The year in storage: data protection led innovations.2004 will soon be behind us, and a challenging new year approaches. Bellwethers suggest a slow growth in storage with faster growth in areas involved with data protection. A recent Merrill Lynch Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER TYO: 8675 ), through its subsidiaries and affiliates, provides capital markets services, investment banking and advisory services, wealth management, asset management, insurance, banking and related products and services on a global basis. report announced that IBM's storage business grew 5% over the past year, but their tape technology business grew 22% This suggests that data protection remains very much on the minds of storage buyers and specifiers. The data protection snowball started rolling last year with such innovations as the "time machine" replication approach from Revivio and the commonality factoring technology from Avamar. The snowball is just getting bigger, being pushed by drivers such as business continuity and regulatory compliance issues. Several of the announcements at Storage Networking World Storage Networking World (commonly called SNW) is a for data storage professionals in the United States. Sponsored by Computerworld and the Storage Networking Industry Association, SNW is held twice each year. recently support the proposition that data protection is the advance guard of data storage's future. A joint trans-Atlantic project involving EMC (1) (EMC Corporation, Hopkinton, MA, www.emc.com) The leading supplier of storage products for midrange computers and mainframes. Founded in 1979 by Richard J. Egan and Roger Marino, EMC has developed advanced storage and retrieval technologies for the world's largest companies. and Dell used a Microsoft Exchange Messaging and groupware software for Windows from Microsoft. Exchange Server is an Internet-compliant e-mail system that runs under Windows NT/2000 and Windows Server 2003. It can be accessed by Web browsers, the Exchange client, versions of Outlook and the earlier Windows Inbox. 2003 messaging approach to demonstrate Dell's Business Continuity solution replicating data in real time between two midrange storage systems; one in Limerick and one in Texas. Sepaton announced its new Synthetic Full Backup See backup types. Application built on their ContentAware data protection platform, with pricing starting at $3,000 and based upon the total usable capacity of the $2100-ES Virtual Tape Library A hard disk array that emulates a tape library. A virtual tape library (VTL) enables the storage medium to be switched from tapes to disks while continuing to use the existing tape backup software. See virtual tape system and storage virtualization. . EVault introduced EVault Continuum Server, a high-availability storage solution designed to provide continuous data protection and quick recovery of business-critical database applications such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server A relational DBMS from Microsoft that is a major component of the Windows Server System. It is Microsoft's high-end client/server database and is closely integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio and the Microsoft Office System. and Oracle. Pricing for the fully bundled software (1) Applications that are included with new hardware. For example, a new PC often comes with several applications, many of which may be light versions or full versions with no limit on usage. Others may be only 60- or 90-day trial packages. See bundle. and hardware solution starts at $11,428. Bocada announced the release of the next generation of its BackupReport enterprise software, which the company said enables consistent, standards-based management of complex, distributed data protection environments, regardless of the underlying technology or system architecture. Neartek announced the latest version of its Virtual Storage Engine virtual tape solution, with performance up to 38TB/hour. Symantec's LiveState Recovery Advanced Server 3.0, a disk-based system and data recovery solution, was validated as interoperable with NetApp enterprise IP SAN storage systems, which the company said allows Windows customers to recover data stored on NetApp iSCSI volumes in a fraction of the time required for alternative tape-based recovery solutions. Intransa announced its IP5500 SAN solution, which the company touts as the "only IP SAN solution designed with a patented, fully modular architecture to allow on-the-fly enhancements to capacity, performance and availability." The Intransa IP5500 has an MSRP MSRP Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price MSRP Message Session Relay Protocol MSRP Multi-Species Recovery Plan (US Fish & Wildlife Service) MSRP Member of the Society for Radiological Protection (UK) of $60,000 for a 2TB system which includes hardware, software and one year of support. Pricing for the IP5500 begins at $66,000 for capacities starting at 4TB. ILM to be Defined Last year at this time, we discussed ILM and whether it classified as marketing catch phrase or genuine solution. The first challenge was to develop a common definition. EMC offers one, Sun Microsystems another, StorageTek yet another. IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) refers to the concept as Information Value Management, and ADIC offers their vision as Data Lifecycle Management. The Storage Networking Industry Association An association of producers and consumers of storage networking products, whose goal is to further storage networking technology and applications. The Storage Networking Industry Association, or SNIA is taking on the issue of a common ILM definition. The Data Management Forum decided to remove the confusion by defining ILM this year at SNW SNW Snow SNW Strange New Worlds (Star Trek) SNW Social Networking Website SNW Sub Networks SNW Storage Networking World . They offer the following: Information Lifecycle Management Information Lifecycle Management refers to a wide-ranging set of strategies for administering storage systems on computing devices. Specifically, four categories of storage strategies may be considered under the auspices of ILM. is comprised of the policies, processes, practices and tools used to align the business value of information with the most appropriate and cost effective IT infrastructure from the time information is conceived through its final disposition. Information is aligned with business requirements through management policies and service levels associated with applications, metadata, and data. Whether this foundation will suffice for all of the vendors invested in ILM remains to be seen, but the first step to market acceptance is a common, comprehensible definition. The forum gets points for developing this basic approach. The next step is to develop a series of practical products that take the vision forward. Several examples come to mind. One example comes from Canadian-based Asigra, which announced its BLM BLM n abbr (US) (= Bureau of Land Management) → les domaines and Televaulting ILM-aware backup and recovery software package. The company asserts that it is the only one to deliver ILM capabilities across multiple corporate sites. With the innovations, Asigra said it reduces cost and complexity of data storage by automatically moving data to the most