In Depth

In Depth

Containers and storage

• Storage technology explained: Flash vs HDD

  In this guide, we examine the differences between flash storage and HDD, the rise of NVMe and much denser formats such as QLC, and whether or not flash will vanquish HDD in the all-flash datacentre  Continue Reading

• Cloud is not always the answer: Five reasons why

  We look at why the cloud is not always the best choice, including for reasons of cost, application suitability, management, data protection and the needs of the business  Continue Reading

• Storage technology explained: Replication vs snapshots and backup

  Are replication and snapshots the same? Can you replace backup with replication or snapshots? We look into the key planks of data protection strategy, including in cloud storage  Continue Reading

• Storage suppliers’ market share and strategy 2023

  We look at the top suppliers in data storage by market share and run the rule over their storage offer, strategies for hybrid cloud, containerisation and as-you-go purchasing  Continue Reading

• On-prem vs cloud storage: Four decisions about data location

  Hybrid cloud is now a reality. But how to decide what data goes where? We highlight four key decision points to evaluate whether data should be stored on-premise or in the cloud  Continue Reading

• Pure Storage: Flash ‘startup’ that brings late entrant advantage

  Storage profile: We look at Pure Storage, the youngest of the array makers, which comes to market with well-developed flash, hybrid cloud and consumption purchasing models  Continue Reading

• Dell EMC: Storage giant shifts gear to cloud operating models

  Storage profile: We look at Dell EMC, the result of the biggest tech acquisition ever, and find a company well set for ubiquitous cloud operating models and as-a-service  Continue Reading

• NetApp: NAS pioneer well set for the cloud revolution

  In this storage profile, we look at NetApp, which built a reputation in file access storage but seems to be set fair to navigate a future of hybrid cloud, cloud-native and containerisation  Continue Reading

• IBM reorients to offset historic storage hardware decline

  Storage profile: We look at IBM and the strategic shifts it has made towards the cloud, cloud-native and as-a-service offerings that aim to reverse a long-term decline in revenues  Continue Reading

• HPE storage comes with full IT stack, hybrid cloud and as a service

  Storage profile: We look at HPE, its Alletra storage refresh, and Greenlake and the ways the company is re-branding as a full-stack provider across on-prem and hybrid cloud  Continue Reading

• Huawei a big storage hitter despite international troubles

  Huawei is a leading storage player with an enterprise product offer across file, block and object storage, and the cloud, despite controversy and trading difficulties  Continue Reading

• Software-defined storage: What’s available from key players

  What’s available in software-defined storage from the big storage players, software-defined storage specialists, and SDS options focused on cloud, virtualisation and containers  Continue Reading

• Hitachi Vantara: Small part of a big corp and analytics focus

  We look at Hitachi Vantara, its storage, its cloud offer, the workloads it targets, and its efforts in containerisation and consumption models of storage purchasing  Continue Reading

• Backup testing: The why, what, when and how

  We look at backup testing – why you should do it, what you should do, when you should do it, and how, with a view to the ways in which it will be made easier by forthcoming developments in backup software  Continue Reading

• Container storage platforms: Big six approach starts to align

  Container storage is a complex but vital task. We survey the big six storage makers and see methods are starting to align around management platforms  Continue Reading

• IT’s shift to the cloud: Veeam’s data protection report in detail

  With half of servers in the cloud, most backup and nearly all disaster recovery cloud-centric, the shift to the cloud is significant – but container backup is one area that is yet to settle down  Continue Reading

• Top 10 storage and backup customer stories of 2022

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 storage and backup customer stories of 2022  Continue Reading

• The next decade in enterprise backup

  Backup set to adapt to deliver more security, ransomware protection and flash-speed restores, and deal with the complexity of multi-, hybrid cloud and container-based operations  Continue Reading

• Cloud bursting: Six key steps in planning and decision-making

  We explore the key stages in a cloud bursting project: assessing the data and workflows, variants in the mechanism, application suitability, having the right resources, and planning and testing  Continue Reading

• Cloud bursting: What is it, what workloads, what technologies?

