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Managing the information that drives the enterprise

STORAGE

MAY 2013

VOL. 12 | NO. 3

ALL-IN-ONE

APPLIANCES FORINSTANT BACKUP

STORAGEMANAGERS SEETHEIR 2013 BUDGETSGROWING (A LITTLE)

CASTAGNA:BYE-BYE BACKUP?

TOIGO:STORAGE HOLYGRAIL: REAL CENTRALMANAGEMENT

McCLURE:THE OBJECT IS STORAGE

MATCHETT:

THE STATE OF SOLID-STATE AFTER FLASH

SNAPSHOT:WIDE USE OF SOLID-STATESTORAGE IN SMALL DOSES

.10WAYSTO SPEED UP

VIRTUAL SERVERSTORAGEStorage systems can buckleunder the load of multiplevirtual servers. These experttips will help break bottle-necks and up IOPS. PAGE 11


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3 STORAGE n MAY 2013

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10 WAYS TOSPEED UP VIRTUALSERVER STORAGE

ALL-IN-ONE APPLIANCES

FOR INSTANT BACKUP

STORAGE MANAGERS SEEBUDGETS RISE

THE OBJECT IS STORAGE

THE STATE OFSOLID-STATEAFTER FLASH

WIDE USE OFSOLID-STATE STORAGE

IN SMALL DOSES

That makes backup a pretty lucrative endeavor for ven-

dors and offers little motivation to disrupt the status quo

by doing anything that might simplify or streamline the

process.

We can blame ourselves, too. After so many years,

were set in our ways and just accept that we need spe-

cial people with special skills to ensure all that backup

hardware and software runs right. Theres denitely abecause thats the way we do it mindset when some-

one asks why so many copies are made or so much data is

backed up. And theres no denying that changing backup

procedures and apps is no small matter, especially if you

have a lot of old backup data stashed on tape.

Theres some blame that can be shared among ven-

dors and users alike. With the inexorable growth of le

data about to put a stranglehold on storage operations in

Backup? Fuggedaboutit!A lot of storage shops are fighting a losing battle when it comes to data protection,with too much data and not enough time. Maybe its time to rethink the process.

EDI T ORI A L | RI CH CA S T A GNA

ITS 2013 ANDwere still doing backup. I know things

tend to toddle along kind of slowly in IT, but the way

we protect our datahas barely changed at all in my

lifetime, and Im hardly a kid. Backup keeps getting

better, of course, with techs like data deduplication

and bigger, faster storage targets to send all that backup

data to. But todays data storage and backup process re-

quires essentially the same oversight and administrationit did 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

Few things stagnate like that in the tech universe

without a reason, and there are plenty of reasons why

backup has been lingering in a time warp for so long.

Along with everything else in this world, if you follow

the money things start to fall into place and a lot of the

mystery disappears. Backup is a complex process involv-

ing software, hardware, manpower and special expertise.
http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Five-data-protection-guidelines-for-business-continuityhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Five-data-protection-guidelines-for-business-continuityhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/


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important stuffis slipping through the cracks. A few

companies have even stopped trying to back up every-thing; they just spin off copies of the critical things and

keep their ngers crossed about the rest of the data.

It has to be a lot easier than that. Lets just get rid of

backup. The tools and technologies are here, they just

need to be better integrated. By now, one would havethought that continuous data protection (CDP) would be

an integral part of everybodys data protection plan, but

adoption has been slow. On our most recent Purchasing

Intentions survey, only 18% of respondents said theyre

using some form of CDP and 13% said they plan to add it

to their backup repertoires this year.

The combination of CDP plus snapshots plus rep-

lication could be the wonder drug that cures backups


many companies, there are probably a lot of storage pros

who realize that keeping everything is impractical butstill dont know what data can be ditched. That usually

means shops are backing up data that should have been

discarded and making multiple copies of useless stuff.

Six or seven years ago, a few startup vendors helped de-

ne a new storage product category with data classica-

tion products that could help cull the goodies from the

garbage. But they were largely ignored and the concept of

data classication has mostly gone away, leaving a bunch

of backup admins trying to gure out what to keep andwhat to toss.

Since the great recession put the brakes on a lot of

planned storage purchases, data storage managers have

learned to use their installed storage as efciently as pos-

sible. Some of that efciency also shows up in backup op-

erations, but not enough to stem the tide of spiraling data

stores.

So maybe its time to rethink data storage and backup.

Just as RAID and erasure coding are built into systemsand run virtually unattended after some setup and with

a little oversight, backup ought to be far more inte-

grated with storage systems and processes. As an exter-

nal process, backup isnt cutting it; many companies are

struggling to complete backup jobs before the morn-

ing shift arrives or trying to cope with voluminous, mul-

tiple backup sets. And with so much pressure and so

little time, its inevitable that some datamaybe some

A few startup vendors helped definea new storage product category withdata classification products that

could help cull the goodies fromthe garbage. But they were largelyignored and the concept of dataclassification has mostly gone away.
http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/resources/Data-storage-backup-toolshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/continuous-data-protectionhttp://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/photostory/2240179075/Spending-plan-trends-for-enterprise-data-protection/1/Spending-plans-for-advanced-data-protectionhttp://searchsmbstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Using-snapshots-CDP-and-data-deduplication-as-part-of-your-data-backup-strategyhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Records-retention-management-Arm-yourself-against-regulatory-scrutinyhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tutorial/Data-classification-fueled-by-e-discovery-storage-tieringhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tutorial/Data-classification-fueled-by-e-discovery-storage-tieringhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storagehttp://searchcio.techtarget.com/tip/Making-a-business-case-for-data-storage-and-backuphttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Erasure-codes-The-foundation-of-RAID-6-arrayshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Erasure-codes-The-foundation-of-RAID-6-arrayshttp://searchcio.techtarget.com/tip/Making-a-business-case-for-data-storage-and-backuphttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/storagehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tutorial/Data-classification-fueled-by-e-discovery-storage-tieringhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tutorial/Data-classification-fueled-by-e-discovery-storage-tieringhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Records-retention-management-Arm-yourself-against-regulatory-scrutinyhttp://searchsmbstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Using-snapshots-CDP-and-data-deduplication-as-part-of-your-data-backup-strategyhttp://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/photostory/2240179075/Spending-plan-trends-for-enterprise-data-protection/1/Spending-plans-for-advanced-data-protectionhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/continuous-data-protectionhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/resources/Data-storage-backup-tools


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appropriately for mission-critical data down to user les.

There are many more details that youd need to workout, but if a decent data protection management app was

tossed into the mix, you could keep tabs on the process

and be warned if something jumps the tracks at any point.

Backup is tough, but its tougher than it should be

when it operates in isolation from the rest of a storage

systems processes. A number of startupsas well as es-

tablished playersare beginning to address the issue, but

the required degree of integration is not yet in sight. But

as data continues to growand storage managers get moredesperate for a data protection scheme that works, per-

haps storage vendors will pay attention. And maybe then

youll be able to forget about backup. n

RICH CASTAGNAis editorial director of TechTargets Storage MediaGroup.

ills. Rev up CDP, and without doing anything else,

your companys data gets backed up not in big un-wieldy batches every night, but in little drips and drabs

throughout the day. Now what if CDP was built into the

storage systems operating system just like other ser-

vices? You might have to turn a few dials to set how fre-

quently the new or modied data should be scooped up

and where it should be sent, but the process would be

nearly invisible and cause far less disruption than tradi-

tional backup operations.

