Executive Summary Abstract
Replication software is now almost a staple on enterprise midrange arrays with 95% of them offering replication software in some form. But what organizations may fail to recognize is that the specific replication software options available on each midrange array and how they are licensed vary widely. Further, just because a midrange array supports a particular midrange array feature does not mean that it is implemented in a way that meets their needs. Understanding what replication software options a midrange array offers and how they are licensed is becoming increasingly important. While it can be argued that to date, midrange arrays have been primarily acquired because of their ability to provide high levels of availability, capacity, and performance, five new forces are at work that are changing how organizations use midrange arrays and their features. These new factors include server virtualization, expanded compliance requirements, shorter application backup and recovery times, replicating backup data and eDiscovery, testing and development. These are forcing organizations to look at their use of midrange arrays going forward. While midrange arrays still need to deliver the functionality that they always have, acquiring a midrange array that provides replication software such as asynchronous replication, synchronous replication and snapshots, is becoming a necessity in order for organizations to effectively and efficiently run their business and manage their IT operations going forward. The replication software on the IceWEB 2000, 3000, 6000 and 7000 Unified Storage Appliances provides the depth and breadth of replication features that organizations need to meet these emerging business requirements as it includes every replication software option available. Equally important, every IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance includes a fully operational version of all of its replication features, the software licenses to use them, and the flexibility to replicate data between different IceWEB models. It is for these reasons that the IceWEB Unified Storage Appliances achieved the #1 ranking in the Replication Category of the DCIG 2012 Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide. IceWEB Unified Storage Appliances enable organizations to meet the replication needs of today while positioning themselves to respond to the new requirements emerging in tomorrow’s virtualized and cloud-enabled world.
State of the Market: Midrange Array Replication Software
Midrange arrays such as those from EMC and NetApp have moved well beyond just providing high amounts of storage capacity and multiple options for storage network connectivity. Today it is almost a guarantee that any enterprise midrange array acquisition will include replication software as a supported feature. The recently published DCIG 2012 Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide analyzed multiple features on over 50 enterprise midrange arrays of which replication software was one. Based upon the results of this Buyer’s Guide, DCIG found that:
- 95% of enterprise midrange arrays offer replication software in some form
- 93% provide some mechanism to take snapshots of LUNs or volumes
- 84% provide the ability to do asynchronous replication
- 64% can do synchronous replication
The difficulty emerges in understanding what replication software features an organization actually gets when it acquires one of these arrays.
Replication Software Types
Snapshots
Nearly every midrange array supports the taking of snapshots of individual volumes (or LUNs.) Currently there are four ways in which midrange arrays implement snapshot functionally
- Allocate-on-Write (AoW)
- Copy-on-Write (CoW)
- Full Copy
- Split Mirror
Organizations need to take care to identify which of these snapshot types each midrange array offers. Some midrange arrays offer all snapshot types while others support only one or two. There are even variations in how each midrange array implements these various snapshot types. So even if two different midrange array models support the same type of snapshot, there may yet be subtle but important differences in how the snapshot software is implemented on each midrange array |
Asynchronous Replication
Asynchronous replication software replicates data to one or more midrange arrays. There are only two general ways, continuous and periodic, in which asynchronous replication software is implemented. Not every midrange array that offers asynchronous replication software supports both of these implementations. Further, even if it does support both options, there may be and likely are different ways to configure the asynchronous replication on midrange arrays.
Synchronous Replication
Synchronous replication is about the only form of replication software that is fairly consistent in how it is implemented across midrange arrays. In almost every case, synchronous replication is a 1:1 relationship between two midrange arrays though some vendors support synchronous replication between their midrange and their high end storage models. |
The Hidden Challenges of Selecting Midrange Array Replication Software
These differences between the replication software found on each midrange array model provide some hints as to the challenges that organizations face in selecting the right midrange array whose replication software also meets their needs. For example, while it is generally true that replication software works between midrange arrays from the same vendor, it is not an absolute. Further, even if the same replication software is available on all midrange arrays from one vendor, each model may support different levels of functionality. For example, one model may support both outgoing and incoming replication while another may only act as a source and not as a target. The various ways in which vendors license their software contribute further to the difficulty in implementing replication. Some models include no replication software licenses. Others only license some of their replication software’s functionality. Very few grant organizations complete access to all of the replication software’s features as part of the model’s default feature set. This requires organizations to license specific features they want to use. Aggravating the situation, organizations may fail to closely examine the features and licensing structure of the midrange array’s replication software when they initially acquire it. As such, when the need to use replication software in one of its various forms arises, it may not offer the right set of features for their specific use case or, if it does, they may first need to purchase a license to use that feature. This is why organizations need to consider how their usage of replication software on midrange arrays is poised to increase. Driving this change are new internal and external forces that make the availability of robust replication software on enterprise midrange arrays almost a necessity.
