To add insult to injury, you are running out of space on your file servers or NetApp or Celerra, and you need to buy more disk shelves and hard drives. Wait, isn’t that array coming off warranty and now you have to pay $20,000 for the next YEAR? Someone just called and said the Windows file server that the corporate office uses is giving a warning that it is about to run out of space, but there is no downtime allowed and DON’T ARCHIVE ANYTHING. Did we forget to mention that you haven’t finished a full backup on time in a month? And budget numbers are due in the next two weeks.

What if you could find a solution to help you get rid of the clutter and junk, reducing the use of your storage by 50%, and without the end users even being aware that their old data is now on a SATA array stuffed with 1 TB drives?

What if you could now complete your backups with hours to spare?

What if you could finally prove that Marketing has been storing multiple copies of those huge PowerPoint presentations with wanton disregard for the impact on overall storage utilization?

What if you could put off the storage expansion indefinitely?

What if you could migrate the data off of that old array without any downtime, and push that boat anchor out to the loading dock and save $20,000 in your budget?

What if?

It will only get worse. According to IDC, way back in 2005, average growth rate of corporate data was 60% annually. If you need 10 TB today, you will need 16 TB next year unless you take action. Your storage services model will NOT BE SUSTAINABLE without a new way of looking at managing storage.

File System Virtualization

You may have virtualized your servers and virtualized your storage. Now the time has come to tackle the messiest and biggest storage problem of all: cluttered, congested, sprawling file storage systems. All of the scenarios I described above are based on real life situations, with real GreenPages customers. The common thing they all share is that file system virtualization can help them with files (lots and lots of them) being served to their end users via Windows Shares (CIFS) or NFS exports, on Windows, Linux, Unix, NetApp or EMC Celerra file servers. (Sorry, Mac and Novell users, we have to talk to you separately…)

What does “File System Virtualization” mean? It means that you separate the physical location of your files from the means to access them. Put in place a proxy to file systems, without disruption to your business. No agents, no forklift upgrades, no sweeping changes of your client drive mappings. This can be done at network speeds: the end user requests a file from his home directory, sending the request to the proxy appliance, which has mapped out the location of all of the files on every filer and server in the network. The request is terminated and a new one is created to fetch the file and return it to the end user, with no one the wiser. This is done largely in hardware, at RAM speeds. No latency.

Take it a step further. You scan those file systems, and move everything that hasn’t been touched or changed in a year off of your expensive/old/overloaded filer to some new inexpensive iSCSI storage (about $2/GB!), and you have freed up 65% of your storage! Back up the stale data once a month, slam shut that big backup window, call your storage vendor and tell them to cancel that order for the new storage array, or better yet, trade in the old Chevy for a new BMW and show off the latest in thin provisioning and built-in storage virtualization features, all without a “maintenance window.”

Now you have a real archive system that reduces the file system utilization without “stubs” or pointers! Migrations for replacing hardware or load balancing take place without the pain of Robocopy or Rsync.

• Logical abstraction of file systems


• Decouples access to files from physical location of files

What Product Can Do All of This? What Is the Solution?

What can do this? F5 Acopia ARX Appliances, in combination with any number of second tier or nearline storage devices that your Friendly Neighborhood GreenPages Storage Architect can recommend.

• Archive to Enterprise Vault FSA? Done.


• Archive to Data Domain? Done.


• (Oh, and this solution REPLICATES your archived data to an undisclosed offsite location.)


• Tier your gluttonous Art Department’s image files to some inexpensive iSCSI storage


• Trade in that old SDLT tape library for a sleek little LTO4 autoloader.

Where to Get Started

GreenPages offers no charge File Virtualization Impact Assessments:

DELIVERABLES

File Server Discovery
GreenPages performs file server discovery by examining specified file servers and collecting detailed configuration parameters.

File System Inventory
GreenPages performs a file system inventory to gain a clear understanding of your storage environment. The file system interrogation gathers information and then creates a file, called an inventory that contains file system details (counts for various file types, ages of files, directory structure, and other file system metadata).

File System Reports
GreenPages provides reports on summary information from a single inventory (Summary), and accumulates and reports on statistics across multiple file systems (Cumulative). In addition, GreenPages will produce a report that shows in detail the storage infrastructure and costs with and without file virtualization, cost savings over time, and the estimated time needed to achieve a 100% ROI.

KEY BENEFITS

Get a detailed look into your file data environment, including which file types are being created, who’s creating them, how quickly they age, and which resources they consume.

Review rich data profiling and powerful reporting in order to identify trends in your file data, create effective file management policies, and make better decisions for your file storage environment.

Receive detailed ROI analysis of the impact of leveraging file virtualization based on the following:

Utilized Storage

• Allocated Storage


• Storage Deployment Schedule


• Required Backup Capacity


• Storage Costs


• Backup Costs


• Power Costs


• Total Costs

For a deeper dive into the benefits of File Virtualization, please review our recent webinar How to Get a Grip on Storage Growth and Reduce Costs.

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