30
spend on future storage infrastructure from a CAPEX and OPEX perspective.
SNS: And what will the IT end users discover when tiering is implemented successfully?
TF: End users are blissfully unaware of any changes that have been made. The benefits are in reduced planned and unplanned outages. One of our customers, RHWL, gained 5,000 hours of productivity in just one year through increased availability of their file server infrastructure.
SNS: Presumably, tiering also helps to address the compliance issue?
TF: Tiering can improve business compliance and help with the enforcement of IT policies. We have the ability to locate files within a tiered infrastructure based on the file type, and this lends itself to two use cases.
1. One of our customers is a law firm. They use the ARX to intercept files created by one of their legal applications and
relocate them to a file server that has suitable retention policies to ensure that they meet their compliance requirements
2. The second use case is one that always makes for an interesting discussion with our prospective customers.
File storage is typically allocated to users who are responsible for what they store on the network drive. IT have to provision storage, back up the data, and provide business continuity and disaster recovery irrespective of the data stored. The questions that always lead to nervous smiles or concerned looks are: ‘How much of your expensive file storage consists of .PST files? How many iTunes libraries do you store and backup on a nightly basis? How many DVD rips of copyrighted material exist on your file infrastructure?’
Our customers are able to put automated policies in place to ensure that PST files are located on a separate storage device from business critical data, and remove files that are
deemed to be outside of IT policy.
Any prospective customers that are concerned at the thought of this can easily find out the scale of the problem by using our free Data Manager download. An hour of your file server administrator’s time, and a short call to F5 will get you back on track.
SNS: For those looking at the chaos of their file data and IT infrastructure, where do they begin with tiering/intelligent storage management?
TF: The simple starting point is to download our agentless Data Manager software and run an analysis. Within an hour you’ll have a full understanding of the age distribution of your data, what type of data is within your infrastructure, and who are the top users of the file storage. From this starting point we can help you understand how you can significantly reduce costs through proactive management of your environment.
SNS: Are you able to share a couple of real-world examples, showing how end users are discovering the benefits of implementing storage tiering?
TF: When rapid data growth began impacting American Suzuki Motor Corporation users by dragging down the performance of its Windows storage, the IT team used F5 ARX’s data management capabilities to seamlessly transition to a higher-performance network- attached storage (NAS)
SUMMER 10 WWW.SNSEUROPE.COM
THORSTEN FREITAG
1-2-1
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44