Five Forces Driving Demand for Replication Software
| Five forces have emerged over the last few years that are creating a new demand for replication software to be available on midrange arrays. These include:
Server Virtualization. More organizations are looking to run their business in the “cloud” for both financial and technical reasons. The first step to accomplishing this objective is to virtualize their existing application servers. This entails using one or more of the many available hypervisors to include Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V, Red Hat Linux and VMware vSphere.
It is as organizations virtualize their servers that they are deploying enterprise midrange arrays to host virtual machines (VMs). While hosting them on midrange arrays is primarily done to accommodate the increased performance and storage demands that server virtualization introduces, organizations are quickly discovering that using a midrange array’s snapshot software is a better way to do backup and recovery for these VMs. Using the midrange array snapshot feature the overhead associated with performing backups is offloaded from the physical server to the midrange array. This also permits organizations to recover data directly from these snapshots and use them as the source if copying data off to disk or tape. This trend of using midrange array snapshots is already accelerating. Enterprise backup software vendors report an uptick in the use of their software to initiate and manage snapshots on midrange arrays. It is therefore reasonable to assume that snapshots may become the predominant way that backups and recoveries are done in these virtualized environments.
Expanded Compliance Requirements. Many are aware of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 and the $1 trillion in stimulus that was distributed as a result of its passage. But an ARRA provision expanded the definition of those businesses that are subject to the Health Insurance and Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996.
Under ARRA’s new provisions, any organization that “touches” a medical record is now subject to HIPAA rules and regulations. These include third party administrators defined in the ARRA as “Business Associates” that provide administrative services to health care providers, health plans and health care clearinghouses. As such, these organizations are subject to the Final Rule on Security Standards issued in 2003. These require that they have a contingency plan to be in place to respond to emergencies to include backing up their data and having disaster recovery (DR) procedures in place. While the exact specifications of these DR procedures remain vague, existing health care organizations already interpret them to mean doing near real time replication of this data and are using midrange array replication software to satisfy this requirement. |
Shorter Application Backup and Recovery Times. Physical or virtual, all organizations are looking to reduce the time that they spend backing up and recovering their data while receiving higher assurances that their application data is recoverable. By leveraging both the snapshot and replication features on many midrange arrays, organizations may place the data of both their physical and virtual machines on these arrays to accomplish that objective.
Using the midrange array snapshot feature, organizations may recover specific files more quickly from disk or even mount the snapshot so they may rollback an application to a previous point in time. This flexibility to rollback and recover an application to a specific point in time is one which cloud providers now cite as highly desirable and regularly used in-house to support their clients. Using either asynchronous or synchronous replication software, organizations may also automate the movement of data to a secondary site or even to a cloud provider. This copy of data may then be used to shorten the time required to recover from a disaster or even provide “always-on” capabilities for highly available applications.
Replicate Backup Data. Many organizations still subscribe to the traditional methods of daily incremental and full weekly backups. What is changing is that disk is replacing tape as the predominant backup target with midrange arrays often used in this role as a diskbased backup target. The problem this creates is how to get this backup data offsite.
Replication software helps to solve this dilemma. It may be configured to replicate the data to another array at another site once the daily or weekly backups are done thereby minimizing or eliminating the need to use any type of removable media to get the data offsite.
eDiscovery, Testing and Development. Storing a near real-time copy of production data on disk in the form of a backup, a snapshot or a replicated copy on a secondary array creates new opportunities for organizations to perform new tasks that currently are difficult or impossible to perform now.
eDiscovery is a prime example. Performing a search against production data is often intrusive and negatively impacts production applications. Using backups or snapshots residing on disk, searches may be done just as quickly without the risk to production applications. Using snapshots or replicated data residing on another array also opens the door to improve how testing and development of new applications is done. One of the most difficult tasks associated with product development or product upgrades is getting access to quality production data. Using the midrange array’s snapshot or replication feature, copies of data may now be created for this purpose. This minimizes impact to production applications while resulting in the development of better applications and smoother product installs and upgrades. |
Unfortunately, to date organizations have had a limited number of choices to meet these challenges and new market demands. Either a midrange array provides many of the features that organizations want with licensing fees to match. Or they provide only a subset of features that are inadequate to meet the varying replication demands and cost constraints that organizations will need. However there is one midrange array provider that has separated itself from the pack in this important area of replication software.
