|
Sunny John
Many innovations in the IT industry start as complex and expensive technologies aimed at large enterprises, and then later filter down to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as simplified, cost-reduced packages. Storage or backup technology is no exception to this rule. Big-ticket concepts such as networked storage, tiered storage and fully-automated and fully-integrated backup, restore and archive functions are now available to the SMEs and are being rapidly adopted.
What are the storage requirements of the SME and how do they differ from those of the large enterprise? The three main considerations lie in the area of primary storage performance and expandability, backup and archive function, and staffing costs for installation and maintenance of the data protection system.
Primary Storage
The primary function of the storage system is to reliably store the files and database of the company and allow rapid retrieval by multiple users. For most enterprises, storage choices can be evaluated in terms of availability – that is latency and transfer rate, and cost per megabyte. However, the SME faces a much greater challenge in managing the growth of its storage capacity, which may be rapid but will always be unpredictable. For this reason the SME will look for a storage solution which can start small but can scale easily, with the ability to add storage quickly and easily in small or large modules with minimal disruption to the system while maintaining the same level of accessibility and cost per megabyte. While the large enterprise will plan for a growth in capacity of 20-50 percent per annum, the SME must plan for a growth from 0 percent to 200 percent or more per annum.
Backup and Archive
Backup is an essential, integral part of any storage architecture and must be planned and rolled out at the same time as the primary storage. It must also meet the same criteria for cost, performance, reliability and expandability as the primary storage.
Backup covers two major functions, the ability to restore the files and database of the company in the case of catastrophic failure of the primary storage and the ability to make copies of essential data for infrequent access for business, regulatory or legal reasons. The usual reasons considered for failure are "earthquake, fire and flood" but in fact the more likely reasons are equipment failure, software failure, viruses and worms, human error and deliberate sabotage. SMEs are more vunerable to human error and sabotage since equipment is often in an open office environment and is maintained by inexperienced staff.
The archive function sometimes uses the same tape drive as the backup function but recently the trend in companies large and small has been to make frequent backup copies to a separate backup disk device allowing rapid
disk-speed backup and restore, and to use tapes only for archival purposes.
It will also be prudent to move backup and archived information on tapes to an offsite remote location to safeguard against local disasters.
Manpower
The third area of consideration is the area of staffing costs, which is a particularly difficult area for SMEs. For an organization of 100 people or so it is difficult to justify more than one full-time IT employee. A larger organization can have the luxury of having IT staff to manage, and even on-call staff available. For the SME operating 24/7 the worst nightmare is a catastrophic failure requiring restore from backup in the middle of the night or at a weekend when the only IT person is away. Therefore a backup and restore which is fully automated without requiring the presence of skilled staff can improve performance and security and bring down costs in this area.
For the SME the functions of the storage system may best be summarized by the mantra: store-retrieve-backup- restore-archive. Attention should be given to the ability of the storage system to scale easily from very small capacity to very large, with storage increments added easily. It is always better and cheaper to buy and install storage as it is required rather than in advance since prices are always on the downward trend, and performance always improves. The backup and restore architecture must be laid down at the same time as the primary storage and it must also be reliable and scaleable.
The author is the country manager for India, Quantum
|