tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4004080371960216362024-09-04T07:23:29.390-07:00The purpose of this blog is to share knowledge specifically in the field related to Storage - SAN, NAS and Backups.Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-38666064131497515902009-09-17T19:42:00.000-07:002009-09-17T20:15:50.207-07:00

De-Duplication comes in several flavors (block, hash etc) and each flavor can be implemented in several different ways (variable block/fixed block, hash (128-bit/64-bit), sub-file etc) in different areas (post-processing, source based, in-line etc)Let us examine each of these and see where they fit in to the products available on the market. The most common questions that are posed with

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-57536274538295025762009-08-31T17:46:00.000-07:002009-09-16T10:47:45.851-07:00

<!--[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]--> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Wingdings; panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:2; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 268435456 0 0

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-58002534005415756432009-08-27T18:18:00.000-07:002009-08-27T18:18:00.327-07:00

Clustered or Scale-out NAS? Let us look at what each of these terms mean and how they would relate in a NAS environment and the impact. Historically clustering has always been done on servers - with Vertias (or any other product) Clustering setting up a NFS share and serving out clients. Then, with NetApp coming into NAS market, started its own file servers and then advanced them to clusters. In

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-83898869547837566552009-08-26T07:10:00.000-07:002009-08-26T09:17:42.773-07:00

Blade servers are meant to reduce data-center footprint in physical space, power and cooling by replacing rack-mount servers. I do not want to debate if they are efficiently / effectively doing that, but let us look at the various methods employed to boot these blades. Most of today's blade servers have internal local disk which can be used to install Operating Systems on. If you are moving from

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-75325942006441936112009-08-25T07:10:00.000-07:002009-08-25T13:34:06.687-07:00

Thin provisioning in the recent years became a great tool for Storage Admins and Systems Engineers to help provision storage on demand and then go on to purchase what is required. It greatly helps in capacity management as you do not have to procure upfront storage. Not all provisioning can be thin - it depends on what type of data and the application usage. If it is user data and if files are

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-81997786702190454432009-08-20T08:14:00.000-07:002009-08-20T18:49:39.062-07:00

The problem of having to backup remote office / branch office exist in almost all Enterprises and there are several ways each handle them. Most of the solutions involve having a backup server at each location and a small tape drive / library and backup locally without having the need to remove or replace tape cartridges. There are several problems with this. If the remote office does not have an

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-40949271613155239512009-08-19T07:30:00.000-07:002009-08-19T09:35:14.112-07:00

The latest buzz word in Storage world is SSD. What is SSD and how can it help storage systems? Solid State Storage is made from Flash Memory (or rather NAND flash). The beauty of this is that there are no moving parts like in disk devices and hence performs better than regular disk devices. Access times are faster and application performance will be going through the roof and storage will not be

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-92008658081881260132009-08-18T06:58:00.000-07:002009-08-19T09:36:08.349-07:00

Queue depth is something that most storage admins tend to overlook. This is the reason for most performance issues. Let us look at what queue depth is, what it can do, how it impacts performance and how to make things better.Queue depth is the number of commands that the hba can send / receive in a single chunk - per LUN. From a host-hba point (initiator), it is the number of commands that can be

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-41495559832819631522009-08-17T11:14:00.000-07:002009-10-29T14:10:02.369-07:00

If there is anything that has been talked about more, it is Virtualization (and VMWare). In this post, let us examine the pain points for Storage/Backup Admins as to how this is impacting them and IT Backup Infrastructure.Backups for most VMWare implementations are done via host i.e install a backup agent on the VM and back it up like a regular host. The advantages here are same as you get in a

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-30484816397400810262009-08-15T13:16:00.000-07:002009-08-16T07:32:47.045-07:00

When you think of storage, you either think of SAN or NAS - depending on what your requirement is. What if it is both? The tendency is to think of both requirements as separate and hence the requirement is for two solutions. What if both of the requirements can be achieved with a single solution? Then comes "unified storage" into picture. Unified storage is no mystery except that the underlying

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-45669149477168422222009-08-13T12:41:00.000-07:002009-08-15T13:14:31.064-07:00

In this continuation of my blog "understanding deduplication", I would like to talk about deduplication ratios, how they get interpreted and how to read them and what to expect in your environment, how to achieve better ratios, which data types get better ratios and which do not.Most vendors claim to have at least 10:1, 20:1 and some go to the extreme of 500:1. Now, what are these numbers and how

