I was asked recently to provide my perspective on why and how to determine how to consolidate storage.\u00a0Obviously I’m no sys admin but I thought that managing storage shouldn’t be much different to other types of housekeeping\u00a0with applications in IT or for real life for that matter. So here goes:<\/p>\n
10 Tips for Storage Consolidation<\/strong><\/p>\n 1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Clean House Before You Move <\/strong>\u2013 Just like in real life, if you can throw out unwanted, unused files and get your business users to consider applications that can be \u201cretired\u201d before consolidation, will make the process a lot more efficient and less painful. Naturally, just like in real life letting go of what might turn out to be important later is a challenge, not to mention finding the original owner of the data who can okay its demise, but \u201cdon\u2019t ask don\u2019t get\u201d.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Be A Hero Either Way <\/strong>\u2013 By inventorying and sending out lists of files and objects to their apparent owners and asking if they really still need them, you might get one of the following reactions: \u201cI thought we lost that data, thank goodness we were looking for that\u201d or \u201cGood grief, we are still holding on to that past the retention period? It\u2019s a major liability if we get audited. Delete it asap!\u201d<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Set Best By Dates<\/strong> \u2013 Even if you find it hard to accomplish Tip #1 above because you can\u2019t quite figure out what old data can be removed. You can stem the tide for all new files and applications that are introduced using tools that allow you to set mutually agreed upon retention and expiry polices. This at the very least will force the conversation sometime down the road.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Have A Compression Obsession<\/strong> \u2013 With unstructured file and block level compression, plus document and object de-dupe available as commodity offerings, you should be able to save significant space and stretch your $ per TB. But do not stop there, a new wave of technologies will allow you to de-duplicate structured data held in databases such as Oracle too.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Go Small Or Go Home <\/strong>\u2013 By reducing the physical footprint without sacrificing the accessibility of your data, your backups will run faster, migrations become easier and in some cases with structured data value de-duplication your end-users may even get faster query access!<\/p>\n 6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Expect Your Users To Be Wrong<\/strong> \u2013 Once you\u2019ve figured out how much space you need in your new consolidated storage environment, you\u2019ll be eagerly awaiting feedback from your users as to their anticipated growth rates and requirements. Since it\u2019s unlikely that they\u2019ll be able to get this right, especially with the onslaught of social media data, video and a deluge of business transactions and increasing retention periods, it\u2019s best to go with easily extensible storage offerings or try Tip #8.<\/p>\n 7.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Your Oldie Can Still Be Goldie<\/strong> \u2013 Consolidating doesn\u2019t necessarily have to mean replacing older storage devices. Data that is less frequently accessed with compression capabilities that use less disk reads can still find a home on spinning rust.<\/p>\n 8.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Let Your Judgment Be Clouded<\/strong> \u2013 If you are consolidating anyway, consider the cloud for pay-as-you go storage for some of your data. Amazon continues to set the bar for compelling prices per GB\/month for commodity S3 storage. Apart from using only as much as you need, you can also only pay for processing when your users really need to have it (which is likely to be less often than they claim). You can also use \u201ccloud bursting\u201d by making use of cloud storage in a pinch as your data center runs out if Tip 6 wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n 9.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Look Beyond All That Platter<\/strong> \u2013 While disk performance, efficiency and low failure rates are key. Today\u2019s storage vendors are differentiating their offerings by providing major administration, management and compliant retention features that could significantly reduce the resources you need to run your data center.<\/p>\n 10.\u00a0\u00a0 Don\u2019t Look Back<\/strong> \u2013 Your storage consolidation project is a key enabler to allow your organization to have a modernized and more efficient data center for anticipated growth ahead. While there will be hiccups along the way, your business users may thank you, your CFO may or may not thank you, but your CIO certainly will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was asked recently to provide my perspective on why and how to determine how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,41,428],"tags":[430,429],"class_list":["post-3106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-cloud","category-data-retention","tag-10-tips","tag-storage"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramonchen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramonchen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramonchen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramonchen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramonchen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3106"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramonchen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3108,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramonchen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions\/3108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramonchen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramonchen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramonchen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}