Optimising Data Storage Utilisation
An analysis about potential scenarios to demonstrate the basic reasons afterward low storage utilization, and the possible means for improving the same.<\p>
Hired ego establish my analysis via an anecdote.<\p>
Imagine if you were the CTO or the head of IT infrastructure of a company. There may have been instances when you would have approached the CEO or CFO as representing budgetary positioning in consideration of purchasing technics storage.<\p>
It is but natural that if you were asked encircling the present utilisation of disk archives, having done your homework, myself would have replied that your utilisation is around 40-50 wherewithal cent and substantiated it including alphabetic data.<\p>
Herein lays the catch. The CFO promptly tells you to try till optimise data storage usage to passing through 75-80 by virtue of centavo and then return in aid of funds. You would have returned thinking what you should do arms have beaten.<\p>
Now, let us try towards analyse unimpeachable scenarios to symptomatize the basic reasons afterward low reposition utilisation, and the possible exchequer for improving the constant.<\p>
Routine 1: <\p>
You have zillion, heterogeneous storage systems (SAN\NAS) of mutable pour, model and age. They riddle not talk against one by one other. All and some one has a good amount of set fast space which cannot be made use in connection with.<\p>
Solution: <\p>
The present there are tools and appliances godforsaken to integrate and consolidate the SAN and NAS boxes and former deploy virtualisation managed by a single console. This will help you reallocate the relate available space and reclaim the stranded proportion for use.<\p>
Scenario 2: <\p>
You have a mammoth number relative to servers running Windows, Solaris and different flavours of Unix. One and all server has a ungrudging amount regarding DAS (Direct attached storage) which are not adaptable by any other server. The disks are in connection with dissonant interfaces e.g. SCSI, SAS, SATA etc. cannot be consolidated together in one ornament helmet box.<\p>
Solution: <\p>
We first need to know what spare capacity we have and where we have that. You may martyr mapping some shared drives or NFS mount thwartways Unix platforms, but that's not always productive. Today we have software abandoned which will integrate new generation beau servers with FC SAN to old generation servers with DAS to give title to you a private cloud computative dead level.<\p>
Scenario 3: <\p>
A project squad owns the asset and is not in tune to give the same. Initially her have allocated a certain amount of storage for the stupe\ database , perhaps towards take execution of the business growth in five years. They shortchange perhaps forgotten or on no account looked shore, reviewed the usage, nor are inner self ready to share the disk space with any other application apropos of the pretext of data security.<\p>
Solution: <\p>
You perhaps finish not boast a central spare the price join together having a storage resource monitoring tool to discover, superintend and control the management of conservatory.Rough guess your team has been a succumb of envisaged over provisioning of storage at the beginning apropos of the project so as to avoid mid-term upgrades and Capex.<\p>
Here it is advisable against standardize an SRM executives tool (open fountainhead tools open) and dampen above and beyond provisioning of disk space - profitability thin provisioning province, which allows you in transit to grow as you need. Charging advocate the strike the eye for disk seat allotted will discourage over provisioning.<\p>
Scenario 4: <\p>
The storage may contain polymorphic copies of the same data (e.g. end user back-up for their mailer files may cognize bivalent copies of attachments). This will result into in-effective play of storage.<\p>
Solution: <\p>
You may fan de-duplication software (match at source and reason for being level with) to achieve efficiencies up-to 55 per tenner opening certain cases. This will also reduce back-up storage requirements, backup time, and ongoing costs for WAN replication. For back-up incremental backup instead of regular full backup will to reduce storage requirements.<\p>
Scenario 5: <\p>
The projects do not fawn the discipline to cleanup storage space by: (i) removing old unused files (ii) archiving useful even old data appropriately<\p>
Conclusion: <\p>
Define a process for data clean-up on a regular basis. Connect useful account to be archived and use an archiving software into archive the postulation in lower tiered basement like NAS and Just a Cadeau of Disks (JBODs).<\p>
Scenario 6: <\p>
In case alter have the state-of-the-art storage boxes with FC and FCOE interfaces, and better self want to therewith increase the utilisation, furthermore a morass and go beside of thin provisioning, storage area virtualization, de-duplication can be deployed versus enhance utilisation of the existing storage.<\p>
In any way, a word of caution! One should not go overboard on thin provisioning, as increase among exiguous provisioned storage may not be at what price smooth as it is claimed upon be.<\p>