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-87962737386492613682009-08-12T14:17:00.000-07:002009-08-12T15:27:40.411-07:00

You might be surprised to know that data corruption happens in the latest and greatest storage arrays even with all the good RAID technologies taking care of the data. Data corruption might not be something that you might run into daily, but failed disks are. Let us look at what exactly is a failed disk and what it means to your data.Let us first examine what a disk looks like and is comprised of

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-11064225947532952812009-08-12T14:10:00.001-07:002009-08-18T17:43:00.007-07:00

In continuation to my original post "DeDuplicating Data Backups" Here are the details for the follow-up As I was saying in my requirement list, one of the main objectives is to have integration with NetBackup OST. Now, only few vendors have that - DataDomain, Sepaton, FalconStor, Quantum, Copan (OEM of FalconStor), Diligent/IBM I had taken each of these individually and compared their features

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-21395913179455556962009-08-04T15:50:00.000-07:002009-09-17T20:20:26.816-07:00

In these days of cheaper disk storage, is it really worth to have data on tape? Disk acquisition costs might be more (but hey..there are cheaper ones out there) and so is a tape library. Of course, if you already have any of these, the acquisition costs might not be a question.Lower RTOs are achieved by employing disk-to-disk (D2D) technologies - even if data is remote / offsite. A better

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-88186023102926971372009-08-04T08:31:00.000-07:002009-08-04T08:36:01.088-07:00

HDS today announced the general availability of its flash-drives in its high-end USP-V/VM storage arrays.The capacity of the drives is 200GB each and are 4Gbps backend.32 drives are supported in USP-VM and 128 per USP-V. A max of 32 drives are supported per each ACP PAIR / BED.

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-43292129535092843722009-08-01T17:12:00.000-07:002009-08-02T08:21:11.926-07:00

When creating volumes for intended use of LUNs, make sure space reserveration is turned ON for the LUNs (no thin provisioning), no snapshots enabled on the volume and remove snapshot reserve on the volumes. With this, you do not have to do the infamous-200% provisioning of storage space in NetApp world for LUN containing volumes.* Turn off snapshots on the volumes containing LUNs only if you are

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-19661633711024486912009-08-01T16:59:00.000-07:002009-08-20T11:51:36.261-07:00

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Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-47146007147214473662009-08-01T14:50:00.001-07:002009-08-12T14:05:32.818-07:00

Well, there is always a discussion of the connectivity type when somebody says "SAN". Before iSCSI became popular, SAN means Fibre Channel connectivity; and now, when people start talking about SAN it could be anything they might be referring to. In order to avoid any confusion, please make sure which particular protocol is being referred to while starting the discussion.The heated debate an year

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-62439352518893890822009-08-01T14:30:00.000-07:002009-08-02T08:00:17.944-07:00

Save natural resources that are not in abundant...Like water - even though 75% of earth is covered with water, the "usable" water is just few %. Conserving such an important natural resource is upto all of us.You can install low flow shower-heads ($5-$10) that will not reduce your shower-experience. These will release water at the rate of 1.5gpm (gallons per minute).Also, low-flow faucet aerators

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-28471595779552199112009-07-31T13:10:00.000-07:002009-07-31T13:21:33.695-07:00

- VTL selection based on requirements- New Data Protection / Backup software updates- New Disk storage technologies enabling zero data loss- VMWare backups- VMWare performance issues- Living Green: what you can do to help save the environment and earth

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-57144674952789095112009-07-31T11:40:00.000-07:002009-08-02T07:58:35.207-07:00

I have been trying to evaluate and find a better disk-backup solution and had done some intense research on the products that meet my requirements.Now, this is not a comparison of all the de-dupe products out there - just only the ones that I had qualified to meet my requirements. And, talking about requirements, here are theyShould be able to scale to at least 100 TerbytesShould be able to have

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-400408037196021636.post-7547683546798923172009-07-31T11:27:00.000-07:002009-08-02T07:57:56.868-07:00

Do we need another blog that talks about NAS and SAN storage? Maybe not, maybe yes.I would like to contribute to the Storage community users, like myself, out there who might be looking for more information or trying to solve problems for which I may have the answer to.Keep looking for more information to be posted real soon..

Khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10367555412299942141noreply@blogger.com0