WHITE PAPER: TODAY’S DATA STORAGE CHALLENGES
This white paper will
review the following topics:
• Current Data Growth and
The Challenges it Creates
• How Are Businesses
Currently Maintaining
Their Storage Growth?
• Aligning Storage
Priorities
• The LightBridge
Platform: True Innovation
• LightBridge ARCH: Aged
Storage Product
• LightBridge
Infrastructure
White Paper • Today’s Data Storage Challenges
CURRENT DATA GROWTH AND THE CHALLENGES IT
CREATES
The facts and figures surrounding today’s data storage market are
astounding. No matter how the material is presented, the percentages
determined, or the facts illustrated – it all leads to one conclusion:
corporations are faced with the daunting task of efficiently and effectively
storing the massive amount of data generated on a daily basis.
In 2012, research conducted by the IDC and EMC determined the digital
universe doubles every two years. In their study the digital universe was
defined as all digital data created, replicated and consumed. Translate
those numbers into actual dollars spent and one discovers businesses are
paying $1.7 billion dollars a month on storage and related costs. And this
cost is increasing at a drastic rate, with expectations of reaching $10.8
billion dollars a month by 2018. These growth percentages are impacting
businesses of all sizes. Even for companies currently maintaining 25TB of
data, storage requirements
Table 1: Estimated Data Storage Growth
will grow to over 3,000TB
25 TB
50 TB
100 TB
500 TB
Current Storage Amount
in just ten short years
50 TB
100 TB
200 TB
1000 TB
Storage Amount in 2 Years
3,113 TB
6,225 TB
12,450 TB
62,250 TB
Storage Amount in 10 Years
(Table 1).
Compounding the problem
of managing the exponential
growth in data, corporations
are struggling to determine
an efficient method of
of data
in operational systems
storing the various types of
is Mission Critical Data
files being generated. Data,
just like today’s business
models, no longer follow
is Archival Data
a streamlined generation
process. Files are created
at home offices, distributed
through email, saved to
1,000 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte
1,000 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte
temporary locations and
developed on hand-held
devices. This type of unstructured data is growing an estimated 62% yearover-year and creating a constant flux in file management. All the photos,
videos, images and social media content being generated has no efficient
method of being stored, maintained and too often is not considered in the
pool of data that needs to be archived or deleted.
B
15
B
YEAR
Mission Critical Data
20
14
20
13
20
12
5B
20
11
TERABYTES
10
Archival Data
Did You Know?
1,000 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte
20
20
B
20
20
19
B
25
20
18
B
30
20
17
B
35
20
16
B
40
20
15
Figure 1: Estimated Data Storage Growth
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White Paper • Today’s Data Storage Challenges
In addition, the rate at which files are generated and quickly discarded are
adding to the 70% of data stored within an on-premise system that Gartner
estimates is unreferenced (Figure 1). This unreferenced, or aged data,
is leading to strains and stresses on existing systems, impacting storage
budgets and corporations bottom-line.
HOW ARE BUSINESSES CURRENTLY MAINTAINING
THEIR STORAGE GROWTH?
Budget Overview of
Storage Market:
• 70% of expensive
on-premise hardware
is being utilized for
unreferenced, aged
data.
• Physical space
for data storage
expansion is reaching
capacity.
• Storage budgets
dealing with increased
environmental costs:
energy prices are up
11% year-over-year.
• Average per watt
usage for storage
devices is rising 21%
a year.
In most on-premise storage infrastructures, the business critical data
is stored utilizing the latest technology of SANs and NAS providing
assurance data is close at hand. IT operational budgets are heavily weighted
toward supporting this mission critical data. The hardware is focused on
high performance requirements providing instantaneous responses and
measured against stringent necessities of performance, reliability and
availability. These objectives lead to a massive investment of not only
software to maintain and monitor the high-level of availability, but staff.
However, these traditional storage products reach new challenges when
required to maintain an insurmountable amount of storage infrequently
referenced. The 70% of aged data maintained on the hardware is utilizing
expensive and critical storage equipment to the business. Physical space
is reaching capacity across the nation, as corporations have no additional
square footage to expand their operations without a significant capital
investment. In addition, environmental costs are significantly impacting
storage budgets. Energy prices are up an average of 11% year-over-year.
