From Panic to Power:
Making the Switch from Reactive to Proactive Data Management
Q&A with Dave Kresse
Q: How does the NetApp approach toward management differ from that of other vendors?
Dave: The most common feedback we get from storage administrators is that they want to spend their time on value-added tasks such as utilization and performance that directly impact their business. However, many find that they spend an increasing portion of every day operating as a "help desk" responding to one-off requests from system administrators, DBAs, and application administrators. This makes their job very complex, and they are often unable to get to the higher value activities because they are stuck in fire-fighting mode. This problem only gets worse in the face of dramatic data growth.
Traditional approaches to management accept this situation and focus on managing complexity at the storage administrator level. Unfortunately, the complexity of today's storage environments extends well past the storage layer into the server and application layers, which are the domain of DBAs and systems administrators.
NetApp has focused on simplifying the problem using an approach we call integrated data management (IDM). This approach enables systems administrators and DBAs to manage their own data and self-serve basic requests. The storage administrator still has ultimate control of the process through the ability to govern what the other data owners are allowed to do. Focusing on building more and more tools solely designed for storage administrators is a losing battle, but you can remove the one-off requests barraging these folks by automating the process across the stack. In that, there's great potential for productivity gain.
Q: If you automate a lot of the work that storage administrators currently perform, do they run the risk of being out of the loop?
Dave: Absolutely not. Our focus on integrated data management doesn't eliminate the need for storage administrators. The difference is that they can now spend time on more strategic activities: bringing real value to the business, improving asset utilization, looking at ways to optimize performance, and thinking about a storage tiering strategy that matches the right level of data to the right-priced storage, instead of needing to be involved in every process.
Q: How does this management focus translate into the solutions and tools that NetApp offers its customers?
Dave: NetApp has invested heavily in developing manageability solutions with this approach in mind. Many of the products that are part of these solutions are available today and have been proven in many data center customer environments, including:
- Operations Manager (formerly known as DataFabric® Manager), File Storage Resource Manager, and VFM™ (Virtual File Manager) at the storage administrator level,
- The NetApp SnapDrive® product line for UNIX® and Windows® environments at the systems administrator level, and
- NetApp SnapManager® for Exchange, Oracle®, and SQL Server.
On our product roadmap we have committed a team of development resources to ensure both a growing breadth of management functionality and deeper levels of integration between management tools. Throughout the next year, customers can expect to see expanded capabilities in all of the software family suites.
Q: The concept sounds great, but can you be more specific? What is NetApp actually doing with these products to automate the one-off requests that bog down storage administrators?
Dave: I'll give you two examples. The first involves provisioning using SnapDrive, and the second involves streamlining application-specific backup and restore operations with SnapManager.
SnapDrive allows provisioning to take place at the system administrator level, without needing to involve the storage administrator level. Using Storage Suite, a storage administrator implements policies that set the boundaries within which the system administrator can provision the required data containers, be it LUNs, volumes, or file systems, without having to wait for the storage administrator for every new request.
NetApp also offers a suite of SnapManager products that are the result of deep integration with enterprise databases and applications, such as Oracle Databases, Microsoft® Exchange, and Microsoft SQL Server. With our solution, DBAs or application administrators can manage their own space-efficient approaches to database backup, recovery, and cloning. This enables them to operate as independent entities and respond quickly to dynamic business requests. For example, when they need to restore a corrupt database, they can do it themselves without having to involve system, storage, and backup administrators. This results in extreme efficiency and high availability for enterprises.
Q. Are there any real-life examples of customers who have successfully adopted this type of approach?
Dave: We have many customers who are already seeing the benefits of integrated data management. A great example is Norsk Hydro, Norway's largest company and a global energy and materials provider. Hydro supports over 50,000 employees in 60 countries and has three core data centers, four hub data centers throughout Europe, and hundreds of remote offices.
The company previously had three independent islands of storage and a wide variety of vendor and in-house management tools. The IT team was having a hard time maintaining uptime, it was highly complex to manage, and management costs were going out of control.
As a result of deploying NetApp storage and data protection solutions, including Operations Manager, the IT team can now centrally monitor and manage its entire distributed infrastructure and provide tiered storage with varied SLAs for its internal IT groups. Over the last three years the company's storage has tripled to over 400TB, and it hasn't had to add any additional headcount to manage it.
Hydro's deployment is profiled in a NetApp success story and was recently showcased in an article highlighting Tips for Improving Remote Office Backup and Recovery.
Q: What is the long-term NetApp vision for integrated data management?
Dave: NetApp is differentiated in the market because of its software. The value realized through the functionality within Data ONTAP® is well understood, but there is also differentiated value in the approach to manageability NetApp is pursuing. I believe this approach and the tools NetApp offers are valuable for anyone using NetApp storage.
Whether we're talking about a small law firm with a few tens of Exchange users or a global 100 company with hundreds of storage systems, our integrated management tools are proven to deliver real customer value. My vision is that these tools will become an integral part of every NetApp customer environment.
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