Entries categorized under “Networked Storage”

In a blog entry earlier this month I examined HP's announcement that it was bringing 3PAR storage servers under the control and management of the HP Matrix Operating Environment. Today I wanted to delve deeper into what that integration should mean to organizations as they need to realize that they can do more than just manage local HP 3PAR storage servers but begin to manage data stored in the cloud (read more)

As part of the early research process for the DCIG 2011 Scale-Out NAS Buyer's Guide we came to find that trying to do a side-by-side comparison all of the products in the scale-out NAS space was a bit like trying to compare different fruit in a fruit basket. To a certain degree we expected some apples and oranges but we found ourselves with a lot of pineapples, mangos and even an African horned melon or two mixed in. The diversity of how Scale-Out NAS solutions are implemented has provided a unique opportunity for DCIG to step back and re-examine our approach to preparing this Buyer's Guide with a fresh eye. (read more)

Last week's acquisition of Engenio, LSI's external storage unit, by NetApp caught a lot of people by surprise. While NetApp's desire to continue to grow through acquisition was no great secret, its decision to grow by acquiring Engenio did not on the surface initially make a lot of sense to me. After all, why would NetApp, who consistently pokes EMC in the eye for having multiple storage platforms, now head down that same path and open itself up to that same type of criticism? (read more)

Acquisitions and mergers are becoming all the rage in the storage industry and this past week did not disappoint. On Monday storage reseller Promark announced it was going to merge with IceWEB and then, just two days later, NetApp announced its intentions to acquire Engenio, LSI Corp's external storage unit. (read more)

Automated storage tiering (AST) seems to be getting ever more attention as more organizations move from physical to virtualized environments and look to use networked storage systems with AST to support them. But AST carries its own set of baggage and can potentially create as many problems as it solves, not the least of which is that it may not be as automated for all application workloads as some vendors may lead you to believe. (read more)

Today DCIG and Foskett Services are pleased to jointly announce the availability of DCIG's latest Buyer's Guide, the 2011 Small Enterprise Storage Array Buyer's Guide. This Buyer's Guide is focused on storage arrays that are priced from approximately $10,000 - $30,000 and is specifically targeted at small enterprises and business units within large enterprises who are looking for the most value for their IT dollar when spending on 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)

Procrastination is sometimes the best policy when it comes to making a storage purchase. After all, what enterprise organization has not benefited by waiting and then getting storage at a lower price? But when flexible storage solutions such as the IBM N series and Real-time Compression become part of the equation, the question that enterprise organizations need to answer is less about price. Rather they must answer the question, "Will this storage solution move us forward or backward?" (read more)

Symantec's decision to offer hardware as well as software is generating a lot of buzz among both customers and storage providers alike. But what is getting overlooked is that in order for Symantec to succeed and gain mind share in today's Windows environments, it needs to do more than just offer a hardware/software bundle; Symantec needs to become more Windows friendly in general. That is exactly what Symantec accomplishes by not just adding hardware to its portfolio but adding support for clustered CIFS and tightening its integration with Enterprise Vault in its FileStore v5.6 release. (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)

One of the first thoughts that almost always comes to mind when users think of Symantec's Storage Foundation software is that it is hardware agnostic. That neutrality is not going away but new customer demands for turnkey solutions from a single provider are changing how all vendors have to operate. Symantec is not immune to these new trends and last week we saw a new era beginning with Symantec announcing its new FileStore N8300 appliance that is available for purchase from Symantec as a bundled hardware solution. (read more)

In about a month or so DCIG is going to release its first Midrange Array Snapshot Software Buyer's Guide. It is in preparing for the release of this Buyer's Guide that DCIG had to evaluate a number of different implementations of snapshot software on midrange arrays. In so doing it became evident that DCIG had to make a determination as to what was the "Best" method for a midrange array to take snapshots of a volume in order for DCIG to properly score and rank snapshot software on different midrange arrays. (read more)

As the first full week of 2011 draws to a close, a common theme is already starting to emerge from the vendors and enterprise users with which I am speaking. In their minds, the era of buying storage arrays in the form of point solutions to solve individual problems is coming to an end. But it is not because large enterprises have not gotten so much smarter. It is just that storage vendors are waking up to how their customers actually think and behave and are finally delivering storage solutions customized for them. (read more)

Ask any VMware administrator what the implications are of using a non-certified storage solution in their VMware environment and they shudder to think of the consequences if they call VMware support. But identifying a unified storage solution that is also VMware Certified is more complex than small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) may expect. (read more)