The energy price increase is even more impactful with the realization
storage devices are demanding more power per watt usage, with the
average requirements per unit increasing 21% a year. The power grid is
also dwindling, actively impacting new revenue generating opportunities
and delaying projects as IT organizations determine how to gain additional
power and space to support the needed infrastructure.
The strains on IT employee resources are growing, while the manpower
to support these infrastructures is shrinking. It is no wonder that during
EMC’s 2013 survey of over 800 organizations worldwide, it was
determined IT’s biggest challenge was managing the storage growth. The
most important technology to enterprise organizations to manage this
storage growth resides in backup / recovery and archiving solutions that
deliver results.
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White Paper • Today’s Data Storage Challenges
ALIGNING STORAGE PRIORITIES
With the right tool in hand, achieving resolution of these business concerns
is possible. Corporations are working to define an archival strategy that
not only benefits today’s on-premise data centers but reduces future
capital expenditures as well. By working through an integrated approach,
companies are able to offload the 70% of aged data absorbing significant
resources.
Table 2: Life-Cycle of Data
Stage
Day
Create
1
Mission-critical data
Update
1-30
Mission-critical data
Store / Use / Share
Stage Notes
31-90
Needed for reference requests
Archive
90+
Aged data, 70% of stored data
Destroy
-
Inactive data
In today’s business environment,
resources are thin and the squeaky wheel
gets the oil. It’s understandable why
IT teams are aligning their priorities to
focus on mission critical data, the active
revenue generator (Table 2). If the team
realigns the business focus from mission
critical data to review and implement
a transformative archive data strategy,
significant savings can be achieved.
But archiving the data is not the end of the line. Software products can
easily determine the proper unreferenced data to offload, but without taking
into consideration the entire life-cycle of data, the same team will be faced
with a wall of tapes needing to be cleared or approved for deeper archive
levels. The operational life-cycle of data needs to be fully considered in
order to implement a proper archive strategy.
The requirements for defining the data life-cycle requires input across
all departments. Finance needs to review retention policies for historical
accounting purposes, Legal has specific requirements and needs for
fulfilling eDiscovery requests, while Marketing departments are faced with
challenges of creating trending information for customers and forecasting
shifts in the market.
Today, most businesses are aware of the departmental requirements and
implementing a tiered storage strategy. However, the traditional solution
is to migrate the aged data to interior, lower cost storage still requiring
significant software and hardware management, employee resources and
power consumption.
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White Paper • Today’s Data Storage Challenges
THE LIGHTBRIDGE PLATFORM: TRUE INNOVATION
Using a distributed
architecture,
LightBridge brings
the most cost efficient
cloud storage platform
to the industry today.
The stage has been set for corporations to find and implement a product
providing significant resolution to these concerns. LightBridge is
transforming today’s storage market by providing a platform founded
on a unique merge of telecommunications industry knowledge and firsthand understanding of today’s storage needs. LightBridge provides a
cost-effective solution residing on spinning disks, translating to almost
instantaneous retrieval times at costs below tape archives.
From a development perspective, LightBridge utilizes three simple
strategies:
•
•
•
Secure. Physical and application security for data, surpassing
compliance requirements businesses are faced with on a daily basis.
Reliable. From start-ups to enterprise, LightBridge exceeds
expectations for consistent access to aged data. LightBridge’s
infrastructure of 5,000+ micro data centers places data in three
geographically diverse locations across the platform, all on enterprisequality hardware.
Agile. LightBridge approaches all relationships as a partnership to
ensure the platform continues to compliment and surpass corporation
requirements. LightBridge is built to allow for quick transformations
and system updates.
The LightBridge platform is built within the existing telecommunications
infrastructure with no additional footprint to the network. By archiving
aged data to LightBridge, corporations are reducing their utilization of
scarce power resources and realizing a significant cost savings greater than
85% over traditional storage. Once migrated from centralized storage, aged
data is providing significant improvements to on-premise storage allowing
for quicker searches, faster report generation and more efficient backups.
