Category: Storage Blogs

CLEAR TECHNOLOGIES | MAKING STORAGE SIMPLE

Posted on by Admin Clear

Here’s a scary way to put the rise of big data into perspective. Look at these facts from the hosting tribunal – more data was generated in the last two years than ever before in human history. Google averages 1.2 trillion searches annually. Smart devices produce five quintillion bytes of data each day. And we haven’t even touched on Facebook, YouTube and smartphones.

So, how does an organization gather all this valuable data and tame it? Here are the top 7 ways Clear Technologies can simplify data storage to make data work for every size of business:

KEEP RAW DATA RAW

Raw data really doesn’t need to be accessed much. On the rare occasions when it does, raw data will cost more than usual to access, but it’s offset by low storage costs. However, when manipulating raw data, it is always best to manipulate a copy.

SWITCH TO FLASH STORAGE ARRAYS

For on-site storage, a flash array is the way to go. Hard disks have lots of moving parts which can break down or scratch the disk. There are also latency issues that slow down processing speeds. With no moving components, flash arrays are much more durable.

Flash arrays feature high data mobility speeds with microsecond latency. When using the NVMe protocol with flash arrays, storage area networks (SANs) now support thousands of parallel command queues, further bolstering high speeds.

CONSIDER IaaS

When storage infrastructure is in the cloud, companies not only gain floor space, they’ll save money by having less hardware and being able to eliminate the maintenance costs associated with storage servers.

IT staff can focus on projects that generate dollars, as upgrades are done automatically. Additionally, cloud data centers provide enterprise-level security no matter how big or small an organization is.

VISUALIZE DATA

It’s a proven point, human beings respond much faster to visual data. According to Email Audience, the human brain processes images in 13-150 milliseconds, while the time to process 25 words takes 3.75-7.5 seconds. So, a simple chart, graph, or infographic can in essence convey just as much information in a much faster amount of time than the printed word.

When stored data is visualized, noise is removed from the equation and relevant, useful information is brought to the forefront. This allows for a much better understanding of the data, and a much clear interpretation of what needs to be done for the benefit of business.

AUTOMATE

Remember at the beginning of this blog when we talked about how fast big data is growing? Big data sets are now too large to comb through manually. By automating a storage array, tasks are automatically performed that could easily take up days of manual labor. Automation tools also validate and repair data in real time, helping to ensure that data is qualitative, precise, and healthy.

USE VERSION CONTROL

Any time a data set is manipulated, it’s essential to ensure that all versions are saved. Version control will capture all versions of data and store them in cloud storage, providing a singular history of the data and Machine Leaning modules that have been run.

Version control also makes it easy to switch between different data sets for comparison. Managers can then see how a data file has changed over time, as well as records of who had made the changes to the file.

RECORD METADATA

Metadata works just like metatags. Record metadata to describe how data was collected, formatted, and organized. This will make it easier to find data sets when they’re needed at another time. This becomes essential for maintaining historical records of long-term data sets. Recording metadata also extends the longevity of data by countering data entropy and degradation.

START SIMPLIFYING YOUR DATA

Contact Clear Technologies to begin the process of examining your storage infrastructure. We’ll work with you to design and implement a storage solution that will bring speed and clarity to your data sets and analysis.

Get more details on how to prepare for your storage journey by Requesting a Readiness Assessment with Clear Tech.

CLEAR TECHNOLOGIES | HOW Visual One OPTIMIZES STORAGE

Posted on by Admin Clear

With the seemingly exponential growth of data storage, it’s no surprise that storage can take up quite a bit of the company’s bottom line. Forbes polled executives in 2020 and found that 30% of cloud spending is wasted. It’s a good bet that a large amount of this loss is from the storage area network (SAN).

Beyond the price of storage arrays, there are also expenses relating to expansion, maintenance, redundancies, and unused data. The fact that data comes in from different sources and formats, and is unorganized, only adds to the overall cost.

