Modern

Infrastructure
Dell EMC #GetModern Special Edition

by Lawrence C. Miller

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 Modern Infrastructure For Dummies®, Dell EMC #GetModern
Special Edition

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 Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................ 1
About This Book.................................................................................... 2
Foolish Assumptions............................................................................. 2
Icons Used in This Book........................................................................ 3
Beyond the Book................................................................................... 3
Where to Go from Here........................................................................ 3

CHAPTER 1: Recognizing Modern Storage Challenges.................. 5

Digital Transformation.......................................................................... 5
Explosive Data Growth......................................................................... 6
Constrained Infrastructure Budgets................................................... 7
Security and Compliance Mandates................................................... 8

CHAPTER 2: Understanding Storage

Infrastructure Options........................................................... 11
All-Flash and Hybrid Storage Arrays................................................. 11
Converged and Hyper-Converged Systems..................................... 12
Software-Defined Storage.................................................................. 13
Cloud-based Storage........................................................................... 14

CHAPTER 3: Addressing Data Protection Requirements.......... 17

Snapshots and Replication................................................................. 18
Data Encryption................................................................................... 19
Backup and Recovery.......................................................................... 20
Long-Term Retention.......................................................................... 21
Global Oversight for Modern Data Management........................... 21
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery..................................... 22

CHAPTER 4: Exploring Dell EMC All-Flash Storage

Solutions............................................................................................ 25
Dell EMC VMAX All Flash..................................................................... 25
Dell EMC XtremIO................................................................................ 27
Dell EMC Unity..................................................................................... 29
Dell EMC SC Series.............................................................................. 30
Dell EMC Isilon..................................................................................... 31

Table of Contents iii

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 CHAPTER 5: Learning About Dell EMC Converged
and Hyper-Converged Solutions..................................... 33
Dell EMC VxBlock................................................................................. 34
Dell EMC VxRail.................................................................................... 35
Dell EMC VxRack.................................................................................. 36

CHAPTER 6: Introducing Dell EMC Software-Defined

Storage Solutions........................................................................ 37
Dell EMC ScaleIO................................................................................. 38
Massive scalability......................................................................... 38
Extreme performance................................................................... 38
Unparalleled flexibility................................................................... 39
Supreme elasticity......................................................................... 39
Essential features........................................................................... 40
Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage.......................................................... 41
Global content repository............................................................. 42
Modern archive.............................................................................. 42
Storage for next-generation applications................................... 44

CHAPTER 7: Getting to Know Dell EMC Data

Protection Solutions................................................................ 45
Dell EMC Data Domain....................................................................... 45
Dell EMC Data Protection Suite......................................................... 46
Dell EMC Integrated Data Protection Appliance.............................. 48

CHAPTER 8: Ten Questions to Assess Your IT

Transformation Maturity..................................................... 49
IT Transformation Assessment.......................................................... 49
Dell EMC #GetModern Assessment.................................................. 51

iv Modern Infrastructure For Dummies, Dell EMC #GetModern Special Edition

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 Introduction
M
odern businesses are increasingly embracing digital
transformation — leveraging new technologies to rein-
vent core processes, business models, product offerings,
and the customer experience. As businesses embark on the digital
transformation journey, they need to modernize their underlying
technology infrastructure to enable a more agile, customer-
focused, flexible, and innovative digital workplace to drive greater
human and operational efficiencies.

Digital transformation initiatives require a modern IT infra-

structure to support modern business requirements. Legacy
siloed infrastructure prevents organizations from using their
data holistically; performance bottlenecks negatively impact
user experience, and rigid and/or proprietary architectures limit
options when business requirements evolve. The unfortunate
result is that IT is increasingly seen as a barrier to the business,
rather than an enabler of new business opportunities  — and is
thus becoming largely irrelevant.

Many modern organizations have fully embraced cloud

­strategies  — with many going so far as to implement a “cloud
first” or “cloud only” policy. But the reality is that most organi-
zations will require a hybrid approach for the foreseeable future,
consisting of on-premises and public, private, and hybrid cloud
environments. To effectively integrate these diverse operating
environments, legacy on-premises infrastructure (and architec-
ture) must be modern and agile to support the business with the
same speed and agility as in the public cloud.

Modern infrastructure is comprised of compute, storage, and

­network components. Most organizations maintain regular
refresh cycles for their compute and network infrastructure.
While some proprietary technology and vendor lock-in issues
exist in compute and network infrastructure, these refreshes
are relatively seamless. Storage infrastructure refreshes, on the
other hand, are far more complex. Storage architectures tend to
grow over time as more capacity and performance is needed. As
a result, storage infrastructure has become the most expensive
capital IT investment in the data center. Vendor lock-in due to the
use of proprietary technologies is yet another challenge. Finally,

Introduction 1

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 the sheer volume of data that must be migrated when storage
infrastructure is upgraded is daunting and often means signifi-
cant risk and downtime for the organization.

About This Book

In this book, you discover the innovative storage technologies
that are available to help you modernize your infrastructure and
address these challenges to enable your organization’s digital
transformation journey.

Modern Infrastructure For Dummies, Dell EMC #GetModern Special

Edition, ­consists of eight short chapters that explore

»» Storage challenges that today’s businesses must address

(Chapter 1)
»» Modern storage infrastructure options and technologies
(Chapter 2)
»» Important data protection capabilities to look for in a modern
storage solution (Chapter 3)
»» All-flash, converged, hyperconverged, and software-defined
storage solutions available from Dell EMC (Chapters 4
through 6)
»» Data protection solutions available from Dell EMC (Chapter 7)
»» Ten important criteria for evaluating modern infrastructure
solutions (Chapter 8)

Foolish Assumptions
It’s been said that most assumptions have outlived their useless-
ness, but I assume a few things nonetheless!

Mainly, I assume that you’re a technology professional (such as a

data center manager or storage architect) or decision maker (such
as a CIO or IT director) with some knowledge of data storage chal-
lenges and technologies. As such, this book is written primarily
for technical readers, but just in case you’re not too technical (or

2 Modern Infrastructure For Dummies, Dell EMC #GetModern Special Edition

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 perhaps a bit rusty), I explain any technical terms and concepts
that come up in this book.

If any of these assumptions describe you, then this book is for

you! If none of these assumptions describe you, keep reading
anyway. It’s a great book and when you finish reading it, you’ll
have enough stored knowledge about modern storage infrastruc-
ture to be dangerous!

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, I occasionally use special icons to call
attention to important information. Here’s what to expect:

This icon points out information you should commit to your non-
volatile memory, your gray matter, or your noggin’ — along with
anniversaries and birthdays!

You won’t find a map of the human genome here, but if you seek
to attain the seventh level of NERD-vana, perk up! This icon
explains the jargon beneath the jargon!

Tips are appreciated, never expected  — and I sure hope you’ll

appreciate these tips! This icon points out useful nuggets of
information.

Beyond the Book

There’s only so much we can cover in 56 short pages, so if you
find yourself at the end of this book, thinking “Gosh, this is a
great book; where can I learn more?” just go to www.emc.com.

Where to Go from Here

With our apologies to Lewis Carroll, Alice, and the Cheshire cat:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

Introduction 3

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 “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the
Cat — err, the Dummies Man.

“I don’t much care where . . . ,” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go!”

That’s certainly true of Modern Infrastructure For Dummies, Dell

EMC #GetModern Special Edition, which, like Alice in Wonderland,
is also d
­ estined to become a timeless classic!

If you don’t know where you’re going, any chapter will get you
there — but Chapter 1 might be a good place to start! However,
if you see a particular topic that piques your interest, feel free to
jump ahead to that chapter. Each chapter is written to stand on its
own, so you can read this book in any order that suits you (though
we don’t recommend upside down or backwards).

I promise you won’t get lost falling down the rabbit hole!

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Embracing digital transformation

»» Looking at the exponential growth of

data

»» Dealing with storage budget limitations

»» Meeting regulatory compliance

requirements

Chapter  1
Recognizing Modern
Storage Challenges

I n this chapter, you learn how modern business trends are cre-
ating data storage challenges for legacy storage infrastructure.

Digital Transformation
As today’s businesses undertake digital transformation initiatives
to increase business agility, productivity, and competitiveness,
IT organizations are struggling to keep pace with legacy infra-
structure. Figure  1-1 illustrates how IT transformation maturity
directly impacts business outcomes.

Use the free maturity self-assessment tool at www.dellemc.com/

en-us/storage/it-transformation-assessment/index.htm
to see where your organization stands in the IT transformation
spectrum and what you can do to accelerate your progress.

