In Depth

In Depth

Data protection, backup and archiving

• How the internet of things and edge data impact data storage

  Remote device data poses challenges for the datacentre, but edge processing, analytics and the cloud can help businesses profit from the promise of the internet of things  Continue Reading

• Object storage is inching into Australian enterprises

  Even as Aussie firms such as Bauer Media and Redbubble are lapping up object storage, others are facing visibility and analytics issues with the technology  Continue Reading

• Data recovery disasters: Kroll Ontrack on how it helps enterprises bounce back

  Data recovery expert Kroll Ontrack provides a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges enterprises and consumers face getting their files and information back when disaster strikes  Continue Reading

• SSD Raid 101: The essentials of flash storage and Raid

  Flash storage is mainstream, but what do storage professionals need to know about Raid when used with SSDs? We look at Raid fundamentals, and supplier implementations  Continue Reading

• DR 101: The disaster recovery plan and disaster recovery strategy

  We walk through the key steps and essential building blocks required to develop a disaster recovery strategy and how to write a disaster recovery plan  Continue Reading

• Cloud DR: Key choices in cloud disaster recovery

  Flexibility and low cost make the cloud well-suited to disaster recovery, but there is no one-size-fits-all route to cloud disaster recovery. We look at the key choices  Continue Reading

• Cloud-to-cloud backup: What it is and why you need it

  Applications that run in the cloud are protected, but only so much. For full protection of data generated by cloud-based apps you need cloud-to-cloud backup  Continue Reading

• Hyper-convergence + backup software = scale-out backup nodes

  Hyper-converged infrastructure with built-in backup software brings scale-out capabilities to provide data protection nodes via pre-configured appliances that can build into clusters  Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged infrastructure and disaster recovery

  Hyper-converged infrastructure products merge server, storage and hypervisor in scale-out nodes, so how can functionality in HCI products help deliver disaster recovery?  Continue Reading

• Q&A: NetApp’s storage play in the age of cloud

  Storage supplier’s Asia-Pacific general manager reveals the changes that are taking place within the company to keep up with the changing tech landscape  Continue Reading

• Managing data in a multi-cloud world

  Asia-Pacific organisations that are hopping onto the multi-cloud bandwagon need to overcome potential data management issues in order to succeed  Continue Reading

• Backup product survey: Cloud and VM integration now table stakes

  For enterprise backup, cloud integration and the ability to backup and be deployed in virtual machines as well as be controlled from the hypervisor are table stakes, along with data reduction and app-specific backup  Continue Reading

• GDPR brings serious implications for data storage

  New European Union data protection regulations put tough requirements on organisations that store “personally identifiable data”. We look at what is needed to achieve compliance  Continue Reading

• Why immutable buckets are a worthy risk management tool

  Immutable buckets offer businesses benefits in terms of data compliance, backup, archiving and security  Continue Reading

• Cloud data portability: Obstacles to it and how to achieve it

  Cloud providers are very keen to get your data into their systems but sometimes it can be difficult or costly to move it elsewhere. We look at solutions to cloud portability  Continue Reading

• Backup testing: What to test, when to test, how often to test

  We run the rule over what’s involved in backup testing in virtual and physical server environments, how often you should test and the key pitfalls to avoid  Continue Reading

• Time to restore from backup: Do you know where your data is?

  Making a backup is only the start of the process. You must be sure you can restore, that backups contain what you need, and that they will work with the applications that need them  Continue Reading

• Q&A: From backup to data management

  Beyond data backup, extracting more metadata to improve business processes and data management will become more important, says a senior Veritas executive  Continue Reading

• RAID vs erasure coding for flash storage

  Flash storage needs array data protection. We run the rule over RAID for flash storage and look at erasure coding, which will become more attractive as drive sizes increase  Continue Reading

• Backup 101: Incremental vs differential vs synthetic full backup

  Backup methods pros and cons: Full, incremental, differential, synthetic full, incremental forever, and reverse incremental. We set out the advantages and drawbacks of each  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery testing: technology systems to test DR

