Software Defined... - The Cloud's Apprentice

This week as I researched and sifted through all of the information for my new podcast "Data Protection Gumbo", I had a thought and compared Software-Defined Enterprises and Data Centers to Fantasia - The Sorcerer's Apprentice which is an American animated film produced by Walt Disney.

Ben Cherian, Vice President of Strategic Development at InkTank said it best, “I imagine the software defined data center to be a Fantasia-like world where Mickey is the IT staff and the brooms are networking, storage, compute and security. The magic is in the coordination, cadence and rhythm of how all the pieces work together. Amazing symphonies of IT will occur in the near future and this is the reason the software defined data center is not a trend to overlook.”

As Backup & Recovery administrators, engineers, specialist and anyone responsible for protecting mission-critical data, we must be more aware of what is happening around us and change our perspective to have a more “big picture idea” to provide insight into how the world of “IT” is changing. We need to recognize the technologies that are unfolding right before our eyes. As we watch CNN or MSNBC, you now notice that more companies are cloud based and having a “digital” footprint.

How many of you have heard of the World Economic Forum (WEF)?

According to their website weforum.org The World Economic Forum is the international institution committed to improving the state of the world through public-private cooperation.

There is an annual winter meeting in Davos, Switzerland where 2,500 top business and international political leaders, selected intellectuals, and journalists convene to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world, including health and the environment. These topics are vital to technology, since IT is now actively involved in every facet of life…both professionally and personally.

You may ask, “what does this have to do with Software-Defined Anything? I say, it has a lot to do with these concepts and technologies because the business is focused on cost and cost drives business decisions. Technology changes the way businesses deliver value.

The CEO of Cisco John Chambers sat down with The Wall Street Journal to discuss the intense digital disruptions facing all companies. He said “If your CEO was [at the World Economic Forum] in Davos, I guarantee you that the No. 1 thing on his or her mind is how to make your company a digital company.”

Software Defined Enterprises are all about managing and delivering IT resources virtually, faster, and more efficiently. I believe that this technology will have a significant impact on enterprises in the next several years. The goal is about the end-user experience and IT Service Delivery.

The building blocks of a Software-Defined infrastructure are:

• Compute
• Network
• Storage
• Security

Compute or virtualization is a vital component in the Software-Defined world. It is already being used and most companies have major P2V or Physical-to-Virtual conversion projects in progress. CPU and memory are pulled from the physical hardware and resource pools are created based on workload demands. The gains are tremendous when this happens, in some cases, better performance, higher availability, and most importantly cost savings to the business.

Network or Software-Defined Networking (SDN) pulls from the software so physical and logical networks appear separate. It allows network traffic flows to be routed more efficiently based on workload and the business and application demands. Network administrators are able to sit on the throne of ITaaS and manage the network via software-based controllers therefore enhancing their capability to better design and build networks.

Storage or Software-Defined Storage (SDS) or Storage virtualization pools together multiple physical storage devices and allows provisioning and management to be done via the software. The storage hardware and software are decoupled via virtualization to manage features such as de-duplication, replication, thin provisioning, snapshots and backups.

Security will definitely play a huge role in the management and protection front of a Software-Defined enterprise. All of your components will be controlled within the software and allowed to transition between the cloud; therefore, introducing a new approach to security.

So where does Data Protection and Backup and Recovery fit into the puzzle of the Software-Defined world?

In order to backup data in the fraternity of “Software-Defined X” and move toward Data Protection as a Service, you will need to make sure your backup architecture is scalable and has several capabilities such as:

• Hypervisor integration
• Automation
• Centralized management
• Agile restore functionality

Your backup software policies should be able to automatically identify and quickly adapt to the changes made in the environment. This is where hypervisor integration steps in. If a virtual machine is migrated to another server then your backup processes should have the intelligence and automation to understand the change and adjust accordingly.

Your solution should also provide centralized management of all primary backup tasks to simplify administration and troubleshooting along with reducing the time required to manage data protection.

It should also be capable of utilizing Change Block Tracking where the hypervisor tracks all changes to the virtual machine data at the block level. Only changed blocks of data are sent to the backup application therefore reducing the time to complete backups.

You should also be able to perform several layers of restore or recovery. All data and metadata will need to be stored, tracked and managed to provide seamless restores of your virtual machines.

I recommend that a self-service portal for file level recoveries by DBA’s and Email administrators should be created to recover individual files and folders as needed. Multi-tenancy, replication, deduplication, snapshots, and encryption are also key features and functions that should be considered as well.

There is not a one-size-fits all solution. It takes research and planning up front by your team to make an informed decision that will work best for your organization.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-2-software-defined/id972448811?i=337212811&mt=2

or

https://soundcloud.com/dataprotectiongumbo/data-protection-gumbo-episode-2-software-defined-enterprises