Simon Elisha: When Web 2.0 met storage

We are witnessing the rise of a new generation of companies. These are the Web 2.0 companies that have arisen from the wreckage of the dot-bomb days to rule the present-day business revolution on the Internet. Many of these companies are household names such as eBay, PayPal and YouTube, while others are small, specific and primed for growth. Whatever their size, all Web 2.0 companies have at least two things in common: they use the Internet as their platform, and have very unique data storage requirements.

With Web 2.0 comes the introduction of a new generation of data-intensive websites — from wikis and blogs to photo sharing, video sharing and social networking websites — that demand scalable, enterprise-class storage. As Web 2.0 companies rise in popularity, they are driving storage demand like never before.

Why is storage so important to Web 2.0 companies?
Computer power is cheaper and more plentiful than ever. Anyone can purchase a four-way quad-core server with hundreds of gigabytes of internal storage and start providing Web 2.0 services. But as Web 2.0 companies grow in popularity, they quickly become victims of their own success and run out of storage space. As their website or service becomes more successful, it will attract more and more users, which in turn demands even greater storage space. Before they know it, Web 2.0 companies quickly outgrow their entire storage infrastructure.

For that reason, before selling storage to a Web 2.0 company, you must take several factors into consideration, including scalability, data mobility, security and disaster recovery or business continuity.

Scalability
Some of the most popular Web 2.0 companies find their storage requirements growing by 15 to 20 percent every week. At that rate, Web 2.0 companies reach a petabyte of data very quickly, and simply adding more capacity does not help keep their infrastructure under control.

Therefore, Web 2.0 companies move along a storage infrastructure lifecycle. They start with internal storage, and then they outgrow it. I have seen organisations with servers that have USB-attached hard drives ‘gaffer taped’ to them! Next, they seek volume — terabytes of storage and more reliability. This is where storage area network (SAN) technology becomes relevant. Many organisations will invest in modular or mid-range storage, such as our Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage system. This is often acceptable for the availability and performance requirements of mid-sized companies, but for the organisations that really grow large, enterprise-class storage is a must. Enterprise-class platforms such as Hitachi’s TagmaStore Network Storage Controller (NSC55) and Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) offer capabilities such as massive scalability, reliable performance, fault tolerance and an ‘always on’ design.

Data Mobility
Organisations that are thinking strategically rather than reactively will also be open to the concept of tiered storage to ensure data mobility. The natural profile of Web 2.0 companies and services is that a large number of users will sign up for the service, but many will not continue to use the service. Social networking sites are a great example of ‘flavour of the month’ usage. These sites will retain a solid group of ‘power users’ who will consume resources readily, whilst other ‘lightweight’ users will drop in but not be regular visitors.

In a single-tiered storage architecture, the cost for hosting the activities of the ‘lightweight’ user is the same as the ‘power’ user, which is clearly a poor use of assets. In a tiered storage model, files that belong to infrequent users are automatically migrated to lower-cost, lower performing storage, controlling growth and ensuring that the best service is there for those that use it often, but infrequent visitors are still serviced and catered for. Hitachi solutions such as Tiered Storage Manager and Data Migrator enable organisations to set policies to manage their data across tiers without management overhead or applications changes and outages.

Security
Data security and control also becomes an issue for Web 2.0 organisations. In particular, ‘conventional’ organisations that are fostering new Web 2.0 projects often seek to ‘segment’ the new operation from the old whilst still leveraging a common set of infrastructure. Capabilities such as Hitachi Virtual Partition Manager enable a single storage array to be partitioned into up to 32 logical storage arrays. This enables the organisation to manage data in a secure, segmented environment whilst taking advantage of storage consolidation.

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
As Web 2.0 companies become more established, users expect Web 2.0 services to be ‘always on’. A site or service that is unavailable is an invitation to ‘experiment’ with an alternative service. Therefore, it is imperative for organisations of this nature to get their storage house in order. This means providing a reliable, robust storage platform, protected by reliable backup and recovery that does not need major management time. There are several software solutions that can help a Web 2.0 company manage its backup and disaster recovery strategy, including Hitachi’s Data Protection Suite, powered by CommVault.

Business continuity also becomes front of mind for a growing Web 2.0 company. When a service is effectively monetised or primed for acquisition, the loss of service is disastrous and has financially quantifiable consequences. Therefore, solutions around long-distance replication must be explored and implemented. This often involves hosting stand-by infrastructure at an alternative data centre and replicating all data to that second site to enable immediate or near-real-time takeover of services in the event of a catastrophe. TrueCopy Remote Replication and Hitachi Universal Replicator are examples of business continuity solutions that are integrated into applications and can send data across a city or across the world.

The storage journey of the Web 2.0 organisation is a long one characterised
by dramatic growth, spikes in development and skyrocketing expectations. Often all of this takes place in an initial climate of fiscal restriction until the service is effectively monetised. It is for this reason that such organisations are very open to storage solutions that can grow, or be virtualised later to ensure that old assets are re-used. Organisations seeking to service the market are using technologies such as thin provisioning and storage virtualisation to ensure that they can manage their growth effectively, whilst moving at ‘the speed
of Web 2.0’.

“I have seen organisations with servers that have USB- attached hard drives ‘gaffer taped’ to them!”

“Social networking sites are a great example of ‘flavour of the month’ usage.”

By Simon Elisha, head solution architect, Hitachi Data Systems