Storing & Protecting Your Most Critical Assets
For federal agencies, today’s data explosion comes with a huge and complicated mandate: Gather data, store it efficiently and, above all, protect it. But how? Between budgets in flux, lagging legacy IT systems and the widely discussed and ongoing IT brain drain, the odds often seem stacked against federal IT teams. But data waits for no one—governments included—nor do today’s rapidly changing technology or the cyber criminals looking to infiltrate it. Can your agency possibly keep up? It has to, with cybersecurity and data-loss prevention playing an ever more prominent role in our national dialogue. More than ever, government agencies need smart data storage solutions that blend efficiency, value and performance. The first step? Deciding which solution best meets your agency’s needs: all-flash, disk-based or hybrid-flash storage. To help you choose the best storage solution for your organization, GovLoop collaborated with Force 3, a leader in government IT and storage solutions. In this report, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of each storage solution while examining the future of storage in government.
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Industry Perspective
Before delving into the different storage solutions and their
Combined, these factors create multiple challenges for
benefits, it’s important to first understand the data explosion
federal agencies, including:
itself and how it affects government agencies. “Data is growing at an unprecedented rate, with information coming in from an increasing variety of sources,” said James Hebert, a solutions architect at Force 3. “As a result, government agencies are scrambling to keep up with this growth, and they’re looking to their technology partners for thought leadership.” Indeed, the digital universe is doubling in size every two years. By 2020, the data we create and copy each year will reach 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes. Why? There are several factors. For one, as technology evolves and grows more
»» Security »» Manageability »» Accessibility »» Latency »» Archiving and space management “In addition to the normal data-bloat associated with keeping files, email and images for a set period of time for compliance purposes,” Hebert said, “there are also new and evolving data sources that need to be stored on primary storage systems.”
sophisticated, it creates more data than ever. Cameras and
Often referred to as unstructured data, these new data types
sensors can be placed on almost anything now, from drones
can grow rapidly, and often require specialized applications
to buildings to satellites, thus generating a wealth of data
for mining the data that resides therein.
that can power mission-critical decisions.
Currently, much of the public sector uses disk-based
Next, once that data is captured, advanced analytics
data storage. But disk storage requires floor space, and
technology enables citizens and government users do more
simply building more data centers isn’t a viable option for
with it. For example, CDC scientists can analyze data about
government agencies. A more efficient, cost-effective storage
Zika to predict where new cases might appear. Likewise,
solution is in order.
citizens use government-provided data for everything from real estate decisions to healthcare. These innovations are critical. But increased analytics capabilities also create new, unique datasets that require additional processing and storage. Finally, because technology advancements have created new ways to repurpose data, more data is being preserved for future use—once again requiring increased processing and storage capacity.
Storing & Protecting Your Most Critical Asset in the Public Sector
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Flash storage, simply put, is any type of data repository
“The deduplication and compression features allow for a
or storage system that uses flash memory—a compact,
much smaller data center footprint, resulting in OPEX savings
flexible storage medium that can retain data in the absence
on rack space, power and cooling,” Hebert said.
of a power supply and that can be electronically erased and reprogrammed.
configuration of 1 Petabyte (PB) effective usable capacity
Disk storage is well-suited for housing large amounts of
would typically require nearly two full cabinets (70U) if using
data, particularly when that data is at rest. While it may be
10k rpm spinning disks.
the cheapest option up front, it does consume substantial space and electricity within data centers. Traditional data storage uses disk arrays, which can drain space, power and money, in addition to being unable to easily handle big data. The breakdown: multi-tiered flash storage can address those issues. Instead of writing data on disks, flash storage uses flash memory to store the data, thus reducing space requirements while increasing performance capabilities. Flash also provides improved storage performance, with high input/output operations per second (IOPS), consistent submillisecond latency and better bandwidth. These features are essential for databases, analytics, backup and cloud services applications. Meanwhile, flash offers a variety of other benefits for the public sector and IT managers, including: »» Excellent primary storage performance with consistently low latency »» Less power consumption »» Lower failure rate »» Deduplication and compression of that data at the array level, which assists in mitigating unmanageable data growth.
