B. Stephen Brunner's IT Storage Blog

How I Slashed Backups by 50% (costs) and 90%+ (FTE hours)

So by now, you are thinking I have to be some kind of hero... but not really.  It really is very simple if you can do some basic math, and invest a little time doing some research on your data with me (I'd say maybe 5 hours or so total, this includes the team meetings).  Many of my colleagues (partners and competitors) keep asking me how and why has my company at large and locally done so well despite the recent events in the economy.

The answer is really simple.  EMC (especially me) is all about making you more money, slashing costs, and eliminating unnecessary expenses.  There are a TON of solutions that can do that, but I would say the crowd favorite is by far NEXT GENERATION BACKUP and RECOVERY.

In this article I will explain

• Why data deduplication is important.
• The various methods (we help you choose the best fit for you, with a scientific and financial approach)
• A local customer profile
• Customer quotes sent to me in emails this past 6 months

Data deduplication is important because it save you money.  You can slash your existing budget, and use it for more important things.  You can reduce the mass storage footprint in your data center.  And best of all, its really easy to use -because it basically manages itself.

Next Generation Backup and Recovery is data-deduplication.  What’s great is the fact, that EMC has had the very first presence in the market with all the industry standards first.  So be sure when you are speaking with someone about their “features” …understand, they are selling you their product that has only one way of doing it.

When considering which data-deduplication methods (or mixture of methods) are best for your environment, trust only those who help you determine which method is best.  Not just the one that they sell.  At EMC, we actually can de-duplicate structured data, unstructured data, and object based (single instance at the file level)… AND show you how and why a specific solution will work by scientifically studying your actual data in advance.

Here is a local medium to small sized health care customer profile & how we slashed their IT costs with a awesome solution.  We did this...

Cloud Computing. How can that affect the SMB? The Enterprise?

Here’s an example. You are a traveling executive for your company.  Or perhaps you are a Customer Support Professional for your company’s call center. What happens when your laptop or PC crashes? What about if it’s stolen, smashed at the airport… you get the point.

Enters a nice solution to extend the reliability of your datacenter. Mozy. Mozy is a secure industry compliant remote backup solution for roaming users.  Originally the brainchild of Berkeley Data Systems, is a great solution to fast, consistent, secure backups.  One of my customers, had an executive lose a lot of files from a virus.  His laptop was useless, and all of his priceless power points and spreadsheets that had not been uploaded to his company server. Needless to say, the next time we talked –his IT decision makers had heard about Mozy, and now 20 of the most influential traveling employees use Mozy to protect them on the road. It’s a very low cost (typically less than an anti-virus single process license …and works off a subscription plan).

It’s great because a restore can happen anywhere in the world, that you have an Internet connection. It’s very simple to use. It protects servers too. Perfect for those remote offices, where limited or no IT presence keeps you worried at night.  Read more about cloud computing here. Email me, if you have any questions about other ways people are using Mozy or similar products.  There is a consumer version (can be free) -and an enterprise / commercial version with many more features.

Deduplication -What is it? The value, and the three methods...

What is de-duplication? It is a given that the current rate of data growth & state of the storage of today's data, every data center suffers the same challenge of redundant data existing across multiple platforms and locations within the organization.  For example, think about the Q2 spreadsheet sent out by "Bob" from Accounting.  It was approximately 5 MB in size.  That same spreadsheet was received by over 100 employees.  Each employee potentially saved it to their personal network drive for future reference.  This set of data now exists in over 100 places -consuming 500 MB of space (1/2 a Gig).  Then, the network drives are backed up.  Not just once, but multiple times.  At a minimum of 4 times a week (2 Gig of consumed storage space across disk and tape usually), assuming no one made any changes, if there was a change to any of the files, these updates would require the file to be backed up even more.  Therefore, in one month from the day "Bob" sent this very helpful spreadsheet out to his employees, the organization's IT department now is managing an extra 2 Gig a month.  This is just one file. 

The Value? It's easy to see why this is an important topic to many leaders in IT today.  It is addressed by an industry term commonly referred to as de-duplication.  Covered in two sub categories- 1) Next Generation Backup and- 2) one instance storage (object based storage). 

When it comes to de-duplication of data, IT  leaders must consider two critical things.

#1> Does the manufacturer I am working with offer all types of deduplication methods?  Or will they force me to use their particular feature, instead of the correct method that is appropriate for my datacenter? 

#2> Can my manufacturer offer all three industry stand methods of de-duplication?  Almost every manufacturer offers only one type of de-duplication.  Always ask this question!

I am sure you have seen across the industry that Data De-Duplication is one of the hottest topics in IT today.  As one of your strategic IT partners, I am happy to inform you that EMC has the widest product portfolio in the de-duplication market.  This technology is something we have been leading the charge with for many years.  As the need for better and more cost effective backup/recovery solutions is growing, so is the EMC product portfolio of solutions to address these challenges.  If you are an Illinois or Indiana based company, my job as your dedicated EMC Account Executive is to let you know exactly what best of breed solutions are available to you.  At EMC we are addressing the need for Data De-Duplication in the following THREE ways:

Three Data De-Duplication Methods

Source Based -   ( EMC AVAMAR)

• Vmware environments
• Remote Office Backup
• Large file systems

 

Source-Based Data Sheet

Target Based-     (EMC EDL 3D)

• Database environments
• Unique data
• Leverage existing backup software and processes

Target-Based Data Sheet

Object Based-     (EMC CENTERA)

• Stale and static content
• Purpose built archive
• Compliance and regulatory needs

Object-Based Data Sheet

Please call me with any questions or information requests.  I will follow up ASAP to discuss in more detail -or provide more information.  Thank you.

Regards,

Steve