THE ROLE OF Visual One

Visual One Intelligence® provides a single pane of glass reporting for all storage arrays within the company SAN, regardless of vendor or manufacturer. Data throughout the network is normalized and sent back to administrators via visual reports, providing a clear, organized picture of the SAN. From this point, the act of optimizing the SAN can begin in earnest.

LET’S START WITH ASSESSMENT

The first step to optimizing the SAN is to see what comprises the entire storage ecosystem. Detailed reports are run on all existing storage areas to determine how much storage is at each location, the ratio of unused and used storage and if the storage high performance or high capacity.

Then, it’s time to move on to capacity planning and forecasting. A flash analyzer will be used to identify specific workloads that would benefit from being hosted on a flash storage array. A health check will determine if all existing storage arrays are configured correctly and communicating with each other. Additionally, Visual One machine learning will troubleshoot your SAN to quickly identify the root causes of problems.

LUNs (logical unit numbers) will be assigned throughout the network to establish all available data storage and recovery routes. Alternative pathways are then implemented to prevent any partial failures. The entire SAN will be thoroughly analyzed, and then all steps will be repeated for each individual storage array.
Administrators will analyze the data from detailed reports to determine what room your SAN has for future expansion.

NOW IT’S TIME TO OPTIMIZE

By performing file-level analysis with Visual One throughout the SAN, the most used and unused data can be assigned different storage arrays. The data that is most often used will be put on the highest performing storage arrays. Meanwhile, mostly unused storage can be placed in separate arrays or also allocated to solid-state drives or hard disks – less expensive storage array options.

With a combination of Visual One machine learning tools and manual mechanisms, it’s time to move on to provisioning. Integrated analytics across core storage arrays and cloud environments will provide the clarity needed to provision correctly across the whole SAN as well as all connected devices to the network.
Data compression will identify and eliminate statistical redundancy, helping to clear out more available storage space across arrays. Orphaned space can be reclaimed and repurposed for current needs and future requirements.

For the last step, it’s time to gather storage consultants to determine the best cloud migration strategy. Cloud storage is highly recommended as it helps boost speed, performance, and scalability along with providing maintenance duties, enterprise-level security, and disaster recovery.

IT’S TIME TO OPTIMIZE YOUR STORAGE!

Start the conversation with a Clear Technologies SAN expert. Access your virtual storage intelligence assessment here!

CLEAR TECHNOLOGIES | SOLVE YOUR STORAGE CHALLENGES

Posted on by Admin Clear

By 2025, the World Economic Forum predicts that 463 exabytes of data will be created globally every day. No matter what size, every business is storing and crunching data to keep ahead of the competition. According to IDC, the compound annual growth rate of data storage should reach almost 17.8 percent, with the volume of global data stored expected to double every four years.

With all that data considered, Clear Technologies has the plan to help companies solve their current and future storage challenges, beginning with:

DELIVER GREAT PERFORMANCE WITH MODERN FLASH STORAGE

The move to flash storage has been swift, as hard disks have inherent latency issues. Whether it’s flash memory chips or flash arrays, they are lightning quick compared to their hard drive counterparts with moving components, and they feature a latency of within a microsecond.

Having no moving components also makes flash storage highly durable – no disc scratching or drive heads to worry about. This comes in particularly handy with disaster recovery, as there is a significant diminishment of the chance of catastrophic data loss due to weather-related events.

All-flash arrays are also much more energy-efficient, less complex to install, and highly scalable for business needs.

TAKE CONTROL WITH STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION

Storage virtualization provides a single pane of glass management capabilities across the entire storage area network (SAN), no matter how many different vendor arrays make up the network’s composition. This can drastically improve storage capacity and performance, speeding up migrations and creating better workflows.

It also reduces the amount of hardware needed in your storage arrays, allowing organizations to get the most out of their current infrastructure. Floor space is gained and total cost of ownership can be reduced without compromising performance and functionality.

