WHITE PAPER: TODAY S DATA STORAGE CHALLENGES

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1 WHITE PAPER: TODAY S DATA STORAGE CHALLENGES This white paper will review the following topics: Current Data Growth and The Challenges it Creates How Are Businesses Currently Maintaining Their Storage Growth? Aligning Storage Priorities The LightBridge Platform: True Innovation LightBridge ARCH: Aged Storage Product LightBridge Infrastructure

2 White Paper Today s Data Storage Challenges 2 CURRENT DATA GROWTH AND THE CHALLENGES IT CREATES The facts and figures surrounding today s data storage market are astounding. No matter how the material is presented, the percentages determined, or the facts illustrated it all leads to one conclusion: corporations are faced with the daunting task of efficiently and effectively storing the massive amount of data generated on a daily basis. In 2012, research conducted by the IDC and EMC determined the digital universe doubles every two years. In their study the digital universe was defined as all digital data created, replicated and consumed. Translate those numbers into actual dollars spent and one discovers businesses are paying $1.7 billion dollars a month on storage and related costs. And this cost is increasing at a drastic rate, with expectations of reaching $10.8 billion dollars a month by These growth percentages are impacting businesses of all sizes. Even for companies currently maintaining 25TB of data, storage requirements will grow to over 3,000TB in just ten short years (Table 1). Table 1: Estimated Data Storage Growth Current Storage Amount 25 TB 50 TB 100 TB 500 TB Storage Amount in 2 Years 50 TB 100 TB 200 TB 1000 TB Storage Amount in 10 Years 3,113 TB 6,225 TB 12,450 TB 62,250 TB Figure 1: Estimated Data Storage Growth TERABYTES 40B 35B 30B 25B 20B 15B 10B 5B YEAR Mission Critical Data 2013 Archival Data of data in operational systems is Mission Critical Data is Archival Data Did You Know? 1,000 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte 1,000 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte 1,000 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte Compounding the problem of managing the exponential growth in data, corporations are struggling to determine an efficient method of storing the various types of files being generated. Data, just like today s business models, no longer follow a streamlined generation process. Files are created at home offices, distributed through , saved to temporary locations and developed on hand-held devices. This type of unstructured data is growing an estimated 62% yearover-year and creating a constant flux in file management. All the photos, videos, images and social media content being generated has no efficient method of being stored, maintained and too often is not considered in the pool of data that needs to be archived or deleted.

3 White Paper Today s Data Storage Challenges 3 In addition, the rate at which files are generated and quickly discarded are adding to the 70% of data stored within an on-premise system that Gartner estimates is unreferenced (Figure 1). This unreferenced, or aged data, is leading to strains and stresses on existing systems, impacting storage budgets and corporations bottom-line. HOW ARE BUSINESSES CURRENTLY MAINTAINING THEIR STORAGE GROWTH? Budget Overview of Storage Market: 70% of expensive on-premise hardware is being utilized for unreferenced, aged data. Physical space for data storage expansion is reaching capacity. Storage budgets dealing with increased environmental costs: energy prices are up 11% year-over-year. Average per watt usage for storage devices is rising 21% a year. In most on-premise storage infrastructures, the business critical data is stored utilizing the latest technology of SANs and NAS providing assurance data is close at hand. IT operational budgets are heavily weighted toward supporting this mission critical data. The hardware is focused on high performance requirements providing instantaneous responses and measured against stringent necessities of performance, reliability and availability. These objectives lead to a massive investment of not only software to maintain and monitor the high-level of availability, but staff. However, these traditional storage products reach new challenges when required to maintain an insurmountable amount of storage infrequently referenced. The 70% of aged data maintained on the hardware is utilizing expensive and critical storage equipment to the business. Physical space is reaching capacity across the nation, as corporations have no additional square footage to expand their operations without a significant capital investment. In addition, environmental costs are significantly impacting storage budgets. Energy prices are up an average of 11% year-over-year. The energy price increase is even more impactful with the realization storage devices are demanding more power per watt usage, with the average requirements per unit increasing 21% a year. The power grid is also dwindling, actively impacting new revenue generating opportunities and delaying projects as IT organizations determine how to gain additional power and space to support the needed infrastructure. The strains on IT employee resources are growing, while the manpower to support these infrastructures is shrinking. It is no wonder that during EMC s 2013 survey of over 800 organizations worldwide, it was determined IT s biggest challenge was managing the storage growth. The most important technology to enterprise organizations to manage this storage growth resides in backup / recovery and archiving solutions that deliver results.

