STORAGE MANAGEMENT/ GETTING STARTED: Storage Management 101

1
STORAGE MANAGEMENT/GETTING STARTEDStorage
Management 101

• Everything you always wanted to know about
  Storage Management (but were afraid to ask)

Stephen Foskett Practice Manager GlassHouse
Technologies
2
Agenda

• The utility model
• Building a storage management team
• Break
• Storage management processes
• Storage management tools

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The basics

• IT is made up of people, process and technology
• Mature processes enable strategic IT
• Leverage utility concepts
• Build an effective storage management group
• Use maturity concept to drive process
  improvements
• Select tools to enable consistency and streamline
  processes

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The utility model

• Utilities offer fixed centralized services to
  consumers
• Benefits of the utility model
• Reduced costs through resource sharing
• Improved service through specialization and
  standardization
• Alignment of service and requirements through SLAs

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Systems Administrators Hardware Policies Software
Policies Configuration Processes
Business Analysts Policies Requirements
Analysis Service Level Agreements
Operations Standard Procedures Monitoring Escalati
on
IT Management Metrics Cost Modeling Chargeback
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Getting started

1. Create a centralized storage group
2. Develop strategic policies and standard
   architecture
3. Say no to ad-hoc purchases
4. Migrate and consolidate what you have
5. Proactively develop SLAs and begin reporting

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Building a storage management group

• Requirements
• Dedicated focused resources
• Ownership of infrastructure
• Empowerment to control purchases
• Start with the people and architecture already in
  place

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Align resources with requirements

• Most storage groups are under-staffed
• Risks abound
• Lack of technology coverage (vacations, nights)
• Lack of focus (storage, backup, operations)
• Failure to align technology with business
• Define roles/responsibilities and boundaries

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Debunking the TB per admin metric

• Problems with TB/Admin
• Ignores complexity - Heterogeneous/homogenous
• Ignores other skill sets - operations, cost
  accounting, business analysis, management
• No indication of effectiveness I can manage 1PB
  for one day!
• No defined best practice Analysts say .5,
  1.25, 1.5 Vendors say 5, 7, 10
• Usually a quick-fix or scapegoat metric No
  relation to the real world

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Members of the team

• Resources
• 1 Manager High-level metrics
• 1 Analyst Business/technology alignment, SLAs
• 2 Engineers Storage and backup experts
• 4 Operators 24x7 monitoring, escalation
• 1 Engineer per 3 technologies or 10 systems
• Share operations with other groups

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Thank you. Questions on part 1?
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STORAGE MANAGEMENT/GETTING STARTEDStorage
Management 101,part 2

• Everything you always wanted to know about
  Storage Management (but were afraid to ask)

Stephen Foskett Practice Manager GlassHouse
Technologies
15
Understanding process and procedure

• Mature management processes is one leg of the
  utility model
• Ad hoc process becomes Standard Operating
  Procedure (SOP) through maturity
• ITIL and GlassHouse SMLSM are frameworks for
  understanding processes

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International IT standards

• ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library)
• Europe Wide acceptance in the UK, spreading
  worldwide
• Task framework Focused delivery of IT services
• COBIT (Control Objectives for IT)
• Canada/US IT Governance Institute
• Control Focused on processes and governance
• COSO (the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations
  of the Treadway Commission)
• US - Gaining traction for Sarbanes/Oxley auditing
• Auditing - Focused on process assessment

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The ITIL framework

• (SS) Service Support
• Service desk
• Incident management
• Problem management
• Configuration management
• Change management
• Release management

• (BP) Business Perspective
• Business continuity
• Partnerships and outsourcing
• Surviving change
• Transformation of business practice

Application Management

• (SD) Service Delivery
• Capacity management
• Financial management
• Availability management
• Service level management
• Service continuity management

• (IM) Infrastructure Management
• Network service management
• Operations management
• Management of local processors
• Computer installation and acceptance
• Systems management

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Plan
Implement
Operate
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Assessing process maturity

• Maturity is a hard metric for a soft area
• Leverage the CMU capability maturity model
• Where are you? Where should you be?
• Each process can be at a different level not
  all should be at level 5!

Level Name Description
1 Initial Ad-hoc, reactive, firefighting
2 Repeatable Proactive, trained people
3 Defined Documented, standardized products and procedures
4 Managed Metrics for deliverables and processes
5 Optimizing Continuous improvement with feedback
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Processes and tools

• Outline your management processes leverage ITIL
  or GlassHouse SML
• Understand what you need to do which processes
  need automation?
• Buy tools to support critical processes

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Tool confusion

• There are no standard category names
• Storage Resource Management (SRM) usually
  analyzes host storage contents (number, type,
  attributes of files) but not always
• Different storage management suites have
  different functions
• Suites are lacking
• Many suites do not offer SRM or device
  management functionality
• Hardware vendors dominate management suite
  business

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Package-based approach

• Software packages are purchased arbitrarily
• Hardware vendors suggestion
• Giveaways
• Media coverage/Advertising
• Hit or miss coverage of business needs

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Selecting storage management software

• Look for software offering just what you need
• Minimize number of tools
• Lack of integration options
• Complexity Confusion
• Look beyond suites

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Commonly needed management tools

• Enterprise backup Essential
• Backup reporting Success rate, failures, needs
  customization
• Utilization reporting Who is using what
  resources, needs customization
• Architecture visualization Enables engineers to
  understand environment
• SNMP framework Send traps to operations

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Rarely used management tools

• Traditional SRM One-shot wonder
• Automated provisioning Requires mature
  processes, saves little time
• Automated cost accounting Needs massive
  customization
• Process/Policy automation Are you ready?