Storage Virtualization Lets VARs Consolidate Storage

Companies in the graphics industry use a lot of storage, and Krug Litho (Kansas City, MO) was no exception. Krug is a trade shop that prepares images for customers and delivers them to printers. The company handles massive files, which are often 500 MB to 1 GB in size. "The company needed a lot of storage to handle the images they work on," said Pat Taylor, president and co-founder of storage integrator Proactive Technologies (Carrollton, TX). "The customer had five or six application servers, each with RAID [redundant array of independent disks] storage attached. Each machine had 200 GB of storage, and most of that storage was usually idle as Krug was typically using only 200 GB to 300 GB at a time. There was also a tremendous amount of inefficiency in the way they were buying storage. Krug came to us to improve the efficiency with which they bought and managed their storage."

Need More Storage? Buy More Hardware
Taylor believes the inefficiency faced by Krug is a classic storage situation in most print shops. "The company will buy a file server," he says. "When they need more storage, they will buy more servers or more RAID. We see this all the time. It seems to be a natural evolution in the digital print industry. But it gets to the point where the company has terabytes of data spread throughout the shop. Files keep getting larger, and as these companies need more storage they keep buying more hardware. Eventually things get out of hand."

Taylor points out that not only is managing the storage a nightmare, but backing up all of the data becomes a chore as well. Most companies will not even want to think about trying to restore the data. "Think of how long it would take to restore a terabyte of data," he says. "Even using the latest AIT [advanced intelligent tape] technology, it might take 20 hours. Customers will perform a backup and then pray they never have to restore the data."

Another problem faced by graphics customers ties back to the nature of the business. In a press environment, the cost and ROI of a press is built around the equipment running 24/7. A graphics company cannot afford to have its equipment down for a couple of days waiting for its RAID to be fixed so it can then begin to restore data from tape. "The volume of data in these environments is out of control," says Taylor. "That amount of data makes companies in the graphics vertical a perfect fit for virtualization."

What Is Storage Virtualization?
Taylor believes virtualization is finally here, albeit in the initial phases. But he also believes the technology is misunderstood. "Virtualization is a perfect fit for SAN [storage area network], but there is a lot of confusion because vendors are giving customers so many different definitions of what virtualization is," he states. "Each vendor gives it their own spin. It is the job of the systems integrator to sort through all the hype and determine which product is best for their customer. If integrators are asking for a good margin and loyalty from their customers, they had better be able to deliver a product that is useful and beneficial to their customers."

Taylor looked at all of the virtualization products on the market and settled on the SANsymphony product from DataCore Software (Ft. Lauderdale, FL). SANsymphony takes all of the customer's pools of storage and makes them appear as one large pool - the classic definition of virtualization. "SANsymphony allows the user to drag and drop the storage they need on the appropriate server," says Taylor. "If the user is running out of capacity on servers one and three, he can go to his management console and drop 300 GB on these two servers. That eliminates the need to buy more storage hardware for those servers. The customer still has all the same storage; it is just managed a lot better."

Combine Hardware With A Domain Server
Taylor performed the installation by installing a storage domain server (SDS). DataCore's software was installed on the SDS, which is a storage manager that controls all of the storage resources. "We took the direct attached storage off the servers and attached them to the SDS," says Taylor. "Each server now has access to all of the storage. We also created a separate Fibre network the customer can use to move large image files. This eliminated bottlenecks on the LAN."

It didn't take long for the customer to see the benefits of virtualization. There was an immediate threefold, or 300%, improvement in production throughput. There were also improvements in how the customer could use the storage and perform backup.

The total installation took just three days and there were no complications, which is a recent and welcome change for Taylor. "We used to have a lot of compatibility issues," he says. "There were compatibility issues with the software, drivers, HBAs [host bus adapters], and switches. These devices just did not play well together and there was also a lack of standards." Taylor credits QLogic (Aliso Viejo, CA) with solving his interoperability issues. QLogic, a Fibre Channel HBA manufacturer, purchased Ancor, a Fibre Channel switch company, in May 2000. The consolidation made QLogic's HBAs compatible with Ancor's switches - thus eliminating headaches for many VARs.

Taylor adds that some VARs are concerned about putting an SDS between the customer's servers and storage, believing it may create a choke point. Several customers have expressed concern as well. However, Taylor is quick to relieve their fears. "That is a common concern," he affirms. "But there is always a processor between the servers and the storage. That is where the RAID controller normally sits. The SDS is essentially a very intelligent RAID controller and does not create a bottleneck at all."