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For example, he explained, a storage system with a
Industry Perspective
Conversely, with an all-flash array, that footprint decreases to 5U of space, resulting in 14 times less rack space and weight. In addition, the all-flash array uses 13 times less power and cooling than a traditional array with spinning disks only.
Flash solutions use less
Coupling performance
Flash allows users to more
space, power and time,
with scalability, flash
quickly and efficiently
while reducing costs
allows users to maximize
meet internal goals, while
through specific platforms
the value of data today
eliminating performance
that offer scale, speed and
and tomorrow and to
bottlenecks for the most
data services.
seamlessly manage data
demanding workloads.
across flash disk and cloud.
Storing & Protecting Your Most Critical Asset in the Public Sector
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Unready to immediately transition away from disk-based
as virtual server (VSI) and desktop (VDI) infrastructure
storage, some agencies are opting for a hybrid approach.
deployments.
Hybrid storage systems blend flash-based solid state disk and
“Given this benefit, much less storage will need to be
hard disk drives to provide high performance at an affordable
purchased, resulting in space, power and cooling savings,”
price. In doing so, they attempt to address the dollar-per-IOPS vs.
he said. “In addition, the performance and latency will
dollar-per-GB decision that IT professionals often grapple with.
be consistently better, resulting in an overall better user
“A hybrid storage platform consists of both flash and spinning disk storage,” Hebert said. “This allows for the best
Still, there are pitfalls to choosing a hybrid flash approach
of both worlds: flash storage for workloads that need it for
over an all-flash storage array, Hebert said.
data caching, and spinning disks for capacity workloads. Many organizations use this approach because it’s more cost-effective, since not all of their workloads require flash performance.”
Hybrid storage arrays use flash devices to cache “hot” data—a term typically used for blocks of data most often manipulated by applications using the storage system, Hebert explains. These blocks get “promoted” onto flash drives, making access
An agency might typically choose hybrid flash arrays over all-
to them much faster because of their consistently low latency
flash for any of the following reasons:
and speed, compared to spinning disk.
»» They have multiple workloads, some requiring flash and others not »» They run applications that aren’t sensitive to latency »» They don’t need extremely high IOPS “An agency that opts for an all-flash array would typically need high input/output operations or consistently low latency,” Hebert said, “such as that needed when deploying
This causes an all-flash type of performance for that data set. But complications appear when the applications finish manipulating that data set and begin working on another with completely different data blocks that currently reside on slower spinning disks. The problem? Promoting these new blocks into the cache and demoting the finished blocks onto spinning disks takes time. Consequently, the transition causes inconsistent
VDI or online transaction processing databases.”
latency patterns. And, because some applications are very
Another good reason to choose all-flash over hybrid flash
down or even crash, depending on the size of the data set
arrays, Hebert said, is that some workloads greatly benefit
and other factors.
from the deduplication and compression capabilities, such
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experience.”
Industry Perspective
sensitive to latency, this may cause the application to slow
Rapid Growth
Security
Unstructured data represents 31% of all federal data, and it’s growing at six times the rate of structured data, with 2.5 trillion bytes of data created every day.
In a survey of 24 federal agencies, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that between 2006 and 2015, the number of cyberattacks climbed 1,300%— from 5,500 to more than 77,000 per year.
Cost
Staffing
Storing a single gigabyte of data over the course of its lifetime can cost anywhere from $4 to $100.
There are too few skilled workers who focus on implementing and managing data storage solutions.