4 White Paper Today s Data Storage Challenges 4 ALIGNING STORAGE PRIORITIES With the right tool in hand, achieving resolution of these business concerns is possible. Corporations are working to define an archival strategy that not only benefits today s on-premise data centers but reduces future capital expenditures as well. By working through an integrated approach, companies are able to offload the 70% of aged data absorbing significant resources. Table 2: Life-Cycle of Data Stage Day Stage Notes Create 1 Mission-critical data Update 1-30 Mission-critical data Store / Use / Share Needed for reference requests Archive 90+ Aged data, 70% of stored data Destroy - Inactive data In today s business environment, resources are thin and the squeaky wheel gets the oil. It s understandable why IT teams are aligning their priorities to focus on mission critical data, the active revenue generator (Table 2). If the team realigns the business focus from mission critical data to review and implement a transformative archive data strategy, significant savings can be achieved. But archiving the data is not the end of the line. Software products can easily determine the proper unreferenced data to offload, but without taking into consideration the entire life-cycle of data, the same team will be faced with a wall of tapes needing to be cleared or approved for deeper archive levels. The operational life-cycle of data needs to be fully considered in order to implement a proper archive strategy. The requirements for defining the data life-cycle requires input across all departments. Finance needs to review retention policies for historical accounting purposes, Legal has specific requirements and needs for fulfilling ediscovery requests, while Marketing departments are faced with challenges of creating trending information for customers and forecasting shifts in the market. Today, most businesses are aware of the departmental requirements and implementing a tiered storage strategy. However, the traditional solution is to migrate the aged data to interior, lower cost storage still requiring significant software and hardware management, employee resources and power consumption.

5 White Paper Today s Data Storage Challenges 5 THE LIGHTBRIDGE PLATFORM: TRUE INNOVATION Using a distributed architecture, LightBridge brings the most cost efficient cloud storage platform to the industry today. The stage has been set for corporations to find and implement a product providing significant resolution to these concerns. LightBridge is transforming today s storage market by providing a platform founded on a unique merge of telecommunications industry knowledge and firsthand understanding of today s storage needs. LightBridge provides a cost-effective solution residing on spinning disks, translating to almost instantaneous retrieval times at costs below tape archives. From a development perspective, LightBridge utilizes three simple strategies: Secure. Physical and application security for data, surpassing compliance requirements businesses are faced with on a daily basis. Reliable. From start-ups to enterprise, LightBridge exceeds expectations for consistent access to aged data. LightBridge s infrastructure of 5,000+ micro data centers places data in three geographically diverse locations across the platform, all on enterprisequality hardware. Agile. LightBridge approaches all relationships as a partnership to ensure the platform continues to compliment and surpass corporation requirements. LightBridge is built to allow for quick transformations and system updates. The LightBridge platform is built within the existing telecommunications infrastructure with no additional footprint to the network. By archiving aged data to LightBridge, corporations are reducing their utilization of scarce power resources and realizing a significant cost savings greater than 85% over traditional storage. Once migrated from centralized storage, aged data is providing significant improvements to on-premise storage allowing for quicker searches, faster report generation and more efficient backups. Using a distributed architecture, LightBridge brings the most cost efficient cloud storage platform to the industry today. LIGHTBRIDGE ARCH: AGED STORAGE PRODUCT The LightBridge ARCH product is focused on providing customers a simple and effective aged data software solution aligning storage processes to ensure proper archival of aged data. LightBridge ARCH provides customers with a simple client-side software installation generating an