Of course, even if backup was tightly integrated andlargely unseen, youd still need to monitor it to make sure

its doing what you expect it to do. You need to know, for

example, that database tables have been copied in a con-

sistent manner using Microsoft VSS or a similar tech-

nology. Youll also want to control what gets copied and

when, so youll need to be able to throttle CDP services
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Enforce-data-management-techniques-to-keep-up-with-data-growthmailto:rcastagna%40storagemagazine.com?subject=mailto:rcastagna%40storagemagazine.com?subject=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Enforce-data-management-techniques-to-keep-up-with-data-growth


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S T ORA GE REV OLUT I ON | JON T OI GO

The storage Holy Grail:Ending bifurcated managementStorage virtualization and other storage uber-controllers are astep toward better management, but its still not an integrated process.

IN AN EARLIER column, I talked about the evolution of

storage infrastructure management and the various

ways storage services were being aggregated to sim-

plify their selective application to specic data as-

sets and workloads.

The mainstream approach to managing storage infra-

structure has been far from elegant or economical. First,

vendors have been evolving their arrays controller boardsinto full-edged general-purpose servers, often running

a recognizable OS as well as storage-specic applications

ranging from proprietary le systems and RAID software

to more exotic thin-provisioning or deduplication algo-

rithms. The result is a storage-as-appliance model that

has the advantage of creating sleek, self-contained islands

of storage, each managed individually using its own ele-

ment management software, but with the downside of

making storage more difcult to manage as it scales.

From the perspective of workload and data, appliance

storage was designed more for direct attachment to cer-

tain data than for sharing across multiple workloads. An

Oracle database needed its own dedicated storage rig, as

did Microsoft Exchange and so on. This one-application-

one-appliance model worked well until data outgrew rig

capacity. Fielding another rig required hiring another ad-ministrator to congure, optimize, manage and trouble-

shoot the new island.

Under those circumstances, data storage infrastruc-

ture managementmanaging a fabric of such storage ap-

plianceswas (and is) difcult to automate; hence, its

labor-intensive and costly from both a Capex (cost of

specialized gear) and Opex (labor cost) perspective.

An alternative was to virtualize the hardware layer,
http://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/video/Toigo-Managing-data-storage-infrastructure-can-maximize-resourceshttp://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/video/Toigo-Managing-data-storage-infrastructure-can-maximize-resourceshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/2240158528/Storage-infrastructure-management-doesnt-have-to-be-an-infrastrugglehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/2240158528/Storage-infrastructure-management-doesnt-have-to-be-an-infrastrugglehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/2240158528/Storage-infrastructure-management-doesnt-have-to-be-an-infrastrugglehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/news/2240158528/Storage-infrastructure-management-doesnt-have-to-be-an-infrastrugglehttp://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/video/Toigo-Managing-data-storage-infrastructure-can-maximize-resourceshttp://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/video/Toigo-Managing-data-storage-infrastructure-can-maximize-resources


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abstract value-add functionality away from hardware,

thereby reducing both the cost of the hardware and thelock-in to a particular vendors rig. Moreover they enable

the macro-level management of storage as a service, de-

livering the means to manage capacity, performance and

data protection holistically. Marketecture like private

storage clouds or software-dened storage are veiled

references to these management architectures.

While this new application-facing, service-oriented

management approach has been a long time in com-

ing, its not all thats needed. Below the layer of ser-

vices, capacity and performance is the hardware layer

where cabling gets fouled, HBAs die, disk drives fail and

solid-state drives burn out. Some folks who have aggre-

gated storage rigs with storage hypervisors or other uber-

controllers also believe that RAID needs to be done on

hardware, so RAID conguration and management at

turning off all the on-box software and placing those ser-

vices on a software or hardware uber-controller that op-erated across all spindles in the infrastructure. I noted

last time that several software-based uber-controllers are

available in the form of storage virtualization software

packages or storage hypervisors to use the more re-

cently coined term. I also highlighted an uber-controller

appliance from Tributary Systems called (appropriately

enough) the Tributary Storage Director.

Between them, software-based storage hypervisors

and hardware-based storage service management appli-ances usurp the on-board value-add software of the stor-

age array and surface the functions as services that can

be mapped to policies and applied selectively to data. The

storage virtualization software approach delivers a cen-

tralized way to do this, becoming a service-enhanced

volume delivery engine or maybe a storage router in

terms of its function to place data onto spindles where

desired services can be most efciently applied.

The Tributary Systems approach is more federated.

While the companys Storage Director can be clustered

(to provide more ports for attaching more client systems

and storage arrays), you can set up multiple Storage Di-

rectors around your infrastructure as required by storage

I/O trafc to facilitate policy-based assignment of storage

services to selected data. Managing storage in this cong-

uration requires polling each Storage Director.

The good thing about the uber-controllers is that they

The good thing about the uber-controllers is that they abstractvalue-add functionality away from

hardware, thereby reducing both thecost of the hardware and the lock-into a particular vendors rig.
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Toigo-A-brief-history-of-storage-management-systemshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Toigo-A-brief-history-of-storage-management-systemshttp://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/service-oriented-managementhttp://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/service-oriented-managementhttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/feature/A-guide-to-storage-virtualizationhttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/feature/A-guide-to-storage-virtualizationhttp://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/service-oriented-managementhttp://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/service-oriented-managementhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Toigo-A-brief-history-of-storage-management-systemshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Toigo-A-brief-history-of-storage-management-systems


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what they have done with the protocol thus far. EMC,

Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and all the knee-nippers andankle-biters of the storage world also rolled out roadmaps

emphasizing REST, but only a few (notably X-IO) have

delivered. X-IO shows how SRM and storage service man-

agement can be combined using the World Wide Web

Consortium standard protocol.

The bottom line is that without an open-standards-

based approach to unifying service and plumbing man-

agement, it will be signicantly more difcult and costly

to manage burgeoning storage infrastructures. Cloudstorage and software-dened storage marketecture are

distractions, and unied storage management (across

all vendors gear) is far more important than unied

storage. n

JON WILLIAM TOIGO is a 30-year IT veteran, CEO and managingprincipal of Toigo Partners International, and chairman of the DataManagement Institute.

the box or drive-tray level is not covered by service-level

management.That leaves us with abifurcated management chal-

lenge in storage: aggregated services need to be managed

and provisioned at the uber-controller, but someone also

needs to use conventional storage resource management

(SRM) software toolsleveraging connections to discrete

devices via proprietary APIs, SNMP MIBs and SMI-S pro-

vidersin a desperate effort to see what is happening to

I/O in real-time and to oversee the condition of the infra-

structure plumbing. If youre keeping count, thats twomanagement targets with no unied mechanism for col-

lecting and presenting information so that management

can advance toward greater automation.

It would be nice if every vendor would do something

to implement open REST protocols for management of

their arrays, which they sounded enthusiastic about do-

ing a few years ago. In 2009, IBM announced it was em-

bracing REST with its Project Zero which is exactly
http://cortexdeveloper.com/http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Unified-storage-plays-important-role-in-data-storage-environmentsmailto:jtoigo%40toigopartners.com?subject=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Data-storage-challenges-outpace-decision-making-strategieshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Data-storage-challenges-outpace-decision-making-strategieshttp://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/RESThttp://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/RESThttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Data-storage-challenges-outpace-decision-making-strategieshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/video/Data-storage-challenges-outpace-decision-making-strategiesmailto:jtoigo%40toigopartners.com?subject=http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Unified-storage-plays-important-role-in-data-storage-environmentshttp://cortexdeveloper.com/


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COV ER S T ORY | S T ORA GE F OR V Ms

By David Davis

10 WAYSTO IMPROVESTORAGEPERFORMANCE

FOR VIRTUALSERVERSVirtual servers can have a profoundeffect on storage I/O. Here are 10ways to help ensurethat your storageis performing atits best.