The Five Features that Contributed to IceWEB Achieving a “Best-in-Class” Ranking in Replication Software
 In the recently published DCIG 2012 Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide, the replication software available on IceWEB Unified Storage Appliances earned the distinction of “Best in Class” in the Replication Software category. Four factors contributed significantly to IceWEB achieving this ranking:
- Support for synchronous replication
- Support for both forms of asynchronous replication (continuous and periodic)
- Support for all four types of snapshots (AoW, CoW, Full Copy and Split Mirror)
- Licensing for all of these of forms of replication are included with the IceWEB appliance
The top five (5) key ways that IceWEB differentiated itself from replication software found on other midrange arrays and which contributed to its “Best-in-Class” in Replication Software included:
- Replication Software Licensing IncludedIceWEB’s inclusion of the software license for all of these forms of replication was a contributing factor to IceWEB achieving its “Best-in-Class” designation in this Guide. In DCIG’s conversations with end-users, the need to first license the replication software has been a factor that has precluded a number of them from using this feature. Further, when asked if they would be more inclined to use replication software if the license was included with the midrange array, the answer was a resounding, “Yes!” So by IceWEB removing the licensing cost associated with its replication software, organizations are free to use IceWEB’s replication software as they see fit. This will likely result in them using replication in ways they might not have otherwise anticipated.
- Supports Millions of SnapshotsIceWEB’s snapshot feature can theoretically support the creation of millions of snapshots. Granted, few organizations have a need to create that many. However it is conceivable a single midrange array may need to take and manage tens of thousands of snapshots as organizations virtualize their environment and then move to use IceWEB’s snapshot software to backup their VMs. Consider a scenario when a single midrange array needs to host 100 VMs. If the company elects to take snapshots on every VM once an hour or once every 15 minutes and retain each snapshot for seven (7) days before deleting it, the numbers quickly grow. A midrange array would need to support at least 17,000 snapshots if snapshots of all 100 VMs are taken every hour and approximately 70,000 snapshots are needed if snapshots are taken every 15 minutes of every VM hosted on the system. Two specific forces are driving the demand for taking and retaining this number of snapshots. The most obvious one is growing end-user demand for faster recoveries by doing rollbacks to prior points-in-time. By taking snapshots more frequently, IT staff can meet this new requirement. The other force is the need to create snapshots of production data to meet eDiscovery requests or comply with litigation holds. While snapshots may be taken less frequently, the length of time individual snapshots may need to be retained count against the midrange array’s snapshot maximum. By theoretically having millions of snapshots available and at their fingertips, organizations can meet both compliance and recovery requirements.
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Other IceWEB Replication Features
The list of replication features available on the IceWEB Unified Storage Appliances goes well beyond the features formally evaluated and discussed by DCIG in this Special Report. Other key replication features that the IceWEB IceSTORM OS offers to perform replication include:
- Bandwidth throttling
- Bidirectional mirror
- Encrypted data transmission
- One-to-many asynch replication
- Many-to-one asynch replication
- Single pane glass management
New Use Cases for Replicated Data
- Take snapshots of replicated data. As can be done on the primary system, snapshots may also be done on the second system to be used for archives, backups, eDiscovery searches, litigation holds, or sources for recoveries. However taking snapshots at a second site eliminates the need to backup snapshots and move them offsite.
- Do regularly scheduled business continuity and disaster recovery testing. Getting the data recovered and in place prior to doing a DR test tends to be the most time consuming component of doing a DR test. Using replication, the data is in place so organizations are prepared to schedule and do DR tests or even initiate a full recovery should the need arise.
- Positions them to do recoveries in the “cloud.” The clock is ticking as to when organizations are going to stop replicating data to their own secondary site and start replicating data to the “cloud.” Using IceWEB, organizations can begin to explore the possibility of placing an IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance with a cloud provider and replicating data to that cloud provider. This eliminates the need for the organization to have a dedicated secondary site and minimizes its cost to implement a viable DR plan.
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- Flexible Snapshot CapabilitiesClosely tied to IceWEB’s ability to scale to millions of snapshots is the flexibility its IceSTORM OS gives organizations to manage snapshots and then utilize them once they are created. Using the IceSTORM OS organizations may:
- Create snapshots based upon a preset schedule
- Manually initiate a snapshot at any time
- Create a consistency group by identifying a group of volumes associated with a particular host or application and then initiating a snapshot across of all those volumes simultaneously
- Read from the snapshot to do a backup or perform a search to comply with an eDiscovery request
- Convert an existing snapshot from read-only to read/write or create a read/write snapshot so the data on the snapshot may be read from and written to during testing and development
- Replication for Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery and High AvailabilityHaving both asynchronous and synchronous replication natively available on IceWEB Unified Storage Appliances opens the door for organizations to explore business continuity, disaster recovery, high availability and even new data protection options that were typically beyond their means. By continuously replicating data over a TCP/IP network using IceWEB’s asynchronous replication option, organizations may create a near real-time copy of the volume or volumes from another IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance. Once data is replicated to a second system, multiple use cases emerge for how it may then be used. The synchronous replication found on the IceWEB Unified Storage Appliances also facilitates the introduction of application high availability. The need for applications to be “always-on” grows daily and even “minor” application outages due to system upgrades or routine hardware maintenance is becoming intolerable. By using synchronous replication and application failover and failback between systems, application processing may continue with minimal or no interruption in service.
