bridging the replication gap

8/6/2019 Bridging the Replication GAP

1/8

Some say that replication is expensive and complex.They are wrong.

November 2010

Prepared for


2/8Bridging The Replication Gap- 2 -

Disaster recovery is not what it used to be. In the event of a ood or re, for example,organisations have restored tape-based backup data from a remote location. This optionis becoming less realistic as time constraints, data volumes and the cost of being ofinecontinue to grow. Another option is data replication, but this carries its own challenges.The result is what might be termed a replication gap, in which disaster recovery needs are

moving beyond many organisations technical and budgetary capabilities.

Back-up tape is normally transferred manually by courier to a secure site. If the primary

site failed, the back-up data is retrieved and restored manually to new computerslocated at a secondary site, or at the primary site after it has been renovated and tapesdelivered. This approach leaves organisations with many problems. The rst is security:there have been embarrassing cases of tapes being lost en route. Tapes are also oftenleft unencrypted, leading to compliance issues with regulators.

The other problem is long time lapses. The recovery time objective is the time it takesto restore the backed-up data so that an organisation becomes functional again.Companies might wait hours or even days for their data to be recovered, losing businessand reputation in the process.

Even more worrying, the recovery may not work at all. Many disaster recovery plans fail toinclude sufcient data testing. Are data tapes being written to accurately? How often istheir physical integrity checked? How frequently are data restoration processes checked

and how certain can administrators be that they will work when needed?

Testing the restoration process is a long, complex undertaking that may have to takeplace over the weekend, when the business is dormant. For some, the window of businessdormancy is shrinking, or does not exist at all. Many organisations nd disaster recoverytesting very difcult, and for some it simply may not happen. How many companydirectors are aware of this and have examined a risk matrix to understand the regulatoryand nancial implications?

For these reasons smart companies have been moving to a business continuity model inwhich disaster recovery is seamlessly integrated into everyday operations. For them, thereis no manual off-line backup and no couriers to lose unencrypted tapes. Instead, high-speed data links and storage virtualisation have enabled these organisations to replicatetheir data between remote sites. Data is always available from several locations, so thatin the event of a physical site failure other copies are available immediately. But they arecommitting large volumes of capital expenditure to achieve this replicated environment.

As more companies experience the challenges of an increasingly fast-paced businessworld with more data requirements, the need for replication is growing, driven by severalkey factors.

Data volume growth

We are producing more data, but we also need near-instant access to a larger

proportion of it than before.

According to a survey of 173 organisations by the Aberdeen Group, the volume ofdata produced in the average enterprise is growing at just under 30 per cent a year.

Ciscos gures suggest a CAGR of about 32 per cent between 2008-2013. It is not just thevolume of data that creates challenges for the business: a growing proportion of theunstructured data we generate can be seen as mission-critical, as we drive more of our

The need for replication



business processes and workow online. Signicantly, a report released in October 2010by the Ponemon Institute in conjunction with Emerson Power found that 51 per cent ofrespondents considered every application in the data centre to be mission-critical.

Part of this growth stems from our ability to handle increasingly rich unstructured datatypes. Video, for example, is set to make up 40 per cent of consumer internet trafc by theend of 2010, Cisco believes. Video began with consumers watching streaming multimediaand conducting video calls but, just as with Web 2.0 services and instant messaging,

video is now moving into the enterprise realm and the demand for quality is higher.High-denition video and telepresence services may exponentially drive up data volumesonce again.

The cost of unavailability

With increasingly tight business cycles, just-in-time supply chains and customers increasingintolerance of any delays, companies cannot afford to be off-line as often as before. Itis difcult to estimate the true cost of downtime because it depends on the businesssdependency on online systems and on other parameters such as the market sector andthe time of year. Toys R Us, for example, would suffer more from downtime in the three

weeks before Christmas than it would in February. But in general, downtime costs are notgetting cheaper, and the cost of lost business is equalled perhaps only by the reputation

cost.

The back-up delta

Organisations backing up data manually off-line risk suffering from the time gap betweenthe last backup and a disruption in service. In the worst case scenario, a daily tape

backup could leave the company lacking a whole business day of data, adverselyaffecting customer service and sales.

Replication is becoming a necessary part of any business continuity operation but itis fraught with difculty. Moving from a manual operation in which tapes are simplyleft outside the door for a courier to pick up to an automated service in which data isdynamically shifted between cities involves a considerable capital and operationaloverhead. This reveals itself in several key areas.

Equipment and facility costs

A company sending tapes to a secure offsite storage facility has only to pay for a single

storage system and a single data centre. A replicated environment changes that situationsignicantly. Replicating data between sites also involves replicating both the equipmentand the facilities.