ENTERPRISE VIRTUAL INFRASTRUCTURE will always use shared

storage. Its a fact of lifeif you want to use the advanced

features of VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V, all

your hosts will need access to the les that make up your

virtual machines (VMs). While the latest editions of VM-ware VMotion and Microsoft Live Migration dont re-

quire shared storage, most features like VMware vSphere

High Availability and Microsoft Failover Clustering still

do (and likely always will).

For the virtual infrastructure (and your critical ap-

plications) to perform well, they must be fed the virtual

CPU,virtual memoryandvirtual disk I/O they hunger

for. The monitoring of virtual CPU and memory has got-

ten easier as hypervisors have made more statistics avail-

able and monitoring tools have gotten smarter. However,

performance monitoring forvirtual infrastructure stor-

age is still, in many cases, more of an art than a science.

Certainly there are scientic statistics that are analyzed in
http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/definition/virtual-machinehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/virtual-memoryhttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/definition/I-O-virtualization-IOVhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Managing-storage-for-virtual-servershttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Managing-storage-for-virtual-servershttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Managing-storage-for-virtual-servershttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/Managing-storage-for-virtual-servershttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/definition/I-O-virtualization-IOVhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/virtual-memoryhttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/definition/virtual-machine


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Those tools could be the included VMware esxtop CLI

tool, performance graphs inside vCenter (where IOPSare represented as disk.numberRead.summation and

disk.numberWrite.summation counters) or commercial

tools from third parties. Because vCenter stats must be

divided by the sample time to produce IOPS, it can be

more work to calculate. Third-party tools (or even VM-

ware vCenter Operations Manager) are more costly but

are much easier to use and much more intelligent.

Note that, among other things listed below, LUN con-

gurations and RAID selection can also have a massiveimpact on I/O performance.

KNOW YOUR APPLICATIONSWhile storage and virtualization admins

have many tools to help churn out more I/O,

theyre usually limited in the ways they can

reduce the I/O demand. Also, too many IT pros are more

than happy to get knee deep in the weeds of data center

infrastructure while totally ignoring the applications run-

ning inside.

Its tough to be successful at truly understanding stor-

age performance if you dont know what your most I/O-

intensive applications are, what VMs they run inside,

what server clusters they run on and what storage they

use. Are the applications read- or write-intensive? Know-

ing the answers to these questions will guide you in your

2

storage performance, but the difference is that the storage

is external to the hypervisor and physical server and, thus,the hypervisor (and your virtualization performance mon-

itoring tools) doesnt typically have as much insight into

whats happening with storage (but thats changing fast).

Nonetheless, there are a number of steps you can take

to improve the performance of your virtual server storage.

Here are 10 tips that can help you improve your storage

systems performance for your VMs.

KNOW YOUR IOPSThe science oftuning virtual server storage

is, in its simplest form, IOPS in versus IOPS

out. The drives in a LUN can provide a cer-

tain number of I/Os per second, the path in between the

server and storage has a specic throughput, and the ap-

plications demand so much. While the simplest ques-

tion is Do you have enough or do you need more?, the

answer isnt always easy. Many of the tools, technologies

and solutions described in the following tips can help you

gain more I/O capacityor nd ways to reduce the I/O de-

mand (usually by knowing the apps and working with app

owners or developers).

In a virtual infrastructure, the best way to understand

the typical I/O for VMs and datastores is to use virtual-

ization-specic performance analysis tools. Almost ev-

ery one of these tools will help you to know your IOPS.

1
http://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/feature/Monitoring-vSphere-performance-with-command-line-toolshttp://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/feature/Monitoring-vSphere-performance-with-command-line-toolshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-plan-for-I-O-intensive-environmentshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-plan-for-I-O-intensive-environmentshttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/news/1349785/Storage-best-practices-for-virtual-server-environmentshttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/feature/The-storage-for-VDI-equation-Capacity-IOPS-TCO-ROI-and-persistencyhttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/feature/The-storage-for-VDI-equation-Capacity-IOPS-TCO-ROI-and-persistencyhttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/news/1349785/Storage-best-practices-for-virtual-server-environmentshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-plan-for-I-O-intensive-environmentshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-plan-for-I-O-intensive-environmentshttp://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/feature/Monitoring-vSphere-performance-with-command-line-toolshttp://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/feature/Monitoring-vSphere-performance-with-command-line-tools


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different LUNs or changing the RAID type for a LUN, you

may improve performance for the virtual infrastructureas well as physical servers. In many cases, admins tend to

look to new bells and whistles to improve performance

when the source of virtual infrastructure storage perfor-

mance issues are the same things that typically affect tra-

ditional physical servers.

VAAI OR ODX

VMwares vStorage APIs for Array Integra-tion (VAAI) allows the vSphere hypervisor to

ofoad some storage-related tasks to the stor-

age. For example, instead of cloning a VM through the

hypervisor, that can just be done in the storage. VAAI also

signicantly reduces the time the disk is locked by using

hardware-accelerated locking. Make sure your storage is

VAAI-capable to ensure that your virtual infrastructure

benets from storage ofoad.

In the Microsoft Hyper-V world, Ofoaded Data

Transfer (ODX) is comparable to VAAI. If youre using

Hyper-V, you want your storage to be ODX-capable.

To nd out if your storage offers VMware VAAI,

look up your SAN or NAS in the VMware Compatibility

Guide. To nd out if your storage is ODX compatible, ask

the vendor if their product is Microsoft ODX certied.

Over time, more and more vendors will add VAAI and

ODX compatibility to their enterprise storage arrays.

4

storage tuning efforts. By understanding the applications,

and working with app owners and app developers, youmay even be able to reduce the I/O workload and save the

company a small fortune by not having to buy a new stor-

age array or add high-performance drives.

If the application is already virtualized, you can use

the tools mentioned above to get to know the typical I/O

load over time and whether its read- or write-intensive.

If the app isnt virtualized, you may want to create a proof

of concept for virtualizing the app, test the virtualized

app with a realistic load and then model the productionworkload based on those tests. Alternatively, if the pro-

duction app already uses a SAN, then you could use your

SAN vendors performance tool to measure I/O workload

for the physical server before virtualizing.

MAXIMIZE THE STORAGE YOU HAVEOne way to improve storage performance is to

ensure that youre making the most of the stor-

age you already have. You may have features

that arent even turned on, or perhaps you have features

that could be enabled for a minimal cost. You could even

consider reconguring your storage LUNs or RAID groups

to gain better performance for the virtual infrastructure.

I/O workloads change over time and perhaps the LUN lay-

out and RAID groups that were laid out a couple of years

ago no longer apply. By rebalancing the workload across

3
http://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/tip/VMwares-vStorage-APIs-for-Array-Integration-VAAI-How-they-work-and-which-arrays-support-themhttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Offloaded-Data-Transfer-speeds-up-reads-and-writes-in-Hyper-Vhttp://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.phphttp://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.phphttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/LUN-configuration-best-practices-to-boost-virtual-machine-performancehttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/LUN-configuration-best-practices-to-boost-virtual-machine-performancehttp://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.phphttp://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.phphttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Offloaded-Data-Transfer-speeds-up-reads-and-writes-in-Hyper-Vhttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/tip/VMwares-vStorage-APIs-for-Array-Integration-VAAI-How-they-work-and-which-arrays-support-them


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want to use thick provisioning (lazyzerothick, to be spe-

cic) for VM disks and then use thin provisioning in yourstorage array.

VIRTUALIZATION-AWARE STORAGESome new storage arrays are billed as vir-

tualization-aware. That means the storage

talks to VMware vCenter, and so the storage

knows what VMs are running and the path to their virtual

machine disk les (VMDKs) on the SAN/NAS. Both thevirtualization admin and the storage admin benet signif-

icantly from this communication. For example, you could

nd out what VMs are creating the most IOPS or which

VMs are experiencing the most storage latency. Somevir-

tualization-aware storage systems can even provide per-

VM snapshots and clones. You dont necessarily have to

replace your storage array with one thats virtualization-

aware, but its something to consider for future projects

and something to ask your current storage vendor about

to see what similar features theyre planning for future

release.

PARTITION ALIGNMENTWhen older operating systems (OSes) are run

in VMs without taking partition alignment

into account, you can cause performance

7

8

LIMIT SNAPSHOTS

One of the most useful features of virtualiza-tion is the ability to snapshot a virtual ma-

chine. That point-in-time picture of the VMs

memory and virtual disk are useful should an application

or OS upgrade go wrong or you need to test congura-

tion changes. The snapshot is also used by virtualization

backup and replication applications to capture virtual

disk changes without causing downtime. However, too

many times snapshots are overused, not only taking up

disk space but causing poor performance for backup ap-plications, VMotion and other storage-related functions.

Snapshots should only be used temporarily and then

deleted.

THICK PROVISIONINGVERSUS THIN PROVISIONINGThe ability to create VMs with thin provi-

sioned virtual disks is very useful. I use thin

provisioning all the time in my lab environment. How-

ever, thin provisioning in the virtualization layer and

physical storage array must be carefully planned and

managed. Most of the problems with thin provisioning

relate to simply running out of storage. However, if you

dont have VAAI-enabled arrays, there can be some per-

formance degradation when the thinly provisioned virtual

disk needs to be increased in size. In that case, you may

5

6
http://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Process-to-convert-thick-to-thin-provisioned-VMDKshttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/podcast/VM-aware-storage-provides-better-migration-performance-and-morehttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/podcast/VM-aware-storage-provides-better-migration-performance-and-morehttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/Aligning-disk-partitions-to-boost-virtual-machine-performancehttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/How-VMware-snapshots-workhttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/How-VMware-snapshots-workhttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/Thin-provisioning-myth-busters-The-benefits-of-thin-virtual-diskshttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/Thin-provisioning-myth-busters-The-benefits-of-thin-virtual-diskshttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/Thin-provisioning-myth-busters-The-benefits-of-thin-virtual-diskshttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/Thin-provisioning-myth-busters-The-benefits-of-thin-virtual-diskshttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/How-VMware-snapshots-workhttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/How-VMware-snapshots-workhttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/tip/Aligning-disk-partitions-to-boost-virtual-machine-performancehttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/podcast/VM-aware-storage-provides-better-migration-performance-and-morehttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/podcast/VM-aware-storage-provides-better-migration-performance-and-morehttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Process-to-convert-thick-to-thin-provisioned-VMDKs


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downtime) from one datastore to another (or even from

one array to another) should that datastore be experienc-ing high latency or high disk space utilization. Make sure

your storage can speak to vCenter using the VMware

vStorage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) so vCenter

can identify the capabilities of the storage for SDRS to be

as successful as possible in preventing storage hiccups.

AND IF ALL ELSE FAILS ...

While budgets are tight for everyone, you may need tospend some money and purchase a new storage system

to get higher performance for the virtual infrastructure.

The virtual infrastructures I/O workload of 50-plus VMs

all hammering on disk LUNs will be very different from

the previous 1:1 mapping for a server and a disk LUN. In

addition to the better performance your new storage will

provide, you may gain additional features such as virtu-

alization-aware storage, hybrid storage, VAAI, VASA and

more.

Virtualization is a new mindset in the data center;

when VMs are consolidated, storage must be rethought

and re-equipped.n

DAVID DAVIS is the author of the VMware vSphere and MicrosoftHyper-V video training library from www.TrainSignal.com. He haswritten extensively, is a vExpert, VCP, VCAP-DCA and CCIE #9369with more than 18 years of enterprise IT experience.

issues. However, with Windows Vista, Windows 7 and

Windows 2008 (or later, such as Windows 8 and Win-dows 2012), this is no longer an issue. Some virtualiza-

tion-aware storage can automatically align VMDKs, no

matter the OS. But if your company is using older OSes,

you should verify that your VMDKs are aligned with your

virtual machine le system (VMFS) and SAN LUN.

There are a number of tools available to help you ver-

ify partition alignment of pre-Windows Vista and pre-

Windows 2008 OSes, including the free UberAlign or the

commercialvOptimizer Pro.

STORAGE I/O CONTROLWith multiple virtualization hosts sharing

the same storage, something needs to ensure

the storage isnt monopolized by an I/O-

hungry application or that more critical applications

arent starved for I/O. VMwares vSphere Storage I/O

Control does this and is enabled with a single checkbox

on a VMFS datastore.

STORAGE DISTRIBUTEDRESOURCE SCHEDULER (SDRS)What VMwares Distributed Resource Sched-

uler does for CPU and RAM, SDRS does for

storage. SDRS will move virtual machine disks (with no

9

10
http://www.vmwarevideos.com/http://www.trainsignal.com/http://nickapedia.com/2011/11/03/straighten-up-with-a-new-uber-tool-presenting-uberalign/http://www.quest.com/voptimizer-pro/http://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/tip/vSphere-Storage-I-O-Control-What-it-does-and-how-to-configure-ithttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/tip/vSphere-Storage-I-O-Control-What-it-does-and-how-to-configure-ithttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/definition/VMware-DRShttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/definition/VMware-DRShttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/definition/Storage-Distributed-Resource-Scheduler-DRShttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/definition/Storage-Distributed-Resource-Scheduler-DRShttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/definition/VMware-DRShttp://searchvmware.techtarget.com/definition/VMware-DRShttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/tip/vSphere-Storage-I-O-Control-What-it-does-and-how-to-configure-ithttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/tip/vSphere-Storage-I-O-Control-What-it-does-and-how-to-configure-ithttp://www.quest.com/voptimizer-pro/http://nickapedia.com/2011/11/03/straighten-up-with-a-new-uber-tool-presenting-uberalign/http://www.trainsignal.com/http://www.vmwarevideos.com/


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Memorizing RAID level defnitionsand knowing which level does what can be:

Conusing

Hard to Remember

Useul

All o the above

So how much do you think you know about RAID?

Find Out For Yourself and Test Your Knowledge with Our

Exclusive RAID Quiz! And dont forget to bookmark this page

for future RAID-level reference.

Test your knowledge at

SearchSMBStorage.com/RAID_Quiz
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BACKUP APPLIANCES WERE originally designed for small

companies or departmental backup environments. They

provided an all-in-one backup solution that was easy to

install and run, but they didnt offer the features, func-

tionality or scalability required for midsize or larger en-vironments. But with improvements to both hardware

and software, data backup appliances have become viable

solutions for companies of almost any size, even some in

the enterprise space.

DATA BACKUP APPLIANCE DEFINEDFor our discussion, well dene a data backup appliance

as a complete backup system that includes hardware to

store backed up data and software that controls the pro-

cess of copying data from client servers and computers to

the storage system. Many of these products can write data

to direct-attached storage (DAS) or networked storage

By Eric Slack

BACKUPIN A BOXBackup appliances combinesoftware and hardware ina single box, configured andready to go. Once consideredjust an SMB option, theseproducts are now ready forthe enterprise.
http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Backup-appliance-Backup-software-and-hardware-in-one-boxhttp://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Backup-appliance-Backup-software-and-hardware-in-one-box


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scalability, both in capacity and performance, and they of-

ten lacked the more sophisticated features that traditionalbackup applications include.

More recently, with improvements in storage and

processing technologies (and the continuing decline in

storage costs), data backup appliances have evolved into

devices capable of replacing backup software and hard-

ware in some very large environments. Technologies such

as data deduplication, thin provisioning and compression

have increased the effective capacity of disk arrays, fur-

ther enhancing the appeal of these turnkey systems. Andbecause processing power and network connectivity is

so affordable these days, its possible to implement these

features without signicantly impacting the ingest and

throughput speed of the appliance.

These developments have made backup appliances a

better t for IT departments in larger organizations, but

theres another factor to consider. The simplicity that

makes appliances attractive to smaller companies is also

appealing to larger IT organizations. After all, time saved

on more basic tasks like backup administration can be re-

directed to other, more complex projects.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGESOF BACKUP APPLIANCESGenerally, an appliance is easier to implement than an

independent software application because the appliance

(NAS or SAN), but we wont consider that a requirement.

That denition is in contrast to another familiar term,purpose-built backup appliance (PBBA), which has been

used to describe dedicated backup storage systems that

are typically used as targets for backup software but dont

always include that software. Virtual backup appliances

backup applications that run in a virtual machinealso

arent included in our denition, although many of the

data backup appliance vendors offer that option as well.

Backup appliances were used as alternatives to tradi-

tional backup infrastructures, which typically included a

separate software app and storage devices, originally tape

drives but more recently disk arrays. Backup appliances

were primarily intended for smaller rms that didnt have

the IT resources to design, implement and operate tradi-

tional backup systems, which could get rather complex.

Early backup appliances were better suited for small

to midsize companies due to their somewhat limited

With improvements in storageand processing technologies, databackup appliances have evolvedinto devices capable of replacingbackup software and hardwarein some very large environments.
http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/feature/Data-deduplication-technology-today-and-tomorrowhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/thin-provisioninghttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Design-critical-in-data-compression-backupshttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/1322981/The-true-role-of-a-backup-administratorhttp://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23703212http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Vendors-line-up-to-deliver-backup-applianceshttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Vendors-line-up-to-deliver-backup-applianceshttp://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23703212http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/1322981/The-true-role-of-a-backup-administratorhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Design-critical-in-data-compression-backupshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/thin-provisioninghttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/feature/Data-deduplication-technology-today-and-tomorrow


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problems when data sets grow; limited software features

can mean a lack of platform or application support. Also,buying the entire system from a single vendor may mean

youll have to pay more for capacity upgrades since youre

locked in to that supplier. When the appliance has nally

reached full capacity, youll have to deal with a forklift

upgrade to a larger unit or with managing two separate

backup appliances.

REPLACE RATHER THAN REUSEAs turnkey solutions, most data backup appliances dontallow you to incorporate existing assets, although some

do support an existing backup software implementation.

This could mean you end up buying hardware and soft-

ware to replace similar assets you already have that may

not be fully depreciated. So implementing a backup appli-

ance may be a better solution if youre looking to replace

something thats totally outgrown or you need to move up

from a departmental or small business system.

APPLIANCE SAMPLERAll the backup appliances described here include dedupe,

so its not singled out as a feature for any of the products,

although some very real differences do exist between the

ways these products handle data reduction. Cloud con-

nectivity and cloud backup features are not specically

comes with the backup software installed and cong-

ured on the server hardwarethe right server hardware.There are no platform compatibility issues and the con-

gurations available are optimized for the software. As

turnkey solutions, appliances include at least the initial

storage hardware required to get up and running. Many

allow users to add more disk capacity and tape, eliminat-

ing another potential variable in the process. In addition

to implementation benets, appliances can save on acqui-

sition costs compared to buying separate hardware and

software components, and provide operational savings by

consolidating hardware and software support.

The characteristics that make appliances easy to im-

plement can also make them somewhat inexible and

less scalable. The manufacturer can only provide a nite

number of hardware choices, compared with the range of

server and storage hardware that backup software alone

can support. Although scalability of these appliances has

improved, limitations remain that may result in capacity

When the appliance has finallyreached full capacity, youll haveto deal with a forklift upgrade

to a larger unit or with managingtwo separate backup appliances.


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the existing data set. In business for more than a dozen

years, the companys backup appliances scale to hun-dreds of terabytes of disk capacity, with solid-state stor-

age and tape options. Client support includes most Unix

and Linux variants, as well as Windows and Mac OS.

STORServers application and database support are com-

prehensive and VMware integration is very thorough.

Symantec Corp. Symantec has been one of the primary

backup software vendors for many years, going back to

the days of Veritas and before that, OpenVision. The rmhas now added appliances for its Backup Exec and Net-

Backup products by installing its software on industry-

standard server hardware, creating a standalone backup

solution that can be integrated into an existing Symantec

environment as a media server. The NetBackup appliance

provides up to 72 TB of capacity and the Backup Exec ap-

pliance provides up to 5.5 TB of usable capacity. As estab-

lished backup software products, both support all major

operating systems and applications, and offer a compre-

hensive list of advanced features.

Unitrends. Unitrends originally designed its backup ap-

pliances for small to midmarket companies with the in-

tent of making backup simple and easyin their words, a

toaster mentality. The rms line of appliances tops out

at nearly 100 TB of usable capacity and its backup/recov-

ery software (developed in-house) has a complete list of

addressed for the same reason. Those two aspects of a

data backup appliance are discussed in the Data backupappliance selection criteria section of this article.

EVault Inc. Before being acquired by Seagate Technol-

ogy LLC in 2006, EVault started as a cloud backup ser-

vice that provided consumer and small business backup

services. A few years later, the rm added a local stor-

age appliance to its offering, making them more than

just astorage-as-a-service backup offering. Its current

lineup provides usable capacity of up to 24 TB per appli-ance with support for all major platforms and many apps.

EVault appliance features include bare-metal restore to

dissimilar hardware, replication with bandwidth throt-

tling, and concurrent backup and restore/replication.

STORServer Inc. STORServer took what might be called a

hybrid approach to its product development, marrying an

existing backup application, IBMs Tivoli Storage Man-

ager (TSM), with purpose-built hardware. While TSM is

typically considered an enterprise backup application,

STORServer has made its data backup appliances easy for

even small companies to use.

