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Technology
Uncovering the Secrets of Data Storage
New techologies allow companies suffering from information overload to automate the handling of bits and bytes.
In cooperation with Aberdeen Group
As a concept, data storage appears simple: capture all business-critical data within the enterprise, organize it, and store it somewhere. But in a world where a company's technological backbone is its enterprise resource planning software running 24/7 on geographically distributed servers, adequately storing and making its many terabytes or even petabytes of data instantly available over a worldwide network is no easy feat.
Data storage complexity is compounded by today's highly mobile workforce, which stores uncounted gigabytes of crucial information on every desktop PC, laptop computer, and personal digital assistant, at home, at work, and even in hotels and client offices around the world. Added to that is the current regulatory climate, which requires that most companies exercise exquisite data-handling hygiene in order to stay out of trouble with regulators, customers, the law, and the press.
Lest we all forget, data storage systems need to factor in disaster recovery, especially if you consider the consequences of another devastating terrorist attack. Keeping a business running under any circumstance requires policies for timely backup of data—its quick recovery is imperative, regardless of whether the loss was from the theft of a laptop or the failure of a server. It's no wonder that, more than ever, conversations about business continuity and data storage are taking place in the boardroom.
The sum of all that is a serious technological challenge for today's businesses, and merely adding raw storage capacity will not meet it. Dan Tanner, research director of storage research for Aberdeen Group in Boston, says that the Holy Grail of data storage is that "any qualified user should receive secure access to data at the highest possible speed, without regard to distance, time of day, type of user device, or storage platform."
Two emerging technology trends will help companies meet their storage needs even with lackluster budgets: expanded storage networking and the creation of information life cycle management. Storage networking technologies are rapidly moving toward a place where users no longer have to worry about where data is stored because it will simply be available to them as long as they are on the corporate network. Information life cycle management ensures maximum data storage efficiency because it allocates high performance storage resources to high priority data, and low performance resources to low priority data.
Storage Networking Comes of Age
Most computer systems—from the earliest mainframes to the most modern server-based networks—have used dedicated mass storage, which means that a single computer has a single mass storage device attached to it and all the applications running on that computer access their data from that device. Most companies still have that legacy technology in place, which is often referred to as silos of information that are attached to different enterprise applications. More often than not, the silos do not communicate with each other, which may leave corporate executives with inconsistent information, and sometimes leave them with no data at all.
The advent of network-attached storage (NAS) devices, which are independent storage devices that attach directly to a network, changed the situation only slightly since applications still get their data from a single, albeit networked, storage device. However, many servers on a network can use a single NAS transparently, and such use is a first step toward breaking out of data silos. Some companies have taken a further step by implementing storage area networks (SANs), which attach many servers to a pool of NAS devices, usually through a high-speed fiber optic network.
Though many think that the two technologies are exclusive, in fact, companies can use a combination of storage area networks and network-attached storage. "What bothers me is that people say it's NAS versus SANs, as if they're opposite things," says Aberdeen's Tanner. In reality, they're complementary storage systems. "What one does well, the other doesn't, and vice versa."
Recently, both SANs and NAS devices have been converging and getting new help from server consolidation at many companies. They've also been getting software help that includes virtualization and provisioning.
Virtualization software manages all of the data in a company's storage network and presents it in one interface, sometimes called a single-image file system. In that way, it makes a series of globally distributed storage servers—be they NAS, SANs, or older-style servers with attached storage—appear to be just one server. That's extremely useful for users who don't want to have to hunt for a document between servers, for example, in the U.S. and in Europe. All they want to do is to find the document, and virtualization allows that to happen by simply opening it.
Software that virtualizes storage networks also makes it easier for in-house software engineers to design data strategies that will adequately support new applications with unanticipated growth potential. Virtualization ultimately saves users time, and makes it irrelevant that data might be stored in different silos.
Provisioning software is closely related to virtualization software. It makes better use of existing storage resources by allowing any application to store its data on any storage device in the network. That makes it possible for a storage device originally attached to, for example, the ERP application environment to also be used by an engineering application.
