Best Practices in Legal IT Best Practices in Legal IT How to share data and protect critical assets across the WANHow to share data and protect critical assets across the WAN

AgendaAgenda

• Requirements for Data Center outsourcing– Timothy Titus, Director of Managed

Network Services

• Overcoming WAN challenges– Damon Ennis, VP of Product

Management and Customer Support

• An end user perspective – Bill Costello, Director of Computer

Services

Requirements for Data Center Outsourcing Requirements for Data Center Outsourcing

Timothy TitusDirector of Managed Network Services

Technologies Reduce Disaster Recovery Intervals, but at an Increasing CostTechnologies Reduce Disaster Recovery Intervals, but at an Increasing Cost

Industry Estimated Costs

• Planning software - $10,000 for a few users to $175,000 for a web-server license for many users

• Off-site high-capacity tape storage - $25,000/month plus equipment costs

• Off-site SANs – Start around $18,000/month plus equipment costs

• E-mail continuity systems –Range from a low of $.17 to $.82/user per month

• Alternative power sources (Generators, building-wide UPSs, etc.) – Range in price from $50,000 to $250,000

• A Hot Site – Can cost approximately $20,000/month

• $100,000/year to create and maintain a BC/DR team

LexisNexis Confidential

What are your real recovery needs?What are your real recovery needs?

All firms should have a BCP/DR plan that fits their needs.

• Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO)– Typically exponential costs to reduce both– Usually not considered as part of backup strategy– Everyone wants zero downtime and zero data loss

• What does your business really require?

• Prioritization– What apps need to be back up and running first?– In a real disaster, what will my customers expect? Tolerate?– Most firms get a poor Return on Investment because they fail to prioritize

Keys to Success in Developing a PlanKeys to Success in Developing a Plan

• Firm Management Participation– Successful Development of Plan has focused on participation across

organization.– Top-Down Approach is best “model.”

• Determination of Business Drivers– In conjunction with determination of RTO/RPO– Firm’s Overall Goals Established Upfront– Agreement of Priorities, Staging and Benefits.

Questions to AskQuestions to Ask

• What are the priorities?• Can we do this internally or outsource?• What are the technology options?• What is the “standard” for law firms?• What can the firm afford to invest?

Managem

ent C

heckpoint

Key Deliverables:1. Requirements2. Solution Options3. Technology Operations4. Operation Plan5. Implementation Plan and

Schedule6. Preliminary Cost Estimates7. Determination of RTO/RPO8. Communication Plan

Key Deliverables

Key Deliverables

:

Managem

ent C

heckpoint1. Detailed Planning/

Scheduling2. Technology Installation

and Testing3. Applications Testing4. Detailed Concept of

Operations5. Updated Cost Estimates6. Communication Tests

1. Operations2. Maintenance 3. Capacity and growth

management4. Regular Management

Reviews5. Regular Test of

Communications6. Consistent review of

RTO/RPO Targets

Requirements Design and Cost Modeling

Detailed Planning and Implementation

Operation and Support

Objectives of Any PlanObjectives of Any Plan

• Respond to layers of business interruptions through a standardized approach.

• Maintain client service at a minimum level while recovering and doing so in a cost-effective manner.

• Build in automatic response and procedures so that Life Safety can be a priority.

A Holistic ApproachA Holistic Approach

• Emergency Response

• Crisis Communication

• Technology Recovery

• Business Continuity

• Preservation of Life

• Reaching Employees and Clients

• Testing & Maintenance

• Processes to Keep the Firm Running

What are the risks?What are the risks?

• Three Types of Risks to Analyze– Catastrophic – Serious interruption in a large

area that creates a life-threatening situation for employees.

– Localized – Event that limits access to one or more key offices or makes work within those offices impossible.

– Infrastructure – Outside systems are disabled while the firm’s environment is safe.

Damon EnnisVP of Product Management and Customer SupportSilver Peak Systems

Speed Application Performance between officesSpeed Application Performance between offices

Overcoming WAN ChallengesOvercoming WAN Challenges

Damon EnnisVP, Product Management and Customer Support

Ohio •Backup•Replication•Recovery

RemoteBackup

Application Delivery

WAN• Limited bandwidth• High Latency• Packet loss

Business Challenges:▲ Increasing volume of data ▲ Increasing distances between locations ▲ Tight RTO/RPO Requirements▲ Cost and availability of bandwidth▲ Manageability

NY

LA London

Today’s IT ChallengesToday’s IT Challenges

The Need for WAN AccelerationThe Need for WAN Acceleration

Branch Office challenges:• Servers need to be centralized• LAN performance expectations• Data security issues

Data center challenges:• Cannot meet RPO/RTO • Diverse application mix• Bandwidth (cost/availability)

SF Denver

WAN

NYLondon

155 Mbps 155 Mbps

45 MbpsDS-1

• Limited bandwidth• High latency• Packet loss

• Poor WAN performance can jeopardize backup, replication and recovery• Unique branch office vs data center challenges exist• Special WAN optimization requirements on “fat pipes”

The Evolution of WAN AccelerationThe Evolution of WAN Acceleration

Circa 2000 TodayLZ Based Compression Disk Based Data Reduction▲ Dictionary Size 32 KB ▲“Dictionary Size” 3TB▲2-3 Compression ▲10-100x Data Reduction

Low Speed Technology High Speed, Nx64 bit HW▲2 Mbps in, 512 kbps out ▲1-2 Gbps in, 10-500 Mbps out▲Software DES ▲128 bit AES encryption

