning reclaim unused storage capacity and provide sub-LUN tieringto external storage systems
Sub-LUN tiering could be a ldquokiller apprdquo for external storage virtualization butusers are cautious of an idea that scatters their data across virtual volumesspanning multiple storage systems If Hitachi can validate that sub-LUN tieringis highly reliable when combined with ESV it could save customers millionsand enable them to further leverage their unique architecture
StorWars | tony asaro
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization
Overwhelmed by all the buzz around server virtualizationThere are still solid alternativesmdashwith real benefitsmdash
to virtualizing storage systems
Hitachi was the firstto combine its lead-ing enterprise-classstorage system withsupport for ESVtechnology back in 2003
However while ESV technology has helped to keep Hitachi in the enterprise-class storage game it hasnrsquot been enough to make them dominant The enter-prise-class storage system market is still a toe-to-toe battle with gains andlosses measured in inches not miles
IBM has offered its external SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance for anumber of years and itrsquos been adopted by a sizable number of IBM users Themost frequent complaints I hear from IBM SVC users center around its costto the point where price has been the key deterrent to taking advantage ofsome of SVCrsquos coolest features like heterogeneous replication One IT profes-sional asked me for advice about performing data replication between an IBMDS8000 and a DS4000 even though his company has an SVC deployed The ITpro said it was too expensive to use theSVC so they were seeking alternatives
I rarely run into non-IBM storageusers who have implemented SVC so itdoesnrsquot look like IBM has done a partic-ularly good job increasing its footprintbeyond its existing customer base
NetApprsquos V-Series has been a popularproduct enabling companies to leveragethe intelligence of NetApp FAS usingSAN-attached storage on the back endItrsquos actually a more popular approachthan you might think Again itrsquos not NetApprsquos primary strategy but it pro-vides a smart alternative for users whohave already invested a ton of money in their current SAN infrastructure
Those three products from major vendors arenrsquot all that competitive witheach other The Hitachi USP V and VSP are high-end enterprise-class systemsfocused on SAN storage providing a storage system that also enables externalstorage virtualization IBMrsquos SVC seems to have been designed as a complementto IBMrsquos DS8000 and DS4000 storage systems And NetApprsquos V-Series is more ofa midrange appliance that provides both NAS and SAN external storage virtual-ization I doubt these three vendors ever run into each other in competitivesituations
External storage virtualization has made an impact and will continue to doso but it has failed to establish any sort of dominance in the data center Costcomplexity and the risk of the unknown are still major impediments to itsadoption
Another reason ESV isnrsquot more pervasive is that only Hitachi has made thistechnology a core part of its strategy IBM and NetApp have it in their portfoliosbut itrsquos not a top priority in terms of growth or vision The other major storagevendors including Dell Inc EMC Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co and Oracle Corp
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10 Storage March 2011
External storage virtualization is realand widely adoptedwith thousands of companies andorganizations usingit courtesy of thesethree vendors
donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
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11 Storage March 2011
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
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
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14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
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Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
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DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Storage efficiency
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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Storage for VDI
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Storage efficiency
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23 Storage March 2011
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rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
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Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
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copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
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51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
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53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Capacity or performance
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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9 Storage March 2011
eXTERNAL STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION (ESV) is the use of intelligent storage controllersthat provide volume management data management and protection featuresby creating a virtual storage system using external hardware and capacity Thegoal of ESV is to consolidate management and intelligent features and to enabletiering and heterogeneous replication If you implement a high-end intelligentESV system you can scale with lots of dumber and less-expensive systemsbehind it creating a great balance of high-end capabilities with lower costhardware This all looks good on paper but if the value proposition is so apparentwhy hasnrsquot ESV become the dominate storage infrastructure in our data centers
There are several reasons why ESV isnrsquot pervasive The first is that there areonly a handful of leading vendors pro-viding ESV solutions including HitachiData Systems IBM and NetApp Onecould argue that if EMC Corp decidedfive years ago that ESV was the new vision for storage it would probably bethe dominant architecture embraced by IT professionals today
Hitachi was the first to combine itsleading enterprise-class storage systemwith support for ESV technology back in2003 The company has done a great job of implementing ESV technology and in many cases has taken business away from the likes of EMC because of this unique capability The Hitachi ESV story has been getting better over timebecause of new technology that clearly quantifies its value Itrsquos able to providethin provisioning reclaim unused storage capacity and provide sub-LUN tieringto external storage systems
Sub-LUN tiering could be a ldquokiller apprdquo for external storage virtualization butusers are cautious of an idea that scatters their data across virtual volumesspanning multiple storage systems If Hitachi can validate that sub-LUN tieringis highly reliable when combined with ESV it could save customers millionsand enable them to further leverage their unique architecture
StorWars | tony asaro
Three vendors still stalking storage virtualization
Overwhelmed by all the buzz around server virtualizationThere are still solid alternativesmdashwith real benefitsmdash
to virtualizing storage systems
Hitachi was the firstto combine its lead-ing enterprise-classstorage system withsupport for ESVtechnology back in 2003
However while ESV technology has helped to keep Hitachi in the enterprise-class storage game it hasnrsquot been enough to make them dominant The enter-prise-class storage system market is still a toe-to-toe battle with gains andlosses measured in inches not miles
IBM has offered its external SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance for anumber of years and itrsquos been adopted by a sizable number of IBM users Themost frequent complaints I hear from IBM SVC users center around its costto the point where price has been the key deterrent to taking advantage ofsome of SVCrsquos coolest features like heterogeneous replication One IT profes-sional asked me for advice about performing data replication between an IBMDS8000 and a DS4000 even though his company has an SVC deployed The ITpro said it was too expensive to use theSVC so they were seeking alternatives
I rarely run into non-IBM storageusers who have implemented SVC so itdoesnrsquot look like IBM has done a partic-ularly good job increasing its footprintbeyond its existing customer base
NetApprsquos V-Series has been a popularproduct enabling companies to leveragethe intelligence of NetApp FAS usingSAN-attached storage on the back endItrsquos actually a more popular approachthan you might think Again itrsquos not NetApprsquos primary strategy but it pro-vides a smart alternative for users whohave already invested a ton of money in their current SAN infrastructure
Those three products from major vendors arenrsquot all that competitive witheach other The Hitachi USP V and VSP are high-end enterprise-class systemsfocused on SAN storage providing a storage system that also enables externalstorage virtualization IBMrsquos SVC seems to have been designed as a complementto IBMrsquos DS8000 and DS4000 storage systems And NetApprsquos V-Series is more ofa midrange appliance that provides both NAS and SAN external storage virtual-ization I doubt these three vendors ever run into each other in competitivesituations
External storage virtualization has made an impact and will continue to doso but it has failed to establish any sort of dominance in the data center Costcomplexity and the risk of the unknown are still major impediments to itsadoption
Another reason ESV isnrsquot more pervasive is that only Hitachi has made thistechnology a core part of its strategy IBM and NetApp have it in their portfoliosbut itrsquos not a top priority in terms of growth or vision The other major storagevendors including Dell Inc EMC Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co and Oracle Corp
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10 Storage March 2011
External storage virtualization is realand widely adoptedwith thousands of companies andorganizations usingit courtesy of thesethree vendors
donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
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11 Storage March 2011
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
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
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14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
Iron Mountain has a proven track record of intelligently managing enterprise information and pioneered cloud information management over 15 years ago Our underground data centers provide an unprecedented level of security reliability and protection Trusted by over 90 of the Fortune 1000 with 140000 clients in more than 40 countries we go to great lengths to protect our customersrsquo information their reputation and ours
Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
Having trouble deciding whether to migrate to the cloud
DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
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copy Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2011 All rights reserved
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Take a free trial today at
itoperationshdscom
With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Storage efficiency
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23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
catch-up we were creating the next breakthrough in business continuity
MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
to the scalable SmartStyle Cloud Servers It is expandable up to 100
reliable than RAID 6
Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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Download a complimentary white paper Bringing an End to Storage Wastewwwpillardatacomendwaste
CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
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NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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However while ESV technology has helped to keep Hitachi in the enterprise-class storage game it hasnrsquot been enough to make them dominant The enter-prise-class storage system market is still a toe-to-toe battle with gains andlosses measured in inches not miles
IBM has offered its external SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance for anumber of years and itrsquos been adopted by a sizable number of IBM users Themost frequent complaints I hear from IBM SVC users center around its costto the point where price has been the key deterrent to taking advantage ofsome of SVCrsquos coolest features like heterogeneous replication One IT profes-sional asked me for advice about performing data replication between an IBMDS8000 and a DS4000 even though his company has an SVC deployed The ITpro said it was too expensive to use theSVC so they were seeking alternatives
I rarely run into non-IBM storageusers who have implemented SVC so itdoesnrsquot look like IBM has done a partic-ularly good job increasing its footprintbeyond its existing customer base
NetApprsquos V-Series has been a popularproduct enabling companies to leveragethe intelligence of NetApp FAS usingSAN-attached storage on the back endItrsquos actually a more popular approachthan you might think Again itrsquos not NetApprsquos primary strategy but it pro-vides a smart alternative for users whohave already invested a ton of money in their current SAN infrastructure
Those three products from major vendors arenrsquot all that competitive witheach other The Hitachi USP V and VSP are high-end enterprise-class systemsfocused on SAN storage providing a storage system that also enables externalstorage virtualization IBMrsquos SVC seems to have been designed as a complementto IBMrsquos DS8000 and DS4000 storage systems And NetApprsquos V-Series is more ofa midrange appliance that provides both NAS and SAN external storage virtual-ization I doubt these three vendors ever run into each other in competitivesituations
External storage virtualization has made an impact and will continue to doso but it has failed to establish any sort of dominance in the data center Costcomplexity and the risk of the unknown are still major impediments to itsadoption
Another reason ESV isnrsquot more pervasive is that only Hitachi has made thistechnology a core part of its strategy IBM and NetApp have it in their portfoliosbut itrsquos not a top priority in terms of growth or vision The other major storagevendors including Dell Inc EMC Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co and Oracle Corp
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
10 Storage March 2011
External storage virtualization is realand widely adoptedwith thousands of companies andorganizations usingit courtesy of thesethree vendors
donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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11 Storage March 2011
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
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
Iron Mountain has a proven track record of intelligently managing enterprise information and pioneered cloud information management over 15 years ago Our underground data centers provide an unprecedented level of security reliability and protection Trusted by over 90 of the Fortune 1000 with 140000 clients in more than 40 countries we go to great lengths to protect our customersrsquo information their reputation and ours
Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
Having trouble deciding whether to migrate to the cloud
DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
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Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will give you the insight to successfullymonitor your infrastructure Every component server or storage device can be displayed and monitored through a single dashboard so you can
