Data Centers Eye Altoona

December 5, 2012 by Leave a comment

LightEdge was featured in a Des Moines Register article on Thursday, December 4th discussing the growing trend for companies to construct their data centers in Altoona, IA. This newfound attention has been sparked by companies like Google, Microsoft and Enseva moving their high tech data warehouses to the area. The open land, central location and access to fiber optics & power were a few attractive benefits credited for driving this movement. There is also an interview with our CEO, Jim Masterson, about what appealed to the company when building our data center there in 2006, a move that is considered the “first of its kind” by the Iowa Economic Development Authority. Please visit http://dmreg.co/SxFDpX to read the full article and browse some images that provide a glimpse inside the LightEdge Data Center.

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What is Hybrid Storage?

August 28, 2012 by Leave a comment

By Matt Breitbach, LightEdge Engineer

What is hybrid storage and why should you be interested in it?  Traditional spinning disk-based storage arrays require large numbers of disks to generate high performance and low latency.  This tends to result in significantly more storage being purchased than is actually needed, just so you can satisfy the performance requirement.

Hybrid storage is the merging of RAM, Solid State Drives, and traditional hard drives to deliver better performance from storage arrays while keeping costs down.  Newer Solid State Drive (SSD) storage arrays perform significantly better than tradition spinning disk based storage systems, but lack the capacity that hard drive based systems can offer without significant budget modifications.

Hybrid storage systems work by keeping the bulk of your data on spinning hard drives and then storing the most frequently used data on the SSD for higher performance.  Typically the “working set” of data is less than several hundred gigabytes.  This means that the storage system can watch for the most actively accessed and most recently accessed bits of data, and keep those bits of data instantly available on the Solid State Drives.  When additional requests for that data come in, those requests are serviced from RAM or SSD, at a significantly higher performance level than if the data was coming from traditional spinning disk.  We still get the ability to store data that is less frequently accessed on the same storage system and write that data out to spinning disk, reducing the need for expensive SSD and RAM.

This is just the tip of the iceberg on hybrid storage arrays, and the knowledge that is out there could fill, well, a large hybrid storage array.  If you have any questions about hybrid storage, or would like to talk to someone about moving to a hybrid storage array, please contact our team at info@lightedge.com.

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Should you backup data or entire VM?

July 24, 2012 by Leave a comment

By Matt Breitbach, LightEdge Engineer

With the rise of virtualization, there is a persistent question that comes up when people evaluate backup platforms. That question is: should I back up my data (documents, emails, databases) or my entire VM?  This is a great question from many perspectives. Below are some tips to help you decide what the correct backup strategy should be for your use case.

Today, we run virtual machines for all types of workloads.  Some of those are webservers, some are fileservers, and some are SQL servers.  Each one of these systems is going to have different requirements for RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective).  These requirements will strongly influence the backup strategy that you choose.

Backing up an entire VM can be resource intensive, but companies like Veeam, Quest, and EMC have come up with solutions that allow you to take full system state backups of your VM’s on a daily or hourly basis (depending upon the activity of the system).  This lends itself very well to disaster recovery situations where if a system crashes, you can be up and running with a recent backup in a matter of minutes, in some cases.  It simplifies restoration to the point that in 5 clicks of a mouse, you can have a fully functional copy of your VM up and running from your most recent backup.  This is great news for your webservers, fileservers, and SQL servers that need to be online at all times.

There can be drawbacks to full VM backups. Granular restoration of filesystem objects can be a bit more painful.  There are no simply interfaces inside your VM to say “hey, I want to grab the backup of this file and restore it to its original location”.  File level recovery can be done, but it involves invoking a management interface on the backup server, mapping network drives, and then copying the backup file over the network to the VM that needs the restore.  Self-service is nearly impossible in that situation.

Backing up files using traditional backup software typically allows you greater access to granular file restores since there is an agent running inside the VM.  For a fileserver or webserver, you can simply open the backup agent, select the file that you want to restore, and restore it.  The backup agent handles all of the background tasks for you without forcing you to interact with the backup server.

