Road to Recovery

The great thing about blogging and independence is that we can post things that add value that we want to share as long as we give the proper recognition.  One of my colleagues, Mike Dutch from the CTO office of SSG and long time SNIA member had some thoughts as it pertained to storage tiering that were insightful  so together we decided to share this post.  I hope you enjoy it.

I’m guessing that many people define a storage tier by its particular storage technology (like SATA). While this may be a useful working definition it obscures the essential notion of what a storage tier really is and leads to confusion when a new technology like data deduplication comes around.  A precise definition may also lead to some interesting innovations if we were to take a slightly different path.

Should deduplicated storage be considered a storage tier?  I would say “no” and here’s why: because a technology such as deduplication can span, and optimize across all tiers.

A storage tier is storage space that has availability, performance, and cost characteristics different enough from other storage tiers as to economically justify the movement of data between it and other storage tiers based on the importance (value, performance need etc…) of the data. While storage tiers are often thought of as being tied to a particular type of hardware,

e.g.,  Flash, FC, SAS, SATA, VTL, PTL, COM (Computer Output Microfiche), or even paper, this is not necessarily the case. For example, highly available cloud or network-based virtual disks could leverage multiple technologies within their single tier.  Since a variety of technologies can be used to provide a particular storage service level, you should not think of a specific technology as a specific storage tier, but should instead evaluate what technology, or combination of technologies would deliver the availability-performance-cost point that I need for this level tier.  “SATA” is not a storage tier, it just happens to be one “technology-set” that can deliver for a single storage tier.

Note that storage tiers are not defined by their capacity, per se, but there is usually less capacity of more expensive tiers precisely because it is more expensive. Deduplication is “simply” a method to save and access data on a storage medium which is why capacity optimization techniques are best considered features of storage platforms rather than standalone products. (Of course deduplication can also be used as part of a WAN optimization solution but here we’re talking about deduplication in relation to storage tiers, and dedupe engines without storage aren’t very interesting storage tiers).

In other words, deduplication lets you lower the cost/GB associated with a particular storage tier, but it isn’t a storage tier in and of itself.  The same rationale applies on why other space efficient storage technologies (e.g., compression) are not tiers unto themselves.  It’s the mixing and matching of both old and new technologies to create a new “availability -performance -cost” point, that makes up a new storage tier.

So who cares what a storage tier is anyway?  On one hand, as long as you can help your customer affordably satisfy their business requirements it doesn’t matter.  But at another level, it profoundly matters.  If you don’t have the knowledge to think about a subject precisely, you may not only be unable to solve problems related to the subject.  Even more, you may not even be able to recognize there is a problem.  Having the right knowledge lets us understand our challenges and more importantly find alternative solutions to them.  After all, isn’t storage tiering really about helping to deliver on a “no more tears” promise?

The efficiencies that data deduplication and storage tiering bring to data protection enable businesses to reduce risks as well as costs.  Information that was previously protected on an adhoc basis, if at all, can now affordably be brought into the ILM umbrella as a full fledged corporate citizen.  The Storage Networking Industry Association defines Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) as “The policies, processess, practices, services, and tools used to align the business value of information with the most appropriate and cost-effective infrastructure from the time information is created through its final disposition.”  Data deduplication and storage tiering are two arrows in the ILM quiver that can be used pervasively within the enterprise to score a bull’s eye in backup… and beyond.  Limiting our thoughts about how any technology can be used, whether it be data deduplication, Flash, or whatever the Next Big Thing is, simply limits the solutions we can find.

Should deduplicated storage be considered a storage tier?  No.

Should deduplicated storage be used as a storage tier?  Pervasively.

Thus endeth the sermon for the day.

