Tape backup is still the most prevalent technology in place for dealing with data protection, and array based replication is still the most common method of protection for mission critical applications, but companies are really starting to like the idea of saving money by innovating in how they attack the largest ongoing IT costs, which is still backup and disaster recovery.
Wow, time sure does fly. It has been a while since my last blog here! I have not just been goofing off though, believe me (maybe we can discuss this over a cold one?!) If you have not seen it yet, I have been doing some blogging over at Computerworld, and also hanging out with my buddies over at storage monkeys. My Computer world blogs have been about Cloud computing and virtualization, and I came across an interesting reply on the subject, with a link to a another good blog by Ed Koehler.
I have also been doing some research lately on technical innovations, and would love some feedback here as to which you think will be the hottest in 2010.
My current list for top 2010 technologies include:
I will be spending time here in the coming weeks delving deeper into each of these topics, so let me know your thoughts as to which technologies you feel will be the game changer in 2010.
Those of you who were around in the storage industry back in the late 90’s probably remember the amazing rise and fall of storage as a service, or SaaS. There was real buzz in the industry back then around outsourcing storage resources to third parties, and how it would enable companies to focus on their core business rather than IT. A few companies did fairly well until the dot com bubble burst, and the dream disapeared overnight.
Many of those startup companies lost everything back then, even though the concept and business case was sound. Well, guess what, ever hear of cloud computing? the idea is back big time, and it’s not just about storage anymore. Advances in networks, deduplication, and virtualization for both servers and storage have finally made the concept a reality.
Within the cloud, SaaS now means both Storage as a Service AND “Software as a Service”. SalesForce.com and Google are good examples of the software SaaS space, and cloud storage SaaS companies are now poping up all over the place.
Backup and DR are the first IT functions that will be outsourced to the storage SaaS folks. In fact, my own personal computer is backing itself up to the cloud as I write this! Another force driving companies to cloud based SaaS is the fact many companies are moving away from tape based disaster recovery. Instead of just shipping tapes, large companies are coping with the idea of building out new datacenter sites to house their critical applications during a disaster.
It makes great economical sense for companies to NOT have to build out massive new data centers, and instead just purchase those functions in the cloud from a SaaS vendor at a simple price per GB (as long as the security concerns are eliminated) . Backup and DR may be the first functions to be outsourced, but as the services get better, and networks get faster, applications based on virtual servers can be run anywhere. New services will begin to spring up in 2010 with these type of offerings.
One good example is a new offering for the legal field from a company called LegalCloud. Another is our own PrimeVault solution, and others, which focus more on the home office front are mozy, and carbonite.
Stay tuned here to learn more about how Cloud computing, with the re-introduction of Software based SaaS, and Storage based SaaS will be impacting your IT career!�
In light of the events at the recent VMworld conference, this post should be timely. In my travels lately I have been bumping into a lot of organizations suffering the pain and turmoil of moving from a physical environment at their production datacenter, to a virtual environment for DR. The typical process is to build out a SAN and some more powerful servers at the remote site, make copies of the production servers, bring the copies to the DR site, and then use the VMware converter to create a new VM of the machine. Once the VM is created at the DR site, they typically use a convoluted process to continually inject any changes from the physical servers at the production site to the virtual servers at the DR site.
Thin provisioning may actually get you 30% or more better utilizaiton from your storage, but what else can you do to have an even greater impact? (more…)
Data deduplication is one of the most obvious choices for reducing overall infrastructure costs within the data center, which also reduces power, cooling, and floorspace requirements for IT. Data deduplication at the file level (unstructured data) can be used to reduce duplicates within production storage. Data deduplication is more effectively used on both structured data (databases) and unstructured data (files) on backup storage, where the process does not impact performance. For backup data, dedupe ratios of between 10:1 and 15:1 should be easily achieved (this always depends on data types and retention periods of course) across the organization. Look at it this way, If you can get a 2:1 dedupe ratio, you need 50% less storage. If you get a 10:1 dedupe ratio, you need 90% less storage. If you are storing 90% less, you need 90% less power and footprint, which greens your data center.
One of ther best side benefits of data deduplication though is more efficent data replication for Disaster Recovery or Continuance of Operations (DR and COOP). A ratio of 10:1 is very achievable on most production data types over time. If you only need to ship deduped data across a WAN link, it gets to the other side faster and with reduced infrastructure costs.�
