FalconStor Blog
Our partner, Ptolemy Data Systems, is doing its part to deliver healthcare services to rural areas across the state of Wyoming. Since 2009, the data storage and managed services provider has been connecting Wyoming’s healthcare providers, contributing to the state’s expanding telemedicine efforts.
Recently Ryan Mulholland, CEO and president of Ptolemy Data Systems, told Healthcare IT News’ Jeff Rowe that his company sees itself as a facilitator. Ptolemy houses the technology and works with clinics across Wyoming to make connections. With Ptolemy’s help, the following three programs are leading the state’s telemedicine movement: the converged management application (CMA) video conferencing technology, the prison health services, and the Wyoming Telepsychiatry Project. Ptolemy leverages FalconStor’s storage virtualization and data protection solutions within the Wyoming Telepsychiatry Project, which brings much-needed medical and psychiatric care to isolated communities.
Mulholland tells Rowe that Ptolemy’s work in the telemedicine sector “isn’t about the money” but rather “something we get to do for our community.”
To learn more about Ptolemy Data Systems’ involvement in Wyoming’s telemedicine services, check out the full Healthcare IT News article.
Recently Ryan Mulholland, CEO and president of Ptolemy Data Systems, told Healthcare IT News’ Jeff Rowe that his company sees itself as a facilitator. Ptolemy houses the technology and works with clinics across Wyoming to make connections. With Ptolemy’s help, the following three programs are leading the state’s telemedicine movement: the converged management application (CMA) video conferencing technology, the prison health services, and the Wyoming Telepsychiatry Project. Ptolemy leverages FalconStor’s storage virtualization and data protection solutions within the Wyoming Telepsychiatry Project, which brings much-needed medical and psychiatric care to isolated communities.
Mulholland tells Rowe that Ptolemy’s work in the telemedicine sector “isn’t about the money” but rather “something we get to do for our community.”
To learn more about Ptolemy Data Systems’ involvement in Wyoming’s telemedicine services, check out the full Healthcare IT News article.
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In his recent Computerworld blog, Chris Poelker discusses the ongoing backup war between tape and disk. He highlights the discrepancies between how chief financial officers (CFOs) and IT managers understand backup and disaster recovery (DR). CFOs look to the least expensive method, while IT managers push for the strongest solutions that ensure the smooth operation, recovery and security of the data and applications that keep businesses running. In the end, the CFO tends to win the argument, so it is clear that cost is at the forefront of this decision. Therefore Chris chooses to focus the disk-versus-tape battle on price and performance, rather than on the technical aspects.
In his web research, Chris found that tape tends to be a better option for smaller IT shops, where performance requirements are lower. For those larger organizations with higher performance and capacity requirements, disk-based solutions with deduplication are a better choice. Of course, results can differ due to various vendor prices.
Chris goes on to highlight both sides of the argument, charting the price and performance of the various infrastructures. He makes the case for both tape and disk-based solutions as it relates to the size of the environment. He also goes on to state that tape is not dead, because it can be used for backup in smaller environments or as the archival system for larger environments. To get the full story on the backup debate check out Chris’ post “Tape versus disk: The backup war exposed.”
In his web research, Chris found that tape tends to be a better option for smaller IT shops, where performance requirements are lower. For those larger organizations with higher performance and capacity requirements, disk-based solutions with deduplication are a better choice. Of course, results can differ due to various vendor prices.
Chris goes on to highlight both sides of the argument, charting the price and performance of the various infrastructures. He makes the case for both tape and disk-based solutions as it relates to the size of the environment. He also goes on to state that tape is not dead, because it can be used for backup in smaller environments or as the archival system for larger environments. To get the full story on the backup debate check out Chris’ post “Tape versus disk: The backup war exposed.”
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At Data Center World this year, I was given the honor of speaking on a subject FalconStor knows very well, data center resilience and disaster recovery. As I expected, there was a great turnout. Many of the questions and comments that I received during my session are those that I get everywhere I speak: “Are there any solutions that can help me protect my mixed environment in an automated fashion?” or “I know I need to test my disaster recovery plan, but it’s too difficult.” What this tells me is that FalconStor has the ability to solve a problem that is very common in the data center.