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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23 Storage March 2011
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Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
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MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
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Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
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33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
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bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
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bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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donrsquot offer ESV solutions in any real way HP does OEM Hitachirsquos USP V but hasnever truly focused on its virtualization capabilities
External storage virtualization is real and widely adopted with thousandsof companies and organizations using it courtesy of these three vendorsThese solutions have been on the market for years and have developed agreat deal of field traction so the risk factor seems to be much less of aconcern ESV offers a great deal of benefit and should be considered whenanalyzing your storage strategies and roadmaps 2
Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT (wwwVoicesofITcom)
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11 Storage March 2011
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
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
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14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
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Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
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DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
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Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will give you the insight to successfullymonitor your infrastructure Every component server or storage device can be displayed and monitored through a single dashboard so you can
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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23 Storage March 2011
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rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
Networking Old is new again
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
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Sponsorresources
26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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Download a complimentary white paper Bringing an End to Storage Wastewwwpillardatacomendwaste
CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
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leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
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Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Reliablebull 5 year warranty
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
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Storage for VDI
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Storage efficiency
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53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
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Capacity or performance
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
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Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
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STORAGE
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
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14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
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Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
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DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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23 Storage March 2011
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rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
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Sponsorresources
25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
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The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
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Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
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Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
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51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
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Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
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STORAGE
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13 Storage March 2011
Managing storage for virtual desktops
Virtual desktops promise savings andconsolidation similar to whatserver virtualization
delivers but once again storage is a big issueBY ERIC SIEBERT
implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) involvesmany critical considerations but storage may be the most vitalUser experience can often determine the success of a VDI implementation and storage is perhaps the one area that has the most impact on the user experience If you donrsquot design implement and manage your VDI storage properly yoursquore askingfor trouble
VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
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14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
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DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
catch-up we were creating the next breakthrough in business continuity
MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
to the scalable SmartStyle Cloud Servers It is expandable up to 100
reliable than RAID 6
Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
Thank YouYour CEO CFO and CIO
Download a complimentary white paper Bringing an End to Storage Wastewwwpillardatacomendwaste
CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
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46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
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NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
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Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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VDIrsquoS IMPACT ON STORAGEThe biggest challenge for storage in VDI environments is accommodating theperiods of peak usage when storage IO is at its highest The most commonevent that can cause an IO spike is the ldquoboot stormrdquo that occurs when alarge group of users boots up and loads applications simultaneously Initialstartup of a desktop is a very resource-intensive activity with the operatingsystem and applications doing a lot of reading from disk Multiplied by hundredsof desktops the amount of storage IO generated can easily bring a storagearray to its knees Boot storms arenrsquotjust momentary occurrencesmdashthey canlast from 30 minutes to two hours andcan have significant impact
After users boot up log in and loadapplications storage IO typically set-tles down however events like patch-ing desktops antivirus updatesscansand the end-of-day user log off canalso cause high IO Having a datastorage infrastructure that can handlethese peak periods is therefore critical
Cost is another concern The ROIwith VDI isnrsquot the same as server virtu-alization so getting adequate fundingcan be a challenge A proper storage infrastructure for VDI can be very costlyand to get the required IO operationsper second (IOPS) you may have to pur-chase more data storage capacity than yoursquoll need
Expect to spend more time on administration too Hundreds or thousandsof virtual disks for the virtual desktops will have to be created and maintainedwhich can be a difficult and time-consuming task
DETERMINING STORAGE REQUIREMENTSTo properly design a VDI infrastructure you need to understand the resource requirements needed by virtual desktop users Donrsquot make assumptions toproperly calculate resource requirements you need actual statistics from theusers whose desktops will be virtualized Profiling the users and measuringtheir resource usage is the key to determining storage requirements Productsfrom vendors like Lakeside Software Inc and Liquidware Labs Inc can collectdata from usersrsquo desktops so you can perform an assessment of your environ-ment and determine your needs The longer you collect data the less likely itwill be affected by unusual or periodic activities
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
14 Storage March 2011
A proper storageinfrastructure forVDI can be verycostly and to getthe required IOoperations per second (IOPS) you may have topurchase more storage capacitythan yoursquoll need
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
Iron Mountain has a proven track record of intelligently managing enterprise information and pioneered cloud information management over 15 years ago Our underground data centers provide an unprecedented level of security reliability and protection Trusted by over 90 of the Fortune 1000 with 140000 clients in more than 40 countries we go to great lengths to protect our customersrsquo information their reputation and ours
Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
Having trouble deciding whether to migrate to the cloud
DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
THERErsquoS A FASTER WAY TO IDENTIFY THE ISSUES IN YOUR IT ENVIRONMENT
copy Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2011 All rights reserved
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will give you the insight to successfullymonitor your infrastructure Every component server or storage device can be displayed and monitored through a single dashboard so you can
bull Improve effi ciency of your network
bull Minimize downtime of IT and applications
bull Identify critical issues
bull Make effective decisions based on real-time data
Take a free trial today at
itoperationshdscom
With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
catch-up we were creating the next breakthrough in business continuity
MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
to the scalable SmartStyle Cloud Servers It is expandable up to 100
reliable than RAID 6
Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
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The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
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bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
Iron Mountain has a proven track record of intelligently managing enterprise information and pioneered cloud information management over 15 years ago Our underground data centers provide an unprecedented level of security reliability and protection Trusted by over 90 of the Fortune 1000 with 140000 clients in more than 40 countries we go to great lengths to protect our customersrsquo information their reputation and ours
Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
Having trouble deciding whether to migrate to the cloud
DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
THERErsquoS A FASTER WAY TO IDENTIFY THE ISSUES IN YOUR IT ENVIRONMENT
copy Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2011 All rights reserved
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will give you the insight to successfullymonitor your infrastructure Every component server or storage device can be displayed and monitored through a single dashboard so you can
bull Improve effi ciency of your network
bull Minimize downtime of IT and applications
bull Identify critical issues
bull Make effective decisions based on real-time data
Take a free trial today at
itoperationshdscom
With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
catch-up we were creating the next breakthrough in business continuity
MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
to the scalable SmartStyle Cloud Servers It is expandable up to 100
reliable than RAID 6
Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
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Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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The key measurement for storage is IOPS A number of factors can affectIOPS (caching block size) but the base calculation is derived from hard drivemechanics rotational speed (rpm) latency and seek time A typical 7200 rpmdrive might be capable of 75 IOPS a 10K drive 125 IOPS a 15K drive 175 IOPSand a solid-state drive 5000 IOPS Spread across a RAID group you can multi-ply the number of drives in the RAID group times the IOPS of the drive to getthe total IOPS the RAID group is capable of (eg six 15K drives x 175 IOPS =1050 IOPS) There are other factors such as caching that can increase IOPSwhile RAID overhead and latency in network storage protocols can decrease it
You should always measure actual user resource usage but there are accepted averages you can use as a starting point The averages are based on the characteristics for certain types of users
Donrsquot design your VDI storage to handle just average IO loads it has to accommodate peak IO loads to provide a good user experience Having enoughstorage capacity is obviously important but how it performs is more importantBecause the number of spindles plays a big part in a storage arrayrsquos performanceyou may end up with more capacity than you need just to get the required IOPS
FIBRE CHANNEL vs iSCSI vs NASThe type of storage is often dictated by budgets and available existing storageinfrastructure A Fibre Channel (FC) SAN would provide ample performance butacquiring it may make VDI too expensive to implement iSCSI and NAS (NFS)are attractive alternatives but you need to ensure they can meet IO require-ments Using 10 Gb Ethernet (10 GbE) can dramatically increase the throughputto iSCSI and NAS devices but if you havenrsquot implemented 10 GbE yet it couldbe just as expensive as implementing FC
Peak IOPS loads may exceed the number of IOPS an iSCSI or NAS (NFS) device can handle But adding cache or an accelerator in front of the storagedevice may improve performance sufficiently Both iSCSI and NFS add CPUoverhead to the host server for iSCSI this can be offset with hardware initiatorsAccelerator solutions typically wonrsquot work with NAS but there are other cachingsolutions available for NAS (NFS)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
16 Storage March 2011
Task workers
6040
2 to 13
6
Productivityworkers
8020
2 to 21
9
Knowledge workers
4060
7 to 59
22
IO patterning (readswrites)
IOPS range
Avg IOPS
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
Iron Mountain has a proven track record of intelligently managing enterprise information and pioneered cloud information management over 15 years ago Our underground data centers provide an unprecedented level of security reliability and protection Trusted by over 90 of the Fortune 1000 with 140000 clients in more than 40 countries we go to great lengths to protect our customersrsquo information their reputation and ours
Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
Having trouble deciding whether to migrate to the cloud
DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Storage efficiency
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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Storage for VDI
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23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
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MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
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Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
