Actifio’s Virtualization Eliminates IT Infrastructure Copy Data

October 06, 2016 - Copy data is redundant copies of data stored on healthcare servers. Data is copied because unstructured analytics, migration, and backup solutions are copying and archiving data independently. This uncoordinated process results in multiple copies of the same data taking up valuable storage space. 

Healthcare organizations cannot afford to fill up their servers with useless data, especially given the amount of new data generated daily and costs of data storage technologies.

Many backup and disaster recovery solutions include deduplication, but solutions that don’t, duplicate recently updated data, and fail to delete the previous version. For example, if a medical professional alters a patient’s record, the backup solution copies the updated document for storage. If deduplication does not take place, there are two copies of that patient’s record in the data warehouse, one current and one outdated.

Copy data can also occur during cloud migration. Organizations migrating data to the cloud or from one cloud service provider to another often copy data during the transition to prevent downtime for users. After the migration process, copy data may still linger in the data warehouse, unknowingly taking up space.

Users can also create copy data by saving information in different places, creating a duplicate, or lack of communication among implemented storage, backup, and analytic solutions. Application development and test environments can also result in copy data.

Actifio’s latest release seeks to address the redundancy of infrastructure architecture by selling IBM M-Series servers pre-qualified to support the Actifio Sky virtual appliance.The IBM servers also come pre-loaded with a licensed version of VMware vSphere v6.x, and Actifio Sky.

Actifio has released a new webstore for supply chain organizations to purchase integrated copy data virtualization solutions compatible with partner storage platforms including VMware and IBM. The webstore aims to ease the selection and implementation process for customers and partners deploying Actifio Sky, Actifio’s copy data virtualization technology.

Actifio uses virtualization to address copy data issues reducing redundant data and decreasing hardware and operational expenses for data warehouses. Similar to other virtualization solutions (e.g., VDI, VMI), copy data virtualization operates off of the ‘golden’ copy model, meaning there is only one physical copy.

The golden copy can spawn infinite virtual copies, but the changes to virtual copies are all logged on the ever changing golden copy and deleted. IT staff outlines specific terms for data capture, managing how often data is captured and which resources are captured.

"Users asked us to further simplify their deployment and decrease their time-to-value by delivering a fully integrated converged solution," said Actifio Founder & CEO Ash Ashutosh. "It's what they've come to expect from converged and hyper-converged systems, making it easier for users to consume a critical IT function and make their journey to the hybrid cloud simpler.”

“Actifio has been and remains committed to an application-centric and infrastructure-, storage-, and cloud-agnostic approach to copy data virtualization,” continued Ashutosh. “It's something no box vendor can truly embrace, and something essential to customers tired of vendor lock-in on premium storage."    

The Actifio webstore is currently only available for the supply chain industry, but will hopefully roll out to more industries in the near future. In the meantime, Actifio Sky can be implemented into current healthcare servers.

Healthcare organizations operating under strict IT budgets suffer from copy data because it takes up valuable server space. Organizations looking to grow and embrace technology like predictive analytics cannot afford redundant data occupying their servers.

Dig Deeper:

• How Hadoop Supports Healthcare Data Analytics Infrastructure
• Dell EMC Improves Healthcare Data Archives with New Releases