Posted by Crystal Nichols on Fri, May 28, 2010 @ 06:56 AM
As anyone who’s involved in storage management can tell you, it is business needs and business decisions that must govern a storage management policy, and make technology work for it, not the other way around. Accordingly, much of what we do in the storage management world has to do with policy and procedure, rather than the technology itself. One of the big questions in the storage world has to do with backups, and to what degree backups play a role in storage management.
The conventional backup paradigm suggest that a snapshot of data in a given instant is what qualifies as a backup for purposes of retention and data archiving. Backups are kept in an archival format, as opposed to the original format. There are those in the storage world, however, that are asking the question: can a file copy serve the same purpose as a backup?
Certainly the lines are blurring, and with good reason. Our storage management technology gives us more options today than ever in terms of how we choose to archive data. As such, it’s important to determine at what point a copy becomes a backup for purposes of archiving and/or compliance.
Here are the basic ideas we can start to work from:
1. Start with the basic definition of a copy. A copy is, in the most basic sense, a copy of a set of data.
2. Copies may or may not be protected. Copies may be vulnerable to overwriting or corruption. In some cases, a copy may disappear when the primary data set disappears.
3. For a copy to serve as a backup, it should be separate from the primary data set. Physically, the copy should be stored in a distant fashion, and it should be protected logically within the system.
4. Because a copy is not encapsulated in an alternative format, it may simplify restoration.
5. Copies should receive the same kind of attention that backup receives, including a management process, logs, performance monitoring, indexes and the like.
6. Copies should not affect either the performance or the usability of the primary data set.
Along the way, it’s important to identify the possible benefits of copy-based backup, including:
• Data in its original format is inherently more useful. This speeds the restore and re-indexing process.
• When backup targets are disk-based, they’re more accessible than alternative media. Backups don’t run the risk of unknown media failure.
• Disk-based copy backup lets you use replication or cloud computing solutions to move your data off-site, leading to greater disaster recovery and business continuity readiness.
While it’s not likely that a disk-based copy backup scheme will replace more traditional tape backups and the like, it’s certainly something that the storage management professional should keep on the radar.
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Posted by Crystal Nichols on Wed, May 26, 2010 @ 08:44 AM
IBM Power Systems are some of the most valuable assets that an organization has. In order to make the most of those assets, however, you need to be able to understand how the system is being utilized, and how your organization’s growth is likely to impact that system. You need to be able to make realistic plans on how to improve service and manage risks, all while reducing costs. Power Systems provide you with a framework in which to meet the changing needs of your organization, and IBM’s Performance Management for Power Systems gives you the ability to do just that.
Here are some ways that you can use PM for Power Systems to maximize your organization’s configuration:
Visualize your Virtualization
PM for Power Systems lets you step back and look at the big picture. You can see what utilization truly is across the enterprise. From there, you can make intelligent and informed decisions about virtualization. You can decide, for example, whether to implement a multi-OS multi-partition environment. PM for Power Systems gives you the information you need to make that kind of decision. You can even use PM for Power Systems to try out various system workloads on your IBM Power System.
Ongoing interactive Access
Not only can you take a snapshot of what your Power System utilization looks like right now, you can also have access to historical performance data. This means that you can look back at utilization and capacity concerns as far back as 24 months, which can be extremely useful in making plans for future utilization.
Easy Configuration
PM for Power Systems comes in a couple of different options. There are “no additional charge” and “nominal charge” options, depending on the level of detail that you need from your systems.
Once you complete the initial setup process, the rest of what PM for Power Systems does for you is automated. This relieves valuable IT personnel from the tedious, laborious and, ultimately, expensive tasks that make up the day-to-day systems management routine.
Broad Support
If you have a mix of different IBM technologies, PM for Power Systems can provide you with integrated access to all of your hardware configurations. Currently, PM for Power Systems supports current IBM I as well as AIX and the hardware models that they are currently running on. It also supports IBM POWER processor-based blades running both IBM I and AIX. It doesn’t support x86 blades, and it doesn’t support a handful of rack type servers. Make sure yours are supported, of course, before you implement PM for Power Systems.
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Posted by Crystal Nichols on Tue, May 18, 2010 @ 08:04 AM
It’s a whole new world today when it comes to storage management, data encryption and compliance with regulations and laws. The new laws recently passed in both Nevada and Massachusetts, which require all personal data to be encrypted while in transit, has far-reaching effects in the storage world and the IT field at large. You need to be asking what these laws will demand from you and your organization, and then how you’re going to comply. While encryption technology is available on a wide basis, taking that technology and making it fit your organization can be a challenge.
The law is almost never as cut and dried as IT would like. In the case of this Nevada law, experts suggest that the statute is especially vague. Still, the laws don’t answer questions about IT implementations in and of themselves. It’s going to take some time in these two states for those requirements to be interpreted and understood.
Further, it’s not clear how far these laws will spread. In many cases, especially when it relates to technology, privacy legislation expands rapidly until, even if every state doesn’t implement a law, you can bet there will be those in Congress that will try to turn the issue national.