Now my time at Data Center World was not all work. I had the chance to roam the floors and really get to see all that goes into managing and running a data center. I was amazed at companies like No Limit Software, which provide data center management solutions that allow users to find their various servers and other assets in what could be a vast data center. There were vendors like Power Assure that focus on energy management solutions for managed service providers (MSP).
We had visitors to FalconStor’s booth as well. Many MSPs and infrastructure-as-a-service providers took notice of our message focused on data migration. The attendees we talked to liked how FalconStor solutions enable them to offer the ability to migrate their customers’ data into their data center with a minimal amount of effort.
Data Center World is a good conference for FalconStor, because it gives us access to the builders and facilitators of data centers, not just storage and backup administrators. And it was a great opportunity to talk about the wide range of capabilities of FalconStor’s data protection solutions – including storage virtualization, data migration, deduplication and WAN optimization, to name just a few – that help optimize the data center for efficient, continuous operation.
Now my time at Data Center World was not all work. I had the chance to roam the floors and really get to see all that goes into managing and running a data center. I was amazed at companies like No Limit Software, which provide data center management solutions that allow users to find their various servers and other assets in what could be a vast data center. There were vendors like Power Assure that focus on energy management solutions for managed service providers (MSP).
We had visitors to FalconStor’s booth as well. Many MSPs and infrastructure-as-a-service providers took notice of our message focused on data migration. The attendees we talked to liked how FalconStor solutions enable them to offer the ability to migrate their customers’ data into their data center with a minimal amount of effort.
Data Center World is a good conference for FalconStor, because it gives us access to the builders and facilitators of data centers, not just storage and backup administrators. And it was a great opportunity to talk about the wide range of capabilities of FalconStor’s data protection solutions – including storage virtualization, data migration, deduplication and WAN optimization, to name just a few – that help optimize the data center for efficient, continuous operation.
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It’s true… smaller amounts of data are just more manageble, easier to store and deal with. Sometimes it’s not until things hit critical mass that we see the light. To help guide you to the light, we recently teamed up with International Data Group (IDG) Research to conduct a survey about backup and optimizing business data. We polled information technology (IT) managers at compainies of various sizes and from different industries. What we found out was not surprising. The majority of these businesses had already deployed solutions to deal with the expansive rise of digital information. We also saw that companies with the biggest data explosion and relatively deeper pockets have adopted the technology and paved the way for the rest of the market, which is growing rapidly. The other interesting thing was that the majority of respondents had already achieved faster backups, quicker recovery, and improved efficiency all around. Made sense… but why haven’t more people adopted? This is the question that keeps me up at night. See the breakdown in the infographic, or, if you have more time, get the full report.
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As a leading player in the data protection industry, we’ve drawn our share of competitive fire in the form of misinformation designed to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about FalconStor’s technology. In this continuation to the first blog on this topic, I address two more questionable claims our competitors have circulated regarding the FalconStor Continuous Data Protector (CDP) solution.
Competitive claim #3:
FalconStor CDP creates complex disk management issues. For every server protected, an individual journal and snapshot space must be created and sized appropriately. Also, as FalconStor CDP captures every data change, the journal space is particularly subject to growth issues from sudden spikes in application utilization.
Reality:
Once installed, FalconStor CDP automates everything based on the set policies to meet your business requirements. Journal and snapshot space sizing and expansion occur via your original policy. FalconStor CDP also virtualizes any vendor disk into a pool to be shared and automatically expanded. EMC RecoverPoint cannot do this, and NetApp does not offer a true CDP* solution.
Competitive claim #4:
FalconStor CDP creates disk I/O issues as the journal area must be periodically “flushed,” where data is written from the defined journal space down to the snapshot image, impacting system performance. This problem can be negated with NetApp’s Data ONTAP file system as it never moves data blocks.