Storing & Protecting Your Most Critical Asset in the Public Sector
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As your agency considers which kind of storage best meets its needs, security must be top-of-mind. Moreover, security features should be inherent to the software—no extra dollar signs included. As the number of data sets and information access points increase, the potential targets for cyberattacks will also grow. To safeguard sensitive information, government organizations must secure every component of their IT infrastructures—particularly storage. Today’s storage solutions not only act as a repository of classified documents, but they’re also platforms that connect nearly all other agency applications. Consequently, an insecure storage solution compromises security at all levels of an organization. Both disk and flash storage can be locally secured in data centers. They can both also apply encryption and other security measures to the data itself. However, none of these capabilities are automatically included with most storage solutions. Instead, the technology provider must determine and apply the necessary cybersecurity measures to their solution. Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of storage security implementation is the alerting capability. Without this, an affected agency may often be unaware of an attack until it is too late. To appropriately mitigate risk, it’s critical that security mechanisms include timely alerts about any breach and to the appropriate personnel.
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Industry Perspective
Some specific security features you should look for when evaluating a storage vendor include:
The best option depends on your needs. Between dropping flash prices and the inherent operational expenditure (OPEX) benefits, a total cost of ownership case can be made that all-flash is the best option for some agencies. “For example, it can actually be less expensive to go all-flash over the traditional route, both from a CAPEX and an OPEX perspective,” Hebert said. “The acquisition cost is almost identical, but the operational costs over several years will result in thousands of dollars in savings.” Further, he said, the typical lifespan of an all-flash array is about seven years, versus three to five years for traditional arrays. Although the price of enterprise-class flash storage has decreased, it is still more expensive on a cost-per-gigabyte basis compared to spinning disk—thus the need for traditional storage platforms. On a cost-per-IOPS basis, however, all-flash storage has the advantage. While Hebert ultimately believes that transitioning to all-flash storage arrays is inevitable for public sector organizations, he recognizes that both approaches have their place—at least for now, depending on workloads and budget constraints. “If high IOPS and/or low latency are primary drivers, then all-flash storage is the way to go,” he continued. “If cost is the overriding factor in the decision-making process, usually the traditional or hybrid array will win out.”
Whether hybrid or all-flash arrays, federal agencies need to embrace flash to accelerate applications across data centers—and flexibility will be key. Flash storage can help the public sector create solutions that power data storage with uncompromising adaptability from a single architecture, ultimately serving the needs of agency IT departments and end users alike.
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Force 3 and NetApp have the technical expertise, thought leadership, technology and support infrastructure to help government agencies find the solution that best fits their short-, intermediate- and long-term needs. With more than 25 years serving federal clients, we understand your needs and challenges and offer a broad portfolio of products and services for any budget.
As the Network Security Company, Force 3 provides secure IT solutions and services for clients who demand value and reliability. Together with our parent company Sirius Computer Solutions, we offer a comprehensive range of solutions backed by an expert team of engineers and strategic partnerships. From design to deployment, support and maintenance, our solutions and services are designed with a constant focus on supporting our customers’ missions and promoting their success. To learn more about Force 3, visit www.force3.com. For more information about Sirius, visit www.siriuscom.com.
In collaboration with
Government agencies of all levels count on NetApp for software, systems and services to manage and store their most important asset: data. With solutions ranging from data protection and recovery to cloud computing, data analytics and flash solutions, NetApp has become government customers’ top choice for key technologies that drive data center transformation. Top counties, cities and states count on NetApp and value their teamwork, expertise and passion for helping clients succeed today and into the future.
GovLoop’s mission is to “connect government to improve government.” We aim to inspire publicsector professionals by serving as the knowledge network for government. GovLoop connects more than 250,000 members, fostering cross-government collaboration, solving common problems and advancing government careers. GovLoop is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with a team of dedicated professionals who share a commitment to connect and improve government. For more information about this report, please reach out to info@govloop.com.
Storing & Protecting Your Most Critical Asset in the Public Sector
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Phone: 800-391-0204 Headquarters: 2151 Priest Bridge Drive, Suite 7, Crofton, MD 21114 Satellite Office: 13655 Dulles Technology Dr, Suite 150, Herndon, VA 20171 Email: sales@force3.com Website: www.force3.com
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Industry Perspective