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Storage for VDI
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
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bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
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bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
LUN SIZES AND RAIDWhen sizing LUNsvolumes for VDI donrsquot focus on performance rather thancapacity to ensure that your LUNS can provide the required IOPS There trulyis no magic number for LUN sizes as many factors come into play Generallythe more spindles you have in the RAIDgroup that makes up your LUN the better You also shouldnrsquot size your LUNstoo small for the number of virtual desk-tops yoursquoll have on them Whether or notyoursquore using full virtual disks or linkedclones will also influence sizing as thelatter requires much less disk space
You have a range of RAID options toachieve either better protection or betterperformance A key factor that will in-fluence your RAID choice is the readwrite ratio of your virtual desktopsWhen reading data from a RAID group therersquos no IO penalty associated withthe RAID overhead but therersquos an IO penalty when writing The more protectionyou want the more it will cost you in IO penalties For example RAID 1 hasan IO penalty of two as writes have to be written to both drives with RAID 5it increases to four and for RAID 6 itrsquos six If your IO workloads will involvemore writing than reading you want to use a RAID level that has less of apenalty when writing Having a larger write cache in your array controller or using a custom RAID level like NetApprsquos RAID-DP can also help
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17 Storage March 2011
USE LINKED CLONES TO SAVE STORAGE
LINKED CLONES can be an invaluable feature to use in a virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) environment Linked clones work by havinga single master virtual machine (VM) that holds an image of thebase operating system the desktops will use All virtual desktopsread from this image with any writes captured in a separate deltafile created for each VM Delta files are typically small althoughthey can grow if every disk block was written tomdashbut thatrsquos unlikelyto happen Linked clones can be periodically refreshed to includepatches and operating system and application updates Linkedclones offer clear advantages but they can be more complicated to maintain than full disk images
A key factor that willinfluence your RAIDchoice is the readwrite ratio of yourvirtual desktops
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
Iron Mountain has a proven track record of intelligently managing enterprise information and pioneered cloud information management over 15 years ago Our underground data centers provide an unprecedented level of security reliability and protection Trusted by over 90 of the Fortune 1000 with 140000 clients in more than 40 countries we go to great lengths to protect our customersrsquo information their reputation and ours
Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
Having trouble deciding whether to migrate to the cloud
DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
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19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
THERErsquoS A FASTER WAY TO IDENTIFY THE ISSUES IN YOUR IT ENVIRONMENT
copy Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2011 All rights reserved
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will give you the insight to successfullymonitor your infrastructure Every component server or storage device can be displayed and monitored through a single dashboard so you can
bull Improve effi ciency of your network
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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23 Storage March 2011
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Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
catch-up we were creating the next breakthrough in business continuity
MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
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Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
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33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
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bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
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bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
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bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
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bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
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bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
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bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
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bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
copy 2010 Iron Mountain Incorporated All rights reserved Iron Mountain the design of the mountain and the Iron Mountain logo are registered trademarks of Iron Mountain Incorporated in the US and other countries
Iron Mountain can help We offer a rich set of on-premises hybrid and cloud information management solutions for archiving eDiscovery data protection and compliance We can help you select the right solutions to meet your specific needs so you can migrate to the cloud when and if youre ready
Iron Mountain has a proven track record of intelligently managing enterprise information and pioneered cloud information management over 15 years ago Our underground data centers provide an unprecedented level of security reliability and protection Trusted by over 90 of the Fortune 1000 with 140000 clients in more than 40 countries we go to great lengths to protect our customersrsquo information their reputation and ours
Email digital-infoironmountaincom or visit wwwironmountaincomcloudhelp to schedule an assessment of your information management needs
Having trouble deciding whether to migrate to the cloud
DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
THERErsquoS A FASTER WAY TO IDENTIFY THE ISSUES IN YOUR IT ENVIRONMENT
copy Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2011 All rights reserved
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will give you the insight to successfullymonitor your infrastructure Every component server or storage device can be displayed and monitored through a single dashboard so you can
bull Improve effi ciency of your network
bull Minimize downtime of IT and applications
bull Identify critical issues
bull Make effective decisions based on real-time data
Take a free trial today at
itoperationshdscom
With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
catch-up we were creating the next breakthrough in business continuity
MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
to the scalable SmartStyle Cloud Servers It is expandable up to 100
reliable than RAID 6
Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
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The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
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New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
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Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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DRIVE TYPESSAS drives offer better performance but SATA drives can lower storage costsFast 15K drives can speed things up but at an increased cost compared to 10Kdrives Solid-state drives (SSDs) offer blazing performance but have a heftyprice tag Choosing drives to handle virtual desktop infrastructure workloadsusually comes down to buying the best drives you can afford Slower performingSATA drives typically arenrsquot desirable for most VDI workloads so SAS drives are abetter choice
The platters of a 15K drive read and write data faster and overall latency is reduced but the head actuator that moves across the drive to access datadoesnrsquot So even if the drive is spinning 50 faster overall performance increasesby approximately 30 which results in higher IOPS
You can mix and match drive types to provide faster storage where neededand use cheaper slower storage for less demanding workloads You mightstore the master disks for linked clones on fast SSD storage and the deltadisks on SAS storage You could take this a step further and use an automatedtiering application to automatically balance workloads based on demand
CACHING AND SAN ACCELERATORSUsing a caching device or a SAN accelerator can make up for slower perform-ing storage devices and provide more IOPS to deal with boot storms and otherperiodic IO peaks It can also save money because you may be able to useless-expensive storage devices but still be able to handle your VDI IO work-loads Caching device like NetApprsquos Flash Cache can make a huge differenceand can greatly increase the number of IOPS your storage is capable of Con-
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
19 Storage March 2011
VIRTUAL MACHINE RAM AND PAGING
THE AMOUNT OF RAM assigned to a virtual machine can have a bigimpact on its performance If you donrsquot assign enough RAM theoperating system will start paging to disk which can greatlyincrease the amount of disk IOmdasha situation you want to avoid asthe needless storage IO can degrade performance Assigning toomuch RAM can cause swapping at the virtualization layer if a hosthas overcommitted memory which can also degrade storage per-formance Itrsquos OK to overcommit host memory and itrsquos commonlydone with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) just make sure youdonrsquot completely exhaust your host memory
figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
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Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Proven to save you time and money
THERErsquoS A FASTER WAY TO IDENTIFY THE ISSUES IN YOUR IT ENVIRONMENT
copy Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2011 All rights reserved
Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer will give you the insight to successfullymonitor your infrastructure Every component server or storage device can be displayed and monitored through a single dashboard so you can
bull Improve effi ciency of your network
bull Minimize downtime of IT and applications
bull Identify critical issues
bull Make effective decisions based on real-time data
Take a free trial today at
itoperationshdscom
With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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Storage for VDI
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23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
catch-up we were creating the next breakthrough in business continuity
MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
to the scalable SmartStyle Cloud Servers It is expandable up to 100
reliable than RAID 6
Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
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New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
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Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
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figure your caching for the appropriate areas events like boot storms gener-ally are very read intensive so a larger read cache will make a big difference
SAN accelerators are a great way to add a high-performance caching layerin front of your existing storage device FalconStorrsquos Network Storage Server(NSS) SAN Accelerator for VMware View is an easy-to-deploy appliance thatcan improve a storage systemrsquos performance It may even let you use low-cost SATA drives for your VDI storage and still get adequate performance
OTHER HELPFUL STORAGE FEATURESStorage arrays come bundled with manyfeatures that can help offload methodsand processes that might normally bedone elsewhere Allowing the storage array to handle the things it does bestcan increase efficiency and perform-ance Here are some storage array fea-tures that can be beneficial in a VDI environment
Data protection Features like Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service(VSS) that save previous versions of changed files can make it easier forusers to restore their own files But implementing this feature on all userdesktops can cause undesirable overhead and increase storage array IO
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
20 Storage March 2011
Allowing the storagearray to handle the things it doesbest can increaseefficiency and performance
AVOIDING IO SPIKES
EVENTS THAT CAUSE IO spikes like boot storms canrsquot be avoided but other operations that cause IO spikes can be Use staggeredschedules when performing antivirus scansupdates as well aspatching and updating operating systems and applications Byspreading the load across a longer period of time you can avoidconcentrated IO on your storage system And you can offloadantivirus processing from the guest OS layer and move it to the virtualization layer where it can run more efficien tly VMware IncrsquosvShield Endpoint can offload antivirus scanning to a dedicated virtualappliance eliminating the need to run AV software inside the guestOS This greatly reduces the number of instances of antivirus youhave to run on your hosts and because itrsquos centralized itrsquos easierto manage and the resource usage is greatly reduced
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
catch-up we were creating the next breakthrough in business continuity
MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
to the scalable SmartStyle Cloud Servers It is expandable up to 100
reliable than RAID 6
Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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Download a complimentary white paper Bringing an End to Storage Wastewwwpillardatacomendwaste
CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
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46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
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NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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23 Storage March 2011
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Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
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MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
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Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Storage efficiency
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
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Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
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Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
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Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
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Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Reliablebull 5 year warranty
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
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51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
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Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
With FalconStorrsquos NSS SAN Accelerator you can load an agent into the VDIgold master desktop template that allows the virtual desktop to communicatewith the NSS SAN Accelerator appliance so any file changes that occur insidethe guest OS are backed up by the appliance Files can be recovered by userswho can browse through previous versions and restore files to their desktopwithout involving the back-end storage device
