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Two for the complexity of one

SMBs are buying rack-mount/blade servers and storage arrays—all in the same chassis. Akhtar Pasha argues that this trend will help expand the markets for both servers and networked storage

Pursuing the efficiency of virtualization or just greater uptime, medium-sized organizations are bringing storage out of their servers and on to the SAN. However, lacking expertise in managing full-blown SAN solutions they are buying combo solutions wherein the same blade chassis or server rack also hosts high capacity SAN storage.

This buying spree on part of medium businesses (MBs) has helped vendors achieve spectacular numbers during the past six to eight months. For instance, HP is seeing high growth from StorageWorks 4400 EVA and blade servers. IBM is also seeing similar growth for its BladeCenter S that comes with unified storage (FC SAN and iSCSI) with a dozen disk drives in the chassis as well as from its System Storage N Series. Alkem Labs, Angel Brokering, Shilpa Stock Brokering, Soma Technologies, Sunfire Technologies, Buldana Urban Co-op Housing Society are some of the companies that have gone in for this latest wrinkle on the server-storage game.

We spoke to RMSI Pvt Ltd., which develops innovative solutions that integrate geographic information with niche business applications and provides Risk Analytics servers to the insurance companies for risk and loss analysis modeling. Much of the data summoned by the RMSI consists of large files whose rapid storage and retrieval is vital. The files are a mix of text, images [satellite images, Maps etc], and spreadsheets and are generally stored on a server running Microsoft SQL Server. An average file would typically have a size of 1 GB and a database would generally range between 10 and 20 GB. The company had to house several hundred databases and the storage solution had to meet stringent standards of performance vis-a-vis speed, security, and mission-criticality. Given the size of the files and the fact that file retrieval is an output-intensive process, the retrieval process used to take a long time. There was huge dependency on data and the length of the process was becoming a bottleneck. The need of the hour was to bring down the duration of retrieval while at the same time ensuring faster access to data.

RMSI uses one EVA 6100 and two EVA 4100s with a combined capacity of 80 TB. Similarly, the company’s Risk Analytics Service division used to run heavy data processes as a part of the analysis of insurance risks using Risk Link. It formerly ran its data query, generation processes off workstations/servers, and a single big process used to take up to 72 hours. It deployed HP Blade Servers [BL480 4 chassis=32 servers] to tackle this problem and this compressed the process time to a flat 10 to 12 hours. Ajay Anand, Assistant General Manager-IT, RMSI Pvt Ltd., said, “Given the complexity of configuring it, customizing and sizing enterprise-class SAN requires a lot of expertise. However, being a small IT team, we were able to provision storage to different applications as well as optimize the storage capacity allocation through a few mouse clicks. RMSI’s data repository has scaled up by more than 400% in the last year alone and, with HP EVA Storage, we are able to manage this growth and are now planning for a more intensive ramp-up in the foreseeable future.”

The need for networked storage

The case of RMSI conveys how capacity, scalability, and data management have become paramount for MBs to drive their businesses. Siva Sankaran L, Director, Storage Practice, Sun Microsystems India said, “There is quite a bit of interest from the MB segment to buy networked storage. In the recent past, we have seen many SAN deployments especially of our entry-level 2500 Series disk array systems. Customer can populate these from five discs [approx 1.5 TB capacity] and scale up to 48 discs. These offer very high capacity ideally suited for their requirement. SMBs are getting a complete package in one box—high performance networked storage, higher capacity as they add new applications with a backup solution at an aggressive price point starting at less than $7,000 for 1.5 TB capacity.”

He added, “Two of our manufacturing customers have deployed this solution. One is using SAP applications and other a Microsoft application with our disk array systems. They are also buying autoloaders for backup solution.”

As the MB segment goes in for sophisticated applications such as ERP, SCM and CRM, its need for hardware has also scaled up. These applications require networked storage and high performance servers. Sankaran commented, “There are many customers who are moving away from DAS to networked storage and the credit goes to SAP, which is driving the adoption of ERP and other enterprise applications. Customers told us that they are spending a lot of time identifying business-critical data that resides on various servers using different databases. So once they plan for an ERP, if they have four or five servers, it automatically calls for networked storage.”

