TwinStrata Blog » cloud replication

Combining Storage Virtualization with Unprecedented Cloud Storage Flexibility

Nicos Vekiarides — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 03:00:13 +0000

The business case for storage virtualization software isn’t new. System administrators have always sought best of breed data storage from a choice of storage vendors and a centralized management framework. With a variety of data storage devices available today, ranging from high-performance SSD and Flash cards to low-cost SATA arrays, a seamless way to automatically tier data across the diversity of storage devices and purpose-built arrays can maximize utilization and cost-efficiency. Hardware interchangeability and auto-tiering empower consumers with greater cost controls and buying power. In addition, there are numerous benefits to an enterprise-class software stack that includes data replication and disaster recovery in a footprint that persists across storage system upgrades, with no need to ever change data management interfaces and policies.

DataCore SANsymphony-V is offered by the pioneer and established leader in the storage virtualization segment and is the industry’s first storage hypervisor that provides all of the above benefits and much more. This week, DataCore’s storage virtualization software added the flexibility of Cloud Storage to its list of features with the announcement that every copy of SANsymphony-V now bundles a TwinStrata Cloudarray virtual appliance. The combination enables companies to achieve true ‘open market’ buying power across their portfolio of storage investments; TwinStrata extends the cost-saving value propostion to a broad and impressive selection of public and private cloud storage providers.

The key implication is that DataCore has opened a path for seamlessly integrating cloud storage into existing storage environments. A cost-effective auto-tiering strategy eliminates the need to orchestrate cumbersome and/or disruptive migrations of existing data –you can take advantage of cloud storage immediately in a manner transparent to existing applications. Recently, I wrote an article entitled Breaking the Storage Array Life Cycle, describing how businesses are using cloud storage to break or extend the rather undesirable 3-5 year life cycle of storage arrays. This joint announcement takes the concept one step further, providing the easiest path to date for offloading data from your expensive on-premise arrays.

With the introduction of cloud as a part of a storage virtualization strategy, there is no longer a need to deploy dedicated off-site infrastructure to move data backups off-premise for disaster recovery. Petabytes of thin-provisioned cloud storage are just a button-click away, all with CloudArray’s robust enterprise-class feature set, including dynamic caching, data reduction, at-rest local key encryption and bandwidth optimization. Augmenting or even replacing an off-site tape strategy is simpler than ever.

As an added benefit, the compelling features of storage virtualization on local storage now apply across multiple cloud storage providers. Concerned about cloud reliability? Just select RAID or mirroring across a choice of cloud storage providers and increase reliability dramatically. You can also virtualize cloud storage along with existing local storage. Want to replicate data in an existing storage array to the cloud? It’s now a simple process — no data to migrate, no APIs, no vendor lock-in and the broadest choice of cloud providers.

Bottom line? Terri McClure from Enterprise Strategy Group may have summed it up best, saying the combined solution “gives companies greater control over storage performance and helps control costs by making it easy to tier their storage across the absolute widest range of resources, from high-performance SSD arrays and legacy disk arrays, to scalable, cost-effective cloud storage.”

Learn more about the unique TwinStrata and DataCore solution today.

6 Key Features of Cloud Storage Gateways (On-ramps or Enablers)

Nicos Vekiarides — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 12:00:38 +0000

Are you considering cloud storage for your business? There are many reasons you should. Using innovative cloud technology, IT is solving data storage problems in new ways. Whether it’s for off-site data protection, disaster recovery or just storage capacity expansion, the pay-as-you go model pioneered by a number of cloud storage providers can be very compelling.

Rather than use cloud storage directly by writing to custom APIs, building your own security policies and architecting a performance framework to meet application needs, you may find that on-premise cloud storage software or hardware (i.e. gateways, on-ramps, enablers) make integration simpler. Purchasing a product that handles security, performance, data reduction and plug-and-play integration can significantly accelerate and simplify deployment.

With a handful of gateway products already on the market that can connect your on-premise environment to cloud storage, a natural question may (or should) be “what is the difference between these products?” above and beyond the aforementioned functionality.

