Seven Step Plan for Building and Scaling Storage Networks

1
Seven Step Plan for Building and Scaling Storage
Networks

• Richard Scannell
• Bill Peldzus

2
Building a Solid Foundation

• Building and Scaling Storage Networks
• If you bypass just one pitfall at the end of this
  session, then weve been successful!
• Richard Scannell
• VP of Strategy and Co-founder
• Bill Peldzus
• Sr. Storage Consultant

3
But First, Some Housekeeping

• Workbooks available for taking notes
• Outlines key questions and considerations for you
  and your company going forward
• Presentation flow
• Richard will address the high-level stuff
• A.k.a. How to sell this to your boss
• Bill will address the techie stuff
• What works, what to watch out for, design
  considerations
• Well both address the customer stuff

4
Whats the Agenda?

• Topics include
• What to plan for
• Budget/ROI/TCO
• Non-technical considerations
• Application effect
• Getting from here to there (a.k.a. migration)
• Up and running whats next?
• Planning for Q2, Q4, 2004

5
Audience Feedback Please

• IT End User
• No privileged access
• Victim of policy

• IT Worker
• Has Privileged access
• Enforcer of policy

• IT Manager
• Grants Privileged access
• Defines policy

• Executive
• Privileged in general
• Theres a policy?

6
What to Plan for When Building a Storage Network
7
Why is this Important?

• The intersection of Network, Storage and
  Database is creating complex new technologies and
  three problems for the CIO Technology,
  Business, Organization.

8
Complex Today and Getting Worse
9
Balanced Business Approach
10
Storage Product Landscape
11
Interoperability Why is it ltstillgt an issue?
12
Interoperability - more

• The last slide didnt even touch on the multiple
  PRODUCTS from each of the noted vendors
• Only counting vendors, there were over 67,000
  possible product combinations for that simple
  storage area network
• Thats going to the extreme, BUT, do you really
  think every configuration has been tested?

13
Your Vision May Not be Your Vendors Vision
14
Storage NetworksBudgetsROITCO
15
Justifying a Storage Network

• In 2003 and beyond, the trend is Spend to Save
• Cant put in a SAN because its cool
• You put in a SAN because it saves money!
• Justifications are difficult lets look at some
  approaches

16
Data Lifecycle

• Data has a discrete value to the business and
  that value changes over time
• Drivers that affect data value
• Product/Service lifecycle
• Regulatory requirements
• Customer expectations

17
Align Value with Cost

• Apply appropriate infrastructure to protect the
  data and the business (from risk and waste)
• One size doesnt fit all
• JBOD, RAID, Clustering, Replication, Hot Site

18
Break Even Analysis
19
Optimization of Assets

• Occupancy
• Appropriately congregate data by value and
  rationalize storage requirements at each phase

• Architecture
• Hardware/Software requirements
• Processes and Standards

• Governance
• When does data qualify to move up or down the
  value stream? (more on this coming up)

20
Classes of Storage

• Create Classes of Storage based on architecture
  attributes
• Track TCO, utilization (on the device) for each
  class of storage and occupancy of the classes
  relative to each other

21
Utilization and TCO

• Understand yields of useable storage based on
  RAID configuration
• Establish a goal line for average utilization
• Create plans to drive utilization to the goal

22
Utilization and TCO

• Track TCO across each class
• Ensure there is sufficient gap between the
  classes to warrant separation
• Focus efforts on reducing TCO in ALL classes.
  Diminishing returns is a factor

23
Asset Sharing

• Storage Networks enable asset sharing
• Share tape drives (more on this later)
• Dont have to buy a tape drive with every server
• Use your tape drives twelve hours per night
  instead of four or five
• Shared pool of spare storage
• Dont need to allocate spare storage to every
  server or application
• Distribute the spare storage where its needed

24
The Non-Technical (but very important!) Stuff
25
Storage Governance

• Governance the continuous exercise of authority
  over and the performance of functions (Webster)

To date almost all vendors are focused on the
Physical and Logical levels does not diminish
the continuing needs for Business Level focus
26
Storage Governance

• Used to be
• Guesstimate
• Utilization
• Benchmarks
• Asset Management
• Downtime
• SLA
• Tactical

• Needs to be
• Predict
• Occupancy
• Operating Standards
• Asset Optimization
• Change Control
• Utility Mindset
• Strategic

27
Before I Buy

• Have you considered
• What your RFx is going to look like?
• More importantly, how are you going to rank the
  responses?
• Will I consider startups with great technology?
• Do I understand my SLAs?
• Checking references?

