ST1707

STOR 

MAGAZINE 

STORAGE 

The UK’s number one in IT Storage 

July/August 2017 

Vol 17, Issue 4 

STORAGE AWARDS 2017: 

All the winners 

TECHNOLOGY: 

Getting value out of NVMe 

INFORMATION LIFECYCLE 

MANAGEMENT: 

Making a comeback 

THIRD PARTY 

MAINTENANCE: 

At your service? 

INTERVIEW: 

AccelStor 

COMMENT - NEWS - NEWS ANALYSIS - CASE STUDIES - OPINION - PRODUCT REVIEWS

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The UK’s number one in IT Storage 

INTERVIEW: 

AccelStor 


Vol 17, Issue 4 

CONTENTS 

STOR 

MAGAZINE 

STORAGE 

CONTENTS 

STORAGE AWARDS 2017: 

A l the winners 

TECHNOLOGY: 

Getting value out of NVMe 

THIRD PARTY 

MAINTENANCE: 

At your service? 

INFORMATION LIFECYCLE 

MANAGEMENT: 

Making a comeback 

COMMENT - NEWS - NEWS ANALYSIS - CASE STUDIES - OPINION - PRODUCT REVIEWS 

Comment.....................................4 

ARE YOU FINISHED WITH THAT? 

CASE STUDY: TUI CRUISES...........6 

06 

ANALYSIS: STORAGE TRENDS...8 

Spectra Logic's recently published "Digital Data Storage Outlook 

2017" report provides insight into the trends, pricing and technology 

shaping the data storage industry; Storage magazine takes a 

closer look 

AT YOUR SERVICE?……..........……10 

Simon Dearlove, Major Account Director at NCE Computer 

Group, suggests some key points for any organisation considering 

using a Third Party Maintenance (TPM) provider 

08 

10 

INDUSTRY FOCUS: 

DISTRIBUTION................................12 

Tony Howard of Beta Distribution argues that sometimes it's better if 

the channel community looks outside of the usual big names when 

making buying decisions 

RESEARCH: 

USB DRIVE ENCRYPTION….....….14 

USB drives are a 'faithful companion' in our professional lives, suggests 

new research - but their security is an increasingly important 

consideration, especially in the run-up to the new EU GDPR, 

argues Christoph Bader of Kingston Technology 

STORAGE AWARDS 2017…..…..18 

Everyone's a winner - well, almost! - at the 14th annual Storage 

Awards which took place last month in London's Covent Garden 

INTERVIEW: ACCELSTOR…….....30 

Storage magazine editor David Tyler speaks to Stefan Ferrari, 

Technical Sales Director, Europe, at all-flash specialist AccelStor 

14 

ILM MAKES A COMEBACK…...…32 

EASY Software's Howard Frear believes that data archiving disciplines 

we seem to have forgotten are of huge relevance to our 

cloud world 

BE PREPARED………..................….33 

GDPR is fast approaching, warns Nigel Tozer, Solutions Marketing 

Director EMEA at Commvault 

18 

TECHNOLOGY: NVME………..……34 

NVMe is being heralded as the key to unlocking the full potential 

of all-flash storage, says Kaminario's Tom O'Neill - but there is 

more to a successful implementation than just 'forcing' NVMe 

drives into your existing enterprise 

www.storagemagazine.co.uk @STMagAndAwards July/August 2017 

^ 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

3

COMMENT 

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ARE YOU FINISHED WITH THAT? 

BY DAVID TYLER 

EDITOR 

New research from Spectra Logic (see our analysis on page 8) looks at the 'everchanging 

landscape of data storage', and as most surveys of this type are wont 

to do, it includes some sobering suggestions about growing volumes of data: 

one suggestion is that the digital universe will expand by 2020 to over 40 zettabytes. 

This kind of staggering number is nothing new in research of this kind, of course. 

What struck me though, was Spectra's view on that growth: their survey projects that 

much of this data "will never be stored or will be retained for only a brief time", 

bringing the total amount of data stored closer to 20ZB in 2026. 

The implication is that around half the data being created is not going to be kept. 

There may be very good business and societal reasons why this might be the case. 

Transactional data - information about what has been done, and when, and by whom 

- is very likely to need to be stored for legally specified periods. This is a topic we've 

covered in any number of articles from the 'golden days' of Sarbanes Oxley and the 

Enron scandal right up to next year's EU GDPR. But interestingly a key aspect of the 

GDPR is the right to be forgotten - or what has been more recently renamed the 'right 

to be erased'. 

The emphasis here is on the idea that, once a piece of customer data no longer 

needs to be kept for good business practice reasons, that customer can demand that 

the data be erased - and more importantly that it is seen to be erased, i.e. the holding 

organisation must be able to prove that it no longer holds the information. This could 

perhaps be a contributor to the suggested quantity of data that will be created but not 

kept. But is that enough to wipe over 20ZB of data from our systems? 

I suspect that at some point in the next few years there will be a conscious decision to 

'spring clean' by the organisations that currently encourage us all to create ever more 

(and ever larger) files on our mobile devices at every opportunity. The idea that every 

smartphone snap of someone's dinner, or video grab of Donald Trump's latest 

newsworthy faux-pas, will be stored forever by AWS or your ISP is frankly unsustainable 

- and so it should be, of course. But perhaps, when the time comes for us to say 'We 

don't need to keep that…' the decision will not be in the hands of the people best 

placed to decide. 

Articles published reflect the opinions 

of the authors and are not necessarily those 

of the publisher or of BTC employees. While 

every reasonable effort is made to ensure 

that the contents of articles, editorial and 

advertising are accurate no responsibility 

can be accepted by the publisher or BTC for 

errors, misrepresentations or any 

resulting effects 

4 

^ 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 


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CASE STUDY: TUI STUDY: CRUISES TUI CRUISES 

STAYING ON COURSE 

TUI CRUISES ENJOYS (FAIL-)SAFE TRAVEL THANKS TO A SOFTWARE-DEFINED 

STORAGE PLATFORM FROM DATACORE 

Early 2017 saw the launch of Mein 

Schiff 6, the newest cruise ship in the 

TUI Cruises fleet. The IT infrastructure 

for the fleet was designed on land by BSH IT 

Solutions, implemented on board within a 

very narrow time frame, and maintained at 

sea via the BSH data centres in Greven, 

Germany. DataCore's software-defined 

SANsymphony storage platform delivers 

highly available and high-performance 

storage capacity for VMware, SQL and 

Exchange, among others. 

TUI Cruises, headquartered in Hamburg, 

was founded in April 2008. The company is 

a joint venture between TUI AG from 

Hanover and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., 

the world's second-largest cruise company. 

With growth rates of more than ten percent 

annually, cruises are the fastest-growing 

market in the tourism industry. The TUI 

Cruises concept uses its own ships, which 

offer a wide range of options, high 

standards and first-class service. 

The company hopes this approach will 

finally bridge the gap between traditional 

cruise ships and club ships. In planning its 

routes, TUI Cruises prioritises diversity and 

individuality - in addition to trips to the 

western and eastern Mediterranean and 

various routes along the Canary Islands, the 

Caribbean and Central America, these 

comfortable ships also explore the Baltic 

Sea, the Nordic region, Great Britain and 

Iceland. Other travel areas include the 

Arabian Gulf, Asia, and beginning in the fall 

of 2017 also North America, departing from 

New York. 

ALL AT SEA 

"Everything works differently when you're on 

the ship," reports Niels Heider, the 

responsible Project Manager at BSH IT 

Solutions. A high level of availability and 

security are essential for IT systems at sea, 

and also pose a special challenge. Very fast 

and expensive shipyard time slots are 

needed for installation and maintenance. A 

consistent internet connection cannot 

always be guaranteed during remote 

maintenance at sea. Because of the 

monthly costs of about $50,000 for a 4- 

Mbit line, larger data transactions are not 

possible in any case. 

"Once you're at sea, the IT systems need to 

be absolutely reliable. That's why we only 

work with providers and products that we 

trust 100%. That includes DataCore and 

SANsymphony," explains Niels Heider. BSH 

IT Solutions has adapted especially well to 

these circumstances as a provider of IT 

infrastructure solutions. Seven certified 

DCIEs (DataCore Certified Implementation 

Engineers) demonstrate the company's 

correspondingly high DataCore expertise. As 

a result, the cruise company hired BSH IT 

Solutions to implement the server and 

storage infrastructure on the newly built 

Mein Schiff 3, Mein Schiff 4, Mein Schiff 5 

and Mein Schiff 6 as well as replacing the IT 

systems on the two earlier ships. 