To answer this, we’ve put together a list of 6 differentiating features you should consider when choosing a cloud storage gateway:

1) Dynamic caching policies to meet application needs: A monolithic cloud storage cache may not be able to handle the performance needs for all applications. A backup application may benefit from a cache consisting of low-cost storage optimized for large sequential access, while an NTFS file system may benefit more from an SSD-based cache, optimized for smaller, more randomized access. Each application may require more or less cache over time. Having application-specific caching policies that are dynamic means you can meet needs of different applications using a single solution.

2) Option to replicate a local copy to the cloud: Some vendors argue that having a full local copy defeats the purpose of cloud storage – not at all true! Imagine replacing a real-time replicated secondary site requiring hardware, infrastructure and maintenance costs with a pay-as-you-go cloud! Or imagine not having a secondary site to begin with and now finding a 2-site replication solution within easy reach. This is a very compelling business proposition, particularly for transactional applications that require a full local copy for latency reasons.

3) In-cloud snapshots: Snapshots are rapidly becoming a key part of modernized backup and, when using the cloud, it is important to find out whether a gateway solution offers snapshots. If yes, are the snapshots copy-on-write and on-premise, meaning potential bandwidth thrashing between the local site and the cloud? Or are the snapshots in-cloud, redirect-on write, meaning no bandwidth penalty or performance penalty and readily available in case of disaster? If you have the option of the latter, you may have gathered that it is far superior.

4) Block and file-level access: It’s amazing to hear arguments from vendors trying to convince users that file access is better than block access for cloud gateways. The reality is that there are advantages to file access and advantages to block access. Supporting both means supporting that widest variety of operating systems, file systems and applications; and there is no longer any argument. Hint: having native block access (like iSCSI) means you can support both.

5) “Zero-friction” entry point to cloud storage: Deploying cloud storage should not mean continuing to spend additional CapEx/OpEx associated with traditional storage infrastructure and incurring the same 3-yr upgrade cycles. Sure, there are advantages to optimized hardware appliances for accessing cloud storage, but only when needs and budget dictate. A choice of software, hardware and subscription models with upgrade paths between each are the ideal way to start using cloud storage with minimal risk/cost and the ability to grow.

6) In-cloud disaster recovery and Compute-Anywhere capability: Once your data is in the cloud, you can access it anywhere, but how about in the cloud? Why not be able to leverage unlimited pay-as-you-go cloud compute cycles for disaster recovery or test. Beyond disaster recovery, your data or snapshots of data can and should “work” for you in the cloud. You can even leverage Big Data without dedicated processing resources by using cloud compute. Think about a vision of a hybrid data center and how this capability can enhance IT.

In summary, all cloud gateways, on-ramps, or enablers are not equal and it takes looking beyond the similarities in features to understand whether they will meet the needs specific to your environment and grow to meet your future needs. It pays to look under the covers before purchasing…

Perhaps you have found a cloud storage solution that has all of these features. If you haven’t, we suggest you consider a cloud storage solution that does….

Higher Education Lunch Session: Learn How To Capitalize on Cloud Storage Today

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:18:25 +0000

Is Data Growth Getting You Down? Then Look Up To the Cloud!

Thursday, February 10, 2001
TwinStrata Offices
24 Prime Parkway, Suite 301A
Natick, MA 01760
9:30 AM to 1:00 PM

TwinStrata Can Help Colleges & Universities Capitalize on Cloud Storage…Simply, Securely, and Affordably

Are you looking for ways to battle shrinking budgets yet still address the need for ever-increasing storage capacity, efficient off-site data protection and affordable disaster recovery across your campuses?

Using TwinStrata CloudArray®, an affordable iSCSI data protection and disaster recovery cloud storage solution, can bring relief. It’s non-intrusive and non-disruptive, requiring no “rip and replace” of any existing application or infrastructure.

