Understanding SAN vs NAS for SMB Markets

Understanding SAN vs NAS for SMB Markets.

 

One of the greatest downside of the SAN is that, while they do offer the multi-host access to the device, but they don’t offer the multi-host access to the file, whereas most application want that multi-access file facilities (application used in media industries), if you want a system connected to the SAN and to be able to read/write to the same file then you required for the clustered file system. Such file system are available such as quantum StorNext file system but are quite expensive, whereas the NAS system or filers have multi-host file access technology from long time..

NAS are consider and are easier to understand and manage than SAN, because NAS device there is only NAS GUI to understand and from that GUI you can almost do lots of thing, and manage the NAS more nicely and CIFS and NFS concept are also not difficult to understand, whereas the SAN with FIBER make you to learn about the fiber technology and san switch concept , zone concept , loop concept, HBA understanding is also required and even the SAN device management understanding is also required, so if you see there are HBA vendor manual to read, switch vendor manual to read, and SAN storage vendor manual to read, whereas in NAS there is only one NAS vendor manual to read and understand..

In NAS as the whole NAS come from single vendor so any problem happens you can contact to that vendor for the troubleshooting, as we know the storage is the only box who in IT environment to take the initial blame for all the problem, everybody blames storage if the data is not available, performance issue and so and so.., but if we Cleary see there are lots of factor and component and hardware between storage and server, so when it comes to SAN environment there is lots of vendor involvement in case of performance detection, hardware failure or management issue, because HBA from different vendor, san switch from different vendor can make you call all those vendor in case of troubleshooting, so management of NAS compared to SAN is quite handy and easy.

NAS filers can be difficult to backup to tape. Although the snapshot and off-site replication software sold by some NAS vendors offers some wonderful recovery possibilities that are rather difficult to achieve with a SAN , filers must still be backed up to tape at some point, and that can be a challenge. One of the reasons is that performing a full backup to tape will typically task an I/O system much more than any other application .This means that backing up a really large filer to tape will create quite a load on the system. Although many filers have significantly improved their backup and recovery speeds, SANs are still faster when it comes to raw throughput to tape.

The throughput possible with a SAN makes large-scale backup and recovery much easier. In fact , large NAS environments take advantage of SAN technology in order to share a tape library and perform LAN-less backup.

 

SAN is costlier than NAS and that’s quite understandable but now a days, san solutions are getting cheaper or quite affordable, like NETAPP FAS series, EMC VNX series and HITACHI HUS series are the vendor which offer the unified storage solutions which can be used as SAN and NAS and we see the costing also is a quite affordable, but then solution selling vary from country to country, like I am a presales engineer in INDIA, and when I go to the customer for discussion of the storage solutions , in spite of how good the technology is and how nicely it’s going to improve its performance, at the end its all go waste ,because of budget issue, people or IT Manager of Indian companies, I would not talk about the enterprise but for the SMB market , it becomes quite difficult to sell the storage solutions, because they don’t have budget or they don’t look for the long time saving, but they all look for what can be bought with this approved budget, they need best in smaller price.., again the SMB market is dived into three different segments small SMB , MID  SMB and enterprise SMB, and there all lots of opportunity to do business in those companies, like they have business potential they have budget also ,and they can easily go for the good IT solutions, but as the companies grows their mentality does not grows , until and unless they see some disaster happening due to low budget IT solutions they are using in their environment, I have seen some companies they have good money with them, but if visit their IT infrastructure, they are not using centrally storage, not using virtualization, they are not suing any backup solutions, they are just keep on buying the servers and keep on taking the manually backup of their servers and desktop\laptop if they need to protect them.., they don’t understand that how one time investment can save their time, money and can protect their data nicely, and they all end up spending or losing more money which they thought they saved for not buying a good solutions.