  In this concluding part of a two-part series, Computer Weekly looks at ways of testing disaster recovery plans, with methods including array-based replication and hypervisor-based approaches  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery testing: A vital part of the DR plan

  Disaster recovery provision is worthless unless you test out your plans. In this two-part series, Computer Weekly looks at disaster recovery testing in virtualised datacentres  Continue Reading

• Lauri Love: the student accused of hacking the US

  How did a brilliant but fragile computer science student from a rural English town end up facing life imprisonment in the US? Computer Weekly speaks to Lauri Love  Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged infrastructure product survey: The challengers

  In the first of a two-part survey, we look at the hyper-converged infrastructure market and the startups providing VM-native servers and storage, and datacentre-in-a-box products  Continue Reading

• Flash storage roundup 2016: Flash technology outliers

  Flash storage doesn’t just come in traditional drive format and PCIe card. There are significant outliers in the market that make use of custom flash modules, flash/Dimm and QLC  Continue Reading

• Virtualisation and the cloud aid disaster recovery in Spain

  As virtualisation and cloud services take hold, Spanish organisations can take advantage of less costly and more flexible responses to the threat of unplanned outages  Continue Reading

• Virtualisation rolls on, but still less than 50% of workloads are virtualised

  Survey finds server virtualisation is top way to upgrade datacentres, while public and private cloud storage gains serious momentum  Continue Reading

• Hybrid flash array roundup 2016: The Big Six

  Will 2015 be remembered as the last big year of hybrid flash storage? The Big Six offer hybrid flash, mostly based on HDD-era designs, and innovation has slowed as all-flash rises  Continue Reading

• All-flash storage roundup 2016: The startups

  Computer Weekly surveys the startups and specialists in the all-flash array space and find a market in which advanced storage features are becoming the norm, while suppliers battle down to $1/GB  Continue Reading

• Cloud storage appliances: What they are and who provides them

  We look at the cloud storage appliance market – everything from local gateway presentation of the cloud, via hybrid cloud, to the new generation of cloud-resident appliances  Continue Reading

• NAS vs object: Which one for large volumes of unstructured data?

  Both NAS and object storage offer highly scalable file storage for large volumes of unstructured data, but which is right for your environment?  Continue Reading

• Thai firm chooses flash storage to speed up supply chain

  Thailand-based SiS Distribution has adopted flash storage technology to improve internal processes and customer services  Continue Reading

• The state of all-flash versus hybrid storage in Australia and New Zealand

  Magnetic disk drives are yesterday’s technology. Soon all servers will be based on all-flash arrays – or will they?  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning: Where virtualisation can help

  The disaster recovery planning process is not fundamentally technology-centric, so when can virtualisation make it quicker and easier to restore services after an unplanned outage?  Continue Reading

• Snapshots: Hypervisor vs Array

  Snapshots are a valuable part of the data protection toolkit, but where is it best to run them from – the hypervisor or the storage array? We look at the pros and cons  Continue Reading

• Virtualisation and disaster recovery: DR features in Hyper-V

  We run the rule over the key functionality in Microsoft Hyper-V that can help with disaster recovery, including backup, migration, high availability and replication  Continue Reading

• Virtualisation and disaster recovery: DR features in VMware

  The key areas of functionality in VMware that can help with disaster recovery – including VMware backup, migration, high availability and replication  Continue Reading

• Big data poses storage challenges in Australia and New Zealand

  Big data is like digging for gold, except you must keep every single rock. Computer Weekly unearths some of the main challenges facing those mining data  Continue Reading

• Russian organisations have confidence in virtual backup

  Russian organisations are content with the options available to them for backing up virtual servers  Continue Reading

• The truth about virtualisation and disaster recovery

  The fundamentals of disaster recovery are well-established. But there is uncertainty, and even false claims from suppliers, about how the rise of virtualisation affects DR  Continue Reading