Many times the correct answer for your backup needs is to use a combination of both technologies.  Full VM backup for disaster recovery purposes (ie. “Oops. I just crashed the registry on my server.”)  and file level backups for individual file restores.  The first step in assuring recovery from a disaster, however, is having a qualified person look at your infrastructure and your RTO / RPO requirements. For more information about backup and recovery solutions at LightEdge, feel free to contact sales@lightedge.com.

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Questions to ask before moving to the cloud

July 19, 2012 by Leave a comment

By Matt Patterson, LightEdge Engineer

Everyone is talking about Cloud these days? Are you in the cloud? Is your infrastructure cloud ready? What the heck is the cloud? You may already be using the cloud and just don’t know it.

With all the talk of the cloud of what it is and what it isn’t, there’s a general agreement that at some point, you’re going to have a conversation about moving your infrastructure out of your four walls and what that really means to your organization. Whether you’ve taken the leap already or are planning to in the near future, it makes sense to fully understand certain considerations that help lead to a successful platform.

Questions to ask

When evaluating a shared cloud provider, you should be asking some of these questions (and many more pertaining to your particular needs) to make sure that you are prepared for various scenarios that can develop. Even the well known names have the occasional issues. It’s best to, at a minimum, consider what your plan is for different situations to make sure you are making the best decisions for your company.

  • Access to the VM. Do you have a remote console access? Do you need to VPN in to then RDP or SSH? What level of security is offered by default to your VM?
  • Backups! Even though your workloads are now virtualized instead of running on a physical server, you still need to be able to both successfully back up the data and successfully recover in a timely fashion. Test your backups and make sure that you can recover the necessary data to be up and running within your recovery window.
  • Access to support. One of the tricks to use when checking out cloud providers is to see how fast they will respond to a phone or email inquiry. When you call their support number, are you in a long queue before you get a real person? If you leave a voice mail, do you get a return call that day? How about email? What’s the response time? Do they have an online chat that you can use? How comfortable are you with the response you received before you have an actual issue?
  • Brick and Mortar. For the truly tech savvy folks out there, you want to know that the physical facility that your virtual bits are going into can stand up to the various outage-causing issues that may come its way. Not everyone is going to be able to take a data center tour based on your geographic location. But hopefully you can find information about the facility on a web site or with a quick chat with someone from sales. Mother Nature has a habit of taking out the biggest of the power grids. Is the data center prepared to run for a while without power? What happens when the generators run out of fuel? Is the facility on multiple power grids?
  • If you are a high end site that can’t handle much downtime, then you’ve probably made the investment to have your workloads in multiple data centers. One thing you’ll want to make clear – If datacenter A goes down, is there any limitation either of your application or the data center itself that relies on the other data center. You should be fully separated and able to run active/active if you truly want to mitigate downtime. This is often an area that can haunt a company who has put a lot of hard work (and money) into making their environment as redundant as possible.

Is this a fully comprehensive list of everything you need to ask your cloud provider? No, but it does give you a good starting point. Physical servers and cloud servers…they’re not that different. Ask the right questions and be comfortable with your level of risk.

Happy computing!

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Virtualization Survey Results

March 21, 2011 by Leave a comment

LightEdge Solutions recently surveyed our customer and prospect bases on their understanding and use of Virtualization.

Brief Summary (See charts below)

