Enterprise Data Storage

Future-Proofing Your
Infrastructure © QuinStreet, Inc

eSecurity Planet IT BUSINESSEDGE Datamation


As storage systems grow in complexity, a central data management system becomes ever more important.
Introduction
E
nterprise storage has always been a
challenge, and continues each year.
The biggest challenge: to future-
proof your storage investments so you
purchase storage technology that serves
you now, and will continue to serve you
into the near future.
Frankly, it’s not easy to do this level of
strategic planning with data growing
so quickly, and accelerated storage
technology development. However,
if you know what your storage
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ENTERPRISE DATA STORAGE: FUTURE-PROOFING YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE 2
DATA
MANAGEMENT
infrastructure needs to achieve, and
understand trends that you can adopt
today, you will continue to manage a
CONTENTS
working infrastructure that will fulfill your Introduction.................................... 2
business’s information objectives.
Current State of Enterprise
This report will start with the current Data Storage.................................... 3
state of enterprise data storage and its
primary enabling technologies. We will Growing Trends in Enterprise
continue with strategic trends, and our Data Storage.................................... 4
final section will be how to future-proof
Future-Proofing Your Storage
your storage infrastructure today.
Infrastructure: 5 Key Tips.............. 7

The Current State Of
Enterprise Data Storage
C
urrent enterprise data storage
is built around three major
challenges: storing massive
amounts of data, protecting massive
amounts of data, and managing massive
amounts of data for value and retention.
Storing Massive Amounts of
Data
User-created data, streaming data,
and sensor data combine to push
petabytes of information into data
centers every hour of every day.
Incoming and outgoing data require
significant transmission and ingestion
speeds during movement, and enough
storage capacity and performance at
rest.
In that last sentence, “significant” is no
monolithic rule, but depends on data
type and priority. This in turn drives
expenditures on bandwidth and on
storage media.
Projected Data Storage Needs
50000
40000
30000
Exebytes
20000
10000
0
2012 2013
2020 is expected to be a period of exceptionally rapid data growth. Data: Harvard Business Analytics
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ENTERPRISE DATA STORAGE: FUTURE-PROOFING YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE
SSDs allow for much faster ingestion and
initial processing, and HDD’s are still the
workhorse of the data center and store
active data relatively cheaply. Tape is
seeing an important resurgence for long-
term big data retention and security.
(Tape’s so-called air gap defense is simply
impossible for malware to bridge.)
These media types remain the same
whether you’re storing data to your data
center or to the cloud.
Protecting Massive Amounts
of Data
Physical and cyber threats loom large for
IT organizations. On the enterprise side,
data loss or corruption can easily cost
hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost
value, fines, and damaged reputation.
IT needs to protect data from natural
disasters and malware attacks, and
protect mobile devices against loss,
destruction, or theft.
Supply Demand
2014 2015 2016 2017
3
IT is also increasingly aware of threat to
cloud-based data. As data moves to the
cloud, whether as backup and archives
or SaaS data, it is ultimately the users’
responsibility to protect large volumes
of online data that is likely spread across
multiple availability zones and clouds.
Managing Massive Amounts of
Data
Even after IT has stored and protected
data, they must still manage it for cost
control, compliance, and business value.
Different data priorities and types require
differing levels of performance and
capacity. Compliance is an important part
this picture, and IT its automatic toolsets
that can help them identify data lifecycles
and retention dates. IT also needs to
locate and classify stored data, and
provide analysis tools so end-users can
mine information for business value.
2018 2019 2020

