From the Customer’s Perspective – Handling Explosive Data Growth

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According to the Gartner Group, enterprise IT ‘s biggest challenge today is double-digit data growth. In fact, data is growing in enterprise storage banks at the alarming average of 40% per year, as estimated by IDC. Other industry experts place the number even higher. “Data is growing in enterprise IT departments at 50% per year,” says Tam Dell'Oro, founder and president of Dell'Oro Group, a research and consulting firm.

While this is going on, the storage hardware industry giants continue to claim that the best way to deal with this issue is to keep purchasing more and more expensive Storage Area Network (SAN) arrays. This is like a car dealer telling a customer that if they can’t fit enough stuff in their recently purchased car, to just buy another of the exact same car to help carry all the stuff around.

 

In addition, this solution no longer resonates with IT departments because:

 

  • They are already spending a very high percentage of their total IT budget on SAN storage

  • Too many of them have contracted a severe case of “Storage Paranoia”, i.e. they know they will run out of storage at some point, but don’t know exactly when

  • They are also experiencing “Storage Catch 22” - How do you know exactly how much new SAN capacity to buy ? If you buy too little, you run out and have a storage crisis on your hands. If you buy too much, you are accused of wasting resources and budget dollars. Either way, it’s a losing proposition for the IT person in charge

 

Infinity Pharmaceuticals, a rapidly growing drug development company, found themselves in this exact situation. “Our amount of data is growing at a remarkably rapid pace,” says Zac Saunderson, Network Engineer at Infinity Pharmaceuticals. “In our industry, we produce data at an even greater rate as we get closer to releasing product lines.” In the past, Infinity primarily stored its data on a SAN in its datacenter and it also stored some data locally on file servers. Keeping up with the demands of high data growth was sapping the time and resources of their entire IT staff. As a result, they decided to take a fresh look at their IT infrastructure to discover if there were new technologies available which could help them operate more efficiently. What they found was hybrid cloud storage from StorSimple.

 

In 2011, Infinity decided to start using cloud technologies—specifically Microsoft Azure—for several business functions. As part of the move to the cloud, the company adopted StorSimple hybrid cloud storage. By storing infrequently accessed data in the cloud, Infinity was able to greatly reduce the amount of data that needed to be stored on their SANs, freeing up SAN space for other important IT projects. Also, StorSimple combines local enterprise storage with Azure for cloud economies and DR to reduce overall cost and complexity of traditional storage and data protection. In 2014, Infinity took part in an early adopter program for the latest generation of the solution, the StorSimple 8000 series hybrid cloud storage arrays. “We believe that there’s nothing else in the market that’s as easy to use with as much control as StorSimple,” says Saunderson. “We’re continually finding new ways to use our StorSimple devices.” One key result of the test Saunderson said was, “We don’t have to deal with tapes, augment our SAN, or seek outside help with storage management, so we estimate we will save about $65,000 in just the first year of using StorSimple. It’s heartening to have such a reliable, complementary way to control data growth and keep storage costs from skyrocketing.”

 

Other StorSimple customers have experienced similar results in the battle against runaway data growth. MedPlast, a rapidly growing medical device manufacturer, was suffering from acute data growth symptoms. In June 2011, MedPlast switched its data-storage environment to StorSimple hybrid cloud storage. “The concept of essentially bottomless data storage was very appealing to us,” says MedPlast IT Director, Dan Streufert. With StorSimple, MedPlast can use three tiers of storage for different classes of data: solid state disks for the most frequently accessed data; hard disk drives for less frequently accessed data; and cloud storage for inactive data and off-site data protection. After a few settings are chosen by MedPlast , StorSimple automatically tiers data to the selected locations without their IT staff having to worry about it.

 

The company began an upgrade of its data-storage environment in August 2013 by participating in a technology adoption program for the new Microsoft Azure StorSimple 8000 Series hybrid storage arrays.

“We were very interested in this new version of StorSimple because of its tight integration with Microsoft Azure,” says Streufert. “We found the combination of a new centralized management portal, enhanced alerting features, automated archiving, and new virtual appliances very compelling.”

 

MedPlast uses StorSimple to store almost 95 percent of its data, including all of its departmental databases. The company uses deduplication and compression features in StorSimple to help minimize storage consumption. And by using the cloud snapshot feature to automate off-site data protection, Streufert’s IT team eliminated the need to manage tape backups and streamlined their disaster recovery program. “When we store databases on a StorSimple array, we can snapshot it to the Microsoft Azure cloud and simplify the backup and recovery procedures for those databases,” says Streufert.

 

 

Walbridge, a large global construction company, first heard about StorSimple hybrid cloud storage while attending a Microsoft regional seminar on new cloud technologies and unique solutions for enterprise storage. Microsoft recommended the StorSimple hybrid cloud storage solution to solve the company’s storage problems. After comparing this advanced solution to more conventional storage arrays, the company was convinced that StorSimple was the way to go. 

 

As AVP of Information Technology, Cynthia Weaver, puts it, “We needed to find a cost-effective new technology that could help us cope with the explosive data growth that we are experiencing. Storage space that used to last us 5 years now only lasts for 3 years. With StorSimple and Windows Azure hybrid cloud storage, we found exactly what we were looking for.” The Windows Azure/StorSimple solution has saved Walbridge 65% in overall storage costs over the SAN alternative and has turned out to be a much more efficient and cost effective way to handle the company’s massive data growth. 

 

After deploying the StorSimple solution, Walbridge’s backup and restore functions are 50% faster than before and the administrative overhead of data protection has been cut in half. It also provides a much faster way to recover deleted files. For example, to recover a lost file, all that is needed is the date and time the file was deleted and the file is restored in under 2 minutes, compared to 3 days using the old tape system. In addition, individual database restore times have dropped by 80%. 

 

Clearly, there now does exist a much more efficient and cost effective way to handle run away data growth in the enterprise.