PK Gupta, Backup, Recovery and Archive Solutions Director - APJ EMC Global Services said, “We have seen a 30% rise in business from the MB segment for our CLARiiON CX3-10 product that can scale to 30 TB, supports both FC and iSCSI connectivity integrated with recovery software. Most customers who are buying primary storage with four or five TB and 10 to 12 servers are implementing SAP. Customer SLAs with applications, storage, and security are aggressive with regard to Recover Point Objectives (RPO) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO). These factors are driving SAN implementation in India.”

Surajit Sen, Director-Channel, Alliances & Market, NetApp India said, “Initially the data stores of small businesses were minuscule with zero automation. However, today business dynamics have changed. Increasing productivity, efficiency, and market footprint are putting pressure on existing IT infrastructure—on servers and storage. Any businesses that are looking at automation are seeing networked storage in a different light.”

x86 servers driving networked storage adoption

Many of NetApp’s customers use the x86 architecture, have three to five servers mostly running Windows, and have interoperable solutions. Sen said, “Since most of the small and medium businesses do not have a UNIX environment, it becomes easier for them to go in for networked storage.” Take the case of Rossi Gear Motors, a minor auto ancillary company that uses VMware to virtualize servers. It is using a 4 TB FAS 2000 iSCSI SAN solution. These SAN solution are relatively inexpensive, scale to a high capacity and help manage data storage. Similarly, TataBP Solar is also using FAS 2000 iSCSI SAN solution with a 4 TB capacity. Sen said, “We have added 35 new customers since JFM 2008.”

Rajesh Dhar, Country Manager, Industry Standard Servers, Technology Solutions Group, HP India, said, “Today x86 servers are handling more complex workloads with higher performance in terms of I/O and memory. However, customers may have x86 servers from different vendors all running a single OS (Windows) and since they are not using UNIX systems, it becomes easier for them to go for networked storage and implement a SAN solution. In a UNIX environment, it becomes a complex project to implement SAN because of interoperability issues. An x86 environment supports seamless connectivity to networked storage [SAN]—offering them a central pool of storage and hence we find less resistance from customers going for SAN. It is driving a lot of SAN implementation.”

By deploying SAN in this manner, MBs can optimize their disc usage by 40%, which can bring about many savings. Vendors offer Proof-of-Concept (POC), nowadays, where prospective buyers can see how their application can scale and how a SAN solution can solve their storage management problem before they actually buy it. There are many MBs testing the waters at a POC before choosing to deploy blades and SANs. RMSI is one such example.

Deploy two as easily as one

The momentum is around solutions that combine blades with SAN storage in a single chassis or even a rack with rack-mounted servers and storage arrays. According to server vendors, customers are buying many more blades than in the past and they are using the same blade chassis for storage as well. Additionally the market saw even rack servers sold with SAN in the same enclosure. HP has witnessed some big-ticket sales in the market and wrapped up Columbia Asia Hospital, Manipal Hospital, Manipal Universal Learning, Enteg Infotech and Sundaram Fasteners as customers who are using HP blade servers and SAN together in the same chassis. IBM has two such installations, Religare and Emmar MGF who are using IBM BladeCenter S with System Storage N Series.

Manoj Suvarna, Country Manager, StorageWorks Division, HP India said, “As more MBs consolidate their storage, we have seized this opportunity with a disk array system that is easier to work with than large-enterprise gear, but delivers more capabilities than entry-level SAN storage. Since many of them do not have the expertise required to set up and run enterprise-class SAN, we have the HP StorageWorks EVA 4400-8000 Series that gives them two controllers all in one shelf. Consolidating drives and controllers in one shelf can cuts costs and act as a failover if one fails.”

Suvarna continued, “Using our Virtual Connect Technology it is possible to connect blades and SAN together seamlessly and there is no need to create new LUNs. It automatically allocates storage to application and helps in sizing. A MB’s IT team can easily assemble it in a day’s time. Using traditional rack servers with SAN in the same enclosure can save 40% of the costs saving in power, management and maintenance.”

MBs are deploying technologies and applications at a rapid clip as their demands are increasing at an equally rapid pace. This type of combined offering is an instant hit with this segment. They are getting high performance storage, realization and utilization of servers is high, reducing the footprint for management drastically while at the same time they are planning their backup window and data backup more easily.

Whatever the customer’s choice—buying SAN with blades/rack or without, these combo solutions are helping both the networked storage and the server market to expand rapidly.

akhtar.pasha@expressindia.com