No Quick Fixes

Hal Glatzer's reader response ("CTR Renders the Whole Storage Picture, " page 6, April 2001) was slightly off the target for what we now assume is an ex-subscriber.

In a few ways the reader is correct-assuming you are a hard drive manufacturer-- because the no-brainer solution for him or her and the billions of people who think similarly is to think of storage on a single plane as JBOD (just a bunch of drives). These individuals are addicts that exist in practically every corporation around the globe. They satisfy their addiction in IT departments, in network work-- groups and on individual desktop and mobile systems.

Two items amaze me:

* that HD manufacturers can continue to make higher capacity, faster drives at lower cost so that "just another HD fix will solve my need."

* few publications-okay CTR and SMS are slight exceptions-really work to carry out intervention for these addicts to get them off the "dime a dozen" (ex-subscriber's quote) habit.

The faster, cheaper, bigger hard drive is the nickel bag of the user community. It is not isolated. It is pervasive. And with Internet downloads, image-enhanced documents, video and longer retention requirements; the addiction is getting worse, not better.

Unfortunately there are no quick fixes or fast, easy cures for the addiction. NAS and SAN RAID, RAID-enabled optical and, yes, even tape libraries can bring the addiction under control. But as Glatzer points out in his response, the cure isn't fast, isn't easy and let's admit it-is a long, hard, sometimes ugly road.

Much as we like to picture the solutions as plug-and-play, slam-dunk solutions, they aren't.

They require "doctors and sometimes specialists" to help diagnose and recommend a long-term mixed environment solution for the organization's and individual's storage requirements. They require outstanding, bulletproof and easy-- to-use/manage software (usual-- ly from multiple suppliers). They require a mixture of hardware such as some of today's new RAID and DVD-RAM 100+TB library solutions that are either NAS, SAN or combination NAS/SAN attached. They require a new discipline in the way the managers think and work.

We all have this expectation of instant gratification of getting any document, video file or bit of data from anywhere in the globe and from any time in the distant past immediately on our screen. All data today is valuable. But some data is more valuable than other. Files that are constantly used-those created and used during a 30-- day period-need to be accessed from the hard drive. However, files that are 30-90 days old can be more economically and realistically accessed in 15 seconds. Files that are 90 days to 3-5 years old can be accessed in 30 seconds to even two minutes.

Productivity is still dramatically improved.

The intelligently developed and implemented mixture desktop HD, server RAID, DVD-RAM libraries and possibly tape delivers the answer with the right balance of price/performance.

But unfortunately the siren song of the quick fix of dime a dozen HD is too strong for most IT or department managers and users to resist. That nickel bag HD feels too good when you have another 40-80GB of capacity to use.

We are well into the petabyte era. In the near future, notebook computers will come standard with 100+GB HDs, desktop system users will demand Seagate's new 180GB HD. Server managers will "demand" 20 drive RAID systems that will give them terabytes of online, instant access storage.

Fortunately there are specialists now addressing the problem. Hardware/software producers are joining forces to deliver HD RAID/DVD-- RAM and software managed solutions. Very reputable system integrators and VARs are helping customers develop, implement and manage long term solutions that will get large and small organizations back into a healthy, productive environment. Brave IS and storage managers that want to get off the HD upgrade treadmill are getting cured and telling JBOD addicts that life can be better if storage is intelligently developed and managed.

You can't blame the ex-- subscriber for thinking one more nickel bag of hard drive will solve his or her problems. Addictions alter rationale, logical thinking. Fortunately, there are tens of thousands recovering dime-adozen HD addicts leading fairly normal lives once again. They can go home at a reasonable hour and be with the family and sleep soundly without having to think about their next HD upgrade.

Hardware/software producers, SIs and VARs and CTR and SMS need to focus on the 10 or 100 that have taken the cure who want and need the cure not the one they didn't rescue. Our war on drugs hasn't solved our country's problems but early education will.

See, there is a place for CTR and SMS.

Andy Marken

Marken Communications

The Empty Buzzword

I really enjoyed Mark and Hal's column in the June 2001 issue ("Storage-Virtual And Otherwise," page 10) I personally know Paul Massiglia (as I assume both Mark and Hal do, as well) and I was especially pleased by your mild teasing of his comments. I've worked with him on the SNIA education committee and all I can say is, I now work on the membership committee.

On the question of tape, I agree with you that tape is cheap and reliable. The solutions being presented lately are too expensive and turn out to be really picky on when they want to work.

You use the joke on `buzz-- words' often. I've found that the approach many take on storage, because they have very little real knowledge, is the `Emperor's New Clothes' approach. They imagine that if they use the highend words and spin yards of buzzword trash, that you'll actually walk away thinking you're clothed with knowledge, when in reality you've been given the marketing hype. I'd love to see an article about buzzwords like "heterogeneous" and "ubiquitous" and how ridiculous most people sound when using them without knowing the real meaning behind them. Thanks again for your articles. I enjoy them.

Peter Bruzzese

Educational Services

CommVault Systems

Sounding Off On Tape

I'm writing in response to Hal Glatzer's request to hear from readers about tape storage ("Storage-Virtual And Otherwise, " page 10, June 2001).

I believe that tape storage is going to be around for a while; don't understand it, but that is what I believe. It is going to die out eventually if the vendors don't make an effort to increase the speeds of the tapes. If you are dumping data on your network to be backed up at 2GB, and the drives won't or can't handle it, then another solution needs to be considered.

Here at the Census Bureau in Washington D.C. we currently have over 100TB of active disk storage (just on Compaq); when you count IBM, Sun, etc., it is probably closer to 20OTB. A conservative estimate with the end-of-- year purchases, there will probably be a 50% increase which brings us to 300TB.

When you look at the benchmark speeds of tape drives, they just can't handle this amount of data. With the prices of disk storage continuing to drop, why would I want to go with tape? Now add in the speed of being able to do restores/backups on a 2GB net from disk ... it's a no-brainer.

Now consider the "active snapshot" the SAN solution providers have come up with (Compaq, Sun, Brocade, etc.), which allows me to have exact copies of my DBs every couple of hours...

As Dennis Miller says, "I don't want to go off on a rant, BUT..."

Jim Maus

Configuration, Performance, and SAN Specialist

Bureau of the Census