Apple is readying the next major release of their Mac OS X operating system. Dubbed “Lion”, Mac OS X 10.7 is widely expected to hit Apple stores in the Summer of 2011, and brings many exciting new features along for the ride. This series of articles introduces the storage and data protection features of Lion as they are revealed.

Time Machine in Mac OS X "Lion" includes local snapshots as well as storage of backups on external disks

Many operating systems include a backup client, but not many are as widely-used as Time Machine in Apple’s Mac OS X. Time Machine presents an extremely simple interface for data protection, making backups literally a one click task. Until the release of Lion, Time Machine required the use of the second hard disk drive, often an external USB or Apple network attached unit. In 10.7, Time Machine gains the ability to use the local primary hard disk drive to store snapshots of files. Is this really a good idea?

What are you protecting against?

One reason so many people are dissatisfied with their backup solution is that they use it for too many conflicting purposes. They expect the same application to provide short-term file recovery, bare metal restore in the event of a hard disk crash, long-term retention of data, and even off-site disaster recovery.

Most back of applications, including Time Machine, are very good when it comes to short-term file recovery but fall short in answering these other demands. A “best-of-breed” solution requires a number of different applications for end users or a pile of money for their enterprise counterparts.

The real innovation of Time Machine was it ease-of-use: When a user attached and external hard drive, Mac OS X asked for permission to use it as a backup target and automatically configured all other aspects of the system. File recovery is done in a very user-friendly way, with a Cover Flow like interface to move forward and backward through different versions of the folder.

But Time Machine requires a second hard disk drive, and very few Macs ship from Apple in this configuration. Although paired storage is becoming more common, the majority of MacBooks and iMacs ship with a single internal hard disk drive. Until the end user purchases and connects their own external drive, these systems would be unprotected.

Introducing Time Machine local snapshots

Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” introduces a number of storage enhancements, including the ability to track versions of files in Finder. Time Machine gets a similar function, storing local versions of files in addition to standard backups on an extra drive.

It is not at all clear if Time Machine’s local snapshots capability leverages the “Versions” feature or simply stores files locally the same way it does on an external drive. But the end result is the same: Users will be able to protect their data even when no external drive is attached.

There are serious drawbacks to this approach, however. Storing backup data on the same hard disk drive does not protect from the loss or failure of that device, and hard disk crashes are fairly common, especially in portable devices. This could also present security concerns, since a laptop using Time Machine local snapshots would store confidential data locally long after it is deleted.

Clearly, Apple realizes the limitations of this strategy, and will still recommend using an external drive for Time Machine backups. But it is better to have a local copy of data than none at all, and Time Machine local snapshots will likely be a boon to the average MacBook user.

Stephen’s stance

Although it is not a full-featured backup application, I heartily endorse Time Machine since its ease-of-use encourages average users to backup their data and enables them to recover lost files in a user-friendly environment. Time Machine local snapshots add another layer of protection for Apple users on the go. As long as they do not rely on local snapshots exclusively for data protection, I call that a win.

I wonder whether end-users that have experienced Time Machine are more or less likely to deploy a real backup application or an off-site backup service like Mozy or Crashplan. Perhaps Time Machine piques their interest in data protection, causing them to go out and purchase such a service. A multilayered approach with Time Machine local snapshots and external storage plus an online backup service is light years beyond the data protection enjoyed by average users.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Local Snapshots in Mac OS X Lion Time Machine: Is It A Good Idea?
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

CommVault is bringing a new dish to dinner: Cloud storage!

If your family was like mine, Thanksgiving was a two-tiered affair: The adults sat at the fancy dining room table while the kids had to sit in the kitchen, some even using a card table and folding chairs. You knew you were grown up when you moved up to the adult table. I guess this American coming-of-age ritual is pretty common with other rituals, too. There’s no formal ceremony, but everyone knows when little Johnny becomes just-plain John.

We see similar things happen in IT. New technologies and ideas are often given a pat on the head, a pinch on the cheek, but then sent to the kids table in the kitchen. Only mature technologies are taken seriously and granted equal status when enterprise architectures are defined!

One sure-fire way of determining when a technology is ready for prime time is when it is integrated with a major enterprise product. Sure, lots of products will support this or that, but thoroughly integrating a new technology requires serious effort. Not just any technology gets this kind of focus!

That’s why I’m pleased to see today’s announcement that CommVault has completely integrated API-driven public cloud storage with Simpana, their impressive data protection and archiving suite. It reminds me of that point when the backup products of yore finally adopted disk-based technology. Now there are three equal backup targets: Tape, disk, and cloud.

CommVault calls their new integrated cloud storage "Farline" - as opposed to "Nearline", get it?

CommVault’s reputation in the storage industry is like BMW’s in cars: They’re an engineering-driven company and focus on offering the best technology. There’s no way CommVault would cut corners when it came to a fundamental technology. So they applied considerable engineering resources and delivered a really advanced product.

I’ve previously noted that cloud storage is not backup, but that the combination of cloud storage with a solid backup platform makes a killer data protection value proposition. This is exactly what CommVault is delivering. Plus, Simpana’s integrated encryption and data deduplication technology work to reduce cloud-related angst. And CommVault will be supporting just about every public cloud provider, beginning with Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, and Nirvanix (where I spend my days), and I hear Iron Mountain and EMC Atmos are on the way, too.

Read more over at Network World, DGIC, or check out my Nirvanix blog about CommVault’s cloud integration.

Note: Yeah, that’s a Tofurkey-brand vegetarian turkey in the photo above. Yum!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | CommVault Gives Cloud Storage A Seat At The Adult Table
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

My field of enterprise storage has its share of generally-accepted theories:

• Availability, backup, and archive form a Data Protection Trinity: They are unique requirements calling for focused solutions.
• The Rule of RAID: Combining multiple disk drives in creative ways allows us to change the inherent reliability and performance of the system.
• When it comes to storage management, Homogeneity is Paramount: A single storage administrator can manage thousands of identical systems but would be hard-pressed to support a half-dozen unique ones.
• The entire history of computing demonstrates that Connectivity Trumps Capacity when sizing systems: Performance bottlenecks always limit the scalability of storage systems.

Each of these theories underpins the our industy’s daily routine of storing and retrieving the data that drives modern society. These storage theories are also targets for innovation, with the best minds constantly trying to bend or break them.

This album of storage theories also has a B-side, however. These are the no-longer-true theories that have been transcended, as well as the dubious beliefs that were never really true.

• Commutability of Management and Cost is highly suspect: Unless one is considering only identical and homogenous systems, the total cost of ownership (TCO) or number of administrators associated with a given system (TB/admin) cannot be compared between environments.
• The Price of Parity: The impact of parity calculations and multi-disk commits used to kill write performance, giving RAID-5 a bad name. But write-back caches and array intelligence have all but eliminated this “write penalty” for modern enterprise systems.
• Whenever the high cost of enterprise storage is to be refuted, someone is bound to trot out The Dumb Disk Fallacy, claiming that per-GB array costs ought to be comparable to the price of a bare disk drive. But the value of enterprise storage has always been greater than the sum of its parts.

Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing focused articles about these “holy cows” of the enterprise storage world. I encourage everyone in the industry to join me in taking a step back and shining some light on these and other truisms. Which do you agree with or dispute? Are there other theories that I have overlooked?

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | We Hold These (Storage) Truths…
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, Gestalt IT. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.