Although many IT managers intend to xvii flast. I was unable to find a comprehensive book in the marketplace that provided insight into the various technologies deployed to store and manage informa- tion.
As an industry leader, we have the subject-matter expertise and practical experience to help fill this gap; and now this book can give you a behind-the- scenes view of the technologies used in information storage and management. Regardless of your current role in IT, this book should be a key part of your IT library and professional development. Thomas P. A large quantity of digital information is being created every moment by individual and corporate consumers of IT.
This information needs to be stored, pro- tected, optimized, and managed. Not long ago, information storage was seen as only a bunch of disks or tapes attached to the back of the computer to store data.
Even today, only those in the storage industry understand the critical role that information storage tech- nology plays in the availability, performance, integration, and optimization of the entire IT infrastructure. Over the last two decades, information storage has developed into a highly sophisticated technology, providing a variety of solutions for storing, managing, connecting, protecting, securing, sharing, and optimizing digital information.
With the exponential growth of information and the development of sophisti- cated products and solutions, there is also a growing need for information stor- age professionals. IT managers are challenged by the ongoing task of employing and developing highly skilled information storage professionals.
This book is designed and developed to enable professionals and students to achieve a comprehensive understanding of all segments of storage technology. This book has 16 chapters, organized in four sections. Advanced topics build upon the topics learned in previous chapters.
This book has a supplementary website that provides additional up-to-date learning aids and reading material. EMC Academic Alliance Universities and colleges interested in offering an information storage and man- agement curriculum are invited to join the Academic Alliance program. This program provides comprehensive support to institutes, including teaching aids, faculty guides, student projects, and more. EMC Proven Professional is the premier certifica- tion program that validates your knowledge and helps establish your credibility in the information technology industry.
Structure and Organization of FC Data 6. NAS Devices 7. Host-Based Remote Replication We have become information Key Concepts Data and Information dependents of the twenty-first century, liv- ing in an on-command, on-demand world that Structured and Unstructured Data means we need information when and where it Storage Technology Architectures is required. We access the Internet every day to perform searches, participate in social network- Core Elements of a Data Center ing, send and receive e-mails, take pictures and Information Management videos through digital cameras, and satisfy many other personal and professional needs.
Equipped Information Lifecycle Management with a growing number of content-generating devices, more information is being created by individuals than by businesses. Information created by individuals gains value when shared with others.
When created, information resides locally on devices such as cell phones, cameras, and laptops. To share this information, it needs to be uploaded via networks to data centers. It is interesting to note that while the majority of information is created by individuals, it is stored and managed by a relatively small number of organizations. Figure depicts this virtuous cycle of information.
The importance, dependency, and volume of information for the business world also continue to grow at astounding rates. Businesses depend on fast and reliable access to information critical to their success. Some of the business applications that process information include airline reservations, telephone billing systems, e-commerce, ATMs, product designs, inventory management, e-mail archives, Web portals, patient records, credit cards, life sciences, and global capital markets.
The volume of data that busi- ness must manage has driven strategies to classify data according to its value and create rules for the treatment of this data over its life cycle.
These strategies not only provide financial and regulatory benefits at the business level, but also manageability benefits at operational levels to the organization. Data centers now view information storage as one of their core elements, along with applications, databases, operating systems, and networks. Storage technology continues to evolve with technical advancements offering increas- ingly higher levels of availability, security, scalability, performance, integrity, capacity, and manageability.
Centralized information storage and processing Network Network Wired Wireless Wireless Wired Uploading Accessing information information Users of Creators of information information Demand for more information Figure Virtuous cycle of information This chapter describes the evolution of information storage architecture from simple direct-attached models to complex networked topologies.
It introduces the information lifecycle management ILM strategy, which aligns the infor- mation technology IT infrastructure with business priorities. Chapter 1 n Introduction to Information Storage and Management 5 1.
Storage is a repository that enables users to store and retrieve this digital data. Before the advent of computers, the procedures and methods adopted for data creation and sharing were limited to fewer forms, such as paper and film. This data can be generated using a computer and stored in strings of 0s and 1s, as shown in Figure Data in this form is called digital data and is accessible by the user only after it is processed by a computer.
Video Photo Book Letter Digital Data Figure Digital data With the advancement of computer and communication technologies, the rate of data generation and sharing has increased exponentially. This enables the conversion of various types of content and media from conventional forms to digital formats. This cost benefit has increased the rate at which data is being generated and stored.
Inexpensive and easier ways to create, collect, and store all types of data, coupled with increasing individual and business needs, have led to accelerated data growth, popularly termed the data explosion. Data has different purposes and criticality, so both individuals and businesses have contributed in varied proportions to this data explosion.
The importance and the criticality of data vary with time. Most of the data created holds significance in the short-term but becomes less valuable over time. This governs the type of data storage solutions used. Businesses generate vast amounts of data and then extract meaningful information from this data to derive economic benefits.
Therefore, busi- nesses need to maintain data and ensure its availability over a longer period. Chapter 1 n Introduction to Information Storage and Management 7 Furthermore, the data can vary in criticality and may require special han- dling.
For example, legal and regulatory requirements mandate that banks maintain account information for their customers accurately and securely. Some businesses handle data for millions of customers, and ensures the security and integrity of data over a long period of time.
This requires high- capacity storage devices with enhanced security features that can retain data for a long period. Structured data is organized in rows and col- umns in a rigidly defined format so that applications can retrieve and process it efficiently. Structured data is typically stored using a database management system DBMS. Data is unstructured if its elements cannot be stored in rows and columns, and is therefore difficult to query and retrieve by business applications.
For example, customer contacts may be stored in various forms such as sticky notes, e-mail messages, business cards, or even digital format files such as. Due its unstructured nature, it is difficult to retrieve using a cus- tomer relationship management application. Unstructured data may not have the required components to identify itself uniquely for any type of processing or interpretation. Businesses are primarily concerned with managing unstructured data because over 80 percent of enterprise data is unstructured and requires significant storage space and effort to manage.
Businesses need to analyze data for it to be of value. Information is the intelligence and knowledge derived from data. Businesses analyze raw data in order to identify meaningful trends. On the basis of these trends, a company can plan or modify its strategy.
Effective data analysis not only extends its benefits to existing businesses, but also creates the potential for new business opportunities by using the information in creative ways. Job portal is an example. These websites collect the resumes and post them on centrally accessible locations for prospective employers. In addition, companies post avail- able positions on job search sites.
In this manner, the job search engine uses data and turns it into information for employers and job seekers. Legal, regulatory, and contractual obligations regarding the availability and protection of data only add to these concerns. Outages in key industries, such as financial services, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, and energy cost millions of U.
In a computing environment, devices designed for storing data are termed storage devices or simply storage. The type of storage used varies based on the type of data and the rate at which it is created and used.
Businesses have several options available for storing data including internal hard disks, external disk arrays and tapes. Chapter 1 n Introduction to Information Storage and Management 9 1. In earlier implementations of open systems, the storage was typically internal to the server. The proliferation of departmental servers in an enterprise resulted in unpro- tected, unmanaged, fragmented islands of information and increased operating cost.
Originally, there were very limited policies and processes for managing these servers and the data created. To overcome these challenges, storage tech- nology evolved from non-intelligent internal storage to intelligent networked storage see Figure Storage can be either internal or external to the server. External DAS alleviated the challenges of limited internal storage capacity.
Storage is partitioned and assigned to a server for accessing its data. Unlike a SAN, it connects to an existing communication net- work LAN and provides file access to heterogeneous clients. Because it is purposely built for providing storage to file server applications, it offers higher scalability, availability, performance, and cost benefits compared to general purpose file servers.
Data centers store and manage large amounts of mission-critical data. The data center infrastructure includes computer stor- age systems, network devices, dedicated power backups, and environmental controls such as air conditioning and fire suppression.
Large organizations often maintain more than one data center to distribute data processing workloads and provide backups in the event of a disaster. The storage requirements of a data center are met by a combination of various stor- age architectures.
A DBMS optimizes the storage and retrieval of data. These core elements are typically viewed and managed as separate entities, but all the elements must work together to address data processing requirements. Figure shows an example of an order processing system that involves the five core elements of a data center and illustrates their functionality in a business process. Figure Example of an order processing system 1. It is necessary to have a reliable infrastructure that ensures data is accessible at all times.
The various technologies and solutions to meet these requirements are covered in this book. The inability of users to access data can have a significant negative impact on a business. In addition to the security measures for client access, specific mechanisms must enable servers to access only their allocated resources on storage arrays. Business growth often requires deploying more servers, new applications, and additional databases. The storage solution should be able to grow with the business.
The infrastructure should be able to support performance requirements. Any variation in data during its retrieval implies cor- ruption, which may affect the operations of the organization.
When capacity requirements increase, the data center must be able to provide additional capacity with- out interrupting availability, or, at the very least, with minimal disruption. DiskProcessor Enclosures DPEs includeanenclosure,diskmodules,storageprocessors,dualpowersupplies,andfourfanpacks. Addingadditionalstorage throughtheuseofDAEscanbedonethroughtheuseofeither15x3.
