October 15, 2009
Here is yet another example of what can happen if you neglect to backup your data. For all you T-Mobile users out there, you probably know that the Sidekick stores all of your critical data in a network datastore and not within the physical device. If something were to happen to any of those servers holding your data, you would lose your data. Scary thought, huh? Well, that is exactly what happened.
Michael Sheehan believes that during hardware upgrades, there was a failure that occurred. Since the upgrade of the SAN proceeded without data backup the result was thousands of Sidekick users stuck without their data. Here are five tips he presents in his blog post, that are critical for any IT department to remember:
Backups – Back up often. Set up automatic as well as manual backup procedures. Store your data locally AND somewhere completely geographically distinct from your infrastructure. *Check out the SAN backup features on the StoneFusion OS.
Redundancy – Physical servers AND virtualized servers do encounter issues. You would never put all of your eggs in one basket so why do it with your infrastructure! You should ensure that you set up a “high availability” (HA) infrastructure where you have 2 (or more) of everything, whether they be all active or as hot or warm standbys. *Check out the fully redundant, HA Voyager IP SAN.
Failovers – Most people, unless they are hugely successful, decide to put off setting up a Disaster Recovery (DR) environment due to costs and the time it takes to do so. That is, until their primary site goes down for hours or days, then DR suddenly moves to the top of the list. *Learn about StoneFly’s Data Continuity.
“Hybrid Hosting” – By setting up your front-end environment using the cloud (scalable, dynamic, elastic, etc.), you can optimize your web server environment for traffic and redundancy. Using physical boxes in the backend allows you to have additional services (like managed backups or security enhancements), thus making your infrastructure more secure and reliable. *Stay tuned for more info on this coming soon.
Due Diligence – Regardless of your infrastructure, datacenter or hosting environment, take some time right now to figure out your IT strategy and Best Practices.
Leave a Comment » | 
IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, backup, datacenter | Tagged: data backup, data corruption, data protection, datacenter, failover, failover protection, hardware failure, high availability, microsoft, redundancy, storage area network, storage protection, t-mobile sidekick | 
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Posted by dnfmarketing
October 12, 2009
What does “No Single Point of Failure” (NSPOF) really mean? If you read it at face value, you may conclude that it is the highest level of data protection. There are several ways to achieve NSPOF on your volumes: mirroring ( RAID 1); mirroring and striping (RAID 10 or 0+1); complete subsystem mirroring (RAID51 or RAID61); or host based applications that manage mirroring. With these conventional NSPOF methods, you are only doubling the disk count, and essentially doubling the entire subsystems cost.
With StoneFly’s new RAIDML configuration, you can create NSPOF volumes and purely RAID5 or 6 protected volumes, and do it in a single storage unit or across multiple storage units.
Here is a highlight of the benefits:
- Flexible expansion at RAID and iSCSI volume levels
- Targeted NSPOF iSCSI volume(s) coexist with standard RAID5 and 6 iSCSI volumes
- Auto fail-over and fall-back protection
- No 100% drive count penalty
- Advanced StoneFusion volume management
To learn more, read the RAIDML tech brief.
Interested in a technology demo? Contact our sales team.
Use our new RAID calculator to help choose the RAID level that’s right for you.
Leave a Comment » | IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, backup, iSCSI | Tagged: disk failure, failover protection, file storage, hardware failure, iscsi RAID, mirroring, NSPOF, RAID, RAID 5, RAID 6, raid calculator, RAID storage, RAIDML, storage protection, storage solutions | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
August 24, 2009
The common misconception of solid state drives (SSDs) is that they are unreliable and unable to withstand wear and tear. According to Storage Swiss: Enterprise Flash SSD is reliable now. Check out the full article to get the scoop.
Are you using SSDs for your enterprise storage needs? Our customers are. Our Voyager IP SAN appliance supports SATA, SAS, and SSD. Check out the Voyager to learn more.
