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What does a “complete” data storage solution consist of?
My company is going to have to overhaul their storage processes in the next year, and I’m trying to get a handle on what makes a “complete” storage solution (boss’s term, not mine). Obviously there is software and some sort of disk hardware involved, but what about tape drives and encryption services? Are NAS systems necessary? In this day and age, is it smartest to store your data offsite in a secure datacenter, or do most companies keep it on site? We’ve got an 85 person company. Currently all of our data is stored on-site, but we’re growing very rapidly and so the concept of off-site storage is very appealing to us.
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2 Answers
Hi Ralph. I think that what your boss means by "complete" data storage solution (for an 85 person company) is something like a NAS device that provides basic RAID disk failure protection and snapshot-based replication technology. If you use any sort of replication technology you will need both source & target storage devices and therefore will be storing at two different locations.
The are several vendor's that supply NAS. I have worked with NetWork Appliance NAS; it is very full featured, has an easy to use GUI, somewhat limited CLI (pretty unix-like) and great support.
Sun Microsystems has some new ZFS-based NAS devices that appear to be great. Sun has great support as well
None of the above products offer traditional "tape backup", so that would involve a backup vendor. I work with Veritas NetBackup, but depending on your needs (how much data, what kind of "special applications" such as Exchange do you need to protect, etc) there may be less complex solutions.
If you choose NAS, and are growing, it would be wise to choose a backup product that has great options to back-up your NAS device (such as OST & NDMP). Making a choice like this would be another attribute of a "complete" data storage solution; the products may not be from the same vendor, but each vendor has tested and supports the other's product (as documented in their product compatibility guides).
Ralph, your storage solution should support your storage strategy. If you haven't defined your strategy then do that first. Do you have disk quotas on file servers? If not, what is your data growth rate? Do you have group shares? Do you have database applications that require SAN storage?
What's your Backup/Archive Strategy? Will you backup everything or just critical applications. Will you archive everything to Tape or just critical data? Will you backup to disk and then archive to tape? What are your recovery time requirements?
What are your critical application requirements? Do they require clustered disks?
You've got to nail down a strategy for how your company will manage data in the future and then you can create a "complete data storage solution". Depending on your storage strategy your "complete solution" may include any or all of the following, NAS, SAN, Clustering, Virtual Disk and Virtual Tape.
If you need help getting your arms around this don't hesitate to give me a call.
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