Last week Tuesday I began to reflect on the most read blog entries on DCIG's site this past year in terms of the number of page views they received. In that blog entry I covered the blog entries that came in at numbers 8, 9 and 10 on DCIG's site in 2010. Today I want to pick up by covering the blog entries that come in the middle - from #7 down to #4. (read more)

This is one of my favorite times of the year as I look back on some of the most popular blog entries on DCIG's site in the past year based on the number of page views. What makes it so intriguing for me is that it is similar to looking at a big wrapped gift under the Christmas tree and not knowing exactly what is in it. Every year I am never completely sure until this week which blog entries which will make up the Top Ten on DCIG's site as the most read. This year is no exception. (read more)

Earlier this week while attending a Kansas City VMware User Group (VMUG) conference, a Dell Solutions Specialist said during his presentation, "I will put the Dell EqualLogic up against anybody else's storage array." However it appears that others further up the food chain at Dell did not share his opinion as Dell announced yesterday that it was in advanced talks to acquire Compellent Technologies and its Fluid Data storage solutions. It is this type of disconnect between engineers in the field and those at the management level that makes me wonder just how compelling the acquisition of Compellent by Dell really is. (read more)

Ever since FCoE was first announced with much fanfare a few years ago at the spring Storage Networking World 2008, it has always struck me as a technology looking for a problem to solve. Now nearly three years later it seems that the largest advocate for FCoE (arguably Cisco) may have finally found a practical use case for it. But the question that has since crossed my mind is, "Does anyone who has implemented FCoE in their data center really know that FCoE is the protocol that Cisco is using under the covers in support of its SAN infrastructure?" (read more)

VMware environments are giving both storage providers and end-users alike a virtual storage wake-up call. It is becoming painfully obviously that the days of manually assigning LUNs, WWNs and zones and then using Excel spreadsheets to manually track the assignments of servers to storage is going to do more than come to an abrupt close in the next few years - it must die. In its place, VMware is putting new demands on storage vendors and users alike to create an environment where storage is virtualized, dynamically allocated and self-healing with data placement driven by policies and business rules. (read more)

This week DCIG sent out surveys to over 20 different midrange array storage vendors that inquired as to how they implemented replication software on their midrange array controllers. However some have asked why DCIG is doing a separate Buyer's Guide on midrange array replication software and not just including this feature as part of its upcoming broader 2011 Midrange Array Buyer's Guide that is due to be released next spring. (read more)

The overwhelming success of the 2010 Midrange Array Buyer's Guide that DCIG released in May 2010 did not come without some caveats. One of the specific areas in the Buyer's Guide that merited closer attention was in the area of replication software. It is not that midrange array replication software was ignored in the Buyer's Guide. But it quickly became evident that in order to do this topic justice replication software required its own dedicated Buyer's Guide which is what DCIG will be releasing in the first half of 2011. (read more)

More storage capacity and faster performance in new storage systems is anything but new these days. If anything, in this day and age enterprise organizations want to feast on these features PLUS options that keep them lean by enabling them to more efficiently use these resources, requiring less time to manage them and quickly integrating them with their emerging virtual environments. It is these features and more that NetApp served up to enterprises earlier this week. (read more)

One of the challenges that nearly every non-profit faces is putting in place solutions that fit into their limited budgets while still meeting very specific compliance and technical requirements. This was the challenge facing Memorial Health Care Systems as it was experiencing rapid data growth, had very specific application requirements and had to meet new HIPAA compliance requirements. It was this combination of factors that eventually led it to select the Celeros EzNAS to solve these problems. (read more)

DCIG is pleased to announce the availability of a special report that examines the pivotal role midrange array storage controllers should play in an enterprise midrange array buying decision. This special report draws upon research that DCIG did earlier this year in the broader enterprise midrange array market by taking a deeper look at how the storage controllers from the leading midrange arrays compare and examines why the Pillar Data Systems Axiom 600 scored so well in comparison to other enterprise midrange arrays. (read more)

Small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) love the cost savings and new found flexibility that server virtualization offers their organization. Yet when they start uncovering all of the costs associated with implementing the networked storage infrastructure needed to support their virtualized server infrastructure that joy can quickly fade away. It is those SMEs despairing about these virtual server storage costs that should look to the new Overland Storage SnapSAN S1000 as a way to rekindle their passion for virtualization. (read more)