LEVERAGE SCALE AND CAPACITY WITH NVMe

Regardless of how high the storage capacity, users expect even faster response times. The NVMe protocol supports thousands of parallel command queues for both flash and next-gen solid state drives.

Not only does NVMe utilize nonvolatile memory in a vast array of computing environments, it is also future proof – it’s the new standard to incorporate into future storage technologies.

UTILIZE IaaS CLOUD SOLUTIONS WITH Visual One

Visual One Intelligence® technology (Visual One) allows organizations to take full advantage of Infrastructure as a Service in cloud environments. By bringing network infrastructure into the cloud, there is less need, and sometimes even no need, for hardware and datacenters on site. This not only increases floor space, it can also significantly lower infrastructure and maintenance costs.

IaaS also provides on-demand scalability without the need to upgrade software and hardware. If any hardware components fail or the business loses internet services, none of their infrastructure is affected, mitigating any worries about data loss. Additionally, IaaS provides storage replication as another tool to protect companies from data loss.

Utilizing IaaS can also significantly free up the time of IT staff, allowing them to focus more on tasks that benefit the organization’s bottom line.

READY TO GET A COMPLETE VIEW OF YOUR STORAGE PERFORMANCE?

Clear Technologies works with a wide array of vendors to put forth the best solutions for your storage needs. Put us to the test by requesting your free storage assessment. Our storage experts will use our Visual One cloud application to analyze your SAN and make the best recommendations to help match your storage capacity to the growth of your business.

Work with us to prepare for your SAN implementation. Request a Readiness Assessment with Clear Tech.

IT Directors | Uncover Budget In Your Unused Storage Space

Posted on by Admin Clear

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September 24th | 11 AM CDT

IT Directors | Uncover Budget In Your Unused Storage Space

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Reclaiming unused storage space allows IT Directors to avoid unnecessary storage purchases and prevent a total budget disaster.

Without your strategic focus, unidentified storage free space will result in unbudgeted purchases of emergency storage, stripping available funds, resulting in inadequate funding to support basic IT services.

Join us September 24th as we discuss how Visual One Intelligence®® can help IT Directors avoid budget shortfalls by uncovering the unused space in their storage environment.

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Data Recovery Trends

Posted on by Admin Clear

From Data Recovery to Resilience

Virtual Data Replicationdata recovery

Virtual data replication is a key trend in data recovery.  Companies use data replication to safeguard against the catastrophic loss and cost of being unable to recover data from a system failure.  Today’s virtual environments require disaster recovery solutions that work with Virtual Machines (VMs).  Zerto’s disaster recovery solutions are specifically designed for virtual environments.  Clear Technologies partners with Zerto to provide clients customized data recovery solutions.

Zerto Virtual Replication

Zerto Virtual Replication is built from the ground-up to be a simple, yet powerful data recovery solution for virtualized infrastructures.  Whether a virtual environment is based in VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V, Zerto Virtual Replication delivers enterprise-class disaster recovery.  Zerto works across private clouds, public clouds, hybrid clouds and satellite offices.  Zerto includes data recovery operations in a single solution that:

  • Recovers one, all, or a subset of any virtualized application
  • Replicates and recovers data from any location to any other storage location
  • Maximizes the benefits of virtualization
Data Recovery to IT Resilience

The potential loss of critical data and applications drives companies to develop business continuity, data recovery, and disaster recovery solutions.  Innovations in storage, data management, and replication create an opportunity for companies to move beyond data recovery towards IT Resilience.

IT Resilience occurs when the response to a disaster or disruption takes place without impacting users and customers.  With IT Resilience the focus changes from data and operational recovery to continuous availability.  IT Resilience solutions from Zerto are not dependent on:

  • Hypervisors
  • Hardware
  • Clouds

Zerto data recovery solutions incorporate new technology processes and procedures without disrupting business operations.

