< Previousbackup horror stories www.networkseuropemagazine.com 30With Halloween over and the festive season starting, the time for sharing scary tales is here! So, gather around the glow of your computer monitors and read on... what follow are not your average ghost and werewolf stories. No – these are three real-life, backup horror stories! Richard Root Digital Marketing Specialist ATTO Technology The nightmare before Christmas But not just for Christmas! backup horror stories www.networkseuropemagazine.com 31Behind closed doors, enveloped in a false sense of security, many companies believe that RAID storage is perfectly suitable for data protection purposes. They think they are safe. First up: the unsuspecting victims of RAID storage backups. Behind closed doors, enveloped in a false sense of security, many companies believe that RAID storage is perfectly suitable for data protection purposes. They think they are safe. But when, and not if, a write does not finish due to a RAID failure, the blood-curling screams from the IT manager’s office will send a chill up your spine! One such victim was a popular image website that lost all of its customers’ uploaded assets. Another was a feature film post-production group that lost power while working on a long editing session – they lost everything. And make no mistake: the failed-backups monster takes no prisoners, we wonder if the IT teams shed a few tears behind one of the racks… Even schools are not immune. One, in particular, found all of the data on its senior class had disappeared after a failed write. What makes these ghastly outcomes even more shocking is that they could have easily been avoided with the right tape solution! Second story In our second story, we hear about the woeful tale of the enterprise with no offsite backup – perhaps they dismissed best practice recommendations, or had never heard of them. Sometimes the data loss monster comes into data centres as a gremlin or bug that quietly sneaks into the system when nobody’s watching. And other times it is a natural disaster, backup horror stories www.networkseuropemagazine.com 32it attacks innocent victims all over the world and keeps returning like a campground-wandering, hockey-mask- wearing horror movie antagonist. The fear among IT organisations is palpable; the threat is real. And the damage can be immense: $4 billion was lost by just one company in 2017. Last year a UK company lost approximately $2.5 million. And that is before counting labour and recovery costs, not to mention the battering affected businesses take when it comes to their reputation and credibility, and therefore the ripple effect across their customers. There is no easy answer to fighting this terrifying menace, and so companies must arm themselves to be prepared for an attack. A tape backup solution is a proven and effective approach to thwart the impact of a ransomware attack. Tape backups, when stored, are not physically connected to a network and therefore could be the only barrier standing between a huge financial or data loss or surviving a ransomware attack relatively unscathed. Known as an ‘air gap’, this phrase is not mere hocus pocus, it is imperative when it comes to any organisation’s data protection strategy. The living dead? Despite many claiming that tape has died, this time- hallowed storage medium is no zombie. It is very much alive and well, with over 105 petabytes of total tape capacity (compressed) shipped in 2020 according to the LTO Program. Does tape figure in your data protection strategy? Or will you be the next victim of the backup curse? The protagonist in an upcoming data loss horror story? Be safe; get tape. n Companies must arm themselves to be prepared for an attack. A tape backup solution is a proven and effective approach to thwart the impact of a ransomware attack. backup horror stories www.networkseuropemagazine.com 33Research discovered 87% of businesses had increased investment in NetOps in the past two years, with a further 51% planning to implement this functionality in the next year. But as more businesses adopt a NetOps approach, particularly via automated processes, the traditional role of the network engineer has come under scrutiny. With the increasing popularity of NetOps and the ability for automation to reduce human error, is there still a place for the engineer in the maintenance of a business network? The answer is an unequivocal ‘yes’. Rather than removing the need for the network engineer, the advance of NetOps and network automation enhances the value network engineers can bring to a business. No more heroes? Network engineers have historically been viewed as the saviours when something goes wrong. The culture around saving the day meant one professional was relied on to step in when a fault occurred. They were often seen as having a level of understanding about the network that others were unable to attain. Much of the work involved hard manual effort and following repetitive applications or routines. If a particular event had happened on the network, most companies would expect an engineer to log in, run through five or six routines to work out what was happening and then remediate the problem. The advent of NetOps is changing that culture in a positive way. What NetOps does is automate that entire procedure so that when that event happens, the system automatically runs through those five or six steps. If that does not resolve the problem, the issue is escalated to the network engineer to handle the next level of troubleshooting. All this removes the dependency on a single hero to do the diagnostic and remediation work but also enables more engineers to be heroes by freeing them to apply their skills more proactively in managing the network at a higher operational level. Need for reskilling Through the capabilities it delivers, NetOps is helping overcome skills shortages for businesses. There are simply not enough engineers available to comprehensively staff every network location. Businesses can use NetOps tools to concentrate their network team’s resources at a network operations centre effectively rather than having to find resources to staff each and every site. So, the advent of NetOps will bring new opportunities to network engineers but