CTERA: SIMPLIFYING ROBO STORAGE USING HYBRID CLOUD/LOCAL ARCHITECTURE

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SOLUTION PROFILE

CTERA: SIMPLIFYING ROBO STORAGE USING HYBRID

CLOUD/LOCAL ARCHITECTURE

NOVEMBER 2012

When it comes to storing, sharing and protecting user and application data in re-mote or branch offices (ROBOs) of a large organization, it’s difficult to please eve-ryone. Users want their applications and data to be regularly backed up, safe and recoverable in the event of a disaster. However, they are not willing to compromise application performance, and expect the ability to rapidly access and share all of their file data as needed, whether the files are backed up or not.

Central IT is tasked to provision storage, enable collaboration and protect ROBO users’ applications and data, and make sure those information assets are

read-ily available. But to live within budgetary constraints, IT must choose a solution that is cost effective to purchase, deploy, operate, and scale, while ensuring that the solution can be remotely and centrally managed to minimize the need for on-site support.

Corporate and financial managers (including CIO and CFO) want to know that their ROBO information assets are safe

and secure, but will want any new ROBO storage hardware and software purchases to protect and leverage current investments, and their IT/Operations CAPEX and OPEX to be within budget.

Where Traditional Approaches Fall Short

Companies that employ traditional storage approaches in large-scale ROBO environments will find it difficult – if not impossible – to meet the storage needs of both users and IT, at a cost that will satisfy corporate management. The most popular traditional approach has been to use a Windows File serv-er or NAS device for local physical storage, and to back these up to local tape (or disk) drives. Usserv-er endpoint devices are then either backed up locally or remotely to a datacenter or cloud. While this approach provides highly accessible primary storage, it relies on local users to manage tape backups and clearly can’t scale to many ROBO sites, from either a cost or manageability standpoint.

The other major approach is to allocate storage centrally in a datacenter or cloud, and enable users to access it over the WAN via some form of cache or accelerator. Local application servers and user end-point devices must still be backed up remotely, utilizing agents that are compatible with the caching solution. This method reduces local storage costs and provides some level of centralized

manage-Companies that employ traditional storage approaches in large-scale ROBO environments will find it difficult – if not impossible – to meet the storage needs of both users and IT, at a cost that will satisfy corporate management.

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SOLUTION PROFILE

ment, but creates a dependency on the WAN, is complex to deploy, and reduces storage access per-formance.

Unlike these two common alternatives, we believe the ideal ROBO storage solution should combine the performance and feel of local storage, with the scalability, resilience, manageability and econo-mies of a central datacenter or cloud. That’s exactly what CTERA has delivered with its Cloud Storage Enablement suite.

An Integrated Cloud / Local Approach

The CTERA solution includes a datacenter- or cloud-side service delivery platform, a cloud storage gateway offering local storage at each ROBO site, and optional agents for ROBO-resident application servers, laptops and mobile devices, managed via a unified interface. ROBO storage on the low-footprint CTERA gateway appliance is automatically and non-disruptively synchronized using file-based granular replication to storage in a datacenter or the cloud, which is managed by the enterprise IT team. Customers can optionally back up and synchronize folders on endpoints, including user workstations, laptops and mobile devices, to the cloud/datacenter using CTERA software agents. All ROBO data is deduplicated (both within a ROBO and globally between ROBOs), compressed and en-crypted before it is sent to the datacenter or cloud, and all backups are centrally managed using the CTERA Portal. Project teams can collaborate across geographically dispersed locations by using built-in file sharbuilt-ing and folder synchronization capabilities.

As we’ll see, customers get the benefits of LAN-speed access to local storage, collaborative cross-ROBO access to shared and synchronized data, and the resilience, scalability and manageability of a backend cloud, for a total solution cost that is well below that of alternative approaches.

In this profile, we will examine the challenges of provisioning and protecting storage in re-mote/branch offices, discuss alternative solutions, and then look more closely at the CTERA solution, including how the architecture and features address the problem of ROBO storage provisioning and protection, and how the benefits extend to very large distributed deployments as well as smaller use cases. To validate our assessment, we will take a brief look at a large-scale customer deployment of the CTERA ROBO storage solution, and examine the cost of the CTERA solution to medium and large enterprises, relative to the cost of other common ROBO storage approaches.