But if you see from other side of table, customer will say that vendor presales guy or sales guy does not spend much time on counseling of those IT Manager and telling them how they can save lots of money in buying a right solution for their environment, but if you ask to the IT sales guy, his performance are measured by his targets, so it does not make sense for him to waste his or his presales guy time on those customer whose budget is low range, and it becomes quite difficult because of one more reasons there are solutions which can be bought in low range budget, but then it can resolve your problem for short term not for long term, and people in INDIA or IT manager of all those SMB looks for short term solutions not for the long terms, it doesn’t mean they cannot be changed, they can be but by proper counseling and proper knowledge sharing, or spending some good time with them.

Enterprise they don’t compromise in quality, and SMB they can be fooled easily….

Thank you..

 

Understanding Cloud technology

Understanding Cloud technology

After a long time I am back to share some new things with you guys, it’s about cloud technology as there is lots of buzz going on in the market about the cloud technology, and there is lots of confusion about the cloud, so I thought of writing something about this technology.

Let’s start from what..?

What is cloud: well in environmental way cloud brings us rain, and keeps our environment greenly and healthy, so that we can grow nice crops in our land, but sometimes unwanted rain can even destroy our crops also, so if we see altogether we don’t have control in environmental cloud those brings us rain and they are not that user friendly and not that flexible, imagine if we could have got control on environmental cloud then we can use it as per our convenience.

Well but in IT cloud it’s a service given to us when we need it, so as per our convenience we can use it, I am not comparing about the environmental cloud and about the IT cloud , I am just telling you why we call it cloud technology.

So cloud is not any type of software or hardware  product, but a way of delivering a IT services that are consumable on demand , scalable on demand , elastic to scale up and scale down as needed and you can pay as you grow.

Cloud technology not only gives you better services but saves lots of IT money, means it bring down your IT cost, because IT cloud gives you that flexibility you can pay for what you need any type of software or hardware service which you need to keep your work going, you don’t have to buy and don’t have to hire someone to manage, just pay to some cloud vendor and he can provide you all those services and charge you for that, so all the managerial headache for managing the IT is not on you but on cloud vendor.

Cloud can be many form such as (storage-as-a-service, compute-as-a-service, application-as-a-service), but without the fundamental storage pieces, none of the other application are possible.

While there  are still varying  definitions and much hype around what cloud does and does not mean, the key attributes that cloud computing must provide include.

1.       The ability to rapidly provision and de_ provision a service.

2.       A consumption model where user pays for what they use.

3.       The agility to flexible scale (flex up and flex down) the service without extensive pre-planning.

4.       A secure direct connection to cloud without having to recode applications.

5.       Multi-tenancy capabilities that segregate and protect the data.

Now let’s come to the why…?

Why we need cloud: As I have already stated in my previous paragraph that as the data is growing and so with that the IT cost is also growing so now a days lots of work around is going on in IT world to bring down the IT cost and cloud technology only charges you as per your need, so if you see it drastically reduces the IT cost.

Why we should choose cloud.

1.       Cost reduction by leveraging the economics of scale beyond the four walls of the data center.

2.       IT agility to respond faster to changing business needs.

3.       100 per cent resource utilization.

Technical Terms highly used in Cloud technology

1.       Multi-tenancy is a secure way to partitions the IT infrastructure (application, storage pool, network) so multiple customer share a single resource pool. Multi-tenancy is one of the key ways cloud can achieve massive economies of scale.

2.       REST (representational state transfer) is a type of software architecture for client/server communication over the web.

3.       Chargeback: is the ability to report on capacity and utilization by application or dataset and charge business users or departments based on how much they use.

Simplifying planning and using resource more cost effectively is appealing to all organization. Utilizing cloud delivers time and cost savings.

Cloud technology distribute the IT resource in a better and cost effective way, rather than buying all at once and maintain it, managing it not knowing that whether I am fully utilizing my IT resource which I bought and ending up wasting time and money. In cloud you buy resource as you grow, so you not only utilize your resource nicely, but if you need to degrade the IT resource and save your money you can degrade it and save your money too, so there is no extra waste of money.

