In Depth

In Depth

Computer storage hardware

• Configure datacentres with green tech to save costs

  The current driver for green technology is to save money through optimising energy use, rather than a desire to be seen to be green.  Continue Reading

• In-house tape vs cloud archiving: What are the pros and cons?

  Have cloud archiving services reached a tipping point that makes them cheaper and easier to manage than in-house tape archives?  Continue Reading

• BYOD policy and the data protection products that can help

  We look at BYOD data protection in backup apps and specialist products as BYOD policy demands backup and remote wipe capabilities  Continue Reading

• Entry-level SAN products target SME virtualisation projects

  Virtual machines need shared storage. Sometimes that means block access via an entry-level SAN. We survey the entry-level SAN market  Continue Reading

• Deduplication and single instance storage cut primary data storage costs

  Data deduplication and single instance storage can cut costs in primary data environments, but implementations vary between suppliers.  Continue Reading

• Top 10 supplier profiles 2012

  Download in-depth reports on leading IT suppliers from Computer Weekly  Continue Reading

• Lack of cloud standards holds up enterprise progress

  Problems with management, portability and interoperability are preventing firms realising the benefits of infrastructure on demand.  Continue Reading

• How IBM researchers hope to change the world

  IBM's Zurich research labs opened its doors to reveal some of the technologies we can expect to be using in 10 to 15 years  Continue Reading

• Tune Raid performance to get the most from your HDDs

  Tune Raid performance at the storage controller to match application I/O demands to optimal hard drive (HDD) performance  Continue Reading

• SMEs: Optimising IT assets

  A full lifecycle management approach to hardware can help small businesses extract the greatest value from their IT purchases.  Continue Reading

• Interview: Angela Tucci, chief strategy officer, Symantec

  Angela Tucci, chief strategy officer at Symantec, talks to Computer Weekly about the company's strategic plans  Continue Reading

• Forrester: Derive maximum value from storage

  Forrester analysts Andrew Reichman and Vanessa Alvarex identify the top trends in the storage market  Continue Reading

• Mandatory carbon reporting: Indirect emissions guidelines for IT managers

  As the UK government announces mandatory carbon reporting for listed companies, how are IT managers to interpret guidelines on indirect emissions?  Continue Reading

• Delivering value from desktop virtualisation

  IT leaders met at a recent Computer Weekly roundtable event to discuss the implications of desktop virtualisation on their technology infrastructure.  Continue Reading

• How will storage infrastructure change with VDI deployments?

  The benefits of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) are well-documented but firms implementing VDI may have to re-appraise their storage options  Continue Reading

• Forrester: The next wave of virtualisation

  Virtualisation is evolving. IT departments now have a raft of products to deploy within their infrastructure, optimised for virtualisation.  Continue Reading

• Computer Weekly / TechTarget IT priorities survey 2012

  Learn which IT priorities are at the top of UK IT managers lists for 2012. Coverage from across our network includes cloud, budget cuts, networking, security, disaster recovery and more.  Continue Reading

• Buyer's Guide: What next for virtualisation?

  You’d be forgiven for thinking that virtualisation is a done deal, but research shows its uptake is still not moving at the speed many would like.  Continue Reading

• Self-encrypting drives: What's holding back SED hard drive encryption security?

  The self-encrypting drive (SED) provides a high level of data security, is invisible to the user, does not affect workflow or performance and cannot be turned off, yet SED technology has been adopted by relatively few organisations – so what's ...  Continue Reading

• Self-encrypting drives: SED the best-kept secret in hard drive encryption security

  The SED solves many common data loss problems and is easy to use and manage with minimal impact on system performance – yet relatively few businesses and governments use SEDs.  Continue Reading

• How to measure the value of a green IT infrastructure

  Although 'green' slid down the list of priorities during the recession, it has not disappeared completely thanks to the advent of government-driven green initiatives  Continue Reading

• Buyers guide to IT infrastructure

  Best practice in datacentre design dictates that as much IT infrastructure as possible should be virtualised. Doing so improves agility, allowing the IT department to flex resources up and down to meet the demands of the business.  Continue Reading

• Scotmid readies for expansion by consolidating with an IBM solution

  As one of Scotland’s leading retailers,the Scottish Midland Co-operativeSociety, or Scotmid, has roots that go back almost a century and a half.  Continue Reading

• Murray Goulburn solves growth and flexibility challenges with IBM

  Farmers’ co-operative Murray Goulburn wanted to introduce faster and more reliable business reporting across its nine manufacturing sites in Australia.  Continue Reading

