posted on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 4:15 AM
Because we’re bound up in technology the term “rack space” immediately brings to mind rows of racks replete with servers humming and lights blinking merrily. But there’s another kind of rack that’s much quieter, has no lights, but still incurs similar costs associated with temperature control and circulation, requires maintenance and staff to manage, and that requires a whole lot of floor space.
That’s right, it’s your local library.
There are so many similarities between libraries and data centers – and in particular storage requirements – it’s amazing the analogy doesn’t crop up more in technical articles attempting to explain the benefits of cloud computing (off-site high density storage for aging books) and storage virtualization (tiering storage of volumes based on frequency of access).
Consider the cost differences between storing a volume in the library and storing it digitally in a data center, as referenced by this article on e-library economics:
Print volumes are, after all, voluminous — a property that implies a series of relatively pricey preservation costs. According to Courant and Nielsen, these work out to an average of $4.26 per book, per year when you take into account, maintenance, cleaning, electricity for temperature control, staffing, and circulation, as well as the considerable funds that go into building and renovating centrally located, open-stack facilities to house the volumes.
E-books are cheaper across the board — most notably in space and maintenance. Courant and Nielsen don’t get into precise modeling for e-book storage, but they note that the digital media repository Hathi Trust stores five million copies at $0.15 per volume, per year (that cost could rise to $0.40 for color volumes). Not only can e-book databases put many more books at scholars’ fingertips, but the medium seems intuitively suited for long-term storage: “While [print] books deteriorate with use, the reliability of e-books tends to be improved with use,” Courant and Nielsen write. (Though, as Henry and Spiro note, as technology evolves preservationists face a challenge in making sure e-books remain compatible with the hardware used to access them.)
“Where it is legally and functionally possible to make the move to electronic storage and use of the working copies of academic materials, there is substantial economic gain,” Courant and Nielsen add.
The automatic storage tiering capabilities of storage virtualization solutions makes it a perfect fit for such initiatives. As books age and are accessed less frequently, they can be moved to less expensive, slower storage systems that may be, for economic reasons, offsite. They’re still accessible, and can be moved back into priority tier storage upon being requested, but in the meantime they’re not taking up “rack space” in the physical library nor are they incurring the cost of being stored on expensive, fast storage arrays.
F5 ARX series provides the core storage tiering capabilities necessary to architect this type of solution. But just as important, perhaps, is the ability to create a secure, optimized tunnel over which files, such as digital books, can be transferred efficiently when first tier storage is local and secondary storage may be remote. F5 WAN Optimization Module (WOM) creates such a “tunnel” between sites, optimizing the exchange of data through network and application acceleration techniques including data de-duplication, caching, and compression. Tunnels are also secured using industry-standard SSL, which ensures safe transport of data to and from remote and central locations. F5 EDGE Gateway makes deployment at remote locations less costly, less disruptive, without sacrificing optimization and acceleration capabilities needed to assist in improving the timeliness and costs associated with movement of large data sets between locations.
By leveraging an F5 enabled architecture, you can make the most of your existing storage infrastructure wherever it may reside.
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