[Edit this paragraph] Overview of information lifecycle management
Due to the continuous promotion and application of EMC, information lifecycle management (ILM) is becoming more and more popular. In fact, this concept was born in the sixties and seventies, and now it is favored, which is inseparable from the information application of enterprises and the rapid development of the Internet.
[Edit this paragraph] on behalf of ]ILM requirements
Managers of enterprises will inevitably encounter many obstacles when they want to establish an integrated information flow and use it to find ways to cut costs and increase profits for enterprises. These challenges include:
The explosive growth of information
"Today, a modern person absorbs more information in one day than Shakespeare absorbed in his whole life", and I believe that more and more people agree with this point today. According to statistics, global data grows by more than 50% every year, and the growth rate is still accelerating. This is especially true for enterprises. Most business information can be found online, which has brought great growth to the company's infrastructure construction demand. With the introduction of information technology into enterprise business practice, the amount of information has greatly increased. However, the storage formats of data are diverse and difficult to unify. Text documents such as e-mail information and Word belong to unstructured information, while data such as databases and business transactions belong to structured information. However, integrating these data and information from different sources is a very complicated system work. On the other hand, the relevance of information is constantly improving. People are obviously more concerned about the relationship between information. Moreover, the growth of electronic data has also brought a new set of attribute data. Attribute data refers to information about the data itself (also called data), such as who created the file, who touched the file, modified the file and where the file is stored. This growth is exponential, which poses a great challenge to management.
Cost limitation
Enterprises must face increasingly fierce competition and an operating environment that requires continuous reduction of expenses. In such an environment, it will become more difficult to build an increasingly huge information system infrastructure. In the case that the budget may be flat or slightly increased, CIOs are under pressure to make good use of every penny and maximize their benefits. The ability to control data and information costs is very important. If CIOs only make expansion plans, it may lead to redundancy and duplication of information systems, which enterprises do not want to see.
Strategic value of information
Neither the cost reduction nor the requirements of enterprise planning can stop the demand for more convenient information acquisition. Enterprises have realized that information has undeniable strategic value to enterprises, and are constantly seeking a solution that can closely combine information and quickly extract enterprise knowledge. The profit comes from the availability, fast transmission and security protection of these key business information.
Knowing and understanding the commercial value of information is the core issue of knowledge management, which requires not only the far-sighted strategic vision of enterprise information managers, but also the full cooperation of the whole business team.
Liquidity of information
Information has different commercial value in different stages of its life cycle, and it needs corresponding management means and methods. This means that enterprises need to create relevant processes to allow information to flow freely as needed. In the process of information flow, the value is not always getting smaller and smaller, but the enterprise system is the main factor that determines the direction of an enterprise's data information flow. Enterprises need to establish more efficient data migration capabilities, so that people who need relevant information can get it faster.
Legal and regulatory requirements
With the wide application of information technology, all aspects of information in enterprises have begun to enter electronization. Because enterprise information, especially financial information and other important information, the state has legal requirements. Key industries in some countries, such as finance, telecommunications and government departments, have special regulations on information security and reliability closely related to people's lives. Especially considering the large population in China, everyone has more information, which requires efficient information management.
Catastrophic information recovery
Force majeure will cause irreparable damage to information, such as the large-scale power outage in the United States and Canada in 2003. If the important business data of an enterprise is lost, the loss brought to the enterprise is not only the data itself, but also the business opportunity and customer service level will be reduced. From a small point of view, the accident and instability of individual hardware systems will also destroy the important information of enterprises and cause irreparable losses to enterprises.
As can be seen from the above points, enterprises increasingly need a more effective and safer information management model.
[Edit this paragraph] Definition of information lifecycle management
What is ILM? ILM (Information Lifecycle Management), according to the definition of META Group, information (or data) lifecycle management is a process in which information flows in the storage media network. This process needs to ensure that enterprises obtain the required business information, provide customers with a good service level, and minimize the unit cost. ILM also needs to meet the growing demand for mature and automated storage management, which can improve personal work efficiency while maintaining the rapid response ability of enterprises to changes in business environment. This definition emphasizes the concept of process.
As an active advocate of ILM, EMC defines ILM as a proactive information management method, which can help enterprises get the maximum information value at every stage of the information life cycle with the lowest total cost of ownership.
From these definitions, we can see that ILM is not a specific product, but a management concept, which emphasizes the whole process of more effective management, more valuable development and utilization of information from the enterprise level.
