All posts by Rob Mackle

Making Data Centres Lean and Mean

December 4, 2015 Rob Mackle

Storage visualization is becoming much more prevalent these days. Almost everyone now understands and accepts the concept of storage visualization, fueling its expansion. Analyzing the whole system involved in visualization, CIOs are working harder than ever to transform their data centres, re-positioning their storage as the main and integral part of their cloud policy and strategy. In the process, companies are grasping the real benefits and the pros of the technology they are embracing.

Problems associated with competence, consistency, supervision, performance and enhancement of data are discovered to be issues that can simply be resolved just as they cross the conventional data storage thresholds and also transform their data centres into lean, mean centres in the cloud. In addition, it has turned out to be a feasible answer in a space that has become border less. It also needs to be kept in mind that business mobility can only be harmonised by data mobility.

For that reason, transformation of data centre comes into view as a comprehensive process with demands that are conflicting. Extraordinary scalability pre-requisites struggle with reduced management involvement, and seamless mobility. Bear in mind that this is not a “rip and replace” exercise, rather a holistic approach to solving issues. Convergence and seamless integration are considered to be interdependent components of the evolving and ever changing network.

Investment in storage visualization has become extremely alluring for companies due the following reasons:

Reduces operating cost
Reduces capital expenses
Consolidates servers and storage
Uses server resources more efficiently
Enhances disaster recovery capabilities
Allows flexibility to dynamic business needs
Improves reliability and availability of systems

Nevertheless, storage virtualisation is not only the case of establishing a plan and taking required action. Really, it is not as simple as most people think it is. It is a must for CIOs to take a deeper look at the capabilities in order to make current investment perfect and create transformed tomorrow’s data centre infrastructures. Therefore, CIOs accept that the most requirements are to realise the current technology considering the company’s particular environment. They accept that structural design planning, developmental road maps and requirements are not the talent that possibly be available. It may be essential to engage external skills in the initial phases of the transformation to perform procedure successfully to obtain all advantages that follows storage visualization and data centre transformation.

Obviously, the bigger image can by no means be allowed to cover the base line of business, which is profitability. More so, there is no change in the cost effectiveness in data centre transformation strategy driver. Extending the entire process, CIOs accept the data policy due to the fact that it creates spin-offs, enhanced use of resources, improved dependability and suppleness. Consolidation and possible disaster recovery are extra remuneration that can be predictable.

The trouble connected with inefficient use of existing storage and server resources can be reassured through transformation of data centre. This further establishes an environment of availability and reliability. Viable workloads, ever-changing business needs or aging infrastructure need no more become problems to the company that has gone in for all-inclusive data centre transformation. As a result, tomorrow’s mean data centre will be realised today!

Managed Service Providers for Cloud Data Backup & Recovery

November 20, 2015 Rob Mackle

In the cloud backup and storage market, Asigra is considered cost effective, resourceful, compliant, secure, and reliable solution. Asigra software was launched in the year 1986 as data backup solution. Service providers, who are interested to provide data backup and storage services to organisations, consider partnering with Asigra to offer a reliable and secure service. Asigra software can be configured to scale up or down; makes data management easy, and offers high tech solutions, with excellent features.

In fact, Asigra cloud backup and recovery software can access the network to prepare backup for applications, operating systems, and file systems by utilising high tech industry recognised standards. Asigra architecture saves time, offers support, and requires a few resources to work. Managed service providers are able to encrypt important data of clients. Asigra is reliable to transmit encrypted data from desktop, repositories, laptop or remote offices without any security threats.

Since Asigra launched its software back in 1986, no hacks has been reported. As a result, there has not been any data loss or breaches. The software allows all kinds of data to be backed up with the help of a digital signature. All important data on disk is based on self-describing format. Asigra software activates certificate of destruction automatically for particular data that is wiped out from the repository. Security procedures are improved through password rotation and password management features. There are options to create new effective passwords that can be changed randomly on regular basis to improve security.

The Continuous Data Protection (CDP) feature of Asigra offers unrestricted granularity. Customers are given advantage to recover data through RPO (Recovery Point Objective). When CDP files are saved by users at computers, backup is made to avoid data loss. Moreover, this software pays attention on any change in target file and brings same changes in backup file as soon as these changes are noticed. In other words, Asigra is dependable backup option, effective for email backup, as well as file system to enhance recovery procedures of critical data.

Benefits of Asigra CDP:
• CDP gives surety that updated data on hard drive is backed up;
• Traditional backups were able to recover data that was backed up only. However, CDP is automatic and it is backed up to the cloud happens as soon as data is saved on the drive;
• CDP offers latest type of data protection system, where record of previous data is also maintained;
• Asigra can optionally make local backups and encrypt the data and backup to a centralised repository. As a result, recovery time objectives and backup window are decreased to a minimum.
Service providers understand the significance of legally compliant Asigra. Automatic disk based solutions are capable to work without human interference. In order to recover important information, backed up data is collected from offsite repositories through private or public cloud.

Asigra’s on-boarding features minimise time needed to go to market as well as operational costs for backup and data recovery. It allows service providers to develop a variety of services along with numerous service level agreements. Through self service option, end users are given chance to create new accounts and integrated vaults. Clients are able to do these tasks without interference of service provider. In short, MSPs that are using Asigra software are able to meet the demands of customers.

How Can you Overcome Storage Management Challenges?

November 6, 2015 Rob Mackle

Enterprises have noticed an increase in data volumes of up to 60% on a yearly basis. Hardware limitations can also make it more difficult to deal with such volume of data effectively. Proper planning, effective technology and talented staff are required to tackle the issue. The situation becomes even worst due to regulatory compliance and virtualization technology laws.

Effective storage administrators introduce new policies, put into practise helpful tools for resource management, and use financial resources for capacity planning. Before initiating all these jobs, they need to recognise the types of data, relevant applications, storage requirements, and then they need to review all of their policies in order to have an effective storage system in place.

Data administrators work to recognise factors responsible for data growth. Consequently, they will understand all the factors and will be able to answers questions of when, what, why, where and how of data storage. Storage environments are not similar; they differ in their size, requirements and architecture. It is necessary to understand queries, such as “What is driving data growth?”, “What type of tools do you need?”, “What are storage policies and when these were evaluated?”

Visibility and ease of access are the two major driving forces that work behind data storage. When data is visible properly, it helps storage administrators to identify certain problems associated with data storage. Consequently, they select right technologies that are suitable. Moreover, they update technology to check data paths and avoid blockage at certain positions where data growth is maximised.

Storage administrators use capacity planning in order to determine data storage requirements for a limited period of time. They can determine on various kinds of storage, time limit for storage (retention period), data growth projections, and which data must be stored in offline and/or online data repositories. It depends on storage managers to select technology for allocating the right amount of data to given applications. Usually, thin provisioning approach is selected by most storage administrators, as it helps in assigning the exact amount of capacity at the right time.

Capacity planning works in collaboration with reclaiming assets. Administrators need to reclaim, from time to time, underused or unused storage space. Data experts estimate that up to 15 percent more physical storage space can be freed up if unclaimed storage is used properly.

Data disasters are always in mind of storage administrators, therefore, they introduce strategies to strike against unexpected situations. It is the reason why storage management makes it easy to manage disasters. Skilled administrators take automatic snapshots of critical information of business data and design standards for reliable recovery before disasters strike. It is their job to continually monitor backups and simulate recovery scenarios through backed up data. It gives surety that the storage administrators are competent enough to handle disaster conditions.

Due to the presence of cloud data storage, it becomes possible to think about new data storage and delivery techniques. Enterprises that are using cloud computing services have reduced their operational and capital costs. In addition to low cost, they have enhanced flexibility to store and access data. Cloud storage plays a very important role in overcoming storage management challenges. It enables security, control, business resiliency, visibility, and automation of cloud backup and recovery.

Facts about Suitable Cloud Strategies

October 26, 2015 Rob Mackle

There is confusion on the murmur and blare surrounding cloud computing these days. CIOs and cloud strategists in an organization may find it very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, at the same time, adopt the right cloud strategy for their organization. For that reason, this article is dedicated to providing you with few guidelines which can be beneficial while defining the required and suitable cloud strategies for your organization.

It is a must for cloud strategists to describe cloud service value in their environment, and explain the needs for their business into viable strategies. This means, strategists need to do thorough analysis of the prevailing IT environment, build road map, and create desirable service level chart for incremental progress to the cloud. The strategists must also create recommendations about key performance indicators (KPIs) as well as layer data lifecycle management around these services using with regard to privacy, compliance, and security.

Obviously, it is advised to avoid designing cloud strategy focusing only on technology. The needs of the business and the business it self should be the focus while designing the cloud strategy. To be encouraged to build cloud strategy with business needs in focus, strategists need to ask the following questions:

– In which way will moving to the cloud benefit the business?
– Does a positive trade-off ever exist between cloud computing options and local storage options?

Honestly, the answers they will get from the two questions above will serve as a succor in maintaining an approach that is level headed to the strategy at the same time building a strong foundation for evolution that will last for long period of time both toward the cloud options and cloud like options that they plan to mature within a given year. For the cloud strategists planning suitable strategy for an organization, there must be a good understanding of the kind of strategy available in the cloud, and making use of that knowledge to find out and utilize the appropriate kind of cloud technology for the benefit of the enterprise. The three main categories of cloud services, which you need to know, include:

– Platform as a service (PaaS) which is responsible for provision of platforms for programming as well as building blocks or tools for APIs that help in creating application and services that are based in the cloud.
– Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the ability for managing, owing or even controlling the essential infrastructure. In order to scale up available IT hardware resources within an organization, infrastructure may be rented.
– Software as a service (SaaS) exposes applications as a service that is running in the cloud infrastructure.

In order to create a cloud strategy that is personalized to the business needs of organization, there may be a need for cloud-strategists to combine one or more of the options available services.