CHALLENGES OF ROBO STORAGE

ROBOs are remote or branch offices that typically range from a single user to a few dozen users, with a small percentage having 100 users or more. Taneja Group estimates that there are more than 10 million ROBOs worldwide, and that this number is growing steadily due to economic and technological forces. Medium and large enterprises face a number of com-mon storage challenges in ROBO environments. First,

Enterprises cannot afford the local resources and expertise to manage ROBO storage and data protection practices on-site, and the remote management of storage provisioning and data protection procedures across multiple ROBO-based servers and user devices can be cumbersome and error prone.

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Solution Profile

is the challenge of scalability. Storage capacity and use tends to grow significantly in most ROBOs, and the data protection process and associated secondary storage must be able to scale correspondingly, to satisfy increasing data protection requirements.

Next, is the manageability and reliability of the storage solution. Enterprises cannot afford the local resources and expertise to manage ROBO storage and data protection practices on-site, and the re-mote management of storage provisioning and data protection procedures across multiple ROBO-based servers and user devices can be cumbersome and error prone. Worse yet, if backups fail, com-panies risk losing valuable data and hampering employee productivity.

Third, is the issue of file access, sharing and collaboration. ROBO users often need to share files within a branch and collaborate between branches, whether on a 1-to-1 or 1-to-many basis. ROBO users that rely on local branch infrastructure, such as Windows servers and/or NAS devices, will generally not have the ability to share data and collaborate across different ROBO sites, and sometimes not even within a single site. This creates islands of information and hampers overall organizational productiv-ity.

The final, and most important, challenge is the cost of the storage solution, which typically has several components:

 Cost of local hardware and software (CAPEX)

 Costs of space, power and cooling required to operate a storage solution (OPEX)

 Cost of setting up and managing local storage and data protection hardware, software and practices

 Any additional dedicated software for backup (or servers and/or desktops or laptops)

When these costs are multiplied across dozens or hundreds – or in some cases, thousands – of ROBO sites, the numbers can be prohibitive.

In addition to these inherent storage challenges, the attempted solutions often create additional is-sues. For example, traditional agent-based backups impose overhead on ROBO-resident servers and workstations, which can degrade application performance during the backup window. The speed of data recovery can also become a major issue, in cases where companies rely on WAN links (optimized or not) for access to secondary storage at remote sites. Finally, security is an ever-present challenge, both for data stored locally at the ROBO and for data in transit, e.g. being backed up over a WAN to a datacenter or cloud. Taken together, these challenges can be daunting, and a source of ongoing worry and/or frustration for ROBO users, central IT and corporate management.

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Solution Profile

SOME APPROACHES TO SOLVING ROBO STORAGE CHALLENGES

Recent advances in storage and networking technology, along with the advent of public and private storage clouds, have inspired several approaches to overcoming ROBO storage challenges. These ap-proaches can be divided into two major categories: first, solutions that utilize external physical stor-age at the ROBO; and second, solutions that employ caching/accelerators to access remote storstor-age at a datacenter or in a private/public cloud.

Relying on Local Storage

Let’s first consider approaches that utilize external local storage at the ROBO sites, such as a Win-dows file server or NAS device. Though WinWin-dows servers are on the decline in remote/branch offices, a significant percentage of ROBOs still include them. The Windows server often functions also as a local file server at the site. The servers are backed up to local tape or disk. This approach provides users with rapid access to primary data, local backups, and the ability to host local applications in ad-dition to storage. But on the flip side, this method is not scalable, due to the management complexity of Windows servers and the cost of deploying and operating them. In addition, tape backups require local manual intervention and are unreliable, and full DR protection requires off-site backup or repli-cation, which can be costly and potentially disruptive to application processing.

