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Data Protection Fundamentals Recovery Points (Backup, Snapshots, Versions)

Enabling Recovery Points (Backup, Snapshots, Versions)

Updated 1/7/18

Companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft ( CRC Press 2017)

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

By Greg Schulz – www.storageioblog.com November 26, 2017

This is Part 4 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Part 3 Data Protection Access Availability RAID Erasure Codes (EC) including LRC, and click here to view the next post Part 5 Point In Time Data Protection Granularity Points of Interest.

Post in the series includes excerpts from Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) pertaining to data protection for legacy along with software defined data centers ( SDDC), data infrastructures in general along with related topics. In addition to excerpts, the posts also contain links to articles, tips, posts, videos, webinars, events and other companion material. Note that figure numbers in this series are those from the SDDI book and not in the order that they appear in the posts.

In this post the focus is around Data Protection Recovery Points (Archive, Backup, Snapshots, Versions) from Chapter 10 .

SDDC, SDI, SDDI data infrastructure
Figure 1.5 Data Infrastructures and other IT Infrastructure Layers

Enabling RPO (Archive, Backup, CDP, PIT Copy, Snapshots, Versions)

SDDC SDDI Data Protection Points of Interests
Figure 9.5 Data Protection and Availability Points of Interest

RAID, including parity and erasure code (EC) along with mirroring and replication, provide availability and accessibility. These by themselves, however, are not a replacement for backup (or other point in time data protection) to support recovery points. For complete data protection the solution is to combine resiliency technology with point-in-time tools enabling availability and facilitate going back to a previous consistency time.

Recovery point protection is implemented within applications using checkpoint and consistency points as well as log and journal switches or flush. Other places where recovery-point protection occurs include in middleware, database, key-value stores and repositories, file systems, volume managers, and software-defined storage, in addition to hypervisors, operating systems, containers, utilities, storage systems, appliances, and service providers.

In addition to where, there are also different approaches, technologies, techniques, and tools, including archive, backup, continuous data protection, point-in-time copies, or clones such as snapshots, along with versioning.

Common recovery point Data Protection related terms, technologies, techniques, trends and topics pertaining to data protection from availability and access to durability and consistency to point in time protection and security are shown below.

Time interval protection for example with Snapshot, backup/restore, point in time copies, checkpoints, consistency point among other approaches can be scheduled or dynamic. They can also vary by how they copy data for example full copy or clone, or incremental and differential (e.g. what has changed) among other techniques to support 4 3 2 1 data protection. Other variations include how many concurrent copies, snapshots or versions can take place, along with how many stored and for how long (retention).

Additional Data Protection Terms

Copy Data Management ( CDM) as its name implies is associated managing various data copies for data protection, analytics among other activities. This includes being able to identify what copies exist (along with versions), where they are located among other insight.

Data Protection Management ( DPM) as its name implies is the management of data protection from backup/restore, to snapshots and other recovery point in time protection, to replication. This includes configuration, monitoring, reporting, analytics, insight into what is protected, how well it is protected, versions, retention, expiration, disposition, access control among other items.

Number of 9s Availability – Availability (access or durability or access and availability) can be expressed in number of nines. For example, 99.99 (four nines), indicates the level of availability (downtime does not exceed) objective. For example, 99.99% availability means that in a 24-hour day there could be about 9 seconds of downtime, or about 52 minutes and 34 seconds per year. Note that numbers can vary depending on whether you are using 30 days for a month vs. 365/12 days, or 52 weeks vs. 365/7 for weeks, along with rounding and number decimal places as shown in Table 9.1.

Uptime

24-hour Day

Week

Month

Year

99

0 h 14 m 24 s

1 h 40 m 48 s

7 h 18 m 17 s

3 d 15 h 36 m 15 s

99.9

0 h 01 m 27 s

0 h 10 m 05 s

0 h 43 m 26 s

0 d 08 h 45 m 36 s

99.99

0 h 00 m 09 s

0 h 01 m 01 s

0 h 04 m 12 s

0 d 00 h 52 m 34 s

99.999

0 h 00 m 01s

0 h 00 m 07 s

0 h 00 m 36 s

0 d 00 h 05 m 15 s

Table 9.1 Number of 9’s Availability Shown as Downtime per Time Interval

Service Level Objectives SLOs are metrics and key performance indicators (KPI) that guide meeting performance, availability, capacity, and economic targets. For example, some number of 9’s availability or durability, a specific number of transactions per second, or recovery and restart of applications. Service-level agreement (SLA) – SLA specifies various service level objectives such as PACE requirements including RTO and RPO, among others that define the expected level of service and any remediation for loss of service. SLA can also specify availability objectives as well as penalties or remuneration should SLO be missed.

Recovery Time Objective RTO is how much time is allowed before applications, data, or data infrastructure components need to be accessible, consistent, and usable. An RTO = 0 (zero) means no loss of access or service disruption, i.e., continuous availability. One example is an application end-to-end RTO of 4 hours, meaning that all components (application server, databases, file systems, settings, associated storage, networks) must be restored, rolled back, and restarted for use in 4 hours or less.

Another RTO example is component level for different data infrastructure layers as well as cumulative or end to end. In this scenario, the 4 hours includes time to recover, restart, and rebuild a server, application software, storage devices, databases, networks, and other items. In this scenario, there are not 4 hours available to restore the database, or 4 hours to restore the storage, as some time is needed for all pieces to be verified along with their dependencies.

Data Loss Access DLA occurs when data still exists, is consistent, durable, and safe, but it cannot be accessed due to network, application, or other problem. Note that the inverse is data that can be accessed, but it is damaged. Data Loss Event DLE is an incident that results in loss or damage to data. Note that some context is needed in a scenario in which data is stolen via a copy but the data still exists, vs. the actual data is taken and is now missing (no copies exist). Also note that there can be different granularity as well as scope of DLE for example all data or just some data lost (or damaged). Data Loss Prevention DLP encompasses the activities, techniques, technologies, tools, best practices, and tradecraft skills used to protect data from DLE or DLA.

Point in Time (PiT) such as PiT copy or data protection refers to a recovery or consistency point where data can be restored from or to (i.e., RPO), such as from a copy, snapshot, backup, sync, or clone. Essentially, as its name implies, it is the state of the data at that particular point in time.

Recovery Point Objective RPO is the point in time to which data needs to be recoverable (i.e., when it was last protected). Another way of looking at RPO is how much data you can afford to lose, with RPO = 0 (zero) meaning no data loss, or, for example, RPO = 5 minutes being up to 5 minutes of lost data.

SDDC SDDI RTO RPO
Figure 9.8 Recovery Points (point in time to recover from), and Recovery Time (how long recovery takes)

Frequency refers to how often and on what time interval protection is performed.

4 3 2 1 and 3 2 1 data protection rule
Figure 9.4 Data Protection 4 3 2 1 and 3 2 1 rule

In the context of the 4 3 2 1 rule, enabling RPO is associated with durability, meaning number of copies and versions. Simply having more copies is not sufficient because if they are all corrupted, damaged, infected, or contain deleted data, or data with latent nefarious bugs or root kits, then they could all be bad. The solution is to have multiple versions and copies of the versions in different locations to provided data protection to a given point in time.

Timeline and delta or recovery points are when data can be recovered from to move forward. They are consistent points in the context of what is/was protected. Figure 10.1 shows on the left vertical axis different granularity, along with protection and consistency points that occur over time (horizontal axis). For example, data “Hello” is written to storage (A) and then (B), an update is made “Oh Hello,” followed by (C) full backup, clone, and master snapshot or a gold copy is made.

SDDC SDDI Data Protection Recovery consistency points
Figure 10.1 Recovery and consistency points

Next, data is changed (D) to “Oh, Hello,” followed by, at time-1 (E), an incremental backup, copy, snapshot. At (F) a full copy, the master snapshot, is made, which now includes (H) “Hello” and “Oh, Hello.” Note that the previous full contained “Hello” and “Oh Hello,” while the new full (H) contains “Hello” and “Oh, Hello.” Next (G) data is changed to “Oh, Hello there,” then changed (I) to “Oh, Hello there I’m here.” Next (J) another incremental snapshot or copy is made, date is changed (K) to “Oh, Hello there I’m over here,” followed by another incremental (L), and other incremental (M) made a short time later.

At (N) there is a problem with the file, object, or stored item requiring a restore, rollback, or recovery from a previous point in time. Since the incremental (M) was too close to the recovery point (RP) or consistency point (CP), and perhaps damaged or its consistency questionable, it is decided to go to (O), the previous snapshot, copy, or backup. Alternatively, if needed, one can go back to (P) or (Q).

Note that simply having multiple copies and different versions is not enough for resiliency; some of those copies and versions need to be dispersed or placed in different systems or locations away from the source. How many copies, versions, systems, and locations are needed for your applications will depend on the applicable threat risks along with associated business impact.

The solution is to combine techniques for enabling copies with versions and point-in-time protection intervals. PIT intervals enable recovering or access to data back in time, which is a RPO. That RPO can be an application, transactional, system, or other consistency point, or some other time interval. Some context here is that there are gaps in protection coverage, meaning something was not protected.

