Storage 2.0 The number-one implication of Web 2.0 would, at least superficially, seem to be growth. However, data growth has been a given since the days of the first RAMAC. What makes Storage 2.0 different are the operational demands to provision and manage that growth. The traditional approach to supporting applications leverages silos of over-provisioned servers, network resources, and storage systems to ensure the infrastructure remains transparent and available. Everything is designed to support the fairly predictable transactional demands of the system. This is already a challenging task, but in the Web 2.0 world, in addition to the existing challenges, everything is reactive and requires supporting the uncertain and dynamic demands of massive amounts of persistent data. Trying to run Web 2.0 applications on Storage 1.0 systems is not feasible. In a nutshell, Web 2.0 applications require a different approach to storage. The "shopping list" for Web 2.0 storage appears daunting. The new infrastructure must be able to dynamically adjust in any dimension, including capacity and performance, non-disruptively and in real- time. In addition, the infrastructure should be based on inexpensive commodity "bricks" with sophisticated data-management attributes (reliability, data protection, migration, and tiering). The "bricks" should be self-healing and self-tuning, virtualized, and able to handle block- or file-based storage. Avoiding vendor lock-in is also advisable. And, of course, it has to be affordable. The good news is that Storage 2.0 is not predicated on futuristic technologies. Most of the elements already exist or are in development. A variety of vendors have, or are developing, brick-based architectures and standards-based management and search schemas, as well as powerful migration tools that can move persistent data onto more-economical storage devices. In addition, there are plenty of methods to optimize capacity (e.g., data de- duplication, compression, thin provisioning, and virtualization) to reduce costs.

• 3000+ servers down to less than 150
• 700 racks at 8 sites down to 40 at 5 sites
• Reduction in energy costs of more than $2.4M annually
• 9000+ network ports down to less than 850
• Backups from four days to a full daily in 30 minutes
• Unused capacity declined precipitously as storage
• 6 weeks to deploy new servers down to 1 working day

The danger in stories like this is that companies get lulled into a sense that technology can be applied to solve efficiency problems for a much wider set of applications than what BT has wisely chosen for virtualization. BT's VMware applications are infrastructure related such as Web, firewalls and smaller databases that can be considered point systems. Over time, application creep into virtualized environments could expose the fundamental lack of disciplined approaches to classification and automation of policies for data migration, archiving and shredding. This is the root cause of waste and data growth in many applications, and users should address this problem head on.
Action Item: Choosing virtualization applications wisely (e.g. infrastructure apps) will help get rid of tons of stuff, literally. Customers should beware of falling prey to promises that virtualization will achieve similar results more broadly. In these less virtualization- friendly environments, there is no getting around the need for better information management, starting with classification and the automation of policies to migrate, archive and ultimately get rid of unused data.

• Production-Ready Virtualization for Organizations of all sizes
• Server Consolidation
• Development and Test Optimization
• High Availability and Disaster Recovery
• Dynamic Capacity Management
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

They provide a complete server virtualization solution with similar functionality to VMware ESX, but at a much lower price point. Virtual Iron is easy to deploy and manage, and supports larger workloads (CPUs, Memory and I/O) with less overhead for about 1/4th the cost of VMware. If you are looking at virtualization for Server Consolidation, HA/DR and Test/Dev, it is important to realize that there are now alternatives in the marketplace. Virtual Iron has a free 30 day trial download available from the link below which also includes support. http://www.virtualiron.com/products/download_ enterpri se.cfm?refPartner=Iodynamix You can also view a short 8 minute online demo of their product here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/VIDownloads/videmo.ht ml Please refer below for our Proof of Concept (POC) Link which is a one stop shop for evaluating and implementing Virtual Iron: http://s3.amazonaws.com/VIDownloads/POC_of_Vi rtua l_Iron.html We can also arrange a Live Webex Presentation and Product Demo at your convenience. Please check schedules with your team, let me know what works best for you and I will be happy to set it up for you

With the ExaGrid iSCSI De-duplication Gateway, organizations can achieve:

• A 30 to 90% reduction in backup and restore times
• Cost-neutral replacement of tape via disk-based backup with byte-level data de-duplication
• Lowered disk capacity requirements that reduces infrastructure, power and cooling costs
• Disk-based off-site data protection for disaster recovery
• The ability to leverage existing investments in Dell EqualLogic PS Series storage for efficient backups

• High density storage - up to 42 TB in only 4U
• Built for Xserve and Mac Pro systems
• Revolutionary AutoMAID energy saving technology greatly reduces power consumption and operating costs
• Full Enterprise class performance, reliability and management
• Dual function Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity with wire-speed
• Flexible, scalable and completely OS independent. Supports a broad range of storage infrastructures.

• Scan heterogeneous file systems to collect detailed information on storage utilization and data usage patterns without having to deploy server agents
• Classify and organize data and storage resources into logical groups based on administrator-defined criteria
• Generate in-depth, customizable reports on storage consumption, data usage, and historical trends
• Prevent application downtime due to unexpected capacity shortages with continuous monitoring and alerting
• Optimize utilization and performance of primary storage by identifying data that can be migrated to secondary or tertiary storage
• Ease administration via centralized web-based management of data and storage resources across heterogeneous platforms, vendors, and storage topologies

ARKIVIO :: auto-stor Highlights --

• Discover and collect statistics on storage utilization and data usage patterns across heterogeneous file systems without deploying server agents
• Classify data and storage resources into logical groups based on administrator-defined criteria for efficient data retention management
• Automate data management actions such as migrate, move, copy, and delete based on changing data retention and availability requirements
• Deploy policies to automate migration of regulatory data from primary storage to WORM devices for compliance
• Simplify tiered-storage management by automating transparent migration of data from primary storage to secondary or tertiary storage (i.e. ATA, NAS, Tape, Optical)
• Continuously monitor and alert on storage utilization levels, data usage patterns, and policy effectiveness to proactively resolve capacity management issues