Solutions

The Challenge of Remote Storage Extension

A global bank with data centers in New York, London and Singapore. Each of these data centers has critical transactional data that needs to be available and replicated in real time across all locations. The bank’s goal is to create a disaster recovery plan so no data is lost if a disaster hits any of these cities.

The problem? Extending traditional Fibre Channel (FC) storage systems across oceans and continents results in latency, bandwidth bottlenecks and data loss. The longer the distance the more likely the network will struggle to maintain data integrity and availability. For a bank that handles billions of dollars in transactions this is not acceptable.

Enter Lightsand: Seamless Connectivity Across Distances

This is where Lightsand comes in, with decades of experience and innovation in SAN extension technology. The bank chooses Lightsand’s HCI Series to extend their Fibre Channel storage systems across vast distances. The HCI Series uses WAN-optimized flow control and lossless transmission protocols to replicate the bank’s data across continents in real time, without compromising on speed or integrity.

With Lightsand’s WAN optimization the bank achieved ultra low latency in data replication so their New York, London and Singapore data centers are always in sync. They were able to enhance their disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity plans with zero downtime and continuous data access, no matter where.

Lightsand’s Magic

What makes Lightsand’s SAN extension technology so special? Let’s look at the benefits and technology that makes it happen:

1. Ultra Low Latency for Critical Applications

In industries like finance and healthcare where every millisecond counts, latency is a big issue. Lightsand’s technology delivers sub-millisecond latency even when extending Fibre Channel or FICON storage over thousands of kilometers. This is achieved through proprietary flow control mechanisms that manage data transfer so data packets are never dropped and replication is smooth and efficient.

Example: A hospital with data centers in Boston and Los Angeles needs real time access to patient data. With Lightsand they can replicate critical patient records in real time so life saving information is available immediately in case of an emergency.

2. Seamless Protocol Interoperability

One of the biggest challenges in storage extension is the interoperability of different protocols and technologies. Some businesses use Fibre Channel (FC) for their data centers, others use Ethernet Layer-2 or IP protocols. Connecting these disparate systems was always a complex and expensive process.Lightsand eliminates this complexity with multiprotocol support so businesses can connect Fibre Channel, Ethernet Layer 2 and IP protocols over the same WAN link. The i-SWAN 3.0 platform, for example, allows this bank to carry Fibre Channel and Ethernet Layer 2 traffic over the same WAN infrastructure, reducing costs and simplifying network management.

3. Scalability for Growing Businesses

As businesses grow so do their data centers. Whether through mergers, acquisitions or organic growth companies need storage solutions that can scale easily. Lightsand’s products are built for scalability. They allow businesses to extend their SANs to new regions without reconfiguring or performance degradation.

Example: A global company is expanding into South America and wants to extend their existing SAN infrastructure to a new data center in São Paulo. With Lightsand they can add the new data center to their existing storage network quickly and easily without impacting their other regions.

4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

Lightsand’s HCi-1248 is ideal for companies that need robust disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) strategies. By providing lossless data transmission across distances Lightsand allows synchronous and asynchronous replication of critical data so Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) are met or exceeded. For the global bank this meant being able to do automatic failover between their primary and backup data centers without any data loss or downtime. Whether it’s a power outage in Singapore or a network failure in London they know their data is always safe and available in real time.

5. Cost Savings Through WAN Optimization

Extending storage networks across large distances can be expensive especially when using dedicated WAN links. But Lightsand’s SAN extension solutions provide WAN optimization that reduces total cost of ownership (TCO). By allowing multi-service connectivity carrying Fibre Channel, Ethernet and IP traffic over the same infrastructure, Lightsand optimizes bandwidth usage and reduces the need for expensive dedicated circuits. This is a big deal for businesses looking to save costs without compromising performance and reliability in their SANs.

Looking Ahead: LightSand in a Connected World

As data grows in volume and importance the need for storage solutions that are reliable, scalable and efficient becomes even more pressing. Lightsand’s SAN extension connectivity technology is designed to meet this need so businesses around the world can stay connected, secure and resilient in a connected world.

From financial services to healthcare, telecommunications and beyond Lightsand’s solutions are proving distance is no longer a barrier to high performance data storage. Whether it’s real-time replication across continents or protocol interoperability Lightsand is giving businesses the confidence to move their data wherever they are in the world.