Many other ROBOs now deploy NAS appliances for local NFS or CIFS/SMB file services, including file sharing and collaboration. The NAS also serves as a local backup target. While a NAS provides fast and reliable storage access and reduces the need for separate local backup storage (usually on tape), the solution requires additional software to enable backups to an offsite cloud or datacenter, which can be especially tedious when the NAS does not support NDMP. In addition, this approach is not scalable to multiple ROBOs, due to a lack of management tools and the cost of NAS appliances.

Centralizing Storage into the Datacenter

Instead of deploying local storage, companies may decide to consolidate ROBO data in a central facili-ty offsite, which leads us to the other major solutions category: caching/accelerator approaches for accessing remote storage in a datacenter or private/public cloud. One of the simplest and lowest cost approaches is to have ROBO users rely on the local storage in PCs, laptops and other endpoint devic-es, and back these up individually to the datacenter or cloud, using an agent with source-side dedu-plication. This approach is reliable, provides offsite data protection and is easy to maintain; and RO-BOs don’t incur the costs of local file servers and storage. However, these cost savings will be offset by the investments customers need to make in high-performance datacenter storage capacity, along with a solid WAN infrastructure. In addition, this solution does not provide any shared local storage, and ROBO users will notice some degradation in performance during backups. Finally, user devices must be turned on for backup, and restores are likely to be quite slow.

As a second approach, some companies employ WAN optimization to speed up access to centralized primary storage. Such storage is backed up in the datacenter, and agents are used to back up ROBO endpoint devices remotely via the optimized WAN link. No servers or external storage is needed at the ROBOs, and all storage is centrally managed in the datacenter. But this solution is fully dependent on the WAN, and users will experience slower performance when accessing non-cached data in the central location.

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Solution Profile

A third approach is to deploy a block-level or file-level caching gateway. These gateways enable ROBO storage to be consolidated in a datacenter or cloud, where it can be remotely but efficiently accessed over the WAN. The storage supporting local servers is managed and backed up in the datacenter, though a local server may allocate file storage for user devices. This method has the advantage of cen-tralized storage management, and can enable access to low-cost cloud storage. The primary down-sides are WAN dependency, a lack of inter-ROBO

col-laboration, and increased storage complexity (due to SAN protocols) and cost (of NAS head for file access) in the datacenter. Also, access to large files or data sets will incur a big performance penalty in case of a cache miss.

As we’ve seen, each of these alternative approaches brings with it some significant disadvantages for ROBO

storage and data protection, from the perspective of local users and central IT. What’s needed is a cleaner, simpler and more integrated approach to ROBO storage and data protection, with simplified management and a cost structure that will enable the solution to scale to a large number of ROBO sites.

Let’s take a look at such a solution.

What’s needed is a cleaner, simpler and more integrated approach to ROBO storage and data protection, with simplified management and a cost structure that will enable the solution to scale to a large number of ROBO sites.

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Solution Profile

PRESENTING THE CTERA CLOUD STORAGE ENABLEMENT SOLUTION

CTERA has developed a solution suite that is tailored for ROBO primary storage and data protection needs, and directly addresses many of the downsides we saw in alternative approaches. The CTERA solution is comprised of four major components:

 An on-premise cloud storage gateway, which offers local storage for user workstations and appli-cation servers in the ROBO

 A datacenter- or cloud-resident service delivery platform, integrated with centrally managed, en-terprise object storage

 Optionally, agents that may be installed on application servers or user workstations to enable ef-ficient (deduplicated) and remote backups to – and synchronization with – centralized storage, as well as remote file access and collaboration.

 Agent-based mobile apps that enable remote file access and collaboration. The CTERA solution architecture is shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: CTERA Cloud Storage Enablement Solution Architecture

Source: CTERA

The central object storage solution may be deployed and managed either by an enterprise IT team in a datacenter, or by a cloud service provider. The CTERA cloud storage gateways for large-scale ROBO deployments range from the C200, designed to support up to 25 ROBO users, with 2 hard drives mir-rored for redundancy and 6TB of capacity; to the C800 for large ROBOs, which supports 75-200 users, RAID 5/6, and 24TB. The CTERA gateways enable ROBO collaboration via local file sharing and folder synchronization, as we explore further in the sidebar below. The CTERA solution also provides non-disruptive backups to cloud storage, via the use of file-based, granular replication. The appliance

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Solution Profile

deduplicates, compresses and encrypts data (the latter via a strong AES-256 method) before it is sent over the wire.