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I was walking through the data center the other day when I heard one of my colleagues, MJ “Scream”, “I wish I had some ‘Morphine’”.  Well, I have to say I was “Speechless”.  I walked over to where MJ was standing, near the tape library, and when I asked him what was wrong, he replied “there was another backup tape ’Jam‘.”  MJ told me he had been “Working Day and Night” on a major backup problem and he was now bouncing “Off The Wall”.  He told me he was sick of dealing with traditional backup tools and just wanted to get rid of tape.  I told MJ that it was “Human Nature” to feel “Bad” in a time like this but I also told him, “You Are Not Alone”.  I said MJ, “’Keep The Faith’, we all ‘Remember The Time’ when backups ran like a ‘Speed Demon’ and were ‘Unbreakable’, but that is ‘HIStory’, tape isn’t that fast any more given the amount of data we now have.  I also told him that “We are Backup Administrators, we are ‘Invincible’ and ‘Heaven Can Wait’ for us, and while we may not have our issue fixed at the ‘Break Of Dawn’, we would ‘Come Together’ to ‘Heal The World,’ or at least the datacenter’ (I chuckled).  I proceeded to tell him about a revolutionary new backup concept utilizing source-based deduplication technology.  It’s “PYT”, a pretty young thing, but  more importantly it’s here to stay.  EMC  offers it with a product called Avamar , the most efficient variable block,  source-based, deduplication technology on the market that:

• Helps to eliminate tape all together
• Is perfect for VMware environments
• Protects remote offices most efficiently
• Stems the tide of data growth on NAS platforms

Well I thought MJ was going to give me “Trouble” for my comments.  I mean it, all of the sudden I had “Butterflies”, I felt “Threatened” because I knew this guy could be a loose cannon when it came to trying something new, he could be “Dangerous” he may moonwalk over to me and slap me with his glove. Change can be scary.  But just then MJ let out a “Smile” (quite frankly I thought he was going to “Cry”) and said “’I Can’t Help It’, my job is ‘On The Line’ and I ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’’ soon before my boss tells me to ‘Beat it’” he just felt “2 Bad”.  I told him, “’Don’t Walk Away’ and ‘Whatever Happens’ ‘Billie Jean’ and I were going to help get him out of ‘Trouble’ and together we would replace the tape infrastructure, make backups run 10x faster, provide him with tools that actually verified his backups and make his backup problems ‘Ghosts’”.

I called Billie Jean and at first she said, “’Leave Me Alone’, ‘Why You Wanna Trip On Me’”, but I told her we need her help, so she said she could help MJ and I.  When she asked what the trouble was, I told her that our backup environment was in shams and if MJ didn’t get it fixed, with the right solution that they were going to put MJ on a “Carousel”, that there would be “Blood On The Dance Floor” and he would end up being “Someone In The Dark” “In The Closet”.  Billie Jean hopped on the phone and called “Dirty Diana”, we are all “Just Good Friends” really.  She told her the story and when it came right down to it, it really was “Black or White”.  We needed some “Money”, “2000 Watts”, to replace the old tape libraries with the new Avamar technology and “One More Chance” to fix all of MJ’s backup issues.

I told MJ the plan; we were going to sneak past the guards (that would be simple because “They Don’t Care About Us”) and then replace the old equipment with the new equipment.  MJ asked, “’Is It Scary’ in the datacenter at night?”  I told him we would be fine, that this would not be like his “Childhood” days.  MJ just said, “I Wanna ‘Rock With You’”.  The next night we snuck into the data center like a “Smooth Criminal”.  First, we had to “Get On The Floor” the new Avamar technology.  Next we installed Avamar and it fixed our backup problem right away.  I said, “Man ‘Is It Scary’ or what?”  “Another Part of Me” was just proud of the work we had all accomplished.

The next morning we went into the office of “Little Susie” and knocked on her door (it was always closed because she liked her “Privacy”).  She was MJ’s boss and she was no “Tabloid Junkie” she was a real “Superfly Sister”.   She said, “’Who Is It’”?  We told her and she let us in.  We showed here some reports we had generated from another product we acquired called Data Protection Advisor.  We showed her where all the previous backups had been failing due to problems with network performance, tape libraries and not enough time to back everything up.  Then we showed her that with Avamar we were backing up data in just 1 hour with 100% success because we were seeing 99.5% duplicate data in our NAS environment and that was why we couldn’t meet our backup windows with tape.  We also showed her that our VMware environment could go from 10 to 20 virtual servers per ESX host because backup was no longer the bottleneck keeping us from implementing more virtual guests.  Well she was pretty happy, she said “You Rock My World” and she was not upset that the tape environment was “Gone Too Soon” because it was a true “Heartbreak”.  I told her it was a team effort and we couldn’t have done it without the help of a lot of people including EMC. It was a real “Thriller”.

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