Entries categorized under “Virtualization”

Last week I took a look at the first three factors to consider when choosing a replication software product. This week I wanted to finish my thoughts around that subject and discuss the final four factors that should be part of any evaluation of replication software. (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)

There is a growing body of evidence that indicates it is no longer a question of "If" enterprises will adopt cloud storage infrastructure but a matter of "When". However pinpointing exactly when enterprise organizations will begin their broad adoption of public storage clouds is still difficult to ascertain. (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)

Storage has gotten much more appealing over the last few years as cloud computing has found its way into the vernacular of the mainstream press. But at its core storage still operates in the same old boring way that it always has - at the SCSI layer. It is for this reason new features are needed from time to time so SCSI can continue to meet the new demands of the emerging virtualized infrastructure which is exactly what is being announced today by vendors like 3PAR and VMware. (read more)

Software fixes, patches and upgrades on production systems are a persistent, nagging challenge in today's production environments. Vendors frequently promise that by simply installing the latest revision of their code, many current issues that an application is experiencing will be resolved. The risk that organizations run is that if the latest set of code does not work as promised, it can actually make the situation worse. (read more)

It has been rumored that EMC's CEO Joe Tucci has said that EMC's biggest threat comes not from Dell, HDS, HP or IBM but NetApp. It is for that reason that EMC has been looking over its shoulder for some time to see what NetApp is up to in an attempt to stay one step ahead of it from a technology perspective. But after attending NetApp's annual Analyst Days last week, it is time for EMC to stop looking over its shoulder and start looking up because EMC now finds itself in the shadow of NetApp's cloud. (read more)

Mid-sized enterprises (MSEs) are leading the charge in corporate Green IT initiatives with server virtualization and storage consolidation but, as they do, are discovering a new need for high availability (HA). (read more)

Even since 3PAR's inception, it has challenged the traditional assumption that a start up cannot deliver high end storage as it has steadily carved out a growing presence despite the odds stacked against it. Now it is challenging the new assumption that users are going to give preference to vertically integrated stacks over best-of-breed solutions. This defiant attitude was on full display as 3PAR's CEO David Scott squared off with the analysts who were present at 3PAR's first annual Analyst Day. (read more)

No one wants to pay more for less, yet that was exactly the situation that Delta Dental of Colorado was facing as it looked to upgrade its FC SAN to meet new application requirements. Further, new iSCSI SAN alternatives were not that much better as they had some of the same inflexibility and software licensing issues as the company's FC SAN. It was only when Delta Dental brought in the RELDATA 9240i that it found a solution that gave it more for less. (read more)

Sometimes when you find a good thing you have to roll with it and that is exactly what DCIG plans to do with its new line of Buyer's Guide products. Last month DCIG announced the availability of its first ever Buyer's Guide of any kind for either storage or ESI products. Since then its reception among storage providers and end-users alike has so surpassed our expectations that DCIG has decided to expand the scope of these offerings. It is for that reason DCIG is today pleased to announce that it is beginning research and plans to bring to market by the end of 2010 four more DCIG Buyer's Guides. (read more)

This has been a bit of a quiet week in terms of blog entries on the DCIG website but I did not want to leave everyone hanging on the Friday before going into the Memorial Day weekend. So for this week's recap blog I opted to reflect on a conversation that I had with Hosting.com's Backup Operations Manager a few weeks ago. In that conversation, he provided some interesting perspectives in terms of how Hosting.com is using R1Soft in its environment. (read more)

There are so many virtual operating systems (VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer) competing for my attention, until now I had not closely examined Red Hat KVM's value proposition. It was only after I did a little research that I began to understand why 3PAR sees adding support for KVM as important. (read more)

The real news this past week out of EMC World is not that EMC has decoupled its VMAX or Symmetrix controller heads from its back end disk drives, added some bells and whistles to it and called it "VPLEX". The big news in my mind is that this decoupling puts the storage industry on notice that EMC has officially begun its transformation from a disk vendor into a provider of storage intelligence. (read more)