Growing Trends in
Enterprise Data Storage
A
mong all the many evolving
trends in enterprise data storage,
the following six defining trends
stand out. Each of the below has a deep
impact on the entire data center and are
driving significant storage innovation.
1. Finding Dark Data
Dark data simply means unstructured
files that are stored but not easily
discoverable, making them essentially
useless for compliance and analytics. IBM
estimates that over 80% of business data
is unstructured and most of it is dark, and
this percentage is steadily rising. Storing
this much unused data costs money in
storage systems and cloud subscriptions.
Many IT organizations are moving
to auto classification software tools
that discover and classify previously
dark data, then trigger actions such as
alerts or automated data movement.
Auto classification works best with an
information governance framework.
Once your data handling framework is
in place, you can use auto classification
software to effectively locate, classify, and
act on previously hidden data.
KEY TAKEAWAY: With an information
framework and auto-classification
software in place, IT is now able to take
intelligent actions such as alerting
admins, automatically moving data,
optimizing data organization, proving
compliance for sensitive documents, and
creating a more efficient repository for
search, analysis, and security.
2. Cyber Security
Cyberattacks are difficult to trace and
are profitable for attackers. In fact, it’s
becoming so popular that developers
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ENTERPRISE DATA STORAGE: FUTURE-PROOFING YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE 4
make careers out of developing safe and can securely restore backup data
new malware code that they they sell on to a compromised network.
the dark web to their hacker customers.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Attackers are getting
The most popular seller is ransomware more sophisticated, and InfoSec must
because it is quick and easy to code, and stay ahead of them. The answer is not
simple to deliver through infected emails. a single tool but combining security
If a user clicks on a link or downloads a technology, constantly adapting security
file, the ransomware code takes root and frameworks, and consistent user training.
spreads. More sophisticated ransomware
attacks also create attack loops which 3. Software-Defined Storage
inject malware code not only are too (SDS)
hard drives and servers, but also into
backup. Software-defined storage is still
going strong. SDS decouples storage
Train your staff to stay alert for suspicious intelligence from the underlying storage
attachments and download links. And hardware, which saves money because
don’t forget tape’s “air gap defense.” IT can buy commodity hardware and
Unless malware attackers can launch provide the storage intelligence via the
their digital viruses through the software defined layer.
atmosphere, a virus simply cannot travel
from a networked device to an off-line Intelligence includes policy-driven
cartridge. This means that even if online workload processing, intelligent data
backup is attacked, off-line cartridges are movement, load balancing, dedupe,
Software-Defined Storage
Control Plane
Policy Based Management
Virtual Data Plane
Virtual Datastore Virtual Datastore
Virtual SAN
SSD HDD SSD HDD SAN/NAS
Software defined storage decouples storage intelligence from the underlying storage
hardware, enabling far greater flexibility in storage environments.
 ENTERPRISE DATA STORAGE: FUTURE-PROOFING YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE 5
replication, snapshots, and backup.

SDS is not exactly cheap – admins still
need to spend money on performance
and capacity in commodity hardware.
But it is cost-effective, enables centralized
storage management, and frees IT from
storage vendor lock-in. Typical use cases
include:
L egacy application environments.
The business is not ready to retire
the application but would rather not
house it on expensive storage either.
Instead of choosing between high-
priced intelligent arrays and low-cost
basic infrastructure, they run the
application on commodity hardware
with intelligent data services.
 ig data. Big data environments house
B load balancing.
large volumes of data from sources
like business applications, streaming
data, and machine sensors. These
environments can be very expensive
to store on high-priced intelligent
arrays. SDS provides scale-out storage
pools for data lakes with centralized
management. Look for SDS offerings
that natively support big data
frameworks like Hadoop and NoSQL.  KEY TAKEAWAY: SDS is not an automatic
 ulti-vendor storage environments.
M existing arrays are working well, there is
Early SDS products lacked centralized
management for multiple vendor
storage devices under their control.
Now most SDS products can integrate
different devices under a single
dashboard, which saves significant
time and resources for IT. Centralized
management enables IT to create
SDS will serve you well when you
need to simplify complex multi-
vendor storage, extend the life
of legacy components, and carry out
a cost-effective technology refresh.
security, policies, and provisioning
pools across a single logical
infrastructure, and can easily add
components without moving data and
 void vendor lock-in and future-proof
A homes, and factories for now; later even
investments. SDS enables companies
to add storage devices to the SDS pool
and management layer. This lengthens
the lifecycle of legacy storage devices
and avoids being locked into a single
vendor’s storage systems.
solution for all data storage. If your
no need to retire them early. Enterprise
arrays serving high-transaction primary
storage will always have a place, and
specialized arrays for specific verticals
and use cases are popular. But SDS will
serve you well when you need to simplify
complex multi-vendor storage, extend
the life of legacy components, and carry
out a cost-effective technology refresh.
4. Internet of Things.
IoT refers to multiple data input sources
at the edge of a physical domain: offices,
smart cities. IoT depends on millions of
sensors busily producing petabytes of
information and sending them over the
Internet to a centralized repository.
There, analysts classify, research,
and apply information to make new
discoveries, improve business processes,
and produce information-propelled
products and services. Factories are
the primary business users of IoT, and
transportation is not far behind.
Business-level IT organizations in
transportation, factories, retail, and
automotive industries invest in the
necessary storage performance and
capacity and take security measures
to counterattacks. However, consumer
level IoT is vulnerable to cyber-attack,
which can potentially launch dangerous
malware into large portions of the
Internet.

