The classification of Departmental SAN most often characterizes the type of data (test or development), location of hardware (non-high tier datacenter) and finally specifics regarding the technology that the SAN consists of, IE; Raid protected disk, hotswappable drives, a switch that may or may not be fully redundant, single path to all data, preferred to be UPS protected technology. Additionally, it normally would contain departmental, project or business specific data, programming or databases not critical to the existance of the business, this though is not a requirement. Although these are the least expensive SANs to build, they are more prone to outages from hardware failures, maintenance and connection activities.

How can Design Help? We know the marketplace and what you can expect from many of the vendors technologies. We have significant experience implementing and maintaining this level of SAN and have experience with multiple vendors and technologies. By implementing our best practices values up front, service levels on these lower level SAN technolgies could easily be compared to many Enterprise SAN configurations. Design will provide multiple solution options keeping a competitive environment, provide both a TCO and CBA for both solutions, assist with vendor negotiations and provide and manage for, or assist your resources in, the implementation of the technology.

With the growing acceptance of SAN and NAS technologies, new external storage device attachments are declining. Companies like EMC, HDS and IBM have significantly increased the F/C ports available on their DASD arrays and their capacity per footprint to increase functionality on the SAN while reducing cost per MB. They have, in effect, unintentionally made a F/C switch or director unnecessary for most implementations of their technology. Unless you are adding a shared tape environment to your SAN or require many cross server or platform connections, the excessive F/C ports available on the new breed of DASD arrays will probably exceed your needs. With switch and director costs being a significant piece of the investment surrounding SAN technologies, it is always nice to save or delay the expense of a couple hundred thousand dollars in director costs. Most of the commonly implemented benefits of SAN are available today with just a F/C multi-port DASD array and the array management software matching the technology purchased.

How can Design Help? We understand data storage and the abilities of today's technology. A quick assessment of your storage plans could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. Before you take the plunge into SAN technologies, evaluate your options, review your strategic storage direction and learn from the mistakes of others. If you are still not sure of the right decision, contact Design for a Storage Technologies Assessment (STA). Design Consulting Services professionals get updates on the new and future technologies from the vendors we work with to keep ahead of technology advancements and better understand how it could effect our clients. By being vendor independent and receiving no financial kickbacks from our vendor relationships, Design can fairly assess your needs ** without sales pressures clouding our judgments. The STA report will evaluate current technologies deployed, current and new storage demands and suggest and support a storage technology path. We take pride in our commitment to our clients, the clarity of our vision and the true value that our solutions provide.

The classification of Enterprise NAS (Network Attached Storage) is reserved for NAS head technology available from several manufacturers including EMC, Network Appliance, HP, IBM and FalconStor. A NAS head is one or more file servers on the front end, often clustered for availability, connecting to an Enterprise SAN back end. By providing fail-over for the file server within the NAS head and the Enterprise SAN back end, they have all but eliminated a single point of failure. These technologies are maturing quickly and will likely remove a high amount of file system workloads from servers and SANs.

A second part to the E-NAS classification is open systems access to data. Supporting multi-platform O/S access is an important part to NAS technology and its classification as an E-NAS. By allowing access from multiple systems to the shared file system, data sharing solutions using NAS technology can be significantly less challenging than with a SAN solution.

How can Design help? We have been working with technology from companies like EMC, HDS and NetApps for several years. Our experiences have both increased our knowledge and confidence in these technologies and have proven to us that with the right workloads, they are ready for implementation into many Enterprise Data Centers. We at Design can assist in determining the right workloads, negotiate with the vendors for testing hardware and resources as well as assist with building a Proof Of Concept environment and test plan to provide true results oriented testing of your workloads on one of these technologies. Design will provide multiple solution options keeping a competitive environment, provide both a TCO and CBA for the solutions, assist with vendor negotiations and manage, or assist your resources with, the implementation of the technology.

