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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical RE: An area for operations growth - Storage Area Nets in MANS
> -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Rubens Kuhl Jr. > Sent: Monday, May 19, 2003 6:37 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: An area for operations growth - Storage Area Nets in MANS > > > > > Non-flawless software (i.e., 100% of it) is usually dealt > with storage snapshots; if they are kept local or remote, > that's a design choice that a metro SAN can impact. > > Doing backup/restores thru a metro SAN also has some > advantages on facilities with tight-controlled physical > access; the bandwagon that moves tapes to off-site storage > still has more bandwidth than the fiber, but it can also be > used to smuggle <insert-your-favorite-paranoia-here>. > > Rubens > > Yeah, people with serious business continuity needs use real-time replication for datacenter disasters, plus point-in-time copies to protect against software error that often get replicated remotely as well. That way, the DR servers can serve a purpose doing regression testing, development work, integrity testing, etc, without exposing the possibility of unrecoverability in the event of a disaster by disabling the real-time replication to do testing. The other interesting thing in terms of point-in-time replication is what has come to be known as near-line storage. Big boxes of inexpensive drives that are used to offload point-in-time copies from expensive storage for long-term retrieval. This is someplace where metro networks could come into play - having organizations use this excess bandwidth to offload encrypted copies of various data sets to a centralized point run by some neutral third-party. This would be a good way to enforce data retention policies and offsite storage of data. Like an Iron Mountain, only without all the irritation of trucks, people, and magnetic tapes. Economies of scale, plus much better recovery SLAs than having someone retrieve tapes out of a vault somewhere. Thanks, Matt -- Matthew Zito GridApp Systems Email: [email protected] Cell: 646-220-3551 Phone: 212-358-8211 x 359
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