As an information management mode, information lifecycle management holds that information has a lifecycle from generation, protection, reading, modification, migration, archiving, recovery, reactivation and withdrawal, and the whole lifecycle management of information needs corresponding strategies and technical means. The purpose of information lifecycle management is to help enterprises get the maximum value at the lowest cost at all stages of the information lifecycle.
Look at how information flows in the enterprise.
When a customer places an order, a business message is born. At this time, the information has a high value, and many relevant departments have to access and process the information. When an order is completed, the value of information begins to decline gradually. At this time, transferring it to a low-cost storage medium can save costs. However, when merchants have follow-up service problems, such as quality, consultation, improvement, etc. At this time, enterprises need the content of this information, reactivate it and extract it into efficient equipment. With the expiration of the quality guarantee period, the value of this information drops again until it exits its life cycle after a certain period.
In addition to paying attention to the different values of information in each stage of its life cycle, the content of information itself is equally important. Especially in the current business environment, information needs to be treated in a more serious way. Content can be said to be another decisive factor in the location and mode of data storage. For example, after a period of time, information technology personnel cannot clear all e-mail documents. Of course, spam can be deleted immediately, but those important documents, such as business transactions, human resources and finance, should be kept for further classification, storage and protection for long-term use. At the same time, because this information may be consulted in a certain period of time, it should not be simply moved to the backup data system. Here, the key issues are the identification process, system regulations and convenient and practical technical support capabilities.
Considering the cost, storage devices can be divided into high, medium and low hardware platforms, corresponding to data with different importance and different structures, and then the corresponding software should be selected.
[Edit this paragraph] The strategic value of ]ILM to enterprises
By using information lifecycle management, information management can correspond to business objectives. In this way, when the value of data to the enterprise is constantly changing, the enterprise can manage the data according to the current value of information, thus obtaining:
Improve asset utilization through tiered storage platform
Simplify and automate the management of information and storage infrastructure.
Get cost-effective information access, business continuity and protection solutions.
Through strategy-based management, it ensures easier compliance with government policies and regulations.
By matching the storage infrastructure and management with the value of information, the maximum information utilization value can be provided at the lowest information holding cost.
[Edit this paragraph ]ILM implementation measures
Information lifecycle management is an information technology strategy and concept for enterprise users, not just a product or scheme. The most important thing in informatization construction is data, which represents information and can constitute the core competitiveness of enterprises. Information naturally enters a cycle from the moment it is generated, and finally completes a life cycle through many steps such as collection, copying, access, migration and exit, and this process inevitably needs the cooperation of good management. If you can't plan well, you will either waste too many resources; Either the lack of resources reduces work efficiency.
The above figure shows the relationship between data reference probability and data life cycle as a whole, which is the key to understand how to manage data. Planning the storage and migration of information throughout its life cycle is the core content of ILM.
Information lifecycle management was first proposed by StorageTek. After the development and promotion of EMC, it is just around the corner to enter the market stage. However, we should realize that information lifecycle management, as an enterprise informatization strategy, cannot be achieved overnight, but is a relatively long-term work. Contemporary enterprises have their own information systems more or less, and information lifecycle management will inevitably use and inherit the technology and architecture that enterprises currently have.
Three-stage theory of EMC company
EMC recommends that customers implement information lifecycle management in three stages: the first step is to implement automatic network storage and optimize storage infrastructure; The second step is to improve the service level and optimize information management; The third step is to realize an integrated life cycle management environment.
In the first stage, institutions should eliminate direct-attached storage, gradually realize comprehensive network storage, and then realize the automation of storage environment. So as to economically and effectively integrate and control storage resources and ensure business continuity.
In the second stage, the task of the service level stage is to establish the service level hierarchy in the storage network, and then deploy the initial information management tools to transfer the information to the corresponding service level hierarchy according to the changes of enterprise needs. With these tools, many organizations can optimize their information management resources according to the requirements of relevant laws and regulations.
The first two stages are the foundation of realizing value finally. Generally speaking, it takes several years to realize the automation of information lifecycle management. In this integrated environment, customers will be able to implement the spirit of corporate strategy in the whole hybrid it infrastructure, and provide corresponding applications for a certain service level from a console when appropriate.
In the third stage, with the help of information lifecycle management, enterprises can not only make decisions automatically to ensure that they can provide the right information for the right application at the right time according to the predetermined business policies and strategies, but also make real-time adjustments according to the sensitivity of information value changes.
These three stages enable IT personnel to understand their information needs by using new skills and methods, and improve their automation level with the accumulation of practical experience.
Implementation scheme of ILM automation ILM system
Let's look at the whole ILM implementation by analyzing the automated ILM system proposed by EMC.
