Bridging the gap: Choosing storage-over-distance network technology

What you will learn from this tip: Many disaster recovery and remote backup programs rely on an efficient, cost-effective WAN. Fiber-optic network technology is often required for long-distance data transmission, but you need to know what transport is best and the related implementation issues.

High-speed optical WANs are becoming indispensable for critical storage applications. Business continuance, remote mirroring and replication, and connecting regional data centers are all tasks that require optical WANs. With many optical options and prices, picking the best technologies and techniques to transport data is challenging.

Most storage apps are time-sensitive and require high throughput (bandwidth) and low latency with zero data loss. Effective bandwidth is a measure of how much of the available bandwidth can actually be used, taking into consideration dropped packets and retransmission due to congestion and protocol inefficiency.

To pick a data transport to fit your needs, first consider your storage requirements:

When evaluating storage-over-distance network technology, keep the following items in mind:

Storage-over-distance options:

The more layers and protocols used in the network, the longer the latency and potential disruption to the storage applications. Understanding what layers are involved in the netw

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ork is important because each layer adds complexity, cost and latency.

Diverse network paths are critical for uninterrupted network service. Make sure your network provider can guarantee diverse network paths not only through its core networks, but its partners' core networks. Secondly, determine how the service provider will manage and guarantee network performance (low latency and effective bandwidth).

A common mistake is to look at bandwidth simply in terms of dollars per Gb/sec. The effective or actual usage amount is important, and with bandwidth that includes what level of utilization at a given response time (latency level) can be maintained without congestion and packet delay/loss.

Avoid the mistake of prototyping a storage application at a reduced workload, and then assume that heavier workloads will scale linearly with regards to bandwidth and latency. Instead of linear scaling, effective bandwidth can drop off as workload is added along with additional latency, resulting in poor performance, particularly for synchronous-based storage applications. First and foremost, understand your needs and the capabilities of these different technologies.

You can read and learn more in the Storage magazine article "Bridging the gap" by Greg Schulz.

For more information:

Controlling the storage sprawl

About the author: Greg Schulz is a senior analyst with the independent storage analysis firm The Evaluator Group Inc.

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