Legacy storage infrastructures built on traditional storage-area

networks (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS) are often
proprietary and complex, costly to upgrade, maintain, or replace,

CHAPTER 1 Recognizing Modern Storage Challenges 5

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 and risky and time-consuming to migrate. These systems create
“islands of storage” that effectively silo information that must
then be duplicated across multiple systems in order to be con-
sumed by the users and applications that need access to the data.

FIGURE 1-1: IT transformation maturity.

The resulting inefficiency is costly, not only in terms of poor

­utilization of available capacity but also

»» Lost productivity and increased end-user frustration due to

slow application performance and storage provisioning
processes
»» Missed business opportunities due to slow decision making
with incomplete or old information
»» Increased risk of data loss and security breaches due to
inadequate protection of redundant data copies, self-service
“shadow” IT services, and ineffective data protection tools

Explosive Data Growth

Data  — both structured and unstructured  — is everywhere and
continues to grow at a stunning pace. Every day, approximately
25 quintillion bytes — 2,500 petabytes (PB) — of new data is gen-
erated worldwide, and the total amount of digital data doubles
approximately every two years. New applications that leverage big

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 data, mobile, social, cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) trends are
driving this massive growth of new (primary) data.

Structured data refers to data that’s organized, for example, in

a database. Unstructured data refers to data that doesn’t have a
defined model or framework — for example, video files.

Another driver of this exponential data growth is copy data. Copy

data is created whenever primary data is copied for second-
ary ­purposes, including data protection, analytics, operations,
and testing and development. Copy data includes anything from
a backup or DR copy to a snapshot for data protection. It also
includes analytics copies as well as copes for IT operations like
patch testing and sand boxing and copies for test/dev.

This “copy sprawl” consumes storage capacity and increases

costs  — between 45 and 60 percent of total storage capacity is
consumed by copy data at a cost of more than $50 billion by 2018,
according to IDC. And, 82 percent of businesses have at least ten
copies of any one production database instance.

This explosion of copy data is being driven by “shadow IT” and the
shift to user self-service, which has led to siloes of copy creation
across the enterprise without global oversight. Solving this copy
data problem requires modern data management, which focuses
on optimizing infrastructure efficiency, streamlining operations,
and consistently meeting service levels across the enterprise.

Constrained Infrastructure Budgets

While data storage needs are growing exponentially, storage bud-
gets are increasing only one to five percent annually, creating an
ever-widening gap between data growth and storage spending
(see Figure 1-2).

Ironically, the cost per gigabyte of storage  — both hard disk

drives (HDDs) and flash solid-state drives (SSDs)  — continues
to fall, but data storage requirements and increasingly complex
storage architectures are rising more quickly.

CHAPTER 1 Recognizing Modern Storage Challenges 7

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 FIGURE 1-2: Storage requirements are outpacing storage investments.

Security and Compliance Mandates

An ever-growing and dizzying number of security and compli-
ance mandates contribute to the data growth problem, and the
urgent need for modern infrastructure to address these challenges
and  requirements. Different regulatory requirements mandate
various  — and sometimes conflicting  — requirements for data
protection, privacy, and retention. Some examples include

»» Australia: Telecommunications (Interception and Access)

Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2015
»» Canada: Personal Information Protection and Electronic
Documents Act (PIPEDA) and Privacy Act
»» European Union: Data Retention Directive (Directive
2006/24/EC), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
»» Japan: Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI)
»» Singapore: Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA)
»» United Kingdom: Data Retention and Investigatory Powers
(DRIP) Act
»» United States: Federal Information Security Management
Act (FISMA), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)

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 The inevitable result is that organizations everywhere — and in
every industry  — must protect and retain digital data for ever
longer periods — often for as long as 30, 50, or even 100 years.
To put that into perspective, most organizations today didn’t even
produce digital data 30 years ago (if the organization even existed
30 years ago). How confident are you that you can restore data
from a backup tape created 6 months ago, let alone 10, 20, or
30 years ago? Do you still have a compatible (and working) tape
drive and the right backup/restore software version to use for the
restore?

CHAPTER 1 Recognizing Modern Storage Challenges 9

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 10 Modern Infrastructure For Dummies, Dell EMC #GetModern Special Edition

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Choosing flash-y or hybrid (storage, not
cars)

»» Getting hyper about converged storage

»» Defining software-defined storage

»» Taking your storage to the cloud

Chapter  2
Understanding Storage
Infrastructure Options

I n this chapter, you learn about the storage technology options

that comprise a modern infrastructure.

All-Flash and Hybrid Storage Arrays

Over the past decade, the cost of flash storage technology has
rapidly decreased, making both all-flash and hybrid flash stor-
age arrays viable options for most businesses today. Flash stor-
age technology is significantly faster than traditional hard disk
drive (HDD) technology. For example, read and write operations
in flash are measured in microseconds (compared to ­milliseconds
in HDDs) and input/output operations per second (IOPS) are mea-
sured in tens of thousands to millions (compared to hundreds in
HDDs).

A millisecond (ms) is equal to one-thousandth of a second.

A microsecond (μs) is equal to one-millionth of a second.

CHAPTER 2 Understanding Storage Infrastructure Options 11

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 Changing market dynamics are driving many IT organizations to
adopt an “all-flash for primary storage” strategy. According to
IDC, all-flash storage can significantly lower total cost of owner-
ship (TCO) in the following ways:

»» Reduced hardware requirements: Solid-state drives (SSDs)

support workloads with 60 to 90 percent fewer drives than
HDDs. For example, a 200,000 IOPS system requires 10 SSDs
versus 1,000 HDDs enabling enterprises to achieve desired
application performance levels with 5 to 30 percent fewer
servers.
»» Lower software licensing costs: Fewer servers means
fewer expensive software licenses (including operating
systems, databases, and applications) to purchase and
maintain.
»» Decreased energy and floor space requirements: For
HDD-based systems requiring at least 80 terabytes (TB) of
provisioned storage capacity, all-flash power savings over a
four- to five-year life cycle can be $50,000 to $100,000 or
more. All-flash configurations also typically require less than
half a rack versus several full racks for an HDD-based
system.
»» Lower administration costs: All-flash automates common
administrative tasks for ease-of-use that can significantly
reduce the time your storage administrators spend address-
ing performance issues and tuning systems.

Despite the decreasing cost of flash technology, most organiza-

tions today deploy a mix of all-flash and hybrid flash storage
arrays. The key to hybrid flash storage arrays is intelligent storage
management software that can dynamically and predictively move
active (“hot”) data to faster flash storage and less active (“warm”
or “cool”) data to slower HDDs in a tiered storage architecture.

Converged and Hyper-

Converged Systems
Converged and hyper-converged systems integrate disparate
infrastructure elements including servers, data storage devices,
networking functions, virtualization, and management software,

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 in a storage pool or cluster. Intelligent storage management soft-
ware ensures that data is automatically distributed (balanced)
across new nodes that are added to the storage architecture for
scale-out capacity and performance.

Customers using converged and hyper-converged systems can

realize many business benefits:

»» Improved organizational agility

»» Faster application development
»» Increased innovation
»» Greater employee productivity
Technical benefits include the following:

»» Lower costs
»» Greater levels of utilization
»» Reduced downtime

Software-Defined Storage
Software-defined storage (SDS) uses standard off-the-shelf
compute and storage hardware, and performs storage and
­
management functions in intelligent software. SDS essentially
separates storage management software from the underlying
hardware, in much the same way that virtualization technol-
ogy abstracts application workloads from the underlying server
hardware, pools the storage resources together, and automatically
allocates and balances resources based on each application’s need
(see Figure 2-1).

FIGURE 2-1: SDS abstracts, pools, and automates storage resources.

CHAPTER 2 Understanding Storage Infrastructure Options 13

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 In addition to off-the-shelf hardware, SDS leverages

»» Storage virtualization
»» Massive scale-out architecture
»» Automated policy-driven administration for storage manage-
ment functions

The benefits of modern infrastructure leveraging SDS include the

following:

»» Agility: Legacy storage systems based on proprietary

technologies come with a high total cost of ownership (TCO).
SDS provides flexible deployment options, often leveraging
existing compute and storage components, with massive
scale-out capacity.
»» Control: Automated, policy-driven storage management
seamlessly moves data to the appropriate storage tier (flash
or HDD) and manages common storage functions such as
disk caching, snapshots, and replication.
»» Efficiency: SDS leverages standard off-the shelf server,
storage, and networking hardware and scales out easily and
efficiently when additional capacity or performance is needed.