I. Overall structure
Figure 1 automatic ILM system
As shown in figure 1, the automatic ILM system is divided into three functional areas:
Manage business
universal service
Automation module
Each functional area contains many specific service modules. Each module knows its position and function in the whole automatic ILM system. Share basic data with other services through a database called ILM knowledge base. The modular design method enables users to independently decide the composition of ILM solutions according to their own needs. Let's discuss these components and their impact on the whole system.
Second, management services.
The management service of automatic ILM system provides the operation management function of the system. As shown in Figure 2, the management service consists of four parts: application, information group, storage network and platform. Each layer includes a set of management services, and each service provides a specific ILM process function. For example, LEGATO network services can provide backup/reset services for the packet layer.
Figure 2 Management Services
Management services can be installed separately or used in combination with other services. The framework of automated ILM does not restrict the use of specific products. By using common standards, automated ILM provides an open interface for common services and automation modules. These open interfaces allow any third-party management service, user interface or business application to take advantage of the functions of all parts in the automated ILM system and integrate them together. In order to get support, the management service must be connected to the common service layer, and the name and service type must be registered in the automatic ILM knowledge base. Basic data is used to describe business applications, information groups and service level agreements. For example, a third-party replication product must register its name and service type in the knowledge base and provide a copy for the information group.
1, application service
Application services are responsible for the operation of business applications and the host environment where they run. This service includes high asset availability, automation and monitoring services. These services improve the reliability of information access by monitoring the application and its running environment and automating the recovery and service process. For example, LEGATO's automated availability management tool is a service that provides asset availability assurance. This service provides fault handling and restart functions for controlled programs, thus providing users with approximately continuous application services and information services.
The application service layer is defined by the basic data in ILM knowledge base. Includes the recognizable names and service level agreements of all automatic ILM services.
2. Information group service
An information group provides a specially named object for all subsets of data related to an application or business process. The name and content of the information group will be known and shared by all automatic ILM services. Because information group is the object that management services often operate, it constitutes the basic management unit in automatic ILM environment. For example, an information group named OracleInfoSet may contain data table files related to an Oracle database. The name of the information group and its file contents and attributes are also defined by the basic data in the automatic ILM knowledge base, and the information group provides the input information required by each management service. For example, the backup service will request the InfoGroup service to get a list of files it wants to back up. Based on the protocol of information group, it also determines the destination, frequency and retention period of backup. This ability to configure information provides the possibility of standardized management for all ILM services.
3. Storage network services
Storage network services provide a management interface between physical storage devices and applications. These services constitute an abstraction layer, which simplifies and improves the allocation and management functions of physical storage devices. Storage network services can operate fixed storage and mobile storage devices, and adapt to the nuances of different device types.
Fig. 3 storage network service structure
Fixed storage management
Fixed storage management provides disk virtual service and volume management service. Disk virtual service is responsible for centralizing different types of hardware devices to form a unified storage pool. It greatly simplifies storage management by hiding the complexity of the underlying storage network. The volume management service is responsible for smoothing the characteristics of different storage devices and providing an abstraction level for applications and file systems to operate storage devices. They make physically dispersed disks look like a complete storage system. Information quantity is one of the main functions on which automatic ILM depends. The amount of information is very similar to the volume in the traditional sense, except that it serves the information group of a specific application and takes ILM service as the ultimate goal. For example, backup and replication services are done through information volumes.
Mobile storage management
Mobile storage has its unique management characteristics. They include device virtualization, device sharing and media tracking. The design of storage network service is aimed at these three difficulties. Device virtual service provides a common interface for mobile storage devices, and provides data channels and control functions for different tapes, optical disk drives and their automatic film changing devices. It is also an abstract layer, which hides the differences and management of different interfaces, thus providing a set of management methods for effectively using mobile storage resources for information group services.
Because mobile storage devices are expensive, they can't be fully utilized if they only serve specific purposes (such as archiving and backup), so people always try their best to enjoy these devices, such as tape drives and automatic film changers. In order to solve this problem, the storage network layer provides storage selection service. This service function is responsible for controlling the channel of the device, and it is determined that when more than two services request to use a * * * enjoyment device at the same time, only one of them gains control. This makes it possible for multiple services to share storage devices, although they are actually implemented by time-sharing execution. The practice of sharing devices by multiple services can save a lot of money for purchasing storage devices and improve the utilization efficiency of each device.
