For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Storage Choices For Virtual Server Environments

Most Firms Go Conservative But Still Struggle With Performance And Efficiency

by Andrew Reichman, January 15, 2009

Server virtualization is the most substantial shift in IT so far this decade. Adoption is high, and firms are virtualizing mission-critical and business-critical applications. But while server virtualization has become mainstream, firms still struggle . . .

For Consumer Product Strategy Professionals

Maxtor Central Axis Capitalizes on Key Trends to Produce a Winner

by Nathan Safran, December 11, 2008

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Do You Really Need A SAN Anymore?

Dedicated Application Storage Proposes More Simplicity And Lower Cost

by Andrew Reichman, December 4, 2008

It's been the conventional wisdom of the past 10 years that to provide the best performance, protection, and capacity utilization for applications and databases, you need a robust storage array in a storage area network (SAN). But with low capacity utilization, . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Five Key Storage Strategies For A Down Economy

Tips To Make The Most Of A Tight Budget In The Face Of Ongoing Data Growth

by Andrew Reichman, July 16, 2008

It's clear that the economy is on a downward trajectory, and regardless of the duration or severity, there's no doubt that belt-tightening in IT spending will be the norm for the next year. At the same time, most IT budgets were already stagnant or slow-growing . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

10 GbE: Its Time Is Coming

Start Targeted Deployments Today, But Anticipate Broad Investment In 2010

by Andrew Reichman, James Staten, May 16, 2008

Ten gigabit per second Ethernet (10 GbE) represents the next level of enterprise network bandwidth, with vendors hyping it as the next great capability. But as an IT infrastructure and operations professional, you must strike a balance between constant . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Market Overview: File-Based Storage

NAS Offerings And Other Approaches To Address An Avalanche Of Files

by Andrew Reichman, April 14, 2008

Firms must store more and more file data as users generate more office documents and create more rich digital content such as photos, audio files, and video files, and as applications do more with these and other forms of file-based content. With increasing . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Cost Comparison Of iSCSI Versus Fibre Channel SAN Components

Favorable Economics Makes iSCSI Worthy Of Serious Consideration

by Andrew Reichman, February 7, 2008

Although a great deal of energy is expended discussing the performance differences of IP-based and Fibre Channel (FC)-based storage area networks (SAN), it is generally accepted that it is cheaper to deploy an iSCSI SAN. This report dissects the components . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Storage Buyer Profile: 2006

Business Data Services North America And Europe

by Stephanie Balaouras, Frank E. Gillett, April 18, 2007

To help storage marketers better understand storage buyers, we asked a set of storage-oriented questions about vendors, adoption of emerging storage technologies, and top storage priorities in our annual survey of enterprise IT infrastructure decision-makers. . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

Asia Pacific Storage Buyer Profile: 2006  (121 KB PPT)

by Frank E. Gillett, April 18, 2007

Asia Pacific storage data.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Bleeding Edge NAS Joins The Big League

HDS OEMs BlueArc To Compete With EMC And Network Appliance

by Andrew Reichman, Stephanie Balaouras, March 21, 2007

In December 2006, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) announced that it had taken a minority ownership stake and established an OEM relationship with niche network-attached storage (NAS) player BlueArc Corporation. The partnership helps HDS bring to market BlueArc's . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

The Evolving Branch Office: Intelligently Reducing Your Network Infrastructure Footprint

by Robert Whiteley, Stephanie Balaouras, October 4, 2006

Enterprises are facing a dilemma: How can they increase services like storage, security, communications, and application services that are available in branch offices while trying to consolidate infrastructure and decrease costs? To date, most firms have . . .

Storage Networking Vendors Go Head-To-Head

Brocade Acquires McDATA To Compete Against Networking Giant Cisco

by Stephanie Balaouras, August 23, 2006

This month, Brocade Communications Systems announced its plan to acquire storage networking rival McDATA in a deal valued at $713 million. The acquisition is not surprising given how competitive this market became when Cisco Systems moved into the space . . .

