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Introducing the 2007 InfoWorld Bossies Not too long ago, open source meant starving developers; scant documentation; an ugly, outdated Web site; and software that lived in perpetual beta. Now open source software is becoming big business. “Now hiring” is a common sight on project home pages, and .org and SourceForge sites that used to point straight to source code archives are redirected to .com URLs that celebrate the commercial success of what started out as collaborations among unpaid coders of like mind. SMB technology: Replacing in-house software with applications in the cloud In the near future, there's only one way to go for SMBs when it comes to purchasing business software -- and that's out of house. Whether it's full-on SaaS (software as a service), where users access all facets of the application through a browser, or a hosted product (including hosted Exchange, where only the server component is off-site and users employ a standard desktop client such as Outlook), either model is simply too cost-effective for SMBs to ignore.  August 20, 3:00 a.m. PDT Processors: Dividing chips into many virtual cores The current approach taken by x86 CPUs -- to stuff as many processor cores and as much cache memory as will fit on one chip -- will prove impossible to scale beyond a certain point. And adding more, big, hot processor cores may not be the best fit for server roles that call for managing large workloads over long periods of time. August 20, 3:00 a.m. PDT Midrange SANs master high-end features SAN storage systems continue to evolve quickly, with features trickling down from market leaders such as EMC and Hitachi Data Systems to midtier players. The three systems reviewed here, from Compellent, iQstor, and Xiotech, offer a surprising array of functionality including nearly every feature one might find in $250,000 enterprise-class systems except CAS (content addressed storage). Their impressive feature sets include 4Gbps FC (Fibre Channel) connectivity, iSCSI support, tiered storage, local and remote replication and snapshots, and even thin provisioning, boot from SAN, virtualization, and automatic expansion of volumes. Compellent even provides automatic migration of data from first- to second- or third-tier storage -- an ILM (information lifecycle management) tool that is usable without requiring a complex setup. Both Compellent and Xiotech offer monitoring and support services similar to those the tier-one storage vendors provide to large enterprises, allowing customers to respond proactively to projected failures. July 5, 3:00 a.m. PDT EMC strikes first partnership with Indian outsourcer EMC Corp. will train more than 1,000 Wipro Ltd. staff in the use of its storage technologies as part of an alliance announced by the companies on Wednesday. June 13, 4:09 a.m. PDT Former Hitachi Data Systems chief to head up HP storage In its quest to re-energize its storage business, Hewlett-Packard has recruited the former president and CEO of storage rival Hitachi Data Systems (HDS). May 25, 2:22 p.m. PDT 2006 Year in Reviews: Storage In EMC’s march on the enterprise NAS market, two big feet fell this year in the form of the company’s Rainfinity (global file system) and Infoscape (file classification) releases, which we took for early spins in EMC’s labs. The year also brought a smooth rev of Windows Storage Server, a swell mid-range SAN from Compellent, and a slick tape library from Spectra Logic. December 18, 3:00 a.m. PST EMC-HP storage race heats up Number two storage systems maker Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) has closed the gap between it and number one EMC Corp. to what research company IDC calls "a statistical tie." September 1, 4:55 a.m. PDT The new NAS: Fast, cheap, and scalable There are many reasons to complain about storage, but lack of variety is not one. June 15, 3:00 a.m. PDT When plain NAS beats clustering If clustered NAS is the way to go, why do traditional NAS systems still account for the majority of deployments? June 15, 3:00 a.m. PDT InfoWorld CTO 25 The top technology slot in the enterprise has changed. Once, forward-looking CTOs and CIOs scanned the horizon for new technologies that would improve the lot of IT. Today, as many of this year’s top 25 CTOs can tell you, technology leaders must also focus on understanding the business goals of the enterprise -- and then craft technology strategies to meet those objectives. June 5, 3:00 a.m. PDT Storage virtualization and iSCSI don't mix As more and more products enter the market, iSCSI is becoming an increasingly attractive alternative to FC (Fibre Channel) SAN technology. Not only is iSCSI cheaper than Fibre Channel, but the technology is less complex to implement. Because it uses the familiar IP network protocols, it simplifies the IT skill set needed to maintain the SAN. Thus, though it’s not as fast and has a lower maximum capacity than FC systems, iSCSI meets the needs of many small businesses and non-mission-critical enterprise storage applications, such as departmental file sharing and near-line data storage. January 12, 3:00 a.m. PST What isn't storage virtualization? Vendors often use the term "virtualization" to describe myriad products, including global name spaces, virtual storage area networks (VSANs), pooled NAS (network-attached storage), thin-provisioning software, virtual file systems, virtual tape libraries, RAID arrays and disk clusters, and virtualized application and file servers (such as EMC's VMWare). But although these technologies all use some sort of virtualization, they don't actually qualify as storage virtualization. January 12, 3:00 a.m. PST Virtualized storage, real rewards As senior director of enterprise technology operations at Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a prison management firm that handles more than 60 facilities, Brad Wood faces several challenges. His group manages approximately 100TB of data -- including inmate medical records, operational records, e-mail, and so forth -- across four Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) storage arrays in two datacenters. Because of federal and state rules, much of the company’s data is mirrored three or four times to keep it accessible in case of failure. Adding to the complexity, Wood buys his hardware based on current price and performance, so he has a mix of suppliers. January 12, 3:00 a.m. PST 2006 Technology of the