  We look at cloud bursting, its benefits and how to deploy it, as well as the limitations in terms of suitable workloads, the technologies needed and the skills to make it happen  Continue Reading

• Cloud bursting: What it is and what it’s good for

  We look at cloud bursting, which allows organisations to meet demand by bursting compute and storage to the cloud  Continue Reading

• File, block and object: Storage fundamentals in the cloud era

  We look at the three basic ways that storage accesses data – via file, block and object – as well as the ways in which the rise of the cloud and distributed systems have brought changes to them  Continue Reading

• Kubernetes backup products and 10 key players

  We look at 10 key players in Kubernetes backup, why they are needed, what they offer and why you need to watch out for duplication between application teams and the IT department  Continue Reading

• APAC buyer’s guide to backup and recovery software

  In this buyer’s guide, learn more about the market for backup and recovery software and key data protection capabilities to look for  Continue Reading

• Storage suppliers put Kubernetes platforms centre stage

  How to orchestrate the orchestrator? Storage suppliers’ Kubernetes management platforms aim to meet storage and data protection challenge in containerised application environments  Continue Reading

• Software firm saves storage array costs with Nutanix hyper-converged

  Banking SaaS provider Vialink needed more IOPS when its NetApp arrays slowed up, but Nutanix hyper-converged proved a better package than Pure Storage and Dell EMC, too  Continue Reading

• Posix vs object storage: How much longer for Posix?

  We look at Posix compliance in storage and why it is being challenged by object storage and the need to scale much further than Posix-oriented storage was ever intended to  Continue Reading

• How open source is shaping data storage management

  Open source data storage offers a great deal of flexibility, but unlocking its benefits will require strong technical resources to meet requirements such as stability, high availability and security  Continue Reading

• Five ways the hyper-converged infrastructure market is changing

  We look at changes in the hyper-converged infrastructure market as suppliers go cool, go soft, disaggregate HCI nodes, provide as-a-service options and look to containers  Continue Reading

• APAC expert guide to storage management

  In this expert guide to storage management in Asia-Pacific, we unpack the developments shaping storage management and key strategies to extract business value from data  Continue Reading

• Dell, NetApp and Pure: Healthy results on Covid easing

  Dell’s still top of the storage supplier pile with midrange arrays doing well, but meanwhile NetApp and Pure are making gains on the rise of public cloud  Continue Reading

• Where to run containers? Bare metal vs virtual machines

  We look at the key differences between running containers in virtualised environments and on bare metal servers and focus in on the main trade-offs and decision points  Continue Reading

• What digital transformation means for data storage

  We survey the key planks of digital transformation and look at the storage technologies emerging to support it, such as NVMe and QLC flash, hyper-converged infrastructure and cloud storage  Continue Reading

• Container-native storage: A definition, and what to ask suppliers

  We look at container-native storage – aka cloud-native storage – what defines it, and its benefits as a way of bringing persistent Kubernetes storage to containerised applications  Continue Reading

• Backup failure: Four key areas where backups go wrong

  We look at the key ways that backups can fail – via software issues, hardware problems, trouble in the infrastructure and good old human error – and suggest ways to mitigate them  Continue Reading

• Where now for storage? Hitachi, IBM and Pure Storage

  Part II: Storage supplier strategy in the cloud era: Hitachi, IBM and Pure Storage. We snapshot the big six hardware makers, as they take things to the cloud and as-a-service models  Continue Reading

• Where now for storage? Dell EMC, NetApp and HPE

  Part I: Storage supplier strategy in the cloud era: Dell EMC, NetApp and HPE. We snapshot the big six hardware makers, as they take things to the cloud and as-a-service models  Continue Reading

• Five key questions about Kubernetes backup answered

  We look at when to back up containers, what to protect, the main methods of backup for Kubernetes and the main Kubernetes backup products available in the market  Continue Reading

• Robin.io aims its Kubernetes storage at databases and big data

  Cloud-native storage runs in Kubernetes and pools storage media to present it to application persistent storage needs, including snapshots and backup on top  Continue Reading