Attend our Higher Education Lunch session on Thursday, February 10, 2011 and learn how TwinStrata can help you:

Turn capex into opex
Balance your capacity demand and cost
Seamlessly scale IT using cloud storage
Reduce IT complexity and increase IT efficiency

The program will include:

Lunch
A $25 VISA Gift card for attending
An opportunity to meet our Development and Management Teams
Participation in a CloudArray workshop
A grand prize drawing (must be in attendance to win)

Why a Massachusetts High School Picked TwinStrata CloudArray over Competition

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:26:33 +0000

Kyle Jones, technology manager, Essex Agricultural and Technical High School in Hathorne, MA tested cloud gateway products from Nasuni and TwinStrata to meet specific IT budget and operational objectives. The reasons TwinStrata won out are worth reading about, especially if you are part of a small to medium size business considering cloud storage for either offsite backup, archive, or disaster recovery and business continuity.

Mr. Jones was interviewed recently by TechTarget Senior Site Editor, Andrew Burton where he discussed his requirements, offsite storage/data protection options, and why CloudArray was a better business and technology solution choice to handle the school’s backup to cloud storage needs.

You can read more about it here: High School Deploys TwinStrata CloudArray Cloud Storage Gateway

TwinStrata CloudArray Picked as Finalist in Storage Magazine/SearchStorage 2010 Products of the Year Competition

admin — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 18:13:40 +0000

Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) Software and Services: 2010 Products of the Year Finalists Announced

From nearly 200 entries, the judges of Storage magazine’s and SearchStorage.com’s 2010 Products of the Year awards have selected 43 products as finalists including TwinStrata CloudArray. CloudArray was selected as a finalist in the Backup and Disaster Recovery Software and Services category which covers backup, recovery, DR, snapshot, replication, electronic vaulting, and archives.

Cloud Storage Performance: I/O Does Matter

admin — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:57:42 +0000

One of the first decisions you will need to make when tuning your environment for Cloud Storage I/O is what page size you will use to perform writes to your Cloud Storage Provider (CSP). This is one of the configuration parameters you will enter when configuring a new volume in CloudArray.

Page sizing is an important consideration, and represents the smallest unit of data that will be sent to your CSP from your CloudArray appliance, or read back when needed. Choose a size that is too small and you may have to do a lot more I/Os if you need to move a lot of data in bulk. Choose a size that’s too big and you will move more data than you need to.

For example, if your application needs to read a lot of small chunks of data that don’t already reside in your CloudArray cache, then CloudArray will have to issue read requests to the CSP for each of those chunks. If each chunk was 64K in length, and they weren’t contiguous, then CloudArray might have to issue 4 separate read requests for that data. If the data were contiguous, then only 1 read request would need to be made.

Larger Page Sizes will result in more data being read than is needed for the current operation, but it may help performance if that data is needed at any point while it is still in cache. In CloudArray, you can choose variable page sizes from 128 KB (default) all the way to 2 MB. 512 KB is the recommended value for backups and in cases where there is a lot of sequential I/O.

If you do a lot of random small block I/O, you should choose the smaller default page size. This will prevent having to move a lot of empty data between your CSP and the CloudArray appliance. A large page size here will cause slower overall performance since a lot more pages will have to be written to accommodate the data requirements. Likewise, if you are doing backups, you will want the 512 KB (or larger) page size. This will result in fewer overall writes compared to a smaller block size and performance will increase.

This can have an impact in your cost model as well, but nowhere nearly as much as some vendors selling file system-based appliances would have you believe. Some CSP’s will charge a small per transaction fee for each read or write request you make. For Amazon S3 for example, the charge is $0.00001 per write transaction. And so for a 1TB backup, that amounts to 8,388,608 x 128KB transactions, or $83. If you used a 512KB page size, that would amount to 2,097,152 write transactions, or $20 for the write transaction costs. Reads are cheaper by an order of ten. That’s a far cry from the $1K+ figure for a 100GB write that another vendor would cost you.

Visit www.TwinStrata.comfor more info about CloudArray.