TSMs architecture uses a relational database that ab-

stracts the logical data from the physical storage, allowing

STORServer to scale much larger than other architec-

tures. This also gives them the exibility to evolve the

hardware and software independently, without disrupting
http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/2240149778/Symantec-extends-integrated-backup-appliance-strategyhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/2240149778/Symantec-extends-integrated-backup-appliance-strategyhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/Storage-as-a-Service-SaaShttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/bare-metal-restorehttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/2240164015/STORServer-announces-updates-to-backup-appliance-lineuphttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/2240164015/STORServer-announces-updates-to-backup-appliance-lineuphttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/bare-metal-restorehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/Storage-as-a-Service-SaaShttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/2240149778/Symantec-extends-integrated-backup-appliance-strategyhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/2240149778/Symantec-extends-integrated-backup-appliance-strategy


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Data reduction technologies can play a big part in the

calculation of how much effective capacity a systemhas, so the data types most likely to populate the backup

appliance should be known. You can then compare them

with the compression, deduplication and thin provision-

ing technologies employed (see the section on data dedu-

plication below).

n Cloud plus backup appliance. Most backup appliances

provide some form of cloud integration, whether its the

ability to send backups to the vendors cloud for DR pur-poses or to a public cloud provider such as Amazon or

Rackspace. Since backups (and restores) involve so much

data, care must be taken to understand how much data

the backup appliance will actually send over the wire

and how well it optimizes WAN bandwidth to the cloud.

Efciently handling specic data objects created by soft-

ware applications, also called application intelligence,

can greatly impact the cloud backup experience, so these

details should be understood.

n Data deduplication. Deduplication has evolved from an

obscure technology that helped launch the disk backup

product category, to an almost checkbox feature included

in most backup hardware and software. However, there

are many variations of the technology that operate very

differently and produce a wide range of data reduction

ratios, but all are called deduplication.

features, including advanced functionality such as (near)

continuous data protection, VMware vStorage APIs forData Protection vCenter integration, and support for

disk-to-disk-to-any archiving for disaster recovery (DR)

options and long-term retention.

Being in business for more than 20 years has enabled

Unitrends to compile an extensive support matrix that in-

cludes 100-plus different versions of more than 40 oper-

ating systems in cloud, physical and virtual backup. This

gives users a very comprehensive backup solution and al-

lows them to migrate backup from old platforms easily.

DATA BACKUP APPLIANCESELECTION CRITERIAWhen evaluating a data backup appliance, or just decid-

ing whether to replace a traditional backup infrastructure

with one of these offerings, there are several things to

think about. Aside from price and feature set, the follow-

ing characteristics should also be considered.

n Capacity and scalability. Whether its scale-up, scale-out

or a combination, some appliances expand better than

others. Obviously, projected growth and long-term stor-

age requirements should be contemplated.

In some cases, tape support may be appropriate be-

cause it provides the most capacity in the smallest foot-

print and the lowest cost for long-term storage.
http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Continuous-data-protection-Near-vs-real-CDPhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Continuous-data-protection-Near-vs-real-CDPhttp://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Backup-appliance-product-survey-Which-one-is-right-for-your-businesshttp://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Backup-appliance-product-survey-Which-one-is-right-for-your-businesshttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Continuous-data-protection-Near-vs-real-CDPhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Continuous-data-protection-Near-vs-real-CDP


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new infrastructure and often reduces operational ex-

pense. For many applications the cloud has offered aneven simpler usage model and has replaced the use of

hardware appliances.

However, backup touches most of the data in the en-

vironment on a regular basis, and can send terabytes of

data to the backup storage device every day. This makes

on-site infrastructure practically the only way to maintain

reasonable performance, both for backups and restores,

and to keep bandwidth costs under control.

Backup appliances can now provide most of the func-tionality that even larger companies need from their data

protection systems. And, until companies have all their

data running on applications in the cloud, a local data

backup appliance will still be an attractive alternative. n

ERIC SLACK is a senior analyst at Storage Switzerland.

The specic methods used for deduplication vary

widely, such as:

P The length of data segments being compared

PWhere in the ingest process comparisons take place

PHow the hash value for each segment is calculated

PWhere that hash table is stored

This makes it incumbent upon users evaluating a

backup appliance to understand how its dedupe works, as

well as how much data reduction it can produce on theirspecic data types in their specic backup environments.

THE BOTTOM LINEThe appliance format has become very popular for IT or-

ganizations because it simplies the implementation of


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By Rich Castagna

S T ORA GE P URCHA S I NG I NT ENT I ONS

2013 SHAPINGUP TO BE ADECENT YEARFOR STORAGE

SPENDINGManaging storage is alwaysa struggle, but this yearstorage managers shouldhave a little more money tospend on key technologiesthat can help ease the crunchof growing capacity andperformance demands.

THERES A LOTgoing on with IT data storage these days.

Theres the usual stuff thatll keep a storage manager from

a good nights sleep, like nding a place to put more and

more terabytes of data, providing snappy access to it and

then making sure its protected. And against a rising tideof storage capacity woes, come new demands on perfor-

mance as near-instant analytics take center stage.

And it really is a rising tide, as any data storage shop

will attest. But the good news is that vendors are provid-

ing new tools and improving older ones for storage man-

agers who need to build out their IT data storage toolkits.

Each year we survey hundreds of storage pros who

come up for air just long enough to tell us what technolo-

gies theyre currently using or planning to add to their

arsenals in 2013. On average, our respondents report that

their companies oversee 1.5 petabytes of data on all forms

of media, stored in-house and externally. Thats a lot of

data to keep track ofheres how theyre doing it.
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Hot-data-storage-technologies-for-2013http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Hot-data-storage-technologies-for-2013


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$2.4The average storage

budget, in millions,

reported on our

survey.

DEEPER DIVE

Thirty-eight percent o

companies report their

storage budgets will

rise in 2013.

Budgets at larger

companiesthose

with more than $1billion in revenue

will grow by 3.4%.

Big companies also

have a lot more to

spend on storage:

$7.4 million.


Storage budgets increase modestlyOne of our most closely watched indicators of the health of storage shops, and the data

storage market in general, is how storage budgets fare when compared to the previous

year. Back in the good old pre-recession days, it was common to see budgets rise by 3%,

4% or more, but more modest increases are appreciated as much these days.

Our respondents tell us their storage budgets will rise 1.5% over last years levels, the same

increase we saw last fall. Not a huge increasemaybe just barely keeping pace with infla-

tionbut an increase nonetheless. Coupled with declining prices, that modest increase will

allow storage managers to toss a few more items into their shopping carts.

While the budget number itself might change, the way its likely to be spent wont vary

much from previous years. Storage hardware will take the biggest bite (36%), with mainte-

nance (13%) and software (12%) also snapping up substantial shares.

YEAR-OVER-YEAR STORAGE BUDGET CHANGES HOLDING STEADY AFTER RECESSIONARY DIP

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

-1

-2

-3

Spring2007

Fall2007

Spring2008

Fall2008

Spring2009

Fall2009

Spring2010

Fall2010

Spring2011

Fall2011

Spring2012

Fall2012

Spring2013

3.7%

3.9%

2.9%

3.2%

-1.9%

0.4%

0%

0.6%1.8

%

1.9%

.8%

1.5% 1.5%
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Storage-budget-picture-brightenshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Storage-budget-picture-brightens


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63%Respondent rms that

currently have NAS

systems installed.

