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This Week at the Q

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Welcome to another entry of ‘This Week at the Q’! On a personal note, it felt like a busy week juggling back to school, with schools here in San Diego still 100% virtual, as I took on my second job as teacher, but as I close out the week with our top 5 happenings I realize it may have just been a busy week all around!

  1. It’s great to see one of our sports production customers featured in ProductionHUB! For Nemeton TV, an increased demand for streaming services, a rising number of corporate sponsors streaming sporting events on their corporate websites, and distributing clips through social media, created a whole new area of business. Read here how a new storage infrastructure enabled new business opportunity.
blog nemeton

2. Storage Newsletter also ran a great article covering our new DXi software. Read more here on how the features and capabilities in this new software release improve enterprise data protection.

3. Speaking of our new DXi software, Diana Salazar, Product Marketing Manager, published this new blog: “Looking for Faster Backups? From Hours to Minutes? Look No Further.”  Read for deeper insights into how our new DXi 4.1 software release enables the lowest-cost, scalable, durable storage, that meets service-level agreements and security requirements for data protection.

4. We have a new webinar coming up, “The Anatomy of a 100-Year Archive for Unstructured Data” , featuring industry expert Fred Moore of Horison Information Strategies. Join us on Sept. 22nd @ 8am PT to learn how to protect and manage rapidly growing unstructured datasets for decades to come.

5. And to close out the week, we published a new StorNext file system datasheet, including more detailed information on features and functionality, and new architecture diagrams. You can learn more in this new StorNext datasheet here .

sn data sheet 2

Leave a comment if there are topics you’d like to see added to our weekly top 5 happenings!

Natasha

To view our Partner blog, click here

Looking for Faster Backups? From Hours to Minutes? Look No Further.

CMMA Blog

Last week was fun and exciting here at Quantum with news breaking out about our latest feature rich software release for DXi backup appliances. You may have already seen the announcement that the new DXi 4.1 software is improving backup and restore system performance, but I want to mention a few features in greater detail. Our new DXi 4.1 software with advanced features for our DXi backup appliance enables fast clone synthetic full backups with Veeam 10, cloud-based analytics support, and improved overall performance, helping customers backup faster, manage resources efficiently, and, deliver a stronger TCO than competing offerings.  We know you have many choices, but if you want performance, scalability, and efficiency then look no further; Let’s dig into some of these features:

Improved Backup Performance in Veeam Backup & Replication v10 Environments

I am most excited about the significant improvements we have achieved with the new release of DXi software and Veeam. Think about your backup window going from hours to minutes. The fast clone backup feature uses an incremental backup strategy that is commonly used but creating a traditional synthetic full backup on a backup appliance is taxing on the system’s performance and on the network. To ensure we did not tax the system unnecessarily, Quantum DXi 4.1 software leverages Veeam Backup & Replication v10 Fast Clone technology to impressively accelerate synthetic full backup performance. This by the way, is the preferred backup method with Veeam 10.

The fast clone feature enables data accessibility without the need to rehydrate first.  Rehydrating data requires additional disk space and consumes performance resources; rehydrating as a task could take up to 5 hours. The new release, combined with Veeam V10, no longer needs to re-hydrate data to create a new clone. The feature looks at existing data blocks on volumes instead of copying data blocks between files and copying those blocks only when files are modified. This enables the software to read off the metadata and the result is a dramatic increase in performance shrinking the backup window to 15 minutes (compared to 5 hours) – that is 15x improvement. Therefore, Fast Clone increases the speed of synthetic backup creation and transformation, reduces disk space requirements, and decreases the load on storage devices delivering an improvement that will deliver performance in line with your desired RPO; We encourage you to see for yourselves. Our earliest customers have seen amazing results backing up and restoring large virtual machines.

Remotely Monitor DXi System Health with Quantum Cloud-Based Analytics

Quantum DXi systems are now able to connect to Quantum’s Cloud-Based Analytics (CBA) software, a cloud-based services tool that enables end-to-end integrated communication between Quantum systems and Quantum product and service experts. CBA software allows administrators to monitor system health remotely via a secure cloud-based portal. This means that telemetry and log data, which is sent to the Quantum CBA software, provides administrators with a central portal they can use to monitor and track system and environment health and statistics, giving you the ability to be proactive with your backup environment.

There are more enhancements in this software release than I can write about in this blog, though I would love to. If there is one thing you could remember is that the combination of these software features, particularly fast clone with Veeam V10 can greatly improve the ability to protect your hybrid environment. Here are additional ones that you may find valuable, the rest of the software enhancement you can find here .

Support for NetBackup OpenStorage (OST) customers, Targeted Automatic Image Replication (AIR). This feature is supported with a new OST plug-in and simplifies air/image replication.

