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| by Dave Cotter |
The Power Shift to Green Storage
By Dave Vellante
According to IDC, average data-center energy costs
are growing at 20% per year and are expected to
double by 2012. Discussions with Wikibon.org users
confirm this expectation. Compounding this dynamic
is the fact that power density is going up for all IT
equipment, at a rate of 20% to 30% per year. This has
the following domino effects:
-Much more power needs to be supplied to each
square foot of a data center;
-More power is required to cool hotter equipment; and
-More heat extraction equipment needs to be supplied
to each square foot of a data center.
The maximum heat density that can be air-cooled in a
data center is approximately 10,000 watts/sq ft, yet
most data centers were designed years ago for power
densities of less than 1,000W/sq ft. The bottom line is
that IT is approaching the limits of power distribution
in many data centers, which is forcing organizations to
begin exploring new cooling techniques such as
water-cooled racks. Data centers are now
constrained by power and cooling limits-not floor
space, as was the case only a few years ago.
So where are the culprits in the data center, and how
severe is the storage energy consumption problem?
After all, storage is the fastest growing component of
IT infrastructure for most companies. Is storage
therefore the main problem? The answer is "no." The
figure on the right quantifies the culprits of power
consumption within the data center based on
interviews with users in the Wikibon.org community.
The following findings are relevant:
IT equipment directly accounts for more than one-half
of energy consumption in the typical data center;
Storage accounts for 15% of the total, while servers, at
30%, are the most consumptive;
The current maximum loading for storage equipment
is less than 1,000W/sq ft (compared to 1µ blade
equipment, which is already at 10,000W/sq ft); and
Projected storage loading is less than 2,000W/sq ft by
2012. (Migration from 3.5-inch to 2.5-inch drives is
included in this projection.)
But storage is only one part of the problem in the data
center. Within the storage stack, the main culprit is
spinning disk drives, accounting for an overwhelming
80% of the power consumption of storage arrays on
average, as shown in the figure on p. 35. (This figure
will be lower for controller-intensive Tier-1 arrays.)
According to Wikibon member William Souder, director of network operations and chief security officer, Berry College, "There is no silver bullet when it comes to energy efficiency. Customers must evaluate a variety of alternative techniques to reduce power consumption and choose the ones that best fit their business requirements." In general, with storage consumption growing at 50% per year for many companies, while budgets are flat, the best approach is to find techniques that help consume less storage and/or use storage more efficiently. Another approach is to get rid of equipment that is power hungry and to modernize the infrastructure. Here's a list of storage-related practices and approaches that can be used to reduce energy consumption, with associated trade-offs: Virtualization and thin provisioning of server and storage infrastructures can provide immediate benefits, but they can bring complexities in management, performance, backup, and possibly a need to re-architect major processes in the data center. Tiered storage can take advantage of high-capacity SATA drives and match data with device characteristics, but it's not always easy to mandate that businesses will not be allowed to use Tier-1 storage unless they meet specific criteria (a.k.a. the "you're not putting my data on Tier-2" phenomenon). Data de-duplication, as applied to backup or online archiving, can reduce capacity requirements by, typically, 10x to 15x for backup or 2x to 3x for online storage. Often, however, disk-based backup using data de-duplication is designed to replace tapes, which are the greenest of technologies (notwithstanding the impact of transportation). Massive array of idle disks (MAID) and spindown techniques that idle drives for inactive data are other solutions, but part of the problem is that organizations are increasingly wide-striping data across multiple disks for performance and resiliency. This means all devices are always active and can't be idled. NAND and flash memory are making inroads into conventional disk drives, and if you can cost- justify the technology it will save on power relative to spinning media. In addition, there are several other approaches such as shutting down and consolidating smaller data centers (e.g., those less than 20,000 sq ft) but make sure you have top-down management support or the strategy will not stick. Selective sourcing (e.g., remote backup) is also an effective approach to lowering the power budget for small and medium-sized companies that are not leery of managed services. Other infrastructure considerations include DC power and water cooling; how-ever, these approaches are expensive to retrofit on existing infrastructure and are best applied in "greenfield" situations. Finally, companies should take advantage of energy rebates and credits where available. To date, PG&E of Northern California is the only power company widely known to be writing checks to customers for installing more-efficient equipment. However, according to Mark Bramfitt, program manager of the PG&E rebate program, "Not many storage vendors are taking advantage of the initiative." |
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| by Dave Cotter |
SAS Storage Solution - SASBOY with MAID 2.0
Thousand Oaks, Calif., June 2, 2008 - Nexsan, a
leading provider of energy efficient, long-term disk
storage, today announced the availability of SASBoy, a
high-density, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) storage
solution. This is the only SAS storage solution on the
market to provide MAID 2.0 functionality via Nexsan's
AutoMAID (Automatic Massive Array of Idle Disks)
technology, which reduces energy use without
compromising application performance.
