esg lab validation actifio pas - comtec enterprises | comtec ·...

Lab Validation Report Actifio’s Protection and Availability Storage Platform Virtual Data Management Through a Virtual Platform

By Vinny Choinski, ESG Lab Senior Analyst, and Mike Leone, ESG Lab Engineer

February 2012

© 2012, The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Lab Validation: Actifio’s Protection and Availability Storage Platform 2


Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Background ............................................................................................................................................................... 3 Actifio PAS Platform ................................................................................................................................................. 4

ESG Lab Validation ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Manageability ........................................................................................................................................................... 6 Functionality ............................................................................................................................................................. 9 Efficiency ................................................................................................................................................................. 13

ESG Lab Validation Highlights ..................................................................................................................... 16

Issues to Consider ....................................................................................................................................... 16

The Bigger Truth ......................................................................................................................................... 17

Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 18

All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject to change from time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this publication, in whole or in part, whether in hard-‐copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express consent of The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., is in violation of U.S. copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable, criminal prosecution. Should you have any questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at 508.482.0188.

ESG Lab Reports

The goal of ESG Lab reports is to educate IT professionals about data center technology products for companies of all types and sizes. ESG Lab reports are not meant to replace the evaluation process that should be conducted before making purchasing decisions, but rather to provide insight into these emerging technologies. Our objective is to go over some of the more valuable feature/functions of products, show how they can be used to solve real customer problems, and identify any areas needing improvement. ESG Lab’s expert third-‐party perspective is based on our own hands-‐on testing as well as on interviews with customers who use these products in production environments. This ESG Lab report was sponsored by Actifio.



Introduction This ESG Lab Validation report explores hands-‐on testing and validation of the Actifio Protection and Availability Storage platform (PAS), focusing on the manageability, functionality, and efficiency that PAS brings to the management of data copies for multiple purposes.

Background

A look at ESG research regarding data storage spending intentions reveals that data protection is clearly top of mind: when asked in what areas they had specific data storage spending plans over the next 12 to 18 months, 44% of respondents mentioned data protection, followed by 30% citing storage virtualization, which can help to simplify storage while maintaining return on investment. Other spending plans were tied to data replication for offsite disaster recovery (28%) and new SAN systems (25%).1

Figure 1. Storage-‐specific Spending Plans

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, 2012.

1 Source: ESG Research Report, 2012 IT Spending Intentions Survey, January 2012.

21%

21%

22%

22%

22%

24%

25%

28%

30%

44%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

Use public cloud storage services as way to source storage capacity without buying new infrastructure

Storage encryption solution

Purchase new NAS storage systems

Data deduplication technologies / systems

Advanced file storage / file system technology for rapidly-‐growing unstructured content

Tiered storage

Purchase new SAN storage systems

Data replication solution for off-‐site disaster recovery

Storage virtualization

Data protection

In which of the following data storage infrastructure areas will your organization make the most significant investments over the next 12 months? (Percent of respondents,

N=296, five responses accepted)

http://www.actifio.com/

http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/2012/01/2012-it-spending-intentions-survey/



Actifio PAS Platform

Actifio PAS is an appliance-‐based solution purpose-‐built for managing copies of production data to eliminate redundant silos of data and infrastructure. With its patented Virtual Data Pipeline (VDP) technology, Actifio PAS uses a single data copy for multiple purposes by virtualizing copy management. That single copy can serve various business requirements, including backup, disaster recovery (DR), business continuity (BC), test and development, analytics, etc. Organizations can eliminate duplicate tools and infrastructure silos and deliver on all these requirements from a single copy.

Actifio has taken the virtualization concept in a new direction. Companies like VMware, Microsoft, Citrix, and others revolutionized server infrastructure by taking operating systems and applications, encapsulating them into files, and consolidating them on single hardware platforms. Using server virtualization, organizations drastically reduce server hardware and management costs while improving scalability and managing growth. Actifio PAS does much the same for management of copies of data, which consumes more and more of IT’s time and resources. By virtualizing data management tasks, Actifio PAS consolidates the copy process and infrastructure to reduce storage capacity and management costs and minimize the adverse effect of data growth.