CTERA Portal is based on a multi-tenant, cloud storage deployment architecture. The portal provides specific capabilities via tailored interfaces to end users, project teams, and corporate IT; enables re-mote monitoring and management of cloud-attached storage devices (e.g. gateways); and monitoring and logging of cloud backups and other administrative activities.

As shown in the sidebar, the Cloud Storage Enablement solution delivers a number of other capabili-ties beyond the functionality we’ve discussed, which enhances its value to ROBO users.

ADDITIONAL ELEMENTS OF THE CTERA CLOUD STORAGE ENABLEMENT SOLUTION

In addition to providing shared ROBO storage and data protection capabilities, CTERA goes several steps further in delivering value to ROBO users:

(1) CTERA provides optional endpoint data protection capabilities, enabled by backup agents that reside on local workstations, laptops and application servers, and employ source-level deduplication to facilitate efficient backup of user devices to the local ap-pliance or a remote datacenter or cloud. Backing up to the local apap-pliance means eventual backup to the cloud as well (when the appliance synchronizes with the cloud), thereby providing redundancy of backup data. Administrators can create rules to automate file and folder backups. Backup agents also enable bare metal backup and recovery, to allow users to quickly restore machines to their original state in the event of a crash or outage.

(2) CTERA offers volume snapshot capabilities. Snapshots can be created on demand or based on administrative policy, and when a new snapshot is taken, only the block-level changes are captured since the last snapshot, ensuring efficient use of storage and network resources.

(3) CTERA enables collaboration among different ROBO sites or branches, via multi-user file sharing and folder synchronization. Project teams can share and collaborate around particular sets of files, to which they may have read-only or read/write access. Folder synchronization ensures that all users are viewing up-to-date versions of each file. These capabilities can also be used by corporate departments to disseminate in-formation to all branches, by synchronizing read-only file folders from the datacen-ter/cloud out to ROBO-based CTERA appliances.

(4) CTERA offers a set of mobile applications, supported on major devices such as iPhone, iPad and Android. Mobile users can view and access files in the cloud, download them to their device, make changes, and then manually synchronize those updates back to the cloud. File updates are deduplicated prior to synchronization, so that only changed blocks are sent over the wire. Unlike with consumer-oriented file sharing offerings,

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Solution Profile

files can be encrypted to ensure that sensitive or confidential information is secured and protected.

(5) CTERA Portal, the management platform, offers enterprise-level scalability and inte-gration. The Portal supports high availability, load balancing and failover, and pro-vides multiple management tiers that allow delegating administration tasks to de-partment level. It supports many cloud/object storage back-ends, including EMC ATMOS, Hitachi Content Platform, AWS S3, Openstack and more. Active Directory and LDAP integration is provided to facilitate user identity management and access con-trol, and there are extensive monitoring and logging capabilities, including integration with Nagios.

The CTERA solution is differentiated from other approaches to ROBO storage and data protection in several ways. First, unlike other gateway solutions and local storage alternatives we looked at, CTERA cloud gateways are purpose built for ROBO needs. For example, CTERA gateways are far more light-weight and much simpler to deploy and manage than Windows servers and NAS devices. Second, con-trary to local storage approaches, the CTERA solution consolidates ROBO data in the datacenter or cloud for greater protection and simpler management. Unlike the local storage methods they displace, CTERA gateways provide efficient, non-disruptive remote backups to datacenter or cloud. Third, un-like the disparate nature of both central and local approaches, the CTERA solution is an integrated, all-in-one solution for ROBO needs. As we’ll see in the next section, this enables CTERA to deliver a significant cost advantage over alternative local and central storage approaches.

The CTERA solution is already being proven in real-world environments, based on the experience to date of large CTERA customers deploying the solution across thousands of branch offices (see follow-ing sidebar).

REDESIGNING LARGE-SCALE BRANCH STORAGE DEPLOYMENTS FOR THE CLOUD ERA

A large North American financial services firm recently selected a CTERA storage solution for its thousands of branches. The customer’s previous ROBO solution was composed of file servers in every branch, and utilized a proprietary backup method. With this approach, the firm lacked centralized management and control, along with the ability to rapidly restore files in the event of a crash or outage. Worse yet, the solution was expensive to scale and operate.

The company decided to pursue a new approach, which would allow for consolidated backups and centralized management, along with a significant reduction in costs. The company evaluated a fully centralized, WAN-enabled solution, but found this approach to be cost prohibitive. The firm looked also at traditional NAS solutions, but rejected those due to a lack of centralized management and integrated private cloud backup capabilities. Following an extensive assessment, the company chose CTERA, for a solution that com-bines local storage with cloud-enabled backup, and is remotely managed from the firm’s

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regional data centers. A CTERA appliance functions as a NAS in each branch, and enables backup first to the appliance and then to object storage in a private cloud in the data cen-ter. Backups are deduplicated before they are sent over the wire. The CTERA solution is more than capable of handling dozens of concurrent initial backups as new branches come online, as well as the many thousands of incremental backups from already deployed branches, without impacting application performance. Rapid deployment of appliances is enabled by tight integration with the customer’s Active Directory servers for user authen-tication and identity management, and using CTERA’s template-based management of ap-pliance configuration.

Overall, the CTERA solution has enabled the customer to improve the scalability of ROBO deployments, increase data protection via regular but cost-effective cloud backups, and achieve centralized management and control, while preserving the advantages of local storage, including rapid file access and recovery capabilities. The solution is expected to result in significant CAPEX savings (by eliminating standalone file servers in the branches) and OPEX reductions (via the power and cooling savings per branch enabled by consolida-tion, plus the economy and efficiency of centralized management).

The CTERA Cloud Storage Enablement solution is designed for use by end users and/or cloud service providers. The CTERA portal is customizable to enable managed service providers (MSPs) to deliver the storage, data protection and collaboration capabilities as services, and to provide a fully branded user experience. In addition, CTERA’s hierarchical portal system allows large service providers to de-liver services through smaller regional providers, with capabilities and branding tailored to each pro-vider/consumer in the distribution chain.

COST OF CTERA ROBO STORAGE SOLUTION VS. MAJOR ALTERNATIVES

CTERA has developed an ROI model to compare the capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating ex-pense (OPEX) costs of the CTERA Cloud Storage Enablement solution to three major alternatives: 1. Local ROBO server, with local backup to tape

2. Local ROBO primary storage, with remote deduplicated backup to datacenter/cloud storage 3. WAN-optimized access from ROBO to central storage in cloud/datacenter.

The model compares costs for two customer classes:

 A mid-sized enterprise ROBO deployment, consisting of 90 small ROBO sites/branches, 10 medi-um sites/branches, and one datacenter (or private cloud). The model assmedi-umes 10 users and a sin-gle server at each of the small sites and 50 users and two servers at each of the medium sites, with a storage allocation of 25 GB per user.

 A large enterprise ROBO deployment, consisting of 1000 small sites/branches, 100 medium sites/branches, and one datacenter (or private cloud). Assumptions for user and server counts per site and storage allocation per user are the same as for the mid-sized enterprise ROBO de-ployment above.

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Taneja Group has reviewed the model and supporting assumptions, and believes it is a good approx-imation of the relative capital expenditures and ongoing operating costs that customers will incur in deploying the CTERA solution versus the three other approaches. How does the CTERA solution stack up against each of the three alternatives?

In the case of the first alternative, local ROBO server with local tape backup, the total hardware and software (CAPEX) costs of the storage/backup server, tape solution and backup agents per ROBO site are extremely high – by far higher than the CAPEX of any other approach. In contrast, the CTERA ap-pliance, which provides local storage and a gateway to centralized data protection, is only about 10% of the CAPEX cost per site. The on-site power, cooling and management costs are also quite high for this alternative, compared to the corresponding OPEX of the CTERA solution. When you combine the CAPEX and OPEX costs to calculate an annualized total cost of ownership (TCO), the CTERA solution is far more attractive, costing less than 1/5th_{for mid-sized enterprises, and less than 1/10}th_{for large} enterprises.

Weighing CTERA against the second approach, local ROBO primary storage with remote deduplicated

backup to datacenter/cloud storage, CTERA also delivers a dramatic cost advantage. The CAPEX costs

of this second method – consisting of storage server hardware and software and backup agent ex-penditures across all sites – are less than those of the first approach, since this solution avoids the costs of local backup servers and tape storage. But the CAPEX is still around seven times higher than in the CTERA case. The on-site operational management requirements are also much greater than with CTERA. In terms of total costs, the CTERA solution is

less than 1/4th_{the TCO for a mid-sized enterprise, and less} than 1/5th the cost for a large enterprise.

Finally, compared to the third approach, WAN-optimized

access from ROBO to central storage in cloud/datacenter,

CTERA again proves to be a significantly lower cost

solu-tion for ROBO storage and data protecsolu-tion needs. The largest cost element of this third approach is the WAN optimization solution, which when combined with the cost of third-party backup agents, makes the ROBO-specific CAPEX roughly 10 times the corresponding cost of the CTERA solution for mid-sized enterprises. Overall, CTERA provides more than a 60% TCO advantage for mid-sized enter-prises, and more than an 80% advantage for large enterprises.

Overall, CTERA provides more than a 60% TCO advantage for mid-sized enterprises, and more than an 80% advantage for large enterprises.

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TANEJA GROUP OPINION

Comprehensive and cost-effective storage, data protection and file sharing are essential to the integri-ty and success of large-scale ROBO deployments. Medium to large retailers, insurance companies, brokerages, travel and hospitality providers, car dealerships, educational institutions, government agencies and health clinics – to name just a few – have many dozens, hundreds or perhaps thousands of remote or branch offices, stores or agencies, each with information assets that are critical to the health and growth of the overall enterprise.

Yet in many cases, ROBO storage needs are at best casually considered – or at worst, an afterthought – in the ROBO IT deployment decision. What often results is a patchwork of disparate and inefficient approaches – such as local file storage with tape backup at each ROBO site, combined with separate, agent-based remote backup and an unsanctioned file sharing solution for user devices – that don’t fit together as part of a coherent, well thought out strategy for ROBO-wide storage, data protection and collaboration. To make matters worse, each of these piecemeal approaches can introduce its own set of storage services challenges, around scalability, backup reliability and manageability, data recover-ability, and cost.

To address these issues, we believe companies with large-scale ROBOs need to look for a coordinated and integrated approach to storing, protecting and sharing their distributed information assets, which considers key factors such as so-lution reliability, extensibility and manageability. Customers should also assess the CAPEX and OPEX costs of large-scale ROBO storage solutions, which can become a crippling bur-den when multiplied over a large number of sites.

Of all the vendors in the ROBO storage landscape, CTERA has developed a solution that meets these storage requirements better than any other. The storage, data protection, and file sharing and syn-chronization capabilities in CTERA’s Cloud Storage Enablement offering provide ROBOs with the ad-vantages of local storage accessibility and performance, combined with the resiliency, scalability and manageability of a private or public storage cloud, at a fraction of the cost of most competing ap-proaches. We recommend that enterprises treat storage, data protection and collaboration needs as more of a strategic imperative in their planning for large-scale ROBO deployments, and include CTERA on their short-list of proven solutions.

NOTICE: THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN HAS BEEN OBTAINED FROM SOURCES BELIEVED TO BE ACCURATE AND RELIABLE, AND INCLUDES PERSONAL OPINIONS THAT ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. TANEJA GROUP DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY OF SUCH INFORMATION AND ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY OR LIABILITY FOR ERRORS OR FOR YOUR USE OF, OR RELIANCE UPON, SUCH INFORMATION. COMPANY, BRAND AND PRODUCT NAMES REFERENCED HEREIN MAY BE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

We recommend that enterprises treat storage, data protection and collaboration needs as more of a strategic imperative in their planning for large-scale ROBO deployments, and include CTERA on their short-list of proven solutions.