Cloud-based Storage
Cloud-based storage typically leverages hyper-scale technology,
which decouples the compute and storage infrastructure ele-
ments so that they can be scaled independently to achieve greater
­performance or capacity, as needed. Like hyper-converged sys-
tems and SDS, cloud-based hyper-scale storage uses standard
off-the-shelf servers and storage elements.

At a more granular level, object storage in the cloud is a dif-

ferent model for data storage that can address the challenge of
massive growth in data volume, while enabling enterprises to
exploit a range of data-driven, value-generating opportunities —
such as cloud computing, Big Data analytics, and the Internet of
Things (IoT).

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 Traditional data storage models include block storage and file
storage. Block storage became increasingly popular as servers in
the data center moved from each using its own directly-attached
storage device, to sharing a single large storage device or array —
a storage area network (SAN).

File storage, utilizes a metaphor from the traditional paper-based

office — representing data as files (such as documents, presenta-
tions, and spreadsheets), arranged in a series of nested folders.

Although block and file storage have many advantages, the chang-
ing nature and explosive growth of data also create new chal-
lenges for these storage types. More and more of the data that’s
created today is unstructured — individual items of information,
such as documents, images, and videos. Because this type of data
isn’t organized in a structured format, such as a database, block
storage isn’t well suited for it.

Some of the unstructured data growth is in the form of files and

documents  — so file storage can be used. However, the sheer
volume of data being created and stored is beyond the volume
that most file systems were designed to handle. The hierarchical
nature of file storage becomes ever more complex to sustain and
manage as the amount of data grows.

In the late 1990s, a new kind of storage was developed to address

these emerging challenges  — object storage. In this storage
architecture, data items aren’t stored in blocks, files, or ­folders.
Instead, they’re stored in flexibly sized containers known as
objects. Placing data items in object storage is quick and easy —
like putting items in a bucket. This analogy has led to “bucket”
becoming the generic term for a volume of object storage (see
Figure 2-2).

FIGURE 2-2: The three pillars of modern enterprise data storage.

CHAPTER 2 Understanding Storage Infrastructure Options 15

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 A common analogy used to explain how object storage works is
parking a car. Imagine your car is an item of unstructured data
and you want to store or “park” it. Block storage is like a parking
lot — you can park it in a rigidly defined space, but the available
space in the lot is limited. File storage is like a parking garage,
arranged in hierarchical levels, but again physically limited.
Object storage is like valet parking. You simply drop off your keys,
and the valet takes care of parking your car — you don’t need to
worry about whether it’s ultimately parked in an adjacent parking
lot or garage, or a couple of blocks away, as long as you know it’s
safe and secure, and available when you need it (see Figure 2-3).

FIGURE 2-3: “Parking your data” — storage models compared.

Large enterprises have been early adopters of object storage

architectures and have used it to gain a competitive advantage in
their industries. With the latest generation of object storage solu-
tions, companies of all sizes can now realize these advantages.
Many organizations initially deploy object storage because of the
huge cost savings realized by tiering warm and cold file data to
object storage for long-term retention. At the same time, object
storage supports new workloads like modern application devel-
opment, such as cloud-native applications. Ultimately organiza-
tions are leveraging object storage to analyze their data and gain
new insights about their customers.

Object storage enables cloud technologies that businesses can

leverage to gain real competitive advantage.

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Creating redundant copies of data with
snapshots and replication

»» Ensuring the confidentiality and integrity

of data

»» Backing up and restoring data

»» Archiving data and meeting compliance

requirements

»» Eliminating copy data sprawl with

intelligent copy oversight and analytics

»» Keeping the lights on after an outage or

disaster

Chapter  3
Addressing
Data Protection
Requirements

C
ompanies are rethinking their data protection strategies
due to exponential data growth, regulatory compliance,
strict service-level agreements (SLAs), and shrinking
backup windows. Additionally, IT teams face challenges associ-
ated with virtualization, cloud and mobile computing, agile devel-
opment and rapid deployment (DevOps) initiatives, and the need
to better protect data throughout the enterprise.

In this chapter, you find out about next-generation data pro-

tection technologies to help you address rapidly evolving data
­protection requirements in the enterprise.

CHAPTER 3 Addressing Data Protection Requirements 17

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 Snapshots and Replication
Having a redundant copy of data is crucial to protect against out-
ages which can interrupt data availability. Snapshots and replica-
tion help to ensure a redundant copy of data is available in the
event of an outage or disaster.

A snapshot is a point-in-time replica of a storage resource that is

usually stored within the storage array or in another array within
the data center. Snapshots in modern storage infrastructure can be
scheduled to occur at regular intervals. They can require relatively
little disk space to store. After the initial snapshot, s
­ ubsequent
snapshots only write the changed blocks of data to storage. How-
ever, if the original snapshot is lost, all subsequent snapshots
are lost. Also, snapshot versions become difficult to manage and
aren’t recommended as a sole data protection strategy.

Replication protects against a storage system outage by creat-

ing a copy of data on a remote system. Replication is a software
feature in storage systems that synchronizes data to a remote
­
system within the same site or a different location. Data repli-
cation ­provides redundancy and safeguards against storage sys-
tem ­failures. Having a remote disaster recovery (DR) site protects
against system and site-wide outages, and provides a remote
location to resume production and minimize downtime due to a
disaster.

Synchronous replication ensures that each block of data written to

a storage resource is first saved locally and to a remote image
before the write is acknowledged to the host. This ensures that
in the event of a disaster, zero data is lost. However, each data
write needs to be saved locally and remotely, which adds response
time to each transaction. This response time increases as distance
increases between remote images. Synchronous replication has a
distance limitation based on latency between systems. For syn-
chronous replication, latency between the local and remote sys-
tem needs to be less than 10 milliseconds.

Asynchronous replication is primarily used to replicate data over

long distances, but can also be used to replicate resources between
storage pools within the same system. Asynchronous replication
doesn’t impact host input/output I/O latency  — host writes are
acknowledged once they’re saved to the local storage resource.
Because write operations aren’t immediately replicated to a

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 destination resource, all writes are tracked on the source. This
data will be replicated during the next synchronization.

Recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives

(RPO) are functions of two dimensions: the time it takes to recover
data, which is RTO, and the amount of data loss that may occur
if you need to recover from a protection copy, which is RPO.  IT
consumption models range from on-premises to cloud, and pro-
tection service level objectives (SLOs) can be achieved for all mod-
els through a combination of data protection solutions, such as
continuous availability, replication, backup, archive, long-term
retention, and isolated recovery (see Figure 3-1).

FIGURE 3-1: Modern data protection — a comparison of RTO and RPO

among protection strategies.

An organization’s RPO affect the amount and frequency of data

that needs to be replicated during each asynchronous replication.
RPO is the acceptable amount of data, measured in units of time,
which may be lost due to a failure or disaster. RTO is the acceptable
amount of time it takes to recover data during a failure or disaster.
For example, an RPO of four hours means the most recent backup
or replica of data can be no older than four hours. An RTO of four
hours means that IT must be able to restore a backup copy of lost
data in four hours or less.

Data Encryption
Data encryption ensures the confidentiality and integrity of data
in backups and storage (in flight and at rest). Confidentiality
is ensured by rendering the data unreadable if it’s improperly

CHAPTER 3 Addressing Data Protection Requirements 19

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 accessed. Integrity is ensured though cryptographic hashes of
data sets. If data is improperly modified — even a single byte —
the new hash won’t match the original hash.

For data encryption to be effective, it must use a strong encryp-

tion algorithm, such as the industry standard 128-bit or 256-bit
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), and the cryptographic key
must be safeguarded. Data encryption and decryption can be per-
formed in either software or hardware, but hardware encryption
is generally preferred for performance reasons.

Data encryption is important not only in primary storage but also

on backup storage. Most backup storage systems provide inline
data encryption.

Backup and Recovery

Most organizations manage their applications and data in mul-
tiple places, from traditional on-premises infrastructure and vir-
tualized environments to hybrid and public clouds. This reality
calls for a modern data protection strategy that acknowledges
the current landscape and protects data across all consumption
models, because it’s likely that you’ll need to protect multiple
­environments for the foreseeable future. At the same time, pro-
tection and availability should be based on the business value of
the data and service levels that align to your business objectives.

Traditional solutions are inefficient because they repeatedly

backup everything — including duplicate files and sub-file data
segments that exist across servers, desktops, laptops, and dif-
ferent offices. When combined with traditional daily incremental
and weekly full backups, the amount of duplicate data is stag-
gering and often leads to decreased performance and increased
costs. Searching for backups to recover data in large environ-
ments becomes a daunting task.

