Backup to Disk: Why Hardware Matters for Reliability, Performance and Uptime
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Tony Asaro, Founder of the INI Group, and Mason Swenson, Nexsan E-Series Product Manager, delve into why purpose-built hardware matters. From reliability to density and onward to application versatility, they'll be covering the gamut as to how you can get the best results from backing up to disk.
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Backup to Disk: Why Hardware Matters for Reliability, Performance and Uptime
- 1. Backup to Disk: Why Hardware Matters Tony Asaro and Mason Swenson – March 2015
- 2. B2D: Why Hardware Matters Reliability Performance Density Power and Cooling Backup Software Ecosystem Support Application Versatility 2
- 3. Key Drivers to Minimize Downtime 3 Source: Availability Report 2014 Veeam
- 4. Difference Between Actual and Desired RTO 4 Source: Availability Report 2014 Veeam
- 5. Difference Between Actual and Desired RPO 5 Source: Availability Report 2014 Veeam
- 6. Number of Annual Unplanned App Downtime Incidents 6 Source: Availability Report 2014 Veeam
- 7. Duration of Unplanned Downtime (hours) 7 Source: Availability Report 2014 Veeam
- 9. Hardware Matters - Embedded Stress Test Stress test focused on inner cylinders… …and outer cylinders Statistical analysis of performance and servo characteristics… + + Exceptional field reliability! = + NEXSAN .3% HGST .6% INDUSTRY 1 - 4% #1 Industry complaint by end-users on most storage systems? DRIVE FAILURE RATE 9
- 10. Hardware Matters – Anti Vibration Design Anti-vibration Design Drives are coupled together Mount drives counter-rotating Thick plates in chassis eliminate vibrations 10
- 11. Hardware Matters – Cool Drive Technology Cool Drive Technology™ Optimizes air flow and component cooling Increases product reliability by reducing component temperatures Push & pull fans ensures adequate cooling even if a fan fails Variable speed fans with temperature sensors • Anti-vibration mounted 11
- 12. Hardware Matters - Availability Dual Active/Active controllers All ports can access all LUNs Multi-path I/O Hot-swappable Battery-backed cache Active Drawer Technology™ No system downtime - Allows for easy, hot- swappable drive management Drives remain active when drawer is open Increased reliability and reduced external wire management 12
- 13. Hardware Matters - AutoMAID ® 13 Easy to configure and very customizable Green, without sacrificing performance when you need it. Use less electricity. Require less cooling. Improve reliability. Up to 87% saving on Power & Cooling No restrictions – 100% duty cycle fully supported!
- 16. Why Hardware Matters Ensure data integrity and recoverability Overcome RTO and RPO gaps Price/Performance/Density Total cost of ownership Backup Software Ecosystem Support Application Versatility 16
Editor's Notes
- We are going to cover a number of reasons why purpose-built hardware matters with backup to disk. At a high level these are the main areas that are impacted. We will delved into each. The first four bullets are pretty self-explanatory – what I mean by backup software ecosystem support is that you want to make sure the storage you are working with has been qualified and optimized to work with whatever backup software solution you are using. This is to ensure that you get the best results for backup and recovery purposes. Application versatility means being able to use the storage system as not only a backup target but for other purposes as well – such as primary storage. There are some purpose-built storage appliances built for backup but you arguably can get more bang for your buck if you leverage a storage system that can be used for numerous purposes. Mason – in your experience what are the main reasons why customers use purpose-built storage for backup to disk?
- There is a comprehensive research report provided by Veaam that provides some interesting data. Companies have been backing up data for as long as we’ve had computer systems. But what has changed? There is greater demand on business now to maintain uptime – therefore we need systems that can keep up with these demands. Business requirements demand more out of our IT infrastructure. As this chart indicates customers, partners, suppliers need more real-time access to data than ever before. Globalization has thrown out the notion of a peak times for business but now run on a nearly 24 hour clock. Mobility and remote access impact data. Users growing intolerance and high expectations to zero downtime and data access is increasing. And of course the relentless growth of data puts more stress on our IT systems. Therefore – arguably commodity hardware seems to be the wrong way to go given the increasing demands of the ecosystem. Mason – in what way are any of these drivers addressed by commodity systems? Certainly commodity systems are getting more reliable, faster, etc…but the question is whether it is keeping up with the rate of demand of today’s world. It is hard to address specific environments when you are built for general applications. One could argue cost is the advantage of commodity but that isn’t a driver according to this research. Additionally price is not synonymous with cost. We will discuss total cost of ownership and there are great advantage to purpose-built storage systems.
- This chart shows the difference between actual recovery time objectives and desired recovery time objectives. It takes a multi-national view. On average the actual RTO is 2.86 hours and the desired RTO is 1.73 hours. That is a delta of over an hour! This means that we must find some way to improve performance for recovery times. And not by just a little bit – by over an hour. Mason – when you are talking to customers – is one of their main problems improving RTO?
- This chart shows the difference between Recovery Point Objectives – Actual versus Desired. In this case the difference is nearly 2 hours on average. So here are faced with a situation where we need to recovery data faster, we need more granular recovery points and these demands will probably continue to increase versus lessening. How do we get ahead and stay ahead of business demand?
- The research discussed unplanned downtime - this is an outage of some sort. On average, organizations encounter unplanned downtime 13 times per year. Consider the cost of that unplanned downtime – direct and indirect costs. These could easily exceed any money you spend on IT infrastructure that would otherwise provide greater levels of resiliency. Mason – what is the uptime rating for the Nexsan E-Series? We will go into greater detail but I wanted to bring that up since we discussing downtime.
- It is important to note that unplanned downtime isn’t measure in seconds or minutes but in hours. The price of downtime varies – different research show that it can cost companies from thousands to multiple millions of dollars. But it also has an indirect cost impact – customer satisfaction – business efficiency – market perception. How do you put a value on that?
- Let’s get into the specifics of the Nexsan E-Series. Mason – give us a quick overview of the Nexsan E-Series. It supports iSCSI and FC… What is the minimum and maximum amount of capacity? How fast is it – what are the performance metrics? How fast can it perform backups? How fast are recoveries?
- So lets talk about stress testing. Spinning disk drives are mechanical devices and therefore are relatively prone to failure more than other components within a storage system. However, Nexsan actually has a reputation of disk reliability that exceeds the industry norms. Tell us how you achieve that. This matters a great deal in the context of backup to disk – this ensures that you can recover data more reliably.
- Anti-vibration is very important especially as data grows driving the demand for denser storage systems – which means that disk drives have to be housed closer together. Therefore anti-vibration results in greater data integrity – does it not? Mason – discuss Nexsan Anti-vibration technology.
- Again – another aspect to hardware design that is not often considered. But keep components cool is essential to data integrity. Discuss how the E-Series has gone in the extra mile in this regard.
- We discussed earlier the need to eliminate the gap of RPO and RTO and reduce unplanned downtime. The E-Series has addressed availability in a number of ways. Mason – walk us through this.
- So let’s discuss AutoMaid – this includes the slowing down, shutting down and powering down disk drives when not in use. It is extremely practical for backup to disk – let’s discuss Nexsan AutoMaid.
- Mason – review for us the different AutoMAID levels. Which are the most often used by customers today?
- AutoMAID saves money in a number of ways. One way is just in power savings. This chart indicates tens of thousands of dollars in cost savings. And there are other ways that AutoMAID saves money including increasing the longevity of disk drives and improving reliability and data integrity as well.