Posted by Robert Infantino on February 25th, 2010
We added a video on Cloud-based snapshots. How they operate. The need they address. And the IT costs they eliminate. Link to video is below.
Data snapshots play a significant role in data protection and DR. Customers we speak to express their concerns about growing data sets and fixed backup windows. What made disk-to-disk (D2D) backup solutions popular, they solved the backup window challenge. What they did not solve is – they added more cost and complexity to IT. There is now another box to manage. The box needs to grow with the data sets (after all the data de-duplication is exhausted). Depending upon the D2D vendor, expansion can be a painful and costly process. Companies having deployed CloudArray and using its snapshot capabilities tell us that it solves many of the challenges D2D backup solutions did not address while providing more benefits. Cloud storage snapshots break the barriers of in-house solutions by providing an infinite amount of available storage and at a low cost.
The video describes how CloudArray space efficient snapshots operate. We provide a product demo showing how to take an instant snapshot of a volume and mount it to a server for immediate access.
CloudArray offers several user-definable policies for creating on-premise volumes via iSCSI that appear as locally attached block storage. The video takes you through each of them starting out with “Cloud Volumes”. Cloud volumes appear as native storage to applications with the same characteristics and performance as existing storage systems. What makes them unique is they reside in the Cloud, but are partially cached local to application. “Cloud Replicas”. They too reside in the cloud, but are 100% cached locally. Similar to Cloud Volumes, Cloud Replicas appear as native storage to applications with the same characteristics and performance as existing storage systems. As data is written to a CloudArray Cloud Replica volume it is asynchronously replicated to the Cloud. This provides two copies of the same volume at all times.
“Cloud Snapshots” leverage low cost Cloud storage and reside completely in the cloud. They are mountable by any host with access to CloudArray volumes.
Cloud snapshots are unique in that they are space efficient. After the initial copy of the data set is made, subsequent volume snapshots track only the changes made to the volume. CloudArray uses a system of pointers to reference the initial volume snapshot. This method of pointer-based snapshots consumes less disk capacity than if the data set was repeatedly copied. Cloud snapshot copies are completed instantly and made available for use by other applications such as data protection, data analysis and reporting, data replication, etc. The original copy of the data continues to be available to the applications without interruption, while the snapshot copy is used to perform other functions on the data.
The size of the snapshot volume is dictated by the change rate of your data. For example, a daily data change rate of 5% on a 100 GB volume requires 5 GB of disk space per daily snapshot.
CloudArray snapshots are a cost effective means for data protection and address many of the issues that D2D backup vendors didn’t address.
Enjoy the video.
Video: CloudArray snapshot overview
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted by Robert Infantino on February 24th, 2010
Customers are leading the charge in how CloudArray and Cloud storage are getting deployed and discovering their benefits. We captured two customer use cases in a video (link to video provided below) using CloudArray software together with Cloud storage. There are not may documented Cloud storage use cases on the Web for mid-sized and global companies, so this video and its contents should provide interesting data points for those of you considering to augment your current application infrastructure with Cloud storage. The focus of these customer use cases are more on the impact of applications as opposed to using Cloud storage for file/print or as a specific tier of storage.
The video also gets into the reasons why companies need an IT infrastructure that is dynamic and can respond quickly to changing business needs. The video outlines several categories of business applications that are driving rapid data growth and require a more dynamic storage infrastructure to accommodate this growth.
Topping the charts, we see data protection, DR and collaborative applications impacting storage growth the most. Some analyst firms predict rapid data growth in the coming years and companies need to not only plan for today’s requirements, but the demands of tomorrow.
Many arguments can be made that Cloud storage indeed reduces the amount of on-premise infrastructure needed to accommodate growth for data protection and DR applications. The facts are the facts. Leveraging Cloud storage reduces necessary capital for IT expansion. And it drives efficiency and reduces operational costs.
The video describes an high level overview of CloudArray software. It shows how CloudArray enables businesses to seamlessly integrate in-house applications to Cloud storage without any changes to applications or programming to Cloud storage APIs. A list is provided of the host virtualization platforms it operates on such as VMware, Citrix and Microsoft. CloudArray supports public cloud providers such as Amazon, AT&T and EMC. The hosts that are supported are Windows, Linux, Mac and HP-UX.