Data deduplication Data deduplication can greatly reduce the amount of storage yoursquoll need for your virtual desktops especially if yoursquore using full image virtual machines (VMs) instead of linked clones If you have 100 desk-tops each with a 20 GB disk yoursquod needapproximately 2 TB of desktop spaceBut VDI users typically run the same OS and use many of the same applica-tions so therersquos lots of duplicate dataData deduplication can reduce theamount of disk space needed when using full image virtual desktops by as much as 90 and reduce the 2 TB to 200 GB With linked clones a singlemaster disk is shared with all writessaved to a delta file which may be only2 GB to 5 GB But if you plan to use full images data deduplication is a must
Thin provisioning Linked clones are already space efficient so thin provi-sioning wonrsquot provide much of a benefit But when using full image virtualdesktops thin provisioning can be a huge space saver allowing you to over-allocate storage Thin provisioning coupled with data dedupe can providetremendous space savings when using full images Thin provisioning can bedone at the storage array layer or virtualization layer While you can imple-ment it at both layers in a dense VDI environment it might make more senseto offload it to the storage array so therersquos less overhead on the virtualiza-tion layer It also simplifies management by only having to monitor and manage thin disks in just one area
VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration VMware Incrsquos vStorageAPIs for Array Integration (VAAI) allow storage-related tasks normally performedby the virtualization layer to be offloaded to the storage system includingdata copy operations (cloning Storage vMotion) disk block zeroing and vmdkfile locking Leveraging VAAI in a VDI environment can provide benefits as diskoperations can be completed quicker and more efficiently than can normallybe done by the hypervisor VAAI is still rather new and adoption and integra-tion by storage vendors is still a work in progress but storage arrays thatsupport VAAI can provide some good benefits today and probably even moreas the technology matures
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22 Storage March 2011
Dedupe can reducethe amount of diskspace needed whenusing full image virtual desktops byas much as 90
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
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23 Storage March 2011
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rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
Up to 85 of computing capacity sits idle in distributed environmentsA smarter planet needs smarter infrastructureLetrsquos build a smarter planet ibmcomdynamic
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The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Reliablebull 5 year warranty
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
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bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
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bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
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bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
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bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
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SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
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See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
KNOW YOUR NEEDSThere are many things to consider when designing storage to support a virtualdesktop infrastructure environment While budgets may limit some of youroptions there are a number of creative solutions available that can help youget the performance your virtual desktops will require But the first step is to know your requirements a proper assessment will help you define storagerequirements that will in turn help you implement a properly sized storagesolution With a right-sized storage system in place you can enjoy the benefitsof VDI without worrying that your storage system will become a bottleneckfor your users 2
Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience whonow focuses on server administration and virtualization Hersquos the author ofVMware VI3 Implementation and Administration (Prentice Hall 2009) and Maximum vSphere (Prentice Hall 2010)
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
23 Storage March 2011
wwwzenithinfotechcom
Get the free mobile app at httpgettagmobi
Learn More
The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
bull Colo-Level Virtualization
Introducing MirrorCloud the next-generation business continuity solution from Zenith Infotech While the competition was playing
catch-up we were creating the next breakthrough in business continuity
MirrorCloud is a feature-rich add-on to the robust SmartStyle Computing platform which continuously mirrors data from Windows-based servers and desktops
to the scalable SmartStyle Cloud Servers It is expandable up to 100
reliable than RAID 6
Score a lsquotechnicalrsquo knock out with your customers today
Announcing a Business Continuity Solution in a Weight Class By Itself
rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
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The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
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Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
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bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
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bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
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bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
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bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
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bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
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bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
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bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
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bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
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bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
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The Next-Generation in Business Continuity bull Continuous Data Mirroring bull Virtual Failover bull Live Bare-Metal Restore bull Granular Exchange Recovery
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rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
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31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
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Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
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Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
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51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Capacity or performance
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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rEMOTE DATA CENTERS and mobile users represent the last frontierof backup and recovery And that frontier spirit is often reflectedin the way many companies rein in backup and recovery of remote and mobile data Remote data centers as well as usersof laptops or other mobile devices are often left on their own to make do with inferior methods (or none at all) while the ldquobigrdquodata center enjoys a modern day backup and recovery environ-ment But with so much data being created and carried aroundoutside the main data center itrsquos time for a change
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25 Storage March 2011
Backupfor remote andmobile devicesThe problem of properly backingup remote site servers and mobilecomputing devices has been withus a long time But with a workforcethatrsquos getting more mobile itrsquos time to get a handle on remote backups
BY W CURTIS PRESTON
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
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Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
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Reliablebull 5 year warranty
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEMRemote data centers often use standalone backup systems with limited connections to the corporate backup system And because they typicallydeal with smaller data sets remote centers often use less-expensive soft-ware and hardware So while the central data center may be running an enterprise-class backup product backing up to a large target data deduplica-tion system or tape library remote data centers often have workgroup-classbackup products feeding backups to small autoloaders or even individualtape drives
Likewise the corporate data center is likely to have a contract with a media vaulting company to ensure that backups are taken off-site every dayEven better the data center may be using a deduplication system that repli-cates backups off-site immediately Remote data centers on the other handoften have backup systems that may go unmonitored with backups that mayend up in the backseat of someonersquos car if they leave the premises at all
Mobile data backup is in even worse shape Many companies donrsquot have apolicy for backing up mobile data at all other than instructing mobile users tocopy important data to a file server Thatrsquos more about ignoring the problemthan having a viable backup policy in place
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Storage for VDI
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26 Storage March 2011
PLANTING THE BACKUP SEED
THE FIRST BACKUP from a remote computerreferred to as the ldquoseedrdquo must be takeninto consideration when designing yourbackup plan for remote data Unless yoursquorebacking up extremely small amounts ofdata (a few gigabytes) you need to figureout a way to transfer the seed to your central site Typically this is done by backing up to a portable device of somesort thatrsquos then physically transferred tothe central site and copied to the backup server Make sure to discuss the optionsyour backup vendor can offer in this area
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
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
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46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
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48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
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51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
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bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
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STORAGE
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The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
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Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
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Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
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bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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See ad page 54
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See ad page 27
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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See ad page 44
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bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
The typical mobile computer user simply doesnrsquot think about backing uptheir data on a regular basis And requiring mobile users to synchronize theirimportant data to a file server also ignores one basic factmdashtheyrsquore mobile andtherersquos a good chance theydonrsquot have the bandwidthto synchronize large filesor lots of smaller files
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquos work-force a significant amountof what your companyconsiders its intellectualproperty may reside solelyon unprotected remote devices
WHY MOBILE BACKUP IS SO HARDUnfortunately there are reasons why remote and mobile backup data setshave typically been handled so haphazardly Itrsquos important to understandthese reasons before attempting to fix the problem
The main reason why both remote and mobile data sets arenrsquot treated the same way as data in the corporate data center is the most obvious onebecause theyrsquore not in the corporate data center Slow connections betweenremote sites or users and the central data facility mean the remote systemscanrsquot use the same backup software used in the data center Those backupapplications expect quick connections to servers in the data center and tendto perform very poorly when trying to speak to remote servers Bandwidthlimitations prevent the software from transferring large amounts of data and latency creates delays that cause chatty backup apps to make a lot ofroundtrips between the backup server and client
Another challenge is that the computers being backed up canrsquot be countedon to be powered on at all times the way servers are in a data center Mostlaptop users (and users of other types of remote devices) power down theirdevices or put them to sleep when theyrsquore not in use Less obvious perhapsis that users in remote data centers often do the same thing with their serversand desktop PCs Not a monumental issue but one that must be addressed
The next challenge is at the other end of the spectrum some users leavetheir computers onmdashand apps openmdash24 hours a day So any viable remotebackup system must address the issue of open (and possibly changing) files
Finally therersquos the requirement for bare-metal recovery In the corporatedata center there are plenty of alternatives when a piece of hardware failssuch as a quick swap of an already-imaged drive The best alternate a remote
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
28 Storage March 2011
Given the increasedmobility of todayrsquosworkforce a signifi-cant amount ofwhat your company
considers its intellectual property may reside solely onunprotected remote devices
user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Storage efficiency
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29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
wwwpillardatacom
copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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Download a complimentary white paper Bringing an End to Storage Wastewwwpillardatacomendwaste
CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
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New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
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Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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user may have is a WAN connection with a decent download speed and thehope that someone from corporate IT is available If your remote servers orlaptops have on-site service the vendor can replace the hard drive or any otherbroken components But then yoursquoll need some type of automatic recoverythat requires only the most basic steps (eg inserting a CD and rebooting)
REMOTE AND MOBILE BACKUP SOLVEDThe typical way the remote bandwidth challenge is solved today is by using ablock-level incremental-forever backup technology The key to backing up overslow links is to never again transfer data that has already been transferredFull backups are no more and even traditional incremental backups transfertoo much data You must back up only new unique blocks
Latency is a separate issue Just because a product does block-level incre-mental backups doesnrsquot mean it was designed for use as a remote applicationYou need to ensure that the backup software understands itrsquos communicatingover a remote connection and avoids ldquoroundtripsrdquo whenever possible Even if