PRECISION PLANNING 

Planning, preparation and implementation 

took about a year for each new construction 

project. Each process involved the following 

^ 

06 STORAGE July/August 2017 


www.storagemagazine.co.uk 

MAGAZINE

CASE STUDY: TUI CASE STUDY: TUI CRUISES 

"A high level of availability and security are essential for IT systems at sea, and 

also pose a special challenge. Very fast and expensive shipyard time slots are 

needed for installation and maintenance. A consistent internet connection cannot 

always be guaranteed during remote maintenance at sea." 

phases, in coordination with the complex 

overall organisation at TUI Cruises: 

1. First "staging" in Hamburg: about nine 

months before the launch, suppliers and 

service providers gathered to assemble the 

IT infrastructure components, install the 

systems and perform acceptance tests. 

2. Second "staging" in Turku: during this 

three-to-four-month phase, followed by a 

"sea trial" wherein large parts of the IT 

infrastructure were once again assembled 

and underwent as many practical tests as 

possible on the premises of the Finnish 

shipyard Meyer Turku Oy. 

3. Because of the tight timeline, the 

engineers only have a few days for final 

implementation on board. On the ship, 

systems are installed in separate fire and 

water zones, on different decks, and in the 

data centres located at the bow and stern. 

The entire IT infrastructure is designed 

redundantly, and is synchronously mirrored 

using the DataCore software. Mein Schiff 3 

is equipped with a 10-Gbit fiber channel 

infrastructure, which is redundantly 

connected to a DataCore node for each 

side with the latest version of SANsymphony, 

V10, on HP Proliant DL380 as well as an HP 

D2700 disk shelf with SAS disk capacity of 

20 TB for each side. For the more recent 

Mein Schiff 4, a Dell PowerEdge R720XD 

with a PowerVault MD1200 extension was 

chosen as a hardware platform for the 

DataCore nodes, using a similar structure. 

The storage environment is connected to 

four VMware ESXi hosts on HP or Dell 

hardware as well as two Veeam backup 

servers to back up the 50 virtual machines. 

Separately from the navigation 

infrastructure, these run all of the systems 

needed for the cruise, tourism and 

administrative operations. In particular, 

Exchange, SQL, file services and Active 

Directory play an important role here. 

Completely redundant virtual structures 

using VMware and DataCore were also 

implemented in the existing infrastructures of 

the first two cruise ships. 

For Mein Schiff 2, the solution was 

installed on an existing HP C3000 

Bladecenter with P2000 storage expansion. 

Mein Schiff 1, by contrast, is constructed 

analogously to Mein Schiff 3. This 

demanded a logistical tour de force from 

the specialists at BSH IT Solutions, since 

there was only a ten-day window available 

at the shipyard to replace all of the 

hardware, implement the software 

components and migrate the data. 

CAPACITY, PERFORMANCE & 

FUNCTIONALITY 

DataCore SANsymphony synchronously 

mirrors data, regardless of the 

manufacturer, model or technology of the 

connected storage hardware (disk, SSD), in 

order to ensure a high level of availability 

for systems on the ships. New and existing 

storage hardware can be easily integrated, 

and its lifespan is extended. If a section of a 

data centre fails, the other side 

automatically takes over (transparent auto 

failover) and resyncs the system when it is 

restarted (auto failback). 

In fact, one of the ships did experience a 

hardware-related failure in a section of the 

data centre, but thanks to the DataCore 

technology, there were no consequences. The 

DataCore nodes resynced afterward. "We 

didn't notice the DataCore failover and 

failback until that point, but the safety 

mechanisms had already kicked in early on 

and protected the customer from any 

downtime, data loss or noticeable 

performance slowdowns. The DataCore 

software proved that it is 100% worthy of our 

trust and that of the customer," comments 

Project Manager Niels Heider. 

SANsymphony also offers additional fully 

developed storage services that can be used 

for data management and backup. Wellengineered 

caching technology optimises 

the performance of the underlying 

hardware, which means no SSDs are 

needed at this point. Together with the 

integrated auto tiering, however, even better 

performance can be achieved in the future if 

needed. The experts from BSH IT Solutions 

believe it is too risky to use thin provisioning 

on a ship. Like auto tiering, snapshots and 

continuous data protection (CDP) are 

already in place to back up important 

systems if necessary. 

"DataCore's scalability in terms of capacity, 

performance and functionality gives us the 

flexibility we need to respond to further 

challenges, whether it is on the ships or for 

the entire fleet", concluded Matthias 

Fahrnar, TUI Cruises' Director, IT 

Competence Center & Strategy. "In addition, 

SANsymphony has demonstrated its 

absolute reliability. We plan to keep 

expanding our "Mein Schiff" fleet, and we 

will continue to rely on BSH IT Solutions and 

SANsymphony." 

More info: www.datacore.com 




^ 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

07

ANALYSIS: 

ANALYSIS: STORAGE TRENDS 

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE 

SPECTRA LOGIC'S RECENTLY PUBLISHED "DIGITAL DATA STORAGE OUTLOOK 2017" REPORT PROVIDES 

INSIGHT FOR STORAGE AND MEDIA MANUFACTURERS, APPLICATION DEVELOPERS AND ENTERPRISE 

STORAGE CUSTOMERS INTO THE TRENDS, PRICING AND TECHNOLOGY SHAPING THE DATA STORAGE 

INDUSTRY; STORAGE MAGAZINE TAKES A CLOSER LOOK 

of large IT shops and cloud providers. 

Storage industry experts have 

predicted that the digital universe 

could grow to more than 40 

zettabytes of data in 2020. Spectra's 

"Digital Data Storage Outlook 2017" 

projects that much of this data will never 

be stored or will be retained for only a 

brief time, bringing the total amount of 

data stored closer to 20ZB in 2026. 

Backed by Spectra's nearly 40 years in 

data storage, the report explores how 

enterprise flash will displace two-and-halfinch 

15,000 RPM magnetic disk, and why 

existing technologies like tape will have 

the most significant impact on the storage 

digital universe through 2026, among 

other conclusions. 

"The world's repository of data is 

growing more rapidly than we could have 

imagined. At the same time, 

organisations are more reliant than ever 

on digital assets, and must protect and 

preserve access to this data forever," said 

Spectra Logic CEO Nathan Thompson. 

"This is a unique time for the data storage 

industry, and we are proud to take a 

leadership role in helping the industry 

anticipate the trends, tiers and 

technologies of the future." 

The report looks at the ever-changing 

landscape of data storage, covering all 

aspects of the industry including: 

Solid State Flash Storage - NAND flash 

is the fasting growing technology in the 

storage market. The demand for this 

technology will increase year over year 

through 2020, due to increased 

investment by all major flash vendors, and 

technical advancements allowing for more 

capacity and less cost per piece. 

Disk Storage - The flash storage medium 

poses numerous threats to the magnetic 

disk drive industry that will affect disk's 

market share. This threat includes the 

displacement of disk drives by flash drives 

in laptops and desktops, and the removal 

of disk drives in home gaming devices 

and digital video recorders. Spectra Logic 

estimates that by 2020, the disk industry 

will service a focused market, comprised 

Tape Storage - The backbone of the 

industry for more than 40 years, tape 

drive technology continues to consolidate. 

Having the greatest potential for capacity 

improvements, tape technology fills a 

market need as an inexpensive storage 

medium, at $.01 per gigabyte, the 

Spectra Logic report points out that a 

long-term scenario for tape is to coexist 

with flash technology. The report also 

details tape's connection to the cloud, 

projecting that cloud providers will mostly 

adopt LTO (Linear Tape-Open), the most 

common tape technology. A new tape 

head technology, called TMR (tunneling 

magnetoresistance) will significantly boost 

tape capacities and speeds for years to 

come. Moreover, these tape technologies 

will integrate well with cloud strategies in 

disaster recovery plans. 

Optical Disc Storage - The optical disc 

storage market will see a downward spike 

in 2017, yet may be an option for 

customers that have definitive long-term 

archival requirements. The report 

attributed the downward trend to its high 

cost, with this option being about 10 

times more expensive than tape. The 

whitepaper reviews ways to archive at a 

more competitive price, but all the factors 

make optical an uphill battle. 

To download the complete "Digital Data 

Storage Outlook 2017" report and view 

the accompanying infographic and 

podcast, visit 

https://www.spectralogic.com/digitaldata-storage-outlook-2017/ 

More info: www.spectralogic.com 

^ 




MAGAZINE

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STRATEGY: 

STRATEGY: THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE 

AT YOUR SERVICE? 

SIMON DEARLOVE, MAJOR ACCOUNT DIRECTOR AT NCE COMPUTER GROUP, SUGGESTS SOME 

KEY POINTS FOR ANY ORGANISATION CONSIDERING USING A THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE 

(TPM) PROVIDER 

With the ever-increasing demand to 

make constrained IT budgets stretch 

further and still maintain 

comprehensive and robust services, reducing 

expenditure has become a vital strategy. That 

said, ensuring interruptions to service are kept 

to a minimum is essential and that presents a 

challenge for most IT managers and IT 

directors. 