Most of the organization may overprovision to manage storage burst or attempt to meet the capacity planning, or even buy because there is budget is available. These organizational efforts result in a lot of idle capacity and longer time to realize a return of assets (ROA).

Employing cloud instead can simplify long-range long range financial and storage planning, as the redeployment of resources is performed instantly, anytime and anywhere, to scale up and down and to support business objectives as needed.

Cloud subscribers and Providers

So in cloud technology cloud involves the subscribers and the providers, the service provider could be the company internal IT group, or the third party or the combination of both. The subscriber is one who is using the cloud services. Providers gain economies of scale using multi-tenant infrastructure and a predictable, recurring revenue stream.

Subscriber’s benefits include:

1.       Shifting storage cost to an operating expenses: pay for use.

2.       Lowering operating expense and reducing the drain on IT resources.

3.       Balancing the value of data with service level agreements (SLAs) and cost.

4.       Gaining business flexibility with subscriber-controlled, on –demand capacity and performance.

5.       Future-proofing, because storage media can change below the cloud layer without disturbing the services.

 

What are “as-a-service” in Cloud technology .

A frequently used term in any cloud-related book is as-a-service. It really means that a resource or task has been packaged so it can be delivered automatically to customers on demand in a repeatable fashion. It is commonly used to describe cloud delivery models.

For example:

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) delivers compute hardware (servers, network or storage) as a service. The characteristics commonly seen with IaaS are

•Subscribers provision the resource without control of the underlying cloud infrastructure.

•The service is paid for on a usage basis.

•Infrastructure can be automatically scaled up or down.

An example of infrastructure-as-a-service is Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), http://aws.amazon.com/ec2.

Storage-as-a-service (STaaS) provides storage resources as a pay-per-use utility to end users. It is one flavor or type of infrastructure-as-a-service and therefore shares the common characteristics described in the preceding point.

Hitachi’s Private File Tiering Cloud (www.hds.com/solutions/storage-strategies/cloud/index.html?WT.ac=us_hp_flash_r1) is an example of storage-as-a-service.

Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) provides more than just the infrastructure. It is a comprehensive stack for developers to create cloud-ready business applications. The characteristics commonly seen with PaaS are that it:

•Is multi-tenant

•Supports web services standards

•Is dynamically scaling based on demand?

An example of platform-as-a-service is Microsoft Azure www.microsoft.com/windowsazure.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud providers host and deliver business applications as a service. The characteristics commonly seen with SaaS include:

•Multi-tenancy

•Consumer uses applications running on a cloud infrastructure

•Accessible from various client devices through web browser

•CRM (customer relationship management) is one of the most commonly seen SaaSSalesforce.com (www.salesforce.com) is an example of software-as-a-service.

Main categories of cloud

The three main categories of cloud models are private, hybrid and public. Each one may offer varying levels of security, services, access, service level of agreements (SLA) and value to end users.

Private cloud: the word itself state that its private, that means that all component will reside within the firewall of an organization, the infrastructure is either managed by the internal IT team or manage and delivered by the cloud provider.

How is private cloud used?

Private cloud can leverage existing infrastructure, deliver the massive scale and enable the charge back either by the organization’s own IT staff, or as a vendor-managed service, but within the privacy of an organization’s network.

Additional benefit what you can get.

1.       Can deliver Iaas or STaaS internally to employees or business units through an intranet or the internet via a virtual private network (VPN).

2.       Can deliver software (applications) as a service to branch office.

3.       Include database on demand, email on demand or storage on demand.

Security in private cloud

With private cloud, security of the data and physical premises are determined and monitored by the IT team, and its high quality SLAs remains intact. In a private cloud environment, the network bandwidth is under IT’s control as well, which also helps ensure SLAs.

