Ibm TS7650 PROTECTIER User Manual
anReversing the Requir ement for Storage Growth - IBM Consolidates and Si mplifies Tier-2 Storage
THE CLIPPER GROUP
TM
Navigator
Published Since 1993 Report #TCG2009008LI February 25, 2009
Navigating Information Technology Horizons
SM
Reversing the Requirement for Storage Growth —
IBM Consolidates and Simplifies Tier-2 Storage
Analyst: David Reine
Management Summary
We live in an era where we have been told repeatedly that bigger is better. A big car is a symbol of
success – a limo is even better! Our home entertainment systems have to have the biggest possible
screen – with high-definition and surround sound with the largest speakers that can blast out music with
100 watts per channel. Even our fast food has to fit this image. It is not enoug h to have a Big Mac; we
have to have the burger with the king-size fries and largest soft dr ink. Fortunately, sanity usually does
prevail in restoring some semblance of order, and size, to our lives. With the cost of gas rising again,
fuel economy and hybrid engines have conquered our macho ego and r eplaced the gas-guzzlers with a
more environmentally sound means of transportation. With our waistlines expanding in response to too
many requests to “supersize that”, our vanity, and doctor’s orders, lead us to the salad bar and a more
sensible diet. Technology has even enabled all of the audiophiles amongst us to reduce the size of the
speakers in our sound systems with something a little smaller and less damaging to our ears. In fact,
technology has enabled us to replace that portable Boom Box with an iPod which can fit in a pocket.
Technology and innovation have also come to th e rescue of the enterprise data center where virtually uncontrolled growth in storage requirements have forced the IT staff to supersize every storage
array throughout the enterprise, centra lized or distr ibuted, in ord er to be able to han dle the needs of the
information generation. And make no mistake about it: the data center does need to be rescued!
With increased costs for energy, and a limited amount available, the IT budget is being stretched to the
limit in order to power and cool a data center containing storage arrays in every available nook and
cranny. Floor space is another factor, as the IT staff tries to meet capacity requirements within the
confines of an already bulging data center, staving off the impending doom, and millions of dollars in
capital investment, for a new data center. The IT staff is always looking for ways to minimize space
and power, while at the same time, striving to satisfy performance and capacity requirements.
IBM is one of the companies that have recognized the need to not only consolidate data center storage, but to reduce the amount of array capacity required to store multiple copies of business-critical
information, both unstructured and transactional. One way to accomplish this is through th e inn ovative
technology of data deduplication, a subject of increasing popularity througho ut the high-tech industry.
Rather than attempt to reinvent the wheel and develop ano ther set of data deduping algorithms, IBM
acquired one of the leading lights in data deduplication artistry, Diligent Technologies Corporation.
IBM has integrated their architecture into a framework of IBM infrastructure components to enable
the deployment of the TS7650 ProtecTIER Deduplication Appliance as part of a dynamic infrastructure to simplify storage management and
reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of data
center storage. To learn more about the TS7650,
please read on.
¾ Coping with Dat a C en te r St or ag e P ai n....2
¾ The Advantages of Data Deduplication...3
¾ The IBM TS7650 ProtecTIER
Deduplication Appliance..........................3
¾ Conclusion.................................................4
IN THIS ISSUE
The Clipper Group, Inc. - Technology Acquisition Consultants
888 Worcester Street Suite 140 Wellesley, Massachusetts 02482 U.S.A. 781-235-0085 781-235-5454 FAX
Visit Clipper at www.clipper.com
Send comments to editor@clipper.com
Strategic Advisors
SM
February 25, 2009 The Clipper Group NavigatorTM Page 2
Coping with Data Center Storage Pain
Server sprawl and rampant storage growth
are putting a serious strain on the IT budget of
every enterprise. Data centers around the globe
are addressing server sprawl with a concerted
effort to consolidate their underutilized application platforms on new, multi-socket, multi-core
open systems servers. This enables the IT staff
to reduce the TCO of the server infr astructure
by reducing the number of systems in service,
freeing up floor space, reducing the administrative staff, and reducing the amount of energy
required to run and cool the data center. Unfortunately, server consolidation does not solve
the problem of rampant growth in stor age, especially in the area of the backup of unstructured data consisting of email, video, and images,
such as x-rays and MRIs. In the midst of a
downward economic spiral, the IT staff has to
get control of storage requirements and limit
the impact on the data center’s budget.
Storage requirements are growing at a rate
of anywhere from 50% to 100% annually,
depending upon such factors as enterprise policies for backup and recovery and the requirements of your enterprise to adhere to standards
and comply with government regulations regarding retention. In fact, IBM has estimated
that the world is now generating 15 new peta-
bytes of information daily. Traditional data
centers have been using tape as the media to
accomplish backups and recoveries, as well as
archive data to preserve history and protect the
enterprise in the event of litigation. In recent
years, however, many enterprises have moved
to a disk-to-disk (D2D) architecture for their
backup and recovery requirements in order to
meet enterprise SLAs for performance. Unfortunately, the unprecedented growth in storage
requirements has put the IT budget in jeopardy
from both acquisition and operational standpoints.
What are the significant storage pains
points that are threatening the data center and
giving storage administrators Excedrin head-
ache #1? First, and foremost is the fact that
enterprise backups take too long – not only the
full weekly backups that can consume the better part of a weekend, but also the inc remental
backups that can cause significant delays in the
nightly mission-critical activity. Not far behind
the backup dilemma is the unmistakable grief
caused by slow recoveries. If your servers are
Copyright © 2009 by The Clipper Group, Inc. Reproduction prohibited without advance written permission. All rights reserved.
down because of lost data and you can not
process customer transactions, you may lose
those customers to competitors who are operational. In addition to these stresses, the data
center staff also faces the constant battle with
the human element, i.e., the additional staffing
required to manage the process and media, as
well as the issues surrounding the measure ment
of backup and recovery success.
One way to control the amount of data being backed up is to move older files and data to
an archive and out of the mix of active data.
The IT staff can and should take advantage
of the long-term retention characteristics of
tape to take advantage of reduced acquisition and operational costs
1
for archiving
purposes. Tape provides the enterprise with
a cost-effective solution to deal with the
capacity required for archiving and is removable and transportable to support disaster recovery requirements. With the inno-
vative features of LTO-4, such as WORM
data encryption, incorporated in products such
as IBM’s TS2340 LTO Ultrium 4 drive
data center can achieve long-term compliance
with financial and regulatory require ments and
reduce the size of the active data. The requirements for short-term retention, on the other
hand, are completely different. The data cen-
ter needs to commit the right balance of
high-density tape for archive and high-performance disk for the backup/recovery
process.
The most typical environment for shortterm data retention is enterprise backup. In this
environment, performance, as opposed to capacity and cost-efficiency, is the gating factor.
Backups must be fast; recoveries even faster.
In order to avoid interference with mission-critical applications, backups must be initiated and
completed within a specified window of opportunity. If the incremental or full backup is not
completed when the mission-critical applications need to come back on line, the data center
runs the risk of violating their own policies and
losing a critical checkpoint.
1
See the issue of Clipper Notes updated October 21, 2008,
entitled Disk and Tape Square Off Again – Tape Remains
King of the Hill with LTO-4, and available at
http://www.clipper.com/research/TCG2008057.pdf
2
Write Once, Read Many.
3
See The Clipper Group Navigator dated August 2,
2007, entitled A Tape Solution for Every Size Enterprise –
IBM Adds LTO-4 to Tape Family, available at
http://www.clipper.com/research/TCG2007077.pdf
.
.
2
and
3
, the
Loading...