appropriate storage media based on predetermined pre·de·ter·mine v. pre·de·ter·mined, pre·de·ter·min·ing, pre·de·ter·mines v.tr. 1. To determine, decide, or establish in advance: policies of accessibility, security and long-term storage. Asigra BLM has a starting price of $24,000. It should be borne firmly in mind that ILM is not a vision devoted to cost savings alone. To ultimately become true ILM, the complexity issue mentioned by the Asigra executives must be well and truly addressed. Cluster is the Future The future of high-performance computing is very likely to be founded in wide deployment of clustered processing, most likely established in Linux. Clustered storage systems are likely to be established as well, to leverage the strength of standards-based hardware and intelligence in the software layer. Only a couple of companies claim available clustered solutions at this time. One of them is Isilon Systems with their OneFS distributed file system Software that keeps track of files stored across multiple networks. When the data are requested, it converts the file names into the physical location of the file so it can be found. software. Clustered solutions make sense for digital content and reference data, such as large images. PDFs, video and scientific data sets. These consume large amounts of capacity, grow much faster than traditional data stores, and require high throughput and, often, high concurrency Operations that are performed simultaneously within the computer. For example, dual-core CPUs provide complete overlapping of two independent processes. See dual core, hyperthreading, multiprocessing, multitasking, multithreading, SMP and MPP. concurrency - multitasking to huge single pools of storage. Isilon's single expandable global namespace allows management of one terabyte as easily as a thousand terabytes and creates business value by reducing expenses and maximizing the profit potential of their digital content and reference data. It is in this namespace A collection of names for a particular purpose. Typically, each name is unique. For example, tables in a relational database must all have unique names. A Windows workgroup that uses the original NetBIOS naming system requires a different "made-up" name for each computer and printer in discipline where Isilon flirts with the future. Information Lifecycle Management implies the ability to track a file (or some suggest a block or an object) from creation to retirement. Common global namespacing would enable such a thing, but it would necessarily have to be global. The proliferation of proprietary namespace approaches is counterproductive to the goal. It can only be hoped that the industry ultimately gains the insight to work together in this area. Data Movement The key element of ILM that has really matured over the past year is the presence of data movers. One of the ones I like best is the technology from NetEx. They recently announced HyperIP, a next-generation software accelerator that enables high-speed data movement over cost-effective IP networks. HyperIP eliminates distance and IP performance limitations for high-volume data on high-bandwidth IP networks. IETF See Internet Engineering Task Force. IETF - Internet Engineering Task Force standards-based HyperIP offers industry-hardened high-volume data transfer over IP-based WANs. It expands the performance envelope up to 480 Mbps. NetEx's exclusive acceleration and shielding technology reduces bandwidth and equipment costs for time-sensitive, mission-critical data for organizations with high-speed WAN linked sites. HyperIP eliminates TCP/IP TCP/IP in full Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol Standard Internet communications protocols that allow digital computers to communicate over long distances. degradation issues associated with distances greater than 200 circuit miles or 320 kilometers and packet loss. Fibre Channel Future Careful observers of the industry have been speculating on the successor to 2 Gbit/s Fibre Channel. 4-Gig FC came along, mostly through the hard lobbying of the disk drive industry. The question of where FC goes is actually more or less settled. Even though conventional wisdom would mandate 10-gig to challenge 10-gig Ethernet, the next step is likely 8-gig. Why? Backward compatibility is the basic reason. Telling a customer that he needs to eviscerate e·vis·cer·ate v. e·vis·cer·at·ed, e·vis·cer·at·ing, e·vis·cer·ates v.tr. 1. To remove the entrails of; disembowel. 2. his infrastructure is a good way to lose a sale. Price is another key driver, one that FC continues to struggle mightily with. Very simply, a price premium of any kind could easily damage the market beyond repair. Jumping from 4- to 10-gig would very likely be crippling. Fortunately for the FC industry, the issue is not likely to draw any blood in the near term. The move to 8-gig is not likely this side of 2008. Storage Security Another element of the future is the expansion of storage security requirements beyond both the storage subsystem and the LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. . With the implementations of Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996, Public Law 104-191) Also known as the "Kennedy-Kassebaum Act," this U.S. law protects employees' health insurance coverage when they change or lose their jobs (Title I) and provides standards for patient health, , users are coming under increasing pressure to secure data across metropolitan area networks (MANs). Specialized appliances that work with existing storage devices to secure that traffic are a new development. One of the first to address this need is NeoScale Systems, who recently introduced the CryptoStor SAN VPN--probably the first security appliance designed to support the demanding latency and performance requirements of real-time storage applications across a MAN. SAN VPN (Virtual Private Network) A private network that is configured within a public network (a carrier's network or the Internet) in order to take advantage of the economies of scale and management facilities of large networks. utilizes AES-256 to encrypt Fibre Channel links that traverse public fiber networks for high performance, low latency SAN extension. The 2-rack-unit appliance connects to switch or storage devices on the SAN and edge devices or dark fiber on the MAN. It then uses the AES-256 eneryption standard to secure the data traveling on Fibre Channel links between the devices. CryptoStor offers full-duplex encrypted throughput at 1 or 2 Gbit/s, although this figure is based on internal benchmarking. This year, then, storage has been characterized by a proliferation of data protection choices. There has been a great deal of versioning (new iterations of existing product) as the economy bites R & D budgets. The industry is also showing a limited amount of willingness to work together on basic issues. I look forward to those limits being stretched, in search of an even wider inventory of open systems solutions. www.adic.com www.asigra.com www.avamar.com www.bocada.com www.dell.com www.emc.com www.evault.com www.ibm.com www.intransa.com www.isilon.com www.neartek.com www.neoscale.org www.netapp.com www.netex.com www.revivio.com www.sepaton.com www.storagetek.com www.sun.com www.symantec.com |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion