White PapersIn today’s “think global act local” corporations, IT managers are now faced with the proliferation of multi-site organizations, which has significantly increased the amount and value of data that is stored outside the corporate data center. According to the Gartner Group, data growth at remote offices continues at a 50% to 100% per year rate. The need for data consolidation is continually increasing; yet poor wide area network (WAN) performance continues to limit the backup and replication process for distributed enterprises.
For many companies, the first step in consolidating distributed IT infrastructure is centralizing their remote office backup, which may involve consolidating the tape drives or autoloaders that are currently deployed in their remote offices. Large organizations with remote offices have attempted to use tape backup for server data protection but this results in decentralized backups, higher software and hardware cost and has proved to be problematic with many experiencing restore failure rates of up to 50%. In addition, remote offices typically have insufficient or inexperienced staff to conduct backups which contributes further to the failures making tape backup an inadequate solution for remote office data protection.
W HITE PAPERag mi Information ServersBackup/Data Consolidation for Remote Field OfficesEliminate Remote Office Backup and Administration Requirements: ag mi Information Server s file system replication enables consolidated backup over regular remote office network links providing for immediate recoverySynchronizing our remote office backups is expensive and always a challenge; we have multiple sites each with hundreds of Windows users. Currently each remote office has its own backup strategy with no consistent synchronization or backup process.Our IT budgets have been slashed with no administration support planned; this means each of our field offices is left to fend for themselves on their backup strategy.Our field offices continue to be at risk but the cost of incorporating a company-wide, enterprise-class backup strategy is beyond our reach. I m looking for a solution that can economically simplify and consolidate our company backup process. AsyncAIS-3004(Los Angeles)(Phoenix)(Atlanta)(San Jose)AIS-3004AIS-6112IS-3004AsyncAsyncWANField OfficesCentral Site (Backup Site)Untitled DocumentW H I T E P A P E R : Backup/Data Consolidation for Remote Field Office ag mi Information Servers: The future of Network Attached Storage has arrived With the introduction of ag mi Information Servers (AIS), ag mi Systems has created a major advancement in networked attached storage (NAS). AIS provide customers with tremendous improvements in functionality, increased performance and capacity, simplified management and dramatically reduced cost of ownership. This paper will explore the advantages of AIS for data consolidation and backup of distributed enterprises with remote office locations. Nobody does business in one place anymore In today s think global act local corporations, IT managers are now faced with the proliferation of multi-site organizations, which has significantly increased the amount and value of data that is stored outside the corporate data center. According to the Gartner Group, data growth at remote offices continues at a 50% to 100% per year rate. The need for data consolidation is continually increasing; yet poor wide area network (WAN) performance continues to limit the backup and replication process for distributed enterprises. For many companies, the first step in consolidating distributed IT infrastructure is centralizing their remote office backup, which may involve consolidating the tape drives or auto-loaders that are currently deployed in their remote offices. Large organizations with remote offices have attempted to use tape backup for server data protection but this results in decentralized backups, higher software and hardware cost and has proved to be problematic with many experiencing restore failure rates of up to 50%. In addition, remote offices typically have insufficient or inexperienced staff to conduct backups which contributes further to the failures making tape backup an inadequate solution for remote office data protection. WAN latencies require network-efficient replication The relatively limited bandwidth interconnecting remote offices to the central site has not changes much with round trip WAN latencies from the west coast of the United States to Europe in the range of 100- 00ms. Latency that is higher than 50ms in client-server environments, such as file servers that work well on LANs function very poorly on WANs, if at all. Adding bandwidth to remote offices can be prohibitively expensive with a T1 line costing 10,000 or more. Using block-based technologies for remote office data replication can be problematic, which transfer data in mammoth chunks, typically compiled in no logical order or without meaningful semantics. Making even a small change to a file means sending an entire block over the WAN, even if the modification simply deletes an address. Now multiply that block by the hundreds of thousands of changes that can occur in a remote office environment, and it is easy to see how the resulting strain weighs heavy on the replication performance process. What is needed is a new approach to fle system replication. ag miFSR" Network-efficient, integrated file system replication ag mi Information Servers offer integral file system replication management software (ag miFSR) that provides significantly greater throughput, network efficiency and reliability of the fle system replication processes versus today s block-based replication solutions. With ag miFSR, only the modified bytes are sent over the WAN. For that same address modification, AIS transmits only a few bytes over the network, resulting in a significant improvement in network efficiency over block-based replication solutions. AIS used in remote office backup and data consolidation support both asynchronous replication and net synchronous replication. Asynchronous replication - is advantageous for initial replication of data in bulk where every write transaction is acknowledged by the AIS at the remote office before being queued for replication to the AIS at the central site. Net synchronous replication - allow updates to remote office servers without mandating a disk update of the change before control is returned to the application. Net synchronous provides point-in-time consistency and is typically preferred when replicating file systems from remote locations. Integrated remote backup /data consolidation solution Tape backup systems are no longer required in each remote office. The tape backup server itself might cost between 5,000 and 0,000, with a system life of three to four years. By replicating files with ag miFSR over the WAN to a central site AIS, you no longer need to worry about local tape backup in every branch. AIS provides