Modern data protection solutions protect data no matter where

it is: on client devices, in on-premises data centers, or in the
cloud. They address the spectrum of service level requirements
and leverage data deduplication capabilities to reduce storage and
other environmental and infrastructure costs. They also provide

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 advanced search capabilities for finding and restoring data across
all consumption models.

Most organizations will use a combination of data protection

methods to fully protect their data against outages, data corrup-
tion, deletion, and threats such as cyberattacks and ransomware.

Long-Term Retention
Organizations that lack robust data archiving processes risk
reduced user productivity, along with increased storage and
backup costs. Organizations also require fast, easy access to
archived email, files, and other content in support of high-volume
discovery, regulatory compliance, and secure legal holds.

As I discuss in Chapter 1, increasingly stringent regulatory require-

ments for long-term retention of business data creates techni-
cal challenges in siloed legacy storage infrastructure. Archiving
(or vaulting) to tape is still quite common for organizations, but
cloud-based archiving of aging or inactive data is becoming an
increasingly viable option for long-term retention needs.

Modern storage and backup solutions provide cloud-tiering capa-

bilities for archiving cold data to the private or public cloud for
long-term retention. While this option leverages cloud econo-
mies, note that public cloud solutions may impact service level
objectives during data recovery needs.

Along the RTO/RPO spectrum, long-term retention (LTR) lever-

aging object storage provides the best storage economics.

Global Oversight for Modern

Data Management
As companies start to move from traditional server-centric
backup strategies designed around centralized control, and prog-
ress towards providing more modern data protection designed for
self-service, the amount of copy data that is created has exploded.
Copy data, which includes copies for data protection, backups,

CHAPTER 3 Addressing Data Protection Requirements 21

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 analytics, IT operations (such as patch testing and sandboxing),
and testing and development, can be challenging to track and
manage in a self-service model without global oversight.

Recent IDC research reveals that up to 82 percent of businesses

have at least ten copies of any one production database instance.

This proliferation of copy data is being driven by the move to the

modern data center, which drives copy creation across the enter-
prise. This evolution of the data center needs intelligent, con-
solidated oversight of data and service levels across the business
to ensure protection service level objectives (SLO) compliance is
met. In addition, solving this gap in this self-service model also
requires modern data management, which focuses on optimizing
infrastructure efficiency and streamlining operations.

A modern data protection infrastructure includes a copy data

management platform as an integral component to manage all
data copies, allowing managers to gain insight into the health and
optimization of protection infrastructure.

Business Continuity and

Disaster Recovery
Business continuity and disaster recovery planning (BCP/DRP) is
a critical activity for every organization. Plans that call for RPOs
and RTOs of four days or more are no longer realistic. Businesses
can’t afford to be out of commission for a week or more due to
an outage or disaster  — the modern competitive environment
doesn’t permit it. However, organizations that are straddled with
legacy storage infrastructure are struggling to simply meet the
normal day-to-day needs of the business, such as keeping up with
application performance requirements, providing sufficient stor-
age capacity, and completing regular system and data backups in
ever shorter backup windows due to 24/7 business operations. An
outage or disaster — for many reasons — is unthinkable.

And no matter what your industry and organization, cyberat-

tacks are on the rise. The number of corporate breaches is grow-
ing exponentially and is led by hacking and malware. This type of
breach can cripple an organization, leading to revenue loss, nega-
tive publicity, and lasting customer distrust.

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 Modern infrastructure addresses these challenges in both primary
and secondary storage, in many cases, enabling RPOs and RTOs of
a minute or less, and failover for an entire data center in a mat-
ter of minutes — without minimal business disruption. And with
the right setup, organizations can create an air-gap to prevent all
copies of data being sabotaged from cybercriminals, allowing for
an isolated recovery.

CHAPTER 3 Addressing Data Protection Requirements 23

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 24 Modern Infrastructure For Dummies, Dell EMC #GetModern Special Edition

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Maxing out all-flash performance for
mission-critical workloads

»» Enabling extreme storage performance

in the modern data center

»» Learning about midrange storage options

»» Getting attached to Dell EMC network-

attached storage (NAS) solutions

Chapter  4
Exploring Dell EMC All-
Flash Storage Solutions

A
dopting all-flash technology is key to keeping pace with
and exceeding customer demands in today’s digital world.
While flash is the foundation that drives your modern
infrastructure, the secret to outperforming your competition lies
in innovative software features and flash-designed architectures
that come together to deliver higher performance, lower total cost
of ownership (TCO), and better business outcomes for you and
your company. In this chapter, you learn about Dell EMC’s port-
folio of all-flash storage solutions.

Dell EMC VMAX All Flash

All-flash arrays are accelerating the pace of business transforma-
tion as IT professionals search for the most relevant technologies
to modernize their operation and drive down operational and cap-
ital expenditures. As flash prices rapidly decline, capacity points
exceed spinning disk, and data reduction techniques advance,
more organizations are evaluating, testing, and deploying all-
flash solutions to tackle the most demanding mixed workloads
that span across the modern data center.

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 Dell EMC VMAX All Flash arrays are architected to solve the chal-
lenge of embracing a modernized flash-centric data center and
hybrid cloud while simultaneously simplifying, automating, and
consolidating IT operations. VMAX All Flash is engineered for the
latest high-density flash technology and to specifically exploit
the rich set of data services of VMAX All Flash. These data services
address the new requirements of the modern data center while
continuing to deliver reliability and “6 nines” mission-critical
availability.

VMAX All Flash enables organizations to dynamically grow, eas-

ily share, and cost-effectively manage massive amounts of open
systems and mainframe storage. VMAX All Flash maintains con-
sistently high-performance levels, while running thousands of
mixed workloads concurrently on a single VMAX All Flash array,
to deliver predictable and responsive ­service — even at massive
scale.

VMAX solutions include

»» Hyper Scale and Consolidation: Scale to more than 4PB of

effective capacity at a fraction of the floor space with high
density flash.
»» Diverse Workload Consolidation: Support for all primary
storage workloads for open systems, mainframe, IBM i, and
block and file storage.
»» Rich Enterprise Data Services: Enable world-class business
continuity and disaster recovery, including copy data
management and cloud tiering.
»» Engineered for Flash: Maximize your flash investment with
greater flash durability and 350 microsecond sustained
response times.
»» Simplified Planning and Deployment: Grow capacity and
performance independently with simple V-Bricks and Flash
Capacity Packs.
»» Deep Ecosystem Integration: Take advantage of REST APIs,
VMware, OpenStack, Oracle, Microsoft, and even integration
with leading cloud solutions.

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 Dell EMC XtremIO
Dell EMC XtremIO is a purpose-built all-flash array that offers
consistently high performance and sub-millisecond latency,
inline storage efficiency (compression & dedupe), all-the-time
data services, rich application integrated copy services, and man-
agement simplicity. XtremIO architecture is based on a metadata-
centric, content-aware system.

The metadata-centric model helps to streamline data operations

efficiently without requiring any movement of data. The ­system
is content-aware where the data is laid out uniformly across
all SSDs using the unique fingerprint of the incoming data. The
­XtremIO architecture is specifically designed to deliver the full
performance potential of flash, while linearly scaling and utiliz-
ing all resources such as CPU, RAM, SSDs, and host ports in a
balanced manner. This allows the array to achieve any desired
performance level, while maintaining consistency of performance
that is critical to predictable application behavior.

XtremIO delivers:

»» Consistent performance regardless of load

»» Unmatched storage efficiency delivering superior capacity,
data reduction and SSD endurance
»» Modular scalability by linearly scaling up and scaling out
»» A market-leading solution for virtual environments
»» App integrated copies delivering no compromise copy services
XtremIO was designed from the ground up to unlock flash’s full
performance potential by uniquely leveraging characteristics
of SSDs based on flash media. Achievable performance ranges
from hundreds of thousands to millions of IOPS, and consistent
low latency of under one millisecond. Regardless of the system
load, written capacity and workload characteristics, latency, and
throughput remain consistently predictable and constant.

XtremIO’s core engine implements content-based inline data

reduction and services which include: thin provisioning, dedupli-
cation, compression, D@RE, XtremIO Virtual Copies (XVCs), and
double solid-state drive SSD failure protection with zero perfor-
mance impact. The XtremIO storage array automatically reduces

CHAPTER 4 Exploring Dell EMC All-Flash Storage Solutions 27

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 data on the fly, as it enters the system. XtremIO in-memory dedu-
plication is global—across the entire XtremIO cluster irrespective
of the number of X-Bricks in a cluster. This means that XtremIO
only writes unique data — data that the entire cluster didn’t see
in its I/O history  — to the SSDs. These inline storage efficien-
cies not only reduce SSD storage requirements but also improve
performance and longevity of the media while driving down cost.

