Storage Issue

HOW STORAGE TECH IS CHANGING • VIRTUALIZE YOUR STORAGE Managing the information that drives the enterprise

STORAGEVol.10 No. 6 August 2011 the state of Backup Dedupe There are more choices than ever for deploying data deduplication for backup. See what will work best in your shop.

ALSO INSIDE No more laptop backup excuses The need for speedy storage Backup options for ROBOs Hybrid clouds looming Remote backup under control STORAGEinside |August 2011 STORAGEinside | august 2011 No excuse for lax laptop backup 5 EDITORIAL Too expensive, too much extra work and not enough integration were legitimate complaints about laptop backup a few years ago. But those excuses just don’t cut it anymore. by RICH CASTAGNA

The need for speed 9 STORWARS Servers and networks have the pedal to the metal, but storage is struggling to keep up. With applications craving more and more performance, storage vendors have to figure out how they’re going to meet those needs. by TONY ASARO

The state of backup deduplication 13 In a relatively short time, data deduplication has revolutionized disk- based backup, but the technology is still evolving with new applications and more choices than ever. by LAUREN WHITEHOUSE

New trends in storage 23 Storage technologies may sometimes seem a little stodgy and out of date, but there’s plenty of technical development going on at both the big storage vendors and smaller upstarts. by STEPHEN FOSKETT

Storage virtualization: It’s ready, are you? 32 User adoption of storage virtualization has been picking up as some of the early obstacles to implementation have been overcome. There are plenty of mature products whether you opt to deploy storage virtualization at the array or in the network. by ERIC SLACK

Options for ROBOs: Choose a backup method for the ages 41 HOT SPOTS Satellite offices and workers are changing the look of companies of all sizes, and backup technology is changing to keep pace. by LAUREN WHITEHOUSE

Hybrid clouds on the horizon 45 READ/WRITE A few notable glitches have soured some users on cloud storage services, but a hybrid approach that integrates public and private storage may ultimately convince cloud skeptics. by JEFF BYRNE

Users get upper hand over remote site backup 48 SNAPSHOT Our latest survey finds that more companies are relying on automated processes to back up their remote offices, and more backup data is making it back to the main data center than ever before. by RICH CASTAGNA

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No excuse for lax laptop backup Too expensive, too much extra work and not enough integration were all legitimate complaints about laptop backup a few years ago. But with so many new products and alternatives, those excuses just don’t cut it anymore. Lax laptop backup

Need for speed TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW” starts the second sentence of Macbeth’s soliloquy in which he laments Lady M’s untimely demise. And for fans of “Jeopardy,” it’s also the answer to the question “When will State of your storage shop implement some real data protection for laptop PCs?” backup dedupe That probably just tacked another violation onto my poetic license, but it’s hard to avoid quoting Shakespeare even when you’re talking about Storage something as non-Elizabethan as data storage. And the “tomorrow” refer- tech evolves ence is pretty accurate if some of the surveys I’ve seen lately are reason- ably accurate. The most recent one to catch my eye is from Druva Software,

Virtualize which, as a laptop backup vendor, has just a wee bit of interest in the re- your storage sults. Nonetheless, some interesting numbers turned up in the survey. Among the survey’s 140 respondents, approximately one-third said that more than half of their users were issued laptops as their principal PCs. Backup options for ROBOs But a whopping 62% said a laptop backup policy wasn’t currently enforced even though most claimed they currently have something in place to do laptop backups. Hybrid clouds loom “Those are a couple of pretty big gaps, but the survey goes on to report even more head-scratching results, like the 30% who said they don’t really see a need for a laptop backup policy. Even more perplexing are the 59% Remote backup of respondents who considered themselves “satisfied” with their current under control laptop backup setup. What’s going on here? Maybe we just have some major denial working Sponsor here—good ol’ out of sight and out of mind, and keep your fingers crossed resources that the CEO’s laptop doesn’t give up the ghost cruising at 35,000 feet in a first-class cabin somewhere over the Atlantic. What about SOX and HIPAA and PCI and all those other acronyms that tell us to take care of our data just in case? File-based data is quickly over- running our corporate data stores, and a growing portion of that is being

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created, modified and toted around the country on laptop computers. You might be OK rolling the dice when it comes to complying with laws that say what data must be preserved, but think about all that corporate IP going unprotected. That’s gonna get somebody’s attention, right? Intel recently described a study it commissioned from the Ponemon Institute in which the number of lost or stolen laptops was calculated for the 329 participating companies. Ponemon’s numbers are staggering—with an average of 263 laptops MIA for each company. Even if your company Lax laptop backup experiences just a quarter of that loss (let’s say 60 laptops with half-filled 200 GB disks), you might be kissing off 6 TB of corporate contracts, proposals, plans, projections and Need for speed budgets each year. A recent study by the The study goes on to put a price Ponemon Institute State of tag of $49,246 on a typical “disap- backup dedupe peared” laptop; again, that seems put a price tag of on the high side as it’s based $49,246 on a typical on just about every worst-case Storage “disappeared” laptop. tech evolves scenario imaginable. Unless your company’s laptop losers are writing patents, putting risky information in the hands of competitors and would-be Virtualize litigants, and jotting down the passwords for your corporate bank accounts, your storage your tab probably won’t be so high. But consider lost productivity, potential legal issues (and their resulting fines), compromised competitiveness Backup options and so on, and a lost laptop can easily run up a considerable bill. for ROBOs So, what are you doing about laptop backup? Our surveys and other research show that the “other” backup problem—backing up remote and Hybrid branch offices—finally seems to be under control (see our latest Snapshot clouds loom survey, “Users get upper hand over remote site backup,” page 48 in this issue). But mobile computing is still an issue, and it’s gotten a little muddled

Remote backup lately with smartphones and tablets getting added to the mix of things to under control worry about. Not too long ago laptop backup might have been one of the toughest data protection nuts to crack, with few alternatives and little or no integra- Sponsor resources tion with other backup processes. Cloud backup services (and there are tons of them) now offer good alternatives, and there are a handful of new endpoint backup apps that also deserve some attention. Still, a lot of shops dismiss those alternatives as just another backup application to maintain. But if you haven’t had the time to check specs lately you might not know how much the mobile backup landscape has changed, and now the

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odds are that whatever your company is using right now to back up its data center and remote offices can also be used for laptops. For example, if you use a backup app from CA, CommVault, EMC, HP, IBM, Microsoft or Symantec, it has a laptop backup option. And even if you’re using a slightly less popular backup app, it’s also likely to have laptop support these days. So you can have a fully integrated backup system—data center, remote offices and mobile users—using a single app with one management console. Does adding laptop support to your backup application mean extra work Lax laptop backup for your overtaxed crew? Sure, and if you have a lot of laptops floating around, it could be a significant effort to protect them. But if you don’t think it’s really worth the time and effort, do you think it might be worth, Need for speed say, $49,246? 2

Rich Castagna ([email protected]) is editorial director of the State of backup dedupe Storage Media Group.

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The need for speed Servers and networks have the pedal to the metal, but storage is struggling to keep up. As applications crave more and more performance, data storage vendors will need to find new solutions. Lax laptop backup

Need for speed HERE’S A LOT OF BUZZ around application performance and the direct connection it has with data storage performance. Server virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and business intelligence/big data are some State of of the key forces driving this need for speed. Servers and networks are backup dedupe getting faster, but disk drives and the storage systems built around them aren’t keeping up. There’s also a price/performance imbalance that’s Storage becoming alarming with the cost per I/O per second (IOPS) climbing on tech evolves the storage side of the data center. Application performance isn’t just a “special case” requirement. There Virtualize are certain applications that need high performance the majority of the your storage t time. However, we often have to engineer our environments for the 10% or 20% of the time when performance is critical, which would include a

Backup options much larger group of applications. for ROBOs IT professionals want to increase virtual to physical server ratios from 10:1 to 50:1, but storage is the limiting factor. Some organizations need to have hundreds or thousands of virtual desktops accessing a single pool of Hybrid clouds loom storage but they’re limited by boot storms. And big data analytics drive the need for speed through an enormous number of transactions per second; there are solutions optimized to handle these workloads but they Remote backup come at a high price. under control You could always increase the performance of storage, but just how much performance are you willing to pay for? To increase IOPS you add Sponsor more disk drives, create wide stripes and implement short stroking. But resources that can be very expensive. Alternatively, you can just add lots and lots of solid-state drives (SSDs), but we’re talking big bucks again. And what’s the right balance of price, performance and capacity for your environment? If you don’t need lots of capacity, do you really want to buy lots of disk drives just to increase IOPS? However, if you require a substantial amount

