Entries categorized under “Storage Management”

Storage tiering as a strategy is gaining a lot of momentum as a way to optimize available storage capacity and bring storage costs under control. But many small and midsized businesses (SMBs) still question if storage tiering is right for them and, if so, what steps they should take to implement it. To answer these concerns, there are three tips for SMBs to follow to ensure implementing storage tiering is the right choice for them and that they do it correctly. (read more)

EMC's VFCache announcement caused a lot of the buzz in the storage industry a few months ago as it was seen by some to be done in direct response to Fusion-io's very disruptive ioMemory architecture. Today in the conclusion of my interview series with Fusion-io's CMO Rick White, he provides his take on EMC's recent VFcache announcement and how he sees this impacting both Fusion-io and EMC. (Editor's Note: This interview with Rick was conducted when EMC's VFCache was still known as "Project Lightning.") (read more)

It's no secret that 'Big Data' is becoming a 'Big Problem' for organizations from a data and storage management perspective. However what organizations may fail to realize is that the best way to solve their Big Data problems is NOT by mindlessly throwing more resources at them. Rather it is to look at Big Data more strategically and then tackle the data management problems it creates in one fell swoop using software like CommVault® Simpana® and its OnePass technology. (read more)

New found agility, reduced CAPEX and OPEX and centralized IT infrastructure management are driving the adoption of private clouds. But as organizations enter them their dark side of management complexities becomes more plainly seen. This is where HP's heightened integration with Microsoft Systems Center 2012 with its Virtual Machine Manager component comes into play. (read more)

VMware vSphere is clearly trending toward hosting more mission critical applications. However one objection that many enterprises still have to virtualizing these applications is the lack of an enterprise caliber multi-pathing software driver on VMware vSphere. Today the release of Symantec's Veritas Dymanic Multi-Pathing for VMware 6.0 not only overcomes that objection, it opens the door for enterprises to move more mission critical applications to VMware vSphere. (read more)

This past Monday EMC created a fair amount of buzz in the storage industry with its VFCache announcement that in essence validates the emergence of server-based flash technology in the enterprise. But does EMC VFCache go far enough? Fusion-io, who arguably invented this space, argues, "Definitely not!" In this first of a multi-part interview series with Fusion-io's Chief Marketing Officer, Rick White, we talk about server-based flash technology and why it is poised to change enterprise data centers. (read more)

On the server virtualization side, VMware vCenter has emerged as a central console that first detects and then centrally manages VMware VMs across their environment. On the storage side, similar storage array management software like NEC Storage Manager is now available to complement VMware vCenter as it discovers NEC D, M and S Series storage arrays and then administers their advanced storage software features. (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)

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)

Enterprises have been hearing about the value and veracity of public cloud for years even as Symantec has been getting feedback on its value proposition from its public cloud customers. The message that Symantec has received is that "ripping and replacing" is not an option. Rather enterprises want and need revolutionary infrastructure with evolutionary products and prices. (read more)

Over the years big data has crept into the everyday life of systems administrators. Attempts to solve the big data problem in both block and file storage emerged as data management software. While data management software struggled to get a footing, deduplication and compression took off stunting data management software's growth. Deduplication and compression technologies have well known capabilities in both the storage and information disciplines. However, they differ in a significant way. These technologies do not ease the burden of information management. (read more)

As part of his opening remarks during his keynote on Tuesday morning, Symantec's CEO Enrique Salem shared a comment that was made to him by a Symantec user, "We are in the middle of a time of profound meaningful change." Truer words were never spoken as enterprises of all sizes are facing a broad spectrum of technology changes that are unequaled in this modern era of computing. (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)

Dynamically moving files from one tier of storage to another has been a feature on the Veritas File System (VxFS) for some time. But to date Oracle DBAs have lacked this same level of data mobility and granular control when managing Oracle database tables. This is no longer the case. (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)

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)

Ask almost any system administrator what he or she spends the majority of their working day doing and the response almost always includes managing changes and updates to their systems. It is for this reason that over three (3) years ago Symantec introduced its complimentary web-based Symantec Operations Readiness Tool (formerly known as Veritas Operations Services). Now with this month's latest release, Symantec extends the benefits that the Operations Readiness Tool provides to Storage Foundation, NetBackup and Storage Foundation for Windows users. (read more)

One of the trends in the upcoming decade in storage management is already taking shape: Automation. This trend is driven in large part by the new storage management features that have been introduced in the previous decade to address specific application challenges, but that have - in the process - created their own set of challenges in managing these features. It is these challenges that today's release of Veritas Operations Manager 3.1 is designed to address. (read more)

Symantec's decision to decouple DMP from its parent Storage Foundation puts concerns about other dependencies that all multi-pathing software solutions have to rest. Currently, a standalone version of DMP is available for Solaris, AIX and Red Hat and SuSe Linux. Beginning in Q4 2010, Symantec will also make DMP available as a standalone product for HP-UX and Windows. This now frees customers to deploy DMP without a requirement to first deploy Storage Foundation or VxFS. (read more)

We can all get caught up in the hoopla of new and slick storage technology features and lose sight of some the most important and basic details that keep our storage fabrics up and humming. Among these are the Fibre Channel cabling infrastructures and the distance limitations incurred by continued increases in FC speeds. (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)

Over the last twelve months a trend towards implementing flash drives as a new tier of memory has emerged. Driven by the lower cost of flash when compared to RAM plus the growing realization that not all of an application's data requires the performance boost that flash provides, more organizations are looking to deploy flash as a new tier of memory. (read more)

Organizations have a proclivity to look at storage arrays primarily in the context of how much storage capacity do they offer. But as storage arrays add features such as deduplication and thin provisioning, storage efficiency is taking on new importance as an evaluation criteria when selecting a storage array. This is raising questions as to what role, if any, that a storage array's storage efficiency features should play in the final buying decision. (read more)

Substantial technical differences exist between how the interfaces of storage clouds are presented, managed and secured. But from a business point of view, a cloud is a cloud is a cloud and the sooner that the technical challenges associated with managing these different storage clouds from a single platform are overcome, the sooner that businesses can ramp up their cloud storage adoption. (read more)