How Good is the “Free” or “Included” Product?

There have always been all kinds of “free” or “included” items, meant to sweeten the sale of a main product. For example, you buy a new home in a subdivision, and the kitchen appliances—oven, stovetop, microwave, dishwasher—are already built-in. It might also include, “free” a washer and a dryer. Or, you buy a new computer, and it has a built-in camera. On top of that, it may even include free video editing software.

The upside is that these items were free, or included in the overall price. The downside, however, is that you’re now stuck with trying to make them work for the functions you intend. Are those kitchen appliances going to be what you really need for cooking—or would it have been better if you’d been able to pick your own, after you’d thoroughly checked them out? Or, how good is that camera included with your computer going to be? Could you do a professional shoot with it? And, is it possible to perform a competent editing job with the free video software?

Chances are, these items are nowhere near what you actually require in terms of functionality and features.

The same holds true for a “free” or “included” defragmenter. Fragmentation—the splitting of files into pieces, or fragments, for better utilization of disk space—is the primary drain on computer system performance and reliability. If it is possible to obtain a fragmentation solution for free, and that solution does the job, it’s certainly a winning situation.

The problem, however, is that because of the many innovations in today’s computing environments—such as thin provisioning, replication, snapshots, Continuous Data Protection (CDP) and deduplication, to name but a few—it takes more than a defragmenter, free or otherwise, to do the job. An optimization solution, which addresses a broader scope of issues than fragmentation only, is required.

Another issue is that even as a defragmenter, a free product has severe limitations and cannot address the enormous file sizes, voluminous drive capacities and high rates of fragmentation inherent in today’s systems.

A robust optimization solution addresses several aspects of file read and write I/Os in addition to fragmentation—a majority of which is prevented before it even happens. It includes  intelligent ordering of files for faster access, and other advanced technologies designed to automatically maximize system performance and reliability. Most importantly, it is truly up to the job of dealing with these important issues in today’s systems.

So carefully check out “free” or “included” items. Upon testing and inspection of features and functionality, you’ll find that you’d be better off paying the relatively inexpensive up-front cost, to save untold waste in time and money down the road.

As The Virtual World Turns...Optimize It

Virtual machine technology has rapidly expanded since being introduced a few short years ago. Now virtual servers are launched and perform many different types of tasks, and have moved over to take an important role in storage. Virtual machines are now proliferating to become part of the desktop environment—and it appears that PCs will soon be replaced by ultra-thin clients (aka zero clients) that simply act as interfaces for virtual machines.

It appears that our not so distant future will be ensconced completely in the cloud—and nearly all of our computing actions will be virtual. Technologies continue to be evolved to make this possible; the one thing that users, IT staff and corporate executives will not sacrifice is speed of access to data and rapidity of processing. Hence, anything which gets in the way of such performance must be firmly addressed.

As an ever-increasing amount of our computing becomes virtual, the speed of interaction between hardware hosts and virtual machines becomes more critical. Coordination of virtual machines also becomes vital—especially as the quantity of these increases.

Speed of access is dependent upon a basic computer operation: I/O reads and writes. In fact, that level is so important it can actually have a considerable impact on the entire environment. Many additional I/Os can be required for reads and writes when files are in a state of fragmentation. Originally developed for better utilization of hard drive space, fragmentation causes files to be split into tens or hundreds of thousands of pieces (fragments). Because of the additional I/Os required to read and write fragmented files, performance is seriously slowed down and I/O bandwidth bottlenecks occur frequently.

Within a virtual environment, an I/O request must pass through multiple layers. Because of this, fragmentation has even more of a profound impact in a virtual environment than it does in a strictly hardware platform. Left alone, it can even lead to an inability to launch and run more virtual machines.

Due to the complexity of virtual environments, a simple defragmentation solution won’t properly address the situation. In addition to fragmentation itself, I/Os must be prioritized so that shared I/O  resources can be properly coordinated. Fragmentation in virtual environments also causes virtual disk “bloat”, in which virtual disks are set to dynamically grow but don’t then shrink when users or applications remove data.

State of the art virtual platform disk optimization technology addresses all of these issues. A majority of fragmentation is actually prevented before it occurs. Virtual machine resources are fully coordinated, and wasted virtual disk space is eliminated with a compaction feature.

