Entries categorized under “Virtualization”

How fully virtualized organizations are is often a calculated guess based on anecdotal evidence or surveys conducted by virtualization providers who just sample organizations who already use virtualization. King Research's Windows Server 2012 Migration/Virtualization Survey, commissioned by Symantec, eliminates much of this guesswork and built-in bias. However it more importantly provides key insights into just how virtualized organizations are right now, how quickly they plan to virtualize their environments in the next few years and how they would prefer to protect them once virtualized. (read more)

It seemed only moments after EMC announced its ViPR software-defined storage platform at EMC World this week that the attack dogs (primarily its competitors) were out in full force pointing out ViPR's shortcomings and attacking its merits. But its competitors need to be careful how they go about discrediting EMC's version of software-defined storage. EMC promoting it will lift the entire software-defined storage tide and help make it a viable option for end-users which many want and need. (read more)

The main theme at this year's EMC World is "Lead the Transformation" that EMC is illustrating through the use of superhero characters. The superheroes are represented as end users who come up with solutions to manage today's complex storage environment while the villain is pictured as "Doc Lock-in" who requires our superheroes to "lock-in" on a single vendor to mitigate this complexity. Yet for those users who think strategically about their storage acquisitions, Doc Lock-in may not be the full-fledged villain that EMC World portrays him to be. (read more)

About a decade ago, give or take a few years, a huge debate raged in the storage industry as to what was the best form of storage virtualization. However all that debate created over time was an equally large sense of fatigue with many people souring on the whole topic of storage virtualization. To resolve that, the term "storage virtualization" has been given a facelift at the 2013 EMC World and with it a politically correct name: Software Defined Storage - that is available from EMC as EMC ViPR. (read more)

Last week's acquisition of NexGen Storage by Fusion-io was greeted with quite a bit of fanfare by the storage industry. But as an individual who has covered Fusion-io for many years and talked one-on-one with their top executives on multiple occasions, its acquisition of NexGen signaled that Fusion-io wanted to do more than deliver an external storage array that had its technology built-in. Rather Fusion-io felt it was incumbent for it to take action and accelerate the coming data center transformation that it has talked and written about for years. (read more)

Identifying a virtual machine backup software solution that delivers on the intangible new features that a small and midsized enterprise (SME) needs to backup and recover its virtualized environment is easier said than done. The DCIG 2013 Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide identified and evaluated over 20 virtual server backup solutions with more than 150 different features. The trick for SMEs is to identify which of these 150 features match their specific needs and then select a backup software solution that delivers on them. (read more)

The allure of client virtualization is the promise that it can deliver a robust corporate desktop experience to any user at any time or place using any device. The reality is that to date client virtualization deployments pretty much required rocket scientists to configure, implement and manage them, especially when it came to the underlying storage architectures upon which they are based. (read more)

The need of businesses for greater responsiveness from their IT departments is driving data center automation. Data center automation requires a new approach to network architecture that results in networks that are flat for high performance, multipath for high availability, and open to orchestration for quick provisioning and re-provisioning as application loads move within and among data centers. (read more)

Using cluster file system software on virtual machines (VMs) in VMware environments has always been a bit problematic at best. While it could be done with techniques like Raw Disk Mappings (RDMs) and 3rd party cluster file system software, organizations need to sacrifice "desirable" virtualization features like vMotion to achieve it. (read more)

As almost seems customary with any release of the DCIG Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide, it more so than any other Buyer's Guide that DCIG produces elicits a number of responses from third parties. We are grateful that most of this commentary was quite civil and, in a couple of cases, actually helped to reinforce the points that DCIG makes either in the Guide or in other DCIG blog entries. However there are few of these comments that I wanted to respond to and add a few of my own thoughts. (read more)

DCIG is pleased to announce the availability of its DCIG 2013 Virtual Server Backup Software Buyer's Guide that weights, scores and ranks over 100 features on 22 different backup software solutions from 18 different backup software providers. This Buyer's Guide provides the critical information that all size organizations need when selecting backup software that is specifically tuned to protect virtualized environments. (read more)

As recently as a few years nearly every backup software product licensed its software based upon criteria such as the number of servers protected and what applications their backup agents needed to protect. But with the rise of virtual machines (VMs) and the complexity that approach to licensing created, most have now switched - or at least offer as an option - the ability to do either capacity-based or socket-based backup licensing. As licensing is sometimes the issue that determines which product gets selected to perform backup in your environment, it is important to understand the pros and cons of each. (read more)

When it comes to hosting Microsoft Exchange 2010, small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) have many if not all of the same performance requirements of a storage system that hosts Exchange that large enterprises have. What these smaller companies do not possess are the deep pockets that enterprises have and which are typically needed to acquire such a storage system. Using the latest midrange HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 storage system, these organizations can get the storage performance attributes that they need while staying within their budget constraints. (read more)