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
29 Storage March 2011
DEVICES GETTING MORE MOBILE
iPad users come in two varieties those whouse the iPad to view data and those who useit to create or modify data You donrsquot have toworry about those in the first category But thesecond groupmdashthose who are actually creatingor altering information on the gomdashneeds to beinstructed on how to back up their devices Theeasiest way to do this is to make sure users
sync their iPad with their laptop or desktop PC and then ensure thatdevice gets backed up Itrsquos not a perfect solution but itrsquos probablythe best we have right now given the architecture of the iPad Themain challenge is that each application is given its own file spaceEven if therersquos an application that can back up data remotely overthe Internet it wouldnrsquot necessarily have access to the file spaceswhere data is being created or modified
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
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Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
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copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
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and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
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Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
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To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Reliablebull 5 year warranty
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
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bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
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bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
wwwlsicomchannel
you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
Itrsquos time to Stop Storage Waste and see how efficient you can be wwwpillardatacom
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
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55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
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56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
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you have a remote connection with enough bandwidth the latency of the con-nection can severely hamper your backup performance if your backup softwareisnrsquot prepared for it
DEDUPE DOES IT ALLThe technology that most people have adopted to solve many of these prob-lems is data deduplication which significantly reduces the number of bytesthat must be transferred A dedupe system thatrsquos aware of multiple locationswill only back up bytes that are new to the entire system not just bytes thatare new to a particular remote or mobile location So if a file has already beenbacked up from one laptop and the same file resides on another laptop thesecond instance of the file wonrsquot be backed up
There are two basic types of deduplication target deduplication (appliance)and source deduplication (software) Target deduplication appliances are de-signed to replace the tapeof standard disk drives inyour existing backup sys-tem so your backup soft-ware sends backup data to the appliance thatdedupes the backups andstores only the newunique blocks Using adedupe appliance has anadded benefit as switchingfrom tape to disk as yourinitial backup target will likely increase the reliability of remote site backups
To use target deduplication yoursquoll have to install an appliance at each remotesite and direct backups to the appliance After the appliance dedupes the remotesitersquos backup it can be replicated back to a central site Because it requires anappliance of some sort target deduplication isnrsquot appropriate for mobile data
Source deduplication is backup software that dedupes the data at the verybeginning of the backup process The server or mobile device being backed upcommunicates with the source deduplication server and ldquodescribesrdquo the seg-ments of data it has found that need to be backed up If the source dedupli-cation server sees that a segment has already been backed up the segmentisnrsquot transferred across the network This saves disk space on the server andreduces the amount of bandwidth the backup process uses
Source deduplication can be used to back up both remote sites and mobileusers All you need to do is install source deduplication software on the com-puter to be backed up and initiate the backup (This is a bit of an oversimplifica-tion of course and ignores the challenge of completing the initial full backup)
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
31 Storage March 2011
There are two basic types ofdeduplication target deduplication(appliance) and
source deduplication (software)
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copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
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bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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copy 2010 Pillar Data Systems Inc All rights reserved Pillar Data Systems Pillar Axiom AxiomONE and the Pillar logo are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Pillar Data Systems
Putting your data on Pillar Axiomreg is the most efficient way to boost productivity cut costs and put more money to the bottom line
Donrsquot put up with the wasteful ways of legacy storage systems They are costing you way too much in floor space energy and money
Make the move to Pillar Axiom the worldrsquos most efficient system because itrsquos truly Application-Aware Get the industryrsquos highest utilization rate ndash up to 80 Guaranteed Slash energy costs Save floor space Reduce TCO by as much as 50 And increase user satisfaction immeasurably
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CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
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Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
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Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
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Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
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bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
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bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
CONTINUOUS BACKUP OF REMOTE DATAAnother technology that should be considered for remote site and mobile userbackup is continuous data protection (CDP) Think of CDP as replication with aldquobackrdquo button Like replication itrsquos a continuous process that runs throughoutthe day incrementally transferring new blocks to a remote backup server Butunlike standard replication products CDP systems also store a log of changesso that a protected system can be restored to any point in time within its re-tention period in a few seconds or less While a traditional backup system (in-cluding one using deduplication) can restore a client to the last time a backupran a CDP system can restore a client to only seconds ago since the backupis continuously occurring A CDP product can be used to back up both remotesites and mobile users because itrsquos also a block-level incremental-forevertechnology
INTEGRATED DATA PROTECTIONRemote sites may have another option using whatrsquos sometimes referred toas self-healing storage This broad term refers to storage that has backup andrecovery integrated as core features Typically itrsquos used to describe storagearrays that use redirect-on-write snapshot technology to provide historicalversions of blocks and files within the volume being protected The snapshotsare then replicated to another volume (typically located in an alternate location)providing both history and relocation of data without using traditional backupmethodologies To use one of these products to back up a remote site wouldof course require installing a storage array at each remote site that wouldreplicate to another larger array in a central site
WHAT ABOUT THE CLOUDA cloud backup service is simply another method of delivering one of theabove options Some cloud backup services use source dedupe while othersuse CDP And some services provide an on-site target appliance that thenreplicates to the cloud or acts as a target for the replicated backups fromyour deduplication appliance Some self-healing storage arrays know how to replicate to the cloud as well
The bare-metal recovery issue is one that can only be addressed with abackup software product or service that has the feature built into the productGive careful consideration to the importance of this feature for your environ-ment And like everything else in IT donrsquot just believe what the vendors saytest the product or service to see if it does exactly what you need it to do
You should also ask how a vendorrsquos products handle backing up systemsthat arenrsquot always turned on or connected to the WAN While most products
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
33 Storage March 2011
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
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Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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NETGEARreg is Smart IT Not Big IT
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Reliablebull 5 year warranty
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
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bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
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bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
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bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
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bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
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bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
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bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
and services can accommodate these occurrences the way they do it cansignificantly impact the user experience Suppose for example that a laptophadnrsquot been connected to the Internet for a long time and when it finally didconnect the backup products started the long-overdue backup That mightseem like a good idea but it may also consume all of the laptoprsquos availableresources That could prompt a help desk call or cause a user to stop thebackup process when it interferes with other work Make sure you understandthe load the backup application places on the system itrsquos backing up undervarious conditions 2
W Curtis Preston is an independent consultant writer and speaker He is thewebmaster at BackupCentralcom and the founder of Truth in IT Inc
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
34 Storage March 2011
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
to disk backup They are acknowledged technical leaders In fact our DXi6500 was
just nominated as a ldquoBest Backup Hardwarerdquo fi nalist in Storage Magazinersquos Best
Product of the Year Awardsmdashitrsquos both faster and up to 45 less expensive than the
leading competitor
Get more bang for your backup today
Faster performance Easier deployment Lower cost
provide higher pleading competi
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
Now You Can
Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Simplebull Easy installation
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
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bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
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bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
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bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
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bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
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bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
Quantumrsquos DXi-Series Appliances with deduplication provide higher performance at lower cost than the leading competitor
Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Important Data Yourstrade
Contact us to learn more at (866) 809-5230 or visit wwwquantumcomdxi
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Quantum has helped some of the largest organizations in the world integrate
deduplication into their backup process The benefi ts they report are immediate and
signifi cantmdashfaster backup and restore 90+ reduction in disk needs automated DR
using remote replication reduced administration timemdashall while lowering overall costs
and improving the bottom line
Our award-winning DXireg-Series appliances deliver a smart time-saving approach
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Preserving The Worldrsquos Most Importan
Contact us to learn more at (8
copy2011 Quantum Corporation All rights reserved
Q
d
s
u
a
O
t
j
P
le
G
F
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
wwwinfortrendcom
ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
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Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
36 Storage March 2011
EVERY COMPETITION has its winners and losers and the latestStorage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards for enterprise arrays is no exception NetApp Inc is the clear
winner in a very competitive field but it doesnrsquot seem appro-priate to call the other five vendors losers as scores across the
board were impressively highmdashonly 034 points separated NetApprsquos highoverall rating and the lowest score
NetApp topsenterprise
arraysfield again
A very strong group of enterprise array vendors racked upsome of the highest scores wersquove seen to date on the sixth
edition of the Quality Awards for enterprise arraysBY RICH CASTAGNA
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
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To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
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STORAGE
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
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ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
37 Storage March 2011
OVERALL RATINGSThis is the second consecutive time NetApphas finished first after sharing top honorswith EMC Corp on the fourth edition of theQuality Awards Such a solid showing fromNetApp should convince any remainingskeptics that NetApp isnrsquot just network-attached storage (NAS) anymore NetAppcruised into the lead with an overall 671 bytaking top honors in four of the five ratingcategories including a couple of narrowvictories for sales-force competence andinitial product quality Hitachi Data Systemsfinished a strong second with a score of661 while EMC and IBM were deadlockedin third with a score of 653
Usersrsquo ratings were overwhelminglypositive For the first time all vendors andtheir product lines racked up scores of600-plus in every category Average cate-gory scores were also the highest wersquoveseen in six iterations of the enterprise array survey and the overall average ratingwas the highest to date Clearly enter-prise storage system vendors are doing a good job of meeting the needs of theirusers
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCENetApp just barely nudged out Hitachi inthe sales-force competence rating cate-gory The six statements in the category all relate to how well a vendorrsquos sales andsales support teams respond to the needsof their prospective customers NetApp finished first for two statements ldquoMysales rep is knowledgeable about my industryrdquo (666) and ldquoMy sales rep under-stands my businessrdquo (656) Hitachi rankedhighest for ldquoMy sales rep is flexiblerdquo (661)and ldquoMy sales rep is easy to negotiatewithrdquo (645) EMCrsquos 678 led a bevy of strong
