INTEGRATING EMC XTENDER AND DISKXTENDER FOR ELECTRONIC MESSAGING ARCHIVAL WITH NETAPP NEARSTORE

Transcription

1 White Paper INTEGRATING EMC XTENDER AND DISKXTENDER FOR ELECTRONIC MESSAGING ARCHIVAL WITH NETAPP NEARSTORE Abstract This white paper describes how to use the EMC Xtender archiving solution to archive electronic mail on NetApp NearStore, a low-cost storage WORM device. March 2011

2 Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. The information in this publication is provided as is. EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Part Number h8191 2

3 Table of Contents Executive summary... 4 Audience... 5 How Xtender works... 5 Advantages... 6 System requirements Xtender... 7 DiskXtender... 7 Integrating NetApp SnapLock with NearStore... 7 Creating a SnapLock volume on NearStore... 8 Licensing requirements... 8 Setting up DiskXtender Xtender installation and setup NearStore SnapLock considerations Data protection Conclusion References

4 Executive summary This white paper helps you use EMC Xtender and DiskXtender to capture, index, and archive electronic messaging communications to a Network Appliance NearStore volume. The paper also covers the NearStore technology SnapLock and the infrastructure required for this implementation. For further details on Xtender and DiskXtender, refer to the respective product documentation. is now the information lifeblood of business. It is so reliable, fast, inexpensive, and widely accessible that it has displaced traditional corporate communication systems including postal services, couriers, faxes, and to a lesser extent, telephones. Unfortunately, business is quickly becoming a victim of its own success. While volumes continue to grow at exponential rates, its value as a business tool is becoming seriously compromised due to a lack of centralized administration and record management. In fact, many state and federal regulations (such as SEC 17a-4, NASD 3010, Sarbanes-Oxley) require organizations to retain and other records of business for a specified period of time after their origination. In addition, companies across various industries are establishing corporate governance-based internal policies that require users to retain messages for future reference and/or audit. Maintaining and archiving electronic communication is becoming a standard as companies recognize the need to store these records of business much like hardcopy documents. As a result, retaining messages for longer periods of time and being able to quickly search and retrieve specific records is becoming critical for many businesses. According to the SEC, financial broker-dealers must specifically preserve key business records, such as , on non-rewriteable, non-erasable WORM (write-once, read many) media that is fully indexed and easily searchable for three years from origination. Given this demanding set of requirements, questions arise: How can businesses easily and effectively ensure compliance with these regulations? EMC Xtender provides customers with the tools to address the many facets of message management including: Archiving messages to a centralized location Maintaining a full lifecycle of messages via retention and rule-based archiving Providing deduplication of during archiving supervision support by monitoring and supervision of correspondence Discovery and litigation support by searching messages and attachments via a fully indexed archive using ISYS 4

5 Network Appliance facilitates data storage by providing a solution targeted toward regulated data industries such as financial services, healthcare organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and government services. The solution includes SnapLock, an enterprise software that provides WORM characteristics to magnetic storage for data archival and long-term protection capabilities. Combined with NetApp NearStore, SnapLock shortens deployment time in contrast to current optical data retention solutions at a lower total cost of ownership. EMC Xtender combined with NetApp s SnapLock WORM NearStore storage safely keeps important data and business records. These solutions apply to s that must remain unaltered and accessible online for long periods as non-erasable and non-rewritable. The combined solution overcomes current archival media limitations such as slow searches, poor retrieval performance, and inconsistent reliability. The solution facilitates compliance with government data retention requirements for providing unchanged corporate records to authorities on short notice. Audience This white paper is intended for customers who are interested in deploying Xtender application archival with NetApp storage. It is also meant for customerfacing groups in EMC that are looking for a solution that integrates NetApp storage with Xtender. How Xtender works Xtender (EX in Figure 1) is designed for an enterprise-level messaging system that allows deployment across an entire site or organization. Xtender enterprise architecture enables corporations to manage information from Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino platforms, and other third-party messaging solutions, such as Bloomberg Mail. Xtender captures all messages in real time to ensure that all messages are appropriately indexed and archived in order to meet record retention requirements. Additionally, the product offers tools to assist both initial archival of existing or legacy messages as well as ongoing storage management of messaging systems. 5

6 Figure 1. Solution architecture In a typical deployment scenario, as illustrated in Figure 1, a system running DiskXtender and Xtender is logically situated between the message server and NearStore storage. Xtender captures message traffic, extracts existing messages, and provides tools to manage the storage associated within the managed message servers. As messages are processed into the message archive, the messages are packaged into container files called emx files, which provide efficiencies to the storage architecture. To optimize performance, these container files are written to a local drive on the Xtender server. By adding DiskXtender with this solution, you can define policies to migrate this data to the NetApp NearStore. The DiskXtender software maintains a network mapping to the CIFS share(s) from NearStore to migrate the message data to the NearStore volume. Advantages This architecture easily enables additional NearStore devices while maintaining consistency with the Xtender configuration. 6