The classification of Departmental NAS (Network Attached Storage) is loosely used for any server providing file system services. D-NAS devices can be made up of standard servers using a cut up version of many different operating systems such as Solaris, Win2000 and Unix. Proprietary kernels do exist that properly run the file system with a fraction of the coding. Proper implementations of a D-NAS can significantly reduce home and departmental directory resource costs as well as provide a reduction in required servers and licenses supporting those services to the users today.

How can Design help? By using our experiences with these low end file servers, we can bring technologies to the table that are often overlooked or unknown to most Technical Managers. We can assist you in defining your true needs as well as what technology will meet your workload demands today and in the future. We will provide you at least two solutions to keep the competitive environment, provide both a TCO study and CBA and assist with vendor negotiations. We additionally will give you a clear picture of when the next level of technology better suits your workloads and of course can assist or fully implement the technology you have selected.

Having experts in OS/390 disk and tape management solutions on staff to service any and all of your needs is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive. With FICON aggressively entering the market place, and storage management needs on the rise, IT Professionals are seeking out creative solutions to many of the most troubling issues in IT, data storage. Retention issues, decreasing backup windows, Disaster Recovery/Business Resumption planning and overgrown tape centers are troubling data center managers all over the country. With Amdahl and HDS out of the mainframe market, data-centers are feeling more pressure to move to non OS/390 platforms as software and hardware costs are increasing and fewer technical candidates are interested in "Legacy System" support.

How Can Design Help? Design Consulting Services Professionals are true Enterprise Storage Management Professionals. We have significant experience in the field of OS/390 data storage. If you are having problems with DFSMS, HSM, ICF Catalogs, CA1, Sams Disk(DMS),FDR/ABR or ABARS we can help. Our Enterprise Storage Management Professionals can help you by showing you solutions to the problems that plague data centers world wide. Design can additionally assist with hardware and software purchases by providing multiple technology options to keep a competitive environment, provide a TCO and CBA for the solutions, assist with vendor negotiations and manage, or assist your resources with, the implementation of the technology.

** Please note, all client information is kept confidential from all outside sources including vendors and other Design Consulting Services clients.

Looking to add capacity to you SAN or OS/390 tape environment, how much and of what technology do you need? You've heard good things about product X but senior management is being courted by company Y. How can you make a non-political decision? The answer is you can't. Too many times our judgment is swayed by fears of what others may think. Far too often, politics and not technical capabilities makes technical decisions. If you are feeling pressure but are uncertain what technology is right, you are not alone.

How Can Design Help? Design Consulting Services Professionals are experienced with many different tape platforms. Having significant experience installing and managing different technologies and being exposed to the day to day issues gives us considerable insight to what works and what doesn't. Our Enterprise Storage Management Professionals can help you by showing you the issues that surround each technology. We can additionally assist by providing multiple technology options to keep a competitive environment, provide a TCO and CBA for the solutions, assist with vendor negotiations and manage, or assist your resources with, the implementation of the technology.

Whether you’re running smoothly with your backup and recovery infrastructure or hitting nightly challenges in surviving each backup window, Design Consulting Services can help. You may not even know that things are not going well, is all your data protected? Are offsite rotations happening? Am I keeping data is don’t need or thought I had already gotten rid of? This is where DCS shines above its competitors. Offering a health checkup like no other, DCS has saved our customers hundreds of thousands of dollars on backup media and infrastructure even when they though things were running smoothly. Is your backup and recovery environment struggling to provide you the confidence that it’s done right? Let Designs specialists help, having architected many enterprise and SMB backup and recovery solutions, we take the time to understand your needs and architect a solution that will grow with you instead of against you.

Bottom of the ninth, two outs, and the winning run sitting on second, would you bunt for a single or swing with confidence for the fence? Knowing your lineup is in order is always in your best interests, this is where Design Consulting Services can help. With our staff having been a part of IT facilities consistently for the last two decades, our DR planning skills have always risen to the top. We have been actively involved in the development and planning of some of the worlds best planned Disaster Recovery implementations. We actively pursue the right solution for each client based on a combination of needs and resources versus costs and risk. Having Design planning your DR lineup will always provide you the confidence to swing for the fence.