OVERALL RANKINGS ENTERPRISE ARRAYS
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
671 NetApp
661 Hitachi
653 EMC
653 IBM
645 3PAR
637 HP
PRODUCTS IN THE SURVEY AND KEY TO GRAPHSThese products were
included in the sixth QualityAwards for enterprise arrayssurvey (number of responses
in parentheses)
n 3PAR InServ Storage Server T400T800 or S400S800 (32)
n EMC Symmetrix DMXDMX-3DMX-4 V-Max (240)
n Hewlett-Packard XP Series or StorageWorks P9000 Series (126)
n Hitachi Data Systems USPUSP VVSP Series (95)
n IBM DS8000 Series or XIV Storage System (106)
n NetApp FAS6000 Series or V6000 (123)
Fujitsu Eternus DX8400DX8700
Did not receive enough responses to be included in the final results
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ESVA (Enterprise Scalable Virtualized Architecture) is a high-performance SAN solution for mid-range enterprises With high-end hardware capabilities and excellent software features including bull thin provisioning bull automated storage tiering bull snapshot bull volume copymirror bull remote replication
ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
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Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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ESVA optimizes return on investment simplifies storage infrastructure and maximizes application productivity In 2010 the ESVA F60 achieved superior SPC Benchmark 1TM results and delivered
bull a throughput result of 18048853 SPC-1 IOPS with an average response time of 838 milliseconds (with the system at a 100 percent workload level) bull an average response time of 179 milliseconds (at a 10 percent workload level) bull best-in-class SPC-1 Price-Performance of $512 SPC-1 IOPS
To learn more about Infortrendrsquos ESVA storage solution bull visit wwwinfortrendcomproductsfamiliesESVA bull Tel 408-988-5088 bull email salesusinfortrendcom
Detailed full disclosure information for this SPC Benchmark 1TM Result may be found at httpwwwstorageperformanceorgresultsbenchmark_results_spc1a00088
Infortrend Corporation2200 Zanker Road Suite 130 San Jose CA 95131 salesusinfortrendcom
Data Storage Optimized for Mid-range Enterprises Proven Excellence with Best-in-Class PricePerformance
Get more do more with Infortrend ESVA -The perfect balance between affordability and performance
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
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Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
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ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Reliablebull 5 year warranty
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
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bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
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STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
39 Storage March 2011
scores for the statement ldquoThe vendorrsquossales support team is knowledgeablerdquo
Praise was spread around fairly liberallyin the sales-force competence categorywith four vendors leading on at least onestatement Overall the average for all sixproducts is the highest sales satisfactionrating registered to date on the enterprisearray Quality Awards
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITYA sales team may pave the way for itscompanyrsquos products but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the system is un-crated racked and declared ready to runNetApp prevailed again in this category but by such slim a margin (001 point) over3PAR that it would be more accurate tocall it a statistical dead heat 3PAR flirtedwith the 700 mark with a score of 697 for
INITIAL PRODUCT QUALITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
675 NetApp
674 3PAR
658 Hitachi
653 IBM
649 HP
633 EMC
ABOUT THE QUALITY AWARDSThe Storage magazineSearchStoragecom Quality Awards are designed toidentify and recognize products that have proven their quality and reliabil-ity in actual use The results are derived from a survey of qualified readerswho assess products in five main categories sales-force competence initial
product quality product features product reliability and technical supportOur methodology incorporates statistically valid polling that eliminates market share asa factor Our objective is to identify the most reliable products on the market regardlessof vendor name reputation or size Products were rated on a scale of 100 to 800 where800 is the best score A total of 441 respondents provided 727 system evaluations
SALES-FORCE COMPETENCE
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
655 NetApp
651 Hitachi
641 EMC
633 IBM
633 3PAR
609 HP
A sales team may pave the way for its companyrsquosproducts but the true testdoesnrsquot happen until the
system is uncrated rackedand declared ready to run
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
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Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
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Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull Storage Management Control Your Data
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bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
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bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
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bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
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bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
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SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
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bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
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Mobile backup
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40 Storage March 2011
ldquoThis product was easy to get up and runningrdquo which helps to validate its claimas being among the easiest-to-use arrays
Hitachirsquos 678 and 3PARrsquos 677 led for the statement ldquoI am satisfied with the level of professional services this product requiresrdquo and NetApp ranked highestfor three statements relating to defect-free installations little need for vendorintervention and ease of use Hitachi garnered the crown for the key statementldquoThis product delivers good value for the moneyrdquo with a 673 NetApp was secondfor the statement with a 662
Scores were high in the initial product quality rating category and winningmargins were barely measurable With strength across the board it appearsenterprise data storage vendors are making good first impressions by gettingtheir products up and running as quickly and painlessly as possible
PRODUCT FEATURESEven when a good sales experience is reinforced by solid initial operations the acid test for an enterprise storagesystem ultimately comes down towhether or not it does all the things youneed it to do Once again all productsfared extremely well in the product features category with NetApp leading the pack with a 686 score highlighted byone of only two 700-plus scoresmdasha 711 forldquoThis productrsquos snapshot features meetmy needsrdquo Thatrsquos probably not a hugesurprise as NetApp is known for its snap-shot prowess and has done well in thatarea on previous Quality Awards
NetApp nearly swept the product features category getting scores close to 700 for two other statements ldquoThis productrsquos mirroring features meet myneedsrdquo (696) and ldquoOverall this productrsquos features meet my needsrdquo (691) Forthe lone statement NetApp lost out on EMC flexed its scalability muscles but fell just shy of the 700 mark with a still-striking 698 for ldquoThis productrsquoscapacity scales to meet my needsrdquo
PRODUCT RELIABILITYWith many enterprise array purchases carrying six- or seven-digit price tagsthe tipping point for an investment of that size is likely to pivot on how reliablythe product performs over a period of time Here too enterprise storage vendorscan pat themselves on the back a little as the product reliability category netted
PRODUCT FEATURES
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
686 NetApp
667 EMC
656 IBM
654 Hitachi
642 HP
631 3PAR
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
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Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
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copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
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Taking the cloudmore seriously
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
Acronis or StorageCraft
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bull ReadyNASreg Replicate option for easy offsite disasterrecovery
Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
remote offices
bull VMware Ready and Microsoft Hyper-V certified
bull Ideal backup target for VMs
Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
hosted file sharing and archiving
bull FREE 100GB of ReadyNAS Vault offsite archive
ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Learn more atwwwnetgearcombusiness_storage
NETGEARreg is Smart IT Not Big IT
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Backup and Cloud Computing
Reliablebull 5 year warranty
bull Enterprise hard disks
bull Embedded offsite archive
Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
bull Painless remote management
bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
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bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
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bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
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bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
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bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
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bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
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bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
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bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
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bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
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bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
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bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
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bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
Can you backup mobile userswho donrsquot VPN in Without opening any firewall ports
Can users perform full-text search amp recovery from the Windows START button
Can you access your PC data from a tablet or smartphone When your PC is switched off
Enterprise-class endpoint backup and data manage-ment that runs on your existing infrastructure securely behind your firewall Designed for IT pros managing mobile users and distributed sites who donrsquot want to look through backup logs every day (thatrsquos you right)
Contact us to learn more at 866-831-1821 or try Copiun at wwwcopiuncomcopiun-sandbox
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Backup securely with or without a VPNFor remote sites WAN backup LAN recoveryTruly non-intrusive backup-while-idle near CDPNative OS user search amp restore with no trainingObject-based deduplication 95 storage savings
copy2011 Copiun Inc All rights reserved
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
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45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
Acronis or StorageCraft
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Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
remote offices
bull VMware Ready and Microsoft Hyper-V certified
bull Ideal backup target for VMs
Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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bull FREE 100GB of ReadyNAS Vault offsite archive
ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
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Simplebull Easy installation
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bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
42 Storage March 2011
the highest average score among the fiverating categories Four of the six productsin the current survey turned in their bestscores in this category with Hitachi beat-ing all comers with a very solid 685 ratingEMC (678) and IBM (672) had their bestcategory results for product reliability andfinished second and third respectivelyHewlett-Packard (HP) Co also netted itsbest point total finishing with a 657 thatplaced it fifth in this strong field
Hitachi earned high scores for four ofthe five statements in this category andmissed snagging the fifth by a mere 003points The true test of reliability is unin-terrupted service and all products in this
survey were rated at 650 or better for the critical statement ldquoThis productexperiences very little down timerdquo Hitachi and EMC share the top spot forthat statement both within a hairsbreadth of 700 with identical 697 scores
Meeting expectations is also a key gauge of reliability Again all six productscame through with scores of 650 or higher for ldquoThe product meets my service-level requirementrdquo highlighted by Hitachirsquos 698 and EMCrsquos nearly as dazzling 696
TECHNICAL SUPPORTStuff happens And sometimes that stuff happens to a very large very expen-sive storage array No storage manager wants to be the one who has to pickup the phone and make ldquothe callrdquo but whenitrsquos unavoidable a quick and effective replyis the best way a vendor can soothejagged nerves
When it comes to delivering support as promised our vendors fared well withall six netting their highest scores in thetechnical support category for ldquoVendorsupplies support as contractually speci-fiedrdquo Hitachirsquos 700 nosed out NetApp (697)for that statement and racked up only thethird 700 statement score in the surveyalong the way There truly werenrsquot anyweak performances when it comes tomeeting usersrsquo expectationsmdashHPrsquos 626might have trailed the pack but itrsquos a
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
670 NetApp
656 Hitachi
650 IBM
646 EMC
645 3PAR
626 HP
PRODUCT RELIABILITY
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750
685 Hitachi
678 EMC
672 IBM
669 NetApp
657 HP
641 3PAR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
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bull VMware Ready and Microsoft Hyper-V certified
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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bull FREE 100GB of ReadyNAS Vault offsite archive
ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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NETGEARreg is Smart IT Not Big IT
Simply SmarterBusiness Storage for Virtualization
Backup and Cloud Computing
Reliablebull 5 year warranty
bull Enterprise hard disks
bull Embedded offsite archive
Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
bull Reduces operating expenses through automation
Simplebull Easy installation
bull Painless remote management
bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
43 Storage March 2011
sturdy score nonethelessUltimately NetApp prevailed in the
technical support category by toppingthe ratings on five of the eight state-ments second-place Hitachi ranked highest on the other three In the six enterprise arrays surveys wersquove fieldedNetApprsquos 670 and Hitachirsquos 656 technicalsupport category scores are the highestrecorded to date