The lifecycle option to refresh hardware every 

three to five years is no longer the simple 

choice it used to be, and with most vendors 

support pricing escalating dramatically for 

continuing hardware support past its End of Life 

(EOL), this raises the question of what 

alternative options are available. 

The current economic climate has seen a 

significant increase in the use of Third Party 

Maintenance (TPM) providers who offer 

extended support solutions at a greatly reduced 

rate compared with the vendor. But how do 

you decide which TPM to depend upon to 

deliver the level of service you require? What 

assurances can you obtain until the moment 

you need to put their services to the test? The 

following are a few key points to consider when 

selecting a reputable and reliable TPM. 

Contract Flexibility - Most TPMs will offer 

support services on short, medium or 

long-term contracts with simplified and 

flexible billing options across a range of 

service level agreements (SLAs). Having 

flexibility in your contract will ensure that 

you can select the best option for your 

business, dependent on your economic 

constraints. Other benefits could include 

the ability to pro-rata and co-terminate 

multiple support contracts into a master 

contract for a simplified contract 

management process. This process 

prevents accidental lapses in service when 

renewing support contracts with varying 

end dates. 

No Time Limit - A TPM has no predefined 

rules as to when support for a system will 

cease to be available. The likely 

determining factor will be the availability 

and expense of replacement parts, which 

will still be available for many years after 

the vendor has stopped support. Having 

the option and ability to maximise the 

potential life from your hardware, brings 

additional benefits including lowering the 

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and 

providing the option to redirect allocated 

capital expenditure elsewhere. 

Multi-Vendor Support - Having a single 

point of contact when you have a service 

issue can greatly simplify the process of 

receiving quick and efficient support 

when required. This is especially true if 

you have a multi-vendor IT environment 

with interconnected systems from various 

vendors running critical applications. 

Having a master contract in place 

^ 




MAGAZINE

STRATEGY: 

STRATEGY: THIRD PARTY MAINTENANCE 

"The lifecycle option to refresh hardware every three to five years is no longer 

the simple choice it used to be, and with most vendors support pricing 

escalating dramatically for continuing hardware support past its End of Life 

(EOL), this raises the question of what alternative options are available." 

provides an easy and manageable 

process and ensures the smooth running 

of your business. 

Dedicated Engineers - The ability to 

provide engineering capability without 

outsourcing, while delivering 

engineering continuity and control 

quality of service (QoS) is an area that 

most vendors find difficult to match. TPM 

engineers who are familiar with their 

customers' IT environments and systems 

may be able to determine where an 

actual fault lies and resolve the fault 

significantly faster. Even the simplest of 

things - for instance, knowing where a 

system is located within a data centre, or 

that a TPM engineer is already 

registered with site security - can save 

you significant time and expedite the 

fault resolution process. 

Billing Options - Probably one of the 

most contentious areas for the customer 

and the supplier is billing. Many 

customers will have value for money high 

on their agenda followed by accessing 

ongoing operational risk and service 

delivery. The supplier, however, wants to 

deliver a service that is financially viable 

to them and one of the easiest ways to 

do this is with a flexible billing program. 

A TPM provider should work with the 

customer to provide numerous options 

that allows for operational expenditure to 

remain in the business for the longest 

period possible. 

With many IT departments having to 

provide a greater range of services while 

dealing with reduced resources and smaller 

budgets, securing the maximum value from 

any third-party solutions provider is essential. 

The priority for many IT managers today 

is to obtain the correct level of service at 

the most competitive price. That said, it is 

just as important to have these services in 

place as quickly as possible, as the most 

expensive and valuable resource today 

is time. 

NCE Computer Group is an award-winning 

Tier-1 ISO 9001:2008/ISO 

14001:2004/ISO 27001:2013 certified 

Independent Service Organisation. Since 

1981 NCE has been providing quality thirdparty 

data centre maintenance and repair 

of storage, servers and networking 

equipment. NCE's portfolio of services 

includes: supply chain (screen/test/repair), 

multi-vendor service (MVS), IT Asset 

Disposition (ITAD), parts sales, and 

engineering and project services. 

More info: www.nceeurope.com 




^ 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

11

INDUSTRY FOCUS: DISTRIBUTION FOCUS: 

BIGGER ISN'T ALWAYS 

BETTER 

TONY HOWARD, ENTERPRISE STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS 

MANAGER AT BETA DISTRIBUTION, ARGUES THAT SOMETIMES IT'S 

BETTER IF THE CHANNEL COMMUNITY LOOKS OUTSIDE OF THE 

USUAL BIG NAMES WHEN MAKING BUYING DECISIONS 

Everyone is familiar with tier one 

brands: household names, worldwide 

organisations, thousands of 

employees and constantly in the news. They 

are the only credible server manufacturers, 

or so they would have you believe. As the 

old saying goes, 'Nobody was ever sacked 

for buying IBM'. 

But for those companies trying to earn a 

living in the server market, the big brand 

badge does have some significant 

drawbacks, namely over-distribution and no 

margin in the channel. 

Any distribution business trying to become 

a credible supplier to the resellers, VARs and 

MSPs has a real challenge. Firstly, the tier 

ones probably aren't going to be interested 

in any more distribution outlets for their 

products and secondly, convincing the 

channel to take a perceived risk on a non 

first tier brand, is a challenging prospect - as 

per the IBM quote. 

However, it's worth the channel looking a 

little deeper, and if they do they could 

discover that the adage 'It can be any 

brand, as long as it's HP', doesn't have to 

apply. Let me describe one company to you; 

far from a household brand, but 

outperforming many of its more famous 

rivals, and by some distance: Inspur 

Systems, located in Fremont, CA, is part of 

Inspur Group, a leading Cloud Computing 

and global IT Solutions Provider. 

'Well I've not heard of them', I hear you say. 

Read on. Founded in 1945, Inspur's four 

business groups - Cloud Data Centre, Cloud 

Service and Big Data, Software and 

Integration, Enterprise Software - provide IT 

products and services for over 108 countries 

in the world. Inspur is ranked by Gartner as 

the Top 5 largest server manufacturer in the 

world and No.1 in China. 

Still not impressed? Inspur provides data 

centre servers and storage solutions which 

are tier one quality and performance, energy 

efficient, cost effective and built specific to 

actual workloads and data centre 

environments. Inspur is the majority server 

vendor for Alibaba and Baidu worldwide 

data centres. The Rack Scale server platform, 

the Inspur Rack Scale Server SR 4.5, is the 

best choice for hyperscale data centre and 

cloud deployments. As a leading solutions 

and services provider, Inspur is capable of 

providing total solutions at IaaS, PaaS and 

SaaS level with high-end servers, mass 

storage systems, cloud operating system and 

information security technology. 

Oh, and they're quite big too: 26,000 

employees worldwide, over US$10 Billion 

revenue in fiscal 2016, as well as being the 

number one brand in China for software, 

server and cloud solutions. 

The badge may not have the shine of some 

of the leading brand names, but that's the 

only potential negative. They use the same 

high quality components as the tier one 

brands; their products and solutions are 

proven worldwide, and from a channel 

perspective they're certainly not overdistributed, 

so there's a chance for the 

channel to make some margin. 

In any 'lights out' environment the user is 

looking for a best fit product, with the best 

price/performance, and Inspur fits that 

bill. It's perhaps not surprising then that 

this is the only server vendor in the world 

who is growing. 

Inspur had no presence in the channel - 

until now. They have appointed Beta 

Distribution their first channel distribution 

partner, exclusive in the UK. With offices 

across the UK, Beta provides a 

comprehensive range of services to support 

the MSP and VAR. Focused entirely around 

'disruptive technologies', Inspur is a prime 

example of how Beta have approached 

building their portfolio: identify the need 

and then go and find an alternative 

solution, one that is best in class but 

without the drawbacks associated with 

many of the tier ones. 

Nobody probably ever did get sacked for 

buying IBM, but neither did they for 

providing their company a tier one quality 

and performance, energy efficient solution, 

built specific to actual workloads and data 

centre environments, and all at a lower cost. 

More info: www.betadistribution.com 

^ 




MAGAZINE

RESEARCH: 

RESEARCH: USB DRIVE ENCRYPTION 

HOW TO PROTECT 'DATA 

ON THE GO' 

USB DRIVES ARE A 'FAITHFUL COMPANION' IN OUR PROFESSIONAL 

LIVES, SUGGESTS NEW RESEARCH - BUT THEIR SECURITY IS AN 

INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION, ESPECIALLY IN THE 

RUN-UP TO THE NEW EU GDPR, ARGUES CHRISTOPH BADER, 

STRATEGIC MARKETING MANAGER B2B EMEA FOR KINGSTON 

TECHNOLOGY 

It is an everyday scenario: an employee 

downloads data from a work PC onto a 

USB-drive, perhaps for a back-up, to work 

from home, or to give a presentation. The 

employee leaves the office and on the way 

home the USB slips out of their pocket. The 

data on the drive is not encrypted and is 

accessible to anyone who plugs the drive into 

a computer - which a recent survey found that 

almost half of us do upon stumbling across a 

USB. In a best-case scenario losing a USB 

drive is just an annoyance. Lose a USB with 

confidential or personal data however and it's 

a different story. 