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of capacity, then buying SSDs will be unattractive price-wise and may not be technically practical to implement. By placing dense and fast memory inside servers, Fusion-io has been the big winner in terms of market buzz and IPO so far. Yet the Fusion-io solution lacks in capacity and high availability, and it’s an expensive and non-shareable resource. It may also be a concern that 90% of its revenue comes from just a handful of customers. Storage system vendors have also seen the trend for more performance Lax laptop backup and nearly all have responded with SSD options. A few have automated tiering that can move data at a sub-LUN level between tiers, including Dell Compellent with Data Progression, EMC with FAST, Hitachi Data Systems Need for speed with Hitachi Dynamic Tiering and Hewlett-Packard 3PAR with Adaptive By placing dense and State of Optimization. All these solutions backup dedupe typically have some page or extent fast memory inside of varying sizes they promote/demote servers, Fusion-io based on activity/inactivity. Storage has been the big tech evolves Xiotech has a unique approach with its Hybrid ISE product using winner in terms of Continuous Adaptive Data Placement market buzz and Virtualize (CADP) that creates a single pool of your storage storage from SSDs and hard disk IPO so far. drives (HDDs). Instead of promoting Backup options and demoting data based on activity/ inactivity, Xiotech monitors application for ROBOs performance and places data on SSD or HDD based on whether there will be an actual improvement perceivable to the user. The goal is to ensure Hybrid that price, performance and capacity are in optimal balance. clouds loom There are also a number of notable startups, including Nimble Storage. Nimble is taking the world by storm with an iSCSI solution that has SSD

Remote backup and HDD, and leverages inline data compression to optimize capacity. under control Additionally, there are pure-play SSD storage systems from companies like Nimbus Data Systems and Violin Memory. And solid-state stalwarts like Texas Memory Systems are revitalized because of the new attention Sponsor resources to high-performance storage. Potential customers are inundated with choices and the various options come with incredible claims of IOPS and throughput performance. Hundreds of thousands and even millions of IOPS . . . and still affordable! But an old skeptic like me knows that performance depends on a number of factors.

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And besides, all those marketing numbers you’re getting showered with are always based on best-case scenarios. What happens to performance when something goes wrong? What if a disk drive fails (and we’re not just talking HDDs; solid-state drives don’t spin but they can also fail)? What happens to performance when a Application controller fails? How is primary application performance impacted performance is the Lax laptop backup if there’s another operation such as hot new requirement mirroring running? How is perform- and storage is the ance impacted as capacity utilization Need for speed increases? What is performance over bottleneck. time: one year, two years or three

State of years after initial implementation? These are questions that are rarely backup dedupe asked, and when they are, they often trip up storage vendors. Application performance is the hot new requirement and storage is the bottleneck. The imbalance in the data center is real and will only get worse Storage tech evolves if things continue as they are. Server and desktop virtualization as well as the emergence of big data analytics as a major application all highlight the performance disadvantage that’s inherent in disk-based storage systems. Virtualize The good news is that there’s a ton of investment in trying to solve this your storage problem. The bad news is that the number of options IT professionals will have to choose from will make their heads spin; and we all know how slow Backup options and error prone that can be! 2 for ROBOs

Tony Asaro is senior analyst and founder of Voices of IT.

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In a relativelyDedupe short time, data State of backup dedupe deduplication has revolutionized disk-based backup, but the Storage tech evolves technology is still evolving with new applications and Virtualize your storage more choices than ever.

BY LAUREN WHITEHOUSE Backup options for ROBOs

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ATA DEDUPLICATION TECHNOLOGY identifies and eliminates redundant data Sponsor resources segments so that backups consume significantly less storage capacity. It lets organizations hold onto months of backup data to ensure rapid restores (better recovery time objective [RTO]) and lets them back up more frequently to create more recovery points (better recovery point objective [RPO]). Companies also save money by using less disk capacity and by optimizing network bandwidth. 13 dSTORAGE August 2011 STORAGE

Deduplication was first adopted by companies with tight backup windows and those looking to reduce tape usage. The primary considerations were seamless integration with incumbent backup apps and processes, and ease of implementation. In the next wave of adoption, concerns shifted to scaling capacity and performance. Vendors beefed up disk capacity, performance, network connectivity and system interfaces, and also improved deduplication processing. Recovery was improved with the use of optimized replication. Lax laptop backup With ongoing data growth and highly distributed environments, organizations and data dedupe vendors have been driven to investigate other ways to optimize deduplication, including new architectures, packaging Need for speed and deduplication techniques.

State of backup dedupe DEDUPLICATION IS DEFINITELY DESIRABLE Research from Milford, Mass.-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) reveals that the use of deduplication is increasing. Thirty-eight percent of survey Storage tech evolves respondents cited adoption of deduplication in 2010 vs. 13% in 2008. By 2012, another 40% plan to adopt deduplication (ESG Research Report, Data Protection Trends, January 2008 and ESG Research Report, Data Protection Virtualize Trends, April 2010). your storage In addition, according to the ESG Research Report 2011 IT Spending Intentions, data reduction ranked in the top one-third of all storage priorities Backup options for enterprise-scale organizations (those with 1,000 or more employees). for ROBOs While debates continue about the nuances of deduplication products such as file vs. virtual tape library (VTL) interface, source vs. target, hard- Hybrid ware vs. software, inline vs. post process, fixed-block size vs. variable- clouds loom block size, it’s important to remember that the goal of any deduplication approach is to store less data.

Remote backup under control TARGET DEDUPLICATION SYSTEMS Products that deduplicate at the end of the backup data path are called Sponsor resources target deduplication systems. They’re often storage appliances with disk storage or gateways that can be paired with any disk. Target dedupe vendors include EMC Corp., ExaGrid Systems Inc., Falcon- Stor Software Inc., Fujitsu, GreenBytes Inc., Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co., IBM, NEC Corp., Quantum Corp., Sepaton Inc. and Symantec Corp. What often distinguishes these products is their underlying architecture. Aside from

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appliance vs. gateway differences (FalconStor and IBM offer gateways), another key factor is whether they’re single- or multi-node configurations. With a single-node architecture, performance and capacity scaling is limited to an upper threshold for the configuration. While some of these products can be sized to handle tremendous scale, you may have to over- purchase now to accommodate future growth. When the upper limit is hit, a “forklift” upgrade is required to move up in performance or capacity, Lax laptop backup or another deduplication unit must be added. The latter option results in deduplication “islands” because backup data isn’t compared for redundancy across systems. Need for speed

State of APIs and open standards backup dedupe

YMANTEC CORP.’S OpenStorage Technology (OST) is an API for NetBack- Storage tech evolves up (Versions 6.5 and higher) and Backup Exec 2010. Target deduplication system vendors leverage the API to write a software plug-in module that’s installed on the backup media server to communicate Virtualize s with the storage device, creating tighter integration between the your storage backup software and target storage. It enables features such as intelligent capacity management, media server load balancing, re- Backup options porting and lifecycle policies. It also delivers optimized duplication— for ROBOs network-efficient replication and direct disk-to-tape duplication that’s monitored and cataloged by the backup software. EMC Corp. Hybrid offers similar functionality for EMC NetWorker; however, to date, the clouds loom benefits are only extended to EMC Data Domain deduplication systems. APIs facilitate interoperability, but could the industry take it one

Remote backup step further with a deduplication standard? A standard algorithm, under control similar to compression today, could emerge and open-source software could be the vehicle for it to develop and gain a following. The lobby for a standard is fueled by the need to seamlessly, efficiently Sponsor resources and rapidly move data between disk and tape (without having to un-deduplicate or rehydrate the data), as well as to improve recovery operations. Any of the dedupe technologies added to open-source backup apps—such as Bacula and Amanda—and open-source ZFS and SDFS file systems could one day emerge as a standard.