• Five hyper-converged infrastructure use cases to watch

  We look at workloads ripe for hyper-converged infrastructure deployment. These include virtual servers and desktops, SMEs/remote offices, Kubernetes, and analytics and machine learning  Continue Reading

• A peek into the future of storage

  Flash-based storage is here to stay and will continue to be enhanced, even as helium and DNA are being primed for use in the distant future  Continue Reading

• How to apply zero-trust models to container security

  Containers have become a common fixture in software development, but they have resulted in new concerns for security teams. Is zero-trust the answer to tackling them?  Continue Reading

• Cloud storage on-site hardware: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud

  We look at the big three cloud vendors’ on-site offerings: AWS’s Outposts, Gateway and Snow hardware, Azure’s Stack and Arc appliances, and Google Cloud’s software-defined Anthos  Continue Reading

• Container storage 101: What is CSI and how does it work?

  We look at the container storage interface, which provides an interface to persistent storage in the products of storage array makers, and how it relates to Kubernetes  Continue Reading

• Molotov.tv streams 24/7 with Dell EMC and Scality object storage

  France-based Molotov.tv has offered streaming TV services on digital platforms since 2016, based on Dell EMC servers with GPU acceleration and Scality Ring object storage  Continue Reading

• Rook 101: Building software-defined containerised storage in Kubernetes

  Rook – think castles, not birds – uses the principles of containerisation and the methods used in Kubernetes to build storage that’s abstracted from the hardware it lives on  Continue Reading

• Kubernetes storage 101: Container storage basics

  We look at the basics of creating storage and specifying it for applications in container storage using Kubernetes Persistent Volumes and Persistent Volume Claims  Continue Reading

• Do you use cloud storage for these use cases yet?

  We look at the use cases most suited to a quick transition to the cloud: backup, archiving, disaster recovery, file storage and cloud bursting – cloud storage’s low-hanging fruit  Continue Reading

• Big storage meets cloud in the datacentre 'as-a-service' revolution

  Cloud is mainstream but the datacentre’s here to stay. This has resulted in a trend towards as-a-service in the datacentre where big storage array makers and the cloud giants meet  Continue Reading

• Key differences between cloud storage offerings

  Cloud storage offerings are often largely similar. We run through the key areas where they can differ, such as location, range of services and data protection  Continue Reading

• Data storage: The top five storage deployment pitfalls

  Key pitfalls in data storage include silos, under-utilisation, backup and disaster recovery, plus neglect of skills and application requirements. We ask analysts how to avoid them  Continue Reading

• On-premise object storage: Key products and use cases

  We run the rule over on-premise object storage, key use cases and suppliers, take a closer look at an organisation that has deployed object storage, and assess cloud compatibility  Continue Reading

• AI storage: Machine learning, deep learning and storage needs

  Artificial intelligence workloads impact storage, with NVMe flash needed for GPU processing at the highest levels of performance – and there are other choices right through the AI data lifecycle  Continue Reading

• SAN vs NAS vs hyper-converged for virtual machine storage

  The pros and cons of file and block access storage arrays vs the new breed of all-in-one server/storage architecture for storage of virtual machine systems and data  Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged infrastructure vs NAS and SAN shared storage

  Can compute, storage and networks in one box be a better option than shared storage? And which organisations can most benefit from it, and for what scale of deployment?  Continue Reading

• How to implement a multicloud storage strategy

  We look at how to build a multicloud storage strategy and benefits such as performance, availability and features, as well as potential limitations such as data mobility  Continue Reading

• Virtual storage appliances in the cloud from the big five

  We survey the big five storage hardware makers’ cloud offerings. Virtual storage appliances available range from storage and backup/data protection to nothing at all  Continue Reading

• Storage in containers: The answer to persistent storage needs?

  With compute requirements often fragmented, short-lived and bursty, traditional storage architectures can struggle to cope – so is storage in containers the solution?  Continue Reading

• Storage 101: Object storage vs block vs file

  We recap the key attributes of file and block storage access and the pros and cons of object storage, a method that offers key benefits but also drawbacks compared with SAN and NAS  Continue Reading