Actifio PAS captures changes to production data and stores them for multi-‐purpose reuse. For replication, PAS moves only unique, deduplicated blocks. VDP virtualizes the basic data management tasks (copy, store, move, and restore) that any backup, replication, or copy solution must execute. Specifically:

Copy. VDP virtualizes the capture of production data using a device-‐independent snapshot with change block tracking, eliminating interruption for data protection.

Store. Blocks are stored as objects in a virtualized storage pool, along with their associated application, time of creation/change, and SLA information. To accommodate all service level agreements (SLAs), VDP stores data in raw format for fast restore, or in an optimized, deduplicated, compressed format for long-‐term retention.

Move. Data can be transported offsite for BC/DR using Actifio DeDup Async, which deduplicates, compresses, and WAN-‐optimizes data to minimize network and storage resources.

Restore. When data is needed, Actifio PAS instantly presents it in the appropriate application format and presents it to the server, maintaining temporal and causal relationships. With Actifio PAS being a storage controller, the point-‐in-‐time data can be immediately accessed by the application, eliminating restore windows independent of the size of the data.

The Actifio PAS appliance consists of industry-‐standard x86 servers in a scale-‐out configuration that can grow to 8 PB in a redundant, fault-‐tolerant configuration; a storage hypervisor that virtualizes any vendor’s storage capacity (including cloud storage) into a single pool; and a distributed, object-‐based file system, the VDP. By understanding applications, service level agreements (SLAs), and time, VDP enables instant creation of virtual, point-‐in-‐time data copies that can be used for any purpose. Licensing for Actifio PAS is capacity-‐based.

Figure 2 demonstrates a common Actifio PAS deployment. PAS appliances are attached to local production storage as well as offsite storage. Actifio PAS auto-‐discovers any virtual or physical applications in the SAN. A single, deduplicated, compressed copy of data is then used for data protection and high availability at either site.



Figure 2. Actifio PAS Solution Overview

Traditional backup, replication, and copy methods use separate infrastructure stacks, each with their own copies of data and methods to specify SLAs. For example, backup tools and infrastructure are designed to reformat a copy of production data for streaming to tape so that it can be retained for the long term cost-‐effectively. Similarly, physical and virtual servers are often backed up using different solutions. In contrast, snapshot tools are designed to copy production data in application format, using pointers to production data. They are stored within production storage for fast access. Offsite replication tools are designed to copy data and transport it offsite to a silo that duplicates production infrastructure.

By virtualizing the management of copied data, Actifio PAS consolidates multiple copy silos, reducing redundancy of data and infrastructure. Storage and bandwidth costs are reduced, and there are no backup or restore windows. Backup, BC/DR, test and development, archives, etc. all have different retention, access, and infrastructure requirements, yet they all execute the same basic functions: copy, store, move, and restore.

Actifio PAS virtualizes those basic functions to eliminate the redundancies. As a result, organizations can eliminate backup software and large numbers of backup agents that require their own management and updating. Actifio PAS deduplicates (globally) and compresses data in the background, eliminating the need for deduplication appliances and WAN optimization tools. Encrypted and deduplicated data transport provides security and network optimization, and data can be instantly mounted or incrementally restored for business continuity.



ESG Lab Validation ESG Lab performed hands-‐on evaluation and testing of the PAS system at Actifio’s facilities in Waltham, Massachusetts. The goal of testing was to understand the manageability, functionality, and efficiency of the PAS solution.

Manageability

“Manageability” describes how easy it is for an IT administrator to use software to monitor and maintain an IT infrastructure. This includes the ability to keep the infrastructure performing well, and running smoothly and securely. Actifio provides the “Actifio Desktop,” which serves as a management portal for everything that interacts with the PAS appliance.

ESG Lab Testing

The product validation began with an overview of where the PAS appliance fits inside an IT infrastructure, and included a walkthrough of the installation process. The PAS system chosen for the ESG Lab test is shown in Figure 3. Two PAS appliances, one local and one remote, were deployed and connected through a WAN. Installations were performed at each site to create a redundant, fault-‐tolerant solution. The PAS Appliance was configured to protect both virtual and physical servers using SAN-‐based storage.

Figure 3. ESG Lab Test Bed

After deployment and installation, ESG Lab moved to the ease of manageability aspect. The power of the Actifio software was immediately apparent. Each set of PAS appliances was managed through the Actifio Desktop. The dashboard of Actifio Desktop is shown in Figure 4. The dashboard is broken into three sections: Statistics, Job History, and System Health.

