Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft. StorSimple cloud-integrated storage and Windows Azure

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1 Lab Review Report Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft StorSimple cloud-integrated storage and Windows Azure By Mike Leone, ESG Lab Analyst, and Aviv Kaufmann, ESG Lab Analyst October 2013

2 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 2 Contents Introduction... 3 Background... 3 Hybrid Cloud Storage Solution with StorSimple... 4 ESG Lab Validation... 5 Getting Started Ease of Deployment... 5 Data Protection and Disaster Recovery... 7 Capacity Optimization Performance Total Cost of Ownership and Return on Investment ESG Lab Validation Highlights Issues to Consider The Bigger Truth Appendix ESG Lab Reports The goal of ESG Lab reports is to educate IT professionals about data center technology products for companies of all types and sizes. ESG Lab reports are not meant to replace the evaluation process that should be conducted before making purchasing decisions, but rather to provide insight into these emerging technologies. Our objective is to go over some of the more valuable feature/functions of products, show how they can be used to solve real customer problems and identify any areas needing improvement. ESG Lab's expert third-party perspective is based on our own hands-on testing as well as on interviews with customers who use these products in production environments. This ESG Lab report was sponsored by Microsoft. All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject to change from time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this publication, in whole or in part, whether in hard-copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express consent of The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., is in violation of U.S. copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable, criminal prosecution. Should you have any questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at

3 Introduction Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 3 This ESG Lab review documents the results of independent, hands-on testing of Microsoft s solution for hybrid cloud storage specifically StorSimple cloud-integrated storage and Windows Azure. Testing focused on the simplicity of deployment, disk capacity savings, ease of data protection, speed of data recovery, and performance acceleration offered by the cloud-integrated storage system. ESG Lab also calculated the total cost of ownership of a traditional storage deployment and compared it to a hybrid cloud storage deployment with StorSimple and Windows Azure to confirm the potential cost savings. Background The adoption of cloud-based storage as a viable storage strategy has quickly become a priority within many IT organizations. However, the logistics and expertise involved with performing a complete transition to the cloud may often impose a major roadblock in creating a plan and initiating action. As part of an ESG survey, respondents were asked about how cloud storage services will likely affect traditional storage spending in the short term, as well as forward-looking strategies. 1 When respondent organizations were asked to identify the IT initiatives they believed would significantly impact their organizations storage spending over the next months, the use of cloud storage services to source storage capacity in lieu of buying new onsite infrastructure was most commonly cited. This is consistent with research previously conducted by ESG, which revealed that nearly two-thirds of organizations currently using cloud storage services expect to have transferred upwards of 30% of their total storage capacity to the cloud within the next three years. 2 As shown in Figure 1, 63% of respondents to a recent poll indicated that they intended to use cloud storage as part of their overall storage strategy. 57% of the respondents also indicated that they currently use cloud storage as a disaster recovery service. 3 These were the two most popular responses in the survey and the results show that the cloud has become a valuable tier in organizations storage strategies going forward. The responses clearly indicate an opportunity to help facilitate a movement of lesser used data out of the data center and into the cloud. Figure 1. Cloud Infrastructure Services Organizations Use or Expect to Use Which of the following cloud infrastructure services does your organization currently use or does it expect to use over the next 12 months? Cloud storage (i.e., storage capacity on demand) 60% 63% Disaster recovery service Cloud servers (i.e., CPUs on demand) 43% 47% 57% 57% Current IaaS users (N=111) Potential IaaS users (N=283) Database instances on demand 19% 36% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, It is clear that survey respondents are committed to leveraging the advantages of public cloud storage as a growing part of their enterprise storage strategies going forward. However, some potential bumps in the road may hinder making this strategy a reality. Determining which data to store in the cloud, maintaining migration policies, and other challenges can stall the strategy. Some users may fear a loss of control of the data, or worry about making the wrong decision about where the data is to reside. Leveraging a hybrid approach to cloud storage solution may help to ease these concerns. A hybrid cloud storage solution combines the performance benefits of local, onsite storage with the economic and data protection benefits of the cloud. 1 Source: ESG Research Report, 2012 Storage Market Survey, November Source: ESG Research Report, 2012 Public Cloud Computing Trends, March Source: ESG Research Report, 2013 Public Cloud Computer Trends, March 2013.