Year Awards: The winners' list See correction at end of article January 2, 3:00 a.m. PST Storage vendors move beyond blocks and LUNs No single storage technology stole the spotlight in 2005, but the year was nonetheless an exciting one that featured new products in areas such as data protection and virtualization as well as important developments in disks, tapes, and switches. January 2, 3:00 a.m. PST Top technologies of the year Welcome to our first issue of the year. For those of you who took a break, re-entry into the heady universe of work may be a bit discombobulating. Fortunately, last Saturday, the world’s ever-considerate timekeepers saw fit to give us an extra sliver of time -- a leap second-- to prep for the new year. And now, with the pop of the cork (or was that the buzz of a pager?), we’re ready to herald 2006, a potential banner year for the enterprise. January 2, 3:00 a.m. PST Synergetic SANs and blades "Synergetic (adj): Working together; used especially of groups, as subsidiaries of a corporation, cooperating for an enhanced effect." August 18, 4:00 a.m. PDT EMC stresses end-to-end security NEW YORK - EMC is looking to focus on providing end-to-end security for its customers and delivering more management capabilities in its software offerings, according to executives speaking at the company's analyst day in New York on Thursday. August 4, 10:06 a.m. PDT SMI-S standard promotes storage interoperability The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) was formed with the aim of developing standards for storage hardware and software. One of its most prominent efforts to date has been SMI-S, the Storage Management Interface Specification. SNIA ratified SMI-S 1.0 in July 2003 and it was approved as an ANSI standard in October 2004 (and should soon be approved by ISO). July 11, 5:00 a.m. PDT Vanasse Hangen Brustlin restores order with SRM You don’t have to be a large enterprise to take advantage of storage-management technologies. Vanasse Hangen Brustlin (VHB), a 700-person engineering consulting firm specializing in transportation, environmental, and land-development services, has up to 3,000 projects in development at any given time. The records for these projects represent a few months to several years of work and are stored on servers in the firm’s 17 offices located throughout the Northeast. For Greg Bosworth, director of IT at VHB, data management for these projects involved a series of manual processes that had become increasingly complex and labor-intensive as the volumes of stored records reached approximately 10 terabytes. July 11, 5:00 a.m. PDT Making sense of storage management Storage spawns where it’s needed, from sensibly architected SANs serving transaction-intensive systems to storage appliances bought impulsively to fill a departmental need. That leaves IT to manage many islands of storage strewn across the enterprise at a time when the need for centralized storage management has never been greater. Compliance requirements, multimedia-rich applications, and a proliferation of databases are pushing IT departments to increase the size and complexity of storage networks across the enterprise. July 11, 5:00 a.m. PDT Friendster scales the network with open source Who says open source can’t measure up to commercial software for mission-critical applications? Far from being a mere quick fix or low-cost alternative, open source software is helping real-world companies solve their most pressing IT problems. April 4, 6:00 a.m. PDT Vendors store all things great and small HANOVER, GERMANY - Storage products announced at the Cebit trade show here spanned the range from a Cisco Systems storage switch ready for multiterabyte arrays of data, down to a new half-height tape drive from Tandberg Data GmbH. March 15, 10:09 a.m. PST McData switch simplifies SAN expansion As SANs expand, it's not uncommon for a significant portion of switch ports to be consumed by connections to other switches. This is due not only to the relatively low port counts of typical FC (Fibre Channel) switches, but also because of the need for higher speed interconnects, which are often achieved by bonding multiple ports together. February 4, 3:00 p.m. PST McData offers storage director McData on Tuesday announced its Intrepid i10K Backbone Director, a 256-port director targeted at Global 500 enterprises that want to consolidate multiple storage networks and manage them as a single SAN. The company also announced it is acquiring Computer Network Technology (CNT), a provider of enterprise storage networking services, for $235 million. January 18, 9:06 a.m. PST Building the uber-SAN Many companies -- either by design or because of a merger -- end up managing multiple SANs. But merging two SANs can be a disruptive, risky process. Even when everything is compatible, SAN configuration inconsistencies may trigger a chain reaction that brings both networks to a halt. November 26, 3:00 p.m. PST HP, Brocade hook up for integrated servers Hewlett-Packard on Thursday announced that it will integrate Brocade Communication's SAN switching capability into its HP BladeSystem architecture. November 4, 11:15 a.m. PST Hitachi's Tagmastore gets the gold Early this month, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) stole the show during a week that was already crowded with several major announcements from storage vendors. I am referring, of course, to the new storage solution named Tagmastore that HDS launched on Sept. 7. September 17, 3:00 p.m. PDT Onaro delivers SAN manager Onaro on Monday will roll out what company officials are billing as the industry's first predictive change management technology for SANs (storage area networks), designed to help storage administrators increase their effectiveness. June 21, 6:00 a.m. PDT Parting words on SNW I know, I know. You're wondering how I could possibly write another column on Storage Networking World. But I just can’t keep all this good stuff to myself. April 23, 3:00 p.m. PDT HP introduces FATA disk Serial ATA, the alternative disk technology to Fibre Channel, just got its own alternative. April 6, 7:58 a.m. PDT > Hardware > Network hardware > Storage area networks - SAN > Hardware > Storage hardware > Storage area networks - SAN > Networking > Network hardware > Storage area networks - SAN > Storage > Storage area networks - SAN > Storage > Storage hardware > Storage area networks - SAN |
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