Presented at the University of Iowa on August 14, 2006.

1. Enterprise Storage
Management at the University
of Iowa
August 14, 2006

2. Introduction
David Shafer
• The University of Iowa (1999-Present)
ITS-SPA, Unix Systems Group
– Enterprise Unix servers
– Organizational improvements
• Inlet, Inc. / McLeod USA (1998-99)
– Windows file and web servers
– Web and database programming
• Coe College (1997-98)
– Unix, Netware, and Windows servers
– Campus fiber optic network

3. Questions
1. How are storage needs at
Iowa changing?
2. What are the goals of ESM?
3. Where is the storage
industry headed?
4. What is the best ESM
strategy for the University of
Iowa?

4. • “The University is on the cusp
of a data management crisis.”
• Recommendation:
– Identify processes
– Develop services
– Reliable and secure
– Storage, backup, archiving
Campus IT Review

5. 2006 ITS Key Projects
• Improve disaster recovery
– Backup/restore capabilities
– Data center improvements
• Develop data storage services
• Assess need for institutional
repository
• Improve effectiveness through
metrics

6. ITS-SPA FY06 Efforts
• AT: Provide support for growing
storage needs (ICON, digital
media, research computing)
• AIS: Support storage for
enterprise databases (data
warehouse, SIS, PeopleSoft)
• CS: Expand storage for Exchange
and Webmail services, enterprise
file service growth

7. ITS-SPA Storage
Growth
Disk Storage in Terabytes
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
2000 2002 2004 2006
Year
TB
Shark
RVA
SAN
SAS

8. Themes: More, more,
more…
• More data
• More consumers
• More reliable
• More secure

9. …more, more, more
• More complex
• More costly
• More heat, space, and power

10. What are the goals of
ESM?
1. Accessibility
– Provide campus with better
access to centrally managed
data
2. Cost Efficiency
– Leverage economies of scale
and scope to decrease costs

11. What are the goals of
ESM?
3. Flexibility
– Pool funds to increase buying
power
4. Reliability
– Ensure high availability, data
protection, and disaster recovery
5. Security
– Prevent data theft and accidental
exposure

12. Where is the storage
industry headed?
• Many evolving technologies
• Consider risk factors:
– Years to mainstream adoption
– Potential benefit

13. Low Risk
Today:
SANs Based on Fibre
Channel
Array Based Virtualization
Future:
• iSCSI

14. Moderate Risk
Today:
 Serial ATA RAID
 Tape Backup
 Metro Area SANs
Future:
• Continuous Data Protection
• Single Instance Store
• Hardware Tape Encryption

15. Higher Risk
 Array-Based Replication
 Recovery From Disk
• High Capacity Optical Drives
• TCP/IP Offload Engines
• Virtual Tape for Unix, Wintel and Linux
• Serial Attached SCSI – HDD Interface
• Distributed Virtual Tape
• Heterogeneous Storage Virtualization
• Server-Based Replication
• Wide Area SANs
• Database Archiving
• E-Mail Archiving

16. What is the best ESM
strategy for Iowa?
• Pursue moderate risk
technologies
– At or near mainstream adoption
– Moderate to high value
• Focus on specific goals:
– e.g., Accessibility, Cost
Efficiency, Flexibility, Reliability,
Security

17. Implementing ESM
• Establish metrics (e.g., $/GB)
• Use SRM tools to identify
trends and project growth
• Negotiate aggressively with
vendors
• Well-defined, tiered storage
services

18. Focus on Goals
Accessibility  iSCSI
Cost Efficiency  Single instance store
Flexibility  Virtual tape for Unix,
Wintel and Linux
Reliability  Asynchronous
replication
Security  Hardware tape
encryption

19. Questions?
David Shafer
david-shafer@uiowa.edu