4 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 4 Hybrid Cloud Storage Solution with StorSimple and Windows Azure Hybrid cloud storage solutions from Microsoft leverage a new class of product known as cloud-integrated storage (CiS). StorSimple CiS combines the performance and data integrity advantages of an enterprise-level on-premises iscsi-based SAN storage system with the flexibility and agility of public cloud-based storage for enterprise applications that rely on tier 2, tier 3, and tier 4 data. While the classification of data tiers may vary from a workload standpoint, they have common characteristics in terms of their overall storage consumption and access frequency. Typically, tier 2, tier 3, and tier 4 data take up the bulk of enterprise storage capacity with a small fraction of data accessed at a high frequency, a larger fraction of data accessed at a medium frequency, and the largest fraction of data accessed infrequently. StorSimple also replaces appliances dedicated to performing backup and recovery, deduplication, compression, and encryption. StorSimple automatically utilizes the economic and scalability benefits offered by public cloud storage as an additional tier of primary storage and for archival, backups, and restores. Figure 2. Hybrid Cloud Storage Solution with StorSimple Key features of the StorSimple cloud-integrated storage system include: Cloud-integrated Automated Tiering StorSimple makes use of block rank technology that promotes the most relevant data blocks to the SSD tier on the local SAN storage system and automatically moves lesser used blocks to the HDD (SAS) tier and then to cloud-based storage in Windows Azure. Enterprise-Level Backup and Recovery Through the use of incremental, deduplicated cloud snapshots, StorSimple is able to reduce storage consumption and shorten backup windows. Further, it restores data more efficiently and faster than traditional backup solutions, restoring user data within hours instead of days or weeks. Because data backups are stored in the cloud, backups can be restored and disaster recovery can be performed to any geographical location. Simple, Integrated Management StorSimple s management software offers a single integrated console that manages primary, archival, backup, and disaster recovery (DR) functionality. Administration of storage, cloud, and backups is made much simpler and can be done by a single administrator rather than requiring many dedicated administrators. Enterprise-Level Security All data transferred to the cloud (data in motion) and stored in the cloud (data at rest) is encrypted with AES-256 encryption. Because the encryption key is customer specified and accessible only to them, primary data, archives, and backups are always secure. Application-optimized storage and data protection StorSimple is designed to fully integrate with many key business applications. StorSimple can create and manage optimized volumes for Windows file shares, SharePoint, and VMware libraries, and offers full VSS application-consistent snapshots.

5 ESG Lab Validation Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 5 ESG Lab performed hands-on evaluation and testing of a StorSimple system in Redmond, Washington. Testing was designed to demonstrate the ease of deployment, capacity savings, and performance the system provided, working seamlessly with Windows Azure to create a hybrid cloud storage solution. ESG Lab also looked at the primary storage, data protection, and disaster recovery capabilities offered by the system. Getting Started Ease of Deployment ESG Lab started testing by configuring and provisioning a 7520 appliance with a goal of understanding the ease of deployment and manageability. The test bed used for testing is shown in Figure 3. A host server was connected to a 7520 appliance via two 1GbE ports. Two ports were used to meet the multipath (MPIO) best-practice standards of ensuring high availability in the case of network failures. The appliance was then connected to Microsoft s Windows Azure cloud with a minimum StorSimple-recommended speed of 20Mbps. Figure 3. ESG Lab Test Bed After giving the StorSimple system a management IP address, ESG Lab logged into the web-browser management interface to configure the system for first use. An easy-to-follow wizard was used that helped guide ESG Lab through the initial configuration steps of creating an appliance name and configuring network interfaces, DNS settings, and time settings. A summary of the steps is shown in Figure 4. Figure 4. Summary of the StorSimple Configuration Wizard

6 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 6 Next ESG Lab linked a Windows Azure account to the appliance and then began provisioning volumes on the appliance. This was done by using another easy-to-follow wizard that included information about the volume type, cloud configuration to be applied, and capacity. ESG Lab s selections for the first configured data volume are shown in Figure 5 and include the creation of a 3TB file server volume. Volumes on StorSimple are thin provisioned, which means no storage is consumed until data is stored on the volumes. Three volumes were created on the appliance and loaded with data sets that are similar to data created by typical file share users who typically maintain multiple copies of the same data, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and PDF documents, as well as images, videos, and even a few larger-sized VHDs. Figure 5. Provisioning a Volume on a StorSimple System Why This Matters In growing environments, the ability to quickly deploy and provision data solutions or services for users is essential. As IT is being asked to do more with less, flexible and easy-to-use deployments enable efficient provisioning and management with minimal effort. An effective solution should provide the same type of administration and management rather than consuming staff resources for important, yet mundane, tasks. ESG Lab confirmed that deploying a StorSimple system connected to Windows Azure was simple. Intuitive configuration wizards were used to provide guidance throughout the deployment process. ESG Lab also successfully connected a Windows Azure account to the appliance, completed an initial configuration backup, and provisioned a 3TB volume. The time of deployment for the StorSimple solution took significantly less time than what could be expected from traditional storage architectures. Traditional storage architectures regularly take at least an hour for initial deployment, whereas StorSimple took just nine and a half minutes. Having never seen the StorSimple interface prior to testing, ESG Lab was impressed with how fast and easy the deployment process was between configuring the management IP address and having access to a thin provisioned, ready-to-use volume. It was also clear that server and storage administrators alike could easily configure and manage a StorSimple system without specialized knowledge about the solution since StorSimple systems require only iscsi connectivity. Also, because specialized FC cabling is not required, customers can easily deploy the StorSimple solution in their existing IPbased infrastructure. Finally, with the benefit of near-bottomless storage and copy availability in the Azure cloud, forklift upgrades every few years become unnecessary.

7 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 7 Data Protection and Disaster Recovery With its unique cloud-integrated technology, StorSimple offers a unified solution for data protection and disaster recovery that provides an easy-to-use dashboard for data protection integrated directly into the appliance. The complete solution can provide the instant scale and protection of the cloud with on-premises performance benefits. ESG Lab s first goals were to demonstrate the ease of configuring and managing cloud snapshots, as well as recovering from those same snapshots. Cloud snapshots are exactly like regular snapshots, but stored in the cloud. They are integral to the ability of StorSimple CiS to provide backups that are space optimized to minimize data transfers and accelerate recovery time. As shown in Figure 6, ESG Lab used an easy-to-follow web interface to configure local and cloud snapshots of the data volumes. On the General tab, ESG Lab selected a name, volume to backup, and type of backup, and set a snapshot retention rate. On the Schedule tab, ESG Lab chose from a number of settings that provided a lot of flexibility in snapshot scheduling, with granularity ranging from point-in-time to monthly. The advanced settings expanded on this granularity by offering a timeframe to repeat the snapshot for a set duration. ESG Lab was impressed with the speed in which a cloud snapshot could be configured, taking less than two minutes and requiring just a few mouse clicks. Figure 6. Creating Cloud Snapshots Backups of the data sets were completed into the Azure cloud through a single web interface. ESG Lab could also view all the scheduled and completed snapshots through the same interface. Figure 7 shows a backup in progress. Figure 7. StorSimple Cloud Snapshot In Progress

8 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 8 The second goal of ESG Lab during this phase of testing was to learn how rapidly an organization can recover from a minor and a major disaster. For the minor disaster, ESG Lab simulated accidental deletion of a small and large file from the appliance that were backed up on the Azure cloud. The small file was a 317KB Microsoft Word document and the large file was a 115MB video file. It is important to note that in general, video files do not get deduplicated the same way a Microsoft Office document does. This means that all of the 115MB video was copied over, as opposed to a smaller portion of the Word document. The StorSimple interface helped ESG Lab easily restore the files by creating a clone of the volume where the files resided, which is shown in Figure 8. Once the clone was mounted as a new volume, ESG Lab measured the amount of time needed to fully restore the two files. Both the 317KB Word document and the 115MB video were recovered in seconds, and from a user perspective, felt instantaneous. Figure 8. Item-level Restores Next, ESG Lab simulated a major data center disaster. The StorSimple system was removed from the environment and a new StorSimple system was connected and quickly configured. The major difference was that ESG Lab s data was entirely backed up in Windows Azure. This made the recovery process simple and very fast, as ESG Lab quickly mounted the most recent cloud snapshot. It is important to note that the recovery happened quickly because a full data restore is not done with this solution: StorSimple only requires a small download of metadata from the cloud to the newly installed appliance in order to expose volumes and filenames to applications and users. This minimizes loss of productivity and accelerates the time to application and user-level recovery in case of a disaster. In ESG Lab s scenario, it took a total of two minutes to gain access to the recovered volume, which included a download of metadata containing the directory structure and file names. This accelerated application access to configuration and startup files required for application initialization and disaster recovery. As ESG Lab began accessing various files from the previously created file shares, the actual data was being pulled from the cloud to the appliance only as needed. As files were accessed, the deduplicated data associated with those files began getting stored locally on the appliance, which continued to improve performance over time. The full recovery process is highlighted in Figure 9. First, ESG Lab imported a configuration backup, which included details like volume access group names and cloud credentials. Next, ESG Lab used the cloud credentials to restore the registry. Once the registry was restored, ESG Lab could restore volumes from backups that were stored in Windows Azure.

9 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 9 Figure 9. Rapid Recovery from a Disaster Why This Matters Reducing times for endpoint backup and recovery were both among the top challenges reported by IT managers in a recent ESG survey. The all-too-common practice of maintaining multiple backup methods and complex scripts increases the risk of downtime and data loss. Simplifying backup and, more importantly, recovery for administrators and users creates significant value for widely dispersed IT environments with an increasingly mobile workforce. Providing an easy to implement, capacity- and bandwidth-efficient solution for data protection and data recovery is a powerful value proposition for all companies. ESG Lab verified the ability of a StorSimple system to quickly and easily configure, back up, and restore from the Windows Azure cloud under two business scenarios: a single item restore and a full recovery from a lost data center. Creating cloud snapshots was simple through StorSimple s interface, providing scheduling granularity and taking under two minutes and a few mouse clicks to configure and start a cloud snapshot. ESG Lab used a cloud snapshot to quickly recover single items from the cloud, taking just seconds to recover a smaller-sized Microsoft Office file and a much larger sized video file. ESG Lab also validated that recovering from a major disaster, like a lost data center, was easy. After connecting and configuring a new StorSimple system, it took just two minutes to download the metadata from the cloud to the new appliance before ESG Lab had access to the volume and documents. This demonstrated the StorSimple systems ability to meet enterprise RPO/RTO needs in case of a disaster. Excessive downtime from a disaster can result in application unavailability, which can lead to a loss of sales, loss of customer goodwill, loss of productivity, loss of competitiveness, and increased costs. Also, with a StorSimple solution enterprises can easily perform disaster recovery testing before entering production so IT administrators can be confident that the organizational requirements for business recovery will be met when a disaster strikes.

10 Capacity Optimization Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 10 The StorSimple system offers built-in capacity optimization and data deduplication and compression technology that helps with better utilization of on-premises storage and cloud storage capacity. This is done through two aspects: primary data deduplication and compression, and the deduplication of snapshots so that redundant blocks are not duplicated across backups. With a goal of understanding the capacity savings organizations could expect from StorSimple snapshots, ESG Lab measured the amount of data transferred to the appliance and compared that to the amount of deduplicated data consumed by a snapshot. ESG Lab witnessed an excellent initial deduplication rate of 46% for the primary data set, which included common file server documents (Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and PDF documents), images, videos, and a few larger-sized VHDs. Next, ESG Lab took three snapshots (VSS application-consistent) with a goal of improving savings even further through backup deduplication, which removed duplicate blocks of data across each snapshot, resulting in a further increase of space savings. Initially, ESG Lab witnessed a space savings of 46% due to de-duplication of just the primary data set. This savings increased further to 67% once the deduplication of backup data was factored into the space savings. This information was easily viewed through the StorSimple web interface, which shows data sizes before and after deduplication, as well as the capacity saved. This interface is shown in Figure 10. Figure 10. Data Deduplication and Compression with StorSimple (Primary Data and Backups) It is important to reiterate that as cloud snapshots are taken based on set schedules and policies, only the changed data needs to be transferred to the cloud for backup due to incremental snapshots. This means that capacity savings in the cloud for cloud snapshots will continue to improve over time. ESG Lab believes that with a common data change rate of 1-2% in each incremental backup, customers could expect the total deduplication and compression percentage for primary and backup data to be in excess of 90%. With a goal of optimizing the use of expensive and slow WAN bandwidth and disk capacity, the StorSimple system removes redundant data at the appliance level before transferring cooler data across the network to the cloud. This not only reduces the amount of storage being utilized in the cloud, but also reduces the amount of bandwidth needed and consumed for backups. The result is not only efficient use of network bandwidth and disk capacity, but the benefits are also realized through faster backup and recovery times, as well as simpler resource management. This enables organizations to reduce the costs commonly associated with cloud storage, including costs for transactions and bandwidth.

11 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 11 Why This Matters Data proliferation is a challenge for IT professionals within organizations of all sizes. Constantly growing data volumes put pressure on data protection systems, processes, IT resources, and budgets. By eliminating redundant data, data deduplication can significantly reduce capacity requirements, which reduces the cost of storing and protecting data. ESG research indicates that cost and impact to performance are two of the leading obstacles to disk-based data deduplicated backup deployments. The ability to efficiently deduplicate and compress data on an appliance addresses both of these issues by reducing the data footprint and thereby increasing the total data stored on-premises for optimal performance when that data is accessed. ESG Lab validated that data deduplication and compression provided by StorSimple can be used to significantly reduce cloud storage capacity and WAN bandwidth consumption. ESG Lab measured an initial primary data deduplication and compression rate of 46%, which is more than acceptable for a mix of file server data including office documents, images, videos, and a few larger-sized VHDs. Once backup deduplication was factored in after three snapshots, the space savings improved to 67%. These savings can be in excess of 90% as more incremental backups are taken. Administrators can provide high-performance backup services to the cloud, plus fast and reliable restores, using greatly reduced disk capacity. Also, the fact that only the deduplicated and compressed data gets transferred to the cloud serves as another way to minimize costs from a cloud storage standpoint. This lowers the cost per GB for primary and backup data, while enabling companies to retain larger, more relevant data sets within the physical infrastructure for a longer period of time.

12 Total FSCT Throughput* Performance Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 12 The final phase of testing focused on the performance scalability an organization could expect from a StorSimple system. The throughput capacity of a file server can be characterized either in terms of the maximum number of operations per second or a maximum number of users supported by the configuration. These values are influenced by several factors, some of which include processor speed, available memory, disk speed, network throughput and latency, and the speed with which SMB requests are processed. ESG Lab audited the performance for the StorSimple system using the Microsoft FSCT workload generation tool. FSCT is a tool developed by Microsoft to provide accurate, detailed results when testing file server capacity and identifying performance bottlenecks. ESG Lab focused on the maximum number of supported users that was attainable in the StorSimple-tested environment. ESG Lab witnessed the support of up to 3,500 users, which represented what an organization could expect in a typical corporate environment for file shares and home directories. The rest of the results are shown in Figure Figure 11. File Server Workload Performance Scalability File Server Workload Performance Scalability Number of Supported Users * Throughput as defined by the FSCT benchmark tool. This does not represent IOPS or MB/s. Why This Matters Companies continuously face challenges in cost-effectively meeting service level agreements for business-critical applications and workloads, such as common file server workloads with strict performance requirements. Failure to meet these strict performance requirements can result in lost productivity and costly loss of services. A common solution to solve these problems is over-provisioning storage, but that can quickly become a waste of money. Managing storage costs can often be in conflict with achieving these strict performance SLAs. ESG Lab confirmed that a file server workload is well suited for a StorSimple system. The total number of supported users reached up to 3,500 while easily meeting file server environment expectations. By being able to leverage an SSD storage tier for hot data (combined with SAS and cloud storage tiers), it was no surprise that the high, scalable performance made the StorSimple system a perfect fit for the file server workload. It also serves as a great way to meet on-premise performance needs and helps automatically manage storage costs for file serverlike workloads that rely on tier 2, tier 3, and tier 4 data that drive a lot of capacity usage in spite of the fact that only a small fraction of the data is needed for business productivity. 4 Details of the test bed used for performance testing can be found in the appendix.