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Vendors with a single-node architecture include EMC, Fujitsu, GreenBytes and Quantum. EMC does offer the Data Domain Global Deduplication Array (GDA), a composite system consisting of two DD890 devices that appear as a single system to the backup application. EMC might argue that GDA meets the criteria to be considered a multi-node configuration with global deduplication, but it has two controllers, two deduplication indexes and two storage silos. The devices also aren’t in a high-availability configuration; in fact, if one DD890 goes down, then neither DD890 is available. EMC distributes a Lax laptop backup portion of deduplication processing upstream from its appliance, but only for EMC backup apps and backup apps that support Symantec OpenStorage Technology (OST). For example, at the media server, EMC performs pre-pro- Need for speed cessing, creating 1 MB chunks to compare with the deduplication index. If the pattern of the content contained in the large chunks has redundancy,

State of the data is broken down into the more traditional 8 KB chunks, compressed, backup dedupe and transferred to one DD890 controller or the other for further processing, depending on where there’s a better chance of eliminating redundant data. Storage tech evolves In a multi-node architecture, a product can manage multiple dedupe systems as one. This approach also provides linear throughput and capacity scaling, high availability and load balancing. There’s a reduction in admin- Virtualize istrative overhead and, importantly, global deduplication is typical. ExaGrid your storage EX Series, FalconStor File-interface Deduplication System (FDS), HP’s Virtual Library Systems (VLS), IBM ProtecTier, NEC Hydrastor, Sepaton DeltaStor Backup options and Symantec NetBackup 5000 Series all have multi-node configurations for ROBOs

Hybrid clouds loom Global deduplication

LOBAL REFERS TO Remote backup the domain of comparison for deduplication. Identifi- under control cation of duplicates occurs in two ways. Within a single domain, gbackup data passes through an individual system and is compared with data passing through the same system. With deduplication Sponsor resources across domains, backup data passes through an individual system and is compared with data passing through the same system as well as other systems in the domain. Global deduplication can result in higher deduplication ratios because there are more comparisons and, therefore, more chances to find replicate data.

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and support global deduplication. The modular architectures of these products deliver impressive aggregate performance and let you grow the systems seamlessly. Symantec’s appliance is a new entrant in the target deduplication system field through a joint venture with Huawei. Symantec maintains a unique position in the data protection market as the only vendor to offer integrated deduplication in its own backup software- and hardware-based products as well as catalog-level integration with backup target devices of third- Lax laptop backup party vendors via its OST interface.

Need for speed DEDUPLICATION IN BACKUP SOFTWARE While originally limited to so-called “next-generation” backup apps like EMC’s Avamar, deduplication in backup software is now pervasive. Backup State of backup dedupe software products with deduplication include Arkeia Network Backup, Asigra Cloud Backup, Atempo Time Navigator, CA ARCserve, Cofio Software AIMstor, CommVault Simpana, Druva InSync Storage tech evolves and Phoenix, EMC Avamar, i365 EVault, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM), The deduplication Quest Software NetVault Backup, domain is limited to Virtualize Symantec Backup Exec and NetBack- your storage up, and Veeam Backup & Replication. data protected by In software, client agents running the backup applica- Backup options on application servers identify and tion; multiple backup for ROBOs transfer unique data to the backup media server and target storage de- applications in the

Hybrid vice, reducing network traffic. Other same environment clouds loom software solutions deduplicate the create deduplication backup stream at the backup server, removing any potential performance silos. Remote backup under control burden from production application servers. The deduplication domain is limited to data protected by the backup application; multiple backup applications in the same environment Sponsor resources create deduplication silos. Global deduplication isn’t a given with software approaches either. First of all, not all vendors employ the same techniques for identifying duplicates. Some deduplicate by employing delta differencing (e.g., Asigra), which com- pares data segments for the same backup set over time. Deltas identify unique blocks for the current set vs. the previous backup of that set and

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only transfer unique blocks. It LTFS doesn’t make comparisons across different sets (i.e., no ITH THE INTRODUCTION of IBM Linear global deduplication). Tape File System (LTFS), a data Another approach is to use a format that provides a file system hash algorithm. Some vendors interface to data stored on LTO-5 segment the backup stream into fixed blocks (anywhere from 8 KB Lax laptop tape media, tape can be treated to 256 KB), generate a hash val- backup more like an external disk device. With LTFS, data doesn’t have to ue and compare it to a central be written in a tape format, so index of hashes calculated for Need for speed the data is independent of the previously seen blocks. A unique application that wrote it. It may hash indicates unique data that should be stored. A repeated State of walso be a more appropriate long- backup dedupe term storage medium for uncom- hash signals redundant data, so pressible data types, such as a pointer to the unique data is stored instead. Other vendors Storage medical images and video files. tech evolves Does LTFS offer an opportunity rely on variable block sizes that for dedupe vendors to integrate help increase the odds that a tape as a long-term storage tier common segment will be de- Virtualize tected even after a file is modi- your storage for deduplicated data? The jury’s still out on that one, as we’ll have fied. This approach finds natural to see if vendors adopt it. patterns or break points that Backup options might occur in a file and then for ROBOs segments the data accordingly. Even if blocks shift when a file is changed, this approach is more likely to Hybrid find repeated segments. The trade-off? A variable-length approach may clouds loom require a vendor to track and compare more than just one unique ID for a segment, which could affect index size and computational time.

Remote backup Arkeia Software uses another approach it calls progressive deduplica- under control tion. This method optimizes deduplication with a sliding-window block size and a two-phase progressive-matching deduplication technique. Files are divided into fixed blocks, but the blocks can overlap so that when a file is Sponsor resources changed, the block boundaries accommodate the insertion of bytes. Arkeia adds another level of optimization by automatically assigning fixed block sizes (from 1 KB to 32 KB) based on file type. The technique also uses a sliding window to determine duplicate blocks at every byte location in a file. Progressive deduplication is designed to achieve high reduction ratios and to minimize false positives while accelerating processing.

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DEDUPLICATION’S GROWING PAINS As deduplication technology has matured, users have experienced most of the growing pains. Growing data volumes that tax backup and recovery have been a catalyst for performance and scale improvements, and have shifted attention to scale-out architectures for deduplication solutions. And replacing tape devices at remote and branch offices created requirements for optimized site-to-site replication, as well as a way to track those duplicate copies in the backup catalog. Lax laptop backup In its most recent Data Protection Trends research report, ESG surveyed end users regarding their deduplication selection criteria and cost was the top purchase consideration. Some of the issues affecting cost include the Need for speed following: • Some backup software vendors add deduplication as a no-cost feature

State of (CA and IBM TSM), while others charge for it. backup dedupe • There are hidden costs, such as the added fee to enable replication between deduplication systems. And the recovery site has to be a duplicate (or nearly so) of the system at the primary location, which Storage tech evolves can double fees. There are exceptions, such as Symantec 5000 Series appliances, which include device-to-device replication at no charge. Symantec also licenses its product based on the front-end capacity Virtualize your storage of the data being protected vs. the back-end capacity of the data being stored, so replicated copies don’t incur additional costs. • Target deduplication system vendors bundle their storage hardware Backup options with the deduplication software, so refreshing the hardware platform for ROBOs means the software is repurchased. Again, Symantec takes a different approach, licensing software and hardware separately. Hybrid clouds loom USERS DRIVE NEW DEDUPE DEVELOPMENTS In addition to Arkeia’s progressive deduplication approach, other develop- Remote backup under control ments have been pushing the dedupe envelope. CommVault’s ability to deduplicate on physical tape media is one such example. In spite of the initial hype regarding disk-only data protection and the potential to elimi- Sponsor resources nate tape, for most companies the reality is that tape is still an obvious, low-cost choice for long-term data retention. Dedupe has been considered only a disk-centric process due to the need for the deduplication index and all unique data to be available and accessible to “rehydrate” what’s stored. That means when deduplicated data is copied or moved from the deduplication store to tape media, it must be reconstituted, reversing all

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the benefits of data reduction. But CommVault’s Simpana software enables archival copies of deduplicated data without rehydration, requiring less tape media. Importantly, data can be recovered from tape media without having to first recover the entire tape to disk. When source deduplication approaches gained traction, the key benefits touted were the end-to-end efficiency of backing up closer to the data source (content-awareness, network bandwidth savings and faster backups) and distributing deduplication processing across the environment (vs. having Lax laptop backup the proverbial four-lane highway hit the one-lane bridge downstream at the target deduplication system). These two themes are evident in HP’s Store- Once deduplication strategy and EMC Data Domain’s Boost approach. Need for speed While HP Data Protector software doesn’t have deduplication built into its backup architecture today, users can benefit from HP’s StoreOnce dedu-

State of plication strategy. StoreOnce is a modular component that runs as a service backup dedupe in a file system. It can be integrated with HP Data Protector backup software and HP’s scale-out file system or embedded in HP infrastructure compo- Storage tech evolves nents. The StoreOnce algorithm involves EMC Data Domain’s two steps: sampling large data se- Boost option quences (approximately 10 MB) to Virtualize determine the likelihood of duplicates enables Data your storage and routing them to the best node for Domain to perform deduplication, and then doing a hash deduplication Backup options and compare on smaller chunks. HP’s for ROBOs dedupe strategy is differentiated be- pre-processing cause it’s portable, scalable and global. earlier in the Hybrid The implication is that dedupe deploy- backup flow with clouds loom ments can extend across a LAN or WAN and among storage systems NetBackup, Backup

Remote backup without flip-flopping data between Exec, EMC Avamar under control rehydrated and deduplicated states. or EMC NetWorker. EMC Data Domain’s Boost option enables Data Domain to perform Sponsor resources deduplication pre-processing earlier in the backup flow with NetBackup, Backup Exec, EMC Avamar or EMC NetWorker. A Data Domain software component is installed on the backup server or application client. The tasks performed there help improve deduplication performance by distributing the workload while introducing network efficiency between the backup server or application client and the Data Domain system.