XtremIO delivers modular scalability. Storage can be expanded for

only capacity (scale up) or both capacity and performance (scale
out) enabling our customers to grow their environments linearly
and affordably to match their workload and business require-
ments. Scale-up allows adding more storage capacity (physical
SSDs) to an existing configuration without adding computing
resources. When additional performance is required, the array can
be scaled-out by adding additional X-Bricks. Multiple X-Bricks
are joined together over a redundant, highly available, ultra-low
latency InfiniBand network.

Virtual machine cloning on XtremIO is instantaneous and vir-

tual desktop provisioning tasks are carried out at memory speed,
rather than SSD speed. On XtremIO the cloning is a metadata only
operation which is performed in high-speed memory. You can
provision and clone as many VMs as you want, from 1 to 1000 or
as frequently as you want and there won’t be capacity sprawl and
performance impact.

XtremIO Virtual Copies (XVC’s) require no capacity and allow for

the creation of immutable protection copies and/or repurposing
writable copies of the source volume. The beauty of XVC’s is that
they are created instantaneously and have negligible performance
impact on the source volume and the copy itself. XtremIO Virtual
Copy technology is implemented by leveraging the content-aware
capabilities of the system with a unique metadata tree structure
that directs I/O to the right timestamp of the data. These unique
Integrated Copy Data Management (iCDM) capabilities enable you
to create, refresh, and restore thousands of production copies,
and run workloads on them, without performance impact or any
storage overhead — accelerating business agility.

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 Dell EMC Unity
Dell EMC Unity storage solutions are designed for midrange
unified storage needs. Dell EMC Unity All-Flash and Hybrid Flash
storage platforms optimize solid-state drive (SSD) performance
and efficiency, with fully integrated storage area network (SAN)
and network-attached storage (NAS) capabilities, and cloud-
based storage analytics. Dell EMC Unity solutions include

»» All-Flash: Dell EMC Unity All-Flash storage brings high

performance and low latency to a broad range of SAN and
NAS use cases, including mixed workloads, storage consoli-
dation, server virtualization, and more. Its modern architec-
ture uses high-density SSD technology and inline data
reduction. It supports file and block storage, point-in-time
snapshots, local and remote data replication, and built-in
encryption, and provides deep integration with VMware,
Microsoft, and OpenStack ecosystems.
»» Hybrid Flash: Dell EMC Unity Hybrid Flash storage systems
implement an integrated architecture for block, file, and
VMware virtual volumes (VVols), with concurrent support for
native NAS, Internet Small Computer Systems Interface
(iSCSI), and Fibre Channel protocols. Each system leverages
dual storage processors, full 12 gigabit (Gb) serial-attached
SCSI (SAS) backend connectivity, and a patented multi-core
architecture. Additional storage capacity is added via Disk
Array Enclosures (DAEs).
»» Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA): Dell EMC Unity VSA allows
the advanced unified storage and data management
features of the Dell EMC Unity family to be easily deployed
on a VMware ESXi server, enabling you to implement an
affordable software-defined solution. This approach
provides a low acquisition cost option for hardware consoli-
dation, multi-tenant storage instances, remote/branch office
storage, and development and testing.

With Dell EMC Unity, you get these benefits:

»» Customer installable and serviceable with CloudIQ

»» Inline compression for balanced cost/performance

CHAPTER 4 Exploring Dell EMC All-Flash Storage Solutions 29

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 »» Unified for block as well as transactional and traditional
file workloads
»» Converged, software-defined and cloud-enabled
»» Online data-in-place controller upgrades

Dell EMC SC Series

SC Series offers a diversified, yet highly integrated family of all-
flash and hybrid flash solutions focused on performance, data
center flexibility and self-optimizing efficiency. Formerly known
as Dell Compellent, SC arrays are known for automated technol-
ogy that responds to real-time data use, managing both data
placement and data reduction to help you accomplish business
goals faster while minimizing effort and expense.

With SC products, you get

»» Active/active performance architecture – Keeps IOPS high

and latency low no matter how your environment evolves
»» Intelligent deduplication and compression – Works in
tandem with pervasive “thin methods” to reduce the number
of drives you need to purchase
»» Federated mobility, scale and availability – Link multiple
arrays in federated clusters that keep workloads online
throughout planned and unplanned data center changes.

Thanks to a built-in “storage hypervisor,” moving volumes

between SC arrays is easy and completely transparent to hosts
and applications. Live Migrate preserves snapshot and replication
relationships at all times. Volume Advisor even offers ongoing
load balancing guidance, suggesting the best initial data locations
within a multi-array federation, then alerting you with optimiza-
tion recommendations as time goes by.

In addition, SC Live Volume protects vital business operations from

unexpected outages and disasters by providing non-disruptive
auto-failover between synchronized volumes on local and remote

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 arrays. Live Volume lets you meet ZERO RTO/RPO objectives, and
actually auto-repairs your high-availability environment when a
downed array comes back online.

»» All-Flash: Premium SC All-Flash arrays ship with all-inclusive

software to ensure you never have to pay license fees for
advanced SC features, now or in future.
»» Hybrid Flash: Unrivaled auto-tiering efficiency, including
dynamic RAID provisioning, helps you get the best return
from the least expensive combination of drive types.

All SC Series arrays support multi-protocol SANs, and most mod-

els also support NAS, via the optional Dell EMC Fluid File System
gateway. New Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program simplifies
purchase and deployment processes and adds industry-leading
investment protection for extra buying assurance.

Dell EMC Isilon

Dell EMC Isilon scale-out NAS solutions are powerful yet simple
to install, manage, and scale to virtually any size. You can accel-
erate outcomes with solutions that deliver nine times more IOPS
and 18 times more throughput than the closest competitor. With
the new ultra-dense design, you can reduce storage footprint by
up to 75 percent. Key capabilities include

»» Performance: Isilon provides massive room for growth —

with up to 68 petabytes (PB) of capacity per cluster. You can
scale both capacity and performance in about a minute to
meet your specific business needs. You can increase
operational flexibility with multiprotocol support.
»» Efficiency: Isilon provides you with the management tools to
dramatically increase workflow productivity and maximize
the value of your enterprise applications and Big Data assets.
You can cut costs with over 80 percent utilization and
automated tiering.
»» Protection: Isilon provides the highest levels of reliability,
availability, and serviceability. For fast and efficient data
backup and recovery, you can schedule snapshots as
frequently as needed to meet specific recovery-point
objectives. For disaster recovery, Isilon provides extremely

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 fast data replication along with push-button failover and
failback simplicity, to further increase the availability of data
for mission-critical applications.
»» Security: To address compliance and governance require-
ments, Isilon provides robust security options, including file
system auditing and Data at Rest Encryption (DARE) with
self-encrypting drives (SEDs). Isilon offers write once, read
many (WORM) data protection to prevent accidental or
malicious alteration or deletion and help you meet regula-
tory requirements. You can also leverage role-based access
control (RBAC) options and, if needed, create isolated
storage pools for specific departments within your
organization.

Isilon hardware platforms are built on the Isilon scale-out stor-

age architecture. Platform offerings include flexible product lines
that can be combined in a single file system and volume, provid-
ing application consolidation tailored for your specific business
needs. Isilon All-Flash introduces a revolutionary, highly dense
design with four Isilon storage nodes in a compact chassis.

Isilon use case examples include

»» Commercial high-performance computing

»» Electronic design automation
»» Enterprise data lake
»» File archives
»» Financial services
»» Healthcare
»» Large-scale home directories
»» Life sciences
»» Media and entertainment

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Discovering Dell EMC VxBlock converged
systems

»» Starting small and scaling with Dell EMC

VxRail

»» Building the software-defined data

center (SDDC) with Dell EMC VxRack

Chapter  5
Learning About Dell EMC
Converged and Hyper-
Converged Solutions

C
onverged infrastructure brings together disparate infra-
structure elements including servers, data storage devices,
networking functions, virtualization, management soft-
ware, orchestration, and applications.

In contrast to traditional converged infrastructure solutions,

hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) is a software-defined
architecture with integrated compute, networking, software-
defined storage (SDS), and virtualization. It enables compute,
storage, and networking functions to be decoupled from the
underlying infrastructure and run on a common set of physical
resources that are based on industry-standard x86 components.
Using hyper-converged infrastructure, customers can start with a
small deployment, and then flexibly scale out to support dynamic
workloads and evolving business needs.

In this chapter, you learn about Dell EMC’s converged and hyper-
converged storage solutions.