Savings can evaporate as the hidden costs associated with managing a virtualized server environment become known. Among those costs, wasted storage capacity on individual VMs may be the most difficult to control unless an organization puts in place a storage infrastructure that can automate the reclamation of this storage. (read more)

This week I am spending a couple of days at Compellent's annual C-Drive conference in Minneapolis, MN where about 500 users, value added resellers (VARs) and Compellent sales reps are in attendance. Since a couple of years have passed since I attended the last one, I thought I would make the 6-hour drive from Omaha to Minneapolis to catch up on the latest going-ons with Compellent and gain some insight as to how they plan to recoup after their latest earnings stumble. (read more)

It's easy for those new to VMware, or even for those who have used VMware for awhile, to assume that all VMware backup solutions provide similar functionality. While it might be true to say that all of these solutions protect VMs, their similarities in many cases end there. Among their differences, two of the largest focus on how they manage VMware backups and the ensuing archives that are created which is where software like VizionCore's vRanger Pro stands out. (read more)

Upon arriving at Symantec Vision on Wednesday morning, it quickly became evident that the messaging at this year's event focused on how the business world is shifting from a Systems-Centric View (policies and governance is done according to the physical devices on which they reside such as servers, networking and storage) of data management to an Information Centric View (policies and governance are set independent of what storage device on which the data resides). (read more)

Call them what you will - private storage clouds; distributed, shared file systems; or file system platforms - the bottom line is that these deliver what many companies now want more than ever: cost-effective, easy to manage and easy to deploy storage solutions for their burgeoning data stores. But this is where the similarities can end as the differences between them can be significant, especially when it comes to the abilities of these storage systems to perform and scale. It is these specific concerns that the new HyperFS™ file system from FalconStor is intended to address. (read more)

The more I study how the AO feature leverages the underlying units of data (called "regions") with 3PAR systems, the more I understand its practical application in data center environments. Specifically, it does more than just automate the placement of data on the appropriate storage tier but automates it in such a way that it creates new operational efficiencies for IT managers. (read more)

Last week I blogged about the issues that were top of mind with users who were in attendance at the quarterly Omaha VMware Users Group (VMUG) meeting. Those challenges specifically included data protection, I/O bottlenecks and iSCSI SANs but notice that their issues can largely be traced back to an ineffective storage management strategy as the root of their issues. (read more)

Going into the Omaha VMUG meeting, I was expecting to find maybe 40 - 60 users in attendance. However upon my arrival I found a steady stream of cars pulling into the parking lot, over 200 users registered to attend and I counted more than 150 people physically present at the event. So anyone who still doubts the impact virtualization is having on organizations need question no more. (read more)

Today IT managers have to think about more than just buying products that only solve their tactical day-to-day problems. Increasingly they have to consider how any new solution that they implement solves their more strategic data center management problems as well. This is why IT managers should be encouraged by the newly announced snapshot integration between CommVault® Simpana® software and Dell EqualLogic midrange arrays. While this integration solves their pressing backup and recovery problems, Simpana gives IT managers a path to better managing their data long term as well. (read more)

Last month I announced that DCIG is putting together its first annual Midrange Array Buyers Guide. Since then a lot has happened and over the last two weeks responses to the questionnaires that I sent out to over 20 storage providers representing over 100 midrange array models have been pouring in. So while it is still too early to announce any winners and results are still being tabulated, I am prepared to share some preliminary findings in the areas of total storage capacity and cache sizes on midrange arrays. (read more)

No one disputes that solid state drives (SSD) are poised to play a larger role in networked storage environments. But with the price per terabyte (TB) of SSDs still running a factor of 10-15x greater than high performance FC and SAS drives, the ROI for SSD has to be pretty clear for an organization to justify its deployment. Providing that justification for SSDs should now get a little easier thanks to a new solution announced today from FalconStor Software and Violin Memory. (read more)