integral file system replication for remote office file system replication. Each geographically remote file system is replicated, using ag miFSR on the central ag mi Information Server site. In the event of a failure or data loss at the remote office, that data is available on the central site AIS and may be used to maintain business continuity and to resynchronize the remote office site after operations are restored. ""Untitled DocumentW H I T E P A P E R : Backup/Data Consolidation for Remote Field Office Data consolidation is another key feature. Because replication is done at the file level, all changes to the remote office site are file system transactions, making the consolidated data at the central office site immediately mountable and readable for central site applications, such as inventory management or sales forecast reconciliation. In other words, all the remote office AIS and central office AIS are functional units that can operate autonomously while the central site AIS is replicating the transactions of all remote office AIS. ag miFSR also provides higher level of data integrity through its ability to efficiently perform an audit of each remote office AIS with respect to the central office replicated file systems. Through an advanced differential analysis , each replicated file system can exchange lightweight checksum information to verify their integrity with respect to central site AIS replicated data. If there is a difference, only the missing information needs to be sent. This can also expedite a recovery of a remote office site in the rare event of a double disk failure, further reducing the chance of data loss to statistically insignificant levels. These audits run continuously for ongoing data integrity verification. World s first quad CPU 64-bit SMP NAS solution While 64-bit processing has been deployed at the world s largest corporations for years, ag mi Systems is the first to leverage the quad 64-bit AMD Opteron" processors with direct connect and HyperTransport" I/O link technologies for the ag mi Information Server NAS architecture. AIS 6112 ArchitectureThe ag mi innovation extends the HyperTransport I/O link to the disk and network controllers to eliminate traditional bottlenecks between CPUs and disks as well as between the CPUs and network interfaces. The AIS-611 provides industry-leading 1GB/sec throughput performance and delivers more than enough horsepower to execute all remote offices file replications along with central site high performance primary storage applications. Simple policy-based management software eliminates administration costs A hallmark of AIS is the ease with which the remote backup /data consolidation solution is deployed. Add ag mi Information Servers to your MAN/WAN, each field office AIS acts as their own primary local storage server and the central site AIS as the backup or data consolidation storage server providing high speed enterprise backup, data consolidation and disaster recovery. The integrated policy-based management software with its intuitive graphical interface and wizard allows an administrator to quickly configure the ag mi Information Server without the need for additional software, hardware or RAID expertise. Policy-based management further reduces the cost of management with integrated administrative tools that easily set operating policies. Once these parameters are established, the system functions autonomously and can be managed remotely from the central site, eliminating the need to administer systems in remote offices. 48 SATADisksLAN2x GbEWindowsClientsUNIXClientsIPSwitchLinux2x GbE4x GbE4x GbEQuadOpteron PCBHyperTransportPCI-X1GBNVRAMHTI/O LinkHTI/O LinkHyperTransportI/O LinkHyperTransportI/O LinkHTI/O LinkHTI/O LinkS A T AC o n t r o l l e r s1GBNVRAMS A T AC o n t r o l l e r sUntitled DocumentW H I T E P A P E R : Backup/Data Consolidation for Remote Field Office1 69 Innsbruck Drive | Sunnyvale, CA 94089 | (408) 49-0400 | www.agami.comag mi and ag miFSR are trademarks and registered trademarks of ag mi Systems, Inc. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.Specifications are subject to change without notice.4Cost-effective multi-site backup and data consolidation solution This streamlined functionality coupled with ultra-high performance and reliability are all bundled at a price that is less than 1/4th the price of competing enterprise-class remote office backup systems. Built on an affordable NAS platform, a four site replication / consolidation AIS solution can be deployed for under 164,000 compared to competitors that package a lower performing multi-site replication solution for over 660,000. The three year total cost of ownership (TCO) of this multi-site remote field offices AIS backup/data consolidation solution is less than 4 times lower as compared to the leading competitors. How to Learn More &ag mi Information Servers support many critical roles in the enterprise Backup/data consolidation for remote field offices is just one of many advanced solutions integrated into ag mi Information Servers. Listed below are additional application blueprints for best practices along with the AIS product specifications available from the ag mi Systems website. Application Blueprints for Best PracticesProduct SpecificationsStorage Consolidation for Windows File Server InfrastructuresHigh-Performance Integrated Backup/RecoveryBusiness Continuity Solutions Enterprise Disaster Recovery Near-line Disk BackupEnterprise NAS for Unix/Linux EnvironmentsEnterprise NAS for Windows Environments Backup/Data Consolidation for Remote Field Offices AIS 004 Technical SpecificationsAIS 006 Technical SpecificationsAIS611 Technical SpecificationsFor additional information or to contact us and arrange a demonstration, visit http://www.agami.com.NAS System Location and TypeCapacityNetApp Configuration1NetApp Price ag mi Configurationag mi AIS Price Los Angeles Office Site w/Replication S/W4TBFAS 0 0 with SnapMirror 1 4,646AIS- 004 with ag miFSR ,995 yr Operating Cost415% annual 6 ,755 Year Gold 17,474San Jose Office Site w/Replication S/W4TBFAS 0 0 with SnapMirror 1 4,646AIS- 004 with ag miFSR 64,995 yr Operating Cost415% annual 6 ,755 Year Gold 17,474Phoenix Office Site w/Replication S/W4TBFAS 0 0 with SnapMirror 1 4,646AIS- 004 with ag miFSR 64,995 yr Operating Cost415% annual 6 ,755 Year Gold 17,474Atlanta Central Site w/Replication S/W1 TBFAS 050 with SnapMirror 9 ,46 AIS-611 with ag miFSR 64,995 yr Operating Cost415% annual 149,664 Year Gold 1,9 9Total System Cost 666,400 16 ,980Total Operating Cost 7,9 9 84, 51Total 3yr TCO 1,004,329 248,3311 NetApp configurations includes 144GB FC disks with NFS and CIFS licenses NetApp pricing derived from 5/ 005 GSA published pricing at www.gsaadvantage.gov. ag mi Systems pricing obtained from the company s 005 published price list.4 Includes support, power and cooling costs and assumes competitors year TCO maintenance is at 15% of the product costs per year.
