Category: Backup

Data Protection, Retention and Archive Starts with Data Value


It feels good to open up the blogging again to new topics, especially ones I am intimately familiar with.  (But have no fear, there will be references to primary storage optimization / compression.)

This weekend I had an interesting conversation with my Dad.  We were discussing backup.  My dad basically runs IT for the State of Maine.  The State of Maine uses CommVault backup software.  So I posed the question to him, “What would it take for you to rip out CommVault and replace it with another solution.  He thought about it for a moment and replied “I wouldn’t”.  His answer came down to a couple of reasons.

First was the expense.  It’s not just about buying the new software, it would be training people to run the new software and it would be about throwing away the massive investment they have in their existing product as well as converting all the years of backup takes created with one software to the new software.  This is one of the biggest things vendors forget when trying to sell a customer on their backup software.

Second was the fact that, feature for feature, the top 5 traditional backup software products are not really that different from one another.  Sure, I do agree that some products have features that others don’t, and others products have features that work better than others, but in reality, the delta is so small and the workarounds are so simple it doesn’t really matter.  Unless your replacing traditional backup software with an evolutionary source based data deduplication software (which is only applicable for some environments) there is no advantage to switching software.

The challenge is if Data Protection is still one of the biggest and most expensive pain points within IT, how do the problems get resolved if replacing the software controlling it all is too costly to change?

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May 09, 2011 | 1 comment View Post

Language Weaver – RtC – Total Transparency


See how Language Weaver has utilized IBM Real-time Compression and are getting 3 to 1 compression and the solution was totally transparent to their infrastructure.

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Feb 18, 2011 | 2 comments View Post

Polycom Saves Big with IBM Real-time Compression


Amit Bar-On, Manager of IT at Polycom in Israel shares his story with us about not only does IBM Real-time Compression save him storage space, that space can actually  now be used for people instead of equipment.  As Polycom continues it success in the telepresence business, they have grown in the last five years to having over 120 developers in Israel.  Office space anywhere is expensive, in Tel-Aviv it is VERY expensive.  Polycom is taking data storage and data management to a whole new level.

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Jan 12, 2011 | 1 comment View Post

Key Competitive Advantages to IBM Real-time Compression


It still baffles me when there is so much information available for people to learn about any topic and it is not used.  Many times people just tend to rely on the information provided by their employer (which in many cases is just competitive FUD).  This video was the result of reading an email between IBM and one of their key partners on the competitive knowledge of each others products.

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Jan 10, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

Storage Alchemist Video Update #2


See how data deduplication and IBM Real-time Compression work hand in hand.

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Jan 06, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

Snowball VFX Keeps the Avalanche Under Control


What a great name, Snowball.  And much like information can behave like a "snowball" turning into an "avalanche", Snowball VFX has been able to control the avalanche of data utilizing the IBM Real-time Compression technology.  Here in this video customer case study, Yoni Cohen, Founder of Snowball talks about the value of Real-time Compression in his environment.

Additionally, we have captured from all of our Media & Entertainment customers what they think about the Real-time Compression technology.  To see the value proposition, check out our Media & Entertainment Portal through our good friends at TechValidate.

By the way, we couldn't have captured this amazing video without the help of the folks at Snowball for all of their footage they let us use as well as the folks at MediaBoss TV who helped us create this video.

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Dec 20, 2010 | 0 comments View Post

A Blueprint for Primary Storage Optimization


During the past three to four months the storage industry has seen a spike in the number of reports, white papers and news articles surrounding the evolution of primary storage technology, capacity optimization (it is 2010’s Hottest Storage Technology).

The reason this technology is getting a lot of ‘air play’ these days is due to the fact that this technology is so critical to help control the growth and costs of storage.  In 2010 the EMC sponsored IDC Report “The Digital Universe Decade - Are You Ready?” was release and stated that:

  • In 2009, amid the “Great Recession,” the amount of digital information grew 62% over 2008 to 800 billion gigabytes (0.8 Zettabytes).
  • The amount of digital information created annually will grow by a factor of 44 from 2009 to 2020…

The folks at Wikibon also released an info graph that exposes the true explosion of data.

Information Explosion & Cloud Storage
Via: Wikibon

When you combine storage capacity (and the foot print it takes up) along with the power it takes to run it and cool it as well as the human resource it takes to manage it, you soon realize we cannot keep ‘just adding more cheap disk’ in an effort to manage the storage demands.  High Tech companies with high tech labs are also telling IT that ‘they are out of tricks’ when it comes to the ability to continue deliver disk drive that double capacity every 18 months.  It is for these reasons that primary storage optimization technologies have stepped into the ‘lime light’ as it serves as a means to help control the growth of primary storage including the foot print, power, cooling and man power required to manage it.