Reality:
FalconStor CDP version 7 includes technology called SafeCache and HotZone to provide extreme performance even when journaling every I/O operation. The FalconStor CDP journal functions like a FIFO (first in first out) buffer. We provide policy-based administration to automate the flushing process to occur only during low I/O activity periods, thus alleviating any problems. The FalconStor CDP journal will be auto expandable in the next version. We believe the ability to provide zero data loss through continuous protection of every write, even when your application is writing thousands of I/O writes per second (IOPS), is more important than any perceived journal management issues. Consider a banking or stock trading application where billions of dollars can be moved within any single transaction. Snapshots don’t help you when the transaction you need to restore occurred 45 milliseconds ago; what you need is a solution that can recover at the sub second level without losing any data. FalconStor’s solution can. Stay tuned for more blogs in this series, as we continue our efforts to clear up misrepresentations about our suite of data protection solutions.
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*True CDP is achieved when the solution captures all data as it is written to provide recovery to any point in time.
Competitive claim #3:
FalconStor CDP creates complex disk management issues. For every server protected, an individual journal and snapshot space must be created and sized appropriately. Also, as FalconStor CDP captures every data change, the journal space is particularly subject to growth issues from sudden spikes in application utilization.
Reality:
Once installed, FalconStor CDP automates everything based on the set policies to meet your business requirements. Journal and snapshot space sizing and expansion occur via your original policy. FalconStor CDP also virtualizes any vendor disk into a pool to be shared and automatically expanded. EMC RecoverPoint cannot do this, and NetApp does not offer a true CDP* solution.
Competitive claim #4:
FalconStor CDP creates disk I/O issues as the journal area must be periodically “flushed,” where data is written from the defined journal space down to the snapshot image, impacting system performance. This problem can be negated with NetApp’s Data ONTAP file system as it never moves data blocks.
Reality:
FalconStor CDP version 7 includes technology called SafeCache and HotZone to provide extreme performance even when journaling every I/O operation. The FalconStor CDP journal functions like a FIFO (first in first out) buffer. We provide policy-based administration to automate the flushing process to occur only during low I/O activity periods, thus alleviating any problems. The FalconStor CDP journal will be auto expandable in the next version. We believe the ability to provide zero data loss through continuous protection of every write, even when your application is writing thousands of I/O writes per second (IOPS), is more important than any perceived journal management issues. Consider a banking or stock trading application where billions of dollars can be moved within any single transaction. Snapshots don’t help you when the transaction you need to restore occurred 45 milliseconds ago; what you need is a solution that can recover at the sub second level without losing any data. FalconStor’s solution can. Stay tuned for more blogs in this series, as we continue our efforts to clear up misrepresentations about our suite of data protection solutions.
________________________________
*True CDP is achieved when the solution captures all data as it is written to provide recovery to any point in time.
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In Chris Poelker’s latest Computerworld blog post, he explains how to leverage backups for useful information. If you’re a backup guy, you are probably eagerly waiting to learn how. Chris points out that the combination of disk-based backup with data deduplication results in a single source of all of the valuable data in an organization – the perfect source for data mining.
Armed with the right tools, the backup team can analyze all types of useful information that can benefit the organization. In addition, the business value is captivating, since the data is already there and the storage cost has already been paid. The deduplication repository includes a single instance of all the data, as well as an index of what is being stored and how many copies are being backed up.
Chris makes the prediction that data mining may become a standard feature of backup in the near future. This is because there is a strong business use case to mine information from the data that is already being stored. It surely would be a shame to let that data just waste away there until there is a need for a restore.
To learn more about the benefits of using backups as a source for data mining, check out Chris’ full Computerworld post.
Armed with the right tools, the backup team can analyze all types of useful information that can benefit the organization. In addition, the business value is captivating, since the data is already there and the storage cost has already been paid. The deduplication repository includes a single instance of all the data, as well as an index of what is being stored and how many copies are being backed up.
Chris makes the prediction that data mining may become a standard feature of backup in the near future. This is because there is a strong business use case to mine information from the data that is already being stored. It surely would be a shame to let that data just waste away there until there is a need for a restore.
To learn more about the benefits of using backups as a source for data mining, check out Chris’ full Computerworld post.