13 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 13 Total Cost of Ownership and Return on Investment ESG Lab compared the return on investment and total cost of ownership of two storage strategies: a traditional storage solution for tier 2 workloads and an equivalent deployment using hybrid cloud storage with StorSimple and Windows Azure. ESG Lab had a goal of showing the economic benefits of StorSimple by breaking down the investigation into two areas: the storage architecture from a design standpoint and the cost savings from a monetary standpoint. ESG Lab first looked at the differences to IT deployment and practices arising from traditional storage solutions and hybrid cloud storage using StorSimple and Windows Azure. With traditional storage solutions, purchase of storage to service applications such as file shares, applications, database applications and content management systems requires IT teams to put together various individual hardware, software and services components from multiple vendors. Additionally, IT has to carefully balance tradeoffs between cost, capacity and performance. In cases where organizations combine storage solutions and appliances from different product lines or vendors, they are forced to hire or contract dedicated IT administrators for each product. For long-term data retention needs, archival storage can either come in the form of additional capacity or another, less expensive storage array that utilizes lower cost SATA, NL-SAS drives or tapes. The first two options bring in a second physical storage system to the data center that requires additional management, power, and cooling. This is a capital expense that includes capacity that may not all be used for some time. Choosing which data must be archived can either become a manual task or additional software must be purchased to automatically make the decision. Then, with the added need for snapshots, a 30/60/90-day retention period will most likely be deployed to make room for newer snapshots. A traditional storage solution would then employ a disk-based backup solution or virtual tape library to minimize the window needed for backups and restores. A media server could be required to manage this process and deduplication and/or compression could be employed to help minimize the amount of storage required for these backups. Again, capital expenditures and operational expenditures can continue to rise with data size, as well as the overhead of managing additional piece of software or equipment, specifically for backup solutions. Next, to ensure that an offsite copy of data is stored, a physical tape infrastructure would be deployed, but before the data is stored, encryption software or an appliance would be used to secure that data. The exponentially growing costs and complexity of all of the hardware, software, administration, and offsite storage vault services described is intimidating, even for IT experts. A complete diagram of the traditional storage and data protection architecture is shown in Figure 12. Figure 12. Traditional Storage and Data Protection Architecture

14 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 14 Hybrid cloud storage from Microsoft helps to reduce the costs and complexity associated with the traditional storage and data protection architecture by minimizing the amount of physical hardware required in the data center via StorSimple systems, as well as taking advantage of the lowest cost and most flexible storage model available: cloud storage via Windows Azure. This can help organizations to support data growth as needed. The performance and control requirements of onsite primary storage are met by employing an enterprise-level SSDand SAS-based SAN storage appliance the StorSimple system. By using the public cloud as a tier, organizations can easily meet archival storage requirements. Deduplicated, encrypted blocks of data are automatically moved to Windows Azure. The use of thin, reduced snapshots eliminates the need for extra disk-based backup storage arrays, backup software licenses and a dedicated media server. By leveraging low-cost cloud snapshots, the need for a tape infrastructure is eliminated. Finally, because the data stored in the cloud is accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection and replicated across geographic regions, StorSimple eliminates the need to implement replicated storage infrastructure for disaster recovery or use of tape storage services at an offsite location. A complete diagram of the hybrid cloud storage and data protection architecture with StorSimple and Windows Azure is shown in Figure 13. Figure 13. Hybrid Cloud Storage with StorSimple & Windows Azure After understanding the differences from an architectural standpoint, ESG Lab compared the total cost of ownership for both solutions over a three year period of 50TB of usable primary storage capacity (Figure 14). It is important to note that the average cost savings an organization could expect when switching from traditional storage architecture to a hybrid cloud storage solution with StorSimple and Windows Azure can vary based on a number of factors. ESG Lab expects that organizations deploying hybrid cloud storage with StorSimple and Windows Azure may be able to save up to 70% on their overall storage costs. Nine different cost metrics were used in calculating the total: a storage array with associated software, cloud storage, a backup media server and software, disk backup with deduplication, a tape backup infrastructure, disaster recovery with a recovery time objective of one week or less, hardware and software support, power and cooling, and management (full-time equivalent or FTE) costs. It s also important to note that some IT vendors offer solutions that take into account multiple cost metrics (i.e., a primary storage solution with built-in deduplication and disk backup software). ESG Lab took this into account when breaking down each cost metric. Pricing data was gathered from publicly available sources and quotes were provided to ESG Lab by resellers. Power and cooling costs were estimated to be 9.83 cents per kwh based on the average retail cost of electricity in the U.S. in January 2012 as documented by the U.S. Energy Information Administration ( Many IT vendors require vendor-specific storage specialists to provision, manage, and monitor the storage infrastructure. With StorSimple, a storage specialist is not necessary due to the simplicity of management. A storage generalist is sufficient, resulting in significant savings in administrative manpower. Management costs were calculated based on average salaries, as well as common tasks associated with the management of an IT infrastructure. It was assumed that a general IT administrator with an hourly rate of $30/hour can manage a hybridcloud infrastructure with StorSimple and Windows Azure, and a senior storage administrator with an hourly rate of $60/hour is needed for traditional storage solutions ( The tasks ESG Lab modeled were: monitor, plan, provision, expand, tier, snap setup, snap recover, DR setup, DR test, and network configuration. Each task was assigned an amount of time to complete (in minutes), as well as a monthly frequency.