Companies have spent billions if not tens of billions of dollars putting in place the necessary hardware and software to virtualize their data centers. These numbers fail to take into account the countless man hours that they have also spent planning, configuring and implementing these environments. Yet just as many are ready to take a deep breath and enjoy the fruits of their labors, they are coming to the realization that virtualizing their environment and creating private or public clouds only laid the foundation for the real goal of data center automation. (read more)

Virtual backup appliances (VBAs) are the new hot ticket in backup. Providing an economical alternative to physical backup appliances, they are finding a new home as the preferred solution to backup branch, remote and small offices as well as serving as a replication target. But to fulfill these different roles results in the need for VBAs to take on their own personalities. The new Virtual Backup Software in Eversync 5.1 gives organizations access to a solution they have long sought: simplified backup and replication. (read more)

Flash memory is fundamentally changing the metrics around how performance on storage arrays is measured with IOPs reaching into the tens or hundreds of thousands - even over a million in some tests. Despite these results, many organizations remain reticent to use solid state drives (SSDs) because of persistent questions about their reliability, especially around eMLC drives. These concerns are largely put to rest as the inclusion of eMLC drives in the new Nexsan NST5000 unified hybrid storage array gives these drives the storage industry's equivalent of a seal of approval. (read more)

As companies of all sizes move from physical environments to ones that are more highly virtualized (or even entirely virtualized,) everything changes. While "how backups are done" is sometimes viewed as the biggest change, monitoring the virtual environment and leveraging the cloud are becoming higher priorities for end users. In this fourth and final blog entry in my interview series with PHD Virtual's CMO Steve Kahan, he discusses how virtualization monitoring and the cloud are impacting the future of backup in general and PHD Virtual specifically. (read more)

One of the unique aspects about running a blog site that primarily does analysis as opposed to commenting and covering today's news is that the most read blog entries on DCIG's site each year are rarely from the current year. This year was no exception as only one of the Top 5 blog entries written in 2012 made it into the Top 10 of DCIG's most read blog entries of 2012 that I will start to reveal in tomorrow's blog entry. (read more)

User input and feedback are the lifeblood of every software product produced as it is invaluable to understanding what features are working well, which ones are not and what new features are needed to ensure the product remains competitive long term. The struggle organizations face is identifying who their current and prospective users are and then getting this type of critical feedback. In this third blog entry in my continuing interview series with PHD Virtual's CMO Steve Kahan, he discusses how PHD cultivates feedback from its user base to help do backups better going forward. (read more)

This past week I received an email from someone asking for my help in their process of buying a backup appliance. This individual had just downloaded the DCIG 2012 Backup Appliance Buyer's Guide but, due to the number of models included in the Buyer's Guide (over 60), was looking for some recommendations from me as to which one to buy. While I sent this individual a list of backup appliances to look at more closely, it brought to my attention that there are five questions every organization should ask and answer before buying a backup appliance. (read more)

A "feature rich" product can mean a number of things. It can mean that it is flexible. It can suggest that is offers a good value for the money. It can imply that it can function as a one stop shop for managing your environment. It can also mean that it is too complex and takes too long to learn. In this second part of my interview series with PHD Virtual's CMO Steve Kahan, he discusses how PHD Virtual introduces new feature functionality into its product without its backup software becoming too complex for users to effectively utilize. (read more)

Today DCIG will be doing a live webinar today (Thursday, November 29) that analyzes key differences among leading virtual machine backup solutions. The webinar starts at 11 am ET and you may register for the webinar at this link. If you miss the webinar, I will update this blog entry and provide the link as to where you may watch it once the recorded webinar is available for viewing. (read more)

Virtualization has brought many changes to enterprises the last few years ranging from faster application deployments to more efficient and effective use of the data center infrastructure. But maybe no area is more ready for change than in how virtualization challenges the status quo of how organizations currently backup and manage their increasingly virtualized infrastructure. In this first part of an interview series with PHD Virtual's CMO Steve Kahan, he discusses how new tools are needed to backup and manage the new virtual infrastructure of today. (read more)

Bringing storage systems initially designed to meet Big Data demands into enterprise data centers is proving to be a bigger challenge than either storage providers or enterprises anticipated. While enterprises certainly want a storage system with a cost-effective, easy-to-manage, scalable architecture, other features such as data protection, data security and virtualization integration also come into play. EMC Isilon's latest OneFS 7.0 operating system takes these specific needs into account freeing enterprises to tackle their Big Data concerns. (read more)

Mixed physical and virtual IT infrastructures and the protection of them are now a reality in enterprises of almost every size. But with these environments now in place, enterprises are turning their attention to using either a single product or interface to manage data protection across all of it. Quest's Software's release of NetVault Backup 9.0 gives them two paths to follow to arrive at this common centralized data protection management destination. (read more)