CHAPTER 5 Learning About Dell EMC Converged and Hyper-Converged Solutions 33

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 Dell EMC VxBlock
Dell EMC VxBlock converged systems integrate enterprise-class
technologies — including compute, network, storage, virtualiza-
tion, and management — into one engineered system. These sys-
tems deliver simple IT solutions for a broad range of use cases,
significantly reducing costs, time-to-deploy, and on-going
­management/maintenance-time, thereby enabling your IT staff
to spend more time focused on business outcomes and new ini-
tiatives, rather than managing the IT infrastructure and keeping
the lights on.

VxBlock systems bring together technologies from vendors like

Dell EMC, Cisco, VMware, and others. All system elements are
pre-integrated, pre-configured, then tested and validated before
shipping. Seamless integration allows you to operate and manage
your system as a single product, rather than as individual, siloed
components. On-going, component-level testing and qualifica-
tion result in drastically simplified updates and maintenances.
The end result is significant time and resource savings through-
out the systems life cycle.

VxBlock systems enable you to create a modern data center with

all-flash storage, including Dell EMC Unity, Dell EMC XtremIO,
and Dell EMC VMAX options (discussed in Chapter  4). All-flash
VxBlock systems are ideal for mixed-workload consolidation,
applications that require extreme performance and scale, and
mission-critical applications.

With multivendor solutions and reference architectures, consid-

erable time and resources are devoted to sourcing, integrating,
testing, validating, and ongoing maintenance.

The Dell EMC Release Certification Matrix (RCM) streamlines

software release planning and ongoing configuration manage-
ment across all converged infrastructure components. Dell EMC
Quality Assurance tests for interoperability of hardware and soft-
ware to ensure that your system and data center dramatically
reduce downtime due to updates and scheduled maintenance.
This unique experience spans across all VxBlock systems.

The intelligence, automation, and visualization in Dell EMC

Vision Intelligent Operations facilitates standardized, repeatable
IT processes — making it easier to keep your data center/hybrid

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 cloud environment healthy, stable, optimized, and secure. The
software manages compute, network, storage, and virtualization
components together as a single system, and multiple systems as
a single pool of resources. Functions include health, RCM compli-
ance, and security compliance management.

Dell EMC Vscale Architecture enables scale-up and scale-out data

centers by combining a modular grow-as-needed architectural
design with the flexibility to add resources incrementally through
compute and storage technology extensions. Through the Vscale
Fabric, a scalable spine-leaf network fabric, you can connect mul-
tiple systems and modular components to create a shared pool of
resources.

Dell EMC VxRail

To support the business as an enabler, your IT organization must
break down silos of complexity and streamline operations to keep
pace with today’s on-demand business culture and users.

Dell EMC VxRail accelerates and simplifies IT through standard-

ization and automation, allowing you to focus on

»» Getting infrastructure operational as quickly as possible while

leveraging existing investments and skill sets
»» Enabling (not impeding) business applications
»» Making infrastructure growth transparent to the needs of
the application and users

Industry analyst firm, Enterprise Strategy Group, agrees that

speed and agility are critical, stating, “A modern data center can’t
have infrastructure provisioning take weeks or months and expect
to stay competitive.”

VxRail is a fully integrated, preconfigured, and tested hyper-

converged infrastructure (HCI) appliance powered by VMware
vSAN.  VxRail provides a simple, cost effective hyper-converged
solution that solves a wide range of challenges and supports most
applications and workloads. It features purpose-built platforms
that deliver data services, resiliency, and quality of service (QoS),
enabling faster, better, and simpler delivery of virtual desktops,
business-critical applications, and remote office infrastructure.

CHAPTER 5 Learning About Dell EMC Converged and Hyper-Converged Solutions 35

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 A wide range of platforms and configure-to-order hardware are
designed to address any use case. Single node scaling and storage
capacity expansion provide a predictable, “pay-as-you-grow”
approach for future scale up and out as your business and user
requirements evolve. With different optimized models for differ-
ent use cases and workloads, customers can quickly choose and
deploy their hyper-converged infrastructure based on their needs.

Dell EMC VxRack

Dell EMC VxRack System 1000 consists of hyper-converged rack-
scale engineered systems, with integrated networking, to achieve
the scalability and management requirements of traditional and
cloud native workloads. The VxRack family is designed to enable
organizations to quickly deploy Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
and/or private cloud architectures. The VxRack System tightly
integrates the hardware with the software and management layer.

The result is a fully tested, pre-configured, hyper-converged sys-

tem with automated provisioning, simplified management and
robust reporting capabilities at data center and service provider
scale. The VxRack System supports the deployment of a variety of
application workloads allowing IT to rapidly deliver new services
while improving overall agility and efficiency. VxRack System
options include

»» VxRack FLEX: A rack-scale hyper-converged infrastructure

built on Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell EMC ScaleIO
software-defined storage (discussed in Chapter 6). Direct-
attached storage (DAS) is virtualized into a shared pool of
block storage, similar to a storage area network (SAN).
»» VxRack SDDC: For the software-defined data center (SDDC),
VxRack SDDC is a turnkey hyper-converged solution powered
by VMware Cloud Foundation. These systems consist of
pre-loaded software and compute, storage, and network
components in a hyper-converged stack co-engineered by
Dell EMC and VMware.

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Scaling out with Dell EMC ScaleIO
software

»» Enabling cloud-scale storage with Elastic

Cloud Storage

Chapter  6
Introducing Dell EMC
Software-Defined
Storage Solutions

T
he benefits of server virtualization are well understood in
the modern data center. By abstracting, pooling, and auto-
mating compute resources, companies have achieved sig-
nificant savings. In the past decade, web-scale companies like
Google and Amazon have demonstrated the ability to operate data
centers with ruthless efficiency. Dell EMC ScaleIO Software-
Defined Storage applies the principles of abstraction, pooling, and
automation to local storage in standard x86 servers, creating a
high-performance shared storage service without the need for
conventional storage arrays. ScaleIO also enables a highly effi-
cient data center operating model. Combined, these capabilities
deliver a radical reduction in storage life cycle costs.

In this chapter, you discover Dell EMC’s software-defined storage

(SDS) solutions for on-premises and cloud environments.

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 Dell EMC ScaleIO
Dell EMC ScaleIO is software that creates a server-based stor-
age area network (SAN) from local application server storage to
deliver flexible and scalable performance and capacity on demand.
It converges storage and compute resources of commodity hard-
ware into a single-layer architecture — aggregating capacity and
performance, simplifying management, and scaling to thousands
of nodes.

As an alternative to a traditional SAN infrastructure, ScaleIO com-

bines hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), and
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) flash cards, to
create a virtual pool of block storage with varying performance
tiers. In addition, it provides enterprise-grade data protection,
multi-tenant capabilities, and add-on enterprise features such
as quality of service (QoS), thin provisioning, and snapshots (for
more info, see Chapter 3). ScaleIO is hardware-agnostic, supports
physical and/or virtual application servers, and delivers significant
total cost of ownership (TCO) savings versus a traditional SAN.

Massive scalability
ScaleIO is designed to massively scale from three to thousands
of nodes. Unlike most traditional storage systems, as the num-
ber of storage devices grows, so do throughput and input/output
operations per second (IOPS). The scalability of performance is
linear with regard to the growth of the deployment. Whenever the
need arises, additional storage and compute resources (that is,
additional servers and/or drives) can be added modularly so that
resources can grow individually or together to maintain balance.
Therefore, storage growth is always automatically aligned with
application needs.

Extreme performance
Every server in the ScaleIO cluster is used in the processing of I/O
operations, making all I/O and throughput accessible to any appli-
cation within the cluster. Such massive I/O parallelism eliminates
bottlenecks. In addition, throughput and IOPS scale in direct pro-
portion to the number of servers and local storage devices added
to the system, improving cost and performance rates with growth.
Performance optimization is automatic; whenever rebuilds and

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 rebalances are needed, they occur in the background with mini-
mal or no impact to applications and users. The ScaleIO system
autonomously manages performance hot spots and data layout.

Unparalleled flexibility
ScaleIO provides two flexible deployment options (see Figure 6-1):

»» Storage-only: The application and storage (“two layers”) are

installed on separate servers in the ScaleIO cluster. This
provides efficient parallelism and no single points of failure.
»» Hyper-converged: The application and storage are installed
on the same servers in the ScaleIO cluster. This creates a
single-layer architecture and provides the smallest footprint
and lowest cost profile.

FIGURE 6-1: Traditional SAN architecture and ScaleIO storage-only and

hyper-converged architectures.