15 Total Cost ($) Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 15 The results are shown in Figure 14 and Table 1. Figure 14. Three Year Cost Comparison for 50TB - Traditional vs. Hybrid Cloud Storage with StorSimple & Windows Azure $700,000 $600,000 $500,000 $400,000 $300,000 $200,000 $100,000 $0 Three Year Cost Comparison - Traditional vs. Hybrid Cloud Storage Traditional Hybrid Cloud Storage Management Power/Cooling Platinum Support Disaster Recovery with RTO of 1 Week or Less* Tape Backup Infrastructure Disk Backup with Deduplication Backup Media Server and Software Cloud Storage Cost ($50K/yr)** Storage Array with Associated Software * Recovery time objective ** Based on current pricing Table 1. Three Year Cost Comparison for 50TB - Traditional vs. Hybrid Cloud Storage with StorSimple & Windows Azure Products Traditional Cost Hybrid Cloud Storage Cost Storage Array with Associated Storage $125,857 N/A Cloud Storage Cost N/A $150,000 Backup Media Server and Software $9,439 N/A Disk Backup with Deduplication $93,493 N/A Tape Backup Infrastructure $54,711 N/A Storage Replication for RTO of < 1 Week (for DR) $62,928 N/A H/W and S/W Support $123,191 $15,000 Power and Cooling $38,121 $7,986 Management/FTE $96,037 $34,243 Total $603,778 $207,230 5 What the Numbers Mean ESG Lab calculated the total cost of ownership of 50TB of usable primary storage over a three year time period for a traditional storage and backup solution, as well as a hybrid cloud storage solution with StorSimple and Windows Azure. The traditional storage solution took the averages of costs across multiple products from various IT leading vendors to form an overall average value for each product. Hybrid cloud storage pricing only required four line items for the total cost: the cost of cloud storage, platinum support, power and cooling, and management. StorSimple system costs were included in Windows Azure cost (Microsoft s current pricing model). ESG Lab calculated a total cost of ownership (fully-burdened cost) of $603,778 for a traditional storage solution compared with the cost-effective StorSimple solution, which cost only $207,230. That s a cost savings of 66% with StorSimple compared with a traditional storage deployment. 5 Based on current Microsoft pricing for hybrid cloud storage with a StorSimple solution based on 7020 appliance and Windows Azure.

16 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 16 Why This Matters With data growth rates exploding, data protection continues to be a pain point from both a cost and a management standpoint. Traditional storage architectures that help implement a fully integrated primary storage and backup storage solution are nonexistent. Complexity quickly arises as additional storage hardware and software gets added to the mix to combat that growing data. Having the ability to leverage a hybrid cloud storage solution for extending primary storage and as a backup and archiving tier could have a significant cost-reduction impact on many organizations. This falls perfectly in line with recent ESG research findings that show cost reduction continuing to be the most important business initiative throughout the last four years and going forward. ESG Lab validated that the Microsoft solution for hybrid cloud storage comprised of StorSimple cloud-integrated storage and Windows Azure storage service offers a compelling price point when compared with a traditional storage and backup architecture. The overall complexity difference was quite clear to ESG Lab, with a hybrid cloud storage solution requiring only a StorSimple system, a Windows Azure storage subscription and an Internet connection. This can significantly reduce the amount of administration needed to manage the overall data storage and protection infrastructure. ESG Lab also broke down the CAPEX and OPEX costs over a three year period and found that hybrid cloud storage using StorSimple and Windows Azure could cost up to 70% less than traditional storage solutions.