Here are some of the unknowns when it comes to the encryption of storage data, and what to watch for as these laws continue to be passed and as they play out across the country:
• What data is covered? The laws in these two states don’t cover most information. They have to do with personal information that could, in theory, be used for the purpose of identity theft. So for now, you’re talking about things like financial account numbers, social security numbers, drivers license numbers and the like.
• Does it include personal date in secure systems? In other words, if you have employee data on a secure server inside of your organization, or even in your storage archives, does that data still require encryption? Whether data transported inside the company should be encrypted will have farther-reaching implications than other issues.
• Does the law apply only to networks? The laws usually speak of “electronic transmission,” but it doesn’t necessarily spell out what that means. Nevada’s law exempts faxes, but the Massachusetts law is intentionally broad, covering include "electrical, digital, magnetic, wireless, optical, electromagnetic or similar" media. It even names laptops and portable devices.
• Who enforces these laws and how? Inside of a given state, it would fall to the Attorney General to enforce these laws. The AG would have to choose cases and bring them to legal action. This is going to be costly for any business caught in the crossfire. It’s very likely that the lawmakers hope this question will be incentive enough for organizations to oversee their own compliance tightly.
Obviously, the IT world is going to be watching to see what happens in Nevada and Massachusetts. Time will tell the tale of whether these encryption regulations are likely to spread.
Posted by Crystal Nichols on Fri, May 14, 2010 @ 10:10 AM
If the early signs are any indication, 2010 is turning out to be a time when enterprise IT, in general, starts to normalize after a long stretch involving financial instability. For many organizations, at least, enterprise storage upgrades and optimization are back on the table after a time away. Without the looming threat of a financial disaster, people in IT departments are willing to take some more risks with enterprise storage and other technologies.
Here are some of the trends that are beginning to emerge in that area:
• Virtualization continues to increase, creating more significant I/O requirements. Everything from VMware to vSphere to Microsoft’s Hyper-V is putting through the large amounts of data needed by database and by other applications. This means storage I/O has to keep up. How it will do so isn’t certain, but you can expect to see higher uses of SAN arrays, even for more low-end implementations.
• An increase of SANs among small and medium businesses. Even smaller businesses are turning more and more to virtualization. As they do, they need more robust, more intelligent SAN storage. Accordingly, the lower end of the enterprise storage market should continue to boom.
• More archiving. Data management and compliance are no longer the sole purview of big business. Archiving services, as well as in-house solutions, will continue to grow. Managed archiving services are likely to especially increase, as archiving hasn’t really ever been one of the core foci of the IT department.
• Special-purpose storage solutions integrating with applications. We’re seeing more and more storage solutions that integrate essential applications – SAP, SharePoint and Exchange being just a few.
• FC disks are coming to an end. Between flash disks and automated tiering technologies, SAS is set to put the nail in the coffin of more traditional high-performance disk drives. We’ll see larger capacity drives, more SAS, and higher amounts of cache RAM as well as flash.
• Tiered storage systems continue to grow. As virtualization merges more and more with cloud technology, more and more solutions will work to cash, manage performance and manage capacity. These super storage systems will combine cloud storage, flash and SAS as well.
• Convergence is still delayed. Yes, some of the big vendors (most notably Cisco and EMC) are continuing to push for converged networks and technologies like FCoE and 10 GigE, there are not yet significant business reasons to make the move for most folks. Those high-end I/O environments may see some 10 GigE implementations.
As has always been the case, the times are changing. Successful businesses and organizations continue to rely on the industry to provide cutting-edge solutions to their ever-growing needs.
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Posted by Crystal Nichols on Mon, May 10, 2010 @ 06:26 AM
The sheer number of choices available to today’s enterprise can be mind-boggling. In spite of that fact, and depending on the size and the particular needs of your organization, you might have a hard time wading through the various options to find the one that really fits your needs.
For many enterprises, IBM Power Systems are a good fit. Power Systems can, for some, offer a lower TCO and provide you with an infrastructure that’s more resilient than most other configurations.
Simplicity
One of the things you’ll find with Power Systems is a simplicity not often found in today’s complex world. The IBM technology roadmap is innovative, dependable and scalable. In addition, IBM technologies allow you the simplicity of scaling your systems up via upgrades or scaling your systems within using PowerVM and Capacity on Demand technologies. IBM also offers migration expertise for enterprises moving from other platforms, including x86, SUN and HP.
What this all means for your organization is that you don’t need to allocate more resources than necessary to meet your IT needs.
Maximized ROI
The design of the core technologies that the Power Systems roadmap is built on means that you aren’t going to pay for more capacity than what you need. IBM’s virtualization technologies will reduce your costs and help with data center consolidation. You can virtualize everything or nearly everything in your data center, meaning you never buy more hardware than you need.
This also means that you get consistent performance for your money. Lost productivity due to planned or unplanned outages can become a thing of the past, which will give immediate and measurable ROI.
