Top Reasons why Data Management with Flash Array Snapshots is Critical

We all love using great products that deliver high performance. They enrich our daily experiences by adding value in a way that is truly meaningful. But what happens when things go wrong?

Let's face it: We all have had experiences where we have accidentally broken down our high-performance smartphones, which by the way are fairly expensive. You could have dropped your smartphone in water, or accidentally sat/stood on your phone, or your child accidentally threw your phone and broke it! There is a long list of things that can really go bad with "high performance" yet expensive smartphones in such cases!

Now go back to the time when your favourite smartphone had actually broken down. How hard you wished that there was a way that could magically fix your broken smartphone? How much you prayed that your smartphone gets into a working state as quickly as possible? Unfortunately, by that time, it is too late and with no fall back option, you have to wait for days if not weeks to get your phone to a working condition again. But if you were smart enough to have a insurance plan for your phone, you could have "managed" your pain in a much better way.

Everyone knows that Flash Array snapshots deliver great performance. Infact, the Flash array market has displayed a tremendous amount of growth in the last few years and its adoption has skyrocketed in large enterprises all over the world. Enterprises love the Flash array for fast speeds and delivering great value to the performance of the applications that run on top of the flash arrays.

But what if things go wrong in your Flash array data center? Here are some of the ugly things that you wish don't happen to your Flash array (but they still invariably do!)

• What if your Flash array goes down and with it goes down the snapshots that were also on the same array?
• What if there are a lot of snapshots of your Flash array that you actually don't know which one to restore back from?
• What if you want to run analytics on your flash array snapshots from your SAP HANA application but that ends up impacting the production application?
• What happens if the flash array snapshots are not application consistent and you have to take the time consuming and resource intensive route of replaying point in times over the last crash consistent snapshot to get back to a consistent running state?
• What if QA/Analyst teams want copies of production data and they don't want to learn how to use storage snapshots at LUN level? Is there really a way for them to get these copies in a self service manner?

In these kinds of situations, you really need a solution that can not only integrate really well with the native flash array snapshots but can also leverage some of the flash array capabilities to provide you extra value. Here is a checklist that helps you understand all the pitfalls with flash array snapshots and also helps you with a way to address some of these challenges.

Actifio is a backup software vendor that helps large enterprises across the world manage their data center by protecting mission critical applications, reducing application development time, and lowering TCO. If you want to learn more about how Actifio can help you manage your enterprise datacenter, you can Request a Conversation with us and we will get back to you!