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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. 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 Fast guide to fancy SAN management No longer tied to a monolithic enterprise price tag, many of the sophisticated storage management capabilities outlined below can now be found in affordable SAN midrange systems from Compellent, iQstor, Xiotech, and other vendors. July 5, 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 Will server virtualization end the FC-iSCSI debate? Let’s take a trip to the future this week. Imagine that we travel forward in time -- say, 100 years from now. How will the technological landscape of storage change in one century? What will our descendants think of the state of our technology? May 4, 3:00 a.m. PDT EqualLogic's iSCSI SAN hits storage management high notes It seems that every time I configure an EqualLogic iSCSI SAN array in the company of folks who’ve never seen the process, they ask the same question: “Really? You’re already done?” The answer, always, is Yes. February 26, 3:00 a.m. PST Hitachi and Archivas tie the knot The news of Hitachi Data Systems revealing its intention to buy Archivas probably did not surprise anybody because the two vendors have been partners for quite some time. February 9, 3:00 a.m. PST 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 Staying the course at SNW Storage Networking World Fall in Orlando is one of the never-ending storage carnival's most popular merry-go-rounds, but his time I had to pass on attending: too many things to do in my lab. November 2, 3:00 a.m. PST SMEs, say farewell to DAS Not long ago I had an interesting conversation with a group of folks from a major storage vendor. They had requested a briefing to discuss how to improve their infrastructure to better support product reviews. October 18, 3:00 a.m. PDT 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 EMC's focus still on virtualization, security EMC continued its buying spree last week by picking up Kashya, maker of data replication and protection software, for $153 million, and the Interlink Group, a professional services firm that specializes in Microsoft environments. May 15, 3:00 a.m. PDT IDC: storage software market grew 11 percent last year Enterprises are buying more replication, backup and archiving storage software, market analyst IDC found in its most recent quarterly storage software report released on Monday. March 13, 4:13 a.m. PST 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 Moving beyond the SAN Are you satisfied with the way you manage storage at your company? If you are, good for you, but according to a survey just released by the SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association), your company is a lucky minority. November 24, 3:00 a.m. PST AppIQ Storage Authority 4.0 bridges storage and business Excitement and anticipation mount before any review, but those feelings were far more intense when it came time to evaluate SA (Storage Authority) Suite 4.0, AppIQ's flagship storage management software. After all, the suite so enticed several major vendors -- including Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, SGI, and Sun Microsystems -- that they made it part of their storage portfolios, a recognition no other product in that area has received. October 17, 3:00 a.m. PDT 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 Troika raises SANs' IQ Troika Networks may not be the first vendor that comes to mind when talking about intelligent storage networks, but it should be: It has been a pioneer in the field since the company was founded in 1998. July 25, 5:00 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 SNIA works toward ILM standards Implementing an ILM strategy is neither simple nor straightforward for any organization. For one thing, although the point solutions offered by storage vendors today address parts of the problem, true ILM must encompass the whole datacenter. June 6, 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 Taking storage management by storm Competition in the storage space is tight, which explains why staying in business and being successful is so difficult. While this is true across the entire storage spectrum, there's one specific segment in which, for many years, there has been a sharp contrast between customers' expectations and the solutions shipped by vendors. March 11, 3:00 p.m. PST SGI ups the SAN Ask anybody to name the companies that made the greatest impact on storage, and it's quite possible that one of the most significant names will not come up. I am referring to Silicon Graphics (SGI), a company that (as you may already know) has an enviable track record and top-notch solutions spanning supercomputing, servers, workstations, OSes, and, yes, storage. February 25, 3:00 p.