Whethertheyarepartofastorageprocessorenclosureoradiskprocessorenclosure,VNXstorageprocessorsprovidedataaccesstoexternal hostsandbridgethearraysblockstoragewithoptionalVNX2filestoragefunctionality.
AControlStationcanbe deployedwithasecondaryControlStationforredundancy. Ouroverallimpressionof Unisphereisthatitoffersacleanandwell organizedinterfacethatwillbeaccessibletoIT generalistswhilealsoallowingexperienced storageadministratorstoaccessthesystem's fullfunctionality.
Unisphereincorporatessnapshotfunctionalitythatincludesconfigurationoptionsforanautodeletepolicythatdeletessnapshotseither 1 aftera specifiedamountoftimeor 2 oncesnapshotstoragespaceexceedsaspecifiedpercentageofstoragecapacity.
VNXsnapshotscanmakeuse ofEMCsthinprovisioningandredirectonwritetechnologiestoimprovethespeedandreducestoragerequirementsforstoredsnapshots. VNXusesblockandfilecompressionalgorithmsdesignedforrelativelyinactiveLUNsandfiles,allowingbothitscompressionanddeduplication operationstobeconductedinthebackgroundwithreducedperformanceoverhead. UnisphereCentralprovidescentralizedmultiboxmonitoringforuptothousandsofVNXandVNXesystems,forexamplesystemsdeployedin remoteandbranchoffices.
TheUnispheresuitealsoincludesVNXMonitoringandReportingsoftwareforstorageutilizationandworkloadpatterns inordertofacilitateproblemdiagnosis,trendanalysis,andcapacityplanning.
D REencryptsalldatawrittentothearrayusingaregular datapathprotocolwithauniquekeyperdisk. Ifdrivesare removedfromthearrayforanyreason,informationonthe driveisunintelligible. VNX2offersmirroredwritecachefunctionality,whereeach storageprocessorcontainsbothprimarycacheddataforits LUNsandasecondarycopyofthecacheforthepeer storageprocessor. The systemusesintegratedbatterybackupunitstoprovidecachedestagingandotherconsiderationsforanorderlyshutdownduringpowerfailures.
LocalprotectionisavailablethroughUnispherespointintimesnapshotfeature,andcontinuousdataprotectionisavailableviaRecoverPointlocal replication. TestingBackgroundandStorageMedia Wepublishaninventoryofourlabenvironment,anoverviewofthelab'snetworkingcapabilities,andotherdetailsaboutourtestingprotocolsso thatadministratorsandthoseresponsibleforequipmentacquisitioncanfairlygaugetheconditionsunderwhichwehaveachievedthepublished results.
Inourstandardreview processthevendorshipsustheplatform,whichwethenconnecttoourfixedtestingplatformsforperformancebenchmarks. WiththeVNX, thesizeandcomplexity,aswellasinitialsetupcausedustochangethisapproachandflyourreviewerandequipmenttoEMC'slab. EnterpriseSyntheticWorkloadAnalysis Priortoinitiatingeachofthefiosyntheticbenchmarks,ourlabpreconditionsthedeviceintosteadystateunderaheavyloadof16threadswithan outstandingqueueof16perthread.
Inthisscenario, theVNXposted2. Conclusion EMC'sVNXecosystemiswellestablishedintheenterprisestoragemarket,butVNX2reflectsthecompany'swillingnesstocompletelyoverhaul theVNXarchitectureinordertomakethemostofadvancesinprocessor,flash,andnetworkingtechnologies.
Inourtestingwebrokeoutthecommontiersandconfigurationsofstoragetoillustratewithalimitedtestsuitejust whatuserscanexpectfromthe Testscovered7KHDDonuptoSSDs,illustratingtheflexibilitythesystemhas,deliveringcapacity, performance,orbothoveravarietyofinterfaceoptions.
Giventhe blendofstorageoptions,IOmodulesandNASsupportthesystemsareabletomanageagainstalmosteverythinganorganizationcouldneed. Of coursethereareusecasesthatgobeyondthewetestedhere. TheVNXfamilyscalesupquiteabit anddownsometoowiththe VNXe toaddresstheseneedsbeitwithmorecomputepower,flashallotmentordiskshelves. Itsaffordability,flexibilityinconfiguration,andaccesstoVNX2managementsoftwareand thirdpartyintegrationsmakesforaformidableoverallpackageforthemidmarket.
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