WOULD YOU BUY AGAINThe strongest indicator of product satis-faction might be a customerrsquos willing-ness to make the same purchase all over again When we asked that questionon this survey the results mapped veryclosely with the overall rankings for serviceand reliability Thatrsquos great news for vendorslike NetApp and Hitachi whose prospectsof repeat customers look very promisingwith buy-again numbers north of 90But the overall picture has to be prettypleasing to data storage vendors andusers alike as 87 of all users in our survey said that with the benefit of hindsight theyrsquod still buy the same storage systems again 2
Rich Castagna (rcastagnastoragemagazinecom) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group
ENTERPRISE ARRAY HEAVY LIFTERS
Average installed capacities of the enterprise arrays as
reported by survey respondents
VENDOR TB
Hitachi 143
EMC 142
IBM 122
3PAR 120
NetApp 106
HP 84
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED WOULDYOU BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN
65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
92 NetApp
90 Hitachi
88 EMC
88 IBM
86 HP
81 3PAR
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
Acronis or StorageCraft
bull Improves Symantec Backup Exec performance by upto 120
bull Ideal target for virtual machine backups with Veeamor Vizioncore
bull ReadyNASreg Replicate option for easy offsite disasterrecovery
Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
remote offices
bull VMware Ready and Microsoft Hyper-V certified
bull Ideal backup target for VMs
Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
hosted file sharing and archiving
bull FREE 100GB of ReadyNAS Vault offsite archive
ReadyNASreg Pro 4
ReadyNASreg Pro 2
Learn more atwwwnetgearcombusiness_storage
NETGEARreg is Smart IT Not Big IT
Simply SmarterBusiness Storage for Virtualization
Backup and Cloud Computing
Reliablebull 5 year warranty
bull Enterprise hard disks
bull Embedded offsite archive
Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
vendors
bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
bull Reduces operating expenses through automation
Simplebull Easy installation
bull Painless remote management
bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
ldquoWhen it comes todisaster recovery
ShadowProtectreg makes mefast flexible and reliablerdquo
ldquoWhen it comes to yoga Irsquom just a disasterrdquo
The fast flexible and reliable disaster recovery data protection and system migration that ShadowProtect Servertrade 4
provides will not only help expand your businessbut give you the time to ldquoexpand your mindrdquo as well
New VirtualBoottrade technology lets you recovera 15 TB server in just 3 minutes Download a FREE trial version at wwwstoragecraftcomshadow_protect_serverphpItrsquos simple and painless (Thatrsquos more than can be said for the Lotus position)
StorageCraft is proud that ShadowProtecthas been selected as a finalist for the
Storage magazineSearchStoragecom2010 Product of the Year
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
Acronis or StorageCraft
bull Improves Symantec Backup Exec performance by upto 120
bull Ideal target for virtual machine backups with Veeamor Vizioncore
bull ReadyNASreg Replicate option for easy offsite disasterrecovery
Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
remote offices
bull VMware Ready and Microsoft Hyper-V certified
bull Ideal backup target for VMs
Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
hosted file sharing and archiving
bull FREE 100GB of ReadyNAS Vault offsite archive
ReadyNASreg Pro 4
ReadyNASreg Pro 2
Learn more atwwwnetgearcombusiness_storage
NETGEARreg is Smart IT Not Big IT
Simply SmarterBusiness Storage for Virtualization
Backup and Cloud Computing
Reliablebull 5 year warranty
bull Enterprise hard disks
bull Embedded offsite archive
Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
vendors
bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
bull Reduces operating expenses through automation
Simplebull Easy installation
bull Painless remote management
bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
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bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
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See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
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See ad page 54
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bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
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See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
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See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
45 Storage March 2011
sPENDING ON CLOUD infrastructure and services is expected to increase thisyear according to ESGrsquos recent 2011 spending intentions survey In late 2009when we asked survey respondents about their organizationrsquos IT priorities for 2010 and the first half of 2011 cloud computing and software-as-a-service(SaaS) ranked 22 and 24 respectively out of the 24 priorities listed In late2010 when asked about IT priorities in 2011 and the first half of 2012 respon-dents ranked cloud computing in the top half of the priority list (number 12)and placed SaaS in spot 14
That bodes well for cloud infrastruc-ture and service providers and indicatesthat the cloud investigations users conducted in 2010 could translate toreal investments in 2011
BACKGROUNDTo assess IT spending priorities overthe next 12 to 18 months ESG recentlysurveyed 611 North American andWestern European senior IT professionalsrepresenting midmarket (100 to 999employees) and enterprise-class (1000employees or more) organizations Aspart of the survey we asked questionspertaining to both SaaS and infrastruc-ture-as-a-service (IaaS) The survey defined those two cloud-related termsas follows
SaaS A software distribution model in which applications are hosted by avendor or service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet
IaaS A computing model in which the equipment including servers storageand networking components used to support an organizationrsquos operations is
hot spots | terri mcclure
Cloud projectsclimbing IT priority lists
A recent ESG survey indicates that investments in cloudservices and related infrastructure will increase
in 2011 meaning the much-hyped technology may start to hit its stride in the real world
In late 2010 whenasked about IT priorities in 2011 andthe first half of 2012respondents rankedcloud computing inthe top half of thepriority list (number12) and placed SaaSin spot 14
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
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Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
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bull FREE 100GB of ReadyNAS Vault offsite archive
ReadyNASreg Pro 4
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Reliablebull 5 year warranty
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Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
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bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
bull Reduces operating expenses through automation
Simplebull Easy installation
bull Painless remote management
bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
46 Storage March 2011
hosted by a service provider and made available to customers over a networktypically the Internet The service provider owns the equipment and is respon-sible for housing running and maintaining it with the client typically payingon a per-use basis
ADOPTION TRENDSWhile 34 of respondents currentlyuse SaaS a surprising 91 reporttheyrsquoll spend at least some of their2011 budget dollars on SaaS-based applications But even at those organi-zations using SaaS today usage ispretty light a large majority (70) use SaaS to deliver fewer than 20 of their applications and only 15 of respondent firms deliver 31 ormore of their applications via SaaS
That picture changes significantlywhen we asked users to consider how theyrsquoll deliver applications three yearsfrom now the percentage of those survey takers using SaaS for 20 or fewerof their applications shrinks to 39 while the percentage of those respondentsdelivering 31 or more of their applications via SaaS rises to 30
The apps respondents deliver via SaaS run the gamut of enterprise appsfrom accounting and financial applications to security but the ones mostlikely to be delivered via SaaS are customer relationship management (CRM)and email which isnrsquot surprising given the amount of data they generate
Among ESG survey takers IaaS usage is lower than that of SaaS with 17currently using IaaS to meet infrastructure requirements But things are look-ing up on the IaaS side as well with 81 of respondents reporting theyrsquoll spendat least some of their 2011 budget on the technology
THE BIGGER TRUTHFew technologies have been able to maintain the level of hype that cloud hasfor IT users and vendors alike Typically new technologies just canrsquot live upto the expectations and promises vendors set Cloud is bucking the trendfor multiple reasons not the least of which is that no one can seem to agreeon exactly what it is ESG believes cloud is ultimately a service delivery modelwhere applications (andor infrastructure) are delivered as a service to aconsumer The jury is still out in end-user and vendor circles as to whetheror not ldquoprivate cloudrdquo counts as a cloud initiative or is just IT with a services-oriented architecture
While 34 ofrespondents currently use SaaSa surprising 91report theyrsquoll spendat least some oftheir 2011 budgetdollars on SaaS-based applications
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
Acronis or StorageCraft
bull Improves Symantec Backup Exec performance by upto 120
bull Ideal target for virtual machine backups with Veeamor Vizioncore
bull ReadyNASreg Replicate option for easy offsite disasterrecovery
Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
remote offices
bull VMware Ready and Microsoft Hyper-V certified
bull Ideal backup target for VMs
Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
hosted file sharing and archiving
bull FREE 100GB of ReadyNAS Vault offsite archive
ReadyNASreg Pro 4
ReadyNASreg Pro 2
Learn more atwwwnetgearcombusiness_storage
NETGEARreg is Smart IT Not Big IT
Simply SmarterBusiness Storage for Virtualization
Backup and Cloud Computing
Reliablebull 5 year warranty
bull Enterprise hard disks
bull Embedded offsite archive
Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
vendors
bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
bull Reduces operating expenses through automation
Simplebull Easy installation
bull Painless remote management
bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
EMC 1 IN STORAGE FOR VIRTUALIZATION
Source Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Data Center Spending Intentions Survey EMC2 EMC the EMC logo and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries copy Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation All rights reserved 2128
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
Acronis or StorageCraft
bull Improves Symantec Backup Exec performance by upto 120
bull Ideal target for virtual machine backups with Veeamor Vizioncore
bull ReadyNASreg Replicate option for easy offsite disasterrecovery
Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
remote offices
bull VMware Ready and Microsoft Hyper-V certified
bull Ideal backup target for VMs
Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
hosted file sharing and archiving
bull FREE 100GB of ReadyNAS Vault offsite archive
ReadyNASreg Pro 4
ReadyNASreg Pro 2
Learn more atwwwnetgearcombusiness_storage
NETGEARreg is Smart IT Not Big IT
Simply SmarterBusiness Storage for Virtualization
Backup and Cloud Computing
Reliablebull 5 year warranty
bull Enterprise hard disks
bull Embedded offsite archive
Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
vendors
bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
bull Reduces operating expenses through automation
Simplebull Easy installation
bull Painless remote management
bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
48 Storage March 2011
The spending survey indicates that reducing costs especially operationalcosts is still one of the top drivers of IT decision making in 2011 and thecloud certainly seems to be gaining popularity as a means to help containoverall IT costs Because the value propositions for IaaS and SaaS are relatedto cost reduction ESG specifically asked users about cost-cutting measuresand saw cloud computing start to emerge as a viable option Organizationsin cost-reductioncontainment mode indicate a significant increase in theirwillingness to consider cloud computing services (23 in 2011 vs 17 in2010 and 13 in 2009) as a way to control IT costs this year
Will cloud strategies continue their momentum in 2011 ESG research in-dicates they willmdashat least from the end-user side Because 2010 was mostlyabout cloud talk and hype and end users now indicate a willingness to investin this area in 2011 it looks like vendors will have to ldquoput up or shut uprdquo anddeliver on the cloud promises theyrsquove been making to deliver truly cost-effectivesecure and available IT services 2
Terri McClure is a senior storage analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Milford Mass
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
Acronis or StorageCraft
bull Improves Symantec Backup Exec performance by upto 120
bull Ideal target for virtual machine backups with Veeamor Vizioncore
bull ReadyNASreg Replicate option for easy offsite disasterrecovery
Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
remote offices
bull VMware Ready and Microsoft Hyper-V certified
bull Ideal backup target for VMs
Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
hosted file sharing and archiving
bull FREE 100GB of ReadyNAS Vault offsite archive
ReadyNASreg Pro 4
ReadyNASreg Pro 2
Learn more atwwwnetgearcombusiness_storage
NETGEARreg is Smart IT Not Big IT
Simply SmarterBusiness Storage for Virtualization
Backup and Cloud Computing
Reliablebull 5 year warranty
bull Enterprise hard disks
bull Embedded offsite archive
Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
vendors
bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
bull Reduces operating expenses through automation
Simplebull Easy installation
bull Painless remote management
bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
Products shown above are GSA compliant
ReadyNASreg Pro 6 ReadyNASreg 3100 2100 4200 3200 (Top to Bottom)
The 5-Year Hardware Warranty only covers hardware fans and internal power supplies and does not include external power supplies or software Hardware modifications or customization void the warranty The warranty is only validfor the original purchaser and cannot be transferred
NETGEAR the NETGEAR logo Connect with Innovation ReadyNAS ReadyNAS Replicate and ReadyNAS Vault are trademarks andor registered trademarks of NETGEAR Inc andor its subsidiaries in the United States andor othercountries Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s) Information is subject to change without notice copy 2010 NETGEAR Inc All rights reserved
Backup Restore and Disaster Recoverybull Ideal disk-to-disk backup target for Symantec
Acronis or StorageCraft
bull Improves Symantec Backup Exec performance by upto 120
bull Ideal target for virtual machine backups with Veeamor Vizioncore
bull ReadyNASreg Replicate option for easy offsite disasterrecovery
Virtualizationbull Build affordable virtualization solutions in small or
remote offices
bull VMware Ready and Microsoft Hyper-V certified
bull Ideal backup target for VMs
Cloud Computingbull Hybrid cloud solutions for combination local and
hosted file sharing and archiving
bull FREE 100GB of ReadyNAS Vault offsite archive
ReadyNASreg Pro 4
ReadyNASreg Pro 2
Learn more atwwwnetgearcombusiness_storage
NETGEARreg is Smart IT Not Big IT
Simply SmarterBusiness Storage for Virtualization
Backup and Cloud Computing
Reliablebull 5 year warranty
bull Enterprise hard disks
bull Embedded offsite archive
Affordablebull A fraction of the cost of traditional
vendors