Improved replication fan-in capabilities – up to 50:1 fan in for DXi9000 systems, and up to 30:1 fan-in for DXi4800 systems compared to 10:1 before this release. This is an important feature for larger customers with many remote sites because you can now send more concurrent backups/schedule jobs.

DXi Accent path optimization to reduce network loads. New Quantum technology to route data from an NBU server to a single DXi over multiple interfaces. Allows for better use of DXi’s network interfaces.

More flexible system memory configurations. This flexibility empowers our customers to use RAM to run Veeam Data Mover Service (VDMS), Dynamic Application Environment (DAE) or enable Increased Stream Counts (ISC) directly from the DXi. The latter also supports the maximum allowed tape drives if you use VTL.

This release is designed to enhance your experience with a Quantum DXi and to help you make the most of your datacenter resources, so you can focus on your customer facing applications that drive your business. Your backups should be fast, simple, and efficient and we want to remove all the complexity around it. As you start looking through the lens of value and cost optimization, then you’ll want to shift your sights to a DXi backup appliance. Your infrastructure needs to be efficient – essentially lowest-cost, scalable durable storage, that meets your service level agreements (SLA) and security requirements for data protection.

Request a DXi Backup Appliance Demo

Be sure to contact us to request a demo , or contact your authorized Quantum reseller to more learn about these new enhanced features on the DXi9000 and DXi4800 .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Crisis Management Strategies for Your Remote Workforce

Archive

We salute all those IT folks working day and night to ensure their organizations continue to be secured and protected while getting ourselves through the current crisis. It is by far one of the most challenging times, but you have pulled us together, so that remote workers can stay connected, secured, and productive for keeping our economies moving forward – after all, we are all in this together.

Racing to Protect Remote Endpoints, Fast

We hit a crisis never seen before and one we are not quite out of it. IT managers all over the world went from zero to 100 mph in 6 seconds because the crisis caught most by surprise and bulldozed right into their data center. Next thing you know, most of your internal customers (employees) had to work remotely, throwing your finely tuned tools and processes off-track. IT managers now had to ensure the laptops assigned to employees were secure and all those endpoints and company data leaving the comfort and security of their four-walls were protected. Needless to say, security and data protectio n shot straight up to the top of the list of priorities and procedures to implement.

Crisis Management Strategies Rolled Up into One Guidebook

This brings me to the reason why we created this guidebook titled, “IT Manager’s Guidebook – Essential Strategies for Data Protection and Business Continuity in Times of Crisis.” It was designed with you in mind because we know when things go off-the-rails, sometimes going back to the basics is the most crucial step for not only recovery and protection, but for mitigating risk as well.

Strategies and Resources for Planning and Being Prepared

We took some of the most important topics that are top-of-mind and rolled them up into one neat handbook to help guide you while you are being pressed to do more with less. We understand you immediately jumped to a reactionary mode to enable your remote workers to do their jobs effectively from home. Ensuring you have the required resources, security/data protection, and cloud services in place to facilitate worker productivity is a monumental ask. We tried to make things easy for you to help you prepare for situations like these since our new normal is essentially planning and preparing for crisis as they arise.

In this guidebook, you will find topics related to what you as IT managers are going through. Topics range from:

Get the IT Manager’s Guidebook Now

We hope you take a moment to review the guidebook – download the IT Manager’s Guidebook .

We want to remind you that we can help you meet and exceed your RPO/RTO guidelines and with your object and cold storage needs, saving you power, cooling, and footprint costs. Learn more about our Enterprise Archive and Backup Solutions here .

To view our Partner blog, click here

Keeping Your Data Protected During Chaotic Times

CMMA Blog

The world events of the past weeks have given us a clear view of what not having a plan looks like. We are learning that current infrastructures cannot support a pandemic the likes of what we’re currently living through and we’re managing it in crisis mode. Learning this lesson came at a great cost, but it is challenging us to rethink our preparedness. As I sit here on a stay indoor order from our local leadership and doing my due diligence to protect myself and others, I can’t help but draw parallels (being in the technology space) from these life-altering events to digital cyber-criminal events that are occurring right now as I write this. In my last blog, I wrote about the importance of testing your IT network and pointed out some strategies to use to ensure you are well prepared should ransomware or other cyber-attacks infiltrate your datacenter and cause irreparable damage. In this blog, I want to discuss – no, stress once again the importance of testing your backup strategies and business continuity plans.

Training & Preparedness

With a lot of the workforce working remotely, it is crucial that employees are trained to be alert to activity that targets regular users like you and me – watch out for those coronavirus emails that are being used as bait by phishers! There are sites that are using COVID-19 and Coronavirus as a lure to make victims ‘click the link’. Paul Chichester, Director of Operations at the NCSC, said: “We know that cybercriminals are opportunistic and will look to exploit people’s fears, and this has undoubtedly been the case with the Coronavirus outbreak.