Lightsand's Innovative Approach

Lightsand specializes in high-intensity storage data replication, crucial for overcoming latency, bandwidth limitations, and managing large data volumes inherent in global data center migrations. By integrating WAN optimization, real-time monitoring, data compression, and hybrid cloud solutions, Lightsand empowers organizations to migrate data centers confidently and efficiently, even across extensive geographical distances.

The Importance of Data Center Migration

Data center migration is driven by various factors such as infrastructure improvement, cost efficiency, regulatory compliance, and business expansion. It involves relocating critical data, applications, and infrastructure, a process that demands meticulous planning and execution to mitigate risks effectively.

Challenges of Long-Distance Data Center Migration:

1. Latency and Bandwidth: Long distances exacerbate latency and bandwidth constraints, potentially leading to delays and bottlenecks in data replication processes.

2. Data Volume: Managing large volumes of data (including petabytes) across long-haul connections requires advanced solutions to ensure timely and accurate replication.

3. Data Consistency: Maintaining data consistency throughout the replication process is critical to avoid operational disruptions and ensure data integrity.

4. Downtime: Minimizing downtime during migration is essential to prevent financial losses and preserve organizational reputation.

Innovative Solutions in High-Intensity Storage Data Replication

To tackle these challenges, several innovative solutions have emerged:

1. WAN Optimization: Optimizing Wide Area Network (WAN) performance through protocol enhancements, data caching, and compression accelerates data transfer speeds and mitigates congestion.

2. Data Compression and Deduplication: Advanced techniques reduce data volume during replication, optimizing bandwidth usage and enhancing replication efficiency.

3. Parallel Replication: Simultaneously replicating data from multiple sources to the target data center reduces replication times and enhances overall efficiency.

4. Real-Time Monitoring: Monitoring tools offer real-time visibility into replication processes, enabling proactive issue detection and resolution to maintain data consistency.

5. Hybrid Cloud Solutions: Leveraging hybrid cloud architectures enables replication to both on-premises and cloud-based repositories, ensuring data availability and robust disaster recovery capabilities.

The Importance of Disaster Recovery and Data Protection

Disasters, whether natural calamities or human-made incidents like cyberattacks, pose substantial threats to business operations by causing data loss and service disruptions. Effective disaster recovery and data protection strategies are essential to mitigate these risks, encompassing comprehensive measures such as data backups, failover systems, and robust disaster recovery plans. Central to these strategies is the concept of data replication.

Understanding Data Replication

1. Data Resiliency: Data replication ensures redundancy by maintaining up-to-date copies of data at secondary sites. This redundancy safeguards against primary site failures or outages, minimizing data loss and enabling continuous access to critical applications.

2. Minimal Downtime: By keeping secondary sites synchronized with the primary site, replication solutions facilitate seamless failover in case of disasters or system failures. This capability reduces downtime to a minimum, ensuring uninterrupted business operations.

3. Improving RPO and RTO: Replication solutions play a crucial role in improving Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs). RPO defines the acceptable amount of data loss, while RTO specifies the maximum allowable downtime. Advanced replication technologies can reduce both metrics to near-zero, enabling swift recovery and minimal data loss.

4. Geographic Diversity: Replicating data to geographically distant sites enhances disaster resilience by providing protection against regional disasters. This geographic diversity ensures that data remains accessible and secure even during large-scale events affecting primary data centers.

Innovations in Data Replication Solutions

As the importance of data replication grows, innovations in replication technology have evolved to meet diverse business needs:

1. Real-Time Replication: Also known as synchronous replication, real-time replication ensures immediate copying of every data change to secondary sites. This approach eliminates data loss associated with traditional asynchronous replication methods, providing continuous data protection.

2. Multi-Site Replication: Organizations requiring enhanced redundancy deploy multi-site replication solutions. These innovations facilitate complex data distribution across multiple sites, optimizing failover processes and bolstering data availability.

3. Hybrid Cloud Replication: Hybrid cloud replication combines on-premises infrastructure with cloud-based replication solutions. This hybrid approach leverages cloud resources for data storage and disaster recovery, offering scalability, cost-efficiency, and flexibility in managing data across distributed environments.

In conclusion, Data replication solutions are pivotal in disaster recovery and data protection strategies, ensuring data resiliency, minimal downtime, and improved RPOs and RTOs. As organizations increasingly rely on data for their operations, innovations such as real-time replication and hybrid cloud solutions have become indispensable. Lightsand's advanced replication technology further enhances the efficiency and reliability of data replication, empowering organizations to safeguard their data assets and maintain business continuity in the face of unforeseen disasters.

