The risks of remote back-up
PrintSimple? Ooooh no...
Posted in Storage, 15th October 2004 10:46 GMT
Free whitepaper – Reliability analysis of the APC Symmetra MW Power System
Storage Expo If you're shopping for remote back-up services or software, make sure the storage behind it is up to the job, because choosing the right hardware is not as simple as it might seem.
"We started out with two ATA arrays and it worked, but it didn't mirror fast enough," warns Michael Tremblath, a director of online back-up company Datalifeline. "We had to buy NetApp filers and use them with NetApp's SnapMirror software."
He says the problem came when Datalifeline mirrored standard RAID arrays between its datacentres in London and Gateshead. These copied files fast enough, but once Windows-based replication software was added to the equation, it needed to scan each file at start up to determine which needed to be mirrored to the other site, and this made the process far too slow.
"A lot of companies have bought remote backup software to run on mirrored RAID, and it doesn't work," Tremblath asserts. "We've found it requires hardware designed for the purpose." ®
Reg coverage from Storage Expo '04
IT under threat, says Veritas
Europe's SAN avoidance strategy
Removable disks back from the dead
LTO bids to regain its pace
Exabyte cuts its media costs
Free whitepaper – Fundamental Principles of Generators for Information Technology
Analyst Keynote: The Register Agile Data Center Summit
What Exchange can't do - and Dell can
Seven ways to optimize VMware server virtualization
Dell PowerEdge R710 solution with VMware ESX vs. Dell PowerEdge 2850 solution
Enabling The Agile Data Center
OpenOffice.org pushes gamers' buttons with OOMouse
Big Iron, big data, big networks, big problems
Spectra launches T-Finity, plans beyond
HP scores SMB storage hat-trick