Entries categorized under “Data Migration”

This year's spring Storage Networking World (SNW) 2012 show was unlike any other that I had attended in the past. While I had good conversations with the folks from FalconStor, HP, QLogic, Spectra Logic and Nimbus Data Systems among others, what was most remarkable about this SNW was the lack of notable new announcements around storage. (read more)

The topic as to what storage management features organizations really need on a storage array continues to be a hotly debated. In the last decade, we have seen a multitude of features propagate on storage arrays including disk striping, thin provisioning, and storage tiering just to name a few. But deciding which of these features are "nice-to-haves" and which ones are really "needed" in a virtual operating environment (VOE) becomes very difficult to make without a close examination of one's environment. (read more)

One of my favorite all time movies is The Terminator. It is one of those timeless classics whose video was less than optional, it had some cheesy special effects and it contained dialog that was highlighted by "I'll be back." Yet despite these flaws what carried The Terminator and still makes it popular to this day was its compelling story line. (read more)

As more organizations explore the possibility of moving data into the cloud, the first question they are bound to ask is, "How do we seamlessly move what we already have into the cloud?" No organizations are more concerned with this transparent data movement than service providers and enterprises that have a lot to gain but just as much to lose if problems arise. (read more)

Moving unstructured data onto lower cost tiers of storage is an initiative on almost every enterprise organization's "to-do" list. But convincing a business unit or department to "volunteer" to move its data to a lower cost tier is not always as easy as it seems, especially when doing so may possibly put production applications at risk. (read more)

In the past two months I have probably received more calls from end-users inquiring as to what steps they should take to re-architect their backup infrastructures than I have in the past two years. Yet what I find encouraging is that they are no longer just asking me for point solutions or short term fixes. Rather they are looking for architectures that they can put in place that will solve their immediate pain points while leaving them well-positioned for the future. (read more)

Data migrations are viewed as problematic by almost every size organization with administrative overhead, cost, downtime and risk among the problems most commonly cited in executing on them. For mid-sized organizations, these issues are compounded as they have the same challenges as larger organizations but fewer resources with which to perform them. This is why the RELDATA 9240i, that delivers block and file data migrations on a single unified storage platform, may just be the answer that mid-sized organizations seek. (read more)

In 2007, IDC estimated that 211 PBs of iSCSI storage was shipped worldwide. This grew to 500 PBs shipped in 2008 and was forecast to continue to grow in 2009 and beyond. But what those numbers do not reveal is that it is mid-sized enterprises who bought the majority of these iSCSI storage systems. Now these same organizations are about to get a wakeup call as they start their upgrade cycles and encounter the challenges associated with migrating data to newer iSCSI storage systems. (read more)

The dramatic changes that are currently sweeping through the storage industry are once again preparing to reshape the look of tomorrow's enterprise data centers. Among these changes, features and/or products like high availability, solid state drives (SSDs), server virtualization and thin provisioning are emerging as the predominant ones that IT managers are well under ways towards wide spread adoption. But as the implementation of these features begin, they create new storage management 'gotchas'. (read more)

The new relationship that Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) struck with InMage Systems to use InMage about three months ago had a number of immediate ramifications. It provided HDS with a new heterogeneous replication option that it could use across its own storage systems; it made HDS more competitive in customer accounts where it did not traditionally have a foothold and it provided an entrée for HDS into next generation data protection technologies for disaster recovery. (read more)

In yesterday's blog, I answered the question as to why I think the use of virtual appliances is going to become the new standard for backing up and recovering virtual machines. However today I want to answer the question as to what was the big news that came out of VMworld 2009. In my view, it was clearly that the emphasis has moved from why organizations need to virtualize their environments to what new possibilities that a fully virtualized (aka cloud) environment creates. (read more)

According to a recent 3PAR press release, thin provisioning is fast becoming a must-have feature for organizations as they look to procure new enterprise storage systems. It cites a report from TheInfoPro that shows that 87% of surveyed users now consider thin provisioning an important virtualization technology. Much of this increased user interest in thin provisioning is attributable to their growing adoption of server and storage virtualization. However for any organization to realize the full benefits of thin provisioning is dependent upon what an organization's computing environment looks like when a thinly provisioned storage system is deployed. (read more)

The general economic malaise of the past few months is not going unnoticed by anyone as it seems every day more companies are cutting back and tightening their belts in anticipation of a lean 2009. Just in the last months, numerous companies including 3M, Dow Chemical, and Hewlett-Packard, just to name a few, have announced cutbacks in staffing. But for those individuals that remain, the task does not get any easier. Most if not all end-users that I talk to are getting a hard push by their IT executives to cut costs as the days of simply purchasing more infrastructure is an unacceptable solution. (read more)

One can hardly visit any storage system vendor's website without running into a reference to "Thin Provisioning" that is available either in their current product or on their product roadmap. However, how many operating system or volume managers/filesystems producers do you find using those words? Until recently, there were none. But now that Symantec has jumped with both feet into the Thin Provisioning arena, how companies use and manage thin provisioning in the coming years should change significantly. (read more)

Knowing how long to keep copies of production data in backup repositories is a problem that companies only give scant attention to now. When companies back up production data to tape, they tend to only invest minimal time and effort managing the data after it is backed up. The backup data remains on the tape until the data is overwritten during the next backup job; or the tape, and data on it, is simply discarded when the tape wears out. Besides, taking a more proactive approach to managing backup data on tape is time consuming, difficult to implement and has, to date, shown minimal return on investment (ROI). (read more)

Part of the reason companies are reluctant to go forward on enterprise-wide business continuity solutions is the complexity associated with implementing them. Enterprise-wide business continuity solutions typically rely upon a conglomeration of point products to protect and recover data. Backup software, host and storage system-based replication software and application specific replication software, among others, are just some of the software products that companies use. The trick is configuring, managing and monitoring these point products in such a way that they work together in a cohesive, unified manner. Not only is this nearly impossible to do, the cost and complexity of performing these tasks can quickly escalate when trying to manage and recover multiple applications across the enterprise at the same time. (read more)