On 24th May 2018 the current data 

protection legislation from 1995 will be fully 

replaced by the EU General Data Protection 

Regulation (EU GDPR). The EU GDPR aims to 

strengthen the protection of personal data for 

EU citizens, e.g. through the 'right to be 

forgotten', and future-proofing data protection 

legislation in the EU. It is also an attempt to 

unify the different national legislations which 

can be confusing in their overlaps and 

differences. This means that organisations will 

have to take extra steps to avoid any kind of 

data leaks, loss and theft. The fines for 

personal data such as names, date of birth, 

bank details or medical records being leaked 

can add up to 4% of the global revenue of 

an organisation, or 20 million euros 

(whichever is higher). 

Additionally, the individuals concerned as well 

as a supervisory authority will have to be 

notified if personal data has been 

compromised. This means that a data breach - 

on top of the direct costs like fines, legal fees, 

etc. - will also automatically generate indirect 

costs such as negative publicity, loss of 

customer trust and ultimately business. Hence 

organisations should start reviewing and 

checking their internal IT processes and 

policies now and modify them accordingly. 

POCKET FULL OF TROUBLE 

One of the most neglected risks is often simply 

not encrypting company USB drives. You may 

think that the use of USB drives is on the 

decline. However, a recent survey 

commissioned by Kingston Technology on the 

use of USB drives has shown that about 66% 

of participants use more than one USB drive 

for job purposes. Of these users, alarmingly 

38% reported that one or more drives had 

disappeared while in company use (24% out 

of these were reported lost, 4% reported stolen 

and in 72% it was unclear what happened to 

the drive). Another worrying result is that 

almost half of the surveyed employees said 

that they mix personal and job data on their 

USB drives. 

Other questions showed that in about a fifth 

of the company's surveyed, employees save 

sensitive data on USB drives. Yet, 86% 

reported that they do not use hardware-based 

encrypted USBs for these. The conclusion can 

be drawn that carelessness of organisations 

and employees when dealing with USB drives 

is a substantial risk for companies. Obviously, 

improving network or cyber security is an 

ongoing major task for IT departments, as 

hacking or ransomware attacks are an 

increasingly prevalent issue. But in a more and 

more mobile world where employees 

frequently work from home or in a BYOD 

environment, companies will need to better 

address security concerns that come along with 

'data on the go'. 

FIVE STEP PLAN 

In order to become compliant with the EU 

GDPR in regard to mobile data, we 

recommend that organisations consider the 

following five steps. 

^ 




MAGAZINE

RESEARCH: 


First and foremost, it is crucial that 

organisations understand the new regulation 

and its implications. Secondly, they need to 

assess which personal and sensitive data the 

organisation processes, who has access to 

them and which data leaves the organisation. 

Once there is an understanding of this, the 

third step should be to define a strategy for the 

data as well as policies on who gets access to 

which data and on which medium. 

The next step refers to the technology being 

used. And this is where encrypted USB drives 

come in. EU GDPR does not dictate which 

technology to use in order to protect personal 

data, but it does mention encryption as an 

option to be considered. Encrypted USBs are 

often the most sensible, cost-effective option 

for protecting 'data on the go'. 

Lastly, organisations need to ensure that users 

are aware of the new legislation and that best 

practice data protection policies are followed 

and the appropriate technology is used. At this 




^ 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

15

RESEARCH: 


"The encryption of personal data does not have to be complicated, as an 

encrypted USB drive automatically carries it out in the background. Users are 

only confronted with the encryption when they insert a drive into a computer 

and have to enter a password. There's no technical knowledge required which 

makes such this solution very easy to implement and use. This is crucial, as 

needlessly complex solutions increase the risk of employees not using them." 

complicated, as an encrypted USB drive 

automatically carries it out in the background. 

Users are only confronted with the encryption 

when they insert a drive into a computer and 

have to enter a password. There's no technical 

knowledge required which makes such this 

solution very easy to implement and use. This 

is crucial, as needlessly complex solutions 

increase the risk of employees not using them. 

stage it is also important to remember that 

this not only applies to data that you need 

to protect from a legal point of view, but 

also to sensitive data that you want to 

protect from a business point of view. 

BUILDING BETTER USB DRIVES 

To help make sure that organisations 

comply with the EU GDPR, Kingston 

Technology offers affordable businessgrade 

encrypted (DTVP 3.0), high-security 

(DT4000 G2) as well as keypad USBdrives 

(DT2000). Additionally, Kingston 

uses the recently acquired IronKey product 

line to deliver FIPS 140-2 Level 3 

certification solutions for organisations 

which need the highest level of encryption 

and security. 

Furthermore, Kingston's software partner 

DataLocker Inc. offers the SafeConsole and 

Enterprise Management Services (EMS) 

platforms that both Kingston and IronKey 

managed encrypted drives utilise. Both enable 

IT administrators to centrally manage 

encrypted USB drives to meet compliance 

requirements and provide a higher level of 

support. Features include setting passwords 

remotely, configuring password and device 

policies, activating audit for compliance, 

remote killing a drive and more. 

STATE OF THE ART 

As already mentioned, the encryption of 

personal data is currently one of the state-ofthe-art 

ways to be safe. The encryption of 

personal data does not have to be 

Organisations invest heavily in protecting 

data inside their network, but data beyond a 

company's firewall is equally important. Due to 

the new regulation and its impact on 

organisations' finances, security and data 

protection are expected to become more of a 

topic for senior management and 

boardrooms. Currently, the encryption of 

personal and other sensitive data is more a 

topic for IT departments and IT security 

managers. The potential fines and impact on 

the reputation of a company will ensure an 

increase in the overall awareness for the topic 

within organisations. 

By investing in 256-bit AES hardware-based 

encrypted USB drives organisations can get a 

small but important item ticked off their GDPR 

to-do list. This may be unfamiliar territory for 

some organisations but at Kingston 

Technology we are confident that they can 

support organisations in meeting their GDPR 

requirements and ensuring a smooth 

transition from one data protection legislation 

to another. 

More info: www.kingston.com 

^ 




MAGAZINE

Simple, Powerful, Affordable 

Scale-Out NAS 

The Exablox product is an innovative pay-as-you-grow object-based scale-out NAS storage solution. 

Manage and protect data with enterprise features such as inline deduplication, compression, 

continuous snapshots, encryption and off-site replication. 

See a demo 

http://bit.ly/2srnXmf 

StorageCraft is a registered trademark of StorageCraft Technology Corporation. 

All other brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

STORAGE AWARDS AWARDS 

WINNING BIG 

EVERYONE'S A WINNER - WELL, ALMOST! - AT THE 14TH ANNUAL STORAGE AWARDS WHICH TOOK 

PLACE LAST MONTH IN LONDON'S COVENT GARDEN 

The fourteenth annual Storage Awards took 

place in London's glitzy Grand Connaught 

Rooms in June and as ever it was the 

industry's big night out, with companies old 

and new, large and small mixing in an 

atmosphere of unrivalled conviviality to 

One to Watch - Product 

celebrate winning their coveted trophies. Big 

winners this year included Company of the 

Year Oracle and Hall of Fame inductee 

(only the second firm to win this honour) 

Seagate. The full list of winners and runnersup 

is below. 

WINNER: StorPool - StorPool 

Congratulations once again to all of this 

year's winners and runners-up, and a big 

'thank you' to everyone involved - from our 

sponsors to all those who took the time to vote 

online - for making it such a great night! 

www.storage-awards.com 

Winning the 'One to Watch' Award is yet another proof of how disruptive StorPool's softwaredefined 

storage solution is. We set out to transform the legacy storage industry and make storing 

data faster, better and much cheaper. Now we are successfully delivering on this mission for 

companies worldwide. 

We are recognised for helping companies build public and private clouds and achieve 

measurable business results. We change the economics of building a cloud by delivering all flash 

speeds, at a fraction of the cost of other alternatives. 

Thank you for the recognition and do contact us to explore how you can benefit. 

One to Watch - Vendor 

WINNER: Exablox 

Storage Marketing team of the Year 

WINNER: Tintri 

In January 2017, StorageCraft Technology Corp. acquired the mid-market scale-out storage 

solution Exablox. By adding Exablox's converged mid-market storage technology, StorageCraft 

goes from being a leader in business continuity to also being a leader in the data management 

market. The Exablox product is an innovative pay-as-you-grow, object-based scale-out NAS 

storage solution including enterprise features such as inline deduplication, compression, 

continuous snapshots, encryption and off-site replication. Exablox winning the "One to Watch - 

Vendor" award at the 2017 Storage Awards in London underscores the market's validation of the 

Exablox infinite scale-out storage solution. 