17 Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 17 ESG Lab Validation Highlights Deploying a StorSimple system was simple. Using easy-to-follow configuration wizards through the web interface, ESG Lab quickly provisioned a volume and connected a Windows Azure account. Management also utilized the same web interface, offering various views into how that appliance s storage was utilized. ESG Lab loaded up to 3TB of data onto created volumes and easily configured local and cloud snapshots of the data. Scheduling and management of the snapshots was particularly easy through the intuitive web interface. ESG Lab simulated both a minor and major disaster and successfully used a cloud snapshot to quickly recover. A small Microsoft Office file and a large video file took seconds to recover. For the major disaster, ESG Lab simulated a lost data center, and within just minutes of connecting and configuring a new StorSimple system, all volumes were restored and accessible. ESG Lab measured the capacity savings offered by a StorSimple system and witnessed a deduplication rate of 67% for common documents and files found within many organizations. The data was deduplicated in the form of a cloud snapshot prior to being sent to the cloud, offering savings not only in cloud storage costs, but also WAN utilization. ESG Lab simulated a common file server application workload and measured the number of supported users to be 3,500. ESG Lab compared the CAPEX and OPEX costs of a traditional storage deployment with a hybrid cloud storage solution with StorSimple and Windows Azure. ESG Lab calculated an impressive cost savings of 66%, which based on deployment specific considerations can be expected to be in a 50-70% range. Issues to Consider ESG Lab measured the performance of a file server workload, which is well suited for a StorSimple system. With that being said, certain use cases are appropriate fits for the solution, including file shares, large data archives, Microsoft SharePoint deployments, and depending on performance requirements, storage for VM sprawl. Applications with higher performance requirements, like Microsoft SQL Server or OLTP/OLAP workloads, are not best suited for the current version of StorSimple that ESG Lab evaluated due to both their potential I/O and latency requirements. The test results presented in this report are based on benchmarks and configurations deployed in a controlled environment. Due to the many variables in each production data center environment, capacity planning and testing in your own environment is recommended.

18 The Bigger Truth Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 18 The obvious logistical and economic advantages that cloud storage brings to a storage strategy have been a hot topic in the recent months, but designing a sound strategy a strategy that leverages the benefits of cloud storage while continuing to offer end-users comparable service levels and administrators the required control has proven more challenging than expected. With that being said, companies are committed to pursuing investments in cloud strategies. Very few organizations, especially larger enterprises, will be looking to completely replace their onsite infrastructure with public cloud services, but instead see hybrid architectures (like hybrid cloud storage) as a best of both worlds approach to increase their agility, economic efficiency, and business continuity. When utilized as another tier of storage, cloud-based storage like Windows Azure can offer some distinct advantages to an IT storage strategy. Leveraging cloud storage as a tier can significantly lower both capital and operational expenditures, while also offering a rapid and simplified disaster recovery with global availability. Administrators are freed up to focus on strategic business initiatives, rather than managing multiple pieces of storage infrastructure and software spread across multiple sites. Microsoft has recognized this opportunity and offers a complete hybrid cloud storage solution that takes advantage of the performance benefits of StorSimple and its local SSD and SAS drives, while tightly integrating the cost, availability, and immediate, on-demand scalability advantages of cloud-based storage through Windows Azure. Administrators no longer need to worry about managing data between the onsite and cloud tiers, as StorSimple automatically moves data to the ideal location based on the tradeoff between performance and cost. Snapshot retention schedules no longer have to be maintained, and backups can be restored to any geographical location. Data stored via the StorSimple system on Windows Azure is automatically deduplicated, compressed, and encrypted, making the cloud tier both highly efficient and secure. When used together, StorSimple and Windows Azure define a new class of cloud storage solutions that is truly hybrid in deployment and operations. Within a single 2U or 4U footprint, StorSimple offers an organization a fully featured enterprise-level SAN storage array that automatically integrates cloud-based storage as a storage tier. Key features such as thin provisioning, deduplication, compression, encryption, and automatic tiering are built into the solution, eliminating the need to manage separate appliances. An intuitive, unified management interface with tight application integration makes administration simple and allows resources to refocus on other, higherprioritized areas. Some organizations consider the StorSimple system as a complete storage strategy in a box. ESG Lab could not agree more. If you re looking for a simple storage solution that could potentially meet your storage and backup requirements by leveraging the public cloud, look no further than Microsoft s solution for hybrid cloud storage with StorSimple and Windows Azure.

19 Appendix Lab Validation: Hybrid Cloud Storage from Microsoft 19 Table 1. ESG Lab Audited Test Bed Operating System Memory Network Server Virtual Clients Virtual Controller File Server Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise 8GB of RAM 1Gbps NIC Configuration: NIC1 direct connected to storage array for iscsi traffic NIC2 connected to switch for client communication MPIO not configured Server and Clients Four ESXi 5.0 servers Two sockets and four cores per socket 32GB of RAM Single 1 Gbps NIC 16 VMs evenly distributed across four ESXi 5.0 servers 1vCPU per VM 2GB of RAM per VM Controller A single VM running on a fifth ESXi 5.0 server 1 vcpu 4GB of RAM

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