TwinStrata’s CEO is Tapped by ESJ for 2011 Cloud Predictions

admin — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 03:54:38 +0000

The Year Ahead in Cloud Computing

The pressure to create a cloud presence will only become stronger in 2011. What IT needs to know to be prepared for Cloud Storage is outlined in an Enterprise Systems Journal (ESJ) article authored by TwinStrata’s CEO and Co-Founder, Nicos Vekiarides.

ESJ approached Nicos for this article because they wanted an inside perspective of the emerging cloud storage market. TwinStrata is a leader in cloud storage enablement solutions to provide companies of any size with iSCSI SAN solutions for offsite data protection, archive, and disaster recovery.

Please take a moment and read the ESJ article: The Year Ahead in Cloud Computing

TwinStrata 2011 New Year Resolutions and Customer Commitments

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 15:19:12 +0000

We hope your holiday was all you wished it would be and that this blog posting finds you well rested, rejuvenated, and still enjoying the cheer and joy of the season. And as you prepare for what’s certain to be a very busy and exciting 2011 in IT, we’d like to unveil a few of TwinStrata’s New Year Resolutions or should we say TwinStrata’s Year-After-Year Resolution Extensions:

1. We won’t rest on our past laurels

Our 2010 success is in the rear view mirror and although a great foundation to build upon going forward, our future success cannot be attained or exceeded without putting forth the same concerted focus on hard work, dedication, and commitment to your growing business needs. We value your trust and will strive to be your solution in 2011 for offsite data protection and disaster recovery.

2. We will continue to deliver quality solutions to solve real business problems in offsite data protection/DR

IT challenges are very real – especially for small and medium size businesses – who consider economic uncertainty, keeping pace with technology and access to adequate capital at the top of the list. Therefore, solutions ought not be complicated to deploy, difficult to use, intrusive to the business, and create vendor lock-in or dependencies. TwinStrata CloudArray, more than any of our competitors, truly “gets” the cloud. It’s not just cheap, offsite storage to us but an convergent ecosystem of fast networks, virtualization, automation and policies, diverse file and operating system environments, and a distributed enterprise infrastructure. CloudArray was designed to seamlessly enable and extend this end-to-end ecosystem to the cloud.

3. We will continue to listen and stay apprised of our customers’ cloud storage enablement needs

Customer satisfaction is derived from many standpoints – service, support, quality, product capabilities, and reliability to name a few. TwinStrata’s success is a result of listening to our customer’s needs, demonstrating our business and technological agility to meet their needs, and being able to build their growth requirements into our short, medium, and long-term strategies. TwinStrata will always endeavor to work with customers this way to become a trusted advisor and partner enabling them to seamlessly include cloud storage in their plans.

4. We will continue to stay true to our core CloudArray solution values and avoid “miracle” solutions

Technology usually flops when it claims to be more than it can be/do or even should be. TwinStrata’s value proposition is to provide businesses with innovative, best-in-class iSCSI storage solutions for enterprise-class offsite data protection and disaster recovery. TwinStrata’s core value is to enable businesses of all sizes to adopt cloud storage easily, securely, and economically without business interruption or change. These core values will only continue to advance in 2011.

5. We will continue to ensure our solution claims match our substantiations

TwinStrata is confident in its CloudArray solution to enable offsite data protection and disaster recovery. Our confidence and our claims really stem from our customers including these proven testimonial areas: 1) Overall peace of mind CloudArray brings to them as a result of the product quality and reliability, 2) Ease and simplicity of deployment and usability, 3) Seamless and secure integration with cloud storage providers, 4) Investment protection from not having to change applications or policies, 5) Immediacy of business and operational results, and 6) Quantifiable savings – time, capex/opex, and resources – delivered by CloudArray.

6. We will continue to strive to support our customers’ cloud storage goals – tactical and strategic alike

We believe that cloud storage will have a breakout year in 2011. And TwinStrata CloudArray will be leading the way with innovative ways to help businesses plan and justify tactical uses of the cloud for offsite data protection, DR, and other storage initiatives. Additionally, TwinStrata will continue in 2011 to advance how CloudArray can help companies’ today build and implement business continuity strategies that were once financially unattainable to small and medium size business.

