GlassHouse Technologies Blog

I’ve come across a number of customer sites that have only a single backup stream from each client running sequentially to a tape drive device.  While there is a concern that the time to recover increases if you have multiplexed data on a tape, there is also a need to properly [...]

And a few parting thoughts when considering a new backup solution, in general:
We strongly encourage customers to explore reference architecture design alternatives before choosing a specific product for deduplication. In most cases, backup architecture redesign is the best way to maximize re-use of existing backup assets and take full advantage of next generation backup technologies, [...]

Tape Elimination (VTL and encryption)
Many of our customers are modernizing backup architecture, with the goal of minimizing or even eliminating tape. Mitigating media loss risk, simplifying operations, and improving disaster recovery are key drivers for tape reduction in core and remote backup environments. Many customers are embracing VTL and deduplication/replication as an outright alternative [...]

Archiving
Should backup and archive be the same service? The GlassHouse general position is ‘no’, however every environment faces need for long term retention of data, and in lieu of a true enterprise archiving platform, backup data retention is the only option for many enterprises. In general, we see tape playing a valuable role for long [...]

Data replication and DR solutions
The impact of disk based replication of deduplicated data has a profound impact on backup architectures and their role in disaster recovery. The traditional backup environment today uses offsite vaulting for tape, and disk or host based replication for more aggressive disaster recovery capabilities. The role of backup in disaster recovery [...]

Data Deduplication

Data deduplication is one of the most disruptive technology features to affect enterprise backup. This technology feature makes disk economical for backup data storage, and opens up options for remote site and core data center replication, previously unavailable. Software and hardware based deduplication have distinct differences in terms of scale/performance/capacity, and should [...]

I’ve spent over 17 years working in the backup space starting out as an evening ‘Tape Jockey’ contracting for Digital Equipment Corporation.  I’ve heard over that time that the profession of administrating a backup environment was “the most important job that no one wants”.  This concept has held true for a long time and has [...]

The great thing about running a Mom & Pop store is the familiarity of everyone who comes to the store. Mom and pop know everything that’s on the shelves, and also know all of the customers and their needs for every visit. Mom and pop have what’s referred to as transparency into their market. Their [...]