ScaleIO provides unmatched choice for these deployment options.

The software is infrastructure agnostic, making it a true software-
defined storage product. It can be used with mixed server brands,
operating systems (physical and virtual), and storage media types
(HDDs, SSDs, and PCIe flash cards). In addition, OpenStack com-
modity hardware can be used as storage and compute nodes.

Supreme elasticity
With ScaleIO, storage and compute resources can be increased
or decreased whenever the need arises. The system automati-
cally rebalances data on the fly with no downtime. Additions and
removals can be done in small or large increments. No  capacity
planning or complex reconfiguration due to interoperability con-
straints is required, which reduces complexity and cost.

CHAPTER 6 Introducing Dell EMC Software-Defined Storage Solutions 39

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 Also, the ScaleIO system reconfigures itself as the underlying
resources change; data is rearranged and spread evenly on the
servers to optimize performance and enhance resiliency. All of
this happens automatically, without operator intervention, elimi-
nating the need for costly and disruptive data migrations.

Essential features
ScaleIO offers a set of features that enable complete control over
performance, capacity, and data location. For both private cloud
data centers and service providers, these features enhance sys-
tem control and manageability — ensuring that QoS performance
requirements are met. With ScaleIO, you can limit the amount
of performance  — IOPS or bandwidth  — that selected tenants
can consume. The limiter allows for resource distribution to be
imposed and regulated, preventing application “hogging” sce-
narios. CloudLink encryption software can be used to provide
added security for sensitive data. ScaleIO offers instantaneous,
writeable snapshots for additional data protection.

For improved read performance, dynamic random access memory

(DRAM) caching enables you to improve read access by using Sca-
leIO Data Server (SDS) RAM. Fault sets — a group of SDS nodes
that are likely to go down together  — can be defined to ensure
data mirroring occurs outside the group, improving business
continuity. You can also create volumes with thin provisioning,
providing on-demand storage as well as faster setup and startup
times.

ScaleIO also provides multi-tenant capabilities via protection

domains and storage pools. Protection domains allow you to isolate
specific servers and data sets. This can be done at the granularity
of a single customer so that each customer can be under a differ-
ent SLA. Storage pools can be used for further data segregation,
tiering, and performance management. For example, data that
is accessed very frequently can be stored in a flash-only storage
pool for the lowest latency, while less frequently accessed data
can be stored in a low-cost, high-capacity pool of spinning disks.

Whether you prefer a “build it yourself” or “turnkey” solution for

your software-defined storage, ScaleIO provides multiple con-
sumption methods that will help you reach your goals quickly and
efficiently. You can consume ScaleIO in three different models:

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 »» ScaleIO software: Delivers the maximum flexibility and
installs directly on your x86 standard server hardware and
infrastructure.
»» ScaleIO ReadyNode: Bundles Dell PowerEdge servers and
ScaleIO software, enabling you to quickly deploy a fully
architected software-defined, scale out, server SAN (see
Chapter 5). Note: ReadyNodes are only available with Dell
PowerEdge servers.
»» VxRack Flex: A fully integrated, turnkey, hyper-converged
solution which leverages ScaleIO, enabling you to hit the
ground running (I discuss this in Chapter 5).

Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage

The unabated growth in unstructured content is driving the need
for a simpler storage architecture that can efficiently manage bil-
lions and trillions of files and accelerate the development of cloud,
mobile, Internet of Things (IoT), and Big Data applications while
reducing both storage overhead and cost. In order to fulfill these
requirements, IT organizations and service providers have begun
to evaluate and utilize low cost, commodity and open-source
infrastructures. These commodity components and standard open
technologies lower storage costs, but the individual components
provide lower performance and reliability  — and also require
operational expertise to ensure serviceability of the infrastructure.

Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS) provides a complete

­software-defined object storage platform designed for today’s
cloud-scale storage requirements. ECS provides the simplicity
and low cost benefits without the risk, compliance, and data sov-
ereignty issues of the public cloud. ECS benefits include

»» Cloud-scale economics: 60 percent TCO savings versus

public cloud services
»» Simplicity and scale: Single global namespace, unlimited
apps, users, and files
»» Universal accessibility: Support for object, file, and Hadoop
Distributed File System (HDFS) all on a single platform

CHAPTER 6 Introducing Dell EMC Software-Defined Storage Solutions 41

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 »» Faster app development: Application programming
interface (API) accessible storage and strong consistency
accelerates cloud apps and analytics
»» Turnkey cloud: Multi-tenancy, self-service access, and
metering capabilities

Global content repository

Unstructured data growth, both in structured and unstructured
content are driving the need to store large files (such as images
and videos) in high-cost, siloed storage systems. Traditional
infrastructure often isolates data, making it difficult and costly
to exchange and manage content. This type of environment
doesn’t scale efficiently and economically, forcing customers to
seek out a solution that delivers the benefits of both public and
private clouds. ECS enables any organization to consolidate mul-
tiple storage systems and content archives into a single, globally
accessible and efficient content repository that can host countless
applications. Key capabilities include

»» Anywhere access to content: ECS multi-site, active-active

architecture, single global namespace, and universal
accessibility (object, file, and HDFS) enables anywhere access
to content from any application or device. Buckets of data
span site, allowing reads and writes to and from any location
across the globe. ECS provides strong consistency semantics
which simplifies application development and facilitates
anywhere access to data. ECS also provides a geo-caching
capability which identifies multi-site access patterns and
caches data at the location where it’s being accessed most
frequently.
»» Remote office back office (ROBO) connectivity: ECS, in
conjunction with Dell EMC CloudArray, enables streamlining
of remote offices. Frequently accessed SAN and NAS data is
cached locally while archive data is tiered to ECS back in the
data center, enabling organizations to reduce equipment
sprawl at remote offices.

Modern archive
Moving cold data off Tier 1 storage for archive and long term
retention purposes in an important activity for every organiza-
tion today. Public cloud storage services can offer flexible virtual

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 machine (VM) deployments, easy to manage platforms, and a low
upfront cost to start. However, concerns around security, compli-
ance, vendor lock-in, and unpredictable costs can quickly become
a major issue. ECS provides all the benefits of public cloud in an
on-premises, cloud-scale object archiving solution for inactive
workloads.

Key capabilities and benefits include

»» Multi-site, active-active architecture and access: ECS

features a truly geo-efficient architecture that stores,
distributes, and protects both local and geographically
remote data. This eliminates any single point of failure and
provides a seamless failover from site to site with no impact
to the business. ECS automatically maximizes throughput,
maintains high availability and data durability, and increases
capacity and the reliability of applications.
»» Tape replacement: ECS provides a series of dense configu-
rations (D-Series) designed to replace tape archives for
backup, long-term retention (LTR), and near-line (NL)
purposes. Cold or inactive content can still deliver value and
ECS allows you to monetize this data and provide an active
archive with the same scalability and low cost benefits of
tape-based solutions, but without the operational chal-
lenges, lack of IT agility, and reliability concerns.
»» Cloud-scale economics: ECS provides an easy to manage,
globally accessible archive delivered at a lower cost than
public cloud storage providers. Policy-based management
allows you to seamlessly move content off Tier 1 storage to
ECS to better optimize performance. Geo-distribution and
geo-caching provide high availability on the system and
lower storage overhead as you scale. ECS also provides
instant access to your archived content so you don’t have to
wait days or weeks for data retrieval.
»» Seamless integration: ECS integrates seamlessly with
existing Dell EMC storage platforms and investments
through CloudPools, CloudBoost, and Data Domain Cloud
Tier. Integrated tiering software reduces the risk and
complexity of implementing data tiering of your cold data
from primary storage to ECS. ECS also supports protection
modes for litigation hold as well as U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) 17 a-4(f) and Federal
Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140 compliance.

CHAPTER 6 Introducing Dell EMC Software-Defined Storage Solutions 43

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 Storage for next-generation
applications
Enjoy quick and easy access to storage from your next-generation
applications  — mobile, cloud, big data, and IoT with ECS.  Like
public cloud storage, ECS is simple to manage as a singular entity
from a central location with its globally distributed infrastruc-
ture. With “Exabyte scale” storage, IT organizations can manage
billions of multi-size objects with ease. ECS is optimized to sup-
port ingest of and access to both small and large files with strong
global consistency.

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Exploring Data Domain data protection
solutions

»» Meeting the Data Protection Suite family

»» Introducing the Integrated Data

Protection Appliance

Chapter  7
Getting to Know Dell
EMC Data Protection
Solutions

I
n this chapter, you discover the Dell EMC data protection solu-
tions, including Dell EMC Data Domain, Dell EMC Data
Protection Suite, and cloud backup and protection options.