The statistics section, on the left side of the dashboard, displays the number of applications visible to the PAS system and separates them into four groups: protected, unprotected, not protectable, and protection disabled. The right side of the dashboard displays the system health. This includes disk usage, hardware and software health, and recent events (within 24 hours). The center of the dashboard consists of the job history, with both an overview and jobs breakdown section. The overview section shows succeeded, failed, and currently running jobs. The jobs breakdown displays a pie chart with colors depicting successful or failed backups, dedupes, and replications.



Figure 4. Actifio Desktop Dashboard

With a single click, ESG Lab transitioned from the dashboard to the SLA Architect. The SLA Architect leverages a SLA-‐based approach to deploying backup configurations and protection schemes. Actifio delivers these templates via an intuitive workflow diagram, making backup configuration quite easy. Though Actifio provides a library of templates, its partners can also provide their own libraries of SLA templates targeted at specific industry segments. Figure 5 shows the designer view of the SLA Architect. ESG Lab selected a template with a common backup schema. Each step of the solution was configured by clicking one of the visible green arrows in-‐between each disk storage image. The ESG Lab configuration provided both local and remote protection, including snapshots of the primary data, local deduplication, and deduplicated replication.

Figure 5. SLA Architect, Designer View



The system also enables users to create their own templates that they can apply to any application for protection. Using the SLA Architect, ESG Lab created a new (ESG_Template1) template. Next, the Policies tab was used to review the attributes of (ESG_Template1) from the text-‐based summary view, as shown on the left side of Figure 6. In this example, ESG Lab chose to select a two-‐part snapshot scheme that would be commonly used in the real world. Two different snapshots were configured to occur at different times with different retention plans. The first snapshot occurs every four hours and is retained for two days. The second snapshot occurs every 24 hours and is retained for two weeks. The Actifio solution is intelligent enough to know that there is no need to do the extra work for the 24-‐hour snapshot because the data is already available through the four-‐hour snapshots. The 24-‐hour snapshot then manages the retention and verifies all SLAs are met. This schema provides both immediate short-‐term protection and moderately long-‐term local protection.

Figure 6. SLA Architect, Policies and Schedules

Also shown in Figure 6 is the view of the Schedules tab for the month of November for a specific protection plan. The calendar can be adjusted to view monthly, weekly, or daily backup plans. In this case, starting on November 17 and continuing throughout the month, two actions took place: a snapshot and a deduplication. Both actions are designated by their names, ESG_DB_Snap1 and ESG_DB_Dedup1, respectively.

Why This Matters Storage capacity requirements and management complexity continue to rise as user data footprints and deployed applications grow within organizations, stressing both physical and virtual resources. Managing a virtual and/or physical environment that is growing in size and complexity can be a difficult job. A pressing need for better server and storage management capabilities, including tightly integrated management tools with virtual intelligence, has never been more apparent.

ESG Lab verified the initial Actifio deployment to be quick and painless. The installation went smoothly and access to Actifio Desktop was immediate. The ability to quickly and easily create and manage backup and protection plans for individual applications was impressive. ESG Lab felt the templates provided within the SLA Architect were a solid starting point for an IT administrator at any level. The different views through the SLA Architect made the backup and protection plans clear and understandable by giving visual representations of the flow of data, as well as calendar layouts of what will be happening and when it will happen.



Functionality

“Functionality” refers to hardware and software capabilities that allow a product to accomplish specific tasks. It is commonly used in the IT industry as a means of describing product features. In Actifio’s case, functionality goes hand in hand with usability, a way of measuring how easy the PAS solution is to use as well as to understand. ESG Lab quantified the functionality and usability of the software that comes with the PAS platform.

ESG Lab Testing

ESG Lab first reviewed the process for creating and managing backup and protection plans. The next step was to verify that the backup and protection plans worked at various levels. Testing focused on using the configured snapshots for multiple restore scenarios, including a single file restore, SQL database restore, and virtual machine restore. ESG Lab used the system monitor to view and verify the successful completion of each of these jobs. ESG Lab also explored the platform’s ability to provide duplicate copies of data via instantly available Mounts or Clones.

