12.4 Chapter Summary

Perfecting the Storage Engine

Technology improvements operate in a continuous cycle.
Strategic and tactical goals can outlast innovation cycles.
Technology patterns, even not fully defined, assist in the planning and deployment process.

Strategic Objectives

Create defensive and offensive strategies.
Investments in storage networking equipment appropriately selected and deployed can serve both objectives.
Segment strategies with portfolio management.
The dramatic size and scope of storage requirements mandate an evaluation and prioritization process.

12.2 Tactical Goals

Adapt to infrastructure fluidity .
More commoditized products based on server platforms means a greater variety of functionality across the end-to-end storage chain.
Use distributed resources and intelligence.
Network flexibility and infrastructure fluidity will push solutions to solve bottlenecks throughout the system.
With storage as part of the IP landscape, the geographic reach for integration and consolidation will extend globally.
Continually monitor organization structure and utility.
The trend towards more automated storage administration will put policy administration in the hands of fewer individuals.
Feedback processes incorporating storage customers provides one manner to measure effectiveness.

12.3 Storage Advances to Watch

Tightly coupled interaction between applications and storage requirements (application-specific storage) enhances performance and functionality.
Growth in data storage and reliability requirements mandate centralized storage automation.
Manual administration will be augmented with pattern identification, independent decision processes, centralized automation, and new platforms.
Current and future platforms will emerge based on data-usage patterns.
The classification of storage as a separate component led to separation from an integrated system.
Integrating storage networking with other system components will take place through improved communications, abstraction, and added intelligence.
Ultimately, storage networking will merge back into mainstream computing functions.

Appendix A. IT Service Recovery Strategy: Best Opportunity for Success

Executive Overview

Evolution to a SAN Environment

Strategic Decisions

Distributed Systems Strategy

Backup Strategy

Recovery Facility Strategy

IT Service Recovery Documentation

Roadblocks to Quality IT Service Recovery Documentation

IT Service Recovery Risk Assessment

Identifying Assets

Identify Risks

The Need for Speed!

Executive Overview

Predefined methods for business recovery provide templates for IT service recovery planning. They typically leave out three key issues in need of a strategy:

How to deal with distributed systems
How to avoid data destruction in a disaster
How much to invest in recovery facilities

How Do You Deal with Distributed Systems?

The distributed architecture paradigm drastically increases the complexity of business continuity planning.
To succeed, business continuity planning has to focus on an IT service recovery model.

RECOMMENDATION : Designate the "custodian" of an IT resource as responsible for the recovery of the IT services after a disaster.

RECOMMENDATION : Focus on improving the IT documentation necessary for business continuity.

RECOMMENDATION : Organize IT documentation by "service," with individuals responsible for recovery assigned the responsibility for maintaining the documentation.

How Do You Avoid Data Destruction in a Disaster?

You can purchase new hardware, build new buildings , even hire new employees , but you must have an intact "copy" of your data for successful recovery.
Storing the copy in a remote location decreases your risk of losing both the original and the copy in a disaster.
The potential exists in a disaster to lose all data changes that have occurred since the delivery of the last copy of the data to the remote location.
Options exist to speed up the movement of the copy to the remote location.

RECOMMENDATION : Implement a second-generation storage network with remote disk mirroring. (This will have to be approached on an incremental basis to avoid a large one-time infrastructure investment.)

RECOMMENDATION : Replace the current tape-based disaster backup strategy inherited from the mainframe with remote disk mirroring.

RECOMMENDATION : Locate the remote disk mirror in a remote location. Potential vendors exist in most metropolitan areas.

RECOMMENDATION : Store the IT documentation electronically in the SAN to take advantage of the remote disk mirroring.

How Much Do You Invest in Recovery Facilities?

Your recovery facility strategy determines how soon services will be available again following a disaster.
The tasks required to build a recovery facility are about the same amount of work before or after the disaster.
The only way to decrease the time it takes to get the recovery facility in service is to put some or all of the recovery facility in place before the disaster. The more you put in place before the disaster, the sooner you will have IT services after a disaster.
The more you put in place before the disaster, the higher your overhead costs to maintain the recovery facilities until the disaster.
A disaster is not a certainty . The money spent before the disaster amounts to insurance against lost IT services.
Lacking a risk assessment on paper, an organization's budget tends to make more decisions concerning the recovery facility than concerning the threat of a disaster.

RECOMMENDATION : Create a formalized risk assessment process. (Security issues contain a parallel requirement for predictable risk assessments.)

RECOMMENDATION : Identify the acceptable downtime for each IT service based on the documented risk assessment.

RECOMMENDATION : Identify key vendors for replacement equipment.

RECOMMENDATION : Establish lead time for replacement equipment in the event of a disaster.

RECOMMENDATION : Establish the need for a recovery site based on lead time rather than acceptable downtime.

RECOMMENDATION : Document and maintain all of this information in an SLA for IT customers to consider in gap analysis.

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12.4 Chapter Summary