Provisioning software allows the consolidation of silos of information, which uses existing storage resources more efficiently. When companies cut down on the number of storage devices, and eliminate older, slower devices, they can save time and money administering their hardware.
Database administrators, whose number increased with company headcount and database size, traditionally managed corporate data manually. Their job of moving data to correct locations in the database, backing it up, or moving it offline as it aged, has become increasingly automated. Such automation reduces administrative headaches, decreases costs, and can make storage more transparent for users. That means that users don't need to notice much about the data, only that it is there and that they don't have to do anything themselves besides use it. In ideal situations users should not have to do anything "storage-related," such as cleaning out files, designating what gets stored, or running backups themselves.
E-mail With an Expiration Date
One promising new automation trend is something called information life cycle management which treats all information as content, then manages it as content. A familiar and useful way it's used is in e-mail. Everyone expects to be able to read his or her current electronic messages as well as those received several days ago. However, the most frequently read e-mail is the current batch; last week's, last month's, and last year's messages are read less frequently, but they are still in demand.
A traditional (i.e., silo) storage scheme would keep all e-mails from all time periods on the same server. A more rational scheme would keep current messages, perhaps those from the last 30 days, stored on an expensive, high-performance disk that was always instantly available. E-mail messages older than 30 days, but younger than a year could be moved to devices available in 10 seconds, while still older e-mails could be moved to slower devices, perhaps tape, that are available in 30 seconds—and all of this movement would happen automatically, without any user or administrator intervention.
At all stages of its life, an e-mail message is still available and appears in the user's mailbox. The difference is that when a user clicks on today's e-mail messages, they appear instantly. When he or she clicks on a message from last month, it appears in 10 seconds, which is a bit of a wait, but the cost savings to the company would be substantial and well worth that extra little bit of time.
"Customers are becoming more and more educated. They're beginning to understand that there are cost synergies available by making sure you put the right data on the right device at the right time for the applications you have, and for CFOs, at the right cost," says Robert Kocol, CFO of Storage Technology Corp. (StorageTek) in Louisville, Colo.
Time is Money, So Are Priorities
The ultimate goal according to Aberdeen's Tanner—that any user should receive secure access to data at the highest possible speed without regard to distance, time of day, type of user device, or storage platform—is a nice idea. But corporate techology departments don't have enough time, money, and storage capacity to treat all data as if it is completely business-critical. The IT staff does not know which data to prioritize, and corporate executives do not necessarily want to tackle the problem either.
Talking to managers about data in terms of its business criticality will get them tuned in to new and more rational data storage programs. "At the front-end level, we'd like to turn [storage] management over to the business people. They can say, 'I want this information available to this department to do this thing, no questions asked,'" says Tanner.
By asking managers to designate which information is most important, IT can devote greater resources to information deemed critical and use new technologies to give managers and users what they want while making the most economical use of data storage and network resources.
The Quest Continues
Aberdeen vice president of storage research David Hill says that we are moving in the right direction but it will take a few years. In the meantime, he advises companies to take many small steps. No one product will be the silver bullet to solve all storage problems, and everyone should keep in mind that legacy storage products will still be around for a long time. Any future environment will remain heterogeneous, at least for a while.
There's a long way to go, but when we get there, stored data will become a utility. Much like water or electricity, it will just be "there" when you need it. Users will work more efficiently, and managers and executives will no longer have to worry that they have incorrect, inconsistent, or no information at all to work with.
—by Mathew Schwartz
Microsoft Windows
Platform Powers Enterprise Storage Solutions
As more information becomes available in digital form, IT organizations face an increasingly large set of challenges in storing, accessing, protecting, and managing business-critical information, combined with a disproportionate number of vendor solutions that do not necessarily interoperate. And in an age when information is a key asset, knowledge workers must be able to locate and access the information they need quickly; any disruption of that process
results in lost productivity.
Businesses have to balance a reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) against adequate return on investment (ROI), while implementing new storage solutions at a rapid pace to alleviate the data explosion that is happening in their businesses. "With overwhelming data growth and stretched IT budgets, finding the appropriate storage solution is critical to ensure optimum business continuity for global enterprises," says Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the enterprise storage division at Microsoft.