The first restoration verification was done at a single file level. A snapshot was taken of a virtual machine drive. The data set consisted of a large number of files. Using the Actifio Desktop, ESG Lab identified a snapshot from a specific point in time, selected one of the many files, and restored it to a host system. Figure 7 shows the view from Actifio Desktop’s perspective, as well as from the destination host’s perspective. The top screenshot shows the file restore target (Mounted Host: thing3), all the files backed up in the selected snapshot (Benes_GDrivef072611…), and the ability to select specific files within that group that should be restored. The bottom of Figure 7 shows the C: drive on the destination server (thing3) for the single file restoration. Highlighted in blue is the newly restored file from the point-‐in-‐time snapshot.

Figure 7. Single File Restore



The next restoration was selected to verify the ability to back up a common business application—in this case, a Microsoft SQL database. After creating a protection plan and taking a snapshot of the application, ESG Lab deleted a table within the database. From the snapshot, ESG Lab was able to quickly and smoothly restore the table to the database and continue working. Figure 8 shows the restoration process, starting from deletion of the database table on the left to the restored state of the database on the right. Also shown in the middle of the figure is the warning presented by Actifio before a restore can take place. The warning notifies the user about their chosen type of restore process. ESG Lab chose to completely replace the primary volume, and so the Actifio software required the user to enter the words “DATA LOSS.”

Figure 8. Restoring a Microsoft SQL Database

The third restoration example deals with using a snapshot to recover a failed VM. ESG Lab used the same failure scenario—accidental deletion—as with the application recovery example. A cluster of virtual machines was being managed within a VMware vSphere Client. After one of the virtual machines (GUIVM) was backed up, ESG Lab deleted the virtual machine through the vSphere Client. Using Actifio’s software, the virtual machine was restored and powered on with no errors encountered.

The entire process is shown in Figure 9. The top three pictures show the virtual machine present, then deleted, and then present again. Also visible with each picture is the Recent Tasks list from vSphere Client to validate the tasks’ completion. Actifio uses VMware APIs to provide information to the vSphere Client in real time. The bottom left portion of the image, highlighted in the red box, shows the integration of Actifio, displaying “Create virtual machine snapshot.”



Figure 9. Restoring a VM from a Snapshot

Using the System Monitor in Actifio Desktop, ESG Lab was able to validate each successful backup and restore operation from all three aforementioned scenarios. Figure 10 shows the System Monitor view within Actifio Desktop: the left side of the screen provides options to filter through every job by time, status, and type. The list of jobs displayed in the main screen is from a portion of ESG Lab’s backup and restoration testing. Starting from the bottom and moving up, the multiple names shown should be familiar from the previous tests. The Host column displays the name “benes,” which was used in the restoring of a single file. In the Application column, the names of the database ESG Lab backed up and the VM are visible.

Figure 10. System Monitor



Having confirmed each of the restoration scenarios, ESG Lab moved to the duplication of data via Mounts and Clones. Though Mounts and Clones can be combined with the restoration scenarios, ESG Lab chose to use them as an immediate working set. Imagine a developer who wants to work with a set of data but does not want to affect every other developer: this scenario is commonly seen in test/dev situations. Actifio’s software allows for mounting or cloning of any existing snapshot. The difference between a Mount and a Clone is very simple: a Mount is a snapshot copy of the data set, and a Clone is a full copy. In either case, the data sets can be instantly presented to a selected server as a drive letter and can be deleted at any time. Figure 11 shows where the Mount or Clone selection can be made.

Figure 11. Mounting or Cloning Snapshots to a VM

Also shown in Figure 11 are the backups that can be selected for restore and the destination of the Mount or Clone. In the middle-‐right portion of the image, a green rectangular shape is visible. This shape (as well as the six gray rectangular shapes above it) represents a particular backup that has occurred for that job. The bottom portion of the screen shows what is being mounted and where it should be mounted to. This can be an existing host or a new virtual machine within an existing vCenter Server.

Why This Matters Data protection and disaster recovery are key areas of concern, and organizations are willing to make investments. Pressed by strict SLAs and business continuance requirements, organizations are being pushed to back up and restore data as quickly as possible. Efficient backup and recovery solutions are required for IT administrators to effectively manage the protection of data.

ESG Lab verified the ability of Actifio PAS to quickly back up and restore under three different, but common, business scenarios: single file recovery, full database recovery, and full VM recovery. The Mount and Clone process was also easily managed, enabling administrators to present \copies to both physical and virtual infrastructures for groups such as test/dev and QA.



