Fundamentals of storage management

1. What is Data & Information

2. Describe types of data
3. Describe the evolution of Storage Architecture
4. Describe the core element of Data Center
5. List the key characteristics of a data center
6. Provide an overview of Virtualization & Cloud Computing
Why ISM – Information storage management, what are the requirement of ISM , Why we need
ISM.
1 Data
Data is a collection of raw facts from which conclusions might be drawn.
Handwritten letters, a printed book, a family photograph, printed and duly
signed copies of mortgage papers, a bank’s ledgers, and an airline ticket are all
examples that contain data.
Information (data) is increasing in our daily life day by day.
And now we have become dependent on this information. Without this information we are not
able to do some task. Because we are living in on demand environment.
Ex. If we want to check our mail, we do not have to wait for cyber café or reaching home, we can
check the mail using our mobile.
For Sharing picture , participating in social networking videos , send and receive emails etc. we
need on demand service.
Individual more responsible than an organization.
Any individual shares information either because it will get people's attention or for value.
This information is generated locally through mobiles, cameras, tablets, and laptops.
And if we have to share it with others, then we have to share it at the data center with the help
of networks.
Organization (data center) task – store information – protect from opponent – manage the
speed – provide the information whenever it needed.

In this subject we have to study where our information is being created, who is accessing it, who has the
storage capacity, who is managing it.

Where is all this data coming from: -

• 50 billion photos taken every year

• Online videos
• England survey – England has approximately 4 million surveillance cameras.
• 1 for approx. every 14 persons.
• Social hub – Facebook- photos uploaded 2-3 terabytes every day.
Life cycle of data

First of all we create information with the help of mobile, tablet or laptops/desktops and
cameras etc. information will be uploaded via wireless or wired network to data servers and
from there the user accesses the information back with the help of wired or wire network.
 Types of data
Data can be classified as structured or unstructured based on how
it is stored and managed. Structured data is organized in rows and columns in a
rigidly defined format so that applications can retrieve and process it efficiently.
Structured data is typically stored using a database management system (DBMS).
Data is unstructured if its elements cannot be stored in rows and columns, which
makes it difficult to query and retrieve by applications. For example, customer
contacts that are stored in various forms such as sticky notes, e-mail messages,
business cards, or even digital format files, such as .doc, .txt, and .pdf. Due to its
unstructured nature, it is difficult to retrieve this data using a traditional customer
relationship management application. A vast majority of new data being created
today is unstructured.
Example of structured data

Examples: -
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, google

Big data
Collection of large data sets which is not execute by traditional technologies.
Big data is a new and evolving concept, which refers to data sets whose sizes
are beyond the capability of commonly used software tools to capture, store,
manage, and process within acceptable time limits. It includes both structured
and unstructured data generated by a variety of sources, including business
application transactions, web pages, videos, images, e-mails, social media, and
so on. These data sets typically require real-time capture or updates for analysis,
predictive modeling, and decision making.
Example: -
Stock exchange-lot of companies involved with different prices of shares.
Social media- it increasing day by day
Video sharing portal- you tube (so many channels education, entertainment, food, travel etc.)
Search engine – google
Transport – transport related information, owner related.
Banking- accounts details

Questions
1. Define data and its type?
2. Describe the factors who are responsible for the growth of digital data?
3. Describe the creators of data?

Information
Data, whether structured or unstructured, does not fulfill any purpose for individuals
or businesses unless it is presented in a meaningful form. Information
is the intelligence and knowledge derived from data.

Data: - collection of raw facts (numbers, alphabets, special symbols- @%#! $+-%)
101093 is it a data or an information?
(roll no, a/c no, month date, loan amount, product price)
Complete information is not available here.

10/10/93 (date of birth, joining date, relieving date, manufacturing date or expiry date of any
product.)

DOB 10/10/93 it could be anyone’s DOB. -data

DOB 10/10/93 Of Mr. Deepak Singh

There are many people with this name in the world, so which Deepak Singh is this?