Optimized Value
Power Systems’ reliability, serviceability and availability mean that you can not only avoid unplanned downtime, but minimize planned downtime. A trio of technology options let you optimize your operations: Capacity on Demand, Hot-Node Add and Hot-Memory Add. These technologies let you maintain availability for your most important applications while you add capacity.
In addition, Power Systems have been optimized to run multiple applications in a secure environment across OS’s on a single server. This means that you can have i, AIX and Linux all running on the same server. This means there are fewer systems to manage, lower capital costs and higher resource utilizations. Those complex and inefficient server farms are going to be a thing of the past.
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Posted by Crystal Nichols on Fri, May 07, 2010 @ 08:36 AM
Cloud computing is one of the best ways to reduce your IT cost and complexity all while helping to optimize your workload and provide the highest possible availability to your user base. Cloud computing utilizes a dynamic infrastructure that is specifically designed to provide more services and capacity while using fewer server resources. One of the best ways to implement a cloud computing solution is with IBM Power Systems.
In fact, IBM Power Systems is in an ideal solution for cloud environments. There are a number of ways in which IBM Power Systems can be the foundation for your cloud, and a number of options to get you there.
The Right Kind of Workload Optimization
At the core of cloud computing is this idea of optimizing the workload. This allows you to make the most of your IT resources while increasing your overall flexibility. Power Systems use technology like IBM’s New Intelligent Threads to switch between processor threading dynamically. The Power Systems TurboCore mode lets you provide the most performance per core for things like database or transaction workloads. Active Memory expansion lets you expand your physical memory logically by as much as 100 percent for memory-intensive workloads like SAP.
Limitless Virtualization
With PowerVM, the virtualization component to IBM Power Systems, you can virtualize not just processor resources, but memory and I/O resources as well. You can use PowerVM to adjust capacity in a dynamic fashion, to move workloads between servers, and to maximize availability. This kind of virtualization even allows you to prevent planned downtime.
Automated Management
Being able to provision resources within the cloud is key to maximizing utilization and efficiency. It also helps to reduce your TCO and management costs. Utilizing IBM Systems Director Enterprise for Power Systems, you have a way to manage physical as well as virtual servers in an automated fashion. These tools are cross-platform, too. This means that, no matter what your environment, the Power Systems cloud can provision virtual machine images and effectively allocate resources, all while providing you with an accurate picture of how your systems are operating.
Solutions of All Kinds
No matter the shape, size or composition of your cloud, IBM Power Systems has a possible solution. Here are a few of the specific offerings:
• IBM CloudBurst. CloudBurst lets the data center quickly create and implement a private cloud environment. It’s a cloud computing quickstart aimed at a defined portion of the data center.
• IBM WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance. This offering lets you deploy and manage your SOA foundation in a cloud computing environment, and easily deploys WebSphere virtual images to your Power Systems partitions.
• IBM Smart Business Development and Test Cloud. This solution lets you create a private cloud environment for the purposes of development and testing, reducing your operating costs and your test cycle times.
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Posted by Crystal Nichols on Mon, May 03, 2010 @ 05:13 AM
The two most defining characteristics of IBM Power Systems have to be their availability and security. While many organizations initially choose Power Systems for a reason like increased utilization or cutting-edge virtualization technologies, it is the way in which Power Systems are reliable and reduce risk that often keeps them coming back.
Power Systems Availability
What is it about IBM Power Systems that gives them their reputation for high availability? It starts with industry surveys and user experiences. Time and again, Power Systems rank higher than other platforms in terms of availability.
In addition, Power Systems can run on a 24 by 7 basis with very little intervention on the part of systems personnel. Depending on the particular Power Systems implementation, unplanned outages can be minimized or even eliminated. Virtualization technology like PowerVM means that even planned outages can be a thing of the past.
Some of the availability comes from the kernel. The IBM i series kernel has fewer potential points of failure. In addition, it is less prone to error due to users or due to IT staff. Even in Windows and Linus implementations, Power Systems offers a number of availability features.
Availability really comes to the fore with IBM implementations, however. The microelectronics technology used in the kernel is matched directly with the hardware, making for a tight and secure fit. Specifically, RAS (reliability, availability and serviceability) technologies in i are supported in the physical configuration of Power Systems.
Power Systems Security
IBM Power Systems security also shines when used in conjunction with IBM i. IBM i is known to be one of the most secure OS ever created. Malware incidents are unheard of when it comes to IBM i, and security violations into the OS are nearly as rare.
The statistics back the security of Power Systems up. The U.S. National Vulnerability Database is a repository of known security vulnerabilities, and is operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Since they began collecting vulnerability statistics in 1992, they have not recorded any vulnerabilities for IBM i. In addition, there are no known viruses native to i.
This is due, at least in part, to the distinctive object-based structure of IBM i. The way that i encapsulates objects creates a strict data and system code control, which means it’s nearly impossible for unauthorized instructions to run.
Add in IP security and detection systems, and the IBM i series is one of the most secure computing environments you can find.
If your organization values availability and security, IBM Power Systems running i Series is the right fit for your needs.
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