CASE STUDY ANSWERS

Qn1: Cloud services- Philip Nash photography could use cloud services for their storage as it is very efficient, cost effective and it could support its demanding storage requirements. From the cloud computing services Philip Nash photography could use mainly Infrastructure as a service (iaas). Infrastructure as a Service is a provision model in which an organization outsources the equipment used to support operations, including storage, hardware, servers and networking components. The service provider owns the equipment and is responsible for housing, running and maintaining it. The client typically pays on a per-use basis. Philip Nash Photography Company could subscribe for servers from the cloud services provider to store their images as these could handle their overwhelming need to storage of images and videos. Serves could handle bulk images and videos from the company and this could save Philip Nash photography the cost of buying servers in future. Access to the resources can be anywhere where there is an internet connection thus uploading and editing can be easily done. Qn2: Philip Nash photography would prefer disk based data protection as they have:
Faster restores

The random access nature of disk drives enables the instant merging of incremental backups. Contrast this with tape, where multiple incremental backups are often spread across multiple tapes and likely to be far from the start of the tape. The RAID configuration of the disks in a backup appliance allows for redundancy and increased throughput by backing-up and restoring multiple clients simultaneously. So when you need to restore a file, or even a single email, you can find it and restore it in a matter of minutes without sorting through any number of tapes.
Shorter backup windows Disk-based backups reduce the backup windows in two ways. First, random access and higher reliability of the disk media means you can leverage more incremental backups per full backup. Full backups can be scheduled much less frequently, or selected to coincide with an expected lull (i.e., over the weekend) in operations. Since incremental backups typically need to save a small fraction of the total data, most backup windows become much shorter. Second, multiple clients can be backed up simultaneously with disk-based backup which results in higher throughput. Accelerated backup and archiving Another benefit of disk-based backups is performance. Disk-based solutions leverage RAID performance and reliability to quickly backup and restore data. Greater reliability Research has found that as many as 70% of tape recovery attempts fail . Disk-based solutions benefit from very reliable commodity disks, made even more reliable by using RAID to protect against disk failures. There are no tapes to misplace, or robotics to jam and recalibrate. Disk drives are selfcontained and less sensitive to environmental conditions, so they can be reliably used for a longer period of time in more diverse environments. For most SATA drives, the manufactures warranty is 5 years.

 Easier management Disk-based solutions are easier to manage overall. The interfaces and concepts of file system, disk, and network attached storage (NAS) are familiar even to entry-level IT staff, meaning less training and fewer mistakes from the start.

Qn3 : Capacity The electronic media storage option provides a storage capacity appropriate for the quantity of data under normal operating procedures. This may also be dependent upon whether the media represents a temporary depository (prior to transfer to some archival site) or signifies the final archival storage medium. Cost At least two elements must be considered when assessing the relative costs of electronic storage media the cost of the media itself and the total cost of ownership. Valid comparisons of media costs are generally made on a price per Gigabyte (Gb) basis. The total cost of ownership includes costs for purchasing and maintaining the necessary hardware/software, and any storage equipment required. Support costs and the manufacturers quoted mean lifetime before failure of the relevant media must also be taken into account. Durability The electronic storage media should have low susceptibility to physical damage and be tolerant of a wide range of environmental conditions without data loss. Any reasonable measures required to counter known susceptibilities (such as packaging or storage, for example) should be affordable and readily achievable. Obsolescence The electronic media and its supporting hardware should preferably be based on mature technology. The technology should be well established in the market place and widely available. Media technologies that are based upon open standards for both media and drives would be generally preferable to those that are proprietary to a single manufacturer. The drive/media technologies should have projected lifetimes at least equal to or longer than the anticipated data storage or archival duration.