Tintri offers an enterprise cloud infrastructure built on a public-cloud like web services architecture 

and RESTful APIs. Organisations use Tintri all-flash storage with scale-out and automation as a 

foundation for their own clouds - to build agile development environments for cloud native 

applications and to run mission critical enterprise applications. Tintri enables users to guarantee 

the performance of their applications, automate common IT tasks to reduce operating expenses, 

troubleshoot across their infrastructure, and predict an organisation's needs to scale - the 

underpinnings of a modern data centre. 

Contribution to the Storage Industry 

WINNER: Beta Distribution - Steve Soper 

"It's very flattering to win, particularly as the result was decided by votes from people in 

the industry, plus the fact that the Storage Awards are recognised as one of the 

industry's leading competitions. Clearly winning this award is also recognition that we 

have made very significant progress in becoming a credible storage products and 

solutions provider. 

"As a business, we do have a very clear vision on how we want to develop our storage 

proposition. We know we still have many more things to do but winning this award is 

confirmation that we're on the right track." 

^ 




MAGAZINE

STORAGE STORAGE AWARDS 

Channel Excellence Award 

WINNER: Hammer - Nick Powling 

Nick Powling, Hammer's General Manager for components, has won this year's Channel Excellence 

Award. A worthy winner! Nick has a proven track record in business development within diverse 

channel sales environments and markets. Having begun his channel career with Seagate, Nick 

joined Hammer in 2004 and held various business development roles before being appointed to 

his current post in 2014. "I'm delighted to have won," he said, "but this is really an award for my 

team and testament to all at Hammer because it shows the depth of our reach and the regard in 

which Hammer is held within the channel." Hammer celebrated its 25th anniversary last year and, 

following its recent acquisition by Exertis, continues to operate as an independent storage and server 

distributor. "Our business is growing and the value we add to our customers' offering is constantly improving, so awards such as this help underline 

that success. We are all thrilled to have won." 

GDPR Ready Company of the Year 

WINNER: Easy Software 

EASY came top in the 'GDPR Ready' category at the 2017 Storage Awards with its GDPR solution 

otris privacy from sister EASY company, otris software AG. Otris privacy is a support tool for helping 

organisations get ready for GDPR, offering proof of process and a way to show auditors what’s 

being achieved, says the company. The software helps properly document and project manage 

GDPR preparedness on many fronts, from collecting data from data stakeholders to producing a 

snapshot of results and helping data compliance officers build a traffic light system of green 

(compliant), amber (questions to settle) and red (at risk on GDPR). 

Ransomware Protection Company of the Year 

WINNER: Zerto 

With Zerto Virtual Replication systems are protected from ransomware with Continuous Data 

Protection in the form of incremental block-level replication, which gives the ability to: 

- Re-wind sites, applications, VM's and now with v4.5 individual files to any point-of-time within up 

to 14 days to within a matter of seconds. 

- Recover all critical systems and applications with consistency in the space of a few minutes with 

only a few clicks of the button – Click Failover -> Select Apps -> Verify -> Start Failover. 

- Test recovery data in an isolated bubble network to ensure that the recovery point selected is free 

from any form of infection before committing the failover. 

Storage Innovators of the Year 

WINNER: Kaminario 

Kaminario, a leading all-flash storage company, is redefining the future of modern data centres. 

Our unique solution enables organisations to succeed in today's on-demand world and prepares 

them to seamlessly handle tomorrow's innovations. Only the Kaminario K2 all-flash array delivers 

the agility, scalability, performance and economics a data centre requires to deal with today's cloudfirst, 

dynamic world and provide real-time data access — anywhere, anytime. Hundreds of 

customers rely on Kaminario K2 to power their mission critical applications and safeguard their 

digital ecosystem. 


@STMagAndAwards July/August 2017 

^ 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

19


Data Protection for the Virtual Environment Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: Unitrends 

Unitrends launches V10 Recovery Series Backup appliances and Backup virtual appliances 

NEW SLA Policy Automation 

Automate all protection in a single step based on your recovery objectives. 

Know the impact of an outage before it ever happens 

NEW Automated Provisioning 

Save money on production storage with instant access to dev and test environments directly 

from your backup. 

Unitrends has also added full support of Microsoft Hyper-V 2016, integrated recovery 

automation and analytics, and more. 

www.unitrends.com 

Data Protection for the Enterprise Environment Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: Arcserve 

Once synonymous with legendary tape backup software, we've since been hard at work, learned 

some new tricks, and reinvented the industry. Today, we’re a leading provider of next-generation 

data protection solutions. 

As the first all-in-one solution for cloud, virtual, and physical environments, we not only continue 

to expand our data protection technology solutions, we are building a name for ourselves as 

both a pioneer and leader in the data backup and recovery space. Our solutions are used by 

45,000 end users in more than 150 countries through 7,500 distributors, resellers, and service 

providers around the world. 

Virtualisation Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: DataCore 

We think differently. We innovate through software and challenge the IT status quo. We 

pioneered software-based storage virtualisation. 

DataCore parallel I/O and virtualisation technologies deliver the advantages of next generation 

enterprise data centers – today – by harnessing the untapped power of multicore servers. 

DataCore software solutions revolutionise performance, cost-savings, and productivity gains 

businesses can achieve from their servers and data storage. 

Storage Monitoring & Reporting Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: Virtual Instruments 

Virtual Instruments delivers the industry's only analytics platform for Infrastructure Performance 

Management. The VirtualWisdom and Load DynamiX Enterprise platforms provide 

unparalleled, real-time visibility into the performance, health, and utilisation of the IT 

infrastructure – empowering customers to guarantee the performance and availability of their 

mission critical applications across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments. 

Leading Global 2000 companies and government entities trust Virtual Instruments to 

dramatically increase performance and availability across their enterprise while simultaneously 

eliminating the risks of application downtime. 

^ 




MAGAZINE

SPECIALIST STORAGE RESELLER 

OF THE YEAR 2017 

We have won this award for the second consecutive year, if that’s not 

a reason to talk to us, then we can tell you some more: 

Experts at Virtualisation 

and VDI 

4 

2 

Fastest growing 

Nutanix partner 

1 

Fastest growing Next-Gen 

Storage Reseller in the UK 

3 

Storage Reseller of 

the Year 2016 

5 

Fastest growing 

Arcserve partner 

SPEAK TO US TO DAY: 

Call 03333 111 001 or email 

sales@epaton.co.uk


Emerging Market: Object Storage Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: Scality 

More users of digital business applications store data on Scality than any other storage vendor. 

Our customers are seizing the new opportunities of on-demand content, cloud applications, and 

other digital business services with the help of Scality. 

Today's digital economy demands a disruptive approach to infrastructure. Scality delivers webscale 

storage that has powered digital businesses since 2009. The Scality RING, our softwaredefined 

storage, turns commodity x86 servers into an unlimited storage pool for any type of data 

– file and object – at petabyte scale. 

Emerging Market: Hyper-convergence Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: DataCore 

We think differently. We innovate through software and challenge the IT status quo. We 

pioneered software-based storage virtualisation. 

DataCore parallel I/O and virtualisation technologies deliver the advantages of next generation 

enterprise data centers – today – by harnessing the untapped power of multicore servers. 

DataCore software solutions revolutionise performance, cost-savings, and productivity gains 

businesses can achieve from their servers and data storage. 

Entry Level Hybrid Storage Product of the Year 

WINNER: Boston - Igloo Plus Flash 

Our multi-award winning range of Igloo Storage servers offer fault-tolerant storage that ensure 

maximum uptime, industry leading performance and value for money with no expense spared in 

terms of integrity, availability and security of your data. They have been designed from the ground 

up to meet the ever increasing demands of today's data centre, while helping to eliminate the 

complexities traditionally associated with storage implementation. 

Featuring the latest storage technologies and offering both all flash and hybrid, tiered 

configurations, the Igloo range delivers both a performance and value proposition to the data 

centre and IT manager's ever changing challenges. 

Enterprise Hybrid Storage Product of the Year 

WINNER: Cloudian - HyperStore 

"We were already honoured that, after last year's Cloud Product of the Year Award recognition, 

the jury decided to nominate us again. Winning the Enterprise Hybrid Storage category by 

public votes really means a lot. Thank you! 

"This award is a great validation that the market for S3 object storage is booming, and that 

our strategy - to deliver a 100% S3 compatible cloud storage system with seamless connection 

to the main public cloud vendors - is paying off." 

- Jacco van Achterberg, Cloudian 

^ 




MAGAZINE

You 

cannot 

keep up 

with data 

explosion. 

Manage data 

expansion with SUSE 

Enterprise Storage. 