28
The Effects on Applications
29
How Can Applications Benefit?

• Performance - more storage per channel and still
  faster than old F/W SCSI
• High availability - try a 3-node cluster with
  SCSI versus Fibre Channel SAN
• Disaster Recovery - A DR architecture that
  doesnt involve the server for data replication
  
• Data protection - not buying another tape drive
  with every new server
• Storage management - more managed GBs/support
  staff in a pooled environment

Data protection
Lets take one and explore it further__
30
Terminology Backup Methodologies

• Multiple Approaches including
• Distributed backup
• Centralized backup
• LAN Free backup
• Serverless backup

31
Backup Methodologies Distributed Backup
100 MbpsLAN
32
Backup MethodologiesCentralized Backup over the
LAN
Dedicated Gigabit Ethernet for backup LAN
B
100 MbpsLAN
33
Backup MethodologiesLAN Free Backup with Native
FC Tape Drives
100 MbpsLAN
File Server
Database Server
Database Server
Mail Server
34
Backup MethodologiesLAN Free Backup with SCSI
Tape Drives
LAN2
LAN2
LAN1
A
B
C
D
File Server
Database Server
Mail Server
Application Server
Master Backup Server
35
Backup MethodologiesLAN Free Backup with SCSI
Tape Drives
LAN2
LAN2
LAN1
A
B
C
D
Database Server
File Server
Mail Server
Application Server
36
Backup MethodologiesServerless Backup with SCSI
Tape Drives
LAN2
LAN2
LAN1
A
B
C
D
File Server
Database Server
Mail Server
Application Server
XCOPY (SCSI Extended Copy Command)
37
Multiple Tape Drive Configuration Issues

• Persistent binding
• The mapping of a specific SCSI ID to a specific
  device in a Fibre Channel environment
• Generally mapped by WWNN or WWPN
• Without persistent binding, the physical to
  logical mapping of tape drives can be re-ordered
  every time there is a re-boot
• This will confuse your backup software

38
Multiple Tape DriveConfiguration Hazards

• NT and W2K only
• Not specific to SAN

• If a tape drive fails in a library, there is
  danger ofre-ordering of the logical to physical
  mapping
• This will happen upon re-boot
• Lesson replace drive before re-boot AND confirm
  mappings before backups
• Solutions are being integrated help coming!

39
How to Get There from Here(Data Migration)
40
Multiple Approaches

• From the simple
• Backup tapes
• To medium
• Mirrored copy, snap-shots, etc.
• To complex
• Specialized data migration and virtualization
  products

41
Migration Considerations

• If youre planning a migration over a long
  weekend, know what time to turn back if its
  not going as planned
• Estimating the time it takes on paper is fine,
  but
• Dont forget to factor in import/export times
  into databases or applications

42
Todays Typical Architecture
NAS
43
Phase 1 Introducing Storage Networking (w/ H.A.)
Mail Server
Database Server
NAS
Shared Storage
44
Phase 2 Migrating from DAS to SAN
LAN
X
X
X
X
A
B
C
D
SAN Fabric
45
Phase 3 Enterprise Ready SAN
LAN1
A
B
C
D
File Server
Database Server
Mail Server
Application Server
Master Backup Server
46
Data Migration Decision Flow-Chart
47
Okay, its InstalledWhats Next?
48
Storage Management Lifecycle
49
Troubleshooting

• Have you Monitored for normal
• Is you staff trained?
• Can they do initial troubleshooting?
• Do you know what to do if
• you think its a switch problem? Or an HBA?
• Are my maintenance contracts consistent?
• i.e. two hour response on storage array, but
  eight hour response on FC switches

50
Planning for Next Quarter Next Summer Next
Year Next Millennium!
51
New Technologies to Consider

• IP Storage
• Disk versus tape for backup
• InfiniBand
• Storage Management products
• Look before you leap!
• Careful of baseline requirements
• Careful of whats supported
• Careful of outrageous claims