A good data protection gap is a time interval enabling RPO, or simply a physical and logical break and the distance between the active or protection copy, and alternate versions and copies. For example, a gap in coverage (e.g. bad data protection gap) means something was not protected.

A protection air or distance gap is having one of those versions and copies on another system, in a different location and not directly accessible. In other words, if you delete, or data gets damaged locally, the protection copies are safe. Furthermore, if the local protection copies are also damaged, an air or distance gap means that the remote or alternate copies, which may be on-line or off-line, are also safe.

Good Data Protection Gaps
Figure 9.9 Air Gaps and Data Protection

Figure 10.2 shows on the left various data infrastructure layers moving from low altitude (lower in the stack) host servers or bare metal (BM) physical machine (PM) and up to higher levels with applications. At each layer or altitude, there are different hardware and software components to protect, with various policy attributes. These attributes, besides PACE, FTT, RTO, RPO, and SLOs, include granularity (full or incremental), consistency points, coverage, frequency (when protected), and retention.

SDDC SDDI Data Protection Granularity
Figure 10.2 Protecting data infrastructure granularity and enabling resiliency at various stack layers (or altitude)

Also shown in the top left of Figure 10.2 are protections for various data infrastructure management tools and resources, including active directory (AD), Azure AD (AAD), domain controllers (DC), group policy objects (GPO) and organizational units (OU), network DNS, routing and firewall, among others. Also included are protecting management systems such as VMware vCenter and related servers, Microsoft System Center, OpenStack, as well as data protection tools along with their associated configurations, metadata, and catalogs.

The center of Figure 10.2 lists various items that get protected along with associated technologies, techniques, and tools. On the right-hand side of Figure 10.2 is an example of how different layers get protected at various times, granularity, and what is protected.

For example, the PM or host server BIOS and UEFI as well as other related settings seldom change, so they do not have to be protected as often. Also shown on the right of Figure 10.2 are what can be a series of full and incremental backups, as well as differential or synthetic ones.

Figure 10.3 is a variation of Figure 10.2 showing on the left different frequencies and intervals, with a granularity of focus or scope of coverage on the right. The middle shows how different layers or applications and data focus have various protection intervals, type of protection (full, incremental, snap, differentials), along with retention, as well as some copies to keep.

SDDC SDDI Data Protection Granularity
Figure 10.3 Protecting different focus areas with various granularities

Protection in Figures 10.2 and 10.3 for the PM could be as simple as documentation of what settings to configure, versions, and other related information. A hypervisors may have changes, such as patches, upgrades, or new drivers, more frequently than a PM. How you go about protecting may involve reinstalling from your standard or custom distribution software, then applying patches, drivers, and settings.

You might also have a master copy of a hypervisors on a USB thumb drive or another storage device that can be cloned, customized with the server name, IP address, log location, and other information. Some backup and data protection tools also provide protection of hypervisors (or containers and cloud machine instances) in addition to the virtual machine (VM), guest operating systems, applications, and data.

The point is that as you go up the stack, higher in altitude (layers), the granularity and frequency of protection increases. What this means is that you may have more frequent smaller protection copies and consistency points higher up at the application layer, while lower down, less frequent, yet larger full image, volume, or VM protection, combining different tools, technology, and techniques.

Where To Learn More

Continue reading additional posts in this series of Data Infrastructure Data Protection fundamentals and companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) book, as well as the following links covering technology, trends, tools, techniques, tradecraft and tips.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Everything is not the same across different environments, data centers, data infrastructures, applications and their workloads (along with data, and its value). Likewise there are different approaches for enabling data protection to meet various SLO needs including RTO, RPO, RAS, FTT and PACE attributes among others. What this means is that complete data protection requires using different new (and old) tools, technologies, trends, services (e.g. cloud) in new ways. This also means leveraging existing and new techniques, learning from lessons of the past to prevent making the same errors.

RAID (mirror, replicate, parity including erasure codes) regardless of where and how implemented (hardware, software, legacy, virtual, cloud) by itself is not a replacement for backup, they need to be combined with recovery point protection of some type (backup, checkpoint, consistency point, snapshots). Also protection should occur at multiple levels of granularity (device, system, application, database, table) to meet various SLO requirements as well as different time intervals enabling 4 3 2 1 data protection.

Keep in mind what is it that you are protecting, why are you protecting it and against what, what is likely to happen, also if something happens what will its impact be, what are your SLO requirements, as well as minimize impact to normal operating, as well as during failure scenarios. For example do you need to have a full system backup to support recovery of an individual database table, or can that table be protected and recovered via checkpoints, snapshots or other fine-grained routine protection? Everything is not the same, why treat and protect everything the same way?

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series, Part 5 Point In Time Data Protection Granularity Points of Interest.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Point In Time Granularity Points of Interest

Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Point In Time Granularity

Companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft ( CRC Press 2017)

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

By Greg Schulz – www.storageioblog.com November 26, 2017

This is Part 5 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Part 4 Data Protection Recovery Points (Archive, Backup, Snapshots, Versions), and click here to view the next post Part 6 Data Protection Security Logical Physical Software Defined.

Post in the series includes excerpts from Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) pertaining to data protection for legacy along with software defined data centers ( SDDC), data infrastructures in general along with related topics. In addition to excerpts, the posts also contain links to articles, tips, posts, videos, webinars, events and other companion material. Note that figure numbers in this series are those from the SDDI book and not in the order that they appear in the posts.

In this post the focus is around Data Protection points of granularity, addressing different layers and stack altitude (higher application and lower system level) Chapter 10 . among others.

Point-in-Time Protection Granularity Points of Interest

SDDC SDDI Data Protection Recovery consistency points
Figure 10.1 Recovery and consistency points

Figure 10.1 above is a refresh from previous posts about the role and importance of having various recovery points at different time intervals to enable data protection (and restoration). Building upon figure 10.1, figure 10.5 looks at different granularity of where and how data should be protected. Keep in mind that everything is not the same, so why treat everything the same with the same type of protection?

Figure 10.5 shows backup and Data Protection focus, granularity, and coverage. For example, at the top left is less frequent protection of the operating system, hypervisors, and BIOS, UEFI settings. At the middle left is volume, or device level protection (full, incremental, differential), along with various views on the right ranging from protecting everything, to different granularity such as file system, database, database logs and journals, and operating system (OS) and application software, along with settings.

SDDC SDDI Different Protection Granularity
Figure 10.5 Backup and data protection focus, granularity, and coverage

In Figure 10.5, note that the different recovery point focus and granularity also take into consideration application and data consistency (as well as checkpoints), along with different frequencies and coverage (e.g. full, partial, incremental, incremental forever, differential) as well as retention.

Tip – Some context is needed about object backup and backing up objects, which can mean different things. As mentioned elsewhere, objects refer to many different things, including cloud and object storage buckets, containers, blobs, and objects accessed via S3 or Swift, among other APIs. There are also database objects and entities, which are different from cloud or object storage objects.

Another context factor is that an object backup can refer to protecting different systems, servers, storage devices, volumes, and entities that collectively comprise an application such as accounting, payroll, or engineering, vs. focusing on the individual components. An object backup may, in fact, be a collection of individual backups, PIT copies, and snapshots that combined represent what’s needed to restore an application or system.

On the other hand, the content of a cloud or object storage repository ( buckets, containers, blobs, objects, and metadata) can be backed up, as well as serve as a destination target for protection.

Backups can be cold and off-line like archives, as well as on-line and accessible. However, the difference between the two, besides intended use and scope, is granularity. Archives are intended to be coarser and less frequently accessed, while backups can be more frequently and granular accessed. Can you use a backup for an archive and vice versa? A qualified yes, as an archive could be a master gold copy such as an annual protection copy, in addition to functioning in its role as a compliance and retention copy. Likewise, a full backup set to long-term retention can provide and enable some archive functions.

Where To Learn More

Continue reading additional posts in this series of Data Infrastructure Data Protection fundamentals and companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) book, as well as the following links covering technology, trends, tools, techniques, tradecraft and tips.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

A common theme in this series as well as in my books, webinars, seminars and general approach to data infrastructures, data centers and IT in general is that everything is not the same, why treat it all the same? What this means is that there are differences across various environments, data centers, data infrastructures, applications, workloads and data. There are also different threat risks scenarios (e.g. threat vectors and attack surface if you like vendor industry talk) to protect against.

Rethinking and modernizing data protection means using new (and old) tools in new ways, stepping back and rethinking what to protect, when, where, why, how, with what. This also means protecting in different ways at various granularity, time intervals, as well as multiple layers or altitude (higher up the application stack, or lower level).

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series, Part 6 Data Protection Security Logical Physical Software Defined.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Data Infrastructure Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Security Logical Physical

Data Infrastructure Data Protection Security Logical Physical

Companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft ( CRC Press 2017)

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

By Greg Schulz – www.storageioblog.com November 26, 2017

This is Part 6 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Part 5 – Point In Time Data Protection Granularity Points of Interest, and click here to view the next post Part 7 – Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends.