Leave a Comment » | 10GbE, IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, backup, datacenter | Tagged: Flash drive, IP SAN, MLC, SLC, solid state disk, solid state drive, SSD, voyager | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
July 29, 2009
Did you know, that in a virtual server environment, the physical servers can be used as disaster recovery servers for noncritical apps? Instead of sitting idle and collecting dust, they can be used for apps not required during a disaster.
Organizations looking to reduce recovery time, remote site costs, and improve ease of implementation, find that server virtualization combined with business continuity solutions, such as replication, is a more cost-effective disaster recovery strategy. Research from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) finds that 26% of organizations are replicating virtual machine images to a remote disaster recovery site, and 39% plan to do so in the future. Check out this article from SearchStorage that describes the benefits of virtual machines for DR.
Here is a quote from Mark Bowker from ESG about virtualization for DR:
“Some people are deploying a single VM on a host for critical and resource-intense apps like Exchange to reap the DR benefits but ensure sufficient resources; the data protection advantages by far outweigh the slight virtualization overhead.”
Want to learn more on using virtual servers and IP SANs for disaster recovery? Check out these resources:
Leave a Comment » | IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, backup, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: business continuity, citrix, disaster recovery, DR plan, server virtualization, storage consolidation, virtual server, virtual server management, virtual servers, vmware, Xen | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
July 21, 2009
Did man walk on the moon? Well if your are looking for original images of the first steps as proof, look again. It was recently discovered that NASA has lost the original footage of the Apollo 11 mission. Rumor has it that NASA was erasing old magnetic tapes and reused them to record satellite data (read the full story). Here is another case for tape backups (and actually keeping them). You would think important footage such as the first moonwalk would be kept under tight wraps– and at least backed up!
Leave a Comment » | DNF Storage, Storage, backup | Tagged: apollo 11, backup, backup and restore, data, data backup, data protection, moonwalk, NASA, tape backup | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
May 15, 2009
Here’s some great advice from the Enterprise Storage Forum on cutting storage costs.
- Try flash or solid state disk. Amazingly enough, with the speedy performance on SSD, it is probably cheaper than adding more memory to your heavy duty database clusters. I’d recommend trying an ISC with SSD, to save money and still have speedy performance.
- Use tiers. You don’t need to keep all of your data on high priced disks. Mix it up. Some data on SAS, some on SSD and some on SATA.
- Use SATA as much as possible. See the tip above. I bet 65% of your data can reside on slower disks. You’ll get more capacity for the money, and have more space to consolidate with.
- Shop around for deals. You shop around for your computers, gadgets and cell phone service. Do the same for your storage. Most vendors sell through the channel, and one of these channels will have a better deal for the same part number. Ask your vendor if they have a trade-in program as well. You might as well get credit for your old, out-of-date systems.
- Consolidate, consolidate, consolidate. It doesn’t make sense to have inidividual arrays for every application server, since as you increase servers, you’ll need twice the hardware. Consolidate over the network with NAS, iSCSI or fibre channel. Less harware = less ongoing maintenence costs.
- Try Windows Single Instance Storage feature. This is a way to dedupe, and make sure you only retain a single copy of each file. (Ahem email attachments to your team.)
- Lease equipment. Leasing is a great way to reduce capital expenditures and keep you from dealing with outdated equipment all the time. Try it. We all know how Moore’s law works: next year your system will be outdated.
- Go open-source. Have you used Amanda? It is a great open-source backup application. Are there other ways for you to leverage opensource? Look around. You might be able to get away with FreeNAS for your developers. No need to spend extra resources on test systems when you don’t need to.
Check out the full article here.