Compute/Server Networking Storage KEY TAKEAWAY: Advanced AI, rich

applications that leverage video and
other streaming data, and the Internet of
Things (IoT) are shifting tape and cloud
Hyperconvergence cold storage tiers towards long-term
Networking retention of massive data stores.

5. Artificial Intelligence

AI continues to grow in importance in

the storage world. In the data center,
Compute/Storage Block it drives big data analysis, automation,
and software applications. Outside the
Hyperconverged storage leverages virtualization to enable scalability and flexibility. data center, it is extremely important for

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 ENTERPRISE DATA STORAGE: FUTURE-PROOFING YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE 6
video surveillance, pattern recognition,
transportation, and autonomous vehicles
-- all of which depend on intelligent
enterprise-level storage.

 I-driven applications that depend

A
on real-time data. AI has a big impact
on transportation and logistical supply
chains. For example, a transportation
company’s AI software data center
tracks trucking movement throughout
a region. The data center ingests large
volumes of real-time data on weather MACHINE
and traffic information and feeds LEARNING
the data to the AI software, which
directs drivers to adjust their routes
for the fastest and safest trips. Other AI
software automatically detects unusual
energy patterns to predict events like
power surges our power outages. This
allows data center admins to mitigate
problems before an event causes
significant damage.

 utonomous vehicles (AVs).

A
Experimental AVs generate up to 100
TB of traffic and driving data every
day. The data consists of both sensor
information that allows the AV to react
to driving conditions, and statistics
on AV safety. Automotive companies
require high performance/high
capacity storage to store and protect
massive data volumes.
 achine learning. Machine learning
M KEY TAKEAWAY: Your existing data
is a subset of AI. The key to machine
learning is that once it learns from a
knowledge seed set, it can expand
its own learning as it operates in its
environment. For instance, machine
learning enables software toolsets
to dynamically balance and optimize
data on SSDs to compensate for flash
wear-out. Over time, machine learning
intelligence improves dynamic
data placement without manual
intervention. Machine learning also
builds analytical models. Programmers
create the initial analytical toolset,
which independently adapts and grows
as it encounters new data. The result
is that the toolset issues increasingly
accurate conclusions and results to
business users.
 attern recognition. AI recognizes
P usage does not have a large impact on IT
patterns and, by extension, recognizes
when those patterns are broken.
Pattern recognition works across
a broad area of business use cases
Storage systems that incorporate machine learning can adapt to changing variables
over time.
including social semantics and
sentiment analysis for social media
marketing, data governance, and
fraud investigations into digital
communications.
management tools may already
be using AI and machine learning.
When you decide to make a separate
investment in AI-enabled software, then
understand your business case and how
to achieve ROI with a significant financial
investment. For example, sentiment
analysis software can raise profits by
improving social media marketing.
But realize that the level of storage
required for AI and machine learning
puts yet another burden on your storage
infrastructure.
6. Container Storage
Containers are virtualized, stand-
alone executable software that
shares operating systems and houses
application code and data, runtime,
toolsets, libraries, and configuration.
Container applications are platform-
agnostic, meaning that they run equally
well in test/dev environments as they do
application deployments. Admins can
create, retire or rebuild containers at will.
There are two types of data in containers:
the container image and application
data. The image is ephemeral, as is
some application data such as testing.
But when a container holds persistent
data such as business databases, IT is
responsible for storing and protecting
this persistent data. When a retired
container spins backup, its data should
be immediately available.
The three primary data protection
techniques for storing persistent
databases outside the container on the
same server/host, store the database and
a docker volume that enables replication
and snapshots, or traditional backup
software that backs up the persistent
data in the container the storage
infrastructure.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Containers are a critical
enabling technology for developers,
testers, and application portability. If the
data is truly ephemeral, then container
or the storage infrastructure. However, IT
should be prepared to store and protect
persistent container data, treating it like
any other type of retained data.

