Defined as “a group producing a single effect,” an ensemble combines several parts generating a powerful result. Every technology solution is a group of harmonious elements, whereas the solution is the single effect. The power of an ensemble is much greater than the sum of its parts. I’m sure you’ve experienced for yourself how parts in harmony deliver overtones for a combined sound that is perceived to be greater.
This has been a fun week @ Drobo, as we announced several partnerships, including a solution with Amazon Web Services. Miles Ward @ AWS was our special guest on our Drobo Broadcast Network webcast. Miles is a low-brass musician who still has chops (my musical chops are a few decades old …). Self-described as a “consummate geek,” Miles shared fantastic guidance on architecting an offsite backup solution.
If you play the tuba, for example, you rarely play the melody. Applications are the melody and infrastructure plays the bass part of the solution. If I have not lost you in the analogy, Drobo and AWS play several parts in an offsite backup solution to the cloud. AWS storage gateway plays the part of “on-ramp” to the cloud, and Amazon S3 plays the bass part protecting data objects in the cloud, an ensemble within the greater ensemble.
Side note on S3, it is 99.999999999% durable, a whopping eleven nines! How? The same way 64 horns in a drum corps pump out powerful uninterrupted sound even while individuals take a breath. S3 stores your data objects across multiple buildings. As a pioneer in cloud and the world’s most popular cloud storage service, Miles explained how Amazon has developed tremendous innovation specific to continuously maintaining live data in its cloud.
In great IT solutions as in great harmonious music, the supporting parts do not stand out; they seamlessly blend into the whole. Drobo iSCSI storage for on-premises backup can be deployed in a matter of minutes. The AWS storage gateway can be deployed as a virtual appliance in VMware quickly and easily, replicating data from Drobo to the cloud automatically (look at the How-To Guide in Resources on the solution page). This is why I like the solution as much as I do. IT folks are looking for technologies that are both easy and that harmonize with the other applications and infrastructure they already have.
Net = There are great overtones when combining Drobo with the AWS storage gateway in your IT infrastructure. Free for 60 days, you should give it a try and see how easy it can be to build your on-ramp to the cloud.
Talk live to Mario and other Drobo experts @ http://www.drobo.com/live or e-mail mario@drobo.com.
Mario Blandini
Mario is VP of Technology Solutions @ Drobo. Responsible for technical marketing, the pre-sales technical team, product marketing contribution, and solution development with industry partners, he is the voice of Drobo webcasts / podcasts and the pitch man in most Drobo videos. Talk live to Mario and other Drobo experts @ http://www.drobo.com/live, or e-mail mario@drobo.com.
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