• Virtualisation and storage: Five ways to do it better

  Server and desktop virtualisation bring many savings, but you have to work smart to ensure storage performs efficiently. We survey the top five pitfalls and how to avoid them  Continue Reading

• Demand for all-flash storage to accelerate in Australia and New Zealand

  Demand for all-flash storage will increase in ANZ, as a result of lower prices and greater capacities.  Continue Reading

• Automation and acceleration the Asian aspiration

  Storage infrastructures within Asean organisations are changing to support technologies designed to speed up, automate and centralize.  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery in Russia: Critical sectors play it safe

  Disaster recovery methods in Russia span tape backup to cloud disaster recovery, but for businesses in the most critical sectors in-house provision is the favoured method  Continue Reading

• How to cull old, potentially risky data

  Unused data is a potential security risk, with old spreadsheets, reports and email containing industry secrets and laced with company gossip. If it's no longer useful, it's time to delete it  Continue Reading

• Erasure coding vs Raid for disk rebuilds

  Erasure coding as a means of data protection has emerged with object storage and offers an alternative to Raid systems  Continue Reading

• Virtual machine backup in Benelux: When to choose specialist software?

  Specialist software has changed the game in virtual machine (VM) backup. Benelux organisations talk about their dedicated VM backup tools  Continue Reading

• Mobile device management (MDM) vs backup

  MDM tackles the challenge of mobile devices flooding the enterprise, but it doesn’t mean you can stop worrying about mobile data protection  Continue Reading

• VM backup drops off as DR motors on: what’s behind the survey figures?

  We look behind the storage and backup headlines in the ComputerWeekly.com IT spending priorities survey  Continue Reading

• How to combat VM sprawl

  VMs are easy to create, but when unmanaged they proliferate around your infrastructure. Here, we explain VM sprawl and how to combat it  Continue Reading

• Virtual server backup catches up with virtualisation in Poland

  Server virtualisation has swept Poland, but businesses are still catching up to the reality that backup requires a different approach  Continue Reading

• Top five issues in VM backup

  Virtual machine backup is a vital task for IT departments. But pitfalls abound. We look at the top five issues encountered in VM backup  Continue Reading

• Challenges in virtual server backup and how to tackle them

  We look at the problems associated with virtual server backup and how they can be mitigated to ensure smooth and efficient data protection  Continue Reading

• Microsoft vies with VMware in the virtual machine market

  VMware launched live migration in 2003. Since then, its capabilities have seen many enhancements, but Microsoft is starting to catch up  Continue Reading

• Virtual machine data backup strategies in Turkey

  Turkish organisations explain how they combine virtual machine backup with traditional backup, replication and snapshots as part of their data protection strategy  Continue Reading

• Big players target object storage at cloud and archive

  All but one of the big six storage vendors have object storage products that target public and private cloud environments and/or archiving use cases  Continue Reading

• Backup vs replication, snapshots, CDP in data protection strategy

  Best practice data protection strategy combines backup with snapshots, CDP and replication for different levels of recovery  Continue Reading

• Virtual server backup products surveyed

  Specialist virtual machine backup products vary in many ways, including hypervisor and application support  Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery in Turkey: Some businesses shine but many lag

  Overall disaster recovery readiness is poor in Turkey and the Middle East, but some businesses buck that trend  Continue Reading

• Key choices in virtual machine backup

  Virtual machine backup is a priority for many datacentres. We examine the key choices, and whether to use agent-, hypervisor- or array-based backup  Continue Reading

• CW500: IT infrastructure for data protection

  The infrastructure to protect data is a thorny issue especially in an age where data is being proliferated throughout an organisation.  Continue Reading

• Backup vs archive: Can they be merged?

  As backup software suppliers build more archiving features into their products, we look at whether it’s possible to merge backup and archive systems  Continue Reading

• Erasure coding vs Raid as a data protection method

  Erasure coding is mooted