DEEPER DIVE

Five years ago, 27% o

the rms surveyed

were using iSCSI

storage; today 48% do.

Plain old le servers

still top le storage

purchase plans (26%);

21% plan to buy NAS.

Twenty-our percent

(an all-time high) say

price is the most

important buying

criteria or storage

systems.


Capacity growth requires new efficiency measuresOur respondents are engaged in an all-out battle with storage capacity. In addition to pet-

abyte-scale numbers for total data stores, they maintain increasing amounts of live stor-

age that may be needed at any time. The average installed disk capacity is 306 TB, and this

year respondents say they expect to add approximately 43 TB of new disk storage, about

the same amount that has been added each year for the four post-2009 years.

Of the companies shopping for storage systems, 47% will opt for midrange arrays; high-end

gear is more of a niche purchase with only 13% planning purchases. About a third (32%) have

their eyes on low-end storage systems that have steadily acquired higher end features.

A trend we first identified nearly six years ago appears to be continuing in 2013: more storage

systems purchases will be for new drives (36%) to fill out existing systems than for new iSCSI

SANs (14%), network-attached storage (NAS) systems (14%) or Fibre Channel (FC) SANs (13%).

To make better use of new and old capacity, storage shops will use a variety of efficiency

technologies, including thin provisioning (41%), tiering (32%), primary storage dedupe (29%)

and data compression (21%). Nearly as many companies are evaluating these technologies.

TOTAL DISK STORAGE CAPACITY (TB) CURRENTLY INSTALLED

350

300

250

200

150

100

50

0FALL2009

SPRING2010

FALL2010

SPRING2011

FALL2011

SPRING2012

FALL2012

SPRING2013

247 250 240 263 269 247

312 306
http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/New-storage-capacity-management-tools-can-make-efficiency-a-realityhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/IBM-emerges-at-top-of-strong-midrange-array-fieldhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Data-storage-best-practices-Jon-Toigos-top-5-storage-efficiency-tipshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Data-storage-best-practices-Jon-Toigos-top-5-storage-efficiency-tipshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Data-storage-best-practices-Jon-Toigos-top-5-storage-efficiency-tipshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Data-storage-best-practices-Jon-Toigos-top-5-storage-efficiency-tipshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/magazineContent/IBM-emerges-at-top-of-strong-midrange-array-fieldhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/New-storage-capacity-management-tools-can-make-efficiency-a-reality


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KEY STAT

9.1Terabytes o solid-

state storage currently

installed on average.

DEEPER DIVE

Companies planning

to add solid-state

storage will purchase

an average o 6.2 TB

in 2013.

Thirty-ve percent o

companies have more

than 10 TB o solid-state currently

installed.

Six percent o

respondents will add

more than 20 TB o

solid-state storage

this year.


Solid-state shaping up as storage game changer

When we first asked about solid-state storage approximately three-and-a-half years ago,only 8% of those surveyed said their companies were using it. Today, 34% of companies have

solid-state storage installed somewhere in their environments, with another 8% planning to

add it this year and 31% evaluating.

Most of the deployments (69%) are solid-state mixed with hard disk drives in a hybrid ar-

ray arrangement, but 45% have installed it directly into their servers (PCI Express or SAS/

SATA form factors) and 21% use caching appliances built around solid-state. Forty percent

of companies have treated some end users by installing the high-performance stuff in their

desktops or laptops.

At the other end of the scale, in 2009 54% of companies said flat-out they didnt have anyplans for adding solid-state. In our latest poll, that number has been cut in half (27%). But

the reasons for not taking the solid-state plunge havent changed much over the years:

non-users cite the cost of solid-state storage (66%) and satisfaction with the performance

of their hard disk systems (47%) as the main reasons for eschewing solid-state at this

timeabout the same numbers we saw three years ago.

MORE COMPANIES DEPLOYING SOLID-STATE STORAGE

328p34%

Using SSD now8%ImplementingSSD this year

27%No SSD plans

31%Evaluating SSD
http://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/tip/Solid-state-storage-technology-definedhttp://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/news/2240164170/Hybrid-and-all-SSD-arrays-can-save-money-when-used-in-the-right-spotshttp://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/news/2240164170/Hybrid-and-all-SSD-arrays-can-save-money-when-used-in-the-right-spotshttp://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/news/2240164170/Hybrid-and-all-SSD-arrays-can-save-money-when-used-in-the-right-spotshttp://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/news/2240164170/Hybrid-and-all-SSD-arrays-can-save-money-when-used-in-the-right-spotshttp://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/tip/Solid-state-storage-technology-defined


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KEY STAT

17 TBAverage amount

o data users have

stored in cloud

storage services.

DEEPER DIVE

Thirty percent o

current users have

more than 20 TB o

data in the cloud.

Fiteen percent o

respondents say their

companies use lesync-and-share

services; 6% use

public services, and

9% have implemented

in-house sync and

share.

Private storage

clouds have been

implemented by 18%

o respondents.


Cloud storage offers a new tierAlthough still cautious, storage shops are increasingly looking to cloud storage services as

an alternative or augmentation to in-house storage systems. While the number of users has

dipped a bit over the last year, adoption of cloud storage is still moving forward: in 2010, only

14% of those surveyed were using some form of cloud storage; today, 22% are cloud users.

While backup is by far the most mature of the cloud storage services, our respondents are

using the cloud for other types of storage as well, with disaster recovery (DR) leading the

way. DR in the cloud could end up the killer app for cloud storage (along with traditional

backup, of course). When combined with the ability to spin up virtual servers using a cloud

computing service, cloud DR can offer extremely inexpensive, almost immediate recovery

from crippling circumstances.

Current cloud storage users appear to be pretty satisfied with their experiences so far: 94%

plan to expand their use of cloud storage services. Non-users are also getting on the band-

wagon, with only 40% ruling out adding cloud storage to their environments this year.

HOW CLOUD STORAGE IS USED TODAY

12%

10%

8%

6%

4%

2%

0

Remoteoffice online

data

Archiving Data centernear-line

data

Data centerprimary

data

Disasterrecovery

3.3% 3.6%

8% 8.3%

11.6%
http://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/opinion/Its-time-for-a-real-accreditation-process-for-cloud-storage-serviceshttp://searchcio.techtarget.com/news/2240166112/Survey-shows-sharp-uptick-in-appetite-for-cloud-disaster-recoveryhttp://searchcio.techtarget.com/news/2240166112/Survey-shows-sharp-uptick-in-appetite-for-cloud-disaster-recoveryhttp://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/opinion/Its-time-for-a-real-accreditation-process-for-cloud-storage-services


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IN SMALL DOSES

KEY STAT

13%Respondents that say

theyll increase the

role o tape in their

backup systemsthe

all-time lowest

number weve

recorded.

DEEPER DIVE

Tape libraries are

shrinking; the average

library will have an

average o 84 slots

versus 130 slots sixyears ago.

Fity-eight percent o

those surveyed will

spin of some or all o

their backup data to

tape (versus 79% three

years ago).

Backing up to a NAS

target is the most

popular disk-to-disk

method (44%).


Backup evolving, but still a tough jobFor most companies, changing their backup operations is no easy feat, which is why so

many firms will wait patiently for their incumbent backup vendors to come up with new

technologies to avoid forklift upgrades.