It is important for cloud strategists to go beyond mere theoretical definitions of the the cloud, and focus their attention on making use of convincing analysis so as to deduce a clearer fit between economic and risk profiles, which exist in variety of business situations and make cloud offerings — including cloud storage and cloud backup — to stand out as among the technology strategies of the organization.

Effects of Bandwidth in Cloud Computing

October 9, 2015 Rob Mackle

The term “bandwidth” has been used in Electrical Engineering for years to mean “the difference between the upper and lower frequencies in a continuous set of frequencies, measured in hertz”. In the early 1990’s Telcos started to use the term “bandwidth” to describe the volume of data handled and defined it as “the transmission rate of data across a network”. Bandwidth in data transmission is measured in bits per second and it represents the capacity of network connection. Increase in the capacity means improved performance, considering other factors like latency. We will further discuss the effects of utilisation of bandwidth to the challenges associated with cloud computing.

Cloud computing providers usually calculate required bandwidth of customers just by considering the available quantity of bandwidth as well as the mean bandwidth utilisation needed by variety of applications. In addition, cloud computing providers consider latencies in transmission to calculate the required time to upload both the initial backup and all subsequent backups. For that reason, Internet based cloud backup service providers work hard to enhance the overall Internet bandwidth. They also do everything within their power to reduce the amount of data that flows through their pipes. There are many things the cloud service providers do to achieve such goals. They can use incremental backup technologies, link load balancing technologies or even some exceptional binary patching to transmit and extract file’s changes so as to reduce/ balance the transmitted amount of data. In addition, both de-duplication and file compression techniques may be used to decrease the quantity of files that are transmitted over the network.

Information Technology administrators are often advised to determine, as accurately as possible, the quantity of bandwidth that will be needed by the organisation for both data storage and transfer operations in the cloud, and also the latency, expressed in milliseconds. Therefore, they have to consider the number of users and systems that will be responsible for pushing data into the available network space for data storage and other functions at non-peak and peak hours.

The online backup that is built with self-service enabling features, augmented by administrative interface that is user-friendly can easily be built with tools that allow customers to select the things that can be backed up at any point in time. There is also inbuilt filter, which enables users to add or remove files as well as folders from their sets of backups. There may be scheduling of backup sets for upload at different points in time in the Internet based servers. Massive data transfers can be scheduled during off-peak times of the organisation, increasing the speed of the transfer of data to when there is enough bandwidth.

Nevertheless, it is important for you to know that there is interconnection between bandwidth and latency. The connection speed of the network is the function of latency and bandwidth. Latency cannot be decreased drastically, however, bandwidth can be increased at anytime.

How to Avoid Data based Cyber-Crimes

September 28, 2015 Rob Mackle

If you want to take pleasure in the comfort and relaxation you have created for your organization and yourself, you need to have good sense of self-defense. It is true that you need not to panic or visualize your enemy running and following you always, it is important for you to be conscious of precarious enemies that can occupy your environment to harm your data and other confidential information in your organization. For that reason, you have to always be prepared to deter enemies and protect yourself and your environment against any form of attack. While your digital data is transferred across the Internet, you have to be aware of the hostility agencies responsible for Cyber crime as they can easily pose threat to the safety of your digital data.

The major cause of Cyber crime is often pure unprofessionalism of employees. Thousands of Internet devices like laptops and mobile devices loaded with confidential information get lost every year. The problem is that the majority of these lost laptops and mobile devices are not protected with hard drive encryption or even anti-theft software. In addition, some employees often share passwords with each other and even with their co-workers that are not originally granted access to the password simply because of their ignorance about the value of the data in their procession. Some employees normally go as far as using file sharing tool to share files with contractors and suppliers. The worst of all is that some employees may unkindly create data branches for either retribution or for personal gain.

At times, there can be threat to the security of your data by some of the employees that have left your organization. An Ex-employee whose right and privilege has not been deleted or removed from your computing system can easily exploit the information either for personal benefit or to the advantage of competitors. Disgruntled ex-employees can go as far as infecting your computing system with malware and virus so as to corrupt, modify or even change the entire data stores of your company. You can easily avoid this by ensuring that you remove the right or privilege you gave to any employee when he or she leaves your organization.

Though, threats from external data are rare yet, they cannot be overlooked while considering the Cyber crime that can affect your data. Information transmitted over your network can easily be hijacked by eavesdroppers by listening at open ports. Your data can be susceptible if you store them to a third party Internet based cloud backup provider. This can easily happen when their system is compromised, access is granted to unauthorized personnel by employees, the provider goes bankrupt or drop their servers maybe due to financial difficulties or other similar reasons. And you need to know that your data can be vulnerable when you share them over the Internet.

So, there is a need for you to be careful and security conscious about Cyber crimes. You need to make some required safety precautions to protect and safeguard your data.

Some of the ways to protect your data against Cyber crimes include:

Educating your employees about the need for data protection,
Encrypting data in while in flight and at rest,
Interviewing and auditing users activity logs, as well as other activity logs,
Ensuring adequate user management of data, and
Giving adequate and frequent attention to data against any form of data crimes.