Post in the series includes excerpts from Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) pertaining to data protection for legacy along with software defined data centers ( SDDC), data infrastructures in general along with related topics. In addition to excerpts, the posts also contain links to articles, tips, posts, videos, webinars, events and other companion material. Note that figure numbers in this series are those from the SDDI book and not in the order that they appear in the posts.

In this post the focus is around Data Infrastructure and Data Protection security including logical as well as physical from chapter 10 , 13 and 14 among others.

SDDC, SDI, SDDI data infrastructure
Figure 1.5 Data Infrastructures and other IT Infrastructure Layers

There are many different aspects of security pertaining to data infrastructures that span various technology domains or focus areas from higher level application software to lower level hardware, from legacy to cloud an software-defined, from servers to storage and I/O networking, logical and physical, from access control to intrusion detection, monitoring, analytics, audit, monitoring, telemetry logs, encryption, digital forensics among many others. Security should not be an after thought of something done independent of other data infrastructure, data center and IT functions, rather integrated.

Security Logical Physical Software Defined

Physical security includes locked doors of facilities, rooms, cabinets or devices to prevent un-authorized access. In addition to locked doors, physical security also includes safeguards to prevent accidental or intentional acts that would compromise the contents of a data center including data Infrastructure resources (servers, storage, I/O networks, hardware, software, services) along with the applications that they support.

Logical security includes access controls, passwords, event and access logs, encryption among others technologies, tools, techniques. Figure 10.11 shows various data infrastructure security–related items from cloud to virtual, hardware and software, as well as network services. Also shown are mobile and edge devices as well as network connectivity between on-premises and remote cloud services. Cloud services include public, private, as well as hybrid and virtual private clouds (VPC) along with virtual private networks (VPN). Access logs for telemetry are also used to track who has accessed what and when, as well as success along with failed attempts.

Certificates (public or private), Encryption, Access keys including .pem and RSA files via a service provider or self-generated with a tool such as Putty or ssh-keygen among many others. Some additional terms including Two Factor Authentication (2FA), Subordinated, Role based and delegated management, Single Sign On (SSO), Shared Access Signature (SAS) that is used by Microsoft Azure for access control, Server Side Encryption (SSE) with various Key Management System (KMS) attributes including customer managed or via a third-party.

SDDC SDDI Data Protection Security
Figure 10.11 Various physical and logical security and access controls

Also shown in figure 10.11 are encryption enabled at various layers, levels or altitude that can range from simple to complex. Also shown are iSCSI IPsec and CHAP along with firewalls, Active Directory (AD) along with Azure AD (AAD), and Domain Controllers (DC), Group Policies Objects (GPO) and Roles. Note that firewalls can exist in various locations both in hardware appliances in the network, as well as software defined network (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV), as well as higher up.

For example there are firewalls in network routers and appliances, as well as within operating systems, hypervisors, and further up in web blogs platforms such as WordPress among many others. Likewise further up the stack or higher in altitude access to applications as well as database among other resources is also controlled via their own, or in conjunction with other authentication, rights and access control including ADs among others.

A term that might be new for some is attestation which basically means to authenticate and be validated by a server or service, for example, a host guarded server attests with a attestation server. What this means is that the host guarded server (for example Microsoft Windows Server) attests with a known attestation server, that looks at the Windows server comparing it to known good fingerprints, profiles, making sure it is safe to run as a guarded resources.

Other security concerns for legacy and software defined environments include secure boot, shield VMs, host guarded servers and fabrics (networks or clusters of servers) for on-premises, as well as cloud. The following image via Microsoft shows an example of shielded VMs in a Windows Server 2016 environment along with host guarded service (HGS) components ( see how to deploy here).


Via Microsoft.com Guarded Hosts, Shielded VMs and Key Protection Services

Encryption can be done in different locations ranging from data in flight or transit over networks (local and remote), as well as data at rest or while stored. Strength of encryption is determined by different hash and cipher codes algorithms including SHA among others ranging from simple to more complex. The encryption can be done by networks, servers, storage systems, hypervisors, operating systems, databases, email, word and many other tools at granularity from device, file systems, folder, file, database, table, object or blob.

Virtual machine and their virtual disks ( VHDX and VMDK) can be encrypted, as well as migration or movements such as vMotions among other activities. Here are some VMware vSphere encryption topics, along with deep dive previews from VMworld 2016 among other resources here, VMware hardening guides here (NSX, vSphere), and a VMware security white paper (PDF) here.

Other security-related items shown in Figure 10.11 include Lightweight Direct Access Protocol (LDAP), Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS), and Kerberos network authentication. Also shown are VPN along with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) network security, along with security and authentication keys, credentials for SSH remote access including SSO. The cloud shown in figure 10.11 could be your own private using AzureStack, VMware (on-site, or public cloud such as IBM or AWS), OpenStack among others, or a public cloud such as AWS, Azure or Google (among others).

Where To Learn More

Continue reading additional posts in this series of Data Infrastructure Data Protection fundamentals and companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) book, as well as the following links covering technology, trends, tools, techniques, tradecraft and tips.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

There are many different aspects, as well as layers of security from logical to physical pertaining to data centers, applications and associated data Infrastructure resources, both on-premises and cloud. Security for legacy and software defined environments needs to be integrated as part of various technology domain focus areas, as well as across them including data protection. The above is a small sampling of security related topics with more covered in various chapters of SDDI Essentials as well as in my other books, webinars, presentations and content.

From a data protection focus, security needs to be addressed from a physical who has access to primary and protection copies, what is being protected against and where, as well as who can access logically protection copes, as well as the configuration, settings, certificates involved in data protection. In other words, how are you protecting your data protection environment, configuration and deployment. Data protection copies need to be encrypted to meet regulations, compliance and other requirements to guard against loss or theft, accidental or intentional. Likewise access control needs to be managed including granting of roles, security, authentication, monitoring of access, along with revocation.

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series, Part 7 Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

Posted on

Data Protection Diaries Tools Technologies Toolbox Buzzword Bingo Trends

Fundamental Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends

Companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft ( CRC Press 2017)

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

By Greg Schulz – www.storageioblog.com November 26, 2017

This is Part 7 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Part 6 Data Protection Security Logical Physical Software Defined, and click here to view the next post Part 8 Walking The Data Protection Talk What I Do.

Post in the series includes excerpts from Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) pertaining to data protection for legacy along with software defined data centers ( SDDC), data infrastructures in general along with related topics. In addition to excerpts, the posts also contain links to articles, tips, posts, videos, webinars, events and other companion material. Note that figure numbers in this series are those from the SDDI book and not in the order that they appear in the posts.

In this post the focus is around Data Protection related tools, technologies, trends as companion to other posts in this series, as well as across various chapters from the SDDI book.

SDDC, SDI, SDDI data infrastructure
Figure 1.5 Data Infrastructures and other IT Infrastructure Layers

Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends

There are many data Infrastructure related topics, technologies, tools, trends, techniques and tips that pertain to data protection, many of which have been covered in this series of posts already, as well as in the SDDI Essentials book, and elsewhere. The following are some additional related data Infrastructure data protection topics, tools, technologies.

Buzzword Bingo is a popular industry activity involving terms, trends, tools and more, read more here, here, and here. The basic idea of buzzword bingo is when somebody starts mentioning lots of buzzwords, buzz terms, buzz trends at some point just say bingo. Sometimes you will get somebody who asks what that means, while others will know, perhaps get the point to move on to what’s relevant vs. talking the talk or showing how current they are on industry activity, trends and terms.

Just as everything is not the same across different environments, there are various size and focus from hyper-scale clouds and managed service providers (MSP) server (and storage along with applications focus), smaller and regional cloud, hosting and MSPs, as well as large enterprise, small medium enterprise (SME), small medium business (SMB), remote office branch office (ROBO), small office home office (SOHO), prosumer, consumer and client or edge. Sometimes you will hear server vs. edge or client focus, thus context is important.

Data protection just like data infrastructures span servers, storage, I/O networks, hardware, software, clouds, containers, virtual, hypervisors and related topics. Otoh, some might view data protection as unique to a particular technology focus area or domain. For example, I once had backup vendor tell me that backups and data protection was not a storage topic, can you guess which vendor did not get recommend for data protection of data stored on storage?

Data gets protected to different target media, mediums or services including HDDs, SSD, tape, cloud, bulk and object storage among others in various format from native to encapsulated in save sets, zips, tar ball among others.

Bulk storage can be on-site, on-premises low-cost tape, disk (file, block or object) as well as off-site including cloud services such as AWS S3 (buckets and objects), Microsoft Azure (containers and blobs), Google among others using various Access ( Protocols, Personalities, Front-end, Back-end) technologies. Which type of data protection storage medium, location or service is best depends on what you are trying to do, along with other requirements.

SDDC SDDI data center data protection toolbox
Data Protection Toolbox

SDDC SDDI Object Storage Architecture
Figure 3.18 Generic Object (and Blob) architecture with Buckets (and Containers)

Object Storage

Before discussing Object Storage lets take a step back and look at some context that can clarify some confusion around the term object. The word object has many different meanings and context, both inside of the IT world as well as outside. Context matters with the term object such as a verb being a thing that can be seen or touched as well as a person or thing of action or feeling directed towards.

