Elements of ILM Solutions
As its name implies, ILM addresses information storage from the moment data is created until it's no longer useful and is deleted. Consequently, ILM solutions start with the primary production storage infrastructure, then migrate data to less-expensive storage tiers. But data migration is only one piece of the puzzle. ILM strategies must also address business-continuity issues, including data backup and restore and disaster recovery, as well as archiving and retrieval needs.
The first and perhaps key step in crafting an ILM strategy, according to Wake Forest's Massengill, is to enlist the support of the data owners. ILM is not strictly a storage issue but rather a business-process issue, and all the stakeholders in the specific business process must be involved and understand the business benefits at stake.
The second step in ILM is classifying data according to its business value. Information should be classified according to specific goals and using an agreed-upon methodology. In general, data can be classified according to several criteria. Perhaps the most obvious factor to consider is business criticality. Under what circumstances do users need specific information and within what time frame? What data is essential for business operations, and what are the interdependencies between critical and noncritical data? Other questions to ask in the data-classification process are what storage resources do specific data consume, and what management costs are involved? Where is the data physically located? And finally, how do the values associated with these criteria change over time?
The next step in forming an ILM solution is to develop what the SNIA Data Management Forum calls service-level objectives and policies that dictate the migration of data through the different storage tiers. Under what conditions should data be moved from tier one—high-end production systems—to nearline or offline systems? To succeed, the data-classification and policy-development processes must be a collaboration between storage administrators and data owners.
Wake Forest represents a model ILM scenario. Say a patient comes to the center with a broken arm. The break is captured in a digital image that might be accessed several times over the next 4 to 6 weeks as the patient visits the doctor. After the cast is removed, the image might be accessed only once or twice in the next 6 months. After that, the images must remain associated with the patient's medical record for 7 years after the patient's 18th birthday. So, if a child breaks her arm at age 4, for example, the medical center must keep a record of the image for 21 years, although it might never be accessed. Thus, during the first 4 to 6 weeks after an injury, the image must be readily accessible and probably stored on a high-performance storage subsystem. But where should it be located 4 months after the event—or 10 years later? And how should the migration process be managed? An ILM strategy must answer these sorts of questions. At Wake Forest, the IT staff concluded that it couldn't classify data because the process was too complex and had too many intervals. Instead, IT lets each department determine what data should reside on what level of storage. IT's role is to clearly explain to the departments the costs associated with their decisions.
The State of ILM
In an ideal world, ILM would be straightforward to implement and assess. Companies would have a standard methodology for classifying data and a set of resources to automate data migration according to specific policies. Moreover, companies would offer integrated ILM solution sets to manage data across the enterprise. In reality, enterprises use ILM concepts inconsistently. For example, data migration from one storage tier to another is often still done manually. And ILM concepts are often used to address specific, immediate problems instead of functioning as an overall strategy. "There are three primary pain points," says StorageTek's Rief: the misuse of primary disk storage space by keeping old data on it for too long, inadequate backup and recovery infrastructures, and archival applications that don't comply with government regulations.
Today, enterprise storage vendors provide best-of-breed solutions to address each of these pain points. As yet, no integrated, total ILM solution is available from any one vendor. Companies must integrate different ILM products from different vendors. A number of storage vendors have formed alliances to provide ILM solutions—for example, BMC Software and Princeton Softech, EMC and Outerbay Technologies, VERITAS and Network Appliance, and StorageTek and various partners. Nevertheless, using best-of-breed solutions lets an organization try out ILM and see its benefits firsthand. For example, a best-of-breed approach might include a storage resource-management solution from one vendor, an email archiving application from another, and database-archiving technology from a third. Lee suggests that after an organization has seen the advantages of ILM demonstrated in one area, it's more willing to begin to develop overall an ILM strategy. Often, says Lee, a company first applies ILM concepts either to email or database archiving, then moves forward with other applications.
Beyond the Hype
Although some pundits have dismissed ILM as simply the latest industry buzzword created by vendors to help sell their products, it's more than just a marketing strategy. ILM isn't really about technology at all. Instead, it's a framework in which storage administrators, working in conjunction with data owners, can more precisely align the business value of information with the cost of storing that information.
ILM is still a relatively nascent idea, but point ILM solutions are available—virtually every major storage vendor has an ILM strategy in place—and can yield a measurable ROI. For example, Wake Forest's Massengill used to upgrade servers every 18 months but now upgrades them only every 3 to 4 years. "We don't upgrade just to get more storage. We can extend the life of the servers," he says.
Moreover, ILM techniques can help companies consolidate both the number of servers they need and their storage infrastructure. In fact, because Massengill can demonstrate the cost savings that departments will realize by moving to an ILM strategy and migrating data to less-expensive storage platforms, the departments are more willing to move to a centralized infrastructure. Essentially, says StorageTek's Rief, ILM represents a key step in the development of the storage infrastructure. "It's a stepping stone to utility computing," he said. "It makes a lot of sense."
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