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WHAT’S IN STORE FOR DEDUPLICATION? Disk-based data protection addresses backup window issues and deduplication addresses the cost of disk used in backup configurations. But new capture techniques, such as array-based snapshots, are emerging to meet high-performance requirements for those organizations with little or no backup window and minimal downtime tolerance. In many cases, block-level incremental capture and deduplication are baked into snapshot products. NetApp’s Integrated Data Protection products (SnapMirror, SnapProtect and Lax laptop backup SnapVault), coupled with NetApp FAS-based deduplication, eliminate the need for deduplication in backup software or target deduplication systems. Similarly, Actifio VirtualData Pipeline (VDP) takes a full image-level backup Need for speed and continuous block-level incrementals thereafter, and deduplicates and compresses the data so a third-party data reduction application isn’t needed.

State of Nimble Storage takes a similar approach. It combines primary and second- backup dedupe ary storage in a single solution, leverages snapshot- and replication-style data protection, and employs capacity optimization techniques to reduce the footprint of backup data. These approaches undermine traditional-style Storage tech evolves backup and, therefore, traditional deduplication techniques. 2

Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on data protection software and Virtualize systems at Enterprise Strategy Group, Milford, Mass. your storage

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21 STORAGE August 2011 Switch to single-platform Simpana® software for truly modern data and information management. Year after year, some companies stick with legacy data computing, and smooth adaptation to challenges like data protection software not designed to handle today’s IT center consolidation and eDiscovery requirements. realities. The result? Business at risk, frustrated users, The result? Up to 50% reduction in storage-related out-of-control costs, and compromised business agility. costs, and a far simpler, saner way to manage, access, In a word, insanity. and recover business information. In a word, oneness. With its revolutionary single-platform architecture, To learn how you can do far more with less and add real Simpana software enables you to solve these problems value to your end users and your business with Simpana right now and far into the future. It will lower operational, software, visit AchieveOneness.com or call 888-311-0365. labor, and infrastructure costs, streamline integration of new technologies like virtualization and cloud

Backup & Recovery Archive Virtual Server Protection Information Governance Deduplication Disaster Recovery Search

©1999-2011 CommVault Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. CommVault, the “CV” logo, Solving Forward, Simpana, and AchieveOneness are trademarks or registered trademarks of CommVault Systems, Inc. All specifications are subject to change without notice. NEW TRENDS in STORAGE It may seem as if storage technologies are a little stodgy and out of date, but there’s plenty of technical development going on at both big storage Lax laptop vendors and smaller upstarts. BY STEPHEN FOSKETT backup

Need for speed

State of backup dedupe

Storage tech evolves

Virtualize your storage

Backup options for ROBOs

Hybrid clouds loom

Remote backup under control HE ENTERPRISE DATA storage industry doesn’t have a reputation as a hotbed of innovation, but that characterization may be unfair. Although bedrock Sponsor resources technologies like RAID and SCSI have soldiered along for more than two decades, new ideas have flourished as well. Today, technologies like solid- state storage, capacity optimization and automatic tiering are gaining prominence, and specialized storage systems for virtual servers are being developed. Although the enterprise arrays of tomorrow will still be quite recognizable, they’ll adopt and advance these new concepts. 23 STORAGEtAugust 2011 STORAGE

SOLID-STATE CACHE Spinning magnetic disks have been the foundation for enterprise data storage since the 1950s, and for just about as long there’s been talk of how solid-state storage will displace them. Today’s NAND flash storage is just a decade old, yet it has already gained significant traction thanks to its performance and mechanical characteristics. Hard disk drives (HDDs) won’t go away anytime soon, but NAND flash will likely become a familiar and dependable component across the spectrum of enterprise storage. Lax laptop backup Hard disks excel at delivering capacity and sequential read and write performance, but modern workloads have changed. Today’s hypervisors and database-driven applications demand quick random access that’s Need for speed difficult to achieve with mechanical arms, heads and platters. The best enterprise storage arrays use RAM as a cache to accelerate random I/O,

State of but RAM chips are generally too expensive to deploy in bulk. backup dedupe NAND flash memory, in contrast, is just as quick at servicing random Flash memory has read and write requests as it is with Storage tech evolves those that occur close together, and found a niche as a the fastest enterprise NAND flash parts cache for hard disk challenge DRAM for read performance. Virtualize drive-based storage your storage Although less expensive, flash memory (especially the enterprise-grade single- systems. level cell [SLC] variety) remains an Backup options order of magnitude more costly than hard disk capacity. Growth in the de- for ROBOs ployment of solid-state drives (SSDs) has slowed and isn’t likely to displace magnetic media in capacity-oriented applications anytime soon. Hybrid Flash memory has found a niche as a cache for hard disk drive-based clouds loom storage systems. Caching differs from tiered storage (see the section on “Automated tiered storage”) in that it doesn’t use solid-state memory as

Remote backup a permanent location for data storage. Rather, this technology redirects under control read and write requests from disk to cache on-demand to accelerate performance, especially random I/O, but commits all writes to disk eventually. Major vendors like EMC Corp. and NetApp Inc. have placed flash memory Sponsor resources in their storage arrays and designed controller software to use it as a cache rather than a tier. NetApp’s Flash Cache cards use the internal PCI bus in their filers, while EMC’s Clariion FAST Cache relies on SATA-connected SSDs. But both leverage their existing controllers and expand on the algo- rithms already in place for RAM caching.

24 STORAGE August 2011 STORAGE

Avere Systems Inc. and Marvell Technology Group Ltd., a couple of rela- tive newcomers, take a different tack. With a history in the scale-out network-attached storage (NAS) space, Avere’s team developed an appliance that sits in-band between existing NAS arrays and clients. “No single technology is best for all workloads,” said Ron Bianchini, Avere’s founder and CEO, “so we built a device that integrates the best of RAM, flash and disk.” Bianchini claims Avere’s FXT appliance delivers 50 times lower access latency using a customer’s existing NAS devices. Lax laptop backup Marvell’s upcoming DragonFly Virtual Storage Accelerator (VSA) card is designed for placement inside the server itself. The DragonFly uses speedy non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) as well as SATA-connected SSDs for cache capac- Need for speed ity, but all data is committed to the storage array eventually. “This is focused on random writes, and it’s a new product category,” claims Shawn Kung,

State of director of product marketing at Marvell. “DragonFly can yield an up to 10x backup dedupe higher virtual machine I/O per second, while lowering overhead cost by

Storage tech evolves storage Virtualize All-Flash your storage

ALTHOUGH FLASH is expensive on a capacity basis compared to Backup options hard disk technology, many applications can be run completely for ROBOs in flash. iSCSI pioneer Nimbus Data Systems Inc. transitioned to an all-flash offering last year and has seen good results. “Our

Hybrid S-Class enterprise storage arrays deliver 90% lower energy costs clouds loom and 24x better I/O performance,” said CEO Thomas Isakovich. “And since we include inline deduplication and thin provisioning, we’re competitive on a cost-per-used-capacity basis as well.” Remote backup under control All-flash storage in a PCI card form factor is popular in high- performance applications as well. Fusion-io has gained traction with its ioDrive cards, and LSI, OCZ Technology Group Inc., Texas Sponsor resources Memory Systems Inc. and Virident Systems Inc. have also found enterprise success with solid-state systems. Flash maker Micron Technology Inc. recently jumped into this market with a PCI Ex- press flash storage card priced 25% lower than its competition.