Microsoft has invested heavily in a new storage platform infrastructure in the Windows Server 2003 family of products to provide the best foundation for enabling compelling storage solutions. Feedback from enterprise customers and strategic partners drove these innovations. A primary cost component for businesses today is managing multi-vendor storage infrastructure. Windows Server 2003 can reduce the complexity of managing multi-vendor storage through an innovative storage framework that provides interoperability across storage hardware, storage software, and mission- critical applications.
Another crucial component of a storage platform is availability—keeping mission-critical and customer-facing applications and their data online. Improved high-availability solutions can be created by leveraging networked storage and the multi-path, clustering, data backup/ recovery and protection infrastructure in Windows Server 2003. Lower downtime and maintenance also result in lower costs of operations for customers.
Enter the Data
Storage Partner Ecosystem
 The dictionary definition of "ecosystem" says that it is a community and its environment, functioning as a unit. The
philosophy of just one, easy-to-manage unit of parts operating in harmony underlies the Microsoft Storage Partner Ecosystem. By natively leveraging the Windows storage platform infrastructure, a broad set of partners in the industry are bringing to market new and relevant storage solutions that address the key critical issues around information protection, business continuance, and disaster recovery services for business customers.
"We rely on a large community of strategic partners to deliver integrated, easy to manage, and cost-effective storage solutions that are more secure and more reliable than ever," says Muglia. "We are listening to customers and working closely with our strategic partners to continue to innovate on the Windows Storage platform and bring improved storage capabilities to market." The upcoming launch of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family of products—which adds additional storage management features to the equation—puts Microsoft and its strategic partners in a leadership position to bring innovative solutions to help enterprises solve their storage needs.
Jointly, this ecosystem of strategic partners will provide quick integration, greater interoperability, low TCO, and excellent price/performance benefits for businesses facing the daunting task of managing their internal data explosion. Microsoft's strategic partners in this endeavor include a range of industry leaders.
The Business Mandate
Enterprise customers demand tremendous value from any IT investment, especially storage. "Microsoft Windows Powered NAS solutions offer significant business agility for the enterprise, including storage management and data protection. Microsoft solutions cover the range of technologies that businesses need to succeed," says Zane Adam, director of product management and marketing at the enterprise storage division of Microsoft. In particular, Windows Powered NAS helps companies quickly realize storage operating efficiencies and cost savings. Since its introduction two years ago, Windows Powered NAS has grown to 30% unit share in the NAS marketplace.*
What is Windows Powered NAS?
 Windows Powered NAS is an optimized version of Windows 2000 Server that powers NAS solutions developed by Microsoft's OEM partners—Dell, HP, IBM, Iomega, NEC, and more. Windows Powered NAS is a file server—that is all it does, and very reliably. In addition, it enables capitalizing on IT investments in Active Directory, management utilities, and anti-virus software.
Windows Powered NAS is not only cost effective, but also easy to implement and manage, reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO). "Windows Powered NAS is about enabling enterprises to do more with less," says Adam.
Because data storage has become an executive-level mandate, Windows Powered NAS and the Microsoft Storage Partner Ecosystem are ideal for meeting your business' storage needs without giving the CFO nightmares. In particular, Windows Powered NAS is ideal for solving two critical business issues: server consolidation and business continuity.
For example, Quest Software's FastLane® Consolidator facilitates a fast, transparent consolidation onto Windows
Powered NAS devices. Consolidator's storage analysis component enables IT to scope a project and clean up data, while the migration component automates the migration of files, folders, shares, and security—and then synchronizes changes to ensure data integrity. Consolidator also supports ongoing management tasks like capacity planning, wasted space recovery, and offloading unused data.
NSI Software's Double-Take® replication solution builds on Windows Powered NAS to provide cost-effective and reliable data protection. The Double-Take disaster recovery solution ensures 24/7 operations without breaking the budget.