Using a distributed architecture, LightBridge brings the most cost efficient
cloud storage platform to the industry today.
LIGHTBRIDGE ARCH: AGED STORAGE PRODUCT
The LightBridge ARCH product is focused on providing customers a
simple and effective aged data software solution aligning storage processes
to ensure proper archival of aged data. LightBridge ARCH provides
customers with a simple client-side software installation generating an
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White Paper • Today’s Data Storage Challenges
6
automated process of determining “cold” files ready for archival. The
product also ensures users retain their strong search capabilities while
providing an unchained horizontal capacity scale.
LightBridge data storage pricing is unlimited, unrestricted and predictable.
No user fees. No access fees. No download fees. No hidden fees.
LightBridge storage
pricing is unlimited,
unrestricted and
predictable. No user
fees. No access fees.
No download fees.
No hidden fees.
Lowest TCO versus tiered data storage in the data center
Maintenance of any data storage investment must consider a number of
various components. For one, businesses know and understand the direct
costs of hardware purchases needed to increase storage capacity in the
system. What is not as understood are the operational costs raising the
actual storage budget, including staff and environmental costs.
Take the budget considerations one step further by considering the
significant up-front capital purchase required to expand on-premise storage.
These indirect costs quickly add up to a complex budget scenario for
clearly calculating the cost of any storage purchase. And unfortunately,
these costly investments are focused on maintaining mission-critical data.
It’s time for enterprise companies to utilize high-cost and valuable onpremise storage for mission-critical needs, preserving CAPEX investments
for a significantly longer amount of time. A solid strategy through the
utilization of LightBridge ARCH reduces dependency and urgency on
purchasing new storage systems by reclaiming existing capacity.
Through the utilization of LightBridge
ARCH, customers drastically lower costs
across many components, including
electricity, cooling, system management
and physical space. Customers have seen a
significant cost savings of over 85% from
traditional storage methods.
Go online to
LightBridgeData.com/TCO
True Cost of 100TB of Usable Storage
Data Center Storage vs. LightBridge ARCH Cloud Storage
Avg. Monthly Calculations
On-Premise Data
Center Storage
Direct Costs
Hardware Purchases
Taxes and Insurance
Installation and Integration
Operational Costs
Staff Costs
Maintenance and Support Costs
Environmental Costs
Storage Software
Data Center System Software
LightBridge Storage Costs
Networking Costs
Security
Data Protection
Indirect Costs
Capital Opportunity Costs
Increased Working Capital
UPS Upgrades
Power Grid Upgrades
100TB Usable Storage Total Cost
Average Cost Per GB
LightBridge Pricing
LightBridge List $/GB
Offered Discount
Your $/GB
LightBridge ARCH
Cloud Storage
$8,255.00
100.00%
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$52,913.00
$24,975.00
$19,075.00
$2,690.00
$20,985.00
$6,250.00
$0.00
$4,475.00
$1,070.00
$3,825.00
$4,995.00
$381.50
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$46,848.00
$0.00
$0.00
$688.50
$11,350.00
$0.00
$5,000.00
$2,500.00
$2,350.00
$1,500.00
$102,950.00
$1.01
LightBridge ARCH
Savings
$0.00
$5,755.00
$675.00
$1,825.00
$83,345.00
36.51%
100.00%
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
$0.00
Considerations for Your On-Premise
$52,913.00
48.60%
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
LIGHTBRIDGE
INFOGRAPHIC
$0.52
Research shows
$0.61
25%
$0.4575
1
Additional Information
1. Three year useful life
2. One-time costs were converted into monthly run rate for comparison purposes
3. LightBridge ARCH $/GB is estimated at the cost displayed. Your price will vary.
4. Light blue color signifies only costs payable to LightBridge. Other costs are assumed remaining internal costs.
of TCO is realized
after initial purchase
2
Printed: 4/10/14
Staff (23%)
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CONFIDENTIAL
Gartner estimates
Software (21%)
of data in operational systems
is unreferenced
Maintenance (19%)
Environmental (6%)
Off-load your costly unreferenced
data across LightBridge’s network
of 5,000+ micro data centers.