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 Storage management: It's the application, stupid Would you serve the same food to guests at your daughter’s wedding as you would at your four-year-old son’s birthday party? Unless you’re rich or a terrible money manager, your answer is probably no. So why are many of today’s budget-strapped storage managers forced to allocate the same level of high performance storage, SAN bandwidth, and services to minor tasks that they use for mission-critical applications? October 22, 3:00 p.m. PDT SMI-S: Order from chaos Bringing application awareness to an entire SAN of heterogeneous storage will require standards that integrate with every part of the storage stack, much like the QoS standards in the world of communications networking. To that end, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has developed SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative Specification), a vendor-neutral storage management API specification based on WBEM (Web-Based Enterprise Management) architecture. October 22, 3:00 p.m. PDT Brocade's SAN Health makes house calls It may sound obvious, but the larger a storage network gets, the more difficult it is to keep it well documented and, more importantly, well tuned. Sooner or later, administrators in charge of large storage structures will welcome -- and actually ask for -- an expert opinion on configuration, topology, and performance of their SAN. October 11, 1:00 a.m. PDT Softek nails multi-platform storage management When SANs emerged, one much-touted benefit was that all enterprise servers would use a central storage facility, with the capability of increasing or decreasing the amount of storage available to each server. October 8, 3:00 p.m. PDT 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 CA polishes up BrightStor products Computer Associates on Monday announced it is upgrading and consolidating its storage management software line. The computer software giant is offering 13 new versions of its BrightStor storage management line and also announced a new product in a move to better compete with rivals EMC and Veritas Software. September 13, 9:13 a.m. PDT Entry-level storage market heats up If you thought IBM was running behind its competitors with storage products for SMBs, think again. The latest announcements from Big Blue target the entry-level segment, proposing two new TotalStorage arrays, the DS300 with iSCSI (Internet SCSI) connectivity, and the DS400 with FC (Fibre Channel). September 10, 3:00 p.m. PDT Linux: Rebel with a clue "But you're the InfoWorld Microsoft guy. Why are you at LinuxWorld?" August 13, 3:00 p.m. PDT EMC reports double-digit revenue growth Data storage vendor EMC Corp. on Tuesday reported second-quarter jumps in revenue and net income as its hardware and software sales rose, however, the Hopkinton, Massachusetts, company still describes the market as "challenging." July 20, 12:16 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 IBM updates SAN File System software See correction below May 25, 4:53 a.m. PDT RLX blade-and-storage combo falls short RLX latest offering is what the company calls a “modular computing” solution, containing blade servers and FC (Fibre Channel) storage arrays, plus an enhanced version of its Control Tower management software for provisioning the storage system. May 7, 3:00 p.m. PDT IBM, Cisco team on blade switch Cisco Systems Inc. and IBM Corp. plan to collaborate more closely on data center products, beginning with a version of Cisco's Intelligent Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module (IGESM) that will plug into IBM's eServer BladeCenter server chassis, they said late Wednesday. April 29, 4:51 a.m. PDT Storage vendors dismantle SAN complexity Initially conceived to reduce complexity, SANs have thus far only created more. But help is on its way, as Onaro, Sandial Systems, and AppIQ roll out products designed to address the maladies and complexities that plague SANs. April 26, 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 Xgig peers inside SANs Investing in diagnostic tools for networked storage bears several benefits. With the proper tools, you can easily shorten the time it takes to get to the root of performance problems in a complex storage infrastructure. Moreover, even when nothing is broken, a good diagnostic tool can provide a better understanding of your SAN’s inner workings, knowledge that can help you improve the performance and resilience of your storage networks over the long haul. April 23, 3:00 p.m. PDT AT&T expands managed storage push AT&T Corp. introduced an e-mail archiving service this week, joining other telecommunications companies that are trying to persuade corporate users to add outsourced and managed storage services to their voice and data contracts. April 9, 3:40 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 Stretching out to the fabric One of my recent columns, “Storage for your health,” triggered quite a few responses from both readers and vendors. Not surprisingly, most agreed that centralizing patient health records was a good idea. I was pleasantly surprised that the majority of messages were from readers sending their sympathies and get-well-soon wishes. (Thank you for that. We are slowly getting better.) Others shared recent experiences where the lack of a common patient database endangered their own or a relative’s wellness. April 2, 3:00 p.m. PST > 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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