One of the key points of the video is that CloudArray presents iSCSI block storage to applications in the form of data volumes. This means any existing in-house application can seamlessly integrate with Cloud storage. The video describes the policies of CloudArray volumes in that they are user-definable for caching and replication.
Enjoy the video – of course comments welcome.
Video: CloudArray software overview with Use Cases
Posted in Customer Use Case | 1 Comment »
Posted by Robert Infantino on February 12th, 2010
The applications for Cloud storage continue to pile on. And customers are driving the list! We just completed testing of CloudArray with Symantec FileStore; a highly scalable information services platform that offers high performance file serving. Designed for NFS, CIFS, HTTP and FTP, FileStore delivers concurrent and dependable file access from multiple servers.
CloudArray introduces to Symantec FileStore an economical tier of off-site storage made up of public Cloud storage. This provides users of FileStore with a tier of storage it can archive and replicate data to with fast data retrieval and an added benefit of high availability. It also meets a Company’s requirements to store data off-site.
The presentation below is generated by TwinStrata with no participation by Symantec. It walks you through the features and benefits of the solution set.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted by Robert Infantino on January 25th, 2010
Learn how you can cut data restore times by 83% and reduce monthly backup operational costs by 95% using CloudArray software. If you have a need to store, replicate and archive data to the Cloud, you should take a few minutes and learn how CloudArray can benefit your company. Are you still shipping tapes off-site? Are you paying dearly when it comes time to restore data from tape? Time to learn about CloudArray and earn some cash while you are at it.
Link to offer
*Details are provided at the above link.
Hurry up, offer expires soon.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted by Robert Infantino on January 8th, 2010
We continue to see a growing interest in Cloud storage from the end user community. Responding to growing requests, we recently qualified CA ARCserve Backup software with CloudArray. Below is a link to a presentation that steps you through how ARCserve software together with CloudArray protects virtualized and physical server environments. We also included a 3-year TCO summary on CloudArray vs. existing backup and replication solutions. If you are using ARCserve or any other third party data protection software solution, we’d like to hear from you on the challenges you are experiencing with your current solution. Enjoy the presentation.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Posted by Robert Infantino on December 7th, 2009
Together with one of our partners, Tricore Solutions, we are working with a number of Oracle customers to reduce cost and drive efficiency for database backups. TriCore is recognized as one of Oracle’s leading partners delivering a suite of services for enterprise accounts.
One of the challenges we are focused on is to protect Oracle databases using Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) and Cloud storage. The challenge faced by most enterprise customers is to reduce cost and drive efficiency to protect Oracle databases and improve restore process. Companies using tape and off-site vaulting services to store Oracle database backup data are shouldering a mountain of costs that will continue to increase linearly with database growth. Costs for such items as media (tape), tape transportation, and vaulting fees to house data offsite. And the process for restoring data is difficult and time consuming taking anywhere from hours to a week to retrieve data. In today’s business environment, expectations for information retrieval should be near real-time if not “real time”.
The solution we provide is an on-demand, expandable, low cost storage tier integrated seamlessly with Oracle RMAN. This solution is made up of CloudArray software together with public Cloud storage and services performed by TriCore solutions. The CloudArray solution enables users to provision volumes on-demand having policies to store backup data locally (cache) having a replica in the Cloud. CloudArray also encrypts and compresses data prior to delivering it to Cloud storage thereby providing security and performance.
We provide an overview of the solution in the following presentation:
Benefits:
The solution lessens the need to store backup data to tape and eliminates the cost involved in managing tape off-site by third party tape vaulting companies. Depending upon retention policies and the amount of data stored off-site, the cost of physical media is the largest cost component of the backup process. Data vaulting services may run as much as 15% of the media costs. For example, a company spending $40,000 per year on LTO could expect to spend as much as $6,000 per year to store the data off-site. CloudArray software and public Cloud storage combined is approx 1/20th of the cost resulting in a significant savings to the customer with near immediate ROI.