SUSE Enterprise Storage, the 

leading open source storage 

solution, is highly scalable and 

resilient, enabling high-end 

functionality at a fraction of 

the cost. 

suse.com/storage 

Data


Entry Level Flash/SSD Storage Product of the Year 

WINNER: Tintri - T5040 

The Tintri VMstore T5000 All-Flash series is the first all-flash VM-aware storage to offer up to 

308TB for 5,000 virtual machines (VM) in two rack units. High density 3D NAND drives and 

multiple capacities with expansion options gives you the ultimate flexibility in performance, 

capacity and price. Enabled by the Tintri scale-out platform, you can grow from a single two rack 

unit 17 TB all-flash system to 10 PB of all-flash. Tintri's VM-aware storage delivers performance 

isolation and per-VM quality of service while guaranteeing high performance and low latency 

across the entire flash capacity. The T5000 series enables all storage action at the VM-level — 

manage, replicate, automate and analyse any (or every) VM to keep storage simple. 

Enterprise Flash/SSD Storage Product of the Year 

WINNER: Kaminario - K2 Gen 6 AFA 

Kaminario's 6th generation all-flash platform delivers industry leading performance, scalability, 

innovation and cost efficiency backed by the most comprehensive business assurance program in 

the storage industry. 

Leveraging the latest innovation in hardware and building on the industry's only true flexible 

scale-up and scale-out shared architecture, the K2 Gen6 all-flash storage once again challenges 

the status quo for Enterprise Storage. Distinctive enhancements in K2 hardware and software 

compression technologies provide 25% more data reduction efficiencies. Making $0.50/GB at 

scale a reality. 

Cloud Enabler of the Year 

WINNER: Overland Tandberg 

We are delighted to have won the Storage Award for Cloud Enablement. At a time when we are 

constantly reminded about the challenges around security and data privacy it's very rewarding to 

see Overland Tandberg being recognised as a leader in Cloud storage solutions. We have 

focused very closely on ensuring that our partners understand the limitations and advantages of 

migrating storage to the Cloud and our aim is to ensure, that by using Overland Tandberg 

solutions, our channel partners and their customers succeed in their data protection and 

infrastructure goals. 

Emerging Market: Software Defined Storage (SDS) Vendor of the Year 

WINNER: Compuverde 

"We are very delighted and pleased to win, particularly as the result was decided by votes from 

people in the industry and that it was more votes than ever this year. Winning this award shows 

that the market and our partners and customers recognise the passion and work we put into the 

company and product. We are becoming a credible storage products and solutions provider in 

the SDS market." 

- Carl-Henric Möllerström, Compuverde 

^ 




MAGAZINE

Dont be 

held to 

Ransom 

Are you fully protected 

against Ransomware? 

Is your business and personal data 

secure? Are you fully protected against 

ransomware and other forms of cyber 

attacks? If you haven’t suffered a cyber 

attack then you should consider 

yourself lucky. Investing in improved 

security systems will help to reduce the 

risk, but it will never elimitate the risk. 

Businesses need to ensure that all data 

is fully protected and backup processes 

are robust. 

Implement a simple but highly effective 3-2-1 backup 

policy to fully protect your business against 

ransomware and other forms of cyber attacks: 

• Retain a minimum of three backup copies 

• Stored on two different media cartridges 

• Store one backup copy off-site 

Overland Tandberg is a leading provider of data protection solutions 

to small, medium and large businesses. Organisations can eliminate 

the risk of data loss and reduce the risk of damage to the business 

by implementing a 3-2-1 backup policy when combined with a 

choice of backup technologies, RDX, LTO or NAS products 

@BetaDist 

Search 



020 7531 2812 | ITSTeam@betadistribution.com | www.betadistribution.com 



Storage Efficiency & Optimisation Product of the Year 

WINNER: Exagrid - EX Series 

The ExaGrid disk backup with deduplication system is the only solution purpose-built for backup 

that leverages a unique architecture optimised for scalability, performance and price. 

- The fastest and shortest backup windows with optimal recovery point at the disaster recovery site 

- Instant VM Recovery (with Veeam) 

- No obsolescence of previous model systems as data grows 

Any ExaGrid appliance can be mixed and matched in the same scale-out GRID with any other 

size or age appliance - buy what you need as you need it. Up to 25 appliances can be combined 

in a single GRID, and the largest GRID can take in up to a 1PB full backup. 

Channel Partner Program of the Year 

WINNER: Barracuda Networks 

Barracuda values our partnerships of all types. We have built programs to go to 

market with the best companies in the industry. As a global leader in security and storage IT 

solutions, Barracuda is committed to helping you meet customer needs by delivering a powerful, 

easy-to-use and affordable product portfolio designed to simplify the lives of IT professionals. The 

Barracuda Reseller Program encompasses a number of rich program offerings, benefits and 

services to help our partners enhance their businesses. We're always looking to grow with channel 

partners committed to providing customers with world-class products, service and support. 

Storage Solution of the Year 

WINNER: TalkSPORT - Arcserve, CMS & NCE 

NCE works closely with customers to bring together solutions that combine best of breed 

technology, and this Award results from a close collaboration between TalkSPORT, NCE, CMS 

Distribution and Arcserve with their industry leading Unified Data Protection (UDP) software at the 

heart of the solution. As a Premium Partner of Arcserve, NCE designed a solution that combined 

the technical strengths of UDP with the commercial requirements of the project; providing the 

scalability and flexibility required by talkSPORT, the world's largest sports radio station and Global 

Audio Partner of the Premier League. 

Editor's Choice - Product 

WINNER: SUSE - Enterprise 4.0 

SUSE Enterprise Storage solutions provide a single unified software-defined storage cluster that 

provides applications with unified object, block and file storage designed with unlimited 

scalability from terabytes to petabytes, no single points of failure to maximise system resiliency 

and to maximise application availability following hardware failures. 

This intelligent software-defined storage solution, powered by Ceph technology, enables 

you to transform your enterprise storage infrastructure to reduce costs while providing 

unlimited scalability. 

^ 




MAGAZINE

CompuverdeWon 

SDSVendoroftheYear 

Thewinningproductsolves 

today’sstoragechalenges 

Asinglestorageplatform foreaseofuse,highperformanceandcostefectiveness.The 

combinationofal-in-onefilesystem,blockandobjectstoreofersavarietyofoptions 

basedonneed,aswelasflexibilityandagility. 

Ofthethreeflavorsofstorage— filesystem, 

blockandobjectstore— eachhasitspurpose: 

Filesystemsarethe 

breadandbuterofstorage. 

Itisn’tashypedasobject, 

butitisthebestathandling 

unstructureddata. 

Blockisthebasic 

foundationofstorage.Itis 

usedforstoringvirtual 

machinesordatabases,but 

youneedfilesaswelto 

dealwithalthe 

unstructureddata. 

Compuverdecomeswithital.Builtin. 

Objectstorageisthe 

excitingnewkidonthe 

block.Objectisusedfor 

machine-to-machine/IoT 

transactionsandother 

applicationsthatrequire 

extremescalability,butit 

isn’tthatmuchbeterthan 

blockwhenitcomesto 

managingdata.


Editor's Choice - Vendor 

WINNER: Vendor - Barracuda Networks 

Barracuda Networks offers industry-leading solutions designed to solve mainstream IT problems – 

efficiently and cost effectively – while maintaining a level of customer support and satisfaction 

second to none. Our products span three distinct markets, including: 1) content security, 2) 

networking and application delivery and 3) data storage, protection and disaster recovery. 

While we maintain a strong heritage in email and web security appliances, our award-winning 

portfolio includes more than a dozen purpose-built solutions that support literally every aspect of 

the network – providing organisations of all sizes with true end-to-end protection that can be 

deployed in hardware, virtual, cloud and mixed form factors. 

Storage Maintenance & Service Provider of the Year 

WINNER: NCE 

For more than 35 years, NCE has been offering the widest ranges of IT services, with a focus on 

Data Centre and Enterprise IT environments. With a team of hugely experienced technical 

support and field engineers, NCE has earned a reputation for delivering a customer focused, 

channel friendly service delivery model, that is geared for total customer satisfaction. 

NCE is fully ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004 and ISO27001:2013 certified, and is a 

member of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). NCE provides independent, 

multi-vendor services and solutions to its global customer base 24x7x365. 

www.nceeurope.com 

Specialist Storage Reseller of the Year 

WINNER: Epaton 

Epaton are delighted to have won Specialist Storage Reseller of the Year for the second year in a 

row as we see this as the ultimate compliment that our customers can pay us. 

As one of the industry's few independent providers, Epaton is supported by an experienced, 

passionate & dedicated team who believe in delivering bespoke, robust solutions to fit the 

individual requirements unique to your business. Epaton focus on aligning solutions with the 

people and culture of your business as we believe this is critical to your and our success. 

We really appreciate your support and are always ready to help you - please do get in touch! 

Corporate Storage Reseller of the Year 

WINNER: Q Associates 

At Q Associates we live and breathe information technology and we're passionate about the 

difference it can make to an organisation when you get it right. 