Server Consolidation
File server consolidation is a low-hanging fruit for reducing storage TCO and management burden. Experts estimate that only about 30% of the capacity of direct attached storage deployed in enterprises today is in use. Consolidating these underutilized file servers onto Windows Powered NAS is a quick and easy way to reduce costs and optimize the storage infrastructure.
Consolidating file servers is also an entrée into creating storage networks. Businesses get the immediate gain of easy-to-manage additional storage and the benefit of not dumping more data into legacy silos, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for future storage cost savings because storage networks are a foundation technology. IT can easily plug additional Windows Powered NAS devices into the network and manage them efficiently.
Business Continuity
 Windows Powered NAS is key to making that happen. Too few companies have an adequate backup regimen—especially in remote offices, which often lack an IT presence or even the "power user" needed to run backups. Many businesses are unprepared for any size disaster, and that scenario needs to change.
Windows Powered NAS utilizing Double-Take replicates data anywhere in the world with minimal impact on network performance. It is cost-effective—even in remote office scenarios—by providing scalable 'many-to-one' solutions, transmitting only the bytes of data that change. Double-Take replicates data asynchronously and continuously, which obviates distance limitations, maximizes performance, and allows data to be restored whenever needed.
If there is downtime, Windows Powered NAS will automatically trun its duties over to another box where the data is already available, minimizing or eliminating the effects of the downtime. Storage industry analyst firm Strategic Research Corp. says Double-Take can provide up to 99.99% availability—and that remaining .01% translates to less than 50 minutes per year. Add ease of administration and the cost-effectiveness of a dedicated file server, and it's no wonder that Windows Powered NAS is music to the CFO's ears.
Aberdeen Group
An IT consulting leader since 1988, Aberdeen Group continues to distinguish itself in a rapidly changing industry. Its understanding of user buying requirements, combined with an effective range of positioning services, address the specific needs of multiple enterprise technology buyers and supplier organizations.
Aberdeen's vigorous primary research program is based on surveys of targeted IT buyers in more than 25 market segments, providing real time insights into buying patterns, growth rates and trends. In exchange for participation, a vast array of research is made available online — at no cost — to end users, a process that has proven particularly valuable to small and medium businesses.
Aberdeen works with a wide range of information technology suppliers — from start-ups to established global corporations — in order to assist with the successful launch of new products and services as well as to improve marketing and sales effectiveness. Through Aberdeen's online Access sites, which are focused on several specific end-user communities, suppliers can access qualified survey research that helps them identify opportunities and better understand the needs of customers. Because its communities include sales, marketing, financial planning and supply chain professionals, in addition to IT planners, Aberdeen's Web traffic is among the highest — and fastest growing — of any major IT research firm.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Aberdeen has research and consulting divisions in Palo Alto, California, and Fort Collins, Colorado. www.aberdeen.com.
Managing the Information Lifecycle
Getting customers to think about the entire information life cycle is one way StorageTek helps them allocate storage resources and maximize their investments. "There's an imperative to improve people's productivity and reduce storage costs," says Rob Neibor, director of business management for Asia/Pacific and Latin America.
Companies need easy methods to move aging data to less expensive storage. One method is cradle-to-grave storage management, something that StorageTek's Email Xcelerator provides. "That product is applying structure and discipline to something as simple as e-mail," says Neibor.
StorageTek's in-house e-mail storage was capped at 30 Mbytes, but Email Xcelerator made storage limitless. "What happens is that after 30 days, this system automatically archives messages and attaches them to cheaper (tape) storage." The archived e-mails will appear in StorageTek inboxes for nine months. They'll take longer to open from the tape library, a small price to pay for the 100-to-1 cost reduction the system achieved.
"The onus is on storage companies to automate the ways I move data around in proportion to its age," says Neibor, and StorageTek is one storage company doing just that. www.storagetek.com
Wrapping Up the Information Explosion
Information technology once stored data on a single mainframe computer. By allowing data to be stored anywhere, magnetic tape sparked an information technology revolution that started in 1953. IBM worked with 3M's data storage division to introduce tape commercially—that company became Imation Corp., which this year celebrates the 50 years of tape storage technology.
