Utility Storage is the Right "Technology Inside" For Flailing Web 2.0 Storage Infrastructures
The shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 is a result of both a shift in technology and a shift in behavior. Technology has come a long way from the static pages, frames, and one way flows of information seen in Web 1.0. Web 2.0, with its rich internet applications (RIA), content syndication, and APIs have decentralized website content and created an atmosphere where users have become both consumer and contributor of information. Static is out and dynamic content generation with rich backend databases for 1.5 billion internet users to interact is the norm.
The importance of data in Web 2.0 was stated best when Tim O'Reilly said, in the article What is Web 2.0, "Data is the Next Intel Inside". Data is what drives Web 2.0--offering users the ability to interactively and collectively use and manage information and applications across the Net. Content and applications are alive as mashups aggregate content and applications from multiple websites and add to a collective value for users.
But with all this great dynamic Web 2.0 experience comes the high potential for application and content delivery performance problems. Accepting and delivering content from users, to be shared amongst many users, places a high level of stress on backend systems. When this happens response times will suffer and users will quickly propagate to other more responsive sites.
In the article The Coming Web 2.0 Train Wreck, Jim Metzler states that while both client side and server side hardware impact Web 2.0 performance and response times, it "is the server side delay that is the critical performance bottleneck that has to be addressed in order for Web 2.0 applications to perform well". The reason being that, "unlike clients, servers suffer from scalability issues. In particular, servers have to support multiple users and each concurrent user consumes some amount of server resources: CPU, memory and I/O".
Storage is a key component for Web 2.0 applications. Websites such as LifeScript.com, which has 4 million unique visitors, 30-40 million page views a month, and 10 million newsletter subscribers, relies heavily on a storage infrastructure that can store and deliver dynamic content to their readers. It needs reliable and highly available content delivery to drive traffic to its website or LifeScript's business-to-consumer model would deteriorate.
In response to this direct need to grow its storage infrastructure and provide for easy and reliable growth without risking performance levels during peak usage periods, LifeScript purchased the 3PAR InServ Storage Server with 3PAR Dynamic Optimization for non-disruptive and autonomic system resource balancing and 3PAR Thin Provisioning software for capacity savings.
Using 3PAR, LifeScript's Web 2.0 portal and email processing engine now supports three billion transactions per month at a third of the cost than its previous storage system. LifeScript's new infrastructure has also reduced average time to provision new servers from several hours to just minutes. Jack Hogan, Chief Operations Officer for LifeScript, says, "3PAR offered us both capacity savings and intelligent integration with VMware to curb storage costs and provide greater performance and agility."
Success of Web 2.0 websites are directly proportional to how well customers interact with information. The explosive growth in Web 2.0 is forcing companies to seriously re-examine their ability to keep pace with the high demand for dynamic content. Inflexible and inefficient traditional storage systems need to be upgraded - and in many circumstances replaced - to enable the safe allocation of upfront logical capacity while delivering high performance. Using 3PAR's native tiered-storage capabilities and its Thin Provisioning software, companies can now dynamically deliver on the new and unanticipated capacity, performance and scaling demands of Web 2.0.
The importance of data in Web 2.0 was stated best when Tim O'Reilly said, in the article What is Web 2.0, "Data is the Next Intel Inside". Data is what drives Web 2.0--offering users the ability to interactively and collectively use and manage information and applications across the Net. Content and applications are alive as mashups aggregate content and applications from multiple websites and add to a collective value for users.
But with all this great dynamic Web 2.0 experience comes the high potential for application and content delivery performance problems. Accepting and delivering content from users, to be shared amongst many users, places a high level of stress on backend systems. When this happens response times will suffer and users will quickly propagate to other more responsive sites.
In the article The Coming Web 2.0 Train Wreck, Jim Metzler states that while both client side and server side hardware impact Web 2.0 performance and response times, it "is the server side delay that is the critical performance bottleneck that has to be addressed in order for Web 2.0 applications to perform well". The reason being that, "unlike clients, servers suffer from scalability issues. In particular, servers have to support multiple users and each concurrent user consumes some amount of server resources: CPU, memory and I/O".
Storage is a key component for Web 2.0 applications. Websites such as LifeScript.com, which has 4 million unique visitors, 30-40 million page views a month, and 10 million newsletter subscribers, relies heavily on a storage infrastructure that can store and deliver dynamic content to their readers. It needs reliable and highly available content delivery to drive traffic to its website or LifeScript's business-to-consumer model would deteriorate.
In response to this direct need to grow its storage infrastructure and provide for easy and reliable growth without risking performance levels during peak usage periods, LifeScript purchased the 3PAR InServ Storage Server with 3PAR Dynamic Optimization for non-disruptive and autonomic system resource balancing and 3PAR Thin Provisioning software for capacity savings.
Using 3PAR, LifeScript's Web 2.0 portal and email processing engine now supports three billion transactions per month at a third of the cost than its previous storage system. LifeScript's new infrastructure has also reduced average time to provision new servers from several hours to just minutes. Jack Hogan, Chief Operations Officer for LifeScript, says, "3PAR offered us both capacity savings and intelligent integration with VMware to curb storage costs and provide greater performance and agility."
Success of Web 2.0 websites are directly proportional to how well customers interact with information. The explosive growth in Web 2.0 is forcing companies to seriously re-examine their ability to keep pace with the high demand for dynamic content. Inflexible and inefficient traditional storage systems need to be upgraded - and in many circumstances replaced - to enable the safe allocation of upfront logical capacity while delivering high performance. Using 3PAR's native tiered-storage capabilities and its Thin Provisioning software, companies can now dynamically deliver on the new and unanticipated capacity, performance and scaling demands of Web 2.0.
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