• Baylor College of Medicine finds an IBM Power Systems solution

  By consolidating their legacy servers onto three Power servers and successfully virtualizing a range of critical applications, Baylor was able to reduce their data center footprint from eight racks to three.  Continue Reading

• How to resell old storage when you upgrade

  Reselling old storage devices when upgrading to newer platforms can be a complex issue, particularly when it comes to the content stored on it.  Continue Reading

• Features: Storage (October 2009)

  Content synopses and information about the storage features that will run through October 2009 at Computer Weekly.  Continue Reading

• SMI-S storage standard breaks supplier lock-in

  There is work to be done, but the Storage Management Initiative - Specification (SMI-S) standard promises best-of-breed storage systems, easily provisioned by informed users.  Continue Reading

• Has the time come for solid state discs?

  IBM's recent launch of solid state disk storage products for the enterprise was an endorsement of a much misunderstood technology. Could it be time to take this seriously?  Continue Reading

• End users 'biggest winners' from HP's acquisition of EDS

  End users could be the big winners following Hewlett-Packard's announcement that it is to acquire outsourcing company EDS for £7.13bn.  Continue Reading

• San in tune for BRIT School

  Centralised storage brings famous music school increased archival security plus added flexibility.  Continue Reading

• Supercomputers help Exeter reach for the stars

  Are we alone in the universe? Could life exist on other planets? Questions like these have inspired countless science fiction stories, but at the University of Exeter's Astrophysics department, these queries are at the forefront of research. The ...  Continue Reading

• Storage for virtual environments learning guide

  Storage considerations for the virtualised environment are outlined in this guide. Learn about storage options and strategies for storage for virtualisation in the datacenter in three categories: architecture, operations and back-up.  Continue Reading

• Tape encryption purchase considerations

  Storage administrators who use tape-based won't slow up their backups and will have peace of mind knowing that the tape content is secure. However, LTO-4 tape drives have specific encryption issues.  Continue Reading

• Disk-based backup overview

  Implementing a backup scheme that is fast, safe and cost-effective remains a serious challenge for storage administrators. Here's how to do it  Continue Reading

• Data Storage Management Survival School

  All of the aspects of managing storage and how to optimise your environments to minimise the data management crunch  Continue Reading

• Tiered storage tool purchases demand careful consideration

  The practice of tiered storage has emerged as a way to mitigate expense by keeping mission-critical data on the fastest disc platforms,  Continue Reading

• Data migration product specifications

  Part of the Tiered Storage Buying guide focusing on product specifications for data migration tools.  Continue Reading

• Storage guide, 2:conventional drives and semiconductor memory

  Will conventional electromechanical hard drives eventually become extinct and the changing role of semiconductor memory on hard drives  Continue Reading

• Your guide to retrieving deleted files

  Hitting delete will not completely erase data from your systems, so how can you retrieve the data if you need it, and how can you be sure that it’s really gone?  Continue Reading

• Tiered Storage School: Table of Contents

  Get a better understanding of what tiering can do for your storage, how it works and why a tiered plan can aid in backup, DR, overall management and long-term archive  Continue Reading

• Storage consolidation: SRM tools overview

  SRM tools are an important part of storage consolidation. They allow admins to monitor the storage environment, allocate and organise available storage, and offer insights into future trends.  Continue Reading

• Disk arrays overview

  The lowdown on storage arrays that provides an independent, standalone platform where disks can be gathered into extremely large groups  Continue Reading

• Storage Decisions Session Downloads: Architecture Track (LV 2006)

  More than 70% of the attendees of Storage Decisions say they are setting up or evaluating a tiered storage architecture. Featured in this track are Tiered Storage School sessions along with other sessions that can help any manager set up or ...  Continue Reading

• Discarded hard drives can be dangerous

  A treasure trove of sensitive information can end up in the wrong hands if old hard drives aren't properly disposed of, one security expert warns.  Continue Reading

• Hybrids give sluggish PCs the boot

  Suppliers are combining flash memory with traditional hard discs to create hybrid drives with data transfer rates suitable for high-performance software  Continue Reading

• Storage: Is your company data well preserved?

