Experts-on-Demand
Sometimes incisive technical insight can be exactly what's needed to solve complex IT Architecture problems or get a struggling project back on track. Bringing in an experienced Subject Matter Expert can make all the difference in the world! Our company provides Senior IT Consultants on an on-demand basis. We ensure top technical skills, advanced industry knowledge, and depth-and-breadth of experience are available when you need it, without draining your IT budget!
Storage Infrastructure Stabilization
Your Production data storage equipment may be functional, but is it stable? All IT equipment tends to suffer "creeping disorganization" over time. Passwords aren't updated, obsolete data is not removed., I/O paths become unbalanced, naming conventions overlooked, security patches not installed, etc. Our Storage Infrastructure Stabilization Assessment goes back-to-basics and ensures all configuration and features have been properly implemented and are operating at maximum efficiency.
SAN/NAS Capacity Assessment
Data Center Enhancements Inc. offers a comprehensive analysis program for evaluating storage, capturing key growth and performance metrics, analyzing data, and presenting the results in a coherent and professional document. This review usually entails a detailed examination of all storage components, design configuration, performance, power consumption, policies and procedures, physical resource consumption, support costs, skills requirements, and other aspects of the infrastructure.
Data Center Assessment
Data Center Enhancements provides a thorough, in-depth review of all aspects of a data center including but not limited to: underutilized servers/storage, power consumption, cooling, floor space, rack space, useful lifespan of equipment, regulatory compliance, security, and other aspects of the production environment, to name a few. The issues we identify help reduce IT expenses and improve operational efficiency. We provide industry-leading senior consultants to perform all of our assessments. Our consultants provide a complete review of the IT operating environment with technical, performance, and financial considerations in mind, and deliver consolidation and virtualization recommendations to reduce total cost of ownership.
Disaster Recovery Readiness Assessment
Organization, preparation, regular testing, and frequent updates to include any changes are the keys to DR planning success. Due to the unpredictability a disaster event can bring your company, a DCEI Disaster Recovery Readiness Assessment will help ensure you are ready. Our Disaster Recovery Readiness Assessment is designed to identify areas where critical business processes need protection, and recommend alternative approaches that allow your company to meet both Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs). It will outline steps necessary to ensure business resiliency in the event of a local or regional catastrophe.
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Large-Scale Storage Optimization
The typical company's storage needs are expanding at a rate of 20%-35% per year, and has maintained this growth rate for the last decade. With the staggering demand for storage capacity comes a need to manage it, monitor performance and throughput and report on events that negatively impact operations. This unprecedented surge of data consumes massive amounts of storage capacity, backup resources, electrical energy, data center floor-space, and human support skills. As emerging technologies continue to provide ever greater amounts of digital content, companies are literally being overwhelmed by data.
Challenges:
Data is one of the most valuable assets a company owns, and the SAN/NAS subsystem is responsible for ensuring its availability, integrity, accessibility, performance and security. If storage is performing poorly, every other computing activity in the IT environment will suffer. Not only are storage arrays becoming more sophisticated and complex, but the data they are designed to contain continues to grow at a rate that's simply overwhelming many IT departments' ability to keep ahead of demand.
Few companies can afford to start over with a "clean slate" and implement an advanced storage subsystem. Therefore, a number of important questions should be considered prior to any storage upgrade.
- What storage, infrastructure and processes will be in-scope and out-of-scope?
- How much equipment can be retained and integrated into the new structure?
- What aging and/or obsolete storage equipment exists in the environment?
- Approximately what is the monthly consumption rate of storage capacity?
- What storage management and monitoring tools are currently implemented?
- Which systems are approaching the end of their service and support contract?
- How much inactive/obsolete/unusable content resides on your existing disk arrays?
- What acceptable methods are available to support data migration to a new subsystem?
The more traditional approach of throwing-more-disk-at-a-problem only exacerbates modern storage performance and capacity issues. Most companies should rethink their architectural approach for legacy SAN or NAS infrastructure to maximize its operational efficiency and performance.
Our Solution:
There are many ways to control excessive data growth, including storage tiering, consolidation, virtualization, real-time compression, policy-based management, and other approaches. However until a detailed review of the legacy storage structure has been completed, it is difficult to determine which combination of technologies and architecture will yield the best results. This process entails a detailed examination of storage and fabric components, design configuration, performance, power consumption, policies and procedures, physical resource consumption, support costs, skills requirements, and other aspects of the infrastructure.
Data Center Enhancements Inc. offers a comprehensive analysis program for evaluating storage, capturing key growth and performance metrics, analyzing data, and presenting the results in a coherent and professional document. This review usually entails a detailed examination of all storage components, design configuration, performance, power consumption, policies and procedures, physical resource consumption, support costs, skills requirements, and other aspects of the infrastructure. We provide the specialized technical skills necessary to help you manage a high-performance, high efficiency storage structure. The following is a sample of large-scale storage services we provide:
- Storage virtualization strategy, planning, and design
- Automated, multi-tiered storage architecture design
- Storage consolidation/optimization
- Storage performance and capacity management
- SAN/NAS fabric topology analysis and re-design
- Automated management tool selection and Implementation
- Legacy backup & recovery systems efficiency assessment
- CDP, snapshots, and image clone implementations
- Mirroring and replication systems
- Compression and de-duplication solutions
- Data encryption and SAN/NAS security infrastructure
Data Center Enhancements Inc. can help you reclaim control of your storage infrastructure. We will identify your legacy storages limitations and vulnerabilities, optimize your current storage system’s structure, and assist you in developing a comprehensive plan to keep ahead of future data needs.
Next Steps:
Developing an effective program to modernize and expand a SAN/NAS should start with a comprehensive review of the existing storage subsystem and supporting infrastructure. Once all relevant information has been collected and analyzed, it becomes the basis for making immediate improvements (the "low hanging fruit"), and developing a long-term strategy to ensure scalable, flexible, manageable and efficient storage operations.
Contact:
If you're ready to immediately implement an optimized re-design of your SAN/NAS storage system, please give us a call at (630) 513-9747. However if you are aware something needs to be done about uncontrollable storage growth but are struggling with how to get started, we have several assessment programs that can capture the information necessary to make good storage design decisions. Please give us 30-minutes to help you bring clarity to this complex implementation.
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