6 True Cost of 100TB of Usable Storage Data Center Storage vs. LightBridge ARCH Cloud Storage Avg. Monthly Calculations On-Premise Data LightBridge ARCH LightBridge ARCH Center Storage Cloud Storage Savings Direct Costs $8, $ % Hardware Purchases $5, $0.00 Taxes and Insurance $ $0.00 Installation and Integration $1, $0.00 Operational Costs $83, $52, % Staff Costs $24, $4, Maintenance and Support Costs $19, $ Environmental Costs $2, $0.00 Storage Software $20, $0.00 Data Center System Software $6, $0.00 LightBridge Storage Costs $0.00 $46, Networking Costs $4, $0.00 Security $1, $0.00 Data Protection $3, $ Indirect Costs $11, $ % Capital Opportunity Costs $5, $0.00 Increased Working Capital $2, $0.00 UPS Upgrades $2, $0.00 Power Grid Upgrades $1, $0.00 Considerations for Your On-Premise 100TB Usable Storage Total Cost $102, $52, % Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Average Cost Per GB $1.01 $0.52 LightBridge Pricing LightBridge List $/GB $0.61 Offered Discount 25% Your $/GB $ Additional Information 1. Three year useful life 2. One-time costs were converted into monthly run rate for comparison purposes 3. LightBridge ARCH $/GB is estimated at the cost displayed. Your price will vary. 4. Light blue color signifies only costs payable to LightBridge. Other costs are assumed remaining internal costs. Printed: 4/10/14 LightBridge LightBridgeData.com CONFIDENTIAL Gartner estimates of data in operational systems is unreferenced Off-load your costly unreferenced data across LightBridge s network of 5,000+ micro data centers. LIGHTBRIDGE INFOGRAPHIC Research shows of TCO is realized after initial purchase Staff (23%) Software (21%) Maintenance (19%) Environmental (6%) Taxes (1%) Other (10%) Contact LightBridge Increase the longevity of your existing infrastructure [email protected] Call LightBridge at to review your TCO. White Paper Today s Data Storage Challenges 6 automated process of determining cold files ready for archival. The product also ensures users retain their strong search capabilities while providing an unchained horizontal capacity scale. LightBridge data storage pricing is unlimited, unrestricted and predictable. No user fees. No access fees. No download fees. No hidden fees. LightBridge storage pricing is unlimited, unrestricted and predictable. No user fees. No access fees. No download fees. No hidden fees. Lowest TCO versus tiered data storage in the data center Maintenance of any data storage investment must consider a number of various components. For one, businesses know and understand the direct costs of hardware purchases needed to increase storage capacity in the system. What is not as understood are the operational costs raising the actual storage budget, including staff and environmental costs. Take the budget considerations one step further by considering the significant up-front capital purchase required to expand on-premise storage. These indirect costs quickly add up to a complex budget scenario for clearly calculating the cost of any storage purchase. And unfortunately, these costly investments are focused on maintaining mission-critical data. It s time for enterprise companies to utilize high-cost and valuable onpremise storage for mission-critical needs, preserving CAPEX investments for a significantly longer amount of time. A solid strategy through the utilization of LightBridge ARCH reduces dependency and urgency on purchasing new storage systems by reclaiming existing capacity. Through the utilization of LightBridge ARCH, customers drastically lower costs across many components, including electricity, cooling, system management and physical space. Customers have seen a significant cost savings of over 85% from traditional storage methods. 2 1 Go online to LightBridgeData.com/TCO Learn more about your on-premise costs and receive our customized TCO spreadsheet. LIGHTBRIDGE INFRASTRUCTURE An OpenStack Storage Solution LightBridge ARCH is built on the OpenStack Object Storage (Swift) system, the most widely adopted cloud platform in the world. The OpenStack solution provides a reliable foundation on which the ARCH solution resides, delivering a scalable and redundant storage system.

7 White Paper Today s Data Storage Challenges 7 The OpenStack software provides a strong, resilient base. Objects and files are distributed to multiple disk drives logically spread throughout the platform ensuring data replication and integrity remains across the cluster. The platform is built with the knowledge of what has been proven in today s data centers, hard drives will fail. This can be a painful reality in the traditional storage environment. However, within an OpenStack environment all objects are automatically replicated from another active hard drive to a new location. Because OpenStack uses software logic to ensure data replication and distribution across different devices, enterprise-quality, commodity hard drives and servers can be used. These considerations provide customers with additional savings in their tiered storage approach. The intelligence of the systems continues to scale as new servers are added to the system, allowing true horizontal scale across all storage clusters. Figure 2: 5,000+ Micro Data Center Distribution Network Foundation The resilient LightBridge cloud storage platform provides a distinct advantage over other cloud storage providers through the distributed network of 5,000 micro data centers (Figure 2). Through unique telecommunication partnerships, LightBridge provides corporations with nationwide geographic dispersion. The central hub of the network resides in the largest fiber interchange in the Midwest providing not only redundant connectivity, but quick access through an extensive list of telecommunication providers. The fiber-dense, network neutral facility provides an unlimited network potential for the utilization of the platform. Security Security requirements vary drastically through various industry regulations. LightBridge understands this complex landscape and provides solutions across most requirements. Access to the platform requires a level of security. Each request to the system requires SSL transport upon object upload and download along with valid client credentials for access. Various compliance levels can be accessed across the 5,000+ micro data centers, including PCI and HIPAA compliance, along with SSAE-16 SOC Type I and Type II