Although using disk systems for backup has been in vogue for long enough that it might

even seem pass (especially considering cloud options), companies are still investing in

their disk backup infrastructures. With 38% planning to increase spending and another 38%

likely to spend as much as last year, there should be plenty of activity in the backup market.

Data deduplication for backup is still a hot technology even though it seems to have been

around for ages. More than a third of companies plan to up their dedupe spending, which

should add to the installed base of around 40% of all companies. And other mature tech-

nologies, like continuous data protection (CDP), are still under consideration by many com-

panies. With its potential to bring radical change to traditional backup operations, CDP is

starting to get some serious attention: 22% cite plans to increase CDP spending in 2013.

No discussion of backup would be complete without mentioning tape. Sadly, tapes role

continues to dwindle, with 40% saying theyll reduce the role tape plays in backup

operationsthe highest number weve ever seen.

SPENDING PLANS FOR DISK-BASED BACKUP

0 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

General disk backup

Data deduplication

Continuous data protection

38%

34%

22%

38%

33%

29%

6%

5%

6%

18%

28%

43%

n INCREASE n STAY THE SAME n DECREASE n NO PLANS
http://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tutorial/Disk-backup-systems-continue-to-evolve-to-meet-growing-challengeshttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Continuous-data-protection-Near-vs-real-CDPhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Continuous-data-protection-Near-vs-real-CDPhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tutorial/Disk-backup-systems-continue-to-evolve-to-meet-growing-challenges


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IN SMALL DOSES


KEY STAT

8 TBAverage amount o

backup data users

have stored in the

cloud.

DEEPER DIVE

Thirty-eight percent o

cloud backup users

have more than 10 TB

o data in the cloud.

Non-cloud backup

users will get onboard

in 2013, with 9%signing up or email

backup.

Among those not yet

using cloud backup,

22% say theyre

evaluating the

services.

New data protection concerns: cloud and mobileBring your own device (BYOD) may morph into bring your own disaster if storage man-

agers dont take mobile device data protection more seriously. Sure, its a relatively new

problem and retooling backup takes time, but according to our survey the vast majority of

mobile devices are roaming the data wilderness unprotected.

The best-protected end-user computing devices are desktop PCs, and the term best is

relative: 59% of respondents said desktop backup either isnt done at all or is left up to the

user. And it gets a lot worse63% of laptops are similarly at risk. For smartphones and

tablets, the new darlings of the mobile set, theres scant protection: 14% of tablets and 11%

of smartphones are protected using traditional backup apps, specialty apps or the cloud.

The cloud has become a convenient target for backups as most apps and some hardwaredevices can ship backup data straight to a cloud service. Twenty-eight percent of re-

spondents are using the cloud for some or all of their backups, somewhat lower than the

30%-plus marks we saw last year. Email is still the most popular app for cloud backup, no

surprise considering how easily email services can be outsourced. Cloud backup is poised

for growth: 39% will increase spending in 2013 while 57% will continue to spend at 2012 levels.

HOW DO YOU PROTECT THE DATA ON THESE ENDPOINT DEVICES?

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0

Desktop PCs Laptop PCs Tablets Smartphones

14% 16%

17% 20%

45% 47%

69% 69%

n NO BACKUP FOR

THESE DEVICESn LEAVE IT

TO END USERS

n CLOUD BACKUP

n SPECIALBACKUP APP

n MAINBACKUP APP
http://searchconsumerization.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-make-a-BYOD-program-workhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/2240178774/Cloud-backup-BYOD-challenges-can-threaten-IT-control-over-datahttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/news/2240178774/Cloud-backup-BYOD-challenges-can-threaten-IT-control-over-datahttp://searchconsumerization.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-make-a-BYOD-program-work


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IN SMALL DOSES


KEY STAT

41%Respondents who

replied no problem

when it comes to

backing up virtual

servers.

DEEPER DIVE

Management app

shopping: 43% say

theyll look or tools

to better manage

storage or VMs.

Solid-state to therescue: 35% are using

solid-state storage to

pump up their virtual

desktop installations.

The biggest problem

with backing up VMs

is backing up too

much data (13%).

Users and their storage adjusting to virtual serversVirtual server environments have created problems for storage shops from Day 1, ranging

from performance bottlenecks to backup woes. Things have settled down significantly in

the last few years with both hypervisors and storage systems getting some adjustments.

The most widely used storage for virtual servers is still Fibre Channel SAN, but its once im-

posing lead has dwindled to a mere 2 points over iSCSI block storage. Cheaper and easier to

implement in virtual environments, iSCSI offers an alternative that at least seems simpler

than the more sophisticated Fibre Channel systems. A couple of years ago, a third of re-

spondents said virtual servers made storage management more difficult; now, only 24% feel

that pain, although 65% still say server virtualization consumes more storage.

Backup for virtual machines (VMs) is also a lot easier now. Three or four years ago, nearly

a quarter of respondents were still using the fairly awkward VMware Consolidated Backup

(VCB) to back up VMs. VCB has been surpassed by specialty backup apps designed specifi-

cally for VMs: 16% say theyre using those apps compared to only 6% three years ago.

MAIN TYPE OF STORAGE USED FOR VIRTUAL SERVERS

40%

30%

20%

10%

0

FibreChannel SAN

iSCSISAN

NAS Direct-attachedstorage

Haventvirtualizedour servers

32%30%

14%12% 12%
http://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/news/2240148541/Virtual-server-storage-Choosing-between-Fibre-Channel-iSCSI-and-NAShttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/podcast/iSCSI-performance-An-expert-discussion-with-Dennis-Martinhttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Backing-up-VMs-Traditional-apps-vs-virtual-machine-backup-softwarehttp://searchdatabackup.techtarget.com/tip/Backing-up-VMs-Traditional-apps-vs-virtual-machine-backup-softwarehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/podcast/iSCSI-performance-An-expert-discussion-with-Dennis-Martinhttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/news/2240148541/Virtual-server-storage-Choosing-between-Fibre-Channel-iSCSI-and-NAS


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ABOUT THE SURVEY:

This is the eleventh year

weve fielded the Storage

magazine/SearchStorage.

com Purchasing Intentions

survey. Storagemagazine

subscribers and Search-

Storage.com members

are invited to participate

in the survey, which gathers

information related to

storage managers purchas-

ing plans for a variety of

storage product categories.

This edition had 710 qualified

respondents across a broad

spectrum of industries, withthe average company size

measured as having

revenue of $1.2 billion.


Hot techs on storage managers radarFor the last five years, no single technology has been able to hold the top spot in our survey

as storage shops test and implement a range of storage technologies. This year data dedu-

plication came out on top followed by 10 Gbps Ethernet, which had high marks for actual/

planned implementations. Solid-state storage is also near the top, its ranking boosted by

the amount of evaluation activity. The most puzzling entry may be encryption; it always

finishes near the top while nearly 50% of companies have yet to seriously implement it. n

TOP-OF-MIND TECHS FOR ST ORAGE SHOPS

0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Data deduplication for backup

10 Gbps Ethernet products

Solid-state storage

Data encryption

Primary storage data reduction

Remote replication

DR monitoring/testing apps

Continuous data protection

Multiprotocol storage arrays

Change management software 28%

31%

23%

24%

30%

30%

31%

31%

44%

37%

23%

20%

30%

30%

26%

31%

30%

33%

22%

30%

n ALREADY I

storagemagonlinemay2013_finalv3

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