As an award-winning IT infrastructure and data management specialist, we work closely with 

many of the world's most exciting and innovative technology companies. 

Whether it is the delivery of critical applications or harnessing relentless data growth, we can 

design, deploy and support powerful solutions that help our clients achieve and surpass their 

goals by applying the best that technology has to offer. 

^ 




MAGAZINE

STORAGE STORAGE AWARDS 

Storage Distributor of the Year 

WINNER: CMS Distribution 

CMS Distribution is trade only, selling to over 3,000 business to business and business to 

consumer reseller partners. CMS employs 350 people across six locations in the UK and 

Ireland, plus locations in the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Australia and China. 

CMS Distribution helps IT vendors and channel partners grow their business, by taking 

emerging technologies to market whilst growing established brands using a range of value 

added services. 

Storage Product of the Year 

WINNER: Nexsan - Unity 

Nexsan Unity is the first and only Hyper-Unified Storage platform. Hyper-Unified Storage starts with 

support for advanced block and file workloads and then adds the rich capabilities modern IT teams 

demand and their users require. For Nexsan, this “Unified Plus” mindset means adding Dropbox-like 

sync and share, real-time file synchronization among distributed sites, and secure archive - all fully 

compliant with security protocols. The new Second Generation Unity systems offer up to 40% 

performance improvement over previous similar models, more flexible configurations, and cost 

reductions. New all-flash configurations are now available to meet the demands of customers' high 

performance applications, as well as hybrid configurations for the more cost conscious. 

Storage Company of the Year 

WINNER: Oracle 

With more than 420,000 customers and deployments in more than 145 countries, Oracle offers a 

comprehensive and fully integrated stack of cloud applications, platform services, and engineered 

systems. 

Oracle's application-engineered storage is designed to accelerate application performance, 

increase efficiency, and improve management. These advanced storage solutions let enterprises 

simplify IT environments so they can operate more cost-effectively and be more responsive 

to dynamic business needs. 

The Storage Hall of Fame 

WINNER: Seagate 

"Seagate is deeply rooted in the history and heritage of the storage industry. Over the past 35 

years, we have evolved the way storage technology works, progressing from the mass production 

of the 5.25" disk drive — which allowed the accessibility of the personal computer — to 

innovating cloud storage solutions. 

"Seagate recognises that data has evolved from static information stored and forgotten, to a 

living entity that drives every interaction of every day. We are creating solutions to fit the 

increasing needs and demands of our data-driven society, and we invite you to explore our 

solutions and share the journey." 


@STMagAndAwards July/August 2017 

^ 

STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

29

INTERVIEW: ACCELSTOR ACCELSTOR 

REDEFINING FLASH 

PERFORMANCE 

STORAGE MAGAZINE EDITOR DAVID TYLER SPEAKS TO STEFAN 

FERRARI, TECHNICAL SALES DIRECTOR, EUROPE, AT ALL-FLASH 

SPECIALIST ACCELSTOR 

David Tyler: AccelStor is a relatively 

new name in the UK: what makes 

the company stand out in an 

increasingly crowded all-flash market? 

Stefan Ferrari: All-flash is undeniably the 

way forward, but the technologies that 

people have been using around flash have 

not - until now - been built specifically for 

how SSDs work. A lot of companies are 

offering all-flash arrays, but they are 

based on old spinning disk technologies 

like RAID. 

The problem with RAID is that if you use 

it with SSDs, you reduce the lifetime of the 

SSD dramatically. It is also not particularly 

efficient when it comes to performance. 

Our core product, FlexiRemap, has two 

parallel goals: to improve performance, 

and to extend the lifetime - and reliability - 

of your flash. 

DT: Can you explain the key features of 

FlexiRemap - what it does, and how it 

does it? 

SF: FlexiRemap is our own patented 

technology, built from the ground up - I'm 

not aware of anything similar to this. We 

have done testing to illustrate the potential 

difference between the RAID and 

FlexiRemap approaches. We installed 

normal Linux with standard RAID, and 

averaged between 75,000 and 100,000 

IOPS. We were also able to demonstrate 

the lifetime of the SSD drive itself to be 

around 1.7 years. 

We then ran exactly the same tests using 

FlexiRemap, and were able to deliver 

300,000 IOPS. At the same time the 

lifetime of the SSD is increased from 1.7 

years to around 4.5 years. This is down to 

our own algorithm that intelligently extends 

the lifetime of the SSDs. It's worth 

mentioning that the metric we use in that 

testing is a 4KB random write: a lot of 

companies will publish figures around a 

4KB sequential read or a mixed workload. 

Those are almost like a 'best case 

scenario' rather than illustrating real world 

use: our testing quotes the hardest metric 

there is. This new approach to all-flash 

technology was the reason we were 

awarded the "Best of Show" award at last 

year's Flash Memory summit. 

As I mentioned already, much of our 

competition is essentially spinning disk 

vendors who are just adding SSDs to their 

offerings. This makes for what might seem 

to be very affordable all-flash boxes, but 

they can't deliver the kind of performance 

that SSD promises. Our entry level 

offerings can out-perform their top-end 

devices by a factor of two or three. We 

may be slightly more expensive than some 

of those guys, but the performance 

difference is exponential - at the same 

time we are significantly cheaper than the 

Tier 1 vendors, who we are increasingly 

competing against on a daily basis. 

DT: The technology argument is 

impressive - what kind of interest are you 

seeing from the market? 

SF: We're still very new in the UK of 

course, but in Asia and the US, where the 

flash market is very mature, we had a lot 

of immediate interest. In the UK we're 

currently talking to the likes of major 

banks and other businesses who are 

investing in flash - TV & video, hosting and 

data centres and the like. 

Part of our marketing here is still around 

educating the market as to how SSDs can 

benefit a business: you can make power 

savings of up to 75%, for instance. There 

are physical space savings too in moving 

from HDD to SSD. Because we can install 

7.6TB of SSD, we can offer a lot of 

storage in a small space - reducing 

footprint by over 60% in some cases. 

And crucially, because we are extending 

the lifetime of the SSDs themselves, 

maintenance costs are lower - overall we 

estimate the ROI on our all-flash solutions 

to be less than 6 months. As we continue to 

educate the market as to all these 

advantages, it is helping to position 

AccelStor as a dominant name in the sector. 

More info: www.accelstor.com 

^ 




MAGAZINE

TECHNOLOGY: OPINION: INFORMATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT NVME 

ILM MAKES A COMEBACK 

EASY SOFTWARE'S HOWARD FREAR BELIEVES THAT DATA 

ARCHIVING DISCIPLINES WE SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN ARE 

OF HUGE RELEVANCE TO OUR CLOUD WORLD 

The classical discipline of Information 

Lifecycle Management (ILM) is not 

something that gets much of an 

airing in these days of cloud-based 

business. That’s a problem, as its key 

principles of properly classifying, 

managing and storing information over 

time remain relevant in any environment, 

even one as seemingly rich in computing 

resources as ours; perhaps even more so. 

Gartner defines ILM as: "An approach to 

data and storage management that 

recognises that the value of information 

changes over time and that it must be 

managed accordingly… ILM seeks to 

classify data according to its business 

value and establish policies to migrate and 

store data on the appropriate storage tier 

and, ultimately, remove it altogether." 

That matters, as the more digitally 

connected we become, the more data we 

spawn. Indeed, we generate 2.5 quintillion 

bytes of new data every day, at a 50% 

compound annual rate. And where is all 

that data being stored? Largely in the 

cloud since cloud storage costs are 

decreasing by 20% annually. 

While on the face of it cloud appears an 

inexpensive and 'infinite' archiving solution, 

in reality, if we ignore our data obligations 

under law, we lose accountability, control - 

and face real risk. That's especially true 

when it comes to deletion policies. After 

all, ILM is all about making explicit the fact 

that not all data needs to be retained for 

all time - and, for good governance 

purposes, it needs to be deleted at 

scheduled and mandated times. Hence the 

term 'criticality': a measure of the value of 

your data to you and your business. 

Criticality should be high on the agenda 

for any responsible organisation which 

needs to know what data needs to be kept, 

what needs to be deleted, how can you 

prove that to the regulator, and so on. The 

problem is that if you don't know where 

your data is stored, how can you manage 

it and track what has been deleted? 

By its nature cloud data resides in 

different geographies on a host of 

different media, so the concern is how 

anyone can know what data has been 

deleted permanently. 

Any responsible company will need to 

have full visibility and security of the 

management of data residing in the cloud, 

especially around archiving and retention 

of information. This means ensuring that 

your cloud provider has the capabilities to 

offer this. Meanwhile - Brexit or not - the 

European General Data Protection 

Regulation (GDPR) is on the horizon and is 

something firms need to accommodate. 