- Replication Works across All IceWEB Unified Storage Appliances
 The inclusion of software licensing for replication across all of IceWEB’s Unified Storage Appliances is only part of what makes all of these various use cases for replication possible. What ultimately makes IceWEB’s Unified Storage Appliances affordable and practical is that organizations may use its asynchronous and synchronous replication software to replicate data between any IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance.
This gives organizations the flexibility to use the most appropriate IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance where needed as they look to create and build out high availability solutions for their virtualized environments regardless if they are using Citrix XenServer, Hyper-V or VMware vSphere environments. They may use IceWEB’s high end 6000 and 7000 models that scale to higher levels of storage capacity and have higher levels of performance in their production environments while using IceWEB’s Midtier 2000 and 3000 models for production, DR and/or as a backup target at other sites. Regardless of which IceWEB appliance they use and where they use it, organizations may replicate data between any of them and configure each one as a source or a target for replication or even configure it for bidirectional replication.
IceWEB Unified Storage Appliances Ranked #1 in Replication Software Category in DCIG 2012 Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide
Midrange arrays still need to deliver on traditional requirements such as performance, storage capacity and storage networking connectivity. However midrange arrays must now adapt to meet new demands that are coming from both within and outside of organizations and are in the process of transitioning to meet this new generation of demands. The features on the IceWEB Unified Storage Appliances (2000, 3000, 6000 and 7000) reflect how today’s midrange arrays need to be architected to accommodate these new demands. While the IceWEB Unified Storage Appliances scored well in other categories in the DCIG 2012 Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide such as “vSphere Integration,” “Hardware,” and “Array Management,” their #1 ranking in the Replication Software category shows that IceWEB is currently better positioned than its competitors to meet this specific organizational need. By each of its storage systems supporting all forms of replication to include asynchronous replication, synchronous replication and snapshots, including all licenses for its replication software on each of its midrange arrays, and enabling asynchronous and synchronous replication to occur between any of its storage systems, IceWEB does more than provide organizations a great solution for replicating their data. It puts organizations in a position to start solving tomorrow’s emerging business continuity, DR, high availability and eDiscovery search requirements today.
SCORES AND RANKINGS SUMMARY
Appendix
DCIG Disclosures
Over the last few years the general trend in the US has been for large and boutique analyst firms alike to receive some or all of their revenue from storage vendors. DCIG is no different in that respect. It also receives payment for some of the services it performs for storage vendors. The services that DCIG provides include blogging, case studies, product reviews, executive white papers, full length white papers and special reports. To be fully transparent a number of the providers that DCIG evaluated in the DCIG 2012 Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide are or have been DCIG clients. This is not to imply their products were given preferential treatment. All it meant was that DCIG had more knowledge of their midrange arrays and that they would be considered for inclusion in this report. In that vein, there are a number of facts to keep in mind when considering the information contained in this Special Report and its merit.
- No provider paid DCIG any fee to do the originalresearch to “ensure” the replication software on its midrange array(s) scored well.
- DCIG did not guarantee any provider that its midrange array model(s) would be included.
- DCIG did not at any time imply that a specific midrange array model would score or be ranked well.
- All research was based upon publicly available information, information provided by the storage provider and the expertise of those evaluating the midrange arrays.
- Because of the number of features analyzed, how these features were weighted and then how these midrange array models were scored and then ranked, there was no way for DCIG to know or could predict at the outset how an individual midrange array model or its features would end up scoring or ranking when the evaluation was complete.
The 8-Step Process Used by DCIG to Score and Rank Midrange Arrays
To score and rank each midrange array, DCIG went through an eight-step process to arrive at the most objective conclusion possible.
- DCIG listing out all of the features available on midrange array.
- DCIG established which of these features would be included in the DCIG 2012 Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide.
- Each feature had a weighting associated with it.
- A survey that asked about all of the features scored in the DCIG 2012 Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide was sent to each storage provider.
- All storage providers were given the opportunity to review data before it was published or released.
- All of the features were scored based upon the information that was gathered.
- The features were broken into six general categories of which Replication Software was one.
- The midrange arrays were ranked using standard scoring techniques.
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