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Future-Proofing Your Storage
Infrastructure: 5 Key Tips
E
nterprise storage managers have
a lot to do. Everyday firefighting,
managing multiple systems, and
dealing with end-users leaves little time
for proactive tasks like future proofing
the storage environment. However,
when IT squeezes out the time to
strategize and upgrade, ongoing tasks
will become easier and more effective.
Storage admins are generally
responsible for five major domains:
1. Performance
2. Availability and Reliability
3. Governance and Compliance
4. Control Cost
5. Cloud Data Protection
1. Performance:
Optimize your storage for
speed.
SSDs are very popular for tier 0-1
performance. Most data centers still store
most of their active data on hard drives,
but all flash arrays are becoming more
popular as prices fall and SSDs get faster.
Modern tiering begins with the Tier 0
and Tier 1 all-flash tiers. From there, data
TIER 0 TIER 1
SSD SSD and/or high
performance HDD
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ENTERPRISE DATA STORAGE: FUTURE-PROOFING YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE
moves to a disk tier in the storage system
or to another networked system. From
there, aging data backs up or archives to
tape or a cool/cold cloud tier.
This is a lot of data movement. Use
automated tiering tools to free up your
time, release aging workloads that slow
down production environments, and
save money on storage purchases.
2. Availability and Reliability:
Adopt DRaaS for cloud failover
and failback.
You can stretch out the life of legacy
hardware, but eventually it’s going to
fail. At worst, monitor performance
and troubleshooting so a failure won’t
be a disaster. At best, replace the
vintage hardware with modern storage
systems. Look for systems that give you
central management consoles, such
as integrated systems from the same
vendor or software-defined storage.
Also consider investing in failover
services with a Disaster Recovery as
a Service provider. DRaaS isn’t the
Performance Tiers
TIER 2 TIER 3
Nearline Active archives on
HDD tape or cloud
7
cheapest service in the world but losing
critical application availability for hours
and days is going to cost a lot more in
money, time, and reputation – yours
and your company’s.
3. Governance and
Compliance:
Centrally manage data and use
tools to understand what and
where your data is.
Smaller companies can create a single
content repository by storing data on
a single array, but this won’t work for
the enterprise. What enterprise storage
managers can do is use software
tools to discover data on different
devices and manage it as a virtual
content repository. Search, eDiscovery,
management, and governance tools
operate in the virtual repository.
To do this, you will need to search for
data on the network and edge devices,
defensibly delete outdated files, and
then move the rest to the repository.
Use enterprise search tools to locate
both visible and dark data, define it by
TIER 4
Offsite tape or
cold cloud tiers

metadata and content, and apply bulk
actions such as delete or move.
Additional usage cases are big data
analysis and compliance. Invest
in analytics tools for big data that
identify and analyze structured
and unstructured data. If you need
to investigate company data for
compliance, use pattern recognition
toolsets that recognize suspicious
communications in email, messages,
transcribed phone conversations, and
social media.
4. Control Costs:
Smart virtualization and
cloud storage.
You can save money with smart
purchase negotiating, but don’t stop
there. Storing aging data in the cloud
can save significant money. Savings
aren’t automatic – you need to watch
your restore costs. But for aging data,
using the cloud for cool and cold
storage tiers can save money on long-
term storage. Look for data storage
services that index data for searchability
for extra compliance value.
Virtualization is another popular
technology to save money and
management time on storage
environments. It’s by no means a pure
cost play – virtualized environments
still require hardware and software
purchases, and training and
optimization take time. But an efficient
virtualized environment saves money
by requiring less management time,
fewer hardware purchases, and reduced
power costs.
5. Cloud Data Protection:
You are ultimately responsible
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ENTERPRISE DATA STORAGE: FUTURE-PROOFING YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE
CLOUD
STORAGE
Cloud storage is a great platform for increasing capacity, yet admins must not be lulled into
thinking that the cloud provider is the true custodian of the data. That responsibility remains
with the customer.
for securing your data on-
premises and in the cloud.
The primary threats to on-premise
data protection are protecting mobile
endpoints, verifying that a good backup
has occurred, and shielding the local
network against ransomware and other
hacking attempts.
Modern backup software contains
endpoint protection features and
verifies successful backup, and anti-
malware and intrusion detection
systems work against hacking attempts.
(Do not neglect physical security, as
more than one serious loss occurred
because someone picked up a few
laptops and walked out with them.)
For cloud-based storage, remember
that the data owner has the ultimate
responsibility for protecting data in the
cloud. Configure your stored data and
8
SaaS data for protection, such as adding
encryption to data in-transit and at-rest,
and backing up your cloud application
data.
Practice strong authentication such
as customizing AD by user and role
and using multi-factor authentication.
Enforce industry and corporate
governance policies on the cloud. Work
with your cloud provider: some of these
security measures may be covered
in your agreement, and you can add
additional security measures to your
SLA.
Your best bet is to partner with cloud
backup providers that backup directly
from your cloud data stores, ideally
using the same cloud user account. The
best services do more than simple long-
term backup: they also add indexing
and searchability for backup and
archives.