SASBoy uses high-performance RAID controllers and
offers fast I/O response for searching and retrieving
small fixed-content files. It is well suited for
applications like web and Intranet fixed-content
delivery, databases for storing and retrieving PACS
(Picture Archiving and Communication Systems)
content, document management, and business
reports. SASBoy is completely OS-independent and
provides both iSCSI and Fibre Channel connectivity.
The new cost-effective solution houses fourteen
300GB SAS drives in 3U for 4.2 TB of storage.
Product Details - Speeds: High-performance random access for fixed- content. - Up to 50,000 random IOPS from cache; - Green storage: Multiple levels of energy efficiency, user configurable to control energy use. - No compromise on application performance. Comes standard with the SASBoy; - Features both Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity to enable cost-effective, high performance access to large amounts of information; - High availability architecture features full redundancy across all active components; - Centralized management and monitoring platform that enables remote management and configuration of multiple arrays from a single GUI through NexScan software; - Priced for the SME market (small to mid-size enterprises); - Available immediately through Nexsan's global VAR channel; - Easily integrates with SATA products for tiered storage; -Three-year warranty includes advance exchange, 24- 7 technical support. |
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| by Dave Cotter |
nTier Intelligent Secondary Storage (ISS) appliances
Spectra Logic, the data storage innovator, has signed
a joint partnership agreement with FalconStor
Software Inc., where Spectra will integrate
FalconStor® Virtual Tape Library and deduplication
software on its nTier Intelligent Secondary Storage
(ISS) appliances. The bundled solution eliminates
storage of redundant data on the nTier disk backup
target while maintaining integration with the tape
archive solution. Spectra Logic pre-configures and
optimizes the nTier Deduplication feature to ensure it
arrives ready to deploy, saving customers' hours of
installation and configuration time.
Spectra's nTier ISS disk backup products-the
nTier300, 500 and 700-are scalable from 10TB to
600 TB logical capacity, and are ideal for SMB and
enterprise customers. The new nTier300, at just 3U, is
uniquely suited for remote offices with smaller data
sets, and will begin shipping this week. Spectra's
nTier ISS line, powered by FalconStor VTL software,
offers replication, global deduplication and scalability
for any sized customer. The nTier300 is designed for
small and distributed offices, the nTier500 for small to
medium enterprises, and the nTier700 for large
enterprises.
Enjoy the benefits and cost-savings associated with deduplication in Spectra's nTier Intelligent Secondary Storage appliances. nTier Deduplication appliances ship as a turnkey, pre-configured solution that is ready to use. Supporting capacities from 5 TB up to 900 TB of logical storage, nTier Deduplication helps you dramatically reduce your storage consumption with an average of 20:1 reduction in average business environments, providing a logical capacity of over one petabyte of data. |
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| by Dave Cotter |
VMWARE Site Recovery Manager (SRM)
Site Recovery Manager is a new product from VMware
that integrates directly with the PS Series' Auto-
Replication feature. Key elements of the joint solution:
- SRM guides your customers through the process of
setting up and configuring recovery plans for their
virtualized IT environment
- At the time of failover, SRM automatically runs the
recovery plan - starting virtual machines in the proper
order with updated networking configurations
- Testing disaster recovery plans is also made easy by
executing the failover in an isolated test environment,
then cleaning-up the environment for non-disruptive
testing.
We are very excited about the availability of VMware's
Site Recovery Manager (SRM) and wanted to
announce the concurrent release of Dell's SRM
storage adapter for EqualLogic PS Series iSCSI
SANs. As an existing PS Series
customer either under warranty or under a current Dell
service/support
agreement, Dell's SRM storage adapter will be
available for download from the customer support site
concurrent with the release of VMware's Site Recovery
Manager, at no additional cost. Our engineers, product
managers, support staff, and beta customers have
been working diligently to ensure that Dell's
EqualLogic SRM solution helps provide the best user
experience possible and is consistent with our
mission to simplify IT.