TwinStrata understands that our customers are a vital part of our growth and success. We value your trust in our company, and are committed to working harder to bring you the levels of innovation, quality, reliability, and support you’ve come to expect from TwinStrata to meet your business expectations in 2011.

Thank you and Happy New Year!

BNMC Relies on TwinStrata CloudArray and Best Practices to Avoid Disastrous Data Loss

admin — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:34:23 +0000

Customer Success: Critical Business Data Saved

BNMC; a Mass. based strategic information technology (IT) network services company, selected TwinStrata CloudArray® to provide backup services for their clients. A virtual appliance that runs on VMware, CloudArray can be deployed for backup, archive, or disaster recovery/business continuity requirements. Key to effective and rapid data recovery in the event of a site disaster is CloudArray‟s metadata so protecting this critical information is top of mind for system administrators. Eryck Bredy, BNMC President & CTO, has always been an advocate of following best practices and one day, he averted a disaster as a result. You see, Eryck accidentally deleted the CloudArray VM he was working on, rendering it terminal. This VM had 1TB of customer data on it. But Eryck wasn‟t worried. He knew that he could easily recover the data with CloudArray since he did, in fact, follow best practices, and had backed up the CloudArray configuration data. And because there was a full copy of the data in the cloud, he knew CloudArray was imminently recoverable in and of itself. After accidentally deleting the CloudArray VM (CAVM1), Eryck simply imported a new CloudArray VM (CAVM2), reset t he cache, and restored the backup of CAVM1 to CAVM2. That was it. When CAVM2 was powered on, it replayed the metadata and back-filled its cache with the data from the cloud on an as needed basis. Because of the rapid and seamless recovery capabilities of CloudArray, BNMC business interruption was avoided. And since all user data was in the cloud, CAVM2 simply re-enabled access to it without incident.

“Bottom line – unfortunate incidents are going to happen. The important thing is to be ready when they do. Using TwinStrata CloudArray helped us mitigate the effects of losing critical data and enabled us to protect the trust our customers have in BNMC.” – Eryck Bredy, BNMC President & CTO

As widespread adoption of cloud services increases, it‟s comforting to BNMC to know that solutions like CloudArray are in place to help. For Eryck, the combination of CloudArray and BNMC best practices helped avoid a potentially disastrous situation for their clients, the loss of their critical business data.

TwinStrata Delivers Newest Version of its Leading CloudArray® Offsite Data Protection and Disaster Recovery Solution

admin — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 20:17:51 +0000

CloudArray® Version 2.0 is available in both virtual and physical appliance configurations.

The new CloudArray Version 2.0 includes a broad range of updates designed to further enhance the overall operation, reliability, and performance of CloudArray’s robust and proven feature set for offsite data protection, archive, and disaster recovery. Additionally, CloudArray 2.0 expands its reach to include direct integration with Mezeo, Peer1, and Scalitycloud storage platforms, offering customers more choice and flexibility when implementing a cloud storage strategy. Other CloudArray 2.0 enhancements include support for HA clustering, Solaris interoperability, alert and portal improvements and performance improvements to the virtual appliance.

CloudArray V2.0 is available today from TwinStrata and through its network of partners. For more information, visit www.twinstrata.com/cloudarray, email sales@twinstrata.com or call 508-651-0199.

You can also try CloudArray FREE for 30 days: www.twinstrata.com/cloudarray_evaluation

TwinStrataCloudArray is a proven solution that can significantly reduce capex/opex by enabling companies of all sizes to easily adopt offsite data protection and disaster recovery solutions in minutes without any changes to existing applications or need for new programming or APIs in order to connect with cloud storage providers. TwinStrata provides enterprise-class data protection solutions that are simple, affordable, and secure. These solutions leverage the scalability and efficiency of cloud storage while maintaining the availability, performance, and security of local storage. CloudArray software provides a substantial advantage over traditional off-site storage solutions, with a pay-as-you-go model, unlimited elastic capacity, local performance, in-cloud snapshots, AES256 bit encryption, and on-site, off-site or in-the-cloud access to data.