Simple Networked Storage for the Financial Industry

Accounting and bookkeeping firms’ reputations are built on providing excellence and integrity in helping businesses and individuals attain their financial goals. Increasing state and federal regulation to protect and retain client records means that data must be available for longer periods of time. Secure and efficient backup is a challenge for these companies, especially in a direct attached storage environment. Access to client financial records must be maintained and recovery, if required, must be fast.

Data protection
The StoreVault S500 provides multiple layers of protection for client data. The disk array uses RAID protection to ensure data is kept safe in the event of a disk drive failure: a replacement drive is rebuilt from the surviving drives. RAID-DP is a NetApp technology that provides a significantly higher level of protection by ensuring that data is kept safe in the even in the event of two disk drive failures occurring at the same time. Having a hot spare in the array provides the ability to recover faster from a disk failure: as soon as early warning of a failure is detected the hot spare is immediately brought online and the recovery operation starts.

The data cache on the StoreVault S500 is non-volatile RAM: the memory is protected with a battery backup so that the data in cache is not lost in the event  of a power outage.

Storage consolidation
As accounting firms grow they typically add storage by adding servers or adding more storage to existing servers. This direct attached storage (DAS) model is inefficient as the storage can only be used by the server it is attached to. In a networked storage environment, multiple servers can share storage. The StoreVault S500 is an ideal platform for storage consolidation. In a single box, it combines file sharing (NAS); block-level application storage (SAN); and can even act as direct attached storage until you are ready to take the step into the networked storage world.

By centralizing storage into a central pool that is available to be shared by accountants and applications, the usage is much more efficient, and management is simplified. Typically in a direct attached storage environment a tape drive is attached to each server to perform backups. All need to be managed, typically at night or on weekends. A single tape drive attached to the S500 enables backup for off-site storage while simplifying the process.

Eliminating the backup window
The backup window is shrinking as accounting firms reach out to clients across the continent or across the world. There is no longer a good time to halt applications while a backup job runs. With NetApp Snapshot technology embedded in the StoreVault S500 the backup window becomes a thing of the past. A Snapshot is an image of the entire file system a point in time. No data is copied to make this image, just the pointers to those active data blocks. Therefore the image is captured almost instantly and without impacting performance. The image is stable and will not change and so can be used as a backup source at any time, freeing up nights and weekends for the person who today is responsible for changing all the tapes.

Eliminating incremental backups
The backup window is shrinking as accounting firms reach out to clients across the continent or across the world. There is no longer a good time to halt applications while a backup job runs. With NetApp Snapshot technology embedded in the StoreVault S500 the backup window becomes a thing of the past. A Snapshot is an image of the entire file system a point in time. No data is
copied to make this image, just the pointers to those active data blocks. Therefore the image is captured almost instantly and without impacting performance. The image is stable and will not change and so can be used as a backup source at any time, freeing up nights and weekends for the person who today is responsible for changing all the tapes.

Instant backup, instantaneous restore
We all wish we could travel back in time occasionally; every accounting professional has at some time overwritten a file or accidentally deleted the wrong file. Using the Snapshot technology, going back in time could not be simpler. Most calls to IT personnel to restore data involve individual files or directories. Because all the security attributes of the original files are maintained with the
Snapshot, users can be authorized to restore their own overwritten, deleted or corrupted files. Because Snapshots are read-only images, they also provide protection from accidental or malicious data corruption.

Backup and restore
The secure backup of client financial records is critical. The StoreVault S500 can be specified with a SCSI card to enable direct backup to tape of the unit. NDMP compliance ensures that the unit can also be backed up over either iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN.

The S500 can act as a target for centralized backup of accountants’ desktop or laptop computers, reducing the likelihood of data loss from damage, theft or data corruption. It can also act as a backup target in a disk-to-disk-to-tape implementation. Backup to disk ensures rapid restoration; backup to tape enables easy offsite storage for disaster recovery or archival purposes.

Growing storage capacity
Accounting firms see fluctuations in client storage requirements, especially at the end of accounting periods. The ability to add storage quickly and easily ensures that client needs are met.

One of the unique features of the NetApp RAID architecture is that additional disk drives can be added to the array at any time, without disrupting normal pperations. Compare this to adding storage capacity to a server with direct attached storage!

Allocating Storage
The StoreVault S500 treats the physical storage as a central pool that can be logically divided up and dished out to different client areas. This virtualization of the storage delivers the ability to easily allocate and reallocate on the fly with no disruption to the accountants or applications. The technology also enables accurate billing of storage resources out to client accounts.

Summary
The StoreVault S500 is an all-in-one network storage appliance that simplifies management of data in an accounting environment. With a simple management interface that does not require storage administration expertise, the Store Vault S500 can easily accommodate changing storage demands. Capacity can be easily added as required without the need to disrupt accountants and bookkeepers. With support for file sharing and centralized application storage, all our storage needs can be met with reliability, peace-of-mind data protection and for a surprisingly affordable cost. StoreVault is a division of storage industry leader NetApp, so the technology behind the StoreVault S500 has been proven in thousands of data intensive installations around the world for years. This technology can now bring flexibility, affordability and peace-of-mind data protection to your storage infrastructure, so that you can focus on your clients’ financial needs without investing too much in your storage infrastructure.

About Network Appliance
Network Appliance is a world leader in network storage solutions for today’s data-intensive world. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance has delivered technology, product, and partner firsts that simplify data management. Information about Network Appliance solutions and services is available at ISSI Data. For more information on StoreVault by NetApp, go to www.issidata.com or call 1-800-660-3586.