A storage area network (SAN) at one site must be reproduced at the destinationsite, which must be conditioned to support data centre operations. Data centresrequire cooling equipment, air puriers and supporting equipment and staff to keepthem running. In an uncertain economy it may be difcult to nd the budget for suchinvestments, especially as senior management will be needed to pull together the IT andfacilities functions.

Complexity

SANs have become more manageable but they are still far from simple. Virtualised

The challenge of replication



storage architectures are often incompatible, making it difcult to get storage equipmentworking together. In spite of the interoperability issues, many customers nd themselvesusing storage systems from different vendors, either through a lack of joined up

procurement or perhaps because decision-makers focused on cost savings and chosethe best deal.

This can mean multiple replication links have to be created for multiple systems replicatedat a different location. The more vendors there are in a companys SAN portfolio, the

higher the potential replication cost.

Management cost

SANs are also expensive to manage and the expense varies according to the type oftechnology used. For example, Fibre Channel network administrators need an entirelydifferent set of skills to those administering conventional Ethernet networks, and thoseskills come at a price. Data centre operatives will also be needed to maintain servers andother equipment in a replicated environment.

Facility dependence

Organisations wishing to reduce these costs do so at the risk of compromising theavailability of their architectures. A company can decide not to replicate its dataremotely, instead relying on locally virtualised storage. It can create another SAN, locatedin a separate blade chassis from its primary storage system, for example. This eliminatesthe cost of a separate data centre and a high-speed link between those data centres.But it also limits the effectiveness of its business continuity. If the physical site suffers adisaster, all data will still be lost.

The problems underpinning replication make it prohibitively expensive for manycompanies, although the pull of this technology is stronger than ever. Accordingto Storage Magazines October 2010 survey of storage spending in the US, remote

replication is a key area of investment for disaster recovery and became more popularthan off-site tape storage a couple of years ago.

In 2010, 48 per cent of companies favoured remote replication, compared with 28 percent who favoured off-site tape storage; 39 per cent of respondents said that they wouldincrease spending for remote replication technologies in 2010. The replication gap isnarrowing. Only 16 per cent of companies (the lowest number Storage Magazine hasseen) dont have remote replication technology in their disaster recovery plans for 2010.

Such gures are telling, but also hide information about the type of replication that istaking place. For example, some companies will replicate only small parts of their datasets, perhaps focusing on critical data such as customer orders. They may overlook theirincreasing reliance on IT systems, such as email for example.

The cost of effective remote replication will deter many organisations from rolling it outsystematically across all of these data sets. Although storage budgets are creeping upagain slowly after the nancial crisis, it is a lengthy process. Storage budgets grew 0.6 per

cent between spring and autumn 2010, after dipping below zero at the turn of 2009; attheir pre-recession peak, in the autumn of 2006, storage budgets were growing at 5.2 percent. Clearly, companies are still hurting and even if they are interested in investing inremote replication, many will do it tentatively.

The replication gap



It is also worth noting that smaller companies are the hardest hit by nancial constraints.While enterprise and mid-sized companies both experienced growth in storage budgets,smaller companies saw their budgets drop by 0.6 per cent.

Cloud-based services have been oated as a potential solution for almost everycomputing problem. Companies offer software applications, security, storage and even

entire programmable platforms using public virtualised computing infrastructures. In all thediscussion about the use of public cloud architectures for application delivery, customers

worry whether applications will be truly t for purpose and customisable.

While cloud infrastructure may not be suitable for some services, it is perfect for remotelyreplicating data. SunGards Replication as a Service (RaaS) offers companies that mightnot otherwise be able to afford it a way to enter the game. It also offers those who arereplicating small subsets of data the chance to do it properly, replicating all of the datathat they truly need to. RaaS provides several key advantages over traditional DIY remotereplication.

Vendor independence

Whereas a DIY replication system would have to set up separate replication links betweenSANs from different vendors, a specialist RaaS system is heterogeneous and designed toconnect with a variety of different vendors storage systems. This dramatically lowers thecost because IT departments do not have to duplicate every single SAN.

Manageability

In a self-built remote replication environment, the IT department might be forced tomanipulate data so that mission-critical information to be replicated is all stored on a

subset of SANs. This would enable the IT department to avoid replicating the entire multi-vendor SAN infrastructure. However, it would introduce a management overhead.