Tape mixes longevity with affordability. "Tape is by far the most cost-effective way to store data for any length of time," says Jim Ellis, Imation's director of business strategy. Enterprises continue to move critical data from disk to tape, "Where it lives for a majority of its life," he says. Imation's tape innovations help companies overcome data overload. Imation's Black Watch 9840 Half-Inch Tape Cartridge utilizes a dual-spindle that starts data retrieval in eight seconds, vs. 60 seconds for older technology.
The next generation of tape products will come from Imation's $49 million investment in advanced-media coating capabilities at its Weatherford, Okla., plant. By continuing to increase tape capacity, data transfer speeds and decreasing time-to-data, Imation continues to help companies use tape to shoulder their data storage load. www.imation.com
An Industry Leader's Perspective
Russell Holt is general manager and vice president of Dell Computer Corporation's storage business.
Question: What are some hot-button business issues today that storage offerings can help solve?
Holt: Businesses need to do more with less, so they're looking for networked storage solutions that allow them to consolidate resources, and leverage existing IT investments, to lower the overall cost of managing their data.
Question: What's the imperative for server consolidation?
Holt: Simplicity, value, and power. Customers need to centralize and simplify the management of their storage resources. Many businesses tell us that they have large amounts of underutilized disk capacity because of limited access. So storage consolidation helps companies to better prepare for data growth, while improving the overall storage management process.
Question: What does Windows
Powered NAS bring to the equation?
Holt: Our PowerVault Windows Powered NAS systems leverage industry standard technologies to drive down networked storage costs. For example, Dell can deliver networked storage for less than a penny per megabyte, where proprietary NAS products may cost up to five times that much. Windows Powered NAS systems are also easy to use and easy to deploy in a variety of network environments, and provide an ideal platform for consolidating files in any corporate network.
www.dell.com/storage
HP StorageWorks NAS Power Play
HP StorageWorks Windows Powered NAS solutions maximize enterprise return on data storage investments. They deliver virtually unlimited scalability, continuous data availability, and maximum throughput and performance to businesses.
HP works with industry leaders such as Microsoft to link customers' business and IT objectives. One result is an adaptive infrastructure that lets companies anticipate and rapidly respond to expanding storage requirements. HP StorageWorks NAS offerings range from stand-alone NAS products for remote offices to enterprise-class NAS/SAN-fusion solutions for the enterprise data center, providing customers with a scalable, manageable common pool of storage. "HP's strategy of integrating leading NAS solutions with SANs to provide a single, managed storage pool has advanced our market position considerably over the past three quarters," says Howard Elias, senior vice president and general manager, HP Network Storage Solutions. StorageWorks Windows Powered NAS solutions ensure data is always available, maintaining business continuance by offering cluster support, hardware redundancy, and replication.
In March, HP and Microsoft will begin a road show to demonstrate how customers can maximize their return on storage investment. For details and registration, please visit www.winnetmag.com/roadshows/nas
Iomega Delivers Graphics for Banknorth
Headquartered in Portland, Maine, Banknorth Group is a $21 billion banking and financial services company—the third-largest in New England—with 350 branches and divisions in six states.
The problem Banknorth wanted a common look and feel for its branches' online services to present "one face" to customers. But the Banknorth staff that builds new-branch websites didn't have centralized access to graphics. "The old way was to copy them from CDs or disks, but the problem was keeping them current," explains Marty Monaghan, the group's PC LAN services site manager.
The solution Monaghan installed an Iomega Windows Powered NAS server for the group. Out of the box, the server connected to the network in minutes, giving Windows, Macintosh, Novell, Unix, and Linux clients access to the graphics files, and creating a collaborative work environment.
The happy result The new Iomega Windows Powered NAS immediately centralized and streamlined the work process, ensuring graphics consistency. "Storing images on a regular server was hard to manage," says Monaghan. "Now we know we're current automatically, just by downloading the file from the Iomega NAS Server."
www.iomega.com
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