Time and time again we’ve heard that cyber-attacks come in different forms such as data breaches, ransomware, phishing campaigns, and even some advanced hacking attacks. Investing in an excellent cybersecurity software plus employee training will play a major role in averting a disaster. Persistent criminals will take advantage of the opportunity to infiltrate your network via the various forms of cyber-attacks so let’s learn from previous incidents causing millions of dollars in damage (see previous blog – link) and avoid the same fate as best we can. Just last week, a report on the NCSC site stated that a global network of bots was brought down and dismantled. These criminals are believed to have infected more than nine million computers worldwide. https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/report/weekly-threat-report-13th-march-2020

The right mix of technology

Let’s start by asking the right questions. First, asses your cyber risk. Check out the NCSC website for guidance https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/risk-management-collection/essential-topics . Is your organization prepared to weather a cyber-attack? Is your network not only protected but resilient and able to predictably recover stolen, encrypted or lost data? What are the RPO/RTO’s that need to be met, and can they be met with your current data protection technology? If your network backup copies are compromised, do you have a copy offline and air-gapped? These and many more questions need to be asked to ensure that whatever data protection solution you choose, test your Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) to understand efficiency resiliency and predictability so you have the peace of mind that your data is protected.

The experts, highly recommended that you apply the time-tested best practice rule of 3-2-1-1 rule to be safe. Have both disk and tape to ensure a reliable copy is available when you need it. Whether you use cloud or hardware on-prem, be it fast performance technology to quickly process your hot data to cold storage technologies for long-term storage – the most cost-effective way to tier-off your data as it shifts in value is to leverage the different technologies that are available.  Here is an example from Quantum with DXi and object storage for enterprise backup where cost-effectiveness, scalability, and management of unstructured data is of extreme importance.

drblog1

All these technologies combined will help you meet your RPO/RTO’s but in addition, should you need to call on your backup copy for any reason and your copy on spinning disk is compromised, your insurance will be the copy that is offline and air-gapped.

If we knew when disaster will strike, everyone would prepare. The reality is we never know. Test and practice your response to a cyber-attack. Whether you are small or large organizations, testing your resiliency is critical. Create practice scenarios in a safe environment where you can test your network and backup strategies, there are plenty of online help tools available if you’re organization does not have IT, professionals, to handle this type of exercise. Be prepared to handle a crisis scenario. If you’re in the public sector and funds are tight, leverage organizations like NCSC with their exercise in a box tool to practice your response https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/exercise-in-a-box .

These times call on us to provide you, the IT professional with
all the tools and necessary information to help you make the best decision for
your organization. Crisis or no crisis preparedness is key!

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Why Density Matters in your Data Protection Strategy

CMMA Blog

Generally speaking, higher density is more desirable – any way you look at it. This is true because more data can be stored in the same physical space. The demands in the data center to retain, secure, and store data to meet compliance requirements is a constant factor. IDC forecasts that by 2025, more than 7 .5 ZB will be stored and dealt with. A good percentage of that data may need to be kept as-long-as forever. When your data center is running out of footprint, what do you do?

Get a high-performing, super dense deduplication appliance.

Choosing the right purpose-built-backup-appliance (PBBA) can be confusing with so many options in the marketplace. While I’m certain the first thing that popped in your mind was, “we can leverage the cloud,” I say that’s great, but certain types of data must be kept on-premise inside the four walls of a data center. This could be data requiring security or special handling, such as trade secrets, customer lists, highest security financial transaction, classified information, just to name a few. Of the data that can leave your four walls and be replicated offsite, it shouldn’t be replicated in its raw format when possible.

A purpose-built backup-appliance does an excellent job, and many vary in its effectiveness. However, they are built to replicate, encrypt, and have full-hardware redundancy, and in some cases, have an integrated path to tape for cold storage. These are some of the standard features, keeping costs low and predictable. (We will get into dedupe ratios in another blog). For now, research states, data will continue to explode. The combination of HDDs + deduplication will excel at reducing costs, and the more effective the data reduction, the lower your TCO will be. Ultimately, that is the goal. An enterprise PBBA will not only give you the performance to meet your RTO/RPO and help you in your drive to zero, but it will be completely compatible with all leading backup software and offer the least disruptive scalability like capacity-on-demand options.

Quantum’s DXi9000 High-Density chassis comes loaded with 12 TB HDDs. This means MORE density footprint + HD chassis and lower power and cooling in enterprise space. DXi9000 is a true enterprise-scale disk backup system. It provides industry leading performance of +37 TB per hour and scales over 20 PB logical capacity all in a 10U!  

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