8 FILE SHARDING ARCH HOW IT WORKS File sharding provides a unique protective layer by taking a single object (file) and segmenting the file to separate sub-documents, or shards. The process utilizes an algorithm to transform objects into individual shards, ranging from three to ten individual segments. These shards are then distributed across the LightBridge platform network of 5,000+ micro data centers. BENEFITS of File Sharding Added Security As an added layer of protection on top of the existing LightBridge platform, file sharding provides peace of mind for your highly confidential materials. Each individual shard remains unrecognizable across the network of micro data centers. Ease to Manage TO BECOME Applying this protective layer of sharding TEN SHARDS to your files is simple. Whether through the API or the web platform, each object, bucket or account can be flagged to instruct the LightBridge ARCH platform to perform the needed process on the file prior to archiving. Cost Savings Providing a high level of security to your data files has multiple options, many of which are costly to maintain. With the LightBridge file sharding solution, securely protecting your data is finally affordable through our simple, and minimal, additional price per GB. ARCH Innovation Contact Us Today Keeping your data accessible and secure, while navigating the evolving landscape of data storage can be a challenge. Through [email protected] utilization of the LightBridge platform Facebook.com/LightBridgeData you can be assured we are focused on Twitter.com/LightBridgeData maintaining the evolution of our platform. V White Paper Today s Data Storage Challenges 8 Certification. Enhanced security options are also available for customers requiring server-side Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256. LightBridge provides an additional protective layer through the unique file sharding. File sharding segments a single object, or file, into separate sub-documents, or shards. An algorithm processes a single Visit LightBridgeData.com/ FileSharding Learn more about the advanced security features LightBridge has to offer. object generating a range of three to ten individual shards per object. These shards are dispersed across the network of 5,000+ micro data centers. Each individual shard remains unrecognizable across the network of micro data centers. Providing Agility and Manageability LightBridge ARCH is a pure software solution requiring no appliance or on-site hardware installation with the option of three integration methods. Free Client-Side Software Solution: allows quick implementation while still providing customized policies to adapt to the business environment Client-Side Software Integration: SDK utilization is available across multiple languages including Java,.NET, Python, Ruby, PHP, C, Node.js, Go and many more along with utilization in various operating systems such as Mac, Windows and Linux/Unix. Custom Third-Party Software Integration: allows a streamlined model to be utilized within existing Web Applications, Backup and Recovery Software along with File Management Appliance Archive solutions. And if at any time questions arise, LightBridge customer service is available 24 / 7 / 365. Customer service provides support for problem and incident management along with providing basic and advanced monitoring of the system. LightBridge ARCH Provides Additional Resiliency Building on the OpenStack foundation, LightBridge ARCH provides additional resiliency for the storage of aged data. Within the LightBridge platform monitoring occurs not only on disk status, but other physical components of the system including network status, network traffic volume, CPU temperatures, server load and much more. 1 OBJECT TRANSFORMS

9 White Paper Today s Data Storage Challenges 9 The LightBridge technical team is automatically notified if behavior of any hardware component crosses LightBridge defined thresholds. This notification creates a streamlined process to replace failed hard drives without any impact to the LightBridge system. In addition, a third-party service validates software availability through public side access. Resiliency is provided through distribution across the network with all 5,000+ micro data centers equipped with UPS and back-up generators along with on-site physical security. Hardware Foundation The LightBridge infrastructure is founded on enterprise-quality components with built-in redundancy. Prior to installation, all storage hard drives are pre-tested and validated. The platform utilizes dual switches and firewalls ensuring high availability throughout the network. If one fails, another device automatically takes over and continues operations. Redundancy in compute power is addressed through dual boot disks, along with dual and quad network interfaces. In the unexpected event an entire box fails, the system will maintain operation at all times. The LightBridge platform is future-facing to ensure technology can be expanded and evolve with the constantly changing storage industry. The platform provides an open and dynamic foundation allowing for truly unlimited horizontal scaling potential. Interoperability The LightBridge ARCH solution was built utilizing industry standards. There is no proprietary coding or lock-in required as industry-defined requests are utilized for the system. The industry-defined requests provide a customized installation including data retention policies, immutability and time stamping.

10 White Paper Today s Data Storage Challenges 10 SUMMARY LightBridge is here to provide the scalable solution for solving long-term data storage problems, while still delivering a total cost of ownership savings up to 85% over traditional and other cloud storage solutions. LightBridge ARCH is a distributed data storage solution that provides clients with an effective means to manage massive quantities of aged data that remains important to the corporation. ARCH was built for IT professionals to provide a reliable, agile and affordable data storage product, reducing significant cost for our clients. Data remains searchable. Data is located in seconds, not hours fumbling through disks or tape. Data is accessed through script, not manpower. Data is distributed across a nationwide network of 5,000+ micro data centers

11 CONTACT US LightBridgeData.com Facebook.com/LightBridgeData Twitter.com/LightBridgeData LightBridge is a high growth IT startup focused on delivering distributed data storage to enterprise level clients. LightBridge developed a technology to distribute data storage across multiple sites providing better and more cost effective data storage. The mission of LightBridge leaders is simple: making life simpler through technology. We trust and believe in our people to build a great company that delivers results. We know and understand the shifting data landscape: richer documents with longer shelf lives. And through this landscape we are able to provide our partners with a distributed data storage solution that is cost efficient, scalable and secure.