Leave a Comment » | DNF Storage, IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, backup, iSCSI, virtual servers | Tagged: datacenter, server consolidation, SSD, windows, tiered storage, storage consolidation, IT costs, open-source | Permalink
Posted by Jame-Ane Ervin
May 7, 2009
Did you hear about this one? Apparently, somebody hacked into Virginia Department of Health Professions’ website last week, and is holding state medical records for ransom. The claims have not been verified as of yet, but the hacker’s note states that he/she broke into the state-run website and destroyed the original and created an encrypted backup file which would be handed over for $10M. Here’s the note:
“I have your [expletive]. In my possession, right now, are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too. Uhoh 
For $10 million, I will gladly send along the password.”
A spokesperson from the Department claims that a few of the systems have been restored and complete restoration is due soon. If the statement is true, kudos to the IT department for doing what they should (keeping physical backups).
Here’s the full article. We’ll keep you up to date as more information is revealed.
Leave a Comment » | DNF Storage, Storage, backup, datacenter | Tagged: backup, data backup, data corruption, data protection, data security, encryption, hackers, network security, tape backup | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
May 4, 2009
This post is brought to you by the worst pickup line ever.
Prospective customers always ask…
Can I purchase your system without drives? They are available on the open market at a much lower cost.
And I agree. It is always easy to find a low price on hard drives. But what’s the cost of your time? How much time do you spend finding the best deal? And more importantly, how much time do you spend when you have a drive failure getting the replacement part?
From experience, we found it took far too long. And we have relationships with our drive manufacturers. Sometimes we wait 2 weeks for a replacement! I don’t know if you have two weeks to wait. To solve the problem, or at least reduce its impact on you, we created our RAID certification process.With RAID Certified drives, DNF customers experience a 50% lower drive failure rate compare to standard and RAID edition drives.
So my short answer to the prospective customers…
We spend 120 hours testing each drive for you, so you won’t have to waste time replacing one.
1 Comment | DNF Storage, Storage, backup | Tagged: customer, disk drive, drive failure, RAID, raid certification, RAID storage, testing | Permalink
Posted by Jame-Ane Ervin
April 27, 2009
What do you look for when you’re shopping for storage?
We probably all look at price, performance, and reliability, right? But how much time do we spend looking at other factors like total cost of ownership (TCO), security, automation, and compatibility? Probably not as much.
Here are some other things to consider when making your next visit to the enterprise storage aisle:
- Tiered Storage- Save on the cost of drives by moving inactive data to low-cost drives
- Data Security- Think about disk encryption
- Automation- Look for software, hardware, or managed services that allow for a level of automation and streamlined management
- Data Recovery- Look into recovery and retrieval options
- Interoperability- See if the system plays well with others
These are just a few pointers, if you’re looking for more tips, check out this article by Processor on making purchasing decisions.
Leave a Comment » | DNF Storage, Storage, backup, datacenter | Tagged: data protection, data security, management tools, smb storage, soho storage, Storage, storage solutions, tiered storage | Permalink
Posted by Shonal Narayan
March 23, 2009
Are you using Microsoft’s SharePoint for document management? We are, and so is the CIA (the government goes “Web 2.0″). Follow the link below for tips, tricks, and instruction on using SharePoint’s built in tools for backup and recovery!
Keep in mind:
- SharePoint has a built in backup tool, but it doesn’t get all of the data
- Backing up the SQL database that SharePoint is stored in helps, but you need a full version of SQL server
- Store your backups away from the primary SharePoint data repository
- SharePoint backups retain the security info, so make sure that your backup is running from a server that can authenticate via the same method on the same network
This tutorial is really good, and includes screenshots of SharePoint’s backup tools. We’d recommend layering your backup plans and policies by using the built in application tools, as well as advance storage management to keep a complete, and safe backup. Use SAN based replication, and mirroring to complete your plan. Also look for integrated tools, that are application aware, like snapshot agents, to maintain data integrity.
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 backup and disaster recovery tutorial
2 Comments | IP SAN, StoneFly, Storage, backup, iSCSI | Tagged: backup, disaster recovery, document management, sharepoint, sql server, windows, windows server 2003, windows server 2008 | Permalink
Posted by Jame-Ane Ervin