Represents an operating expense

Buying the additional hardware necessary to build a remote replication system in-houseincreases capital expenditure and obliges the IT department to put more assets on thebalance sheet. Using a cloud-based service enables customers to classify replication asan operational expense in the budget. This is signicant in an economic climate where

project sponsors will want to avoid lumpy capital expenditure, instead of a smoother,more regular operational expense. It makes for better planning, which in turn makes

the IT department more accountable. It also frees up capital expenditure for revenue-generating projects.

Service level fexibility

Maintaining service levels in DIY replication environments is difcult enough. Building in theoption to alter those service levels as required may be beyond the competency of manyin-house IT departments. A specialist RaaS solution can be congured to dial-in the servicelevel needed. Failover speed can be factored into the monthly price.

Pay-as-you-grow

One of the most attractive aspects of cloud services is known as option value. Withtraditional capital expenditure, you are stuck with the equipment you buy. Unless youcontinue using it to the full, it becomes a dead asset that will take years to depreciate on

Replication as a Service



the balance sheet. That could be a problem if, for example, you deploy deduplicationtechnology after your replication solution. Moreover, if you need a higher level ofservice, you must go back to decision-makers to obtain approval for yet another capital

purchase.

RaaS enables you to scale up (and down) the level of storage required at the replicatedsite in relatively small increments of 500GB. Snapshots, too, can be scaled to t growingneeds.

Fully managed replication

The last thing an IT department wants to worry about is human resources. Finding the skillsto manage the replication process can be problematic. Do you increase the workloadof existing staff and rely on them never to be sick, or do you hire a dedicated member ofstaff and risk under-using them? RaaS includes 24 x 7 management of the process from aremote location so customers know their data is always in good hands.

SunGard delivers RaaS: a solution that replicates customer SAN data into its ownenterprise-class private cloud-based storage infrastructure. Designed to be used in Tbincrements and therefore suitable for any size of organisation, it is also a fully managed

service.

SunGards RaaS is constantly replicating changes in the data and takes snapshots ofthe entire customer le system at preset points in time. In the event of a disaster at thecustomer site, SunGard can make its replicated data live, turning its cloud-based systeminto the primary site for the customers trafc. This gives the customer the chance to getits own data centre up and running or nd an alternative site in which to restore its ownoperations before SunGard switches the ow of data back to the customers systems.

SunGard installs its Replication Core equipment at the customer site. The data to be

replicated is congured, along with the service level required by the user. The ReplicationCore connects to the customers central switch and is used to coordinate replication withSunGards cloud infrastructure.

Two connections are established between the customer site and the Replication Core.The rst is a 1Gbit leased line that is used to carry the replicated data. The second is aPSTN connection used by SunGards monitoring and management team.

The 1Gbit leased line connects to Replication Core equipment at the SunGard site. This in

turn connects to the companys switching fabric and into a shared SAN. Based in the UK,the SAN uses a virtualised infrastructure to logically separate customers data for securityreasons.

Testing disaster recovery

For many administrators setting up disaster recovery services, testing is imperative. TheRaaS service gives customers two options for testing data, both of which use snapshotsof replicated data to avoid any performance or reliability issues with the live replicationprocess.

The rst option provides the customer with a dedicated segment of the SunGard sharedSAN designed purely to store a snapshot of live data to be used for testing purposes.The second uses a shared space, which must be booked for use during a customertesting process. Customers can also opt out of snapshot services altogether, effectively

SunGards RaaS solution



eliminating the testing procedure.

SunGards RaaS solution can also be used to reduce the recovery time objective whenused in conjunction with SunGards own disaster recovery solution. Using an end-to-end

RaaS and disaster recovery solution from SunGard can also help to reduce the recoverypoint objective, which is the time difference between live data at the customer site anddata replicated at a remote location.

The sluggish recovery in storage budgets is helping to sustain the replication gap. Asignicant proportion of companies are still not exploring replication as an option, in spiteof the general need for higher data volumes and faster recovery times. Those that areexploring this option face issues such as the balkanisation of corporate storage. Until the

day that vendors suddenly agree that competitive advantage is a bad thing and decideto work with each other to make their systems entirely interoperable, this problem willcontinue.

There is a similar gap surrounding the concept of public share computing overall. Hype

and promise among advocates of cloud computing is at an all-time high but manycompanies still feel nervous about the concept. The gap between promise and executionstill has to be closed. One way to narrow that gap is to ask what cloud computing servicesare available today that could bring substantial benets to IT operations. SunGards RaaS

is among the top answers.

Conclusion



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About SunGard Availability Services

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them minimalise their computer downtime and optimisetheir uptime, despite situations that threaten to interrupttheir business.

More than 10,000 customers worldwide rely on SunGard Availability Services to achieveuninterrupted access to the information systems they need to do business. Trust us to do

the same for you.

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