Qn4:

DAS (Direct Attached Storage):

When Windows servers leave the factory, they can be configured with several storage options. Most servers will contain 1 or more local disk drives which are installed internal to the servers cabinet. These drives are typically used to install the operating system and user applications. If additional storage is needed for user files or databases, it may be necessary to configure Direct Attached Storage (DAS). DAS is well suited for a small-to-medium sized business where sufficient amounts of storage can be configured at a low startup cost. The DAS enclosure will be a separate adjacent cabinet that contains the additional disk drives. An internal PCI-based RAID controller is typically configured in the server to connect to the storage. The SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) technology is used to connect the disk arrays as illustrated in the following example.

SAN (Storage Area Networks):

With Storage Area Networks (SAN), we typically see this solution used with medium-to-large size businesses, primarily due to the larger initial investment. SANs require an infrastructure consisting of SAN switches, disk controllers, HBAs (host bus adapters) and fibre cables. SANs leverage external RAID controllers and disk enclosures to provide high-speed storage for numerous potential servers. The main benefit to a SAN-based storage solution is the ability to share the storage arrays to multiple servers. This allows you to configure the storage capacity as needed, usually by a dedicated SAN administrator. Higher levels of performance throughput are typical in a SAN environment, and data is highly available through redundant disk controllers and drives. The disadvantages include a much higher startup cost for SANs, and they are inherently much more complex to manage. The following diagram illustrates a typical SAN environment.

NAS (Network Attached Storage):

A third type of storage solution exists that is a hybrid option called Network Attached Storage (NAS). This solution uses a dedicated server or appliance to serve the storage array. The storage can be commonly shared to multiple clients at the same time across the existing Ethernet network. The main difference between NAS and DAS and SAN is that NAS servers utilize file level transfers, while DAS and SAN solutions use block level transfers which are more efficient. NAS storage typically has a lower startup cost because the existing network can be used. This can be very attractive to small-to-medium size businesses. Different protocols can be used for file sharing such as NFS for UNIX clients and CIF for Windows clients. Most NAS models implement the storage arrays as iSCSI targets that can be shared across the networks. Dedicated iSCSI networks can also be configured to maximize the network throughput. The following diagram shows how a NAS configuration might look.

Qn5: There are the problems that the flash drives can eliminate: Rewritability: A USB Flash drive can be erased and re-written even hundreds of thousands of times in its whole lifespan. A CD/DVD may be re-writable or not. In case of Re-Writable(RW) CD/DVDs, the issue is with the limitation of rewriting cycles(only 1000 or so) and also the appropriacy for large scale re-writing only. For the need of small scale re-writing(such as writing a 140kb word file), CD/DVDs prove highly impractical and hence USB drives are most preferred. Compact size: USB flash drives are so small in size that they are often kept as a part of keychain or carried in the wallet itself. They are often termed as Pen drive, just because of their similar size and shape as that of a pen(even smaller than a pen) Faster data transfer: Compared to older storage media, USB flash drive transfers data much faster, reading data at about 30Mb/s and writing at around 12-15 Mb/s. Upcoming upgradations such as USB 3.0 are certainly going to enhance the data transfer rates by multi-folds. High capacity: USB flash drives have a huge storage capacity, going to a maximum of 64GB, much higher compared to storage capacities of CD(700MB) or Dual layered DVD(9.6GB). For more storage along with portability, one has to switch to Portable harddisks.

Longer lifespan: As write and erase cycles go in hundreds of thousands in count, the lifespan of a USB drive goes beyond 10 years(for general purpose usage). Within this much time, the user is expected to actually switch to more advanced USB solutions. Sturdy Design: Unlike fragile Floppy disks or CD/DVDs, USB flash drives are much more resistant to wear and tear. USB Flash drives are generally scratch-proof and have lesser chances of any mechanical damage. They are also protected against dust penetration. Portability & Comfort: It is very convenient to use a USB flash drive on modern PCs and laptops. Almost every PC/laptop has multiple USB ports and therefore, you will hardly find a moment when you cannot find a USB port for plugging your flash drive into it. As the size of USB drive is ultra small, its very convenient to carry along as well.