IT personnel often have a headache to find mobile storage media (information media such as tapes and CDs), not to mention effective management at all stages of the information life cycle. The crux of the problem is that when the magnetic tape or optical disk is separated from the drive and the automatic changer, it becomes very difficult to track its position and determine its storage period. It is precisely because it is difficult to find these media in time that the method of copying information to mobile storage devices is rarely fully utilized. This is the importance of tracking services to the ILM process. It is responsible for tracking the content and location of each media (tape or CD) and recording the movement process of each media location. This provides a solid foundation for quickly finding and making full use of mobile storage devices. At the same time, the tracking service also provides storage management for users, so that users can know the service life of each mobile medium in time. Expired media can be treated and recycled in time. By managing the reasonable number of these media, the storage cost and expense are reduced. At the same time, the index between application programs and mobile storage devices is established, which greatly improves the speed of system execution.
Detection and distribution service
This service involves the platform operation of the whole storage network layer and helps to manage the software and hardware storage resources of the whole system. The distribution service provides dynamic control of storage devices added or deleted in the information volume, while the detection service checks the currently available storage resources and catalogs the resources available for distribution. Together, these two services provide support functions for disk virtualization and volume management. When the amount of information needs to increase storage space, the distribution service searches available resources and allocates new storage space for them. Distribution service dependency detection service provides it departments with information about storage network hardware, including network storage resources, such as disk drives, storage arrays, SAN, tape drives, etc. The detected storage resources are shared by ILM knowledge base to other ILM services, thus saving system redundancy.
Third, general services.
Universal service provides a set of functions that can be enjoyed by * * *, and concentrates some unified functions on other functional parts of ILM automation.
General functional methods and models. Common services provide the following:
The communication between 1. services provides a communication channel between automation module and management service. The service defines a common data format as the basis of communication. It also provides a directory service to make different applications know each other.
2. Security services, providing authentication and authorization services for all services. Provide a unified authorization control mechanism for different users.
3. This report provides a tool for historical statistics and data collection of ILM services. The universal reporting system allows users to combine different service information and further explore the content behind the information from the perspective of application. For example, it can generate a complete information report about a specific email application.
4. Event management, which provides a centralized knowledge base and realizes the effective management of viewing and saving various ILM service events in the system.
5. Common resource detection, that is, detecting available common hardware and software, and compiling a directory so that all automated ILM processes can enjoy it. This will reduce the work of testing each application separately and provide a common name for the resource.
6. Monitoring and service services to provide self-healing function for the automated ILM environment. Together, these services provide a common way to identify and automatically correct problems in the system.
7. Installation and configuration services, providing a common method for installing and updating software. The new version of the service management software module is updated and distributed throughout the system environment.
8. Licensing service, which provides license agreement control, unified management and reporting for all automated ILM software modules.
Fourthly, automation module.
The automation module uses the management services of the automated ILM system and the functions provided by general services to complete more advanced operations. It includes:
1, protocol management module
Of all the benefits that automated ILM brings to enterprises, protocol-driven management may be the biggest benefit. This automation module automates configuration operation and service level management by using service level definition, thus simplifying ILM process and reducing cost. Protocol-driven management provides management service intelligence by introducing business requirements.
Automatic ILM protocol management is responsible for system protocol management. As shown in Figure 4, protocol management uses protocol and resource data to control and coordinate service levels.
Figure 4 Protocol Management
Protocol management determines what services to provide for specific applications and information groups by reading the basic data and service level agreements classified in the knowledge base, and is responsible for configuring the required services to ensure the implementation of the agreement. After the service level configuration is completed, the protocol manager can ensure and verify the correct implementation of the underlying management services by monitoring the operation of the underlying management services.
For example, if an application is classified as a "standard protection service" and the service level is defined as that the application data needs to be backed up every night, the protocol management tool will detect the execution of the backup service to ensure that the information is properly protected. If the application data is not backed up, a visual notice will be sent to the management control platform to remind the managers that the service level agreement has not been implemented, and an email or SMS will be sent to the corresponding managers.
Service level agreements are used to define a wide range of management functions, including:
* "Critical" core applications must be restored within 20 minutes.
Application information that is "important" to the business must be backed up every night.
Data that has not been used for six consecutive months can be migrated to slow storage devices.
All mails of the brokerage department must be stored on WORM (write once, read many times, such as CD-R) for five years.
Protocol management enables managers to conveniently manage the service level of a group of applications, improve or reduce the service level, and modifying the service level agreement can affect all controlled applications. This ability simplifies the complexity of configuration work and provides a quantitative configuration method for ILM.
2. Scene management module
As ILM becomes more and more automated, users may want to know the possible results before starting a service level agreement. ILM itself needs to be able to provide a proposal agreement (SLO) for service level objectives. These capabilities are known as "hypothesis" or predictive models. Scenario management is the support to help in this respect, which depends on the ability to describe, explore and evaluate the impact of different scenarios. Before a change, through scene analysis, users can have an intuitive understanding of the impact after the change, so as to know fairly well.
