Virtualization Featured Article


Data Virtualization Key to Future Data Centers


November 23, 2015

Virtualization is changing the way in which network operators, data centers and enterprises are deploying and managing their IT infrastructure. The technology has introduced new levels of efficiency because it requires fewer resources, and this includes the amount of power that is needed to run a data center. Actifio, a data virtualization specialist, pointed out a study conducted by Emerson Network Power, which revealed the power density per rack will increase in the coming years, but emerging technologies will consume less power while still maintaining the same computing power.

According to Actifio Founder and CEO Ash Ashutosh, "Copy data virtualization has the power to make data management dramatically more power-efficient." The company’s Virtual Data Pipeline (VDP) technology allows businesses to decouple their data from physical storage in the same way a hypervisor decouples compute from physical servers. This delivers better management, access and protection of their data faster and with more efficiency.

Actifio is the first and only enterprise class copy data virtualization platform. The VDP virtualizes copy data, thereby eliminating the redundancies that are responsible for the inefficiencies currently in data centers.

The Emerson Network Power study states the lack of transparency across the different systems has created silo-like structures with different protocols. This makes it much harder to communicate, as well as being able to identify repository of data that have been stored multiple times across the center.

Actifio collects data across all system with a management solution that captures a single copy or what it calls “gold copy” of data from production. IT allows this data to be accessed from the Actifio platform by users for any application without any physical data movement. No physical data movement means less energy used by servers and the data center as whole.

The data Actifio virtualizes is managed with policies that have been established in its SLA architecture. The data capture and data flows have been designed with multiple use cases as well as technology environments and locations. This includes tracking the SLA compliance in the creation of data service catalogs and adherence to data governance. Operators get a single solution to virtualize all copies of production data so they can back it up instantly, which can also be applied towards disaster recovery, application test and development, and much more.

According to a recent report by IDC, two-thirds of enterprises do not meet best practice standards when it comes to data control. Additionally, an average company holds 375 data copies with each one containing sensitive information, so this increases the risk of an attack significantly. Having multiple copies numbering in the hundreds is inefficient at best, and IDC went on to say copy data will end up costing IT organizations $50.63 billion by 2018, consuming as much as 60 percent of their IT storage hardware and infrastructure budgets.

Ashutosh added, "If you don't know how many copies you have you don't know where they are, and if you don't know where they are you can't tell who has access to them. Actifio gives customers a single system of record to take control of their secondary data, and more and more CIOs are taking a proactive approach to reduce the threat of exposure."




Edited by Maurice Nagle









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