GDPR has serious legal repercussions, 

and organisations that are not compliant 

face heavy fines; ILM could be a useful 

approach by which you can prepare for 

this deadline, especially if you are a major 

cloud user. That's why I think ILM deserves 

a major comeback, and why any 

organisation holding especially sensitive 

personal data would be advised to 

consider a private cloud or a hybrid 

solution - while for any and all general 

cloud users, smart Service Level 

Agreements (SLAs) to manage their 

relationship with business and service 

partners are a no-brainer. 

With cloud, ILM and compliance, the 

longevity of the supplier is an important 

consideration; what happens if they go 

out of business? If you are a financial 

institution with a big pensions database 

this could be especially problematic, but 

you need to plan for these outcomes, 

however unlikely, and mitigate your ILM 

and cloud risk. A clear statement in your 

supplier contract stating that your data 

remains your property and may be 

returned in a format of your choosing at 

any time is a good first step here, for 

example. 

The more digitally connected we get and 

the more demanding the regulatory 

environment becomes, the more complex 

this issue becomes too - so a refresher on 

the disciplines of ILM will help keep you on 

track when managing your data. 

More info: www.easysoftware.co.uk 

^ 




MAGAZINE

STRATEGY: STRATEGY: GDPR 

BE PREPARED 

GDPR IS FAST APPROACHING, WARNS NIGEL TOZER, SOLUTIONS 

MARKETING DIRECTOR EMEA AT COMMVAULT 

The EU GDPR is considered the toughest 

piece of privacy regulation in the world. 

It will transform how personal data is 

collected and used, and is forcing 

organisations to perform root-and-branch 

reviews of how such information is managed. 

The old approach of 'it's cheaper to pay the 

fine than comply' will be trashed, as regulators 

will have the ability to apply hefty penalties for 

major violations, with organisations facing 

fines of up to 20 million euros or 4% of 

annual global revenue. 

Corporate complacency is one of the biggest 

barriers to compliance, with many 

organisations yet to implement suitable 

processes, training and technology. While it's 

not too late, the situation is exacerbated by the 

fact that CIOs are struggling to apply the 

sometimes ambiguous and technically 

demanding regulations by the 2018 deadline. 

Simultaneously, global organisations are 

grappling with how to square the circle when 

two of their biggest markets, the US and the 

EU, appear to be heading in diametrically 

opposite directions over data privacy. One of 

President Trump's executive orders seeks to 

scrap data privacy protections proposed by his 

predecessor that, while less stringent than 

GDPR, would have introduced a number of 

obligations on the use of personal data. 

Even more worrying is that the Privacy Shield, 

designed to assuage fears over the holding of 

personal data of EU citizens by US-based 

service and cloud companies, may also be cast 

into doubt. Without it, EU businesses might be 

unable to use US-based companies to store or 

process data and still remain compliant. 

Whatever happens in the US, when it comes 

to doing business in the EU, companies need 

to confront a number of the more challenging 

articles and principles of GDPR. These include 

the right to be forgotten, data protection 

(privacy) by design and by default, ensuring 

ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability 

and resilience, 72-hour data breach 

notification, the data minimisation principle, 

data transfers and portability. 

An important first step is understanding how 

and where you are collecting, using and 

storing personal data - on-premises or in the 

cloud - which systems use the data, and who 

has access. Some feel that applications are 

easier to manage, and that unstructured 

data is the real challenge; it is easily spread 

around internal systems and laptops and is 

prone to 'leaking' onto third party clouds and 

personal devices. 

Structured data in applications may seem 

easier to manage from a GDPR compliance 

perspective, but large enterprises suffering from 

application sprawl still have a mountain to 

climb. Combine this with trying to ensure 

compliance across unstructured data on file 

servers, email and endpoints, with potentially 

thousands of authorised users. This is 

particularly pressing given that unstructured 

data typically makes up almost 80% of all 

business-related data. 

Many organisations have decided to 

consolidate critical data protection, 

compliance and discovery into a single unified 

data platform. This gives a clear view of 

application and unstructured data, and also 

allows businesses to meet key GDPR articles 

and principles, and to demonstrate 

compliance. Once data management 

processes are performed by a platform, it 

becomes possible to create a content index of 

all data - impossible when trying to combine 

individual point products. This provides a solid 

foundation for information governance and 

gives the visibility and control needed to meet 

the more challenging elements of GDPR. 

With an organisation-wide view of where data 

resides, you can optimise access controls, 

consolidate where possible and prioritise 

security efforts, while enabling a rapid response 

to subject access requests. In addition, you can 

automate retention policy enforcement across 

the data landscape, including dramatically 

reducing the risk presented by endpoints. 

With less than a year to go and pressure 

mounting on organisations to ensure they are 

compliant with GDPR, it might be daunting but 

it's definitely achievable. After all, nobody wants 

to be in the unenviable position of serving as 

the poster child for what happens when you fail 

to comply. 

More info: www.commvault.com 




STORAGE 

MAGAZINE 

33

TECHNOLOGY: NVMe 

NVME 

NVMe: WHY THE FUSS? 

NVMe IS BEING HERALDED AS THE KEY TO UNLOCKING THE FULL 

POTENTIAL OF ALL-FLASH STORAGE, SAYS TOM O'NEILL, 

INTERNATIONAL CTO, KAMINARIO - BUT THERE IS MORE TO A 

SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION THAN JUST 'FORCING' NVME 

DRIVES INTO YOUR EXISTING ENTERPRISE 

Vendors across the storage and 

network industries are rushing to 

integrate the NVMe (non-volatile 

memory express) protocol, regardless of 

the costs attached, which can be quite 

substantial. 

NVMe technology, which has been around 

since 2011, is the first protocol designed 

specifically to handle non-volatile storage 

devices. The protocol allows you to talk to 

the storage medium more efficiently, with 

higher levels of parallelism and lower 

latency. Compared to the SAS and SATA 

spinning disk-era protocols, NVMe is able 

to handle a considerable increase in the 

number of queues and of queue depth. 

The NVMe protocol cuts down the latency 

in the IO path by replacing the legacy SCSI 

stack with a more modern and efficient one. 

The NVMe protocol can also be used to talk 

to storage devices across a network fabric 

(this is described as NVMe-oF). What is 

particularly useful is its ability to separate 

the compute layer and the storage layer 

while still operating at a very low latency. 

This gives you a lot of options and 

flexibility in the architecture, which is why 

the industry is saying that NVMe will 

modernise the data centre and bring in new 

capabilities. But how do we ensure NVMe 

and NVMe-oF integration is really worth it? 

In the niche use cases of extreme 

performance, cost and space efficiency 

usually pose no real barriers (in these 

instances, the new generation of tier-0 

storage arrays may be a solution). The 

compromises would include, for instance, 

no data services, no data reduction, no 

enterprise features and a very steep cost per 

GB. For tier-0 workloads, where speeds and 

feeds are the only really important metric, 

these compromises may be acceptable. 

DON'T FORCE IT 

It's a different story for the enterprise: 

products that are simply focused on forcing 

NVMe drives into an existing array 

architecture without thought of a use case 

driven end-to-end architecture will not 

benefit from this new technology. Such 

architectures will incur 100% of the cost 

side of the NVMe equation with only about 

10% of the benefit side. 

NVMe and NVMe-oF should be integrated 

into a storage array without any 

compromises. Furthermore, it must have a 

clear path to a product that clearly 

demonstrates real value-add for its 

customers. In order to see the true value of 

NVMe, next-generation storage technologies 

must take advantage of NVMe drives at 

scale, connected via NVMe over Fabrics to 

create a truly agile storage platform. 

A critical example of a capability that 

NVMe-oF provide would be to dynamically 

compose disaggregated resources in the 

storage layer to lower operational complexity 

and expenses, while at the same time 

maintaining the data services which provide 

the highest levels of performance, efficiency 

and availability. 

The real benefits of NVMe-oF and NVMe 

will come when deployed together with faster 

controllers and enterprise data services to 

take full advantage of the new latency 

advantages. Taken separately, the benefits 

will be nominal latency improvements. 

Imagine being able to completely decouple 

storage controllers from capacity leveraging 

advances in NVMe, NVMe fabric, and 

NVMe network shelves. It would mark the 

ultimate in cost-efficient, agile storage 

infrastructure. Maintaining a highly 

predictable infrastructure, IT organisations 

would be able to optimise for cost, 

performance and capacity. The data centre, 

meanwhile, would scale infinitely. 

More info: www.kaminario.com 

^ 




MAGAZINE

Storage is changing... 

Data is at the cornerstone of any organisation. The way in which you handle it 

will determine the efficiency and performance of your business. 

You need a specialist storage provider with the expertise to deliver a system with 

the performance and flexibility to evolve as your business changes, adopting new 

technologies and adding capacity on demand. 

You need Q Associates. 

We have 30 years award winning expertise, and we’re just getting started. 

For award-winning storage advice, contact 

storage@qassociates.co.uk

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