Re: Sun and Hitachi, Hitachi and IBM, IBM and Compaq, Hitachi and HWP, IBM and StorageTek, Sun and StorageTek, ad nauseum.
Talk is cheap. Real men ship actual products before they make grand announcements.
While IBM, Hitachi and Compaq keep on releasing vaporware, EMC has quietly increased the lenght of time between when they start shipping new products and when they finally issue the press release.
This one looks like a humdinger.
Overview.
SymmAPI-Control is intended for independent software vendors (ISVs), system integrators, and system vendors. The API has been proven in numerous mission-critical production environments where host-based applications require access to and tight integration with the advanced features of EMC Enterprise Storage systems.
In open system environments, SymmAPI-Control is a C programming interface between the Symmetrix system and the open hosts. In MVS environments, it is a set of MVS-compatible routines. The API library functions and associated data structures reside on the host systems and allow application developers to access the Symmetrix configuration, status, performance, and control data, as well as other key Symmetrix features.
SymmAPI-Control gives application developers access to advanced Symmetrix capabilities for data movement and protection, increasing end-user application performance, reliability, and capability.
SymmAPI-Control.
SymmAPI-Control provides for the management and control of EMC TimeFinder, Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF), and EMC DeltaMark functionality and includes the necessary library functions and associated data structures.
TimeFinder
EMC TimeFinder is a business continuity solution that allows the end user's application to use special devices called business continuance volumes (BCVs) that contain a copy of data while the standard Symmetrix devices are online for regular I/O operation.
Integration of SymmAPI-Control allows an application to create, manage, and control the BCVs and allows for their independent access from production applications. When the BCVs are associated (established) with the standard devices, they hold an up-to-date copy of the production data. When the BCVs are disassociated (split) from the standard device, the user has a point-in-time copy of the production data that can be assigned and mounted by another host. Uses for these copies can include backup/restore, decision support, data warehouse loading, offloaded reporting, and applications testing.
SRDF
SRDF is a business continuity solution that maintains a mirror image of data at the device level in physically separate Symmetrix systems. SRDF offers two modes of implementation: the Campus Solution and the Extended Distance Solution. The Campus Solution allows Symmetrix systems to be located up to 60 km (37.5 miles) apart using fiber-optic links, while the Extended Distance Solution provides longer distance connectivity using T1/T3 or E1/E3 links.
SRDF lowers backup and recovery costs and significantly reduces recovery time after a disaster. Integration of SymmAPI-Control with SRDF allows the ISV's application to create, manage, and control SRDF sessions. SRDF is particularly beneficial in disaster recovery scenarios where quick recovery from site failure is essential. The combination of SRDF and TimeFinder provides the best of both worlds by combining disaster recovery and remote access to production data.
DeltaMark
EMC DeltaMark answers the need for a more efficient way to process changes that occur in a database or files stored on EMC Symmetrix systems. It differentiates between data that has changed since the last backup or data movement operation and that which has not. Backup, extraction, propagation, replication, or other data-movement applications can take advantage of the identified changes by moving only those changes. Data movement scales in proportion to the changes rather than the size of the database or file system.
DeltaMark functionality can be combined with that of TimeFinder or SRDF. Used with TimeFinder, only the tracks on the BCVs that have changed since the last backup are backed up, reducing time and resource use. With SRDF, the DeltaMark differential feature minimizes the amount of data transferred to the remote site and can greatly reduce telecommunications costs.
emc.com
I think DeltaMark is based on Delta-Tek's forensic data security technology:
Lets talk about security. I see a third leg on the "security stool". The network, storage, operating system, and Internet world only focus on 'access control' and 'intruder detection/prevention'. I suggest that this is very incomplete and will never work just like a 'two-legged stool' won't stand by itself. As many "security experts" have expounded, "we'll never fully stop 'break-ins'." The third and stabilizing leg is "forensics". I'll refer you to some recent work by Daryll Prescott a "forensic security consultant" and principal of c3 Risk Corp. (703) 354-2682 and my own. I'd like to introduce you to a new security segment and product class, "forensic Security".
In principal, 'forensic security' provides a complete legal audit trail of all changes, over time with complete (and highly available) "damage recovery" to any prior known good point in time. Intruder caused damage can be precisely eliminated without data loss, and protection from fraud can be achieved through the legal audit trail of all changes. The company with the solution is Delta-tek Research.
delta-tek.com
VersionServer is superior to ANY previous data preservation and retrieval system. There are no missed intervals, making it the only truly reliable, long-term, rapidly recoverable application storage method available to date. It provides the unique capability for a complete forensic history of all changes to stored information, with the ability to quickly and easily recover to any point in time, to navigate in time, and to construct a comprehensive audit trail of all changes- minimizing potential impact from malicious intrusion or inadvertent damage.
This patented, highly-scalable forensic data replication and preservation technology manages data objects using data-change events from applications and file systems. VersionServer creates data objects dynamically from high performance disk and tape storage and can support about ten times more data than other approaches using the same hardware configuration because of extremely minimal I/O usage. It produces automated "forensic versioning" by managing data and metadata for long periods of time using disk and tape media combined with on-line catalogs. This software is easy to use and eliminates the need for costly and cumbersome backup.
delta-tek.com
To better understand the nature of the Forensic Data Security opportunity, consider the surrounding markets. The
network security market today consists only of intruder
detection and access control solutions. Currently a $4.6
Billion market, network security is forecasted to grow
rapidly to $10.8 Billion in 2004.
Forensic Data Security supplies the missing cornerstone to a
robust high availability security environment. Intruder detection and access control are designed to detect, control, and stop security breaches, but they do nothing to aid recovery from malicious or inadvertent damage whether from intruders, employees, or virus attack. The missing
element of true high availability security is the ability to rapidly and easily navigate in time to the last-known-good point, just prior to damage or intrusion with a complete audit trail of all changes, transactions, and business records. Delta-Tek’s VersionServer also creates new classes of security products through its ability to allow statistical profiling of change similar in principal to the application of CA’s Nugent technology to security.
On the data protection side, Forensic Data Security has the potential of eliminating backup as a data protection methodology. Replication is now the preferred method of high availability, HA, data protection and in many large IT data centers, it is not uncommon to find backup moved into an archive role behind triple mirroring. Backup is too hard and has low availability recovery for all but an archive role in HA operations. As good as replication sounds, it is broken and incomplete without versioning. Today’s solution for replication versioning is to implement a “snapshot” (open file record locking) and capture a backup. In any form, backup is too slow, has large gaps in time, and lacks forensic capabilities. Enter VersionServer, intimately and transparently complementing the replication data stream, capturing all changes into a disk-based HA array for rapid time navigation with a legal audit trail. Why backup anymore?
Now, consider the advantages of Forensic Data Security to the service provider marketplace. Security is among the top barriers to market adoption, especially for storage service providers, SSP. A SSP enters into a service agreement, with economic penalties, guaranteeing the access, security, safety, and preservation of their client-company’s information. Whether using remote replication or
hosting primary storage, client data is vulnerable at the SSP to damage from security intrusion.
Traditional security methods and backup methods have excessive gaps and expose the SSP to liability. On the other hand, Forensic Data Security creates a compelling new service offering, the SSP to and a powerful new selling
proposition.
Who is the customer? Enterprises, Application and Storage Service providers, Network and Application Infrastructure Providers, eCommerce operations (especially those conducting online transactional business activities such as financial records and trading) and Legal and Auditing
applications are typical customers for this technology.
Any application valuing highly available forensic services and complete data preservation is a candidate.
delta-tek.com |