Posted in backup, replication | 2 Comments »
Posted by Robert Infantino on December 2nd, 2009
CloudArray software is qualified with Veeam Backup & Replication software. Veeam, used by SMB to large enterprises for fast recovery of VMware ESX and ESXi environments can now leverage Cloud storage for backup and replication data. Companies we speak to continue to work on driving the cost out of backup, off-site tape management and replication platforms. Cloud storage via CloudArray software address these challenges.
Learn more about CloudArray and Veeam working seamlessly together to protect virtual server environments by viewing the following presentation. The presentation also provides a 3 yr TCO for backup and replication of a 5 TB environment. It compares traditional solutions with Cloud storage using CloudArray.
Enjoy.
Posted in backup, replication | No Comments »
Posted by Robert Infantino on December 2nd, 2009
Companies using Vizioncore vRanger Pro Backup and Recovery software to protect virtual environments can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their IT investment by storing backup data off-site in public Cloud storage. IT departments struggling with shortening backup windows, tape errors, tape retention periods, and the occasional tape library failure can now point vRanger Pro to Cloud storage using CloudArray software by TwinStrata.
The following presentation provides a high level functional overview on how vRanger Pro together with CloudArray work seamlessly to protect VMware ESX and ESXi environments.
The presentation also provides a 3-year TCO of traditional backup and replication solutions using tape as the target platform compared to Cloud storage. Payback is certain cases can be as quickly as a month.
There is also a pointer for a Free 30-day trial of CloudArray.
Posted in backup, replication | No Comments »
Posted by Robert Infantino on December 1st, 2009
Ongoing discussions with customers on their challenges with existing data protection solutions are leading to changes within their data center. Customers are frustrated with the current data protection process. More specifically, storing information off-site on tape where it can take anywhere from a few hours to as much as a week to restore information. “This is just plain unacceptable and costly”. Human intervention, misappropriation of data, special security transports for tapes that contain certain types of information are all adding to the latency and cost of storing and retrieving data off-site and on tape.
New technologies and solutions with ROI measured in months are driving the need for change. Once such technology is Cloud storage. One of the many uses for Cloud storage is as a target device for data protection applications. Meaning, as opposed to pointing a data protection application to a tape device or even a disk system, point it to the Cloud. Easily accessible from anywhere around the globe, companies [applications] can securely store and access data in real time, cost effectively and with ease. Tape management and off-site tape storage challenges are mitigated or eliminated.
In the Solutions section of TwinStrata.com and on their respective blog we provide a list of data protection solutions and Cloud storage providers that are qualified to operate with CloudArray software. The list of data protection applications are from well established companies such as Oracle (RMAN), Symantec (Backup Exec), Vizioncore (VRanger Pro) and younger companies such as Veeam, PHD Virtual (esXpress). Cloud storage providers include Amazon.com (S3), EMC Atmos, AT&T and others. These applications and providers work together with CloudArray software to protect data and quickly retrieve information at a moments notice.
Check back from time to time, we will be adding more applications to the list of CloudArray supported applications and Cloud storage providers.
Also, Twinstrata is offering a free 30-day trial of CloudArray software. Click here for link.
Tags:
Amazon,
Amazon S3,
AT&T,
Atmos,
backup,
Cloud,
Cloud Storage,
data protection,
DR,
EMC,
replication,
ROI,
Storage,
tape
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Posted by Robert Infantino on November 23rd, 2009
The following presentation provides a functional overview on how Symantec Backup Exec software together with CloudArray software work seamlessly to protect virtualized and physical server environments. This solution provides an economic and highly reliable storage tier for off-site data backup and replication without the logistics and cost of tape transport.
The presentation also provides a 3-year TCO summary on CloudArray vs. existing backup and replication solutions.
Share your thoughts on connecting your copy of Backup Exec to Cloud storage. Leave comments.
Tags:
backup exec,
cloud computing,
Cloud Storage,
compute,
private,
public,
replication,
ROI,
symantec,
virtualized,
vm,
vmware
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