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50% or more.” The company plans to deliver production products in the fourth quarter. EMC, famous for its large enterprise storage arrays, is also moving into server-side caching. Barry Burke, chief strategy officer for EMC Symmetrix, said EMC’s Lightning project “will integrate with the automated tiering capabilities already delivered to VMAX and VNX customers.” EMC previewed the project at the recent EMC World conference and plans to ship it later this year. Lax laptop backup VIRTUALIZATION-OPTIMIZED STORAGE Need for speed One common driver for the adoption of high-performance storage arrays is the expanding use of server virtualization. Hypervisors allow multiple

State of virtual machines (VMs) to share a single hardware platform, which can backup dedupe have serious side effects when it comes to storage I/O. Rather than a slow and predictable stream of mostly sequential data, a busy virtual server environment is a fire hose torrent of random reads and writes. Storage tech evolves This “I/O blender” challenges the basic assumptions used to develop storage system controllers and caching strategies, and vendors are Virtualize rapidly adapting to the new rules. The This “I/O blender” your storage deployment of SSD and flash caches challenges the basic help, but virtual servers are demand- assumptions used Backup options ing in other ways as well. Virtual for ROBOs environments require extreme to develop storage flexibility, with rapid storage provi- system controllers Hybrid sioning and dynamic movement of clouds loom workloads from machine to machine. and caching strate- Vendors like VMware Inc. are quickly gies, and vendors Remote backup rolling out technologies to integrate are rapidly adapting under control hypervisor and server management, including VMware’s popular vStorage to the new rules. API for Array Integration (VAAI). Sponsor resources Virtual server environments are an opportunity for innovation and new ideas, and startups are jumping into the fray. One such company, Tintri Inc., has developed a “VM-aware” storage system that combines SATA HDDs, NAND flash and inline data deduplication to meet the performance and flexibility needs of virtual servers. “Traditional storage systems manage LUNs,

27 STORAGE August 2011 STORAGE

volumes or tiers, which have no intrinsic meaning for VMs,” said Tintri CEO Kieran Harty. “Tintri VMstore is managed in terms of VMs and virtual disks, and we were built from scratch to meet the demands of a VM environment.” Tintri’s VM-aware storage target, isn’t the only option. IO Turbine Inc. leverages PCIe-based flash cards or SSDs in server hardware with Accelio, its VM-aware storage acceleration software. “Accelio enables more applications to be deployed on virtual machines without the I/O performance limitations of conventional storage,” claims Rich Boberg, IO Turbine’s CEO. Lax laptop backup The Accelio driver transparently redirects I/O requests to the flash as needed to reduce the load on existing storage arrays.

Need for speed CAPACITY OPTIMIZATION

State of Not all data storage innovations are focused on performance. The growth backup dedupe of data has been a major challenge in many environments, and deleting data isn’t always an acceptable answer. Startups like Ocarina and Storwize

Storage tech evolves

Virtualize your storage The end of the SAN?

Backup options ALTHOUGH SCSI IS still the dominant enterprise data storage pro- for ROBOs tocol in the form of Fibre Channel and iSCSI, that might change in the future. The rise of PCI Express storage suggests that cen-

Hybrid tralized networked storage might not always dominate. Internal clouds loom cards dramatically reduce access latency, and the performance of these solutions is an order of magnitude better than traditional SCSI-based technology. Remote backup under control The rise of virtual machine-specific and cloud storage suggests that other changes are imminent. In both cases, some products eschew traditional block or file access in favor of an application Sponsor resources programming interface (API). These devices are designed to be integrated, automated components of a larger environment, application platform or hypervisor, and would no longer require storage architects and managers.

28 STORAGE August 2011 STORAGE

updated existing technologies like compression and single-instance storage (SIS) for modern storage applications. Now that these companies are in the hands of major vendors (Dell Inc. and IBM, respectively), users are beginning to give capacity optimization a serious look. Reducing storage has ripple effects, requiring less capacity for replication, backup and disaster recovery (DR) as “The Ocarina technol- well as primary data storage. “The ogy is flexible enough Lax laptop Ocarina technology is flexible enough backup to be optimized for to be optimized for the platforms we’re embedding the technology into,” said the platforms we’re Need for speed Mike Davis, marketing manager for embedding the Dell’s file system and optimization technology into.” State of technologies. “This is an end-to-end —MIKE DAVIS, marketing manager, Dell backup dedupe strategy, so we’re looking closely at how we can extend these benefits beyond the storage platforms to the cloud as well as the server tier.” Storage tech evolves Data deduplication is also moving to the primary storage space. Once only used for backup and archiving applications, NetApp, Nexenta Systems Inc., Nimbus Data Systems Inc., Permabit Technology Corp. and others Virtualize are applying deduplication technology in arrays and appliances. “NetApp’s your storage deduplication technology [formerly known as A-SIS] is optimized for both primary [performance and availability] as well as secondary [capacity- Backup options optimized backup, archive and DR] storage requirements,” said Val Bercovici, for ROBOs NetApp’s cloud czar. NetApp integrated deduplication into its storage software and claims no latency overhead on I/O traffic. Hybrid clouds loom AUTOMATED TIERED STORAGE One hot area of innovation for the largest enterprise storage vendors is Remote backup under control the transformation of their arrays from fixed RAID systems to granular, automatically tiered storage devices. Smaller companies like 3PAR and Compellent (now part of Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell, respectively) kicked Sponsor resources off this trend, but EMC, Hitachi Data Systems and IBM are delivering this technology as well. A new crop of startups, including Nexenta, are also active in this area. “NexentaStor leverages SSDs for hybrid storage pools, which automatically tier frequently accessed blocks to the SSDs,” noted Evan Powell, Nexenta’s CEO. Powell also said that his firm’s software platform allows users to

29 STORAGE August 2011 STORAGE

supply their own SSDs, which he claims reduces the cost of entry for this technology. EMC has added virtual provisioning and automated tiering across its product line. “EMC took a new storage technology [flash] and used it to deliver both greater performance as well as cost savings,” said Chuck Hollis, EMC’s global marketing chief technology officer. “Best of all, it’s far simpler to set up and manage.” Like caching, automated tiered storage improves data storage system Lax laptop backup performance as much as it attacks the cost of capacity. By moving “hot” data to faster storage devices (10K or 15K rpm disks or SSD), tiered storage systems can perform faster than similar devices without the expense of Need for speed widely deploying these faster devices. Conversely, automated tiering can be more energy- and space-efficient because it moves “bulk” data to

State of slower but larger-capacity drives. backup dedupe

INNOVATION IN STORAGE Storage tech evolves Enterprise storage vendors must maintain compatibility, stability and performance while advancing the state of the art in technology—goals that may sometimes seem at odds. Although smaller companies have been a Virtualize little more nimble at introducing new innovations like capacity optimization your storage and virtualization-aware storage access, the large vendors are also moving quickly. They’ve put into service solid-state caching and automated tiered Backup options storage, and are moving forward in other areas. Whether through invention for ROBOs or acquisition, innovation is alive and well in enterprise storage. 2

Hybrid Stephen Foskett is an independent consultant and author specializing in enter- clouds loom prise storage and cloud computing. He is responsible for Gestalt IT, a community of independent IT thought leaders, and organizes their Tech Field Day events. He can be found online at GestaltIT.com, FoskettS.net and on Twitter at @SFoskett. Remote backup under control

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Need for speed are you? Adoption of storage virtualization State of has been accelerating as some of the backup dedupe early obstacles to implementation have fallen by the wayside. There’s Storage a wide choice of mature products tech evolves whether you decide to deploy storage virtualization at the Virtualize array or in the network. your storage

BY ERIC SLACK Backup options for ROBOs

Hybrid clouds loom

HILE THERE MAY BE some dispute over an exact definition, storage virtualization Remote backup under control is generally considered technology that provides a flexible, logical arrange- ment of data storage capacity to users while abstracting the physical location from them. It’s a software layer that intercepts I/O requests to the Sponsor resources logical capacity and maps them to the correct physical locations. The most basic implementation of storage virtualization is at the host level, where a logical volume manager allows the simple provisioning of storage capacity to apps and users. While also implemented with file storage systems, block storage virtualization is more commonly imple- wmented due to the complexity of LUN management and the requirements

32 STORAGE August 2011 STORAGE

for flexibility in storage provisioning, especially in multi-user environments. This article covers storage virtualization technologies at the network and storage device level, not at the host level.

