Posts Tagged ‘DR’

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How to simplify off-site backup for virtual environments

Wednesday, September 14th, 2011

If you happen to be managing a virtual server environment, such as VMware or Hyper-V, you are probably aware of the importance of backup software to protect your valuable applications and data in case of disaster. You may also be keenly conscious of the unique needs that virtual server environments pose, such as virtual machine sprawl, contention for server resources and spiraling data growth (often duplicate data), in which case there is probably no need to spend a lot of time touting the benefits of Veeam Backup & Replication.

Over the past few years, Veeam has become the leader in backup for virtual environments offering class-leading consolidated and highly efficient backup and replication that was designed and optimized to handle the special requirements associated with ever-popular virtual machine backups.

Starting with Veeam as a foundation, is it possible to make backup and recovery even simpler? Well, one of the challenges of backup is moving backup data off site for disaster recovery (DR) purposes. You might settle for the manual and rather unreliable process of shipping tapes or media offsite with the hope of getting your data back in a reasonable period of time should a disaster strike. Alternatively, you might build out a disk-to-disk backup infrastructure that extends off site to a secondary or collocation facility, housing additional storage equipment that you own and manage (learn more in my recent article Data Protection and Backup: The Shortcomings of Disk-to-Disk). But perhaps you are looking for a faster, simpler way to achieve your off-site DR objectives, without manual and unreliable processes and without significant capital and administrative investment.

Backup to Cloud

What if you could simply add off-site storage for backups without the need for tapes and without the need for a secondary site? What if at the touch of a button you could access secure off-site cloud storage that is bandwidth optimized with local-key encryption and offers instant recoverability virtually anywhere and a choice of cloud providers. That is TwinStrata CloudArray.

Needless to say, we were recently happy to announce that every copy of Veeam Backup & Replication now comes bundled with a free CloudArray virtual appliance up to 1TB. Backing up virtual server environments just became simpler and the need for tapes and offsite facilities may quickly become a distant memory. Each CloudArray appliance can scale to Petabytes of data with an iSCSI interface that allows seamlessly storing backups or archives. CloudArray also offers additional storage capacity wherever it is needed. If you are a backup administrator considering off-site backup and DR options, consider a better, simpler option that only takes minutes to deploy. Try Veeam with your free CloudArray virtual appliance and let us know how simple off-site backup for your virtual environment can be.

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Cloud Storage for Multi-site Consolidation, Part II: DR Anywhere

Monday, July 11th, 2011

Part I of this series examined how multi-site consolidation of data storage using the cloud can benefit your business, emphasizing consolidated disaster recovery (DR) as one of the key benefits. In this installment, we dig a bit deeper into the benefits of DR with cloud storage.

If your business already spans multiple sites, you may think about using one of your existing sites for DR. However, you may want to think again if you have to double your fixed storage capacity. Enter cloud storage and instead your secondary data copies can reside in the cloud on a pay-as-you-go basis. Using a cloud storage hybrid appliance, like CloudArray, you can instantly access data from any site if a primary site experiences a disaster. With Cloudarray’s automatic and secure configuration backup, a quick download is all it takes to restore access to data from any site — and you are up and running in minutes.

However, even with a secondary copy of data in the cloud, using one of your existing sites for DR may not be a viable option for a number of reasons, including:

  • Insufficient bandwidth/scale to aggregate replicated updates or provide access during a disaster
  • Insufficient dedicated servers to bring up all critical applications during a disaster
  • Lack of administrative staff to build and support a secondary site

With these constraints, using the cloud as the DR site can be a very compelling alternative. Recovering applications in the cloud means no dedicated DR infrastructure: no servers, no storage, and no staff to maintain that infrastructure. Since CloudArray runs in the cloud, accessing your data in the cloud is just a simple as accessing from a new location.

Is there a catch to using the cloud for DR? One consideration is the process of restarting your applications in the cloud. In a virtual environment, if your cloud provider runs the same hypervisor you run on-premise, the process of recovering applications involves moving virtual machines. On the other hand, if the cloud provider runs a different type of hypervisor or you are operating in a physical server environment, conversion utilities or third party software may be necessary to restart applications in the cloud. Either way, DR in the cloud is an option worth considering.

So what’s next beyond consolidated DR? How about multiple access points to your data across sites or the cloud for other use cases? Stay tuned for Part III…

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Posted in Cloud Storage, data storage consolidation, disaster recovery | 1 Comment »

Cloud storage for multi-site consolidation – Part I

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Multi-site configuration

Imagine running a business where data storage is distributed across 20 geographically separated sites. How do you efficiently manage those sites? What happens when one site runs out of storage capacity? What if one site were hit with a disaster or flood? Surely there ought to be a centralized disaster site to protect against site outage or data loss, right? And who manages each site? Would there be an administrator at each site or traveling from site to site?

If these questions give you the impression that multi-site storage management across sites can be a headache, you are right. What can you do to ease this management burden?

