Entries categorized under “Networked Storage”

Today many enterprises and cloud storage providers ask, "What scale-out storage solution will enable us to economically and easily house our burgeoning Big Data stores?" However small and midsized enterprises (SMEs) put a slightly different spin on that same question by asking, "What scale-out storage system will enable us to affordably address our 'bigger data' problems?" SMEs are finding an answer to their question in the form of the Gridstore Scale-out Storage platform. (read more)

Inline deduplication data storage solutions provider GreenBytes, Inc. recently released a new high-availability (HA), globally optimized solid-state drive (SSD) storage array solution called Solidarity that is garnering a lot of attention. Solidarity offers inline real-time deduplication and compression via a dual-controller unit outfitted entirely with SSD storage. The buzz over Solidarity is in large part because of its 200,000-plus IOPS performance--with deduplication and compression enabled. (read more)

This last week I was doing a fair amount of research and writing on solid state storage when I was struck by how much it is poised to change the storage industry. However the change it is going to make is not in the usual context of how much faster or power efficient solid state storage is over traditional hard disk drives (HDDs.) Rather it struck me that the current 3-5 year depreciation period typically used for today's storage systems may need some updating. (read more)

In this final installment of our blog series on WhipTail Technologies, a Solid State Drive (SSD) array provider with some impressive features and capabilities, I am continuing my discussion with WhipTail Technologies Chief Technology Officer, James Candelaria. Last time, we looked at how WhipTail implements software RAID on its devices. Today, we will be discussing the different transport protocols supported by the WhipTail array and why the FCoE and iSCSI protocols trump Infiniband in today's SSD deployments. (read more)

Today there are more open system arrays with more features from more vendors from which organizations may choose. Yet what is emerging as an obstacle to organizations considering some of these arrays as viable options is their inability to leverage these snapshot capabilities. That obstacle may be short-lived thanks in part to the CommVault IntelliSnap Connect Program. (read more)

Today, I am continuing my discussion with WhipTail Technologies Chief Technology Officer, James Candelaria, whose company specializes in Solid State Drive (SSD) storage solutions. In Part III of this interview series, we looked at how WhipTail deals with the variances between solid state drive manufacturer's hardware and firmware and how this emerging technology deals with those differences. In this installment, we'll look at how and why WhipTail implements software RAID in its appliance. (read more)

Today is part 2 of an interview I recently did with WhipTail Technologies Chief Technology Officer, James Candelaria, an emerging provider of SSD storage solutions. In my last entry, he and I discussed one major roadblock to widespread enterprise SSD adoption: the performance penalty incurred by garbage collection. This time, we'll look at how WhipTail optimizes SSD performance while minimizing the deficiencies of MLC flash. (read more)

Today is the last business day of 2011 and with it DCIG brings you our top most read and referenced blog entries. Each blog entry is compelling, yet timeless. What we find ironic about these blogs is that even as topics like "cloud," "deduplication," and "virtualization" generate a great deal of buzz, simple blog entries on storage, backup and data center labeling outperform them due to their foundations for IT leaders and practitioners. (read more)

"Nirvanix was about a year ahead of everyone else in terms of what it could offer for enterprise cloud storage services." Making this claim is Fred Rodi, the CEO of DRFortress, who over the last year had to look ahead to determine which storage provider could best position DRFortress and it customers for the future of cloud storage. So when it came time for DRFortress to make the choice, Nirvanix was the hands down winner. (read more)

Server virtualization is creating new demands for ease and simplicity in managing and scaling storage capacity and performance that go well beyond what traditional single or dual controller storage systems can provide. But what organizations may fail to recognize is that even current scale-out storage systems may NOT be truly optimized to cost-effectively deliver the storage capacity and performance that virtualized environments require. This is the unique value proposition that Gridstore with its vController technology is well positioned to address. (read more)

IBM briefed DCIG on the details around its October Active Cloud Engine product announcement on Wednesday, November 16, of this past week. The briefing covered three functional areas, two products, one statement of direction and ironically nothing about the cloud. However, IBM deserves kudos for making a big change to its scale out NAS (SONAS) product during its Active Cloud Engine product announcement. (read more)

The introduction of the HP P10000 into the HP 3PAR line of storage systems about three (3) months ago firmly put 3PAR systems in the realm of high end, Tier 1 storage. But the new V400 and V800 models in the HP P10000 line do more than increase the available storage capacity and performance of existing 3PAR storage systems. They indicate that the mainframe-like requirements that enterprise data centers have for storage systems persist and that, in order for HP to keep up, it needed to introduce a high end storage system that possessed "Big Iron" like attributes to meet these growing storage cloud requirements. (read more)

