Keeping a distance

17.11.2004
Von Computer News

According to industry experts, each of the oil companies in the Middle East market could soak up over five large storage systems, each supporting over 135 disks. For a storage vendor this could be the ultimate sales rendezvous. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. As the Middle East gears up for the estimated growth in storage, the next logical step is also to enable disaster recovery, over long distances across the IP infrastructure. The relatively low costs of using IP to serve multiple roles may change the storage buying dynamics in this region.

The consolidation trend in the storage industry is seeing enterprises want to implement data replication over long distances as part of their disaster recovery strategy. Major players are giving to this need by launching consolidated platforms integrated with data replication tools, extensive data virtualization capabilities and possibilities to tier data.

Talking about tiered data, putting in place an ILM strategy should probably be the first way to approach how an organization wants to implement its data management policies. Its not just about strategies, there is real business coming in this segment for vendors as well. EMC Corp. for example, according to IDC estimates has seen its revenues grow mainly across three major storage software segments including Storage Resource Management (SRM), replication and backup/archive.

EMC Middle East Regional Manager Mohammed Amin says the success of a storage strategy today hinges on a sound ILM strategy, which builds a storage and data managed infrastructure that is business-centric, policy driven, centrally managed, heterogeneous and aligned with the value of data. Over this year, the company is focusing its business to enable regional enterprises to address issues such as business continuity, compliance and the proliferation of unstructured data. Enabling companies to do data replication will naturally be part of the portfolio.

Going ahead from there, all eyes in the market are set on enabling sound disaster recovery and data backup plans. Regulatory compliances are in large part responsible for companies wanting to back up and replicate data. Coupled with the need to also have a ?just in case? option, enterprises have found themselves the perfect case for disaster recovery (DR).

Double impact

Often being approached as a strategy, DR at one level, is seeing enterprises opting for small back up locations that are within close proximity to their main operations and at the second level, the secondary site is in some cases even halfway across the globe. Specifically, the emerging IP-based storage technology is facilitating this to happen recovery across any kind of network -- WAN, wireless or an OFC network, provided the storage sub systems are in place between the two points. To end storage products that are being made available all come with modular architectures, integrated data replication software/tools and the possibility to offer true copy and real-time data backup. It is interesting to note that this trend for long distance data replication began as a test project two years ago with among a handful of banks and is beginning to show signs of growing among other businesses segments as well including oil and gas and telecom in the Middle East.

Continuum Solutions Integration, a key player in the storage system integration space in the Middle East says the relatively low cost of using IP is driving enterprises to replicate data over distances to ensure effective disaster recovery.

?I wouldn"t say that long-distance is the driving reason," says CSI Director Technical Tim Carlson. "It is the relative inexpensive cost of using IP. Through the use of data replication (asynchronous) you are not bound by distance, which then allows companies to position their DR site wherever they choose. Of course there are some downsides to asynchronous replication, such as transactions lost "on the wire" when the primary site fails, but this would fall within the company"s disaster recovery plan and actions/reactions would already be in the plan to address this potential loss.?

CSI, which currently represents storage players like FalconStor Software Inc., Qlogic Corp. and Storage Technology Corp., says the company is actively working with large enterprises in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for in-country IP-based replication/DR solutions as well as working with ASPGulf with the concept of a DRSP (Disaster Recovery Service Provider) for additional firms within the countries already mentioned, as well as Jordan, Oman and the UAE.

Big fish to catch

Customer interest clearly seems to back analyst?s indications that the large enterprise market for universal data replication (especially over long distances) across storage agnostic platforms and consolidated storage platforms is estimated to see significant growth over the next two years.

? The whole objective of consolidated storage technologies is to make it more cost effective and manageable. The industry has a mechanism to consolidate storage, but it is important to have a platform that will integrate with and maintain existing investments,? says Hitachi Data Systems Corp. (HDS) Sales Director John Bentley. According to Bentley, the trend for data replication was very real and was being fuelled by regulatory compliance, need for data backup, consolidated through mergers and acquisitions and centralize data to easily tier and prioritize it.

HDS recently unveiled what it terms the next generation consolidated storage platform -- HDS TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform (USP). This platform brings to the table the facility to plug and play existing storage infrastructure with the USP, extensive data virtualization/partitioning capabilities and specialized features for enabling long distance data replication. As part of the package, HDS is offering data replication tools -- Hitachi Universal Replicator (HUR) based on the USP platform, which can enable data to be managed, tiered, migrated and moved.

HDS also mentions that following the launch of this technology in the Middle East close to 20 large oil and gas and telecom majors in the region have logged their interest.

Hewlett-Packard Middle East Marketing Manager Samer Karawi (ESG) says the concept in storage today is to do more with less. He also mentions that data in most enterprises tends to be scattered and there is great need to consolidate and centralize. Regulatory compliance norms were also adding their pressure to implement sound data management and storage strategies, Karawi says. In keeping with market requirements, HP?s storage solutions offer features for virtualization, management and replication tools.

IBM Corp.?s thrust has been on virtualization, which the company says encompasses all aspects to storage and disaster recovery. The company?s thrust in the market has been on proliferating its data virtualization technology across all its hardware and software platforms in a bid to enable companies to consolidate both their IBM and non-IBM infrastructure. Even in the enterprise storage segment, the company has been offering a ?SAN Volume Controller (SVC)? hardware and software to allow companies to enlarge and consolidate their SAN environment without having to replace existing storage infrastructure. Tools like P2P Remote Copy and Flash Copy offer facilitate true copy and global mirroring of data across WAN or OFC, while the Total Storage range of boxes offer 55 terabytes of data storage within the same subsystem.

? Yes there is certainly a trend in the market to have a two level DR plan, one of which includes a data backup site away from mail location. The airlines sector, telecom, government and banking players are looking at this very seriously,? says IBM Middle East and Pakistan Storage Sales Manager, Mohamed El-Shanawany.

?We have been working very hard at the storage market,? says Sun Microsystems Data Center Architect Hein Van Der Merwe. According to Merwe, Sun?s Store Edge 9990 (developed as part of its alliance with HDS) will be targeted intensively at the DR market and leverage the trend to have both primary and secondary storage sites. Sun is also quick to add that going ahead it sees virtualization playing a big role in the way data is managed and retrieved.