For starters, you can use cloud storage in place of a traditional siloed storage infrastructure. Here are some of the key benefits cloud storage can deliver to simplify your multi-site infrastructure:

1) Accessibility to an unlimited pool of storage from each site that grows on demand– meaning never having to worry about running out of capacity
2) A centralized disaster site with unlimited bandwidth and multi-datacenter redundancy, network optimization and data security — a very complex undertaking to build out yourself
3) A centralized portal that can monitor and proactively alert you on the health status of each site — without an onsite presence

How can cloud storage do this? Via software or hardware hybrid storage appliances like CloudArray, that provides optimized data access from each site combined with a central point of management. What’s more, CloudArray lets you recover your data virtually anywhere– on-premise, off-premise or even in the cloud using pay-as-you-go compute resources, all in minutes.

There is indeed a better way to manage growing data storage needs across multiple locations. Are there even more benefits? Stay tuned to learn more in Part II of this series.

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Posted in Cloud Storage, data storage consolidation | 2 Comments »

Cloud storage: Why the whole is greater than the sum of parts, Part I

Monday, May 16th, 2011

When you spend twenty years in the data storage industry, you’re no stranger to disaster recovery plans and their importance. A disaster recovery plan is an essential best practice when building a data storage environment because, let’s face it, disks may fail, storage arrays may fail, entire data centers may fail and, yes, even a cloud provider may fail; but these occurrences are neither controversial or shocking.

It so happens that cloud storage is an excellent way to enhance and augment your disaster recovery plan. A storage architecture that follows best practices does not rely on a single data center. With cloud enabling technology, like CloudArray, cloud storage is a simple and secure off-site extension of your data center. When combined with an existing data center, the cloud enables a multi-site data protection and DR strategy that rivals those of large enterprise companies. A virtual disaster recovery site is a very compelling use case for cloud storage where the resulting “whole” really is greater than the sum of its parts; the availability of the combined data center facility is greater than the availability of either your existing data center or the cloud.

Now given the extent of public outcry around the recent AWS outage, one can mistakenly conclude that the unthinkable has happened or, alternatively, one can see a case for maintaining best practices that “design for failure.” Using cloud is not an excuse to abandon best practices or to push the burden of the availability of your business to a cloud provider. Unless your SLA specifies the cloud provider is taking full financial responsibility for business loss from outages, you are responsible for an “off-cloud” disaster recovery strategy, whether that strategy involves using more than one cloud provider or using your local premise as the other site.

Cloud storage is a way to enable tremendous advantages for your business. A good starting point is using the cloud to enhance/augment rather than replace existing infrastructure. If you do, I’m certain you will be pleased with the results.

Still not a believer? Look for part II of this series, where our CTO, John Bates, gives you a technical lowdown of why the whole is greater than the sum of parts…

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Posted in Cloud Storage, disaster recovery | 1 Comment »

TwinStrata to Present at EMC World and Interop This Week

Monday, May 9th, 2011

TwinStrata’s CEO, Nicos Vekiarides, will be presenting at EMC World and Interop this week in Las Vegas. Please join us if you are attending either conference to learn how your business can benefit from cloud storage:

EMC World:

Five Ways Every Business Can Benefit from Cloud Storage
In the face of shrinking IT budgets and continuously expanding data storage needs, companies of all sizes are turning to cloud storage. With advantages including a pay-as-you go model, the cloud is often the best way to extend storage infrastructure and increase overall IT agility. This presentation examines key benefits that cloud storage, from providers like the EMC Atmos partner ecosystem, can bring to an organization and discusses considerations around hybrid clouds, use cases and ways to accelerate deployment.

WHERE:
Atmos Cloud Pavilion Theater
The Venetian
Las Vegas, Nevada

WHEN:
Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 4:30-5:00 p.m.

EMC World web site

Interop:

“Cloud Storage: DR for Free – Everything in Parallel” Panel Discussion
On-demand, utility-based storage allows for pay-as-you-go economics that CFOs are finding irresistible, and could pave the way to the cloud for many enterprises. Vekiarides and three other industry leaders will discuss how cloud storage is disrupting traditional backup and disaster recovery solutions for businesses of all sizes and shapes.

WHERE:
Lagoon B
Mandalay Bay Convention Center
Las Vegas, Nevada

WHEN:
Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 10:15-11:15 a.m.

Interop conference web site

Interop Speaker/Session Info

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TwinStrata and PEER 1 Team Up to Deliver Enterprise Class Cloud Storage

Monday, January 31st, 2011

 

TwinStrata conintues to broaden its partner ecosystem with leading cloud storage providers. Here is yet another example…

NATICK, Mass. and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — TwinStrata, Inc., the leading innovator in iSCSI SAN, data protection and disaster recovery solutions using cloud storage, today announced it has achieved Bronze Partner Program status with international hosting provider, PEER 1 Hosting (TSX: PIX), further demonstrating TwinStrata’s continued commitment to supporting the industry’s key cloud storage providers along with their customers.

Read the full press release…

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Why a Massachusetts High School Picked TwinStrata CloudArray over Competition

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

 

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

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