DOB 10/10/93 Of Mr. Deepak Singh S/o Mr. Ram Singh - data
Complete information still not available

DOB 10/10/93 Of Mr. Deepak Singh S/o Mr. Ram Singh R/o 95 Vijay Nagar, Kanpur, U.P.
Now this is information.

Data becomes information when all your requirements are fulfilled.

Data Center Infrastructure

Environment controls
Air conditioning
Fire extinguisher
windows
Five core elements are essential for the functionality of a data
center:
1.Application: A computer program that provides the logic for computing operations
2.Database management system (DBMS): Provides a structured way to
store data in logically organized tables that are interrelated
3.Host or compute: A computing platform (hardware, firmware, and
software) that runs applications and databases
4.Network: A data path that facilitates communication among various
networked devices
5.Storage: A device that stores data continuous for subsequent use
A customer places an order through a client machine connected over a LAN/
WAN to a host running an order-processing application. The client accesses the
DBMS on the host through the application to provide order-related information,
such as the customer name, address, payment method, products ordered, and
quantity ordered.
The DBMS uses the host operating system to write this data to the physical
disks in the storage array. The storage networks provide the communication
link between the host and the storage array and transports the request to read
or write data between them. The storage array, after receiving the read or write
request from the host, performs the necessary operations to store the data on
physical disks.

Key Characteristics of a Data Center

Uninterrupted operation of data centers is critical to the survival and success of
a business. Organizations must have a reliable infrastructure that ensures that
data is accessible at all times. Although the characteristics shown in Figure 1-6
are applicable to all elements of the data center infrastructure, the focus here
is on storage systems. This book covers the various technologies and solutions
to meet these requirements.

Availability: A data center should ensure the availability of information

when required. Unavailability of information could cost millions of dollars
per hour to businesses, such as financial services, telecommunications,
and e-commerce.
Security: Data centers must establish policies, procedures, and core
element integration to prevent unauthorized access to information.

Scalability: Business growth often requires deploying more servers, new

applications, and additional databases. Data center resources should scale
based on requirements, without interrupting business operations.
Performance: All the elements of the data center should provide optimal

performance based on the required service levels.

Data integrity: Data integrity refers to mechanisms, such as error correction

codes or parity bits, which ensure that data is stored and retrieved
exactly as it was received.
Capacity: Data center operations require adequate resources to store and
process large amounts of data, efficiently. When capacity requirements
increase, the data center must provide additional capacity without interrupting
availability or with minimal disruption. Capacity may be managed
by reallocating the existing resources or by adding new resources.
Manageability: A data center should provide easy and integrated management
of all its elements. Manageability can be achieved through automation (remotely access)
and reduction of human (manual) intervention in common tasks.

Managing a Data Center

Managing a data center involves many tasks. The key management activities
include the following:
Monitoring: It is a continuous process of gathering information on various
elements and services running in a data center. The aspects of a data
center that are monitored include security, performance, availability, and
capacity.
Reporting: It is done periodically on resource performance, capacity, and
utilization. Reporting tasks help to establish business justifications and
chargeback of costs associated with data center operations.
Provisioning: It is a process of providing the hardware, software, and
other resources required to run a data center. Provisioning activities
primarily include resources management to meet capacity, availability,
performance, and security requirements

virtualization in cloud computing

it is a technique which allows to share single physical instance of an application or resources
among multiple organizations or customers.
All virtual resources will work independently.
Host Machine
Machine on which virtual machine is going to be built
Guest machine
Virtual machine
Hypervisor/VMM-it is a software & runs the virtual machines
It is a software used to create virtualization of physical machines.
Device Driver
A device driver is a software program that allows a computer's operating system to communicate
with hardware devices, such as a keyboard, printer, or mouse. Device drivers act as a translator
between the operating system and the hardware, allowing the computer to understand and
interact with the device.

File system
File system----OS---------managing files
It stores and manages data and also fetched (to get) in the form of files
Ex any user how do we manage our data?
We copy any data with a pen drive in the form of file.