As our computing world continues to become increasingly virtual and move into the cloud, keep that world turning with competent optimization.

Free Software: Not for the Big Time

There are many free utilities and applications out there, and if what you are doing is meant to be insignificant or small, they’re probably adequate. For example, there are a few free music recording apps available that will allow to you record multiple instruments and vocals to your computer, and then mix the results into a song. But if the resulting track is to be used for professional purposes, you’ll find it sorely lacking; you need Logic Pro, Pro-Tools or the like to even come close to competing in the major markets.

There are numerous free accounting programs—probably fine for keeping track of bake sale income or the like. But used in a company or corporation to track income, accounts payable, expenditures, profit and loss? Hardly. The same could be said for databases; a free one available for download won’t hold a candle to an Oracle or SQL when it comes to business use, and no IT professional would even consider it.

On the utilities side, there are free defragmenters. Unlike the examples given above, these may not even be worth it for the home user, simply due to the nature and quantity of today’s fragmentation. But that argument aside, it is an obvious truth, upon examination, that these freebies are definitely not meant for business or corporate use.

Fragmentation is the splitting of files into pieces (fragments) on a hard drive, to better utilize disk space. A defragmenter is meant to solve this problem by “re-assembling” these files back into a whole, or a nearly whole state. In the corporate environment, the levels of fragmentation are far beyond the capabilities of a free defragmenter to accomplish this task.

A free defragmentation utility must also be scheduled; it has been discovered by anyone having to actually try this that scheduling is practically impossible in today’s enterprises simply because systems are constantly up and running.

But the primary problem with a free defragmenter is that, today, it takes more than defragmentation to truly tackle the resource loss associated with I/O reads and writes. Multi-faceted optimization is, by far, the best approach.

Technology is now available that, instead of defragmenting, actually prevents a majority of fragmentation before it ever occurs. This same technology also orders files for faster access, and performs a number of other vital actions that greatly increase performance, and maximize reliability. All of these functions occur completely automatically, with no scheduling or other operator interference required.

Free software is definitely not meant for the big time. This is doubly true in addressing fragmentation.

Free Defragmenter: For the Enterprise?

When most people buy a large-screen TV, they usually do so in an effort to bring the experience they might have in a movie theater to their homes. And bringing it home is usually somewhat of an event: everyone plops down on the couch, perhaps popcorn is made, and the new acquisition is fired up. Everyone waits...and there it is! The giant, lifelike crystal-clear picture that everyone wanted!

But something is wrong. While that picture is amazing, it is accompanied by sound that is tinny and has no depth at all. This is because the family, in their rush to expand their home entertainment experience, didn’t stop to think that you not only see great things on such a television, you also hear them. Now all they have for sound is the tiny free built-in speakers—never meant to be a high-quality sound experience matching the picture. If they’re going to really do it right, they’ll need to go back out and get a good quality surround-sound system.

Moving over into the field of computers, a similar thing could be said about a free or included defragmenter. A computer system in an enterprise is robust, can store and retrieve millions of files, and can serve them up quickly from servers to users near-instantly. High-tech innovations such as SAN, NAS, and virtual machines are consistently brought on board to increase that experience and functionality.

File fragmentation, however, can slow that experience and functionality to a crawl. In order to address it, an enterprise-ready fragmentation solution needs to be brought to bear. If not, fragmentation compounds unchecked—and all of its symptoms such as slow performance, unexpected hangs and freezes and reduced hardware life continue unabated.

Much like the tiny speakers were never meant to provide a true home theater experience, the free defragmenter was never meant to address fragmentation on an enterprise level. It must either be run manually or be scheduled—neither of which are options in today’s enterprise, with servers that must remain up and running 24/7.  Additionally, it will be found that this defragmenter does not have functionality to keep up with the hectic rates of fragmentation found in today’s business environments. 

The only true solution for an enterprise is one that prevents a majority of fragmentation so that it never impacts the system or users. It never requires scheduling or any kind of intervention from IT staff—which leaves them free to address more urgent priorities. Best of all, maximum performance and reliability are assured.