GOODBYE TO GROUPS, LUNs AND PARTITIONING The legacy process of creating array groups, allocating LUNs and partitioning volumes is a complicated and inefficient way to provision storage, par- Lax laptop ticularly when it involves balancing performance and reliability of physical backup disks across drive shelves. Similarly, expanding an existing host’s volume can be a time-consuming process of concatenating LUNs and copying Need for speed data. Storage virtualization provides a better way to keep up with the demands of provisioning storage to Virtualization can State of backup dedupe applications and servers while reduc- improve performance ing time and resources expended by as host volumes are allowing the “brains” of the storage Storage easily spread across tech evolves system to make most of the deci- sions. It can also improve utilization larger numbers of by replacing the guesswork of manual disk drives, which Virtualize allocation while supporting technolo- your storage gies like thin provisioning. could negatively Initially, virtualization was simply affect capacity Backup options a tool used to provision and manage for ROBOs utilization. storage efficiently. But by isolating the host from physical storage, the

Hybrid technology also enabled storage capacity in different physical chassis clouds loom (even from different manufacturers) to be logically combined into common pools that could be managed more easily. While some of these heterogeneous systems were used to create larger volumes than were physically Remote backup under control present on any one disk array, most use cases employed storage virtualization as a common management platform. This enabled existing storage systems to be repurposed and reduced the overhead associated with Sponsor resources managing multiple silos of storage, although the physical disk systems still needed to be maintained. Virtualization can improve performance as host volumes are easily spread across larger numbers of disk drives, which could negatively affect capacity utilization. Virtualization also allows storage tiering and data migrations between devices, such as moving older data to an archiving appliance or

33 STORAGE August 2011 hot database indexes to a solid-state drive (SSD) cache. These activities are typically carried out based on policies set at the host, application or file level, and the same data movement mechanism can be used to migrate data offsite for disaster recovery (DR) purposes.

DEVICE-BASED VIRTUALIZATION In the traditional scale-up architecture where the controllers are sepa- Lax laptop backup rate from the disk shelves, virtualization at the storage device level is typically built into the controller operating system. As a standard feature it essentially provides a workable solution for provisioning the tens or Need for speed hundreds of terabytes that modern storage arrays can contain. Most systems include the ability to create tiers of storage within a single virtu-

State of alized system or among discrete systems, using different storage types backup dedupe (performance drives, capacity drives or SSDs) and different RAID levels. Some also include a policy engine and the ability to move file or sub-file data blocks among the tiers based on activity, application and so on. Storage tech evolves Most systems allow data to be copied to a second chassis for high availability or moved to a second system at a remote site for DR. While the majority of storage systems include virtualization, most don’t support Virtualize storage from other vendors. For a heterogeneous virtualization solution, your storage one that can consolidate different vendors’ storage systems, most options are network based. Backup options for ROBOs NETWORK-BASED VIRTUALIZATION

Hybrid A number of years ago, the conventional storage wisdom was that storage clouds loom services, like virtualization, and to an extent storage control, would eventually reside in “smart switches” on the storage-area network (SAN). While at least one storage virtualization product is moving in that direction, the Remote backup under control network implementation of storage virtualization technology has commonly been in the form of appliances. These appliances are essentially storage controllers that connect to disk arrays or storage systems from Sponsor resources certified vendors, or they’re software that’s installed on user-supplied servers or virtual machines (VMs). Storage virtualization appliances connect to heterogeneous storage arrays directly, or via Fibre Channel (FC) or iSCSI SANs, but most provide the option of using their own disk capacity as well. Most solutions include some storage services, like file sharing, snapshots, data deduplication, thin provisioning, replication, continuous data protection (CDP) and so on.

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IN-BAND AND OUT-OF-BAND VIRTUALIZATION Early on in the lifecycle of storage virtualization technology two primary architectures emerged: in-band and out-of-band virtualization. In-band implementations placed a controller between users and physical storage or the SAN, and passed all storage requests and data through that controller. Out-of-band products placed a metadata controller on the network that remapped storage requests to physical locations, but didn’t handle the actual data. That added complexity to the process but reduced the Lax laptop backup CPU load compared to in-band virtualization. Out-of-band storage virtualization also removed the potential disruption associated with decommis- sioning an in-band device, as users are disconnected from their data while Need for speed storage is remapped. Most network-based virtualization solutions today use the in-band architecture, probably because CPU power is relatively

State of plentiful compared to when storage backup dedupe virtualization first appeared. Another reason for the popularity of in-band WHAT IS solutions is that they’re easier to Storage tech evolves implement, which means faster time SCALE-OUT to market and fewer problems. STORAGE? Virtualize your storage “Scale-out” storage refers STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION PRODUCTS to modular systems that Virtualization has become an essential combine processors and Backup options function for storage provisioning and storage capacity into discrete for ROBOs is included in some form with most physical nodes. This clustered midsized and larger storage systems. architecture lets processing While there are many differences be- Hybrid power expand with capacity as clouds loom nodes are added, and provides tween arrays and their virtualization for a more incremental, albeit technologies, the majority of these device-based implementations don’t Remote backup non-heterogeneous, growth. under control While it could be called “de- support disk capacity from other man- vice based,” virtualization in ufacturers. Instead of listing the large the scale-out space is more number of these storage systems, we’ll Sponsor resources than a standard feature, it’s focus on the smaller category of het- required. It enables these erogeneous storage systems. The fol- systems to scale non-disrup- lowing are examples of heterogeneous tively while user volumes storage virtualization as implemented span nodes in the cluster. in hardware and software products available from a variety of vendors.

36 STORAGE August 2011 STORAGE

DataCore Software Corp.’s SANsymphony is a network-based, in-band software product that runs on commodity x86 servers. It supports heterogeneous storage devices via FC, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) or iSCSI, and connects to hosts as FC or iSCSI storage. Multiple-node clusters can be created to scale capacity and provide high availability. The system provides remote replication and storage services like synchronous mirroring, CDP, thin provisioning and tiered storage. EMC Corp.’s Invista is an out-of-band software solution that runs on a pair of servers (called a Control Path Cluster or CPC) and interacts with Lax laptop “intelligent switches” from Brocade or Cisco. It can virtualize storage from backup most major vendors, connecting to storage and host servers via Fibre Channel. Invista provides mirroring, replication and point-in-time clones Need for speed between storage arrays. FalconStor Software Inc.’s Network Storage Server (NSS) is a network-based, in-band appliance that connects to heterogeneous storage State of backup dedupe systems via iSCSI, FC or InfiniBand, and supports host connectivity with Fibre Channel or iSCSI. Expansion and high availability are provided by connecting multiple controller modules. Besides WAN-optimized replication, NSS Storage tech evolves also provides synchronous mirroring, thin provisioning, snapshots and clones. Hitachi Data Systems’ Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) is a tier 1 storage array system that also provides in-band heterogeneous connec- Virtualize tivity to most major storage vendors’ arrays. It includes the kinds of features your storage and services expected from a tier 1 solution, including thin provisioning of internal and externally attached storage. Backup options IBM’s SAN Volume Controller (SVC) is a network-based, in-band virtu- for ROBOs alization controller that sits on the SAN and connects to heterogeneous storage systems via iSCSI or FC. Pairs of SVC units provide high availability,

Hybrid and up to eight nodes can be clustered to scale bandwidth and capacity. clouds loom Each SVC module features replication between storage systems and a mirroring function between local or remote SVC units. NetApp Inc.’s V-Series Open Storage Controller is an in-band virtual- Remote backup under control ization solution that’s very similar to a NetApp filer controller, but config- ured to support heterogeneous storage arrays. It connects to a FC SAN on the back end to consolidate as much storage as desired from existing Sponsor resources LUNs, and pools them into NetApp LUNs for block or file provisioning as would a regular NetApp filer. NetApp recently acquired the Engenio Storage Virtualization Manager (SVM), a network-based, in-band virtualization controller that supports heterogeneous storage systems. Details of how NetApp will market this solution have yet to be announced.

37 STORAGE August 2011 STORAGE

HANDLE WITH CARE Because most storage virtualization products are in-band, care should be taken to understand the effective performance of the virtualization appliance or cluster as this will be the gating factor to capacity expansion. In addition, storage services or features will also consume CPU cycles, further reducing effective capacity. Storage virtualization is a powerful tool to reduce Capex by improving capacity utilization or performance, but its biggest benefit may be on the Lax laptop backup

Need for speed FILE STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION

HILE MANY STORAGE systems include file services, they virtualize State of backup dedupe data at the block level. However, there are network-attached Wproducts that can consolidate standalone network-attached storage (NAS) systems. These appliances provide a global namespace Storage tech evolves to users on the front end and map file requests to the right physical NAS on the back end. These systems can also provide file storage tiering and migration, some even to cloud storage providers. Examples of Virtualize file virtualization products include the following: your storage AutoVirt Inc. markets an out-of-band file storage virtualization software product that runs on a pair of Windows servers or virtual Backup options machines (VMs). It also provides a global namespace and a policy for ROBOs engine for data tiering, migration and archiving. Being out-of-band, it can be taken out of the environment without disruption. Hybrid Avere Systems Inc.’s FXT is a heterogeneous, scale-out NAS appli- clouds loom ance implemented in clusters of up to 25 2U modules, each containing primarily solid-state (DRAM and solid-state drive) storage. The FXT

Remote backup cluster supports a global, tiered file system, typically encompassing under control NAS systems from other manufacturers; it also provides file virtualization across platforms. F5 Network Inc.’s ARX products are a series of in-band file virtual- Sponsor resources ization appliances that can consolidate multiple heterogeneous NAS devices behind a global namespace, supporting CIFS and NFS protocols. They also provide a policy engine that can automatically move files between NAS systems, locally or to the cloud, based on file attributes, activity or other criteria.