Anything which we download it is in the form of file

If you are sending an email there are also, we are attaching a file
We send a file on WhatsApp
So if I talk about PPT or EXCEL or PDF of DOC file
It can be of any type MP3 MP4 PNG JPG so on daily basis with what we are dealing?
We are dealing with file.
So in actual how do we manage these files in our laptop or in our computer so who manages
these file, who stores those files in the back end.
Back end means the permanent storage because we want our data to be stored permanently
Hard disk is a permanent storage device
User create any type of file and file will be kept in the folder
So how far can the user see?
The user can see his file or folders but beyond the folder a user can’t see anything, so there the
file system works.
Then what do we want to do?
Actually, we are storing the data inside our disk, but the architecture of the disk is something
else.
What do we have in the disc?
We have platters, surfaces, tracks on these surfaces and after that sectors are on the tracks
So our data is stored in the sectors.
When all the files come to the file system, it divides these files logically into blocks and stores
data.

A computer file is defined as a medium used for saving and managing data in the computer
system.
File systems are a crucial part of any operating system, providing a structured way to store,
organize, and manage data on storage devices such as hard drives, SSDs, and USB drives.
Essentially, a file system acts as a bridge between the operating system and the physical storage
 hardware, allowing users and applications to create, read, update, and delete files in an
organized and efficient manner.
What is a File System?
A file system is a method an operating system uses to store, organize, and manage files and
directories on a storage device. Some common types of file systems include:
• FAT (File Allocation Table): An older file system used by older versions of Windows and other
operating systems.
• NTFS (New Technology File System): A modern file system used by Windows. It supports
features such as file and folder permissions, compression, and encryption.
• ext (Extended File System): A file system commonly used on Linux and Unix-based operating
systems.
• HFS (Hierarchical File System): A file system used by macOS.
• APFS (Apple File System): A new file system introduced by Apple for their Macs and iOS devices.

Disk Architecture

We have multiple platters and along with spindle.

What’s the work of spindle --- to make it move, means either it will rotate right wise that is clock wise or
it will rotate anticlockwise.
But unidirectional so either it will move clockwise or anti clockwise.

So as the spindle will start moving then all these four platters will move together.

Now what’s there above every platter--?

There is a surface – upper and lower.

Above these platters we have read write head which are connected to an actuator arm.

The job of read write head to fetch data and the movement is backward and forward.

Read write head is holding upper and lower surface

There are tracks on the platters. same number of tracks in upper same in lower.

On every track we have fixed sectors. Inside these sectors we put the data.

Zone bit recording (modifying the storage mechanism)

A new recording system called zone bit recording is used by the

current high-capacity IDE and SCSI hard disk drives to store more

number of sectors in the outer tracks compared to the number of

sectors in the inner tracks. This method is called zone bit recording,

because in this method the complete surface of the hard disk platter

is divided into a number of different zone, most of the drives using

zone bit recording have 10 or more zone.

In this recording method each zone will have a fixed number of

sectors per track. The outermost zone will have maximum number of

sectors per track and the inner most zone will have minimum no of

sectors per track.

Normal bit recording Zone bit recording
Disk Arm Scheduling related time definition
Seek Time

Rotation latency

Transfer Time

RPM: Rotation per minutes

Seek Time :

It is the time that is taken by the head of a disc to move from one track to another track on a
disk.
Or Time taken by R/w head to reach desired track.

Depends on:
— Speed of read/write head
— Distance between current and final position - from track 1 to 2 less time, but from track 1 to
10 or more so takes more time

Rotation Latency (delay)

(disk movement) :

The time required by the read/write head to rotate to the requested sector from the current
position is called Rotational Latency.
Depends on:
— Rotational Speed of a disk, faster is better – if rpm is more than latency should be less.

Transfer Time:

Transfer time is the time taken to transfer the data from the disk.
Depends on:
Rotational Speed of a disk, faster is better