Taxes (1%)
Other (10%)
Increase the longevity
of your existing infrastructure
Contact LightBridge
855.263.2244
www.LightBridgeData.com
Info@LightBridgeData.com
Call LightBridge at 855.263.2244 to review your TCO.
Learn more about your
on-premise costs and
receive our customized
TCO spreadsheet.
LIGHTBRIDGE INFRASTRUCTURE
An OpenStack Storage Solution
LightBridge ARCH is built on the OpenStack Object Storage (Swift)
system, the most widely adopted cloud platform in the world. The
OpenStack solution provides a reliable foundation on which the ARCH
solution resides, delivering a scalable and redundant storage system.
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White Paper • Today’s Data Storage Challenges
The OpenStack software provides a strong, resilient base. Objects and
files are distributed to multiple disk drives logically spread throughout
the platform ensuring data replication and integrity remains across the
cluster. The platform is built with the knowledge of what has been proven
in today’s data centers, hard drives will fail. This can be a painful reality
in the traditional storage environment. However, within an OpenStack
environment all objects are automatically replicated from another active
hard drive to a new location. Because OpenStack uses software logic
to ensure data replication and distribution across different devices,
enterprise-quality, commodity hard drives and servers can be used. These
considerations provide customers with additional savings in their tiered
storage approach.
The intelligence of the systems continues to scale as new servers are added
to the system, allowing true horizontal scale across all storage clusters.
Figure 2: 5,000+ Micro Data Center Distribution
Network Foundation
The resilient LightBridge cloud storage platform provides
a distinct advantage over other cloud storage providers
through the distributed network of 5,000 micro data
centers (Figure 2). Through unique telecommunication
partnerships, LightBridge provides corporations with
nationwide geographic dispersion.
The central hub of the network resides in the largest fiber
interchange in the Midwest providing not only redundant
connectivity, but quick access through an extensive list of
telecommunication providers. The fiber-dense, network
neutral facility provides an unlimited network potential for
the utilization of the platform.
Security
Security requirements vary drastically through various industry regulations.
LightBridge understands this complex landscape and provides solutions
across most requirements.
Access to the platform requires a level of security. Each request to the
system requires SSL transport upon object upload and download along
with valid client credentials for access. Various compliance levels can be
accessed across the 5,000+ micro data centers, including PCI and HIPAA
compliance, along with SSAE-16 SOC Type I and Type II
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White Paper • Today’s Data Storage Challenges
8
Certification. Enhanced security options are also available for customers
requiring server-side Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256.
LightBridge provides an additional
Visit LightBridgeData.com/
protective layer through the
FileSharding
unique file sharding. File sharding
Learn more about the advanced
segments a single object, or file, into
security features LightBridge
separate sub-documents, or shards.
has to offer.
An algorithm processes a single
object generating a range of three to ten individual shards per object. These
shards are dispersed across the network of 5,000+ micro data centers. Each
individual shard remains unrecognizable across the network of micro data
centers.
FILE SHARDING
ARCH
HOW IT WORKS
File sharding provides a unique protective layer by taking a single
object (file) and segmenting the file to separate sub-documents,
or shards. The process utilizes an algorithm to transform objects
into individual shards, ranging from three to ten individual
segments. These shards are then distributed across the
LightBridge platform network of 5,000+ micro data centers.
BENEFITS of File Sharding
• Added Security
As an added layer of protection on top
of the existing LightBridge platform,
file sharding provides peace of mind for
your highly confidential materials. Each
1
individual shard remains unrecognizable
across the network of micro data centers.
OBJECT
TRANSFORMS
TO BECOME
TEN SHARDS
• Ease to Manage
Applying this protective layer of sharding
to your files is simple. Whether through
the API or the web platform, each object,
bucket or account can be flagged to
instruct the LightBridge ARCH platform
to perform the needed process on the file
prior to archiving.
• Cost Savings
Providing a high level of security to your
data files has multiple options, many
of which are costly to maintain. With
the LightBridge file sharding solution,
securely protecting your data is finally
affordable through our simple, and
ARCH
Contact Us Today
855.263.2244
www.LightBridgeData.com
Info@LightBridgeData.com
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minimal, additional price per GB.