Evaluating an Enterprise Fragmentation Solution

There is an old expression: “Never bring a boy to do a man’s job.” Crude and politically incorrect though this saying may be, it does convey a truth: if you want to get a task accomplished, make sure the person you assign to it has the necessary know-how to get it done (be they man, woman or juvenile). For example, you wouldn’t bring a high-school student who has just started auto shop classes to make repairs on a passenger jet plane. Or, you wouldn’t put an apprentice fireman in charge of putting out an oil well fire.

Similarly, any software application you employ needs to be adequate to the task at hand. For instance, if you were required to create a full color brochure for your business, you wouldn’t use Microsoft Paint or another free, very basic graphics program. It’s not that any of these are bad products, it’s just that you really need something like Adobe Illustrator to obtain the degree of flexibility, options and detail that the job actually requires.

When it comes to solutions to fragmentation, there are basic, free or inexpensive solutions available as well. Some enterprises seek to cut licensing costs by employing one of these—only to discover down the road that fragmentation is worse than ever, simply because the “solution” they employed was not adequate, and IT costs have spiraled out of control. Again, these aren’t “bad” solutions—they’re just not meant to address the critical levels of fragmentation that occur in today’s corporate computing environments.

The first consideration on evaluating an enterprise-level solution to fragmentation should be, is it enterprise tested and proven? Can it stand up in real-world environments? Read reviews and evaluations. Talk to sites that have used it. Ask them if it really does the job, or if they having to constantly try and tweak it or find “workarounds” to a fragmentation problem that is still persisting.

It’s easy to tell if the utility you’re evaluating isn’t doing the job: check the fragmentation levels before, during and after. See if the utility actually finishes running and accomplishes the job. Many utilities, if they aren’t up to the challenge, will simply grind endlessly without achieving the goal of files in a defragmented state. An adequate solution will eliminate fragmentation and return a system to its native maximum performance.

A third (but no less important) consideration is, how much human intervention is required? Today, technology exists to prevent a majority of fragmentation before it ever occurs—fully automatically. Valuable IT time is not taken up trying to schedule or run a fragmentation solution; the solution is simply employed, and no one needs to worry about fragmentation from there on out. A basic solution will come nowhere near that level of functionality.

File fragmentation can be a costly problem, if not properly addressed. Make sure the solution chosen is truly enterprise-level and does the job.

How Efficient Does Your System Have to Be?

The word “efficient” is defined as, “Performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort.” It could also be defined as, “The extent to which time or effort is well used for the intended task or purpose.”

The word certainly can be, and usually is, applied to a business process. The objective of any  business process is to get the highest quality work done in the least amount of time, with a minimum of effort. Similarly, "efficiency" also applies to mechanics, and has going back hundreds of years. It means getting the most mechanical production for the least amount of energy output. Efficiency in business processes, mechanics and energy also has a keen impact on economics.  

A computer system is unique in the regard that it directly impacts all these elements: business processes, mechanics, energy and therefore economics. Hence a computer system must be as efficient as possible in every aspect of its operation.

Many innovations have contributed to the highest-ever efficiency we see in systems today. Components use the least amount of power to render maximum processing and storage. Form factors have become increasing small so as not to over-utilize another aspect of efficiency: space. Probably the most interesting of these innovations is the virtual machine, which relies only on the power of its host and takes up no physical space at all.

One aspect of computer system efficiency that is still sometimes overlooked, however, is the use of I/O resources. Inefficient use of these impacts all other computer resources: drive space, hardware life, processing and backup speed, and—worst of all—performance.

A primary cause of I/O resource inefficiency is file fragmentation. A natural function of a file system, fragmentation means the splitting of files into pieces (fragments) in order to better utilize drive space. It is not uncommon for a file to be split into thousands or tens of thousands of fragments. It is the fact that each and every one of those fragments must be obtained whenever that file is accessed that wreaks such havoc on performance and resources.

For many years, defragmentation was the only method of addressing fragmentation. But because of today’s complex technical innovations, efficiency now comes in the form of optimization technology, which both maximizes performance and eliminates wasted disk I/O activity. The majority of fragmentation is now prevented, while file optimization and other innovations are combined to complete the solution.

This solution puts the final touch on—and completely maximizes—computer system efficiency.