Dell EqualLogic for Cost-Effective SRM Deployments: Site Recovery Manager leverages SAN-based replication to move virtual machines and their datasets between the production and disaster recovery sites. In traditional SAN environments, the cost and complexity of SAN-based replication is cost and resource prohibitive for many businesses. PS Series includes a complete suite of data protection tools for simplified protection of the virtual datacenter and an affordable SRM deployment. With the PS Series, Auto-Replication between data centers can be easily implemented without requiring the purchase of additional software licenses or complex configurations. Auto-Replication includes flexible scheduling capabilities to save time and network bandwidth. Automated Site Recovery over Existing WAN Infrastructure: SRM enables non-disruptive, automated testing of recovery plans and automates the recovery process, while the PS Series provides affordable and easy-to-configure replication over any distance using existing IP networks. iSCSI connectivity allows organizations to leverage their existing Ethernet infrastructure for disaster recovery instead of a complicated and expensive Fibre Channel network. |
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| by Dave Cotter |
Integrated, Full VMware Support Now Available
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 4, 2008--
BakBone Software(R) (Pink Sheets:BKBO), the
leading provider of heterogeneous integrated data
protection solutions, is now shipping NetVault(R):
Backup 8.1. NetVault: Backup 8.1 supports individual
ESX Servers as well as full virtual data centers without
the need to create and run scripts, giving BakBone
customers the flexibility to deploy data protection in
virtual environments and manage the solution under
one umbrella, from one GUI.
Highlights for NetVault: Backup 8.1
include
Full VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) Support
- Offers the flexibility to protect virtual machines
deployed on a VMware ESX Server or multiple VMware
ESX Servers from a VCB proxy server
- Provides protection for virtual machine images or
individual files on Windows guest operating system
- Tracks virtual machine migration with VMotion
Full VMware virtual machine backups
- Provides virtual machines with protection from
disasters, media failure and data corruption
- Protects the entire virtual environment in case of a
disaster, including log and configuration files as well
as the VMDK data files
Increased flexibility
- Gives administrators automatic integration with
supported devices, including a VTL, SAN, NDMP or
locally attached drives
- Offers greater granularity for Windows on VMware by
allowing customers to backup and restore individual
files within virtual machines
- Empowers storage administrators to create
comprehensive, flexible backup policies without the
need to understand VCB internals or create complex
scripts
Increase Confidence While Deploying VMware NetVault: Backup VMware Plugin eliminates the necessity for administrators to write complex scripts - we've done the work for you to save staff time, simplify your backup environment and give you peace of mind. Since virtual machine backup management is integrated into the NetVault: Backup environment, storage administration is far more efficient. Users can set backup policies and restore data without requiring VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) expertise. Improve VMware ESX Performance When You Deploy VCB NetVault: Backup VMware Plugin supports VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) to enable you to reduce overhead on VMware ESX servers and free network bandwidth. When the ESX servers don't have to run backups, they can run more virtual machines. As a result, you can consolidate hardware and save energy. NetVault: Backup VMware Plugin gives you the flexibility to protect all the virtual machines on a single ESX server or multiple ESX servers through VCB. With VCB support, you can restore complete virtual machine images or individual Windows files. Enhance Business Continuity with Automatic Integration of Backup Devices The more integrated the components of your data protection strategy, the easier it is to avoid downtime and keep your business running smoothly. NetVault: Backup VMware Plugin helps you prepare for unplanned interruptions because it integrates with many backup devices to expedite offsite storage and disaster recovery. Novice or expert administrators can use the intuitive GUI to quickly restore data when needed so you don't have to always be available 24x7. |
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| by Dave Cotter |
Disk2Disk2Disk Total Solution with Revinetix
Revinetix meets the data protection challenges faced
by SMBs with innovative data protection software
integrated with best-of-class, disk-based hardware.
The result is a turn-key appliance fully installed,
configured and ready for seamless deployment within
your existing IT infrastructure. Revinetix products
come in desktop cube, 1U, 2U, 3U, 4U, and 8U rack-
mount chassis to support storage capacities ranging
from 250 Gigabytes up to 35 Terabytes.
The Disk2Disk2Disk (D2D2D) backup philosophy is
a distinguishing advantage of Revinetix' solutions.
Revinetix delivers affordable, total disk-based backup
products that eliminate the traditional weak link of data
protection: slow, failure-prone tapes. In today's
economy where many businesses operate 24/7 and
system downtime is intolerable, a premium exists for
accomplishing backups and restores quickly and
reliably.
The Perfect Backup for SMBs/SMEs:
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