Planning and Building Tiered Storage

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Planning and Building Tiered Storage

• Brad ONeill
• Senior Analyst and Consultant
• Taneja Group, Inc.

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Agenda

• What is Tiered Storage
• A Planning Strategy for Tiered Storage
• Example Deployment Scenarios
• Conclusions
• QA

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A Definition of Tiered Storage

• The deployment of two or more classes of disk
  storage within a primary or secondary storage
  environment, wherein the residence of data across
  these classes of storage is determined by
  business-driven variables.
• Sounds Complex, But

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Tiered Storage Is Straightforward

• 1. You deploy multiple classes of storage
• FC, SCSI, SATA, TAPE
• 2. You might move data from various apps across
  those storage classes, or, just originate your
  data assets on the right class
• Online migration, disk archiving, disk backup
• 3. You do this to create efficiencies in time,
  money or other resources
• Improve operations, boost ROI, increase
  productivity

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The Net-Net on Tiered Storage

• Forget all buzzwords. Its about data placement
  on cost/performance appropriate storage.
• Largely manual, not automated
• 50 of tiered storage originate on the right
  platform
• Yes, future ILM dreams will leverage the storage
  classes we create today
• What really kicked-off this trend? ATA/SATA.
• To reduce primary and secondary storage costs
• To increase recovery and data protection measures
• Critical mass of vendor announcements
• 53 of surveyed users intend to deploy disk by
  2005!

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Something the industry forgot to mention
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Tiered Storage MANAGEMENT!

• BEFORE you deploy, you need a tiered storage
  management strategy!
• BEFORE you evaluate vendors, you need a tiered
  storage management strategy!
• BEFORE you even think about devices, you need a
  tiered storage management strategy!

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Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail!

• Our first tiered storage deployment wasnt
  planned as such. We jumped at the cost savings.
  We bought ATA arrays and started loading up If I
  could do it over, I would have spent a lot more
  time on planning.
• Director of Storage, Retail,
  California

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YOUR STRATEGY WILL DETERMINE SUCCESS!
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5 Planning Steps for Tiered Storage

1. Define your business drivers Why do this?
2. Define storage asset classes and traits
3. Evaluate architectural choices
4. Go out and whip your vendors
5. Deploy your plan

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1. Define Your Business Drivers

• Do you seek to improve data protection?
• (RTO, RPO, Availability, Backup windows)
• Are you solving compliance requirements?
• (disk-based archives, tape archives,
  accessibility)
• Are you aiming to reduce capital outlays?
• (Footprint control, utilization improvements)
• Can you need human management efficiencies?
• (Few heads, higher managed capacities,
  wider roles)

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5 Planning Steps for Tiered Storage

1. Define your business drivers Why do this?
2. Define storage asset classes and traits
3. Evaluate architectural choices
4. Go out and whip your vendors
5. Deploy your plan

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2. Create Asset Groups and Traits

• ID the data assets against descriptive groups.
• Make these grouping more specific or less
  specific as required!
• BUSINESS-CRITICAL
• (Primary data. Traditional 5 9s, High
  availability)
• BUSINESS-OPERATIONS
• (Primary data. Share-intensive, reference data,
  aging data)
• PROTECTION and ARCHIVAL
• (Primary or Secondary data. Reference, copies
  and protection)
• LONG-TERM ARCHIVAL
• (Secondary data. No day-to-day use, long-term
  retention)

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Assign All Your Storage Using
Resources To Asset Groups!
Biz Critical
Biz Ops
Protection/Archival
Long-Term
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EXAMPLE ASSET GROUPINGS

• BUSINESS-CRITICAL
• My Oracle databases
• Our ERP data all of it
• BUSINESS-OPERATIONS
• Our MS Exchange
• Departmental Files
• PROTECTION and ARCHIVAL
• Copies of SQL Server data sets
• Completed trade contracts
• All compliance information
• LONG-TERM ARCHIVAL
• Stuff we dont use but have to keep
• Our last ditch DR bucket

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2. Create Asset Groups and Traits

• ID concrete STORAGE TRAITS for each ASSET GROUP
• Uptime Goals
• Performance requirements
• Protection needs
• Mirrors/Snapshots/Other SW reqs
• Security and access
• Fully Loaded Target Price/Managed TB
• Asset Groups Storage Traits Storage Tiers

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2. Create Asset Groups and Traits

• How Did We Get Our Tier Definitions?
• All data assets are assigned to groups
• The traits of each group were defined
• As a Result, We Then Know
• The expected service level from each storage tier
• The desired price-points for each storage tier
• Therefore, We Have A Tiered Storage Plan!