38 STORAGE August 2011 STORAGE

Opex side. It can simplify storage management, even across platforms, and reduce administrative overhead. Virtualization can also make storage expansion a relatively simple operation, often done without taking storage systems down or disrupting users. 2

Eric Slack is a senior analyst at Storage Switzerland.

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EMC2, EMC, and the EMC logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. hot spots | lauren whitehouse

Options for ROBOs: Choose a backup method for the ages Satellite offices and workers are changing the look of companies of all sizes, and backup technology is changing to keep pace. Learn which strategy is best for your remote office, and Lax laptop backup whether remote copies and tape are necessary or not.

Need for speed UE TO THE wide distribution of corporate data across sites, organizations with remote offices/branch offices (ROBOs) are often challenged by the State of backup dedupe demands associated with backup and recovery. Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) recently surveyed more than 450 IT professionals regarding people, process and technology at ROBO locations (“2011 Remote Office and Branch Storage tech evolves Office Technology Trends,” June 2011) and found that 59% of firms with fewer than 10 employees at ROBOs function without any local IT Virtualize staff, even though 71% indicated Both disk and tape storage your storage dthat on-site storage is leveraged systems remain the go-to at some point in the backup components of most ROBO Backup options processes at these locations. Both data protection strategies, for ROBOs disk and tape storage systems remain the go-to components but newer wide-area/

Hybrid of most ROBO data protection remote backup technologies clouds loom strategies, but newer wide- are garnering more serious area/remote backup technologies consideration as a primary are garnering more serious con- Remote backup means of data backup. under control sideration as a primary means of data backup. Specifically, 26% of organizations currently back up data from these locations over the WAN Sponsor resources directly to a centralized corporate site vs. a mere 7% employing this methodology back in 2007. Those with more storage capacity at ROBOs cited improving backup and recovery processes as a top IT priority. For example, ROBOs with more than 25 TBs of storage capacity ranked this as their No. 1 priority, those with 1 TB to 25 TBs of storage capacity ranked it second and ROBOs with less than

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1 TB ranked it fourth. Data growth is a contributing factor. The top ROBO data storage challenges include keeping pace with overall data growth, the need to improve backup and recovery processes, and storage system costs.

ROBO DATA PROTECTION STRATEGIES There are many options available when planning and configuring a data protection strategy for ROBOs. Choices will depend on the availability of Lax laptop on-site staff, the volume of data to protect, corporate policies regarding backup retention and privacy/security, available bandwidth and the capabilities of the backup infrastructure. Need for speed Centralized backup with no ROBO-based copy: With this option, data is backed up directly to an off-site corporate location, such as a corporate headquarters (HQ) data center, with no on-site copy. All backup data is cen- State of backup dedupe tralized and under the direct control of the IT organization. This ensures the security of the backup copies, and the ability to enforce requirements for corporate or regulatory mandates. It also eliminates the need for local Storage tech evolves backup infrastructure and personnel. The downside is that the bandwidth required between sites to transfer daily backup streams could be costly and/or it could take considerable time to transmit backup data to/from the Virtualize central site—unless source deduplication is employed to reduce the vol- your storage ume of data transferred between sites. That’s probably why ESG research found this to be the top method for companies with 1 TB or less of data to Backup options protect. for ROBOs Software as a Service (SaaS) with no ROBO-based copy: Data is backed up to a third-party service provider’s cloud storage directly over

Hybrid the WAN, with no on-site copy. Similar to a centralized backup strategy, clouds loom this approach maintains only a remote copy of data for recovery. After the initial configuration via a Web-based application, data is automatically backed up over a WAN connection at scheduled intervals to the service Remote backup under control provider. Because data is transmitted over the WAN and there’s no on- premises copy, the pros and cons of the SaaS model are similar to the HQ centralized approach; however, backup data custody is with a third party, Sponsor resources so you have to be comfortable with everything that accompanies that strategy. The most important thing here is to make sure you understand your service-level agreements (SLAs) and that they work for you. Local-only backup: Data is backed up to on-site storage with no offsite copy. This approach ensures a duplicate copy of data is made, but doesn’t provide contingencies for a possible outage at the site. In the

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event data can’t be recovered locally or a catastrophe destroys the local copies and the original, it may not be possible to recoup your losses. Local backup with an off-site copy via tape media: Data is initially backed up to on-site storage and a copy is sent off site via removable media (i.e., tape). This approach is the most traditional and still one of the more popular ways to ensure a two-site copy strategy. The on-site copy can be disk- or tape-based (D2D2T or D2T2T), with backup to disk providing a few benefits: speed, the ability to deduplicate data and ease of remote Lax laptop backup management. Copy to tape, however, requires local tape equipment, media, and a mechanism to transport copies to the central HQ or third-party storage facility. It also typically requires a local operator, especially if tape Need for speed device or media error troubleshooting is required. Even with all the constant talk about eliminating tape and the adoption of disk in backup processes,

State of this approach is the most popular overall as reported by ESG research backup dedupe respondents. Local backup with an off-site copy sent over the WAN to HQ: Data is backed up to on-site storage and a copy is transmitted to a central corpo- Storage tech evolves rate location over the WAN. With a disk-to-disk-to-disk (D2D2D) configuration, IT organizations can more easily manage backup operations from a remote location and reduce or eliminate ROBO-based staff. This method Virtualize has gained in popularity over the last few years, mainly driven by lower disk your storage costs, data deduplication and optimized replication between backup disk targets. The optimization introduced through deduplication delivers more Backup options efficient use of bandwidth and storage. The only downside is bulk recovery for ROBOs from the HQ’s copy. In the unlikely event a recovery is required from the HQ copy, it may be faster to ship a portable disk to the ROBO site than to Hybrid recover the data over existing bandwidth. This is an approach more often clouds loom adopted by organizations with higher volumes of data to protect. Local backup with an off-site copy sent over the WAN to the cloud:

Remote backup Data is initially backed up to on-site storage and a copy is then sent to a under control third-party cloud storage provider. The disk-to-disk-to-cloud (D2D2C) scenario uses local disk for most recoveries, while public cloud storage provides the repository for the long-term data retention. Organizations get faster Sponsor resources operational recovery from disk; however, rapid recovery from the cloud may prove to be a challenge for larger data sets. 2

Lauren Whitehouse is a senior analyst focusing on backup and recovery software and replication solutions at Enterprise Strategy Group, Milford, Mass.

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The Web’s best storage-speciﬁc information resource for IT professionals in the UK read/write | jeff byrne

Hybrid clouds on the horizon A few notable glitches have soured some users on cloud storage services, but a hybrid approach that integrates public and private storage may convince cloud skeptics.