3. Workflow management module
Workflow management is responsible for coordinating complex ILM workflows, which usually require human intervention. Workflow management needs automation. ILM system cooperates with IT department and business department.
Figure 5 Workflow management
Workflow defines the sequential steps of work and the necessary approval process, which requires the participation of IT personnel. For example, protocol management needs an extra storage space, which will start a workflow request. The first step is to determine the storage devices that meet the requirements of the application, which can be done automatically by the distribution service. Before allocating space, the line-of-business manager of this requirement has the right to approve the cost. Workflow management sends the request to the business manager by email, and after the business manager approves, the storage expansion process can continue.
Fig. 5 shows the basic steps of workflow control operation. The process reaches the workflow management system from the request (1), and the process manager queries (2) the automated ILM knowledge base to obtain the workflow definition as the running basis, and starts the first automated process (3). After the process is completed, send a request to the designated user (4) and wait for approval (5). After receiving the approval, proceed to the next automatic step.
4. Classification management module
Identifying and classifying information is a headache for managers. The classification management module is responsible for helping managers.
Identify and classify existing applications and information. Information detection technology and classification template are used to characterize the usage characteristics of programs and data. The classification management module helps users to establish an initial classification suitable for enterprises, and provides suggestions for the classification of existing programs and information, and then users can accept, reject or modify these classification suggestions. After the classification definition is completed, the basic data is recorded in the automatic ILM knowledge base and can be called by other ILM services. When there is a large amount of data to be processed in the enterprise environment, the classification management module can greatly improve the speed of information classification processing.
5. Service level management
Service level management is at the top of the automated ILM structure. Service level management monitors and handles the service level agreement (SLA) established between business departments and IT departments. Service level management maintains the tripartite relationship among applications, ILM services and business units. Service level management obtains the service level requirements of business departments for an application, and then provides evaluation and tracking functions to ensure that the service level is implemented. If the service level does not meet the standard, the business department and IT department will be informed, and they will modify the requirements or correct the system to solve the problem. Service level management also provides a "cost feedback" function, which reports the IT resources and related expenses used by the department to the business department.
[Edit this paragraph] Steps to implement information lifecycle management
In order to realize all the advantages of information lifecycle management, we need to consider a framework consisting of the following three basic modules:
Dedicated storage platform
Storage management software
Information management software
Information lifecycle management usually requires the following steps:
First, evaluate the existing information system. Because in many cases, information lifecycle management is not to invest in building a brand-new infrastructure, but to build and create a complete information management on the existing basis. Enterprises need to sort out their own assets first, understand the advantages and disadvantages of existing information systems, and lay a good foundation for the next information lifecycle management.
Then, realize storage networking and integration. Migrating to an automated networked storage environment provides enterprises with a strategic management foundation and the function of manually developing the value of tiered storage platforms. Reduce costs by integrating servers and storage devices, reduce complexity by centralized storage management, enhance business continuity, and flexibly expand or reduce the scale without interrupting business.
Then, match the service level with the data value, and implement targeted information lifecycle management. Information lifecycle management can be upgraded to a higher level by classifying data and applications and combining them with business processes. Enterprises will achieve better management and optimal allocation of storage resources, acquire the ability to store information according to changing performance and availability requirements, match service levels with corresponding storage solutions, and improve business continuity and compliance.
Finally, realize automation of management and control, and realize enterprise-level information lifecycle management across applications. At this stage, we begin to plan an automatic and strategic information management scheme for the whole enterprise. The continuous improvement and innovation of products and services at this stage will realize the automatic management and control within the enterprise, maintain the consistency of service level and data value within the enterprise, and make continuous automatic adjustment to ensure that business systems and rules deliver information to the right application at the right time.
[Edit this paragraph] Information Lifecycle Management Strategy
A successful information lifecycle management strategy should meet the following criteria:
1. business-oriented: information technology should be combined with enterprise practice, matched with key business processes, and consistent with applications and business objectives.
2. System-based: The storage life, methods and accessible personnel of many information are controlled by government regulations, and CIO needs to ensure that the system implementation plan can reflect and meet the policy requirements.
3. Centralized management: In order to comprehensively control and manage all integrated information assets of enterprises, including structured and unstructured information, centralized management must be adopted in information life cycle management.
4. Being able to handle heterogeneous environments: Because information systems need to run in the whole enterprise, information lifecycle management must include various platform types and operating systems. The following maturity model can be used for reference in process evaluation.
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