Besides a person, place or physical thing, an object can be a software defined data structure that describes something. For example, a database record describing somebody’s contact or banking information, or a file descriptor with name, index ID, date and time stamps, permissions and access control lists along with other attributes or metadata. Another example is an object or blob stored in a cloud or object storage system repository, as well as an item in a hypervisor, operating system, container image or other application.

Besides being a verb, object can also be a noun such as disapproval or disagreement with something or someone. From an IT context perspective, object can also refer to a programming method (e.g. object oriented programming [oop], or Java [among other environments] objects and class’s) and systems development in addition to describing entities with data structures.

In other words, a data structure describes an object that can be a simple variable, constant, complex descriptor of something being processed by a program, as well as a function or unit of work. There are also objects unique or with context to specific environments besides Java or databases, operating systems, hypervisors, file systems, cloud and other things.

SDDC SDDI Object Storage Example
Figure 3.19 AWS S3 Object storage example, objects left and descriptive names on right

The role of object storage (view more at www.objectstoragecenter.com) is to provide low-cost, scalable capacity, durable availability of data including data protection copies on-premises or off-site. Note that not all object storage solutions or services are the same, some are immutable with write once read many (WORM) like attributes, while others non-immutable meaning that they can be not only appended to, also updated to page or block level granularity.

Also keep in mind that some solutions and services refer to items being stored as objects while others as blobs, and the name space those are part of as a bucket or container. Note that context is important not to confuse an object container with a docker, kubernetes or micro services container.

Many applications and storage systems as well as appliances support as back-end targets cloud access using AWS S3 API (of AWS S3 service or other solutions), as well as OpenStack Switch API among others. There are also many open source and third-party tools for working with cloud storage including objects and blobs. Learn more about object storage, cloud storage at www.objectstoragecenter.com as well as in chapters 3, 4, 13 and 14 in SDDI Essentials book.

S3 Simple Storage Service

Simple Storage Service ( S3) is the Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud object storage service that can be used for bulk and other storage needs. The S3 service can be accessed from within AWS as well as externally via different tools. AWS S3 supports large number of buckets and objects across different regions and availability zones. Objects can be stored in a hierarchical directory structure format for compatibility with existing file systems or as a simple flat name space.

Context is important with data protection and S3 which can mean the access API, or AWS service. Likewise context is important in that some solutions, software and services support S3 API access as part of their front-end (e.g. how servers or clients access their service), as well as a back-end target (what they can store data on).

Additional AWS S3 (service) and related resources include:

Data Infrastructure Environments and Applications

Data Infrastructure environments that need to be protected include legacy, software defined (SDDC, SDDI, SDS), cloud, virtual and container based, as well as clustered, scale-out, converged Infrastructure (CI), hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI) among others. In addition to data protection related topics already converged in the posts in this series (as well as those to follow), a related topic is Data Footprint Reduction ( DFR). DFR comprises several different technologies and techniques including archiving, compression, compaction, deduplication (dedupe), single instance storage, normalization, factoring, zip, tiering and thin provisioning among many others.

Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) Including Dedupe

There is a long-term relationship with data protection and DFR in that to reduce the impact of storing more data, traditional techniques such as compression and compaction have been used, along with archive and more recently dedupe among others. In the Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book there is an entire chapter on DFR ( chapter 11), as well as related topics in chapters 8 and 13 among others. For those interested in DFR and related topics, there is additional material in my books Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), along with in The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), as well as various posts on StorageIOblog.com and storageio.com. Figure 11.4 is from Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials showing big picture of various places where DFR can be implemented along with different technologies, tools and techniques.

SDDC, SDI, SDDI DFR Dedupe
Figure 11.4 Various points of interest where DFR techniques and technology can be applied

Just as everything is not the same, there are different DFR techniques along with implementations to address various application workload and data performance, availability, capacity, economics (PACE) needs. Where is the best location for DFR that depends on your objectives as well as what your particular technology can support. However in general, I recommend putting DFR as close to where the data is created and stored as possible to maximize its effectiveness which can be on the host server. That however also means leveraging DFR techniques downstream where data gets sent to be stored or protected. In other words, a hybrid DFR approach as a companion to data protection should use various techniques, technologies in different locations. Granted, your preferred vendor might only work in a given location or functionality so you can pretty much guess what the recommendations will be ;) .

Tips, Recommendations and Considerations

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), appendices, as well as tips can be found here.

General action items, tips, considerations and recommendations include:

  • Everything is not the same; different applications with SLO, PACE, FTT, FTM needs
  • Understand the 4 3 2 1 data protection rule and how to implement it.
  • Balance rebuild performance impact and time vs. storage space overhead savings.
  • Use different approaches for various applications and environments.
  • What is best for somebody else may not be best for you and your applications.
  • You cant go forward in the future after a disaster if you cant go back
  • Data protection is a shared responsibility between vendors, service providers and yourself
  • There are various aspects to data protection and data Infrastructure management

Where To Learn More

Continue reading additional posts in this series of Data Infrastructure Data Protection fundamentals and companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) book, as well as the following links covering technology, trends, tools, techniques, tradecraft and tips.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

There are many different buzzword, buzz terms, buzz trends pertaining to data infrastructure and data protection. These technologies span legacy and emerging, software-defined, cloud, virtual, container, hardware and software. Key point is what technology is best fit for your needs and applications, as well as how to use the tools in different ways (e.g. skill craft techniques and tradecraft). Keep context in mind when looking at and discussing different technologies such as objects among others.

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series, Part 8 Walking The Data Protection Talk.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamentals Walking The Data Protection Talk

Data Protection Diaries Walking The Data Protection Talk

Companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft ( CRC Press 2017)

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

By Greg Schulz – www.storageioblog.com November 26, 2017

This is Part 8 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends, and click here to view the next post who’s Doing What ( Toolbox Technology Tools).

Post in the series includes excerpts from Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) pertaining to data protection for legacy along with software defined data centers ( SDDC), data infrastructures in general along with related topics. In addition to excerpts, the posts also contain links to articles, tips, posts, videos, webinars, events and other companion material. Note that figure numbers in this series are those from the SDDI book and not in the order that they appear in the posts.

In this post the focus is around what I (and Server StorageIO) does for Data Protection besides just talking the talk and is a work in progress that is being updated over time with additional insights.

Walking The Data Protection Talk What I Do

A couple of years back I did the first post as part of the Data Protection Diaries series ( view here), that included the following image showing some data protection needs and requirements, as well as what being done, along with areas for improvement. Part of what I and Server StorageIO does involves consulting (strategy, design, assessment), advising and other influencers activities (e.g. blog, write articles, create reports, webinars, seminars, videos, podcasts) pertaining to data Infrastructure topics as well as data protection.

What this means is knowing about the trends, tools, technologies, what’s old and new, who’s doing what, what should be in the data protection toolbox, as well as how to use those for different scenarios. Its one thing to talk the talk, however I also prefer to walk the talk including eating my own dog food applying various techniques, approaches, tools and technologies discussed.

The following are from a previous Data Protection Diaries post where I discuss my data protection needs (and wants) some of which have evolved since then. Note the image on the left is my Livescribe Echo digital pen and paper tablet. On the right is an example of the digital image created and imported into my computer from the Livescribe. In other words, Im able to protect my hand written notes, diagrams and figures.

Data Protection Diaries Data Protection Diaries Walking The Talk
Via my Livescribe Echo digital pen ( get your Livescribe here at Amazon.com)

My Environment and data protection is always evolving, some based on changing projects, others that are more stable. Likewise the applications along with data are varied after all, everything is not the same. My data protection includes snapshots, replication, mirror, sync, versions, backup, archive, RAID, erasure code among others technologies, tools, and techniques.

Applications range from desktop, office, email, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, video, audio and related items in support of day-to-day activities. Then there are items part of various projects that range from physical to virtual, cloud and container leveraging various tools. This means having protection copies (sync, backup, snapshots, consistency points) of virtual machines, physical machine instances, applications and databases such as SQL Server among many others. Other application workloads include web, word press blog and email among others.

The Server StorageIO environment consists of a mix of legacy on-premises technologies from servers, storage, hardware, software, networks, tools as well as software defined virtual (e.g. VMware, Hyper-V, Docker among others), as well as cloud. The StorageIO data Infrastructure environment consists of dedicated private server (DPS) that I have had for several years now that supports this blog as well as other sites and activity. I also have a passive standby site used for testing of the WordPress based blog on an AWS Lightsail server. I use tools such as Updraft Plus Premium to routinely create a complete data protection view (database, plugins, templates, settings, configuration, core) of my WordPress site (runs on DPS) that is stored in various locations, including at AWS.

Data Protection Diaries Walking The Talk
Some of my past data protection requirements (they have evolved)

Currently the Lightsail Virtual Private Server (VPS) is in passive mode, however plans are to enable it as a warm or active standby fail over site for some of the DPS functions. One of the tools I have for monitoring and insight besides those in WordPress and the DPS are AWS Route 53 alerts that I have set up to monitor endpoints. AWS Route 53 is a handy resource for monitoring your endpoints such as a website, blog among other things and have it notify you, or take action including facilitating DNS fail over if needed. For now, Im simply using Route 53 besides as a secondary DNS as a notification tool.