Efficiency

“Efficiency” describes the best use of time and resources expended in pursuit of a task or goal. More specifically, in this case, efficiency is the measurement of the storage resources required to produce a desired outcome in an effective manner with minimal waste, expense, or unnecessary effort. ESG Lab evaluated various copy management efficiency points in a PAS solution.

ESG Lab Testing

ESG Lab tested Actifio PAS efficiency by identifying a 50 GB partially dedupable data set connected to an existing Windows host on existing primary storage. The SLA Architect workflow was leveraged to create a combination of protection schemas for the production test data.

Figure 12 shows a conceptual view of the data deduplication capabilities used for testing. The left side of the figure shows the original non-‐deduplicated production data (e.g., primary data on an existing storage platform) and the Actifio deduplicated local copy data at Site A. The middle portion of the figure shows the WAN benefit of replicating only unique data. The right side of the figure shows the replicated and deduplicated copy data and the re-‐hydrated or recreated production-‐ready data at Site B.

Figure 12. Actifio Data Management Overview

Next, the SLA Architect was leveraged to apply the protection principles depicted in Figure 12 to the 50 GB test data set. A daily snapshot with a two-‐week retention period and deduplicated replication with a one-‐year retention period was implemented and measured for the validation test data set. Finally, the measured results were used to calculate and compare the Actifio PAS protection method to that of a traditional disk-‐ and tape-‐based protection schema. The traditional protection method was calculated with local weekly full and daily incremental backups to both disk and tape. The local tape copies were restored to spinning disk space ready for host-‐level restores at the remote site. Longer-‐term retention was achieved with a monthly full backup to tape retained for a one-‐year period.



Figure 13 shows the copy data capacity savings realized with the PAS management solution compared with that of a traditional protection schema.

Figure 13. Copy Data Capacity Efficiency

Table 1. Detailed Information for Figure 13

Protection Method

Amount of Protected Production Data (GB)

Capacity Required for One Year of Data Protection (GB)

Multiplier of Production Data Used for Protection

Traditional 50 GB with 40% annual growth 2,145 31X Actifio 50 GB with 40% annual growth 176 2.5X

What the Numbers Mean

Actifio required 29 times less storage capacity to provide the same or better protection levels over the traditional method.

For one year of data protection, Actifio required 2.5 times the original production data. For one year of data protection, the traditional method required 31 times the original production data. Both local and remote recoverability was designed-‐in for each protection method. Each solution provided a year of data protection with a daily level of recoverability retained for a minimum

retention period of two months. The production data set used for validation testing was 50 GB of partially dedupable data. Typical real-‐world data would deduplicate at a much higher rate, resulting in even larger savings. A 40% annual growth rate was assumed for the production data. Actifio provided ready-‐to-‐mount host data at the remote site. The traditional protection method provided ready-‐to-‐restore data from spinning disk at the remote site.



Figure 14 shows network bandwidth savings achieved with the PAS solution through efficient replication of only the unique data segments.

Figure 14. Network Bandwidth Efficiency

What the Numbers Mean

Ninety-‐seven percent less network bandwidth was required to replicate a mid-‐cycle snapshot using PAS deduplicated replication.

The deduplicated replica represents a snapshot of the test data halfway through the one-‐year protection retention cycle, with 40% annual data growth taken into account.

With the PAS protection paradigm, only .05% of the local data had to be replicated.

Why This Matters Constantly growing data volumes put pressure on data protection systems, processes, and budgets. In fact, IT managers surveyed by ESG reported that one of their top two goals for 2011-‐12 was to find ways to better manage data growth. Massively growing data volumes and shrinking backup windows make data protection difficult; a solution that reduces the cost of network bandwidth and disk capacity is a compelling alternative to traditional backup and recovery software.

ESG Lab confirmed Actifio PAS’s ability to efficiently reduce capacity and bandwidth requirements for both local and remote copy data. Using a 50 GB data set with 40% annual growth for a one-‐year retention period, ESG Lab compared Actifio to a traditional disk-‐to-‐tape backup scenario. ESG Lab observed a savings of 29 times (2900%) in capacity, and a 95% savings outcome in network bandwidth with Actifio when compared to the traditional approach.