Zerto Cloud Continuity Platform

Zerto’s Cloud Continuity Platform is an evolution of Zerto Virtual Replication.  With the Zerto Cloud Continuity Platform organizations can withstand any disaster, confidently embrace change, and focus on their business.  Along with enabling IT Resilience the Continuity Cloud Platform:

  • Is a true Hybrid cloud solution
  • Helps recover from any disaster
  • Replicates locally, to a private cloud, or to a public cloud
  • Simplifies migration
  • Enables innovation and modernization of the data center

Clear Technologies utilizes Zerto solutions to create custom data recovery solutions for our customers.

Network Attached Storage (NAS) is better with Visual One

Posted on by Admin Clear

Improve NAS efficiency with Visual One Intelligence®®

IBM NAS storage Visual One managesNetwork Attached Storage (NAS) is an exceptional solution for customers who wish to quickly and extensively share files within their network. The reasonable cost of NAS devices has led to expanding usage by organizations, and has led to the development of clustered NAS solutions by IBM and other storage hardware suppliers.

Regardless of the storage technology used, the need for storage continues to expand exponentially. Storage demand is primarily driven by unstructured data, which is defined as data that is not part of a relational database. NAS solutions are specifically designed for storing this type of unstructured data. The increase in required storage creates a critical need to effectively manage NAS and other storage solutions to maximize their efficiency and to plan for future storage needs. In response to this need Clear Technologies offers Visual One Intelligence® ® (Visual One). Visual One provides storage analytics on demand and provides customers with infinite storage visibility without the need for additional tools, equipment, or data gathering.

Visual One is a Software-as-a-Solution product that allows customers to realize their current storage capacity, determine how much file duplication exists, efficiently reallocate storage, and plan for the future. For NAS solutions, Visual One quickly provides a snap shot of current storage usage across all drives and clusters identifying load issues, allowing for reallocation and identifying potential future needs. Key benefits of Visual One for NAS solutions are:

1. Determining the cost and storage savings that could be achieved by implementing deduplication features.
2. Identifying how much storage requirements could be reduced by utilizing compression technology.

 

Visual One reports are delivered via a series of visual graphics highlighting storage utilization. These reports largely eliminate the need for developing complicated, and often inaccurate, tracking spreadsheets. Visual One is available for a wide array of NAS and other storage systems including the full range of IBM solutions.

Many customers utilize NAS solutions because of their faster data access, easier administration, and simple configuration. Adding Visual One to this equation provides even better efficiency and utilization without the need for any additional hardware. Visual One 4.0 was launched on April 12, 2016 and provides several additional benefits:

1. Expanded business unit reporting with drill down
2. Improved user experience
3. Additional flexibility

 

A NAS solution from IBM and other manufacturers combined with Visual One will let customers make better storage decisions, reduce storage costs, lower complexity, and improve storage performance and utilization.

HPE Announces New NVMe Storage Options and More at Discover 2019

Posted on by Admin Clear

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At Discover 2019, HPE announced new innovations expanding their Intelligent Data Platform to solve major challenges for our customers and drive new levels of enterprise agility.

HPE Primera, mission-critical redefined.

As enterprises become increasingly digital, new storage capabilities are required for mission-critical apps. While traditional high-end storage delivers extreme resiliency and performance, it also holds enterprises back with extreme complexity and administration.

The big storage news from HPE Discover was the announcement of a new high-end storage array called Primera.  Positioned above 3PAR in the HPE’s line-up, Primera is designed to compete against Dell’s PowerMax and Pure’s FlashArray//X at the upper edges of the storage market.

HPE Primera delivers the extreme resiliency and performance needed for the most demanding apps, but with the simplicity of the cloud. Enterprises no longer have to sacrifice cloud agility for high-end resiliency.

Primera is a new product, both hardware and software, but its legacy derives directly from 3PAR. Primera’s software stack is based on 3PAR’s operating system. HPE executives said a customer can install a Primera array in their data center on their own in less than 20 minutes, provision storage within seconds, and upgrade the software in five minutes, without rebooting or disrupting services.

HPE engineers based the design on the simplicity of their Nimble storage platform and mission-critical heritage of its high-end storage platform 3PAR StoreServ, and combined them with the intelligence (including AI-powered predictive analytics) of its InfoSight software.

The company’s target customers for Primera are enterprises with large-scale, mission-critical database environments as well as public-sector organizations or service providers looking to consolidate multi-tenant workloads.

HPE Primera radically transforms how high-end storage is deployed, managed, and upgraded – delivering an on-demand experience for instant app access and consumable as-a-service; app-aware resiliency that sees beyond storage with predictive analytics and backed with a 100% availability guarantee; and predictive acceleration with embedded AI for ultra-fast performance at scale for every mission critical app of today and tomorrow.

Extending HPE InfoSight to HPE SimpliVity

HPE SimpliVity is a market-leading HCI platform for data center virtualization and edge workloads. At HPE Discover, HPE announced HPE Simplivity as the first HCI solution to include HPE InfoSight.

HPE InfoSight leverages the power of predictive analytics and machine learning. These capabilities now provide HPE SimpliVity customers with system details for previous capacity consumption, trends, and forecasts to predict when additional hyperconverged nodes will be required. Data protection analytics analyze consumption patterns to identify when backup resources may be at capacity risk, and predictive wellness alerts alleviate common support issues that impact service. These innovative features should save customers time and reduce costs.

It is not surprising to see that HPE InfoSight now supports SimpliVity.  InfoSight, HPE’s predictive analytics solution, continues to expand across HPE’s data center portfolio.  The AI-driven predictive capabilities inherent in InfoSight once applied to Simplivity, should make HPE SimpliVity strongly competitive due to this differentiator.

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI, simplicity of HCI with the flexibility of converged.

HPE’s Intelligent Data Platform goes beyond the storage layer to deliver the cloud experience on-premise. As IT struggles to scale its operations to meet growing needs, hyperconverged infrastructure delivers the freedom to innovate – on an architecture that is ideal for workloads with predictable growth, scaling compute and storage together.

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI (the “d” stands for “disaggregated”) is a bit of an odd duck. This software was first developed at Nimble before its acquisition by HPE, but updated to meet the current needs of the market.

HPE’s dHCI is a software stack providing the utility of HCI, including single-pane-of-glass manageability for storage and compute through a sophisticated vCenter plug-in. Instead of a dedicated appliance, dHCI runs on a combination of Nimble arrays and HPE ProLiant servers.

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI provides the simplified experience that has driven the success of HCI, while at the same time providing the flexibility of HPE composable infrastructure. It allows compute and storage to scale independently, delivering the right mix of resources for the hosted workloads. Its Nimble legacy ensures that InfoSight integration is there day one, bringing nearly a decade of predictive analytics models to the storage nodes.

HPE is targeting Nimble Storage dHCI at the mid-market where traditional composable infrastructure may be an over-fit, and traditional HCI too limiting.

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Moving to Hyperconverged? How Visual One can help.

Posted on by Admin Clear

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The Problem with the Legacy Datacenter

Legacy infrastructure—with separate storage, storage networks, and servers—is not well suited to meet the growing demands of a service- oriented delivery model or the fast pace of modern business. The silos used in traditional datacenters have become a barrier to rapid adaptation, adding complexity to every step from…ordering to deployment to management.

Enterprise IT teams today are looking for ways to deliver on- premises technology services with the speed and operational efficiency of the public cloud. The Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure is the perfect bridge between the static siloes of a legacy environment and the dynamic scalability of the cloud.

The Transition Challenge

However, the conversion from a legacy infrastructure to hyperconverged can be a challenge. While it’s important to decide which hypervisor and hardware will serve as the foundation for the new infrastructure, it’s absolutely critical to determine the migration process. Which applications and workloads need to be moved over first? How much compute power or storage will they require? What impact will they have to their users? All these factors must be compiled before the transformation can occur.