  Your data is only as good as the media it is stored on and the format that it is stored in, writes Danny Bradbury – and in the long term, both are transient at best  Continue Reading

• IBM begins development work on 100Tbyte tape drive

  IBM has begun work on new technologies designed to boost the capacity of tape storage devices by 250 times. Using...  Continue Reading

• NetApp offers virtualised storage

  Network Appliance's microkernel appliance operating system, Data ONTAP, has had virtualisation added in its latest version, 7G.  Continue Reading

• Defence in depth

  Putting storage on the network has brought many benefits but it has also widened the security threat. Protecting the perimeter is...  Continue Reading

• Compliance will drive storage demand, says Veritas CEO

  Veritas Software chief executive officer Gary Bloom talks about compliance, Linux and the challenges of ILM.  Continue Reading

• Storage Management Survival School:Lesson seven

  Lesson seven of "Storage Management Survival School" helps you build a dedicated storage management group.  Continue Reading

• Storage Management Survival School: Lesson five

  In this session, Jamie Gruener examines the steps you should consider in designing a tiered storage model, what the pitfalls are and the overall benefits.  Continue Reading

• Put security policies in place for portable storage devices

  Learn from the US Department of Energy’s troubles. If you deal with sensitive information, adopt strong security policies for...  Continue Reading

• Storage Management Survival School: Lesson one

  Yankee Group senior analyst Jamie Gruener looks at how to begin your own ROI analysis of storage management tools  Continue Reading

• IBM’s new smaller mainframe and storage may lower total costs

  IBM has introduced a scaled-down version of its Enterprise Storage Server 800 (ESS 800). When matched with new mainframe options,...  Continue Reading

• Storage strategy

  Buying leading-edge products is not the best option for most businesses, but make sure you do not get caught out as your needs...  Continue Reading

• IBM will drop Windows-based storage, sources claim

  IBM plans to discontinue its line of Windows-based network-attached storage devices to focus on higher-end products, including an...  Continue Reading

• Emerging iSCSI viability depends on startups

  An emerging storage protocol, supported by industry heavyweights such as IBM, Cisco Systems and EMC, promises to make storage...  Continue Reading

• Storage software is a bigger piece of the equation

  Are the overall costs of storage changing?  Continue Reading

• Where do you keep your data?

  The onset of Internet-enabled applications has made data storage a big issue for IT managers. In this special report we examine...  Continue Reading

• Want to see the future of storage? Look to Linux

  Fashion can deceive, but backing Linux is looking a cosy fit.  Continue Reading

• Plan for future storage needs

  UK businesses are spending huge sums on storage without showing any return on their investment because they are failing to plan...  Continue Reading

• System's savings help Sunderland win Micra

  Nissan UK's Sunderland plant has won production of the Micra thanks to savings resulting from the installation of a data storage...  Continue Reading

• Archiving for the digital age

  As the quest for the paperless office continues, Philip Hunter reports on current thinking on digital archiving  Continue Reading

• IBM-Compaq alliance: is it showing signs of strain?

  As the disk storage market continues its inexorable growth, the alliance between IBM and Compaq is 'not a side-show but two...  Continue Reading

• The threat of bust in the storage boom

  Vacated offices stand as tombstones to one-time industry giants that failed to anticipate CIOs' wants  Continue Reading

• NAS has the edge as storage booms

  Demand for network-attached storage has boomed thanks to the dotcoms. Nicholas Enticknap reports  Continue Reading

• Scalable storage solutions for businesses

  When determining the storage needs of your business, it is essential to pick a hardware partner with high quality products as...  Continue Reading

• Tomorrow's storage world dawns today

  What new technologies and systems are emerging to help IT managers cope with the ever-increasing demand for storage? Nick...  Continue Reading

• Fault tolerance: A SMART move

  The SMART system allows for a high degree of fault tolerance when incorporated in hard disk drives  Continue Reading

• San and deliver: solving your storage problems

  Storage area networks offer the flexibility to mix and match storage system suppliers, as well as allowing storage to be...  Continue Reading

• Clash of the storage titans

  In the high-end storage market major IT suppliers and a lone storage specialist are slugging it out in the fight for lucrative...  Continue Reading

• Case Study: Iomega Zip 100 & 250 drives

  De-centralised storage enabled by built-in Zip drives proved the answer to the University of Hertfordshire's storage problems...  Continue Reading

• White Paper: How to protect your NT system from viruses

  The Windows NT system has many features that both protect it from and make it susceptible to virus attack  Continue Reading

• Case Study: Using Quantum's hard drives in the new Panasonic/Replay Networks Hard Disk Recorder

  The arrival of hard disk recorders heralds a new opportunity for PC hard drive manufacturer Quantum and consumer VCR supplier...  Continue Reading