SAN Bridges: Bridging the Gap in Data Storage Technologies

In the dynamic landscape of data storage and management, Storage Area Network (SAN) bridges have emerged as essential components, bridging the divide between different storage technologies, protocols, and environments. These versatile devices play a pivotal role in ensuring interoperability, facilitating data migration, and optimizing data flow across heterogeneous storage systems.

Understanding LightSand SAN Bridges

At its core, a SAN bridge is a networking device that acts as an intermediary between storage systems utilizing different protocols. Lightsand SAN bridges specifically address challenges posed by various storage protocols such as Fibre Channel (FC), iSCSI, NFS (Network File System), IP, DWDM, and more.

Key Functions of Lightsand SAN Bridges:

1. Protocol Translation: Lightsand SAN bridges excel in protocol translation, enabling seamless data transfer between storage devices employing different protocols. This capability is crucial in environments with mixed-storage technologies, ensuring compatibility and smooth operation.

2. Interoperability: Promoting interoperability, Lightsand SAN bridges facilitate harmonious operation among storage systems from different vendors. In heterogeneous IT environments, where multiple storage solutions coexist, these bridges ensure that data can be shared and accessed across diverse platforms without compatibility issues.

3. Data Migration: SAN bridges are instrumental in data migration projects, facilitating the secure movement of data between storage systems while preserving data integrity. This capability is essential during transitions to new storage technologies or platforms.

4. Distance Extension: Designed for distance extension, Lightsand SAN bridges enable organizations to connect storage arrays or data centers over extended geographical distances. This capability is critical for disaster recovery and business continuity strategies, ensuring data availability even across remote locations.

5. Security: Lightsand SAN bridges incorporate robust security features such as encryption and authentication mechanisms to protect data during transit across storage networks. These measures mitigate security risks and ensure data confidentiality and integrity.

6. Performance Optimization: Enhancing data transfer performance, Lightsand SAN bridges offer features like data compression and Quality of Service (QoS) settings. These optimizations streamline data replication processes, reduce latency, and improve overall efficiency.

7. Management and Monitoring: Equipped with comprehensive management interfaces and monitoring tools, Lightsand SAN bridges empower administrators to configure, monitor, and troubleshoot the device effectively. This visibility into storage network health and performance is crucial for maintaining operational continuity.

8. High Availability: To minimize downtime and ensure continuous data access, Lightsand SAN bridges incorporate high availability features. Redundant components and failover capabilities mitigate the risk of disruptions due to hardware failures, offering reliable 99.99999% availability.

Performance Enhancements:

Lightsand SAN bridges continually advance data transfer speeds, with innovative models achieving up to three to five times faster data rates over WAN connections. This improvement addresses latency challenges associated with long-distance data replication.

The Need for FICON Extension at High Distances

Modern business operations often span multiple data centers across different geographical locations. For organizations requiring continuous data access and availability, especially for disaster recovery (DR) purposes, the ability to extend FICON connections over long distances is essential. Traditional FICON limitations can hinder remote data access and efficient data replication between geographically dispersed locations.

Use Cases for High-Distance FICON Extension:

1. Disaster Recovery (DR): High-distance FICON extension is critical for robust disaster recovery strategies. It ensures that data remains accessible even during catastrophic failures or data center outages by maintaining high-speed connections between primary and backup data centers located far apart.

2. Remote Data Access: Enterprises with centralized data storage models often need remote offices and data centers to access centralized data pools efficiently. FICON extension over long distances facilitates secure and high-speed remote data access, enabling seamless data sharing and collaboration across geographic boundaries.

3. Data Migration: Data migration projects involving mainframes and storage systems in different physical locations benefit from high-distance FICON extension. It supports high-speed, reliable data transfers between source and target systems, simplifying the complexities of data migration processes.

LightSand's Innovative Contribution

Lightsand, a leader in data connectivity solutions, has pioneered innovative technologies to address the challenges of FICON extension at high distances. Notably, Lightsand achieved the first successful 1,000 km FICON extension connection in 2004 without degradation, marking a significant milestone in extending FICON capabilities over long distances. Since then, Lightsand has continued to advance its technologies, providing market-leading solutions for mainframe and storage interconnectivity.