Speaking of AWS, I have compute instances in Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) along with associated Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volumes as well as their snapshots. I also have AWS S3 buckets in different regions that are on various tiers from standard to infrequent access (IA), as well as some data on Glacier. Data from my DPS at Bluehost gets protected to a AWS S3 bucket that I can access from AWS EC2, as well as via other locations including Microsoft Azure as needed.

Some on-premises data also gets protected to AWS S3 (as well as to elsewhere) using various tools, for different granularity, frequency, access and retention. After all, everything is not the same, why treat it the same. Some of the data protected to AWS S3 buckets is in native format (e.g. they appear as objects to S3 or object enabled applications), as well as file to file based applications with appropriate tools.

Other data that is also protected to AWS S3 from different data protection or backup tools are stored in vendor neutral or vendor specific save set, zip, tar ball or other formats. In other words, I need the tool or compatible tool that knows the format of the saved data to retrieve individual data files, items or objects. Note that this is similar to storing data on tape, HDDs, SSD or other media in native format vs. in some type of encapsulate save set or other format.

In addition to protecting data to AWS, I also have data at Microsoft Azure among other locations. Other locations include non-cloud based off-site where encrypted removable media is periodically taken to a safe secure place as a master, gold in case of major emergency, ransomeware copy.

Why not just rely on cloud copies?

Simple, I can pull individual files or relatively small amounts of data back from the cloud sometimes faster (or easier) than from on-site copies, let alone my off-site, off-line, air gap copies. On the other hand, if I need to restore large amounts of data, without a fast network, it can be quicker to get the air gap off-line, off-site copy, do the large restore, then apply incremental or changed data via cloud. In other a hybrid approach.

Now a common question I get is why not just do one or the other and save some money. Good point, I would save some money, however by doing the above among other things, they are part of being able to test, try new and different things, gain insight, experience not to mention walk the talk vs. simply talking the talk.

Of course Im always looking for ways to streamline to make my data protection more efficient, as well as effective (along with remove complexity and costs).

  • Everything is not the same, so why treat it all the same with common SLO, RTO, RPO and retention?
  • Likewise why treat and store all data the same way, on the same tiers of technology
  • Gain insight and awareness into environment, applications, workloads, PACE needs
  • Applications, data, systems or devices are protected with different granularity and frequency
  • Apply applicable technology and tools to the task at hand
  • Any data I have in cloud has a copy elsewhere, likewise, any data on-premises has a copy in the cloud or elsewhere
  • I implement the 4 3 2 1 rule by having multiple copies, versions, data in different locations, on and off-line including cloud
  • From a security standpoint, many different things are implemented on a logical as well as physical basis including encryption
  • Ability to restore data as well as applications or image instances locally as well as into cloud environments
  • Leverage different insight and awareness, reporting, analytics and monitoring tools
  • Mix of local storage configured with different RAID and other protection
  • Test, find, fix, remediate improve the environment including leveraging lessons learned

Where To Learn More

Continue reading additional posts in this series of Data Infrastructure Data Protection fundamentals and companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) book, as well as the following links covering technology, trends, tools, techniques, tradecraft and tips.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Everything is not the same, thats why in my environment I use different technologies, tools and techniques to protect my data. This also means having different RTO, RPO across various applications, data and systems as well as devices. Data that is more important has more copies, versions in different locations as well as occurring more frequently as part of 4 3 2 1 data protection. Other data that does not change as frequently, or time sensitive have alternate RTO and RPO along with corresponding frequency of protection.

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series Part 9 who’s Doing What (Toolbox Technology Tools).

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamentals Who Is Doing What Toolbox Technology Tools

Data Protection Toolbox Whos Doing What Technology Tools

Updated 1/17/2018

Data protection toolbox is a companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft ( CRC Press 2017)

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

By Greg Schulz – www.storageioblog.com November 26, 2017

This is Part 9 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Part 8 Walking The Data Protection Talk, and click here to view the next post Part 10 Data Protection Resources Where to Learn More.

Post in the series includes excerpts from Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) pertaining to data protection for legacy along with software defined data centers ( SDDC), data infrastructures in general along with related topics. In addition to excerpts, the posts also contain links to articles, tips, posts, videos, webinars, events and other companion material. Note that figure numbers in this series are those from the SDDI book and not in the order that they appear in the posts.

In this post the focus is around Data Protection who’s Doing What ( Toolbox Technology Tools).

SDDC, SDI, SDDI data infrastructure
Figure 1.5 Data Infrastructures and other IT Infrastructure Layers

who’s Doing What (Toolbox Technology Tools)

SDDC SDDI data center data protection toolbox
Data Protection Toolbox

Note that this post is evolving with additional tools, technologies, techniques, hardware, software, services being added over time along with applicable industry links.

The following are a sampling of some hardware, software, solution and component vendors along with service providers involved with data protection from RAID, Erasure Codes (EC) to snapshots, backup, BC, BR, DR, archive, security, cloud, bulk object storage, HDDs, SSD, tape among others including buzzword (and buzz term trends) bingo. Acronis, Actifio, Arcserve, ATTO, AWS, Backblaze, Barracuda, Broadcom, Caringo, Chelsio (offload), Code42/Crashplan, Cray, Ceph, Cisco, Cloudian, Cohesity, Compuverde, Commvault, Datadog, Datrium, Datos IO, DDN, Dell EMC, Druva, E8, Elastifile, Exagrid, Excelero, Fujifilm, Fujutsu, Google, HPE, Huawei, Hedvig, IBM, Intel, Iomega, Iron Mountain, IBM, Jungledisk, Kinetic key value drives (Seagate), Lenovo, LTO organization, Mangstor, Maxta, Mellanox (offload), Micron, Microsoft (Azure, Windows, Storage Spaces), Microsemi, Nakivo, NetApp, NooBaa, Nexsan, Nutanix, OpenIO, OpenStack (Swift), Oracle, Panasas, Panzura, Promise, Pure, Quantum, Quest, Qumulo, Retrospect, Riverbed, Rozo, Rubrik, Samsung, Scale, Scality, Seagate (DotHill), Sony, Solarwinds, Spectralogic, Starwind, Storpool, Strongbox, Sureline, Swiftstack, Synology, Toshiba, Tintri, Turbonomics, Unitrends, Unix and Linux platforms, Vantara, Veeam, VMware, Western Digital (Amplidata, Tegile and others), WekaIO, X-IO, Zadara and Zmanda among many others.

Note if you dont see yours, or your favorite, preferred or clients listed above or in the data Infrastructure industry related links send us a note for consideration to be included in future updates, or having a link, or sponsor spot pointing to your site added. Feel free to add a non sales marketing pitch to courteous comments to the comment section below.

View additional IT, data center and data Infrastructure along with data protection related vendors, services, tools, technologies links here.

Where To Learn More

Continue reading additional posts in this series of Data Infrastructure Data Protection fundamentals and companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) book, as well as the following links covering technology, trends, tools, techniques, tradecraft and tips.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Part of modernizing data protection for various data center and data infrastructure environments is to know the tools, technologies and trends that are part of your data protection toolbox. The other part of modernizing data is protection is knowing the techniques of how to use different tools, technologies to meet various application workload performance, availability, capacity economic (PACE) needs.

Also keep in mind that information services requires applications (e.g. programs) and that programs are a combination of algorithms (code, rules, policies) and data structures (e.g. data and how it is organized including unstructured). What this means is that data protection needs to address not only data, also the applications, configuration settings, metadata as well as protecting the protection tools and its data.

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series, Part 10 Data Protection Fundamental Resources Where to Learn More.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

Posted on

Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Resources Where to Learn More

Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Resources Where to Learn More

Companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft ( CRC Press 2017)

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

By Greg Schulz – www.storageioblog.com November 26, 2017

This is the last in a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Click here to view the previous post Part 9 – who’s Doing What ( Toolbox Technology Tools).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Post in the series includes excerpts from Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) pertaining to data protection for legacy along with software defined data centers ( SDDC), data infrastructures in general along with related topics. In addition to excerpts, the posts also contain links to articles, tips, posts, videos, webinars, events and other companion material. Note that figure numbers in this series are those from the SDDI book and not in the order that they appear in the posts.

In this post the focus is around Data Protection Resources Where to Learn More.

SDDC, SDI, SDDI data infrastructure
Figure 1.5 Data Infrastructures and other IT Infrastructure Layers

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Table of Contents (TOC)

Here is a link (PDF) to the table of contents (TOC) for Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials.