Dell EMC Data Domain

Dell EMC Data Domain systems reduce the amount of disk stor-
age needed to retain and protect data by ratios of 10 to 30 times
and greater. With throughput of up to 68 terabytes (TB) per hour,
Data Domain systems make it possible to complete more backups
in less time and provide faster, more reliable restores.

The Data Domain Operating System (DD OS) is the intelligence

that powers Data Domain. It provides the agility, security and reli-
ability that enables the Data Domain platform to deliver scalable,
high-speed, and cloud-enabled protection storage for backup and
recovery, archive, and disaster recovery.

CHAPTER 7 Getting to Know Dell EMC Data Protection Solutions 45

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 The key to DD OS performance while minimizing disk require-
ments is the Stream-Informed Segment Layout (SISL) scaling
architecture. Specifically, SISL leverages the continued advance-
ment of CPU performance to continuously increase Data Domain
system performance by minimizing disk accesses required to de-
duplicate data. SISL de-duplicates data by identifying duplicate
data segments in memory, which minimizes disk usage. This
enables Data Domain throughput to be CPU-centric, not “spindle
bound.”

Data Domain solutions include

»» Entry-level to midrange Data Domain Systems: Protection

storage for small to midsize environments
»» Enterprise Data Domain Systems: Protection storage for
enterprise environments
»» Data Domain Virtual Edition: Software-defined protection
storage for use cases such as remote office/branch offices
and deployments in the cloud
»» Data Domain Software: Delivers powerful capabilities to
get more value from your investment.

• Data Domain Boost: Accelerates backups by up to

50 percent through advanced integration with leading
backup and enterprise applications.

• Data Domain Cloud Tier: Natively tiers deduplicated data

to the public, private or hybrid cloud for long-term retention.

• Data Domain Replicator: Replicates from up to 540

remote sites to a single system and reduce bandwidth
requirements by up to 99 percent.

• Data Domain Extended Retention: Provides cost effective,

internal tiering for long term retention of backups.

• Data Domain Cloud Disaster Recovery: Provides

low-cost disaster recovery to the cloud.

Dell EMC Data Protection Suite

The Dell EMC Data Protection Suite simplifies data protec-
tion choices, making it easier than ever to access best-of-breed
backup, recovery, and archive solutions that fit your specific

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 needs. The Data Protection Suite provides comprehensive data
protection to enterprise organizations of any size, for a broad
range of applications from edge to core to cloud.

Protecting data using technology from replication to snapshot to

backup and archive, Data Protection Suite delivers coverage across
all consumption models. With purpose-built solutions built to
meet the needs of all types of organizations and data protection
environments, the Data Protection Suite protects data no matter
where it is and against whatever happens. Data Protection Suite
offerings include

»» Data Protection Suite Enterprise Edition: Comprehensive

protection including continuous replication, snapshot-based
backup, de-duplicated and traditional backup and recovery,
and archive. Enterprise Edition meets the needs of organiza-
tions of all sizes via a single, comprehensive offering.
»» Data Protection Suite for Backup: Complete cloud-enabled
backup and recovery across the broadest technology
landscape. Designed for use in physical and virtual environ-
ments and supporting many different deployment models
and protection technologies including deduplication backup,
backup to disk, snapshot-based backup, and backup to tape,
Data Protection Suite for Backup provides the flexibility to
mix and match components to quickly optimize performance
and data protection while also reducing costs.
»» Data Protection Suite for Applications: Provides unparal-
leled efficiency to meet stringent service-level agreements
(SLAs) on mission-critical applications. Data Protection Suite
for Applications provides up to 20 times faster backup by
enabling direct backup to Data Domain from either primary
storage or the application server, and up to 10 times faster
recovery. It empowers application owners and database
administrators to backup directly to Data Domain through
native application utilities (like Oracle Recovery Manager,
RMAN) and also allows them to discover, automate, and
optimize copies for superior copy data management. Data
Protection Suite for Applications reduces the hidden risk and
cost associated with distributed, self-service copy creation by
providing global oversight of the copy data ecosystem.
Finally, it eliminates or significantly reduces the impact on
application servers, because little or no data flows through
the application server.

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 »» Data Protection Suite for VMware: End-to-end data
protection for VMware-based environments including
backup and recovery, continuous replication, monitoring and
analysis, and search capabilities. This offering is a software-
only data protection solution that delivers simplified
deployment and administration within virtualized and cloud
environments.
»» Data Protection Suite for Archive: Best-in-class archive
and eDiscovery solutions for email, files, and collaboration
systems. As a part of the Data Protection Suite, this solution
gives organizations full ownership and control over their
information. Organizations have the ability to reduce costs
by reclaiming valuable primary data storage space, optimiz-
ing server and operational performance, and meeting
company compliance regulations, and eDiscovery and
litigation needs.

Dell EMC Integrated Data

Protection Appliance
Dell EMC Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) is a pre-
integrated, turnkey solution that’s simple to deploy and scale,
provides comprehensive protection for a diverse application
ecosystem, and comes with native cloud tiering for long-term
­
retention. IDPA combines protection storage, protection software,
search, and analytics to reduce the complexity of managing mul-
tiple data silos, point solutions, and vendor relationships.

With IDPA, you reduce time-to-protection and achieve faster

time-to-value with up to ten times faster deployment. You
become more agile with a solution that’s fast — data is protected
more efficiently and can be recovered quicker — and that’s reli-
able with industry-proven data invulnerability architecture. And,
you get the high value and low TCO you expect from Dell EMC —
the number one data protection provider.

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 IN THIS CHAPTER
»» Determining your starting point in digital
transformation

»» Planning the next steps in your digital

transformation journey

Chapter  8
Ten Questions to Assess
Your IT Transformation
Maturity

I n this chapter, I help you plan your organization’s digital trans-

formation journey.

IT Transformation Assessment
To know where you’re going, it’s important to know first where
you are on your journey to digital transformation.

Dell EMC offers a free assessment that shows where your orga-
nization stands in the IT transformation spectrum. Based on
your results, you see next steps recommended to accelerate your
progress.

You can access the free Dell EMC online assessment at www.
dellemc.com/en-us/storage/it-transformation-assessment/
index.htm.

CHAPTER 8 Ten Questions to Assess Your IT Transformation Maturity 49

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 The IT transformation assessment asks the following questions
about your organization:

»» Does your IT organization enable end-users to provision

on-premises IT resources (such as VMs, storage capacity, and
so on) in a self-service fashion?
»» To what extent has your development organization adopted
formal DevOps principles and best practices?
»» How frequently is the IT organization and the outcomes it
delivers evaluated by C-suite business executives or the
board of directors?
»» Who does the most senior IT executive at your company
report to (for example, CEO or equivalent, President/COO,
CFO, SVP/VP)?
»» How much progress has your IT organization made towards
running applications and services on-premises with the
same capabilities afforded by public cloud providers?
»» Does your organization use converged or hyper-converged
infrastructure platforms to support any of its on-premises
applications? If so, approximately what percentage of
applications?
»» What’s your company’s perspective on software-defined
storage (SDS)?
»» What’s your company’s perspective on software-defined
networking (SDN)?
»» Does your organization use storage systems that utilize
scale-out architectures to support any on-premises applica-
tions? If so, what approximate percentage of applications?
»» Does your organization use flash/solid-state storage to
support any on-premises applications? If so, how does your
organization typically deploy flash/solid-state storage?

After completing the assessment, you can download a summary

of your results with a custom action plan and an ESG benchmark
study outlining the maturity model and IT industry findings.

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 Dell EMC #GetModern Assessment
With the insights you gain from the IT Transformation Assess-
ment, your next step is to schedule a Dell EMC #GetModern
assessment. A #GetModern assessment is a consultative process
that produces a comprehensive proposal which demonstrates
the value of a modern infrastructure. The #GetModern assess-
ment helps you identify infrastructure throughout your data
­center and readily identify performance and capacity bottlenecks.
Enterprises need to modernize, automate, and transform their
data centers, regardless of their current level of transformation
­maturity. A #GetModern assessment can help you get started with
an in-depth look at your storage needs. Visit www.dellemc.com/
getmodern to get started.

A modern infrastructure is a critical key to digital transforma-

tion for all organizations, enabling flexible and agile “cloud-like”
self-service in your on-premises data centers. This capability
empowers business users to leverage IT to enable digital trans-
formation to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions and
take advantage of new and evolving business opportunities.

CHAPTER 8 Ten Questions to Assess Your IT Transformation Maturity 51

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These materials are © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
These materials are © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
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