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It is 2013 Business Continuity Awareness Week. From March 18 to 22 the Business Continuity Institute will raise awareness about the importance of business continuity. Disasters can strike at anytime, whether they stem from natural disasters, human errors or malicious attacks. And with tornado season descending upon us, we want to offer some quick tips to prepare your data center.
Tornado season typically runs from March through May, but tornadoes can occur at anytime. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), about 1,200 tornadoes strike the United States each year. Below are a few simple tips to keep in mind to prepare your data center this tornado season:
Tornado season typically runs from March through May, but tornadoes can occur at anytime. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), about 1,200 tornadoes strike the United States each year. Below are a few simple tips to keep in mind to prepare your data center this tornado season:
- Identify critical servers and resources that need to be available in the event that a tornado wipes out power to the data center.
- Create a disaster recovery response team and ensure that every member knows his/her responsibility for validating the availability of key data center resources.
- Create a scenario response list that outlines the steps to recovery based on the situation, whether it’s power a outage or a server failure.
- Verify and document configurations, including networking, backup, storage and accounts to access all equipment.
- Alert any third-party vendors that may have copies of company data (e.g. offsite tape storage vendors, cloud providers) because that data may need to be sent to the DR site.
- Have a backup plan that provides some automation. Automation is key because manual steps completed by staff often fall victim to human error.
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As a leading player in the data protection industry, we’ve drawn our share of competitive fire in the form of misinformation designed to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about FalconStor’s technology. This is the first of two blogs providing full disclosure on the more outrageous misleading statements regarding the FalconStor Continuous Data Protector (CDP) solution.
Competitive claim #1:
FalconStor CDP provides inconsistent data, which can be a problem when recovering a CDP-based database image, as there is no ability to freeze data and capture a consistent image of an application. The benefit of continuous data protection (CDP) to capture every write is not needed unless the user is a financial institution. Realistically, most users use “near CDP” mode to capture data at regular intervals.
Reality:
FalconStor CDP moves backup from the traditional bulk data movement to a service-oriented data protection model with recovery point objectives (RPO) of zero data loss. This is not true of all so-called CDP products, which fall into two camps:
This level of recovery granularity at the disk level typically negates the need for database agents on the server. The great part is that FalconStor CDP also provides thousands of snapshots in conjunction with true continuous journaling for consistent local and disaster recovery. We also provide intelligent agents when required by the database vendor to create true application-level integrated recovery points, including check-pointing, hot backup mode integration with Oracle, SQL integration, Oracle RMAN integration, and more.
Competitive claim #2:
FalconStor CDP consumes too many storage resources, as data quickly accumulates and each snapshot has to be stored prior to the deduplication process.
Reality:
FalconStor CDP recovery is a natural and more efficient process for database administrators, and it allows for transaction logs to be expanded to any size. FalconStor CDP captures all the data needed to recover a database consistently from any point in time with zero data loss. You can tune it based on your business needs. FalconStor’s MicroScan technology also enables consistent recovery with write-order fidelity for replicated data across locations, while reducing WAN bandwidth requirements by up to 90 percent or more, without the need to dedupe the data. All replicated data stays in its natural state for instant recoverability. MicroScan technology also provides intelligent recovery across slow links, where very large databases can be recovered in seconds by shipping only the required disk sectors needed to make the database whole again. MicroScan technology is patented by FalconStor, so it is not available from any other vendor.
Here at FalconStor, we are tirelessly working on a new generation of data protection solutions. In the meantime, we’ll be clearing up the FUD around our suite of data protection solutions in a series of blogs. In part two of this blog, I will address two more competitive claims about FalconStor CDP that are dead wrong. Stay tuned.
Competitive claim #1:
FalconStor CDP provides inconsistent data, which can be a problem when recovering a CDP-based database image, as there is no ability to freeze data and capture a consistent image of an application. The benefit of continuous data protection (CDP) to capture every write is not needed unless the user is a financial institution. Realistically, most users use “near CDP” mode to capture data at regular intervals.
Reality:
FalconStor CDP moves backup from the traditional bulk data movement to a service-oriented data protection model with recovery point objectives (RPO) of zero data loss. This is not true of all so-called CDP products, which fall into two camps:
- Near CDP (EMC RecoverPoint, etc.): The solution captures data in near real-time and provides multiple recovery points in time.