An organization maintains its own strong security practices of both the data and the physical location, such as key codes, passwords and badging. Access to data is determined internally and may resemble existing role-based access controls; or separate administration and data permissions, based on data types and security practices may be granted.

Why use private cloud?

Reasons for using private cloud include

To the end users: Quick and easy resource sharing, rapid deployment, self-service and the ability to perform chargeback to departments or user groups.

To the service provider (in this case, an organization): The ability to initiate chargeback accounting for usage while maintaining control over data access and security.

Public cloud

In Public cloud as name itself say that it is public means cloud is multi-tenant infrastructure that means same hardware or IT infrastructure are shared by multiple companies, all major component are located in a multi-tenant infrastructure outside an organization’s firewall. Application and storage are made available over the internet and can be free or offered at a pay –per- usage fee.

The Key characteristic of public cloud is

1.       Elasticity

2.       Ease of use.

3.       Low entry costs

4.       Pay-per-use

Examples of public cloud services include picture and music sharing, laptop backup and file sharing. Examples of providers include amazon and Google on demand web applications, yahoo mail, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Why to use Public cloud

Public cloud is focus is on the consumer and small to medium size businesses where pay-per-use pricing is available, often equating to pennies per gigabyte, for end user its very cheap compared to buy a small removable hard disk for storing their data we can store in cloud, and easy to share, rapid deployment and self-service.

Note:  public cloud offers a low level SLA and may not offer guarantees against data loss or corruption.

Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid cloud is combination of public and private means some of the selected data or application of IT infrastructure are allowed to be punched through the corporate firewall and be provided by a trusted cloud provider, multi-tenant infrastructure outside the firewall delivered by a trusted cloud provider is leveraged for further cost- reduction. The IT organization makes the decision  regarding what type of services and data can live outside the firewall to be managed by a trusted third-party partner, such as Telco’s, system integrator and internet service provider.

How is cost saving achieved?

Hybrid cloud usually provides an attractive alternative to an organization when internal processes can no longer be optimized because further cost reduction is provided by leveraging a trusted service provider’s ability to deliver to more than a single customer.

The service provider’s costs are lower because they amortize infrastructure across many customers and this helps even out supply ‘peaks and valleys’. The service provider passes along those savings to the customer base.

An organization’s cost infrastructure may only be amortized across business units or a small customer base. By moving certain data and applications to a hybrid cloud, the organization is able to take advantage of the multi-tenant capabilities and economies of scale.

The overall outlay of service delivery shifts to the pay-for-usage model for an organization, while the trusted provider appreciates higher utilization rates through its shared infrastructure. The result is reduced costs for any given service offered through the hybrid cloud. Building bridges between an organization and its trusted partners is critical to ensuring data is protected. Hybrid cloud providers use stringent security practices and uphold high quality SLAs to help the organization mitigate risks and maintain control over data managed services and application hosting services delivered through multi-tenancy. An organization also determines access limitations for the provider and whether the services will be delivered via VPNs or dedicated networks.

Why use hybrid cloud?

Reasons for using hybrid cloud include:

To the organization: Cost reductions — well-managed services that are seamlessly and securely accessed by its end users.

To the trusted provider: The economies of scale — supplying services to multiple customers while increasing utilization rates of highly scalable cloud-enabled infrastructure.

 

In the last I would like to suggest that cloud technology is Future technology, future will be not wright word now, because already this technology is getting adopted in market , but still lots of market is need to be captured by cloud technology providers. All the leading storage vendor started providing the Cloud technology and new Cloud provider have already started their business in Indian market, well Indian market will take some more time to get into cloud technology,

So those who are presales engineer in partners or implementation engineer or engineer students, please start studying about cloud technology and start getting certified in this because in future lots of job will get create in this cloud technology and those who will be having basic understanding will be ahead .

 

Thanks for every body who visit my blog , I hope my blog on cloud will help you all to know little bit about cloud technology..