Network Your Storage With IP

by Stephanie Balaouras, June 2, 2006

In November 2005, Forrester conducted a survey of 50 storage and business continuity decision-makers at North American enterprises to assess adoption trends in storage and business continuity technology. Surprisingly, a significant number of enterprises . . .

EMC: Who Said Size Doesn't Matter?

EMC Announces New DMX Models And File Virtualization

by Stephanie Balaouras, January 30, 2006

On January 26, 2006, EMC announced several new products and capabilities across its high-end storage line (DMX-3), NAS storage line (Celerra), and content-addressed storage line (Centera). The company also officially introduced its file virtualization . . .

IBM OEMs NetApp's NAS And iSCSI Lines

IBM's Small NAS Market Penetration Drives This Classic Make/Buy Decision

by Bob Zimmerman, April 13, 2005

IBM and Network Appliance announced that IBM will rebrand NetApp's boxes under the IBM logo. This will make IBM a stronger competitor to EMC, and it will open a raft of IBM channel partner paths to NetApp products. It will also effectively shut down IBM's . . .

IP Storage Belongs In Your IT Strategy

by Bob Zimmerman, June 23, 2004

Networked storage offers to hardware independence, improved capacity utilization, and more effective storage administration. Fibre Channel SAN technology, however, suffers compatibility issues, networking is a black art to many storage admins, and SAN . . .

The Need For Speed

Storage Vendors Toy With 4 Gb/s As Lead-In To 10 Gb/s SAN

by Bob Zimmerman, May 18, 2004

Complementing the growth of data to saturate the capacity available, SAN bandwidth and raw transfer speed have increased to deliver that data to demanding applications. Right now, the state of the art is 2 gigabits per second (Gb/s) per line on Fibre . . .

Networked Storage Implementation

by Bob Zimmerman, March 4, 2004

Networked storage is justified by its potential to improve capacity utilization, improve performance and data integrity, and provide better management control. Converting from the direct attached storage model to networked storage is a technical project . . .

Two Steps Up in NAS Technology

by Bob Zimmerman, February 4, 2004

Giga has long advocated networked storage, recognizing that storage area network (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS) technologies are converging on common solutions. Two recent vendor announcements reinforce this trend.

An Updated Look at Database Support on Network-Attached Storage Arrays

by Bob Zimmerman, December 23, 2003

If you must have Exchange on NAS, implement iSCSI and/or base it on a NetApp filer; at this point in its life cycle, Exchange 5.5 is no longer a viable enterprise strategy.

EMC Expands Software Portfolio With VMware

by Galen Schreck, Frank E. Gillett, Brad Day, Natalie Lambert, December 16, 2003

EMC will acquire virtual machine software vendor VMware for $635 million in cash. The deal is a smart one for EMC - if it follows up by adding workload management - as it expands its software horizons into information and data center management.

Effective DCML Implementation Mandates Networked Storage

by Bob Zimmerman, November 10, 2003

DCML should complement organic IT initiatives by simplifying server workload balancing and dynamic resource provisioning. Don¿t wait for these standards to evolve.

Options for Attaching IP Storage to a Windows Server

by Bob Zimmerman, October 21, 2003

Until prices are more competitive and diagnostic tools more widely available, iSCSI should be considered an R&D issue within the data center. NAS continues to be a proven, cost-effective solution in file-oriented applications.

Large Firms Prep For Organic Storage With SANs

by Frank E. Gillett, Galen Schreck, Robert Whiteley, September 30, 2003

SAN adoption jumped to 72% from 42% just 18 months ago. Only early adopters embrace storage virtualization - but 41% of firms are considering it. EMC, HP, and IBM lead on purchase plans, while Dell, Hitachi, and Sun lag behind.

Storage Implementation: Consolidating SANs

by Bob Zimmerman, September 30, 2003

Consolidation is a trade-off among the infrastructure components, the security and integrity of the data, and the performance of critical business applications.