However, as we all know in IT, no two environments are the same and what may be good for one may not be good for another.  When looking at primary storage optimization there seem to be a number of available technologies and ways to deploy these technologies and the key question is what is right for ‘my’ environment.

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Jul 01, 2010 | 3 comments View Post

Setting the Record Straight on Backup


Or should I say, ‘Setting the Record Straight on Backing Up Optimized Data’?  Carter discusses on this blog they myriad of ways to perform backups on optimized data.  (His blog actually reads more like a white paper explaining how backup needs to be configured to work with his product.)  One of the ways Carter describes to do backup is via NDMP and says “… is the most complicated.” The funny thing is that this is the way that 90% of enterprises backup their NAS data.  The other scenarios are not quite stated correctly or are again designed to lead users to believe their solution is ‘simple’ when they really add complexity (however, I’ll let the backup community debate that – I have been in backup for 10+ years and I know this won’t go over on them, nor do I want to waste too much blog space).  Finally the last scenario they discuss isn’t backup – its replication, but I’ll address that too. Let’s address these one at a time.  First, Carter mentions that in some scenarios there is a need to rehydrate data in order to back it up.  The process of rehydrating data may not require that the array have the physical capacity to store the data before it is backed up, but the array will require the CPU resources, I/O resources, bandwidth and time to rehydrate to data to back it up.  George goes on to say that this situation is “ugly, but not that ugly”.  I will tell you any time you put more resource requirements on systems that do backups, your running the risk that backups won’t get done.  One of the greatest challenges in IT is backup.  Backup administrators are running into backup window problems all the time.  Data is growing not shrinking; having to do more work on more data in order to protect it is a recipe for failure.  In my previous comments I may have incorrectly stated you need more disk space to do the backups, but I did correctly state that the array will require more system resources.  And where do these resources come from?  When the system is idle?  When is your storage array idle? Now, what if all you had to do was – well nothing.  Storwize sits in front of primary storage and stores your data, compressed, in real-time with no performance impact and preserving the envelope of the data file.  Then when it comes time to backup, the backup administrator does absolutely nothing different that he/she did yesterday.  Same shares are backed up, same clients, and all the work is done by the Storwize appliance, there is no load on the filer.  The next question is can Storwize keep up with the backup stream and the answer is YES.  As you saw in the Wikibon CORE blog, our time to compress is on the order of magnitude of milliseconds – the time to decompress is even less.  (I should also mention one thing Carter failed to mention, in order for backups to come off their system ‘transparently’ you need a software agent on the client – who wants to manage more clients?

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May 11, 2010 | 0 comments View Post

Compressed Thoughts – Compression and Deduplication


This video doesn't talk about the merits of one versus the other but how when compression (or capacity optimization is done right) it should enhance data deduplication, not impact it.  Enjoy and for more videos like this one go to the StorwizeChannel.

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May 06, 2010 | 0 comments View Post

Storage’s 2010 Hottest Technology


Each year there tends to be one technology that stands out in the storage space.  In 2009 it was data deduplication.  At the end of 2008 EMC made an acquisition of a source based deduplicaiton solution called Avamar.  Later, in 2009, they announced a strategic partnership with Quantum for data deduplication at the target.  Then in 2009 EMC made a bid against NetApp for Data Domain and won.  In addition, NetApp had data deduplication announcements with its ASIS technology.  Quantum, Falconstor, and Symantec all had their own story with data deduplication and a host of non-public companies such as Permabit, Sepaton, and Exagrid all were talking about the merits of data deduplication.

As the story goes, if you haven't put data deduplication in your backup environment yet you're either in an environment where there is not one iota of duplicate data, which is highly unlikely, or the company you work for has gobs of money and has no problem:

  1. Backing up to slow tape
  2. No worries about slow recovery from tape
  3. Keeping massive amounts of data on unreliable tape
  4. Backing up full streams of data to disk (and wasting valuable storage space)

What I am saying is that if you haven't implemented a data deduplication solution by now, you have been left in the technology dust.  Data deduplication just makes too much sense.  I know we have all heard the expression "No one ever got fired for buying X."  But has anyone ever got promoted because they bought X?  I have to believe that the IT team that can save their company 50% or more of their storage will get promoted.  Storage is a cost drain on IT.  It's the applications that make a company money.  Its time to start focusing some of those valuable IT dollars on the applications that make your company money, its time to be the IT Super Hero!

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Apr 19, 2010 | 2 comments View Post
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