will also require a level of reskilling. For years the badge of honour was being a certified engineer and CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert) or a CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) or JNCIE (Juniper). That is still valuable but for NetOps, there is an additional skill set that engineers will need to train for. They will need to program in Python, for example, and understand how docker containers work. They will need to deploy commonly- used toolsets like Chef, Puppet and Ansible. Network engineers need to understand how all this works - and those businesses that understand all this are training them up in the required skillsets. The success of this process will require commitment from engineers. Some will be wary of NetOps and automation, in part due to a lack of understanding of or familiarity with the approach. Overcoming this will, in part, come down to engineers being prepared to dip their toes in the water of the new approach. Simply using a Raspberry Pi at home, for example, will help them to gain experience in that environment. For young network engineers entering the business, collaboration with more experienced employees will be crucial, and the onus will be on business leaders to ensure that new starters learn from every aspect of the organisation. The business may also need to invest more in training and support for their engineers. In the Opengear survey, just 32% of respondents said their network management/engineering team had undertaken industry training courses in order to transition to NetOps. More than half (53%) of the survey sample said they had personally learnt about it (NetOps) in their spare time. Providing more flexibility, increasing speed and improving programmability, NetOps is a proactive approach to networking that uses automation and provisioning to modernise networks and increase their resilience. Yet, if enterprises are to make a success of it, they need to transition to a NetOps culture. Ultimately, that entails more than just integration of new solutions; it needs a mindset shift among the professionals that work within it. Enterprises and their engineers taking these considerations into account and focusing on achieving them will ensure effective integration of NetOps and enable a smoother journey on the road to resilience. n Alan Stewart Brown VP of EMEA Opengear The road to network resilience is a thorny one, with networks becoming ever more complex and harder to manage. One way organisations can enhance resilience is by adopting NetOps: an approach which embeds a growing amount of automation, virtualisation and orchestration, to make networking operations and functions faster and more accessible. network resilience www.networkseuropemagazine.com 34 Debunking NetOps and automation does not replace network resilience www.networkseuropemagazine.com 35 bunking the myths: ps and automation does eplace human expertiseways to future-proof your data centre future-proof data centre www.networkseuropemagazine.com 36In 2020 the world generated a gigantic 40 zettabytes (ZB) of data – that’s 1.7 MB of data per second, per person for everyone on earth. While the spike in data generation could be attributed to the pandemic, which had most of us working and studying remotely and using the internet more for entertainment and keeping in touch, it’s part of a wider global trend for data consumption which shows no sign of abating. By 2025, data creation will have grown to more than 180ZB and storage of this data will grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of almost 20% during the same period. To keep up with this exponential growth, data centres need to be able to expand and grow quickly. To do this in the most effective way, there are three key considerations that operators should be looking to feed into their future plans. Let’s start with sustainability. Sustainability: growing in a sustainable way Meeting growing global demand for data while cutting carbon emissions may feel like it's pulling data centre operators in conflicting directions, but it’s a must if the data centre sector is to grow in a sustainable way. Sustainability is top of the agenda at the moment (given COP26) but it’s not something that is going away anytime soon. With societal and regulatory pressure mounting on businesses to reduce carbon emissions, data centres must be looking not only to meet their current local regulations but to exceed them. This is the way to future-proof data centres from new regulatory changes and tighter restrictions further down the line. The amount of data created and consumed every day continues to grow rapidly, and for data centre operators all eyes must be on their future expansion plans to ensure they are ready to capitalise on this demand. To do this effectively and efficiently, data centres should be looking to address the three major future-proofing considerations of sustainability, scalability and digitalisation. Dave Sterlace, Head of Technology at ABB Global Data Center Solutions, takes a closer look at these key trends which will be instrumental in delivering the data centres of the future. Dave Sterlace Head of Technology ABB Global Data Center Solutions -proof tre future-proof data centre www.networkseuropemagazine.com 37Data centres can reduce their energy by focusing on highly energy-efficient solutions, limiting or reducing diesel genset usage, and monitoring and controlling their energy use more effectively. In terms of energy efficiency, there’s plenty to be done on the power front. More than 50% of the power required to run a server is used by its central processing unit (CPU). Most CPUs have power management features that optimise power consumption by dynamically switching between multiple performance states based on utilisation. Therefore, by dynamically ratcheting down processor voltage and frequency outside of peak performance tasks, the CPU can minimise energy waste. Power distribution should also be considered. Virtually all IT equipment is designed to work with input power voltages ranging from 100-240V AC (in accordance with global standards), and the general rule is the higher the voltage, the more efficient the unit. But by operating a UPS at 240/415V, three-phase, four-wire