ESG Lab Validation Highlights ESG Lab successfully deployed and installed a new Actifio PAS system. The management software, Actifio Desktop, was quickly made available to begin the setup of protection schemes.

Using the SLA Architect, ESG Lab successfully created a new backup template and assigned backup rules, including frequency of jobs and retention limits. Everything was viewable through the Policies and Schedules tabs, confirming that the setup was done correctly.

ESG Lab was able to quickly find snapshots for different jobs and use them as restore points. This was true for a single file restore after a host failed, a SQL database restore after a table was deleted, and a VM restore after a VM was deleted.

ESG Lab was able to use the Mount and Clone functions provided by Actifio to work with older data sets without affecting current users of that data. This included the ability to use the same data set without increasing the capacity requirements.

Issues to Consider When deploying Actifio PAS in your environment, proper planning and best practices must be considered. In a small number of cases, planned application downtime for host rescans or a reboot must be accounted for when moving an existing device to a PAS-‐managed device.

ESG was pleased to see that simple file-‐level protection can be completely handled at the storage level. However, advanced application (e.g., MS Exchange or MSSQL) protection may require host-‐level integration.

It should be noted that storage array-‐specific multipath drives may need to be converted to native MPIO drivers when deploying Actifio PAS appliances in your environment. Consult with an Actifio specialist to confirm support requirements for your environment.



The Bigger Truth Everyone is talking about the data explosion occurring in organizations around the globe. More data—and bigger data sets—are being created to drive business. What few realize, however, is that while production data is certainly growing, copies of production data are growing exponentially. Copies are made for physical backup, virtual backup, snapshots, disaster recovery, business continuity, business analytics, compliance, and test/development. The cost of managing and retaining these copies is often many times higher than the cost to store the original data. In particular, storing and managing all of the copies using separate tools and duplicate infrastructures is a tremendous expense, and it consumes much of the database, application, server, and storage administrators’ time.

Actifio PAS separates what you do with your data copies from how you store them. Why should copies have to be created differently and managed separately just because they have different purposes, copy frequencies, retention times, and recovery needs?

Actifio PAS virtualizes the management of all copies so they work for the customer instead of the other way around. Users make a single copy and use it for different purposes with different SLAs—dramatically reducing unnecessary data growth, reclaiming tier 1 storage space, and getting instant backup and recovery. Along the way, they can get rid of backup software, point solutions, dedupe appliances, tape libraries, tapes, replication tools, and WAN optimization products. Offloading copying and copy management makes a production environment more efficient. Customers gain freedom of choice because any production storage can be attached to Actifio PAS appliances to be used as the data protection store. In addition, that freedom makes offsite replication more affordable and ensures that future storage decisions aren’t dictated by today’s needs.

Through validation testing, ESG Lab was able to confirm a 29 times (2900%) capacity reduction compared with the traditional copy management approach. By leveraging deduplicated replication, we also observed a 97% reduction in the bandwidth required for replication. ESG Lab expects real-‐world savings to be even greater than the testing results were, as field experience has shown typical data to exhibit even better deduplication rates than the test data set.

Actifio PAS represents a new class of storage designed to simplify and streamline the IT infrastructure, and the benefits are dramatic. Most organizations make between three and 20 copies of production data. Some may have over one hundred copies. That’s great news for storage vendors, but it is a huge capital and operational expense for IT organizations.

Actifio PAS is an application-‐centric, SLA-‐driven solution that, through virtualization, decouples the management of data from storage, network, and server infrastructures. The efficiency improvements and cost reductions will benefit not only corporate IT organizations, but also service providers that can leverage these features to differentiate their offerings, prices, and margins. Although Actifio PAS is new to the market, ESG expects it to significantly affect the bottom line of any corporate IT department or service provider, as well as enable new levels of protection for “big data” sets. We look forward to following Actifio PAS as it expands in its scope and capabilities.



Appendix Table 2. ESG Lab Test Bed

Application

Actifio PAS Version 4.0 SQL Server Version: 2008 R2 Standard Windows Server Version: 2008 R2 vCenter Server Version: 5.0

Storage

IBM

Model: EXP3512 Array: Dual-‐controller Drives: 6 Gbps SAS Interconnect: FC and iSCSI

SAN

IBM Switch Mode: SAN24B-‐4 Express Ports: 24 FC

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