The following is a Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book TOC summary:

Chapter 1: Server Storage I/O and Data Infrastructure Fundamentals
Chapter 2: Application and IT Environments
Chapter 3: Bits, Bytes, Blobs, and Software-Defined Building Blocks
Chapter 4: Servers: Physical, Virtual, Cloud, and Containers
Chapter 5: Server I/O and Networking
Chapter 6: Servers and Storage-Defined Networking
Chapter 7: Storage Mediums and Component Devices
Chapter 8: Data Infrastructure Services: Access and Performance
Chapter 9: Data Infrastructure Services: Availability, RAS, and RAID
Chapter 10: Data Infrastructure Services: Availability, Recovery-Point Objective, and Security
Chapter 11: Data Infrastructure Services: Capacity and Data Reduction
Chapter 12: Storage Systems and Solutions (Products and Cloud)
Chapter 13: Data Infrastructure and Software-Defined Management
Chapter 14: Data Infrastructure Deployment Considerations
Chapter 15: Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Futures, Wrap-up, and Summary
Appendix A: Learning Experiences
Appendix B: Additional Learning, Tools, and tradecraft Tricks
Appendix C: Frequently Asked Questions
Appendix D: Book Shelf and Recommended Reading
Appendix E: Tools and Technologies Used in Support of This Book
Appendix F: How to Use This Book for Various Audiences
Appendix G: Companion Website and Where to Learn More
Glossary
Index

Click here to view (PDF) table of contents (TOC).

Data Protection Resources Where To Learn More

Learn more about Data Infrastructure and Data Protection related technology, trends, tools, techniques, tradecraft and tips with the following links.

The following are the various posts that are part of this data protection series:

  • Part 1 – Data Infrastructure Data Protection Fundamentals
  • Part 2 – Reliability, Availability, Serviceability ( RAS) Data Protection Fundamentals
  • Part 3 – Data Protection Access Availability RAID Erasure Codes ( EC) including LRC
  • Part 4 – Data Protection Recovery Points (Archive, Backup, Snapshots, Versions)
  • Part 5 – Point In Time Data Protection Granularity Points of Interest
  • Part 6 – Data Protection Security Logical Physical Software Defined
  • Part 7 – Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends
  • Part 8 – Data Protection Diaries Walking Data Protection Talk
  • Part 9 – who’s Doing What ( Toolbox Technology Tools)
  • Part 10 – Data Protection Resources Where to Learn More


    • The following are various data protection blog posts:

  • Welcome to the Data Protection Diaries
  • Until the focus expands to data protection, backup is staying alive!
  • The blame game, Does cloud storage result in data loss?
  • Loss of data access vs. data loss
  • Revisiting RAID storage remains relevant and resources
  • Only you can prevent cloud (or other) data loss
  • Data protection is a shared responsibility
  • Time for CDP (Commonsense Data Protection)?
  • Data Infrastructure Server Storage I/O Tradecraft Trends (skills, experiences, knowledge)
  • My copies were corrupted: The [4] 3-2-1 rule and more about 4 3 2 1 as well as 3 2 1 here and here

    • The following are various data protection tips and articles:

  • Via Infostor Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
  • Via Network World What’s a data infrastructure?
  • Via Infostor Data Protection Gaps, Some Good, Some Not So Good
  • Via Infostor Object Storage is in your future
  • Via Iron Mountain Preventing Unexpected Disasters
  • Via InfoStor – The Many Variations of RAID Storage
  • Via InfoStor – RAID Remains Relevant, Really!
  • Via WservNews Cloud Storage Considerations (Microsoft Azure)
  • Via ComputerWeekly Time to restore from backup: Do you know where your data is?
  • Via Network World Ensure your data infrastructure remains available and resilient

    • The following are various data protection related webinars and events:

  • BrightTalk Webinar Data Protection Modernization – Protect, Preserve and Serve you Information
  • BrightTalk Webinar BCDR and Cloud Backup Protect Preserve and Secure Your Data Infrastructure
  • TechAdvisor Webinar (Free with registration) All You Need To Know about ROBO data protection
  • TechAdvisor Webinar (Free with registration) Tips for Moving from Backup to Full Disaster Recovery

    • The following are various data protection tools, technologies, services, vendor and industry resource links:

  • Various Data Infrastructure related news commentary, events, tips and articles
  • Data Center and Data Infrastructure industry links (vendors, services, tools, technologies, hardware, software)
  • Data Infrastructure server storage I/O network Recommended Reading List Book Shelf
  • Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC 2017) Book

    • Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

    What This All Means

    Everything is not the same across environments, data centers, data infrastructures including SDDC, SDX and SDDI as well as applications along with their data.

    Likewise everything is and does not have to be the same when it comes to Data Protection.

    Since everything is not the same, various data protection approaches are needed to address various application performance, availability, capacity economic (PACE) needs, as well as SLO and SLAs.

    Data protection encompasses many different hardware, software, services including cloud technologies, tools, techniques, best practices, policies and tradecraft experience skills (e.g. knowing what to use when, where, why and how).

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    Context is important as different terms have various meanings depending on what they are being discussed with. Likewise different technologies and topics such as object, blob, backup, replication, RAID, erasure code (EC), mirroring, gaps (good, bad, ugly), snapshot, checkpoint, availability, durability among others have various meanings depending on context, as well as implementation approach.

    In most cases there is no bad technology or tool, granted there are some poor or bad (even ugly) implementations, as well as deployment or configuration decisions. What this means is the best technology or approach for your needs may be different from somebody else’s and vice versa.

    Some other points include there is no such thing as an information recession with more data generated every day, granted, how that data is transformed or stored can be in a smaller footprint. Likewise there is an increase in the size of data including unstructured big data, as well as the volume (how much data), as well as velocity (speed at which it is created, moved, processed, stored). This also means there is an increased dependency on data being available, accessible and intact with consistency. Thus the fundamental role of data Infrastructures (e.g. what’s inside the data center or cloud) is to combine resources, technologies, tools, techniques, best practices, policies, people skill set, experiences (e.g. tradecraft) to protect, preserve, secure and serve information (applications and data).

    modernizing data protection including backup, availability and related topics means more than swapping out one hardware, software, service or cloud for whatever is new, and then using it in old ways.

    What this means is to start using new (and old) things in new ways, for example move beyond using SSD or HDDs like tape as targets for backup or other data protection approaches. Instead use SSD, HDDs or cloud as a tier, yet also to enable faster protection and recovery by stepping back and rethinking what to protect, when, where, why, how and apply applicable techniques, tools and technologies. Find a balance between knowing all about the tools and trends while not understanding how to use those toolbox items, as well as knowing all about the techniques of how to use the tools, yet not knowing what the tools are.

    Want to learn more, have questions about specific tools, technologies, trends, vendors, products, services or techniques discussed in this series, send a note (info at storageio dot com) or via our contact page. We can set up a time to discuss your questions or needs pertaining to Data Protection as well as data infrastructures related topics from legacy to software defined virtual, cloud, container among others. For example consulting, advisory services, architecture strategy design, technology selection and acquisition coaching, education knowledge transfer sessions, seminars, webinars, special projects, test drive lab reviews or audits, content generation, videos, podcasts, custom content, chapter excerpts, demand generation among many other things.

    Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

    Posted on

    Microsoft Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Reference Resources

    Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Architecture Resources

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Need to learn more about Microsoft Azure Cloud Software Defined Data Infrastructure topics including reference architecture among other resources for various application workloads?

    Microsoft Azure has an architecture and resources page (here) that includes various application workload reference tools.

    Microsoft Azure Software Defined Cloud
    Azure Reference Architectures via Microsoft Azure

    Examples of some Azure Reference Architecture for various application and workloads include among others:

    For example, need to know how to configure a high availability (HA) Sharepoint deployment with Azure, then check out this reference architecture shown below.

    Microsoft Azure Sharepoint HA reference architecture
    Sharepoint HA via Microsoft Azure

    Where To Learn More

    Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

    Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
    Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

    What This All Means

    Data Infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve information along with the applications and data they depend on. Software Defined Data Infrastructures span legacy, virtual, container, cloud and other environments to support various application workloads. Check out the Microsoft Azure cloud reference architecture and resources mentioned above as well as the Azure Free trial and getting started site here.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

    Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

    Posted on

    April 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructures Update Newsletter

    Volume 17, Issue IV

    Hello and welcome to the April 2017 issue of the Server StorageIO data infrastructures update newsletter.

    Spring is here in the northern hemisphere which means that there is a lot of things going on, or about to be occurring soon. April has been a busy month for me including spending time in Europe doing some seminar and workshop presentations, along with other consulting advisory activities involving data infrastructures.

    Besides travel, I have been busy working on client projects, attending to various post-production activities for my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (more about this in the May issue). Other things I have been doing include being briefed on upcoming technology announcements along with some hands activities trying out things that will be covered in future updates, as well as working with some interesting NDA items that, well, are NDA.

    Be sure to check out the recent blog posts, as well as industry trends perspectives commentary below, along with recent and upcoming webinar among events.

    In This Issue

    Enjoy this abbreviated edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    Cheers GS

     

    Server StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

    Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

    Via SearchCloudComputing: Virtual private clouds an alternative to on-premisess computing
    Hybrid clouds continue to grow in popularity as well as deployed usage, from storage to compute to networking, said Greg Schulz, the senior advisory analyst at StorageIO in Stillwater, Minn. Most cloud and service providers talk about hybrid along with public clouds, while AWS tends to talk about [VPC aka virtual private clouds].

    Via SearchDataCenter: Ask the right questions before committing to a collocation SLA policy
    Do you just need a physical space to put things, or do you need high bandwidth and ultra-reliable power? asked Greg Schulz, senior advisory analyst at StorageIO, a consultancy in Stillwater, Minn.

    Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Tips for Enterprise SSD Form Factor Selection Deployment
    It’s doubtful that there is one form factor to rule them all. Some may be best for X but lousy for Y. But Greg Schulz, an analyst at StorageIO Group notes that many vendors attempt to champion a particular flash SSD form factor and interface, claiming it’s the best and only fit for the enterprise.

    Via SearchITOperations: Storage performance analysis reveals IT’s ongoing bottleneck
    Sometimes it takes more than an aspirin to cure a headache, said Greg Schulz

    Via SearchDNS: Parsing through the software-defined storage hype
    Beyond scalability, SDS technology aims for freedom from the limits of proprietary hardware, explained StorageIO analyst Greg Schulz.

    Via InfoStor: Data Storage Industry Braces for AI and Machine Learning
    AI could also lead to untapped hidden or unknown value in existing data that has no or little perceived value, said Greg Schulz.

    View more Server, Storage and I/O trends and perspectives comments here

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

    May 11, 2017 – Webinar – Email Archiving, Compliance and Ransomware

    May 8-10, 2017 – Dell EMCworld – Las Vegas

    April 3-7, 2017 – Seminars – Dutch workshop seminar series – Nijkerk Netherlands

    March 15, 2017 – Webinar – SNIA/BrightTalk – HyperConverged and Storage – 10AM PT

    See more webinars and activities on the Server StorageIO Events page here.

    Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

    Useful links and pages:
    Microsoft TechNet – Various Microsoft related from Azure to Docker to Windows
    storageio.com/links – Various industry links (over 1,000 with more to be added soon)
    objectstoragecenter.com – Cloud and object storage topics, tips and news items
    OpenStack.org – Various OpenStack related items
    storageio.com/protect – Various data protection items and topics
    thenvmeplace.com – Focus on NVMe trends and technologies
    thessdplace.com – NVM and Solid State Disk topics, tips and techniques
    storageio.com/converge – Various CI, HCI and related SDS topics
    storageio.com/performance – Various server, storage and I/O benchmark and tools
    VMware Technical Network – Various VMware related items

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the spring 2017 release of his new book Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials(CRC Press).

    Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

    Posted on

    VMware vSAN 6.6 hyper-converged (HCI) software defined data infrastructure

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware vSAN 6.6 hyper-converged (HCI) software defined data infrastructure

    In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the first of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. Part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    VMware vSAN 6.6
    Image via VMware

    For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

    Software-defined data infrastructure

    Excuse Me, What is vSAN and who is if for

    Some might find it odd having to explain what vSAN is, on the other hand, not everybody is dialed into the VMware world ecosystem, so let’s give them some help, for everybody else, and feel free to jump ahead.

    For those not familiar, VMware vSAN is an HCI software-defined storage solution that converges compute (hypervisors and server) with storage space capacity and I/O performance along with networking. Being HCI means that with vSAN as you scale compute, storage space capacity and I/O performance also increases in an aggregated fashion. Likewise, increase storage space capacity and server I/O performance you also get more compute capabilities (along with memory).

    For VMware-centric environments looking to go CI or HCI, vSAN offers compelling value proposition leveraging known VMware tools and staff skills (knowledge, experience, tradecraft). Another benefit of vSAN is the ability to select your hardware platform from different vendors, a trend that other CI/HCI vendors have started to offer as well.

    CI and HCI data infrastructure

    Keep in mind that fast applications need a fast server, I/O and storage, as well as server storage I/O needs CPU along with memory to generate I/O operations (IOPs) or move data. What this all means is that HCI solutions such as VMware vSAN combine or converge the server compute, hypervisors, storage file system, storage devices, I/O and networking along with other functionality into an easy to deploy (and management) turnkey solution.

    Learn more about CI and HCI along with who some other vendors are as well as considerations at www.storageio.com/converge. Also, visit VMware sites to find out more about vSphere ESXi hypervisors, vSAN, NSX (Software Defined Networking), vCenter, vRealize along with other tools for enabling SDDC and SDDI.

    Give Me the Quick Elevator Pitch Summary

    VMware has enhanced vSAN with version 6.6 (V6.6) enabling new functionality, supporting new hardware platforms along with partners, while reducing costs, improving scalability and resiliency for SDDC and SDDI environments. This includes from small medium business (SMB) to mid-market to small medium enterprise (SME) as well as workgroup, departmental along with Remote Office Branch Office (ROBO).

    Being a HCI solution, management functions of the server, storage, I/O, networking, hypervisor, hardware, and software are converged to improve management productivity. Also, vSAN integrated with VMware vSphere among other tools enable modern, robust data infrastructure that serves, protect, preserve, secure and stores data along with their associated applications.

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to learn more about vSAN and related technologies.

    What this all means

    Overall a good set of enhancements as vSAN continues its evolution looking back just a few years ago, to where it is today and will be in the future. If you have not looked at vSAN recently, take some time beyond reading this piece to learn some more.

    Continue reading more about VMware vSAN 6.6 in part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) located here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the spring 2017 release of his new book “Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials” (CRC Press).

    Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

    Posted on

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part II (just the speeds feeds features please)

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware vSAN v6.6 Part II (just the speeds feeds features please)

    In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the second of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. View Part I here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    VMware vSAN 6.6
    Image via VMware

    For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

    Just the Speeds and Feeds Please

    For those who just want to see the list of what’s new with vSAN V6.6, here you go:

    • Native encryption for data-at-rest
    • Compliance certifications
    • Resilient management independent of vCenter
    • Degraded Disk Handling v2.0 (DDHv2)
    • Smart repairs and enhanced rebalancing
    • Intelligent rebuilds using partial repairs
    • Certified file service & data protection solutions
    • Stretched clusters with local failure protection
    • Site affinity for stretched clusters
    • 1-click witness change for Stretched Cluster
    • vSAN Management Pack for vRealize
    • Enhanced vSAN SDK and PowerCLI
    • Simple networking with Unicast
    • vSAN Cloud Analytics with real-time support notification and recommendations
    • vSAN ConfigAssist with 1-click hardware lifecycle management
    • Extended vSAN Health Services
    • vSAN Easy Install with 1-click fixes
    • Up to 50% greater IOPS for all-flash with optimized checksum and dedupe
    • Support for new next-gen workloads
    • vSAN for Photon in Photon Platform 1.1
    • Day 0 support for latest flash technologies
    • Expanded caching tier choice
    • Docker Volume Driver 1.1

    What’s New and Value Proposition of vSAN 6.6

    Let’s take a closer look beyond the bullet list of what’s new with vSAN 6.6, as well as perspectives of those features to address different needs. The VMware vSAN proposition is to evolve and enable modernizing data infrastructures with HCI powered by vSphere along with vSAN.

    Three main themes or characteristics (and benefits) of vSAN 6.6 include addressing (or enabling):

    • Reducing risk while scaling
    • Reducing cost and complexity
    • Scaling for today and tomorrow

    VMware vSAN 6.6 summary
    Image via VMware

    Reducing risk while scaling

    Reducing (or removing) risk while evolving your data infrastructure with HCI including flexibility of choosing among five support hardware vendors along with native security. This includes native security, availability and resiliency enhancements (including intelligent rebuilds) without sacrificing storage efficiency (capacity) or effectiveness (performance productivity), management and choice.

    VMware vSAN DaRE
    Image via VMware

    Dat level Data at Rest Encryption (DaRE) of all vSAN dat objects that are enabled at a cluster level. The new functionality supports hybrid along with all flash SSD as well as stretched clusters. The VMware vSAN DaRE implementation is an alternative to using self-encrypting drives (SEDs) reducing cost, complexity and management activity. All vSAN features including data footprint reduction (DFR) features such as compression and deduplication are supported. For security, vSAN DaRE integrations with compliance key management technologies including those from SafeNet, Hytrust, Thales and Vormetric among others.

    VMware vSAN management
    Image via VMware

    ESXi HTML 5 based host client, along with CLI via ESXCLI for administering vSAN clusters as an alternative in case your vCenter server(s) are offline. Management capabilities include monitoring of critical health and status details along with configuration changes.

    VMware vSAN health management
    Image via VMware

    Health monitoring enhancements include handling of degraded vSAN devices with intelligence proactively detecting impending device failures. As part of the functionality, if a replica of the failing (or possible soon to fail) device exists, vSAN can take action to maintain data availability.

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to find out more about vSAN and related technologies.

    What this all means

    With each new release, vSAN is increasing its feature, functionality, resiliency and extensiveness associated with traditional storage and non-CI or HCI solutions. Continue reading more about VMware vSAN 6.6 in Part I here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the Spring 2017 release of his new book “Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials” (CRC Press).

    Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

    Posted on

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part III (reducing costs complexity)

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part III (Reducing costs complexity)

    In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the third of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. View Part I here, Part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    VMware vSAN 6.6
    Image via VMware

    For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

    Reducing cost and complexity

    Reducing your total cost of ownership (TCO) including lower capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating (OPEX). VMware is claiming CapEx and OpEx reduced TCO of 50%. Keep in mind that solutions such as vSAN also can help drive return on investment (ROI) as well as return on innovation (the other ROI) via improved productivity, effectiveness, as well as efficiencies (savings). Another aspect of addressing TCO and ROI includes flexibility leveraging stretched clusters to address HA, BR, BC and DR Availability needs cost effectively. These enhancements include efficiency (and effectiveness e.g. productivity) at scale, proactive cloud analytics, and intelligent operations.