Simplifying The Move

Visual One Intelligence® provides datacenter performance, capacity and operational data at the host and storage level. Data collection occurs unobtrusively and sent to the Cloud Analytic Database via a secure protocol. From there, the data is processed into an intuitive and comprehensive report that leverages four Key Differentiators:

  • Time to Value:Visual One provides actionable intelligence within minutes, allowing your team to go from decision to production with useful information in a fraction of the time.
  • The Right Mix:Visual One provides the right blend of functionality, cost, and value.
  • Cross all Vendors:Visual One supports heterogeneous environmentswith no prerequisites, agents or appliances.
  • Simple Delivery:Delivered as a quick assessment or a SaaS offering, Visual One quickly provides an easy-to-use virtualization of your data that enables better business decisions and outcomes.

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NVMe and Flash – Now Available Throughout IBM Storage Portfolio

Posted on by Admin Clear

Two weeks ago, IBM made a number of significant enhancements to their storage portfolio, further enhancing one of the industry’s most complete set of solutions for storage. These announcements were focused on adding exciting and innovative upgrades to their already comprehensive and feature-rich storage portfolio including NVMe additions, enhanced data protection, Artificial Intelligence integration, and more.

One big addition is the proliferation of NVMe and Flash throughout the various storage product lines. The third generation of the mid-range workhouse of the IBM storage family, the StorWize V7000, was announced with support for support for NVMe flash storage and NVMe-over-fabrics (NVMf).Clear Technologies Chief Operating Officer and President, Phil Godwin, was recently interviewed by CRN regarding the announcement.

“IBM’s embracing of NVMe is important because NVMe is the future of storage,” Godwin said. “IBM has made a big commitment to NVMe. This gives them a great position in the marketplace. And with the increase in performance, IBM has taken care of increasing needs for power to handle things like deduplication (CRN, 2018).”

Updates were also made to the FlashSystem, San Volume Controller (SVC), and Spectrum product lines.

Clear Technologies is excited about these new announcements because it not only brings the fastest performing technologies to the market but also makes Flash itself more available to those organizations who cannot afford the highest end storage devices.

Clear Technologies is an IBM Platinum Partner and IBM Storage Expert.  With its award-winning storage reporting and analytics service, Visual One Intelligence®, Clear can show you how IBM storage systems, such as the new FlashSystem 9150, can dramatically impact your environment using your own applications’ and hosts’ requirements.  If you are looking to architect for the future of your datacenter or hybrid cloud environment, or just want to see more about how new technologies like Flash and NVMe can help solve your issues, contact Clear Technologies today.

HA/DR Insurance for Your Data Center

Posted on by Admin Clear

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Information is the backbone of your business. Lose access to it, and you can lose valuable time, money and even end-user clients. Yet many businesses still haven’t implemented a proper High Availability/Disaster Recovery strategy. They see it as a cost and not an investment.

The truth is, it’s very much like your homeowner’s insurance. You may not notice its benefits immediately – and may even grumble about the bill. But when disaster strikes, you’re glad it’s there. The same is true for your HA/DR.

The challenge is often determining the right solution.

Fortunately, Clear Technologies offers several tools and services to help map the best HA/DR solution with the customer’s business. For an on premises solution, we have Visual One (Visual One Intelligence®) which can offer a point in time snaphsot of critical system performance. This information can give you the tools to determine which data requires protection and the best way to do so.

If you’re exploring a could option, we have our interactive quick assessment that can help you determine the cloud-based solution that’s the best fit for your business.

And sometimes, the best strategy is a hybrid approach where multiple components such as on-prem, cloud and a co-location facility (“co-lo”) are woven together to provide a powerful, secure and cost-effective way to safeguard your data. For such solutions, Clear’s team of technical sales specialists and engineers leverage a wide variety of technology partners to build the solution that’s right for you.

Your data is as important as your home or car. Shouldn’t it have insurance, too?

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