Lax laptop backup HE FIRST HALF OF 2011 won’t be remembered as the best of times for the cloud. Despite optimistic predictions, it’s been a stormy few months for Need for speed cloud storage services. An Amazon Web Services (AWS) networking glitch in April caused a multi-day interruption in service for some news-sharing State of and social networking sites. Earlier that month, Iron Mountain Digital an- backup dedupe nounced it would be exiting the commodity-oriented, public cloud storage business over the next couple of years (although the company will continue Storage to provide enterprise-class cloud storage services to business customers tech evolves through an agreement with Autonomy). Finally, Cirtas Systems withdrew its tcloud storage offering in April and laid off much of its engineering staff. Virtualize That was the big news, but we’ve also noted that some small vendors are your storage struggling to gain traction for their cloud storage and compute offerings. These developments may not be surprising in what’s still a fledgling market, but they’ve shaken data storage managers’ confidence in the public Backup options for ROBOs cloud. To hedge their bets, some users are now considering alternative strategies, including hybrid clouds, which enable storage and associated apps to be deployed across both public and private cloud infrastructures. In fact, Hybrid true hybrid cloud storage will span public and private clouds and be opti- clouds loom mized for a user’s specific applications and service-level requirements. Granted, not many companies are running hybrid clouds today. But Remote backup while the technology that will power hybrid clouds is still developing, the under control potential benefits are already coming into focus. Hybrid clouds provide the advantages users already expect from public cloud storage deployments, Sponsor like pay-as-you-go flexibility and self-service. They also promise to provide resources the enterprise-level capabilities typically found only in a private cloud, such as secure multi-tenancy and the ability to deliver quality-of-service levels for availability and performance. Major storage, systems and virtualization vendors are all working on hybrid cloud strategies and roadmaps they hope will give them a leg up in

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what’s expected to be a fast-growing market. Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM have hybrid cloud plans that encompass servers and storage. EMC, Hitachi Data Systems and NetApp have hybrid storage stories and even some concrete offerings. Before hybrid clouds can enter the mainstream, some fundamen- Security of data in tal technical issues must be re- transit and at rest is a solved. Security of data in transit Lax laptop paramount concern of backup and at rest is a paramount concern of users, particularly in light users, particularly in of recent data breaches. Storage light of recent data Need for speed vendors and cloud security start- breaches. ups are developing new encryp-

State of tion, firewall, identity management backup dedupe and associated technologies. Performance of critical applications is another key issue, and several vendors now offer innovative on-premises caching products that reduce data access latency and speed up data recovery. Storage tech evolves Business issues are another concern for storage managers considering cloud deployments. Some industry regulations dictate how and where critical data can be stored, which might, for example, prevent users from using Virtualize public clouds that have data centers spanning multiple geographies. The your storage prospect of getting locked into a particular provider’s public cloud is another worry. It’s easy to upload data into most public clouds, but moving that data Backup options months or years later to a different provider can be difficult and costly. for ROBOs While 2011 may not be the “knee-of-the-curve” year when hybrid cloud storage takes off, a number of interesting applications are catching on. Hybrid Hybrid clouds may not yet have the capabilities to support primary storage for crit- clouds loom ical applications, but several vendors offer cloud-based disaster recovery, backup and gateway solutions. TwinStrata is building a strong cloud storage

Remote backup gateway business that enables on-demand expansion of storage capacity under control as well as data protection capabilities, linking into several different cloud providers. Another startup, StorSimple, helps users control large sets of distributed, unstructured data by surrounding it with a full complement of data Sponsor resources lifecycle services. Many of these solutions aren’t just ready for prime time, they’re already satisfying growing numbers of early adopters. At least one provider—Nirvanix—is delivering on the vision of hybrid cloud storage for the enterprise. Nirvanix hNode provides private cloud storage services that front-end the company’s Storage Delivery Network

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(SDN) public cloud storage offering. The company’s Cloud Sideloader technology lets users migrate files directly from providers such as AWS and Iron Mountain into Nirvanix data centers. Beyond storage, hybrid clouds require a networking infrastructure that enables high availability and performance for a diverse set of workloads moving between public and private clouds, along with the monitoring and management tools to ensure it all works. As most IT managers are well aware, bigger pipes alone aren’t enough to solve this problem. Rather, it Lax laptop backup takes optimizing data services across the scattered locations where apps may move, regardless of where the data is coming from, while providing visibility into the data passing through the network at an application, Need for speed user and server level. Riverbed Technology, as one example, provides these enabling capabilities for a hybrid cloud today through its Steelhead

State of and Cascade product families, and with its Akamai partnership looks likely backup dedupe to deliver new ways to optimize all manner of data and content no matter where the endpoints may reside. While offerings such as these suggest that mainstream adoption of Storage tech evolves hybrid clouds may be fast approaching, we’re not there yet. Clouds are still in their “wild west” growth phase, and the hybrid model is still evolving. But we see hybrids as a stabilizing force in the cloud market, bringing Virtualize together the best of private and public clouds to address the demands your storage of midsized and enterprise users. As we assess some of the early hybrid cloud storage solutions and look forward to the innovations that lie ahead, Backup options we’re optimistic that the dark storms of this past spring are behind us. 2 for ROBOs

Jeff Byrne is a senior analyst and consultant at Taneja Group. He can be reached at [email protected]. Hybrid clouds loom

Remote backup under control

Sponsor resources

47 STORAGE August 2011 snapshot

Users get upper hand over remote site backup Three years ago, nearly 25% of the firms we polled entrusted data backup at their remote sites to non-IT staff members. That number has now plummeted to only 6%. At the same time, the number of companies using automated processes to back up remote offices grew from 33% to 46%, so it looks like many firms are no longer relying on “civilian” backup jockeys. And two-thirds report that backup data is shipped to the main data center from an average of 28 remote locations. Thir- ty percent back up directly to disk at remote sites and then replicate to the data center, while 25% dedupe backup data first and then replicate. Thirty percent of firms looking to centralize their backup are considering a WAN optimization device and 29% expect to add a dedupe appliance that can replicate to the data center. The biggest gripe about remote site backups is throughput and packet Lax laptop backup loss issues when sending data over the WAN. —Rich Castagna

Need for speed Currently, what’s the most common Who performs the remote backups? problem you encounter when backing up remote or branch office data? An automated 46% process State of 23% Sending data across the WAN to backup dedupe A general IT 22% corporate results in intolerable packet staffer loss/throughput levels A dedicated 16% Backing up to tape at each site is costly 21% Storage storage admin and/or unreliable tech evolves Non-IT 6% 12% Remote site backup tapes (or other staff member media) aren’t sent offsite Other Virtualize 10% Remote site backups are done by 5% your storage inexperienced staff and/or aren’t 0% 10 20 30 40 50 performed regularly 7% The added backup data from remote Backup options sites makes backup at the main How do you back up data at remote offices? for ROBOs data center difficult 7% None 24% To a deduplication appliance or storage device Hybrid 3% Cloud (online) backup services are clouds loom inadequate 23% To disk arrays and then to tape 22% Other 23% Directly to tape 12% Other Remote backup under control 9% To a cloud backup service Average number of remote offices 6% Directly to disk 3% No backup/No data stored remotely Sponsor resources 28

“I think the biggest problem with cloud backup is that the bandwidth required for efficient backup is never available.” —Survey respondent

48 STORAGE August 2011 TechTarget Storage Media Group STORAGE STORAGE Vice President of Editorial Mark Schlack Editorial Director Rich Castagna Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner Executive Editor Ellen O’Brien Creative Director Maureen Joyce Contributing Editors COMING IN Tony Asaro, James Damoulakis, Steve Duplessie, Jacob Gsoedl, W. Curtis Preston September

Executive Editor Ellen O’Brien The pros/cons of FC, iSCSI and Senior News Director Dave Raffo Lax laptop NAS for virtual server storage Senior News Writer Sonia Lelii backup Matching virtualized servers to the Features Writer Carol Sliwa right type of storage can be a critical Senior Managing Editor Kim Hefner decision, but there’s no single type of Associate Site Editor Megan Kellett Need for speed networked storage that’s hands-down Assistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman the best for virtual servers. We review the pros and cons of each array alter- State of native and suggest where each would Executive Editor Ellen O’Brien backup dedupe fit best. Assistant Site Editor Rachel Kossman

Storage Quality Awards VI: tech evolves Midrange arrays Our Quality Awards program surveys Senior Site Editor Andrew Burton midrange systems users for the sixth Virtualize Managing Editor Heather Darcy time. Three vendors that won four out your storage Assistant Site Editor John Hilliard of the first five Quality Awards in this Features Writer Todd Erickson category (StorageTek, EqualLogic and Compellent) have been acquired by Backup options larger firms. We’ll see if last year’s for ROBOs winner (Compellent) can repeat as part of Dell’s stable. Senior Site Editor Sue Troy Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales Hybrid clouds loom Backing up the cloud Backup was one of the first services Senior Site Editor Sue Troy offered by cloud storage vendors, UK Bureau Chief Antony Adshead Remote backup and it’s still the most popular way under control Assistant Site Editor Francesca Sales of using cloud storage. We’ll cover how the technology works, when it’s a viable alternative, how it can inte- TechTarget Conferences Sponsor grate with traditional backup, how Director of Editorial Events Lindsay Jeanloz resources much it costs, and other pros and Editorial Events Associate Jacquelyn Hinds cons of cloud backup services.

Storage magazine Subscriptions: And don’t miss our monthly columns and www.SearchStorage.com commentary, or the results of our Snapshot reader survey. Storage magazine 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466 [email protected]

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