    VMware vSAN stretch cluster
    Image via VMware

    Low cost (or cost-effective) Local, Remote Resiliency and Data Protection with Stretched Clusters across sites. Upon a site failure, vSAN maintains availability is leveraging surviving site redundancy. For performance and productivity effectiveness, I/O traffic is kept local where possible and practical, reducing cross-site network workload. Bear in mind that the best I/O is the one you do not have to do, the second is the one with the least impact.

    This means if you can address I/Os as close to the application as possible (e.g. locality of reference), that is a better I/O. On the other hand, when data is not local, then the best I/O is the one involving a local or remote site with least overhead impact to applications, as well as server storage I/O (including networks) resources. Also keep in mind that with vSAN you can fine tune availability, resiliency and data protection to meet various needs by adjusting fault tolerant mode (FTM) to address a different number of failures to tolerate.

    server storage I/O locality of reference

    Network and cloud friendly Unicast Communication enhancements. To improve performance, availability, and capacity (CPU demand reduction) multicast communications are no longer used making for easier, simplified single site and stretched cluster configurations. When vSAN clusters upgrade to V6.6 unicast is enabled.

    VMware vSAN unicast
    Image via VMware

    Gaining insight, awareness, adding intelligence to avoid flying blind, introducing vSAN Cloud Analytics and Proactive Guidance. Part of a VMware customer, experience improvement program, leverages cloud-based health checks for easy online known issue detection along with relevant knowledge bases pieces as well as other support notices. Whether you choose to refer to this feature as advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), proactive rules enabled management problem isolation, solving resolution I will leave that up to you.

    VMware vSAN cloud analytics
    Image via VMware

    Part of the new tools analytics capabilities and prescriptive problem resolution (hmm, some might call that AI or advanced analytics, just saying), health check issues are identified, notifications along with suggested remediation. Another feature is the ability to leverage continuous proactive updates for advance remediation vs. waiting for subsequent vSAN releases. Net result and benefit are reducing time, the complexity of troubleshooting converged data infrastructure issues spanning servers, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, cloud, and configuration. In other words, enable you more time to be productive vs. finding and fixing problems leveraging informed awareness for smart decision-making.

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to find out more about vSAN and related technologies.

    What this all means

    Continue reading more about VMware vSAN 6.6 in part I here, part II (just the speeds feeds please) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the spring 2017 release of his new book “Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials” (CRC Press).

    Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

    Posted on

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part IV (HCI scaling ROBO and data centers today)

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part IV (HCI scaling ROBO and data centers today)

    In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the fourth of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. View Part I here, Part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    VMware vSAN 6.6
    Image via VMware

    For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

    Scaling HCI for ROBO and data centers today and for tomorrow

    Scaling with stability for today and tomorrow. This includes addressing your applications Performance, Availability, Capacity and Economics (PACE) workload requirements today and for the future. By scaling with stability means boosting performance, availability (data protection, security, resiliency, durable, FTT), effective capacity without one of those attributes compromising another.

    VMware vSAN data center scaling
    Image via VMware

    Scaling today for tomorrow also means adapting to today’s needs while also flexible to evolve with new application workloads, hardware as well as a cloud (public, private, hybrid, inter and intra-cloud). As part of continued performance improvements, enhancements to optimize for higher performance flash SSD including NVMe based devices.

    VMware vSAN cloud analytics
    Image via VMware

    Part of scaling with stability means enhancing performance (as well as productivity) or the effectiveness of a solution. Keep in mind that efficiency is often associated with storage (or server or network) space capacity savings or reductions. In that context then effectiveness means performance and productivity or how much work can be done with least overhead impact. With vSAN, V6.6 performance enhancements include reduced checksum overhead, enhanced compression, and deduplication, along with destaging optimizations.

    Other enhancements that help collectively contribute to vSAN performance improvements include VMware object handling (not to be confused with cloud or object storage S3 or Swift objects) as well as faster iSCSI for vSAN. Also improved are more accurate refined cache sizing guidelines. Keep in mind that a little bit of NAND flash SSD or SCM in the right place can have a significant benefit, while a lot of flash cache costs much cash.

    Part of enabling and leveraging new technology today includes support for larger capacity 1.6TB flash SSD drives for cache, as well as lower read latency with 3D XPoint and NVMe drives such as those from Intel among others. Refer to the VMware vSAN HCL for current supported devices which continue evolve along with the partner ecosystem. Future proofing is also enabled where you can grow from today to tomorrow as new storage class memories (SCM) among other flash SSD as well as NVMe enhanced storage among other technologies are introduced into the market as well as VMware vSAN HCL.

    VMware vSAN and data center class applications
    Image via VMware

    Traditional CI and in particular many HCI solutions have been optimized or focused on smaller application workloads including VDI resulting in the perception that HCI, in general, is only for smaller environments, or larger environment non-mission critical workloads. With vSAN V6.6 VMware is addressing and enabling larger environment mission critical applications including Intersystem Cache medical health management software among others. Other application workload extensions including support for higher performance demanding Hadoop big data analytics, a well as extending virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) workspace with XenDesktop/XenApp, along with Photon 1.1 container support.

    What about VMware vSAN 6.6. Packaging and License Options

    As part of vSAN 6.6 VMware several solution bundle packaged options for the data center as well as smaller ROBO environment. Contact your VMware representative or partner to learn more about specific details.

    VMware vSAN cloud analytics
    Image via VMware

    VMware vSAN cloud analytics
    Image via VMware

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to find out more about vSAN and related technologies.

    What this all means

    Continue reading more about VMware vSAN 6.6 in part I here, part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the Spring 2017 release of his new book “Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials” (CRC Press).

    Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

    Posted on

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part V (vSAN evolution and summary)

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part V (vSAN evolution and summary)

    In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the fifth of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. View Part I here, Part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) found here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) located here.

    VMware vSAN 6.6
    Image via VMware

    For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

    How has vSAN (formerly referred to as VSAN) Evolved

    A quick recap of the VMware vSAN progression which first appeared as part of vSphere 5.5. (e.g. vSAN 5.5 can be thought of 1.0 in some ways) consists of several releases. Since vSAN is tightly integrated with VMware vSphere along with associated management tools, there is a correlation between enhancements to the underlying hypervisor, and added vSAN functionality. Keep in mind sometimes by seeing where something has been, helps to view where going.

    Previous vSAN enhancements include:

    • 5.5 Hybrid (mixed HDD and flash)
    • 6.2 (2016) All flash (e.g. AFA) versions included data footprint reduction (DFR) technologies such as compression and dedupe along with performance Quality of Service (QoS) enhancements.
    • 6.5 Cross Cloud functionality including the announcement of container support, cloud-native apps, as well as upcoming vSphere, vSAN, NSX and other VMware software-defined data center (SDDC) and software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) technology running natively on AWS (not on EC2) cloud infrastructure.
    • 6.6 Modern data infrastructure flexibility, scalability, resiliency, extensibility including performance, availability, capacity and economics (PACE).

    V5.5

    • Distributed RAID
    • Per-VM SPBM
    • Set and change FTT via policy
    • In-kernel hyper-convergence engine
    • RVC and Observer

    V6.0

    • All-flash architecture
    • Perf improvements (4xIOPS)
    • 64-node support
    • High-density storage blades
    • Fault domain awareness
    • Scalable snapshots and clones
    • Disk enclosure management

    V6.1

    • Windows Failover Clustering
    • Oracle RAC support
    • HW checksum and encryption
    • 2-node ROBO mode
    • UltraDIMM and NVMe support
    • Stretch clusters
    • 5 min RPO (vSphere Rep)
    • SMP-FT support
    • Health Check, vROps, Log Insight

    V6.2

    • IPv6 support
    • Software checksum
    • Nearline dedupe and compression on all-flash
    • Erasure coding on all-flash
    • QoS IOPS limits
    • Performance monitoring service

    V6.5

    • iSCSI
    • 2-Node direct connect
    • PowerCLI
    • Public APIs and SDK
    • 512e support
    • All-Flash to all editions

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to find out more about vSAN and related technologies.

    What this all means, wrap up and summary

    VMware continues to extend the software-defined data center (SDDC) and Software-Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) ecosystem with vSAN to address the needs from smaller SMB and ROBO environments to larger SME and enterprise workloads. To me a theme with V6.6 is expanding resiliency, scalability with stability to expand vSAN upmarket as well as into new workloads similar to how vSphere has evolved.

    With each new release, vSAN is increasing its feature, functionality, resiliency and extensiveness associated with traditional storage and non-CI or HCI solutions. Overall a good set of enhancements as vSAN continues its evolution looking back just a few years ago, to where it is today and will be in the future. If you have not looked at vSAN recently, take some time beyond reading this piece to learn some more.

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the Spring 2017 release of his new book “Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials” (CRC Press).

    Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.