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NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: MIKE KARP
on STORAGE IN THE ENTERPRISE 11/20/01 - Today's focus: A snapshot of change Dear Wincenty Kaminski, In this issue: * Storage in bite-sized chunks * Links related to storage * Featured reader resource _______________________________________________________________ This newsletter sponsored by Cisco Learn how Cisco Optical and Storage Networking Solutions enable customers to obtain Network Resiliancy with a broader deployment of disaster recovery applications, an efficient high-performance storage transport, storage consolidation with high availability, and off-site backup and fast recovery--all over an ultra-high bandwidth, intelligent optical infrastructure capable of supporting any packet on any wavelength from any platform. For more information: http://nww1.com/go/3610952a.html _______________________________________________________________ TAKE IT OFF-LINE The high-tech industry has always run at breakneck pace. Even a wheezing economy will hardly slow it. In the past year, business theory surrounding technology has been reinvented and redefined multiple times. Check out the latest "must-read" books for technology-related business theories. http://nww1.com/go/ad204.html _______________________________________________________________ Today's focus: A snapshot of change By Mike Karp My friend Roberto, who has been working in IT shops since computers ran on coal, brought me a beer and began to vent. "It's the tapes," he said. "They're taking over the place!" Now I know this guy pretty well, and I know he is a chronic complainer. But I also know he's got more experience than almost anyone, and he's very much a "go-to guy" when the bit hits the fan. Ultimately, two things caught my interest. First, Roberto was taking a shot at tape backups, and I'm always interested in hearing about the shortcomings of tape. And second, this guy almost never buys the beer, so he must have felt this was pretty serious. "We make backups of everything. And then what happens? We label the tapes, and stuff them away in metal file cabinets. We must have a mile of file cabinets, each drawer filled with bar- coded digital linear tapes. Don't ask what happens when we have to do a recovery." One look at my friend and I knew not to do the obvious. At this point Roberto shook his head and went over to get two more. "The real problem," he said on his return, "is that we back up just about everything. Useful data and junk data. Database tables and MPEGs. If it's on a disk, we save it. And the e-mail is the worst. Do you have any idea how much it costs us just to backup e-mail?" At this point, I think he actually groaned. Well, Roberto works for a huge manufacturing company, and I admit I haven't a clue as to what it costs his company to back up its e-mail. On the other hand, I've been using e-mail for 20 years or so, so I at least have some context in which to think about it. Which I did. My first step was to do a reality check, which showed me that I am part of the problem. My own inbox currently contains 504 items, including 192 that are unread, and when I sort on the "created" field, I find some of my mail goes back to July. By almost anyone's standards, as far as e-mail is concerned I am not a very good citizen. Fortunately my IT manager, a good guy if there ever was one, provides me with all the data protection I need. My thinking is this. A sound backup rotation, with tapes regularly moving to offsite storage, plus an up-to-date logbook in a fireproof safe, will make locating the correct tape fairly easy. The trick, of course, is to keep the log current. All this is pretty obvious, but I wonder how many of you actually document the content and movement of each tape? But what if you need to do more than just document the problem of tape glut? If you want to cure the disease rather than just treat the symptoms, there are several vendors out there offering useful solutions. The main issue, as far as e-mail is concerned, is that the information store holding all the data is treated by the application as a monolithic block. Because of this, you can't do an efficient incremental backup, and even if only a single message has been changed or corrupted, you still have to back up the entire file. Potentially, you might have to back up a 5G-byte file to account for a 500K-byte change in the data. Now, new application-savvy software can help out by providing snapshotting capabilities for the Exchange (or Notes) Server. For example, FalconStor (http://www.falconstor.com ) is about to announce a product that will allow you to set a regimen of timed snapshots that would provide the functional equivalent of incremental backups of the e-mail information store. With snapshots, data is addressed in block rather than file mode. Thus, you can look for (and save) only those sectors of the file that show a change. Because your tapes capture only the blocks containing changed data, less data is transferred and fewer tapes are needed. The result of hourly snapshots might be 24 files of 2M-bytes each, rather than a single daily backup of the whole multigigabyte file. And to make my friend Roberto happy, it could all be captured on a single tape. Unless you are media manufacturers, you should like that. _______________________________________________________________ To contact Mike Karp: Mike Karp is senior analyst with Enterprise Management Associates (http://www.enterprisemanagement.com) in Boulder, Colo., an analyst and market research firm focusing exclusively on enterprise management. He works out of Portsmouth, N.H., and Westboro, Mass., and can be reached via e-mail at mailto:mkarp@enterprisemanagement.com _______________________________________________________________ NW Fusion's BuyIT has the IT resources you need! Our directory hosts thousands of qualified service providers. Post an RFP anonymously and FREE, receive competitive bids, begin negotiations, and get your project done right! http://nwfusion.newmediary.com/nww110901nwltr1 _______________________________________________________________ RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS Archive of the Storage newsletter: http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/stor/index.html _______________________________________________________________ FEATURED READER RESOURCE Network World Fusion's The Edge site Network World Fusion's The Edge is a resource devoted to the advances in service-provider networks that are shaking up the old telecom order. In classic Network World fashion, we focus on the hardware, software and services coming to market - but this time from the vendors targeting legacy carriers, new alternative local carriers, ISPs and application service providers. http://www.nwfusion.com/edge/index.html _______________________________________________________________ May We Send You a Free Print Subscription? You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered at your fingertips each day. Now, extend your knowledge by receiving 51 FREE issues to our print publication. Apply today at http://www.nwwsubscribe.com/nl _______________________________________________________________ SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World e-mail newsletters, go to: http://www.nwwsubscribe.com/news/scripts/notprinteditnews.asp To unsubscribe from promotional e-mail go to: http://www.nwwsubscribe.com/ep To change your e-mail address, go to: http://www.nwwsubscribe.com/news/scripts/changeemail.asp Subscription questions? Contact Customer Service by replying to this message. Have editorial comments? Write Jeff Caruso, Newsletter Editor, at: mailto:jcaruso@nww.com For advertising information, write Jamie Kalbach, Fusion Sales Manager, at: mailto:jkalbach@nww.com Copyright Network World, Inc., 2001 ------------------------ This message was sent to: vkamins@enron.com
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