bull No consultants required no new training or licenses needed
bull Reduces operating expenses through automation
Simplebull Easy installation
bull Painless remote management
bull Embedded VPN remote access
bull Centralized multi-site backup manage-ment with optional ReadyNAS Replicate
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
50 Storage March 2011
aS WE APPROACH the end of the first quarter of the new year it looks like wersquoregoing to see a much different data storage industry in 2011 Thatrsquos a goodthing because 2010 was a minefield for strategic planningmdasha roller coaster ofexcitement with the unpredictable future that goes with it Game-changingtechnologies made their real first forays into the market including cloudstorage service providers cloud on-ramps cloud backup cloud disaster recovery (DR) and others In a recentemerging market forecast TanejaGroup identified storage products associated with the cloud as growinginto a $10 billion market by 2014 As wesee it wersquore out of the gate with newproduct innovations and now engagedin a steady march
In 2010 there was turmoil amongthe vendor ranks like wersquove never seenwith major vendor strategy shifts anumber of small vendor failures andmind-boggling acquisitions WhewSurely all that vendor turmoil must betapering off We need a breather andwe need to look at whatrsquos coming
Therersquos definitely one thing thatneeds more attention performanceFor too long wersquove been fixated on capacity and that preoccupation hassapped some of the innovation energy that should have been directed towardsolving performance problems And because of that neglect many of us arefinding we need better performance than we can get from todayrsquos standardapproaches It seems most of the activity in 2008 and 2009 was centered oncapacity and in 2010 that capacity discussion shifted to the cloud Lately itseems performance only comes up when the subject is solid-state storage
readwrite | jeff boles
Letrsquos focus on storage performance in 2011
For the last few years our focus has been on storagecapacity and dealing with astronomical data growth
rates In the process wersquove overlooked storageperformance but promising developments are afoot
In 2010 there wasturmoil among thevendor ranks likewersquove never seenwith major vendorstrategy shifts anumber of smallvendor failures andmind-bogglingacquisitions
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
an alternative ill-suited to many of the storage systems most of us have in our data centers That might be the future but performance needs to beaddressed now
But Irsquom beginning to see performance solutions that have some real promiseDiscussions around solid-state technology have made us acutely aware ofthe massive limitations of many traditional storage systems And that seemsto have inspired some innovators to do something entirely different
Despite what some vendors are peddling it wonrsquot be the next generation of ridiculously complex application-specific stacks of hardware that willspeed up your database or your number crunching And donrsquot expect biggerand cheaper appliances to deliver on that promise either Those and similarsolutions have been anathema for strategic planning How are you supposedto build a performance strategy from aproliferation of one-trick ponies thatcanrsquot adapt to changing demands or themassive shared access required withintodayrsquos consolidating data centers
My requirements for doing betterarenrsquot that stringent Fundamentally asolution should give you real perform-ance and promise to scale well beyondwhat you need today Simultaneouslyit shouldnrsquot look entirely different thanyour existing storage It should stillstore data in a permanent reliable way and be just as serviceable Wersquoreseeing vendors like Alacritech Avere Kaminario and others think hard abouthow to deliver performance that fits into todayrsquos storage infrastructure with-out a massive integration effort and with the right capabilities to deliver future scalable performance without compromises in storage capabilities
One result of these emerging improved architectures for storage per-formance is a dramatic change in what we pay for IOmdashwhen assessed onthe basis of dollars per IO such systems have massively better costs thanrotational disk But those figures only tell part of the story Bad architecturescome at a price way beyond the difference in upfront costs The upfront costsof any performance solution with a bad architecture may well be compoundedby the operational costs incurred in the course of coping with and offsettingthe bad architecture such as
bull The cost of integration Integrating solutions that address a subset ofdata can require enormous effort
bull The cost of data protection Few solutions are built for primary long-term storage so the cost of data protection can increase significantlyWorse yet are the considerations for DR
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
51 Storage March 2011
Fundamentally asolution should give you real performance andpromise to scalewell beyond whatyou need today
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
Hybrid ISE is that productGo to wwwxiotechcomhybrid-ise
ldquoSo I want some kind of product that can combine SSD and magnetic spindles into a single sort of ldquosuper volumerdquo which I can use for everything that happens on the VM host and then the storage virtualization software can automatically figure out which blocks (or whatever) should be magnetic and which should be SSDrdquo
BrianMaddencom Your independent source for application and desktop virtualization
Experience the future of virtual desktop infrastructure call 18664726764
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
bull The cost of replacement Solutions built without long service life as akey design criterion may reach a premature end of life The cost here isnrsquotjust about replacement but dealing with the effects of potential failureoften with strategies such as maintaining idle spare equipment
bull Cost of service Some products arenrsquot built for in-place service sothey may require specialized expertise for service or disruptive total replace-ments if a failure occurs
bull Cost of scale A product thatrsquos attractively priced for a single app mayeasily be a mismatch for other demands This can result in apps requiringmultiple storage systems capacity underutilization or compromising on performance
bull Cost of management Inadequate scaling can lead to sprawl and result in having to deploy multiple devices to satisfy different applicationneeds The cost of managing isolated systems can become enormous
And the bigger things get the more costs add up Irsquom not suggesting yourprimary storage vendor doesnrsquot have answers that address these issues assome are thinking pretty innovatively about how to extend controller capa-bilities But you need to make sure you have the right primary data storagevendor if yoursquore buying into their answer for performance For some theircurrent investments or intended new investments may never go far enoughThere may well be a significant deficiency in both the resulting value yoursquoregetting per dollar and in the competitive business capabilities of your result-ing IT systems
It may be a year of only incremental improvement but when it comes toperformance even small improvements can transform how we do storageWith a few innovators on the horizon it looks like 2011 could see even greaterstrides 2
Jeff Boles is a senior analyst at Taneja Group He can be reached at jefftanejagroupcom
STORAGE
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
53 Storage March 2011
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
Still a struggle to achieve storage efficiencyEverybodyrsquos talking about storage efficiency but how are we really doing Judg-ing from our latest survey there seems to be a sense of accomplishment tem-pered by a bit of frustration While most respondents feel their companies usestorage pretty efficiently therersquos still plenty of disk capacity being wasted becauseadmins just donrsquot have the right tools to stay on top of the situation More thantwo-thirds (68) say theyrsquod do a better job if they had better tools and nearly halfare looking for a little more cooperation from users (45) and management (44)Most storage pros (66) rely on the tools that came with their storage systemsto manage capacity use while 30 have third-party apps to help them out Amongthe newer storage efficiency technologies storage tiering (49) and archiving(48) are most commonly used to keep the lid on capacity And while everybodycomplains about storing old useless files only 31 have a process or program inplace for data deletion mdashRich Castagna
ldquoAlthough therersquos no shortage of vendor-supplied tools and third-party software to assist todayrsquos storage managers it remains nearly impossible to alter storage consumersrsquo behaviorrdquo mdashSurvey respondent
snapshot
How would you rate your companyrsquos use of disk storage capacity
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
55 Storage March 2011
69Which of these capacity management tools
do you currently use at your company
49 Storage tiering (automated or manual)
48 Data archiving
38 Thin provisioning
33 Primarynearline data compression or deduplication
5 None
Multiple selections permitted
Donrsquot have a regular programor process for data deletion
3
31
13
How much disk capacity would you estimate is wasted in your company
because you lack the tools to manage and use disk capacity efficiently
0 10 20 30 40
More than 75 ofinstalled capacity
50 to 75 of installed capacity
25 to 50 of installed capacity
10 to 25 of installed capacity
Less than 10 ofinstalled capacity
Excellentwersquore very efficient
7
Good 27
Terriblewersquore
wasting lots of disk
capacity3
Poor12
So-So therersquos room forsome improvement
51
40
13
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
Networking Old is new again
Storage virtualizationmade easy
Storage for VDI
Mobile backup
Quality AwardsEnterprise
arrays
Taking the cloudmore seriously
Capacity or performance
Storage efficiency
Sponsorresources
56 Storage March 2011
STORAGE
COMING IN
APRIL Virtual Disaster Recovery (DR)
One of the most touted benefits of virtualization is that the hardware isuntethered from the OSes and appsusing it We cover the best ways toleverage virtual machines and virtual-ized storage for more reliable DR
Thin Provisioning In DepthThin provisioning effectively allowsoverprovisioning of storage systemsby only allocating disk capacity toapps when they write to disk Butvendors implement thin provisioningdifferently so users need to knowhow an arrayrsquos thin provisioningprocess matches their applications
Exchange 2010 and Storage Systems
With a new version of MicrosoftrsquosExchange Server came new issuesrelated to the storage that supportsthe mail server system Will new fea-tures such as built-in archiving and e-discovery capabilities replace pur-pose-built third-party products Andwill improved replication make it easierto protect Exchange mailstores Weprovide some best practices
And donrsquot miss our monthly columnsand commentary or the results of
our Snapshot reader survey
TechTarget Storage Media Group
Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack
Editorial Director Rich Castagna
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Creative Director Maureen Joyce
Contributing EditorsTony Asaro James Damoulakis
Steve Duplessie Jacob Gsoedl W Curtis Preston
Executive Editor Ellen OrsquoBrien
Senior News Director Dave Raffo
Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii
Features Writer Carol Sliwa
Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner
Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett
Editorial Assistant Allison Ehrhart
Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton
Managing Editor Heather Darcy
Features Writer Todd Erickson
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
Senior Site Editor Sue Troy
UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead
TechTarget ConferencesDirector of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz
Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds
Storage magazine SubscriptionswwwSearchStoragecom
Storage magazine275 Grove Street Newton MA 02466
editorstoragemagazinecom
STORAGE
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 12
bull Storage Management Control Your Data
bull Preventing Data Overload
See ad page 15
bull White Paper Increasing IT Efficiency in a Dynamic Data Center
bull Case Study Gaston County Leads the Way with Fluid Data Storage
See ad page 41
bull ESG Report Endpoint Data Protection - A Guide to Approaches and Top PurchaseConsiderations
bull IDC Technology Spotlight - Endpoint Data Backup and Security The Growing Need for aBetter Approach
bull Forrester amp Copiun Webcast - Enterprise PC Backup The New Fundamentals
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 5
bull Desktop Virtualization The New Face of the Enterprise Desktop
bull Kane County Saves $1 Million with Server and Desktop Virtualization on Dell Servers andVirtualized iSCSI SANs
bull Breaking Down the Barriers to VDI with Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN Arrays
See ad page 54
bull Six Must Have Features for Corporate Laptop Backup
bull Corporate Laptop Backup - Best Practices
See ad page 47
bull EMC VNX Family - Unified Storage Storage Software Networked Storage
bull Online Event Dont miss the record breaking
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
SPONSOR RESOURCES
bull eGuide Best Practices for Data Protection and Recovery in Virtual Environments
bull Forrester Research Virtualization and backup ndash the challenges and solutions
bull Exagrids Eye on Deduplication
See ad page 21
bull Hitachi IT Operations Analyzer Software
bull The SystemsManagement Buyers Guide
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 8
bull 3PAR Storage Tailor-Made for Virtual Infrastructures
bull HP 3PAR F-Class Storage Systems A mid-range storage revolution for lean times
See ad page 27
bull Reduce your data storage footprint and tame the information explosion
bull Leverage the IBM Tivoli advantages in storage management
bull Virtualize Storage with IBM for an Enhanced Infrastructure
See ad page 38
bull Fresh Approaches to Storage Cost Management
bull Elementary School District Chooses Infortrend to Protect Data amp Maintain High Standardof Education
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 18
bull IDCWhitepaper Are Your PCs and Laptops Recovery and Discovery Ready
bullWhite Paper How to Measure ROI for Online PC Backup and Recovery
bullWhite Paper How to Categorize PC Online Backup and Recovery Providers for BetterDecision Making
See ad page 30
bull Video Extend SAS Beyond Todays DAS Environments
bull LSI SAS Switch Configuration Guide
See ad page 49
bull Printing Franchisee Uses NETGEAR to Protect Against Site-Wide Disasterreg ReadyNASreg2100
bull ReadyNASreg 3200 Boosts Financial Services Firm Productivity by Supporting 20 VirtualMachines Cutting Rack Space by 80 and Costs by Over 50
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 32
bull Special Report Top Midrange Array Storage Controllers
bull Top 5 Advantages of Alternative Tier One Storage Vendors
See ad page 35
bull 7 Deduplication Questions to Consider Before Deploying for the Midrange Data Center
bull The Most Important Questions to Ask Before you Dedupe ndash Part 1
See ad page 44
bull StorageCraft ShadowProtect video tutorial
bull ShadowProtect Server 30-day trial eval
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment
SPONSOR RESOURCES
See ad page 52
bull Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Strategies Ensuring success via Scale-out SAN
bull Top 10 ReasonsWhy Virtual Desktops Run Better on Xiotech Storage Blades
bull Video Xiotech VDI Interview at VMworld
See ad page 24
bull Back Up To The Compute Cloud
bull Checklist Key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure
bull The first step toward a virtual desktop infrastructure The assessment