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Asset Groups Drive Your Tier Choices
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Biz Critical
Biz Ops
Protect/Archival
Long-Term
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5 Planning Steps for Tiered Storage

1. Define your business drivers Why do this?
2. Define storage asset classes and traits
3. Evaluate architectural choices
4. Go out and whip your vendors
5. Deploy your plan

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3. Evaluate Architecture Choices

• Guidelines Weve Heard From Your Ranks
• Do Not Create Net-New Management
• Look beyond array pricing alone
• Take an infrastructure-wide approach
• Execute your tier strategy in stages

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So, Where To Begin?

• Your Tier 1 Business Critical Storage Sets The
  Pace.
• Your Crown Jewel Assets
• Most Expensive Storage Investment
• Disruption and Change Management are painful
• Your High Bar for Storage Management practices
• 95 of Tiering Strategy centers on Tiers 2 and 3
  Business Operations and Protection/Archiving
  Tiers
• How Do We Improve our Tier One ROI?
• How Do We Get Less Critical Data on
  Cost-Appropriate Storage?
• How do we leverage disk to improve data
  protection?

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Key Points For Tier 2 Evals Business
Operations Storage

• SATA pricing is still all over the map! Examine
  best of breed approaches vs. your asset groups
• From under 4000 to 15,000 per TB!
• Protection matters. What do you need?
• RAID support in SATA typically 0,5
• Given asset groups, how much performance?
• SATA performance gains are real and coming fast
• Smaller cache sizes in most SATA arrays
• How much capacity growth?
• Can you maintain existing management framework?

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Key Points For Tier 2 Evals Business
Operations Storage

• Decide if you need a Stand-Alone array or
  disk-space in a unified platform.
• Multi-disk Systems
• Mix FC and SATA trays in the same array
• Example vendors EMC, HDS, 3Par, BlueArc, Pillar
• Stand-alone SATA arrays
• Plethora of players from entry-level to
  enterprise
• Example vendors NetApp, IBM, NexSan, Candera
• Of course, Pros and Cons To Both Approaches!

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Key Points for Tier 3 Evals Protection and
Archival

• What asset you archive or protect drives your
  choices
• Standard SATA array
• Online copies of data
• CAS Software or Appliance
• Online archiving of reference information
• Virtual Tape Software or Appliance
• Fast disk-based data protection
• Traditional BU/R Software to Disk
• Fast disk-based data protection

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5 Planning Steps for Tiered Storage

1. Define your business drivers Why do this?
2. Define storage asset classes and traits
3. Evaluate architectural choices
4. Go out and whip your vendors
5. Deploy your plan

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Choosing The Right Solutions

• Sage End User Comments
• Look wider than you usually do.
• Resist temptation to roll with your existing
  trusted vendor
• Tiered Storage Has Many Purchasing Impacts
• Tier One Potential footprint impact from
  offloading
• Tier Two unique requirements for primary
• Tier Three backup or archiving requirements
  driven by higher tiers
• If you go best of breed, ensure management
  commonalities across tiers
• You can create more problems than you solve.

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2 Key Questions For All Vendors

• How will I move and place my data?
• Volume-level copy/snapshots
• File-level copy
• Application-integrated/controlled
• Can I use my existing management tools?
• Discovery, partitioning, provisioning
• Capacity management, device-level management
• Drill the emerging vendors on these points

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Who Are Some Worthy Players?

• In Tier 2 Business Operations
• EMC, NetApp, HDS, IBM, STK
• NetApp, BlueArc, 3Par
• Candera, NexSan
• In Tier 3 Protection and Archiving
• STK, ADIC, Quantum
• Diligent
• EMC Centera, Permabit, DCT, Archivas

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Deployment Example

• Company 1 Financial Services, East Coast
• 220 TB primary storage on Tier One
• Wants to reduce Tier 1 footprint growth by 50
• Deploys combination of two SATA vendors for Tier
  Two assets. Uses existing SM tools for migration.
• Has a disk-backup appliance at Tier Three,
  exploring CAS for compliance archiving.
• Maintains tape libraries, exploring CAS for
  long-term disk.

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Deployment Example

• Company 2 Online/Store Retailer,
  California
• 10 TB primary storage on SAN. 5 TB on Tier One
  storage.
• Happily w/ deployed disk backup for Tier 3.
• In 2005, will deploy Tier 2 on SATA.
• Goal is to reduce total amount of storage in Tier
  1 by 3 TB via migrating less critical SQL Server
  and MS Exchange to SATA
• Will use existing volume management software

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Conclusions on Tiered Storage

• Plan before you leap. Think deeply in terms of
  asset groups and storage traits.
• Move in steps. Resolve for key business drivers
  first. You have plenty of time.
• Look at all the vendors. Choices abound!
• Preserve your existing management investments

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Conclusions on Tiered Storage

• Call us if you need help or input!
• Taneja Group works with dozens of end users on
  RFPs and general questions
• Info_at_tanejagroup.com
• Brad_at_tanejagroup.com
• 925.417.0329

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Questions!