Keeping your data accessible and secure,
while navigating the evolving landscape of
data storage can be a challenge. Through
utilization of the LightBridge platform
you can be assured we are focused on
maintaining the evolution of our platform.
V1405.1
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• Innovation
Providing Agility and Manageability
LightBridge ARCH is a pure software solution requiring no appliance or
on-site hardware installation with the option of three integration methods.
•
•
•
Free Client-Side Software Solution: allows quick implementation
while still providing customized policies to adapt to the business
environment
Client-Side Software Integration: SDK utilization is
available across multiple languages including Java, .NET,
Python, Ruby, PHP, C, Node.js, Go and many more along with
utilization in various operating systems such as Mac, Windows
and Linux/Unix.
Custom Third-Party Software Integration: allows a streamlined
model to be utilized within existing Web Applications, Backup and
Recovery Software along with File Management Appliance Archive
solutions.
And if at any time questions arise, LightBridge customer service is
available 24 / 7 / 365. Customer service provides support for problem and
incident management along with providing basic and advanced monitoring
of the system.
LightBridge ARCH Provides Additional Resiliency
Building on the OpenStack foundation, LightBridge ARCH provides
additional resiliency for the storage of aged data. Within the LightBridge
platform monitoring occurs not only on disk status, but other physical
components of the system including network status, network traffic volume,
CPU temperatures, server load and much more.
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White Paper • Today’s Data Storage Challenges
The LightBridge technical team is automatically notified if behavior of
any hardware component crosses LightBridge defined thresholds. This
notification creates a streamlined process to replace failed hard drives
without any impact to the LightBridge system. In addition, a third-party
service validates software availability through public side access.
Resiliency is provided through distribution across the network with all
5,000+ micro data centers equipped with UPS and back-up generators
along with on-site physical security.
Hardware Foundation
The LightBridge infrastructure is founded on enterprise-quality components
with built-in redundancy. Prior to installation, all storage hard drives are
pre-tested and validated. The platform utilizes dual switches and firewalls
ensuring high availability throughout the network. If one fails, another
device automatically takes over and continues operations. Redundancy in
compute power is addressed through dual boot disks, along with dual and
quad network interfaces. In the unexpected event an entire box fails, the
system will maintain operation at all times.
The LightBridge platform is future-facing to ensure technology can be
expanded and evolve with the constantly changing storage industry. The
platform provides an open and dynamic foundation allowing for truly
unlimited horizontal scaling potential.
Interoperability
The LightBridge ARCH solution was built utilizing industry standards.
There is no proprietary coding or lock-in required as industry-defined
requests are utilized for the system. The industry-defined requests provide a
customized installation including data retention policies, immutability and
time stamping.
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White Paper • Today’s Data Storage Challenges
SUMMARY
LightBridge is here to provide the scalable solution for solving long-term
data storage problems, while still delivering a total cost of ownership
savings up to 85% over traditional and other cloud storage solutions.
LightBridge ARCH is a distributed data storage solution that provides
clients with an effective means to manage massive quantities of aged
data that remains important to the corporation. ARCH was built for IT
professionals to provide a reliable, agile and affordable data storage
product, reducing significant cost for our clients.
•
•
•
•
Data remains searchable.
Data is located in seconds, not hours fumbling through disks or tape.
Data is accessed through script, not manpower.
Data is distributed across a nationwide network of 5,000+ micro data
centers
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CONTACT US
855.263.2244
LightBridgeData.com
Info@LightBridgeData.com
LightBridge is a high growth IT startup focused on delivering
distributed data storage to enterprise level clients. LightBridge
developed a technology to distribute data storage across multiple
sites providing better and more cost effective data storage.
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The mission of LightBridge leaders’ is simple: making life
simpler through technology. We trust and believe in our people
to build a great company that delivers results. We know and
understand the shifting data landscape: richer documents with
longer shelf lives. And through this landscape we are able to
provide our partners with a distributed data storage solution that
is cost efficient, scalable and secure.