- True CDP (FalconStor CDP): The solution captures ALL data as it is written to provide recovery to ANY point in time.
This level of recovery granularity at the disk level typically negates the need for database agents on the server. The great part is that FalconStor CDP also provides thousands of snapshots in conjunction with true continuous journaling for consistent local and disaster recovery. We also provide intelligent agents when required by the database vendor to create true application-level integrated recovery points, including check-pointing, hot backup mode integration with Oracle, SQL integration, Oracle RMAN integration, and more.
Competitive claim #2:
FalconStor CDP consumes too many storage resources, as data quickly accumulates and each snapshot has to be stored prior to the deduplication process.
Reality:
FalconStor CDP recovery is a natural and more efficient process for database administrators, and it allows for transaction logs to be expanded to any size. FalconStor CDP captures all the data needed to recover a database consistently from any point in time with zero data loss. You can tune it based on your business needs. FalconStor’s MicroScan technology also enables consistent recovery with write-order fidelity for replicated data across locations, while reducing WAN bandwidth requirements by up to 90 percent or more, without the need to dedupe the data. All replicated data stays in its natural state for instant recoverability. MicroScan technology also provides intelligent recovery across slow links, where very large databases can be recovered in seconds by shipping only the required disk sectors needed to make the database whole again. MicroScan technology is patented by FalconStor, so it is not available from any other vendor.
Here at FalconStor, we are tirelessly working on a new generation of data protection solutions. In the meantime, we’ll be clearing up the FUD around our suite of data protection solutions in a series of blogs. In part two of this blog, I will address two more competitive claims about FalconStor CDP that are dead wrong. Stay tuned.
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As we near the end of the first quarter of 2013, we see a few strong trends taking hold in the way small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) approach storage and data recovery (DR). Here, we detail the top eight:
1. Storage arrays and solid-state disk (SSD) are growing in popularity. We’re seeing more hybrid combinations of SSD and conventional disks as users embrace the dramatic performance benefits SSD delivers for backup appliances.
2. End users are adopting storage virtualization. The motivation for this trend has everything to do with efficiency. SMBs are seeking better ways to maximize their existing storage assets and repurpose them for backup and disaster recovery needs.
3. Fibre Channel (FC) drives are beginning to disappear. With the broad adoption of 6 Gbps SAS drives, expensive FC drives are being replaced with SAS and SATA disks. And 4Gb and 8Gb FC is being replaced by 16Gb FC, skipping over 10Gb altogether.
4. Storage area networks (SAN) are going the way of FC. The use of SANs is on the downturn, as more and more companies switch to integrated modular building blocks for the data center. Storage is becoming another part of the stack with access via a converged network (although whether that network will eventually rely on FCoE or IP is still anyone’s guess).
5. The definition of an SMB is getting murkier. Should we define an SMB by its number of employees or the amount of data it stores? Today, a business might have only a few staffers but hundreds of terabytes or many petabytes of data in one or more locations. SMB technologies need to reflect the variety of definitions for this category of company.
6. SMBs want customized solutions. SMB IT leaders want more choices based on their needs, not on unyielding product specs. They’re demanding intelligent solutions that offer the most sought-after data protection and recovery capabilities – in a package that makes sense for their businesses.
7. Automated recovery is becoming a priority. It used to be only the enterprise organization seeking technology that could fully automate their recovery needs, but that is no longer the case. SMBs are exploring storage solutions that allow them to failover their workloads as part of a disaster recovery scenario.
8. Flexibility is king (and vendor lock-in is history). SMBs are turning to solution providers that can work with the heterogeneous storage, data protection and system recovery technologies in their data centers and can accommodate multiple connectivity protocols.
Storage and data protection vendors and solution providers should keep these trends in mind as they develop solutions and services for the SMB market.
1. Storage arrays and solid-state disk (SSD) are growing in popularity. We’re seeing more hybrid combinations of SSD and conventional disks as users embrace the dramatic performance benefits SSD delivers for backup appliances.