Compression Focused Response time / RTO Focused▲No Latency Mitigation ▲TCP/CIFS Acceleration▲No Loss Mitigation ▲Forward Packet Recovery

Data Reduction Accelerates TransfersData Reduction Accelerates Transfers

• Transparently intercept traffic flowing across the WAN• Fingerprint packet content at the byte level• Deliver duplicate data from a local instance rather than across

the network• Maintain data encrypted in transit and at rest

L3

L4

L7

Address ALL WAN Limitations Address ALL WAN Limitations

TCPAcceleration

CIFSAcceleration

Application Acceleration

Network Memory™•Disk based data reduction•Compression

Forward Error Correction (FEC)•Real-time packet recovery

Packet Order Correction (POC)•Real-time packet reordering

QoS• B/W management

BandwidthLatency

• Classification• Queuing

Packet lossOut of order packets

Typical Performance ImprovementsTypical Performance Improvements

HTTP DownloadsWeb Applications

Database (SQL) File Transfer (CIFS)

Email (MAPI)Email (Notes)

Video StreamingReplication (e.g. VVR)Backup (e.g. Legato)

1x 2x 5x 10x 20x 50x 100x 200x 500xKey Peak PerformanceTypical Aggregate Performance

What can WAN Optimization do for your Law firm?What can WAN Optimization do for your Law firm?

• Share knowledge management resources between locations

• Accelerate the performance of file, email, and document management

• Ensure fast and reliable replication, backup, and disaster recovery across the WAN.

Case StudyCase Study

• Background:– Law firm with 5 regional offices (NY, Boston, SF, LA, D.C)

– 2 dedicated co-location facilities for Disaster Recovery (San Jose, Boston)

– Up to 5 GBytes transferred daily between each location

– WAN links range between 50Mbps and 155 Mbps today

– Presently use a single MPLS provider; Plan to add redundant MPLS links

• Challenge:– 75 ms latency on cross-country links; Only getting 10% WAN bandwidth utilization

– Poor Web (HTTP/S), email (MAPI), and CIFS file performance across WAN; poorly performing SharePoint and SQL-based financial application

– Stringent data replication needs between San Jose and Boston

– Data privacy a major requirement

Case Study – (continued)Case Study – (continued)

• Solution:– Conducted test on 45 Mbps, Boston-SF link– Chose NX-7500 for

• Ability to scale to 155 Mbps• Only appliance with disk encryption• TCP acceleration for latency mitigation

• Results:– 10-20x average improvement– 21x improvement for data replication– Latency sensitive financial application (SQL)

delivered with LAN-like performance– Over 80% data reduction on average

Why Silver Peak?Why Silver Peak?

• Scalability - the best performance on Fat Pipes– Highest bandwidth – 500 Mbps– Largest data store – 7 Terabytes– Greatest flow count – 256,000 flows

• More applications supported– Data reduction on all applications (TCP and UDP)– Lowest Latency (real-time and interactive applications)

• End-to-end security– Line rate encryption - at rest (AES)– Line rate encryption - in flight (IPsec)

Silver Peak Systems provides “the best current offering”among WAN optimization appliances – July 2007

An End User Perspective An End User Perspective

Bill Costello,Director of Computer Services

Who is Arnold & Porter LLP?Who is Arnold & Porter LLP?

• An international law firm of approximately 600 attorneys (founded in 1946)

• Offices in Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, London, and Brussels.

• Maintains more than 25 practice areas including litigation, transactional matters, and regulatory issues.

Network DiagramNetwork Diagram

London

Brussels

New York, NY

Denver, CO

McLean, VA

San Francisco, CA

Los Angeles, CAWashington, DC (Tenleytown)

Washington, DC (Market Square)

Washington, DC HQ and Data Center

Data Center(LexisNexis OH)

45 Mbps (DS3)

45 M

bps

(DS3)

AT&T MPLS WAN

The ChallengeThe Challenge

• Application latency – Slow email performance in Brussels (email stored in London)– Improve iManage DMS, Lotus Notes, CIFS (directory browsing)

performance across the WAN

• Server consolidation effort– Bring all servers and storage into main data centers; cannot do

without WAN optimization

• Improve the performance of host based replication performance. – Could move the data, just not fast enough between Washington

DC and LexisNexis DC in Ohio despite 200Mb point to point.

Finding the Right SolutionFinding the Right Solution

• Scalability a big requirement– Big WAN links coming into Data Centers (45 Mbps MPLS + 200 Mbps fiber)

• Must support a variety of applications– File, email, document management + VoIP and SQL

• Two primary WAN optimization vendors evaluated– Tested on live link in Washington DC area

• Ultimately selected Silver Peak’s NX appliances– Studies indicated best performance on DS-3 and 200 Mbps links– Ability to reduce packet loss on MPLS and IP VPNs– VoIP and UDP support– Disk encryption without performance issues– Bi-directional caching

Sample Results – Primary ApplicationsSample Results – Primary Applications

Overall Bandwidth ImprovementOverall Bandwidth Improvement

Additional ConsiderationsAdditional Considerations

• Carefully plan using the SP deployment guide.– Know network and routing configuration– Identify any potential bottlenecks

• Don’t forget to baseline– Easier to prove an ROI when you have a starting

point• Don’t underestimate the value of good support

– Work with reliable integrator and vendors

Q & AQ & A

Requirements for Data Center outsourcingTimothy Titus, Director of Managed Network

Services

Overcoming WAN challengesDamon Ennis, VP of Product Management and

Customer Support

An end user perspective Bill Costello, Director of Computer Services