output power, a server can be fed directly and achieve an incremental 2% reduction in facility energy use. If the budget is available, data centres should also consider the benefits of plugging into the Smart Grid. These enable two-way energy and information flows to create an automated and distributed power delivery network. Data centre operators can also install green power sources within their facility in the future, such as hydrogen fuel cells, which would significantly reduce energy use and emissions. In addition to the above, data centres could explore more efficient cooling systems to save energy using ideas such as segregation, non-evaporative cooling to raise the temperature in the data hall or the installation of rear door heat exchangers. The use of low harmonic drives also provides energy savings in cooling with minimal impact on power quality for network efficiency. Other ways to reduce energy use include considering fitting battery energy storage systems, drive consolidation and minimising idle IT equipment with distributed computing. Virtualisation programmes can also improve the utilisation of hardware to enable a reduction in the number of power-consuming services and storage devices to improve server usage by around 40%. It’s also worth noting that a data centre’s green credentials don’t begin and end at the front door. An operator’s supply chain should also be reviewed to see whether it’s possible to specify more sustainable products and services from third parties and suppliers in the future. Scalability: Building capacity, one step at a time It’s fair to say that in the past, data centre providers have favoured a ‘building for tomorrow’ approach, installing vast data centres from the ground up or adding large scale extensions to existing locations. However, this requires considerable upfront costs and if the space built is not leased straight away, there is a delay in revenue generation as well as the running and maintenance costs for empty server rooms. Therefore, another trend we will see a lot more of in the future is scalability; building data centres in smaller blocks and opening one while work starts on building the next. This approach reduces upfront investment and minimises the delay in getting revenue in, while allowing providers to secure tenants earlier, which is important in such a competitive, fast-paced environment. future-proof data centre www.networkseuropemagazine.com 38Scalability allows data centres to grow sustainably with future demand and it can also simplify the specification process. For example, some scalable designs use modular, prefabricated solutions which are made offsite in an eHouse or on a skid. These are also pretested at the factory to save site work and commissioning time. Modular builds incorporate standard blocks of power, repeated throughout, to allow for easy future expansion. The standardisation of design improves operational reliability but it’s important to note that designs must still be flexible to adapt to different site requirements. Switchgear, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), power distribution units (PDU) and remote power panels (RPP) are all examples of scalable equipment. Get scalability right and future expansions will be time and cost-efficient. In fact, our research suggests that compared to traditional stick-built data centre construction projects, using prefabricated solutions can generate a 30% improvement in speed to deployment, and the use of pre-designed solutions can improve deployment by 20%. Use both prefabricated and pre-designed solutions together and operators could look at a 50% total improvement against traditional data centre builds. It’s worth noting that the recommendations above are for the current data centre landscape. In the future, we will see more capacity required for machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC), which require higher density nodes. In this case, more dense power zones will be needed and perhaps even the facility for liquid or alternate cooling apparatus to be fitted to reduce energy use. Digitalisation: A brighter future Digitalisation is arguably the biggest of all the future data centre trends. As an overarching solution, it can contribute positively to both sustainability and scalability as well as the effective and efficient running of tomorrow’s data centres. As a minimum requirement, data centre operators should be installing digitally ready or digitally enabled equipment in the here and now, as this will give them the foundations for their future digitalisation journey – even if they are not ready to embark on it in the short term. One of the key aspects of digitalisation is to ensure systems are interoperable so that they share a common language. Open control protocols like BACNET and IEC61850 ensure easy communication between equipment and will work together to improve a data centre’s overall performance. Getting digitalisation ready also enables providers to take advantage of future advancements in technology such as remote services like augmented reality and predictive maintenance features which allow issues to be identified (and resolved) quicker. This in turn saves money vs “break fix” or calendar- based maintenance. By putting the emphasis on preventative maintenance, digitalised data centres can focus their technicians’ time on maintaining critical equipment. Digitalisation is also the basis of the energy monitoring and controls needed to improve energy efficiency. After all, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Digitalisation provides insights on where energy is being used, allowing data centre operators to optimise usage, avoid waste and establish a more sustainable operation. Digitalised equipment also simplifies scalable data centre designs as it reduces the number of connections and wiring required for an installation by 90%. Therefore, it is easier to expand and scale up your switchgear. The world needs big solutions to meet the global demand for data. If data centre providers are to keep up, they need to adapt and expand quickly using the future trends outlined to make their offer agile, efficient and ready for what’s coming next. n future-proof data centre www.networkseuropemagazine.com 39Next >