According to IDC, revenue from external disk storage systems totaled over $18 billion in 2010. But what that IDC number does not fully reflect is the growing impact that midrange arrays are having on organizations of all sizes and how well they are positioned to deliver the other key feature that organizations now want in their virtualized environments: Reliability. Among the midrange arrays available, the new NEC M100 storage array is better positioned than most to deliver on these two features. (read more)

VMware will hit a tipping point with 2011 with VMware customers expected to cross the 50% virtualization threshold by the end of the year. But as VMware adoption accelerates, a hurdle that every organization faces as it looks to implement VMware vSphere is identifying a back-end storage system that delivers the appropriate levels of availability and performance at the right price point. Last week the new Symantec FileStore N8300 v5.7 with its new deduplication feature gave organizations a glimpse into how that may be accomplished. (read more)

More storage capacity, new options to configure storage capacity and a starting price point of under $2,000 -- that's the at-a-glance description of the newest Overland Storage model, SnapServer DX, available in a 1U and 2U form factors, SnapServer DX1 and SnapServer DX2, respectively. But what makes the new NAS/iSCSI SAN SnapServer DX so compelling is the increased flexibility that it offers to organizations to manage and scale, using the new DynamicRAID technology which contribute to eliminating the need for organizations to provision storage altogether. (read more)

Last week the DCIG team attended the Fall 2011 Storage Networking World (SNW) show in Orlando, FL. While there were a lot of cool storage companies, only two meetings left any kind of impression on me: one with IBM and another with SNIA. (read more)

No one ever gets every decision right the first time. In fact, most of us are lucky to get most of our decisions mostly right most of the time. Yet to date storage administrators have been forced to live in somewhat of an alternate universe where the expectation is that they plan and execute on storage allocations perfectly every time. (read more)

The number of storage arrays that have a starting price point under $5,000 has grown substantially in the last few years. But the adoption of these systems is being largely fueled by their low price point even as features such as availability, performance and scalability are in some way sacrificed. The one notable exception to this trend is the Gridstore GS-1000 which also offers this attractive entry-level price point but does not require SMBs to sacrifice any of these features. (read more)

In Q2 2010 DCIG released its first ever Buyer's Guide of any kind on the topic of Midrange Arrays. But in the year or so that has passed since the release of that Buyer's Guide, a seismic shift has occurred in terms of what users are looking for midrange arrays to deliver and storage capacity is no longer at the top of their list. Rather vSphere integration and storage intelligence have become their new hot buttons in terms of what they expect midrange arrays to deliver which is resulting in a shake-up in terms of which midrange arrays users should give top priority. (read more)

If you are a regular follower of the DCIG blog site you may have noticed that there has been a noticeable lack of blogging activity on DCIG's site this week. Unfortunately it is not because I have been taking a vacation, fishing or merely lounging by the lake. Rather I have been locked away in my office completing the background research associated with the upcoming release of the DCIG 2012 Midrange Array Buyer's Guide due out in the 4th quarter of 2011. Out of that some interesting early observations have emerged. (read more)

Over the past 15 or so months DCIG has released a multitude of Buyer's Guides on topics ranging from Midrange Arrays to Virtual Server Backup Software to Small Enterprise Storage Arrays to Midrange Array Snapshot Software. As DCIG has done so, it has learned a great deal about what it has done right and areas where it can improve. But the general feedback is that the Buyer's Guides provide users valuable insight into different technologies and help them understand the market landscape. So today DCIG is announcing the topics for its Buyer's Guides that it plans to release for the remainder of 2011 and the first half of 2012. (read more)

In 2010 the amount of digital information created in the world exceeded a zettabyte for the first time. Now, in 2011, enterprises have to deal with the reality of managing and storing that amount of data. As they do so, they are coming to the realization that the majority of that data may only be actively accessed for a short period of time. (read more)

Scale-out storage has become one of the most rapidly growing areas of storage as it enables organizations to easily and rapidly scale storage into the hundreds of terabytes (TBs) or even petabytes (PBs). But between expensive scale-out solutions intended for enterprises and economical, stand-alone NAS solutions that meet the needs of small businesses, small and midsize enterprises go begging for a storage solution that meets their specific needs and price points. It is this gap that the new Gridstore NASg solution fills. (read more)

Independence Day on July 4th in the United States is only a few days away but as it approaches storage companies are cautiously celebrating their independence. As they do they are either looking to survive or aggressively looking to be acquired to avoid becoming a footnote in the annals of history with Pillar Data Systems becoming the latest storage company to join the ranks of the acquired that now pledges its allegiance to a new master. (read more)

A few weeks ago a DCIG blog entry appeared that described the four emerging datacenter megatrends of the decade of the teens and how any new storage offering that expects to achieve "mega" success must satisfy those criteria. So it was in that context that I was evaluating the new Dell FS7500 at the Dell Storage Forum in Orlando, FL, in my conversations with Dell, other analysts and end users as well as in the demo that Dell provided me. (read more)