Extending to on-premises (hybrid networking)
In this tutorial we will learn and understand about hybrid networking extending to on-premises.
However, the classic network-attached storage (NAS) device has been a cornerstone of the data center for over 20 years. These hardware platforms are well understood but can be an expensive tier of storage for seldom-accessed data. Enterprise NAS devices are typically refreshed at three- to five-year intervals, and the migration of large amounts of data can be complex and risky. Additionally, many organizations want to keep a copy of their data in the cloud for redundancy and disaster recovery purposes. This approach can be a simple and inexpensive way to protect data that is not mission-critical.
Storage IT challenges
While many IT administrators know that a large segment of the data on their expensive NAS is cold, they also know that moving that cold data could be disruptive. However, if users or applications need access to archived data and are unaware that it was moved, operations and applications are disrupted. Asking permission from users is not any easier. Even if they grant permission, identifying the correct subset of data and migrating that data to the cloud has been an extensive, cumbersome manual process. Further, this involves spreadsheets, reporting tools, and various software applications.
However, Komprise coupled with Cloud Storage addresses this issue by automatically identifying and moving cold data by policy from any NAS to Cloud Storage without disruption. Data that Komprise moves still appears to users as if it is stored on the primary NAS. When a user or an application accesses this data, Komprise automatically recalls the data, preventing any disruption.
Capabilities
Komprise consists of a grid of one or more virtual appliances that are deployed on hypervisors in the data center. Install and point Komprise at the NAS shares that you want to analyze and manage. However, komprise first analyzes the shares and then provides insight that the IT administrator can use to make management and capacity-planning decisions. Then, they codify as simple policies that direct Komprise to move and replicate data to Cloud Storage.
Move and copy data by using simple policies
In addition to analytics, Komprise provides policy-based move and copy operations that use simple sliders and pick lists. For example,
- Firstly, the move policy continuously moves inactive and cold data to Cloud Storage as the data ages. Identifying and moving cold data eliminates the ongoing need to increase the capacity of on-premises NAS storage.
- Secondly, the copy policy facilitates copying data to the cloud for DR. You can select different conditions for copying data.
- Thirdly, if obsolete data needs to be removed rather than moved or copied to a new storage platform. However, you can specify a policy to identify and move such data to a trash folder on the NAS.
- In addition, if certain data should not be moved or copied, you can define specific exclusions using file types, size, and folders.
- Lastly, you can build multiple Komprise groups to set up custom policies for data that has unique needs.
Information lifecycle management
Komprise uses tiered Cloud Storage to further reduce costs. Through policies that you set in Komprise, you can tier data from Nearline storage to the less expensive Coldline storage based on the age of and lack of access to the data after you have moved it to Nearline storage. Both provide similar access times. So you can reduce costs further by using Coldline storage without affecting your ability to access the data when you need it.
Features
- Firstly, Komprise data management. Komprise runs as a hybrid cloud service with a grid of one or more Komprise virtual appliances, called Observers and Proxies, deployed on premises. The grid has a highly parallelized, scale-out architecture. Observers analyze data across on-premises NAS storage, move and replicate data by policy.
- Secondly, Scale out. Komprise does not require any dedicated hardware and runs as a scale-out grid of VMs that are managed as one logical unit. There are no centralized databases, which allows Komprise to grow on-demand to handle data at massive scales.
- Thirdly, Non-disruptive. A typical challenge with traditional storage services is that they might disrupt end user access. Komprise preserves the directory structure as well as file attributes on the target, unlike cloud migration tools that strip data off file attributes and move blocks to the cloud that can only be accessed and understood using the application going forward.
- Fourthly, High performance. Several migration solution providers significantly reduce the performance of storage during data moves. Additionally, Komprise adaptively throttles back when the storage systems are in active use so that Komprise analytics runs non-disruptively in the background. As a result, the performance of the active data is unchanged and may even improve as the primary storage becomes less overloaded.
- Lastly, No static stubs. Last-generation solutions (that is, hierarchical storage systems created prior to the advent of cloud) relied on the use of static stubs. A stub, which is a small file that contains the location to which a file has been moved, can be deleted or corrupted, orphaning the files that were moved to the target storage.
Security
Komprise ensures that data is protected and encrypted by default. Komprise provides two security options for moving data to GCP.
- Firstly, Encryption in transit and at rest. In this mode of operation, data is transmitted between Komprise observer and GCP using SSL and Google encrypts the data using AES 256-bit symmetric key encryption using Google keys before storing the data. The keys are managed by Google and Komprise never receives the encryption keys.
- Secondly, End-to-end encryption. In this mode of operation, data is encrypted on Komprise Observers using AES 256-bit symmetric key encryption before transferring to GCP. During access, the Komprise Observer retrieves encrypted data from Google that is transmitted in encrypted format. The Komprise Observer then decrypts the data using the Data Encryption Key and then sends it to the user.
Value
- Firstly, Costs. Komprise is priced by the amount of data managed. For ~$0.005/GB/month, you can have all the features of Komprise including the analytics, data archiving, data replication, data migration, and transparent file-object data gateway. Combined with the cost-efficiency of Cloud Storage, customers can save substantially on NAS storage, DR, and backup costs.
- Secondly, Performance. Unlike traditional solutions, Komprise is built from the ground up to manage data at today’s scale. Our fully distributed, scale-out architecture grows with your environment. Komprise stays out of the data, metadata, and control paths of hot data. So, there is no performance impact to hot data access.
Use cases
- Firstly, Active archive. Komprise moves cold data by policy transparently to Coldline without the use of stubs, agents, or any changes to users and applications.
- Secondly, Capacity planning. Komprise provides visibility across your storage silos so you can see how your data is growing, aging, and being used.
- Thirdly, Replication and disaster recovery. Cloud Storage offers an affordable, highly durable, and available alternative to traditional on-premises backup targets. Using Komprise, you can take a DR copy of only the active data and actively archive the rest.
- Then, Data migration. Komprise eliminates the errors and the guesswork by automating the migration to Cloud Storage with a reliable solution that is resilient against network and storage glitches.
Reference: Google Documentation