  1. We were surprised to see that a full 25% of respondents were unfamiliar with Virtualization and an additional 17% used Virtualization but wish they had a stronger background and understanding level of Virtualization.  33% reported that they currently used Virtualization and felt comfortable with their knowledge level.
  2. The perception of Virtualization is that it will be a “game-changer” for IT.  54% of respondents said that it would fundamentally change IT, while another 30% said that it was a good alternative for internally-facing IT systems.  No one claimed that Virtualization would “provide no lasting benefits”, which basically implies that the push to Virtualization is not seen as a short-term fad or marketing hype.
  3. With regard to the most compelling attributes of Virtualization, our respondents were deadlocked at 25% for Value and Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery, with Flexibility and Scalability at 20% and 16% respectively.
  4. The biggest shortcoming noted in our survey was simply a lack of knowledge based on the fact that Virtualization is relatively new and has not been adopted significantly in offices with fewer than 100 employees (the survey’s target group).  While large enterprise companies have a higher adoption of Virtualization, the general feeling of this survey is that Virtualization is well thought of and that the main thing holding it back is additional knowledge about how Virtualization works, when it makes the most sense, how to implement and manage, as well as, what cost reductions can be achieved through Virtualization.  (Note: LightEdge, in conjunction with Cisco and vmware, will be holding several Virtualization and Cloud Computing events later this Spring to help our customers and prospects better understand the topics around Virtualization.)
  5. Consistent with the previous question bullet item, when asked what topics were most of interest it seems that there is a great and varied need for additional information with 56% requesting information about Management and Maintenance, 44% needing information on both Business Continuity and Security.

Conclusion

It appears that there is a strong positive impression for Virtualization but a lack of complete understanding for the demographic surveyed.  We feel that by using our partnerships and internal resources to offer education sessions related to Virtualization that we can assist our customers and prospects in making strategic decisions for the appropriate use of Virtualization to improve Flexibility, Scalability and Business Continuity in their current and future IT platforms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Disaster Recovery and Virtualization

March 2, 2011 by Leave a comment

Virtualization by no means replaces a full-fledged disaster recovery plan — Christus Health’s data is replicated in “hot, hot” scenarios between its primary and secondary disaster recovery facilities — but virtualization simplifies real-time replication and data portability.

“Virtualization is making it possible for our client services to be portable in case of a disaster,” Bruni said. “All you need is an agent on any client device, and some type of Internet access.”

Core business apps running on a virtual server infrastructure, “allows for portability and replication that we wouldn’t have had with dedicated physical systems,” Bruni said.

Read the rest of the story - http://searchcio.techtarget.com/news/2240032854/IT-execs-piggyback-disaster-recovery-onto-virtualization

 

 

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Cloud solutions can make disaster recovery, business continuity easier

February 23, 2011 by Leave a comment

Just when it seems things can’t get any worse, they get better.

I was talking recently to an architect who works for a very large technology provider. During our conversation, he contended that the cloud was making it easier for vendors to bypass the CIO. That way, salespeople can pitch the vice president of marketing directly about buying their cloud-based software and — maybe the best part — not have to involve IT in the selection, implementation or support processes.

For this reason and others, we might think that the cloud makes things worse. From my own perspective, however, the availability of cloud-based products also can make things much better.

For example, disaster recovery and business continuity planning is a lot easier now than it was just a few years ago. In the old days (you know — a few years ago) if you wanted a cold, warm or hot site, you had to build it yourself. And justifying such an investment was always a challenge. I found it difficult, even with a generous board of directors, to convince people to spend money on something we hoped we would never have to use.

Read the rest of the article - http://searchcio.techtarget.com/tip/Cloud-solutions-can-make-disaster-recovery-business-continuity-easier?asrc=EM_NLT_13343731&track=NL-983&ad=815409

 

 

 

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LightEdge hires T. J. Bangs for VP of Sales Position

February 14, 2011 by Leave a comment

T. J. BangsLightEdge Solutions is pleased to announce that we have hired industry veteran T. J. Bangs to head our sales department.  T. J. brings a wealth of experience with over 15 years in technology from designing and implementing infrastructure and fiber rings, to sales and consulting management.  Most recently T. J. was with RSM McGladrey, a full-service Assurance, Tax and Business Consulting firm, as the Director of Technology Consulting.

T. J.’s technical skill sets will allow him to understand our breadth of services and be able to take conversations to a very deep level to understand customer needs and develop the most appropriate and cost-effective solutions.  He is currently a Certified VMware Sales Professional and Certified EMC sales professional and has in-depth knowledge of virtualization, storage platforms, Disaster Recovery, strategic IT planning and networking.

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