7 Using Xtender, archival of data from the message servers to NearStore is transparent to the user. Retrieval of the archived messages is provided through a Web-based and/or Windows-based client that enables users to retrieve archived messages. This program can be installed on Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes desktops. The NearStore volume is a CIFS share that the DiskXtender server maps as a target for data migration. After you have configured the network and systems, DiskXtender and Xtender transparently automate the entire message archival and retrieval process to the NearStore storage system. System requirements Xtender From the Xtender point of view, the integration of DiskXtender and NearStore SnapLock remains the same regardless of the message system that is managed by Xtender. Xtender stores archived/captured messages into container files, such as.emx files. These containers/container files help scale to the demands of the enterprise message volume by storing many messages. The location for initially storing the container files is defined as a property of the Xtender server installation. DiskXtender To get more information about using DiskXtender with NetApp storage, please refer to the appropriate documentation for your own version of DiskXtender. Both Xtender and DiskXtender are conceptually in the same system, as shown in the solution architecture in Figure 1. Integrating NetApp SnapLock with NearStore Before creating a SnapLock volume, refer to the NetApp white paper WORM Storage on Magnetic Disks Using SnapLock Compliance and SnapLock Enterprise. This white paper provides an overview of SnapLock, describes the expected usage behavior, and explains best practices guidelines. The References section has more information. Xtender integrates with a NearStore volume if its volumes are created as traditional non-worm, or in SnapLock (WORM), or in combinations. However, the solution presented in this paper utilizes NearStore with SnapLock storage for and message archival. This flexibility in Xtender and NearStore environments provides configuration options to meet various needs. SnapLock technology provides the same non-erasable and non-rewriteable capabilities as the traditional optical or tape WORM. In addition, SnapLock 7

8 technology has substantial performance improvements over traditional WORM media, and adheres to the open protocols for data access. Creating a SnapLock volume on NearStore You can create a SnapLock volume either through the console or through a telnet session to NearStore. You cannot create volumes through the FilerView GUI. After a session is established, run the following command: nearstore> vol create snap_vol L r 6 6 Using the L switch in the command listed above creates a SnapLock volume, snap_vol, with a RAID group size of six drives, and an initial volume of six drives. nearstore> cifs shares -add snap_vol /vol/snap_vol. Note: For more information on NearStore on FAS storage enabled with SnapLock, refer to the appropriate NetApp documentation. Licensing requirements Both SnapLock software and CIFS are licensed-based features on NearStore. Setting up DiskXtender The DiskXtender solution provides an administrative UI that gives users the flexibility to selectively define data that is migrated to WORM from data that supports modifications and change. Follow these instructions to install and set up DiskXtender: 1. In the DiskXtender Administrator GUI, the Configure Media Services dialog box appears: 2. Click Add to select the appropriate Media Service. 8

9 3. Select Network-Attached Storage and click Next. Once you have created it, edit the NAS media to add the media that you use (for example, NearStore). 4. Click Properties to display the media. 5. Click Add. The following dialog box appears. Enter the CIFS path that the DiskXtender will use as the target. Data is copied or archived to this storage location. 6. Click the Enter Media Information tab to define the media name, description, and location. 7. Click the NAS Options tab to define the characteristics of the CIFS share used by the media. 9

10 The NAS options define the characteristics of how the DiskXtender should treat the NAS media. For NetApp SnapLock shares, select the WORM NAS option. This option enforces the same WORM characteristics of the SnapLock volume on the files managed by DiskXtender. For NetApp NearStore volumes that are not created as SnapLock volumes, select the Standard NAS option. 8. Repeat the media creation process for all NearStore appliances that are used with the current DiskXtender installation. 9. Click OK. When you finish configuring Media Services, DiskXtender prompts you to create the extended drive. When specifying the extended drive, the media specified in the Configure Media Services dialog box is displayed to allocate the media to the extended drive. You can either specify the media at this time or return to the Configure Media Services dialog box to allocate the media. 10. Continue configuring the system to migrate data to the NearStore appliance. 10

11 a. Create a media folder in DiskXtender that you will use as the Xtender container path. b. Assign the NearStore appliance media to the media folder. c. Create a Move Group for the NearStore appliance media. d. Create a Move Rule for the Xtender container path. This path should be set to migrate the data to the Move Group that you have just created EMC recommends setting the rules with the default values so that files will be immediately available to migrate to NetApp after they are closed. This feature ensures that the data is preserved to the non-alterable characteristics of the SnapLock volume. The configuration is summarized on the following DiskXtender Administrator screen. Xtender installation and setup Xtender is integrated with DiskXtender for the removable media technologies. Select Hard Disk as the media type when you configure Xtender with NetApp SnapLock. 11

12 Based on the collection rules that the Xtender administrator sets, the program will group data at this defined location. For example, you can establish various collection rules to store messages associated with Securities and Exchange Commission records retention, and a different collection rule for messages associated with the remainder of the business. The use of multiple collection rules in Xtender creates a unique directory structure for the archived messages. By creating move rules for each unique directory created by Xtender, DiskXtender provides users with the flexibility to migrate selected data to WORM volumes and the remainder on non-worm NearStore volumes. NearStore SnapLock considerations Files on a NearStore SnapLock volume get their SnapLock state flag set when their status is changed to read-only. Once this trigger event has occurred, any attempts to modify or delete the file will fail. This is true irrespective of the users who trigger the transaction to the SnapLock state and who try to modify or delete the file (that is, administrator). You will be able to delete directories provided that no SnapLock state files exist within their hierarchy. Data protection NearStore utilizes RAID to provide fault tolerance against possible hard drive failure. In the event of a single drive failure, a copy of all data still exists via the parity drive. Furthermore, NearStore will immediately begin rebuilding the data on an available spare drive. Given this scenario, you should follow traditional Network Appliance best 12

13 practices guidelines to ensure that at least one or more hot standby drives are available in the event of a single drive failure. Critical business considerations like disaster recovery and business continuance in the event of a NearStore outage are outside the scope of this paper but do warrant further contingency planning. Conclusion This solution architecture helps you add NearStore devices while maintaining consistency with the Xtender configuration along with DiskXtender. References Please consult EMC Powerlink for more information on Xtender and DiskXtender documentation. For more information on NetApp storage, please refer to these links: NearStore on FAS page WORM Storage on Magnetic Disks Using SnapLock Compliance and SnapLock Enterprise SnapLock Compliance and SnapLock Enterprise 13