2. End users are adopting storage virtualization. The motivation for this trend has everything to do with efficiency. SMBs are seeking better ways to maximize their existing storage assets and repurpose them for backup and disaster recovery needs.
3. Fibre Channel (FC) drives are beginning to disappear. With the broad adoption of 6 Gbps SAS drives, expensive FC drives are being replaced with SAS and SATA disks. And 4Gb and 8Gb FC is being replaced by 16Gb FC, skipping over 10Gb altogether.
4. Storage area networks (SAN) are going the way of FC. The use of SANs is on the downturn, as more and more companies switch to integrated modular building blocks for the data center. Storage is becoming another part of the stack with access via a converged network (although whether that network will eventually rely on FCoE or IP is still anyone’s guess).
5. The definition of an SMB is getting murkier. Should we define an SMB by its number of employees or the amount of data it stores? Today, a business might have only a few staffers but hundreds of terabytes or many petabytes of data in one or more locations. SMB technologies need to reflect the variety of definitions for this category of company.
6. SMBs want customized solutions. SMB IT leaders want more choices based on their needs, not on unyielding product specs. They’re demanding intelligent solutions that offer the most sought-after data protection and recovery capabilities – in a package that makes sense for their businesses.
7. Automated recovery is becoming a priority. It used to be only the enterprise organization seeking technology that could fully automate their recovery needs, but that is no longer the case. SMBs are exploring storage solutions that allow them to failover their workloads as part of a disaster recovery scenario.
8. Flexibility is king (and vendor lock-in is history). SMBs are turning to solution providers that can work with the heterogeneous storage, data protection and system recovery technologies in their data centers and can accommodate multiple connectivity protocols.
Storage and data protection vendors and solution providers should keep these trends in mind as they develop solutions and services for the SMB market.
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Improve IT in Five Easy Steps Featured
In Chris Poelker’s latest Computerworld blog, he outlines five simple steps that will make a major impact when improving your company’s bottom line by just evaluating your IT infrastructure. Chris’s post explains why deduplicating data backups, fixing networks and WAN bandwidths, optimizing servers with virtualization, and controlling business continuity and disaster recovery are so important to IT environments.
Step 1: Dedupe your backup environment. Backup is the biggest headache facing most organizations. Make sure the solution you choose integrates with any existing tape backup environment and enables you to automate tape for long-term archives AFTER data is replicated offsite.
Step 2: Fix your network. Invest in solutions that replicate data with maximum efficiency for DR and enable server-less, LAN-free backups to remove backup traffic from the network.
Step 3: Optimize servers and applications. Virtualization can put an organization ahead of its peers in terms of cost reduction and consolidation.
Step 4: Virtualize your storage area network (SAN). Storage virtualization with fabric- or appliance-based intelligence makes disk a commodity and enables IT departments to keep vendors honest and costs low.
Step 5: Get your business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) under control. On-demand physical-to-virtual conversion and automated virtual-to-virtual recovery of application servers reduces downtime and streamlines the recovery process.
To get the full story, check out Chris’s post 5 Steps for Evaluating Your IT Infrastructure on the Computerworld website.
Step 1: Dedupe your backup environment. Backup is the biggest headache facing most organizations. Make sure the solution you choose integrates with any existing tape backup environment and enables you to automate tape for long-term archives AFTER data is replicated offsite.
Step 2: Fix your network. Invest in solutions that replicate data with maximum efficiency for DR and enable server-less, LAN-free backups to remove backup traffic from the network.
Step 3: Optimize servers and applications. Virtualization can put an organization ahead of its peers in terms of cost reduction and consolidation.
Step 4: Virtualize your storage area network (SAN). Storage virtualization with fabric- or appliance-based intelligence makes disk a commodity and enables IT departments to keep vendors honest and costs low.
Step 5: Get your business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) under control. On-demand physical-to-virtual conversion and automated virtual-to-virtual recovery of application servers reduces downtime and streamlines the recovery process.
To get the full story, check out Chris’s post 5 Steps for Evaluating Your IT Infrastructure on the Computerworld website.
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