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January 28th, 2010 09:00
Centera for archiving SAS data
Hello, I am familiar with Symmetrix and Clariion but I have zero knowledge of Centera. We have Centera installed but I believe it is being used only for special types of data. Our imaging system saves images on Centera. I think our Exchange data is archived to Centera.
We use SAS - a statistical application the creates huge files on our Clariion/AIX systems. These are pretty normal flat files that sit in the AIX file systems on the Clariion. The users want to keep many of these large files for years. We will be looking at some way to archive these off the Clariion on to more affordable storage after the files are 1 year old. The users should be able to view the arcive files and may need to "bring them back" for use within the SAS system.
Does Centea make sense for this? We could probably leverage our current Centeras. Is it cost effective? Are there better solutions?
Thanks,
Brad
jaimegomez
13 Posts
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January 28th, 2010 09:00
Brad, this is a classic use case for Centera archiving: File System Archiving (FSA). Several vendors, including EMC, offer solutions for this purpose. In particular EMC can assist with a preliminary assessment of your file system environment, to determine the age and use of your file systems, to better determine the savings, as well as the appropriate solution.
FYI, some email archiving products also have FSA capabilities, so you might want to explore that alternative.
I strongly recommend that you engage the EMC Sales / Account Team supporting your Organization, to exactly determine what the next steps should be.
Regards,
Jaime Gomez
Centera Engineering
brad12341
207 Posts
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January 29th, 2010 15:00
Thanks, I will definitley engage our EMC account team. In the meantime is there any good documentation to read? Also I learned that we have a product called Symmantec Enterprise Vault that we use to archive exchange to our Centera. I'm wondering if EV and Centera would be a good fit for archiving the AIX file system data.
jaimegomez
13 Posts
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February 1st, 2010 18:00
Brad,
Although Symantec Enterprise Vault provides FSA capabilities, it only supports Windows platforms.
There are other Centera Integrated Software Vendors (ISVs) that do support File System Archiving for IBM AIX systems. Again, our account team will be able to point you out in the right direction.
Best regards,
Jaime
holgerjakob_c0722c
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337 Posts
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February 3rd, 2010 13:00
Hi
I strongly suggest you look at the StorageSwitch Gateway solution too. If you plan to have a lot of files moved to Centera the backup of the stub files might be troublesome for the backup application of your AIX environment.
The StorageSwitch Gateway nicely solves that potential issue.
DX/UL also supports AIX and would probably be the FSA solution of choice.
Centera definitely is the right destination for your files to go to. No other platform really provides the features for long-term storage of your data. If there are identical files it will even single instance them.
Best regards, Holger
brad12341
207 Posts
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February 3rd, 2010 14:00
Thanks for the info. My EMC Account Technology Consultant finally got back to me today. He said that EMC does not have a good solution in migrating/archiving data from a Clariion Fiber Channel LUN to different tier. He said if the data was CIFS or NFS on a NAS device it would be much easier to migrate/archive.
Anyway I stumbled onto this product called EMC DiskXtender for AIX. This sounds like the product I am looking for. My EMC account guy says that this product has been replaced by Rainfinity and again only works for CIFS or NFS.
Does anybody have any different info. If you can point me in the right direction I would appreciate it.
Thanks - Brad
jaimegomez
13 Posts
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February 4th, 2010 08:00
Brad, hope all is well.
As your TC mentioned, DiskXtender for AIX is no longer part of our portfolio.
One Centera ISV partner that provides FSA capabilities for the AIX platform is Arkivio (www.arkivio.com).
The following contacts are already aware of this inquiry and can further assist:
EMC
Fred Walker - ISV Global Alliance Manager
email: walker_fred@emc.com
Arkivio
Bob Grewall
email: bob@arkivio.com
Please feel free to contact them directly or have your EMC TC arrange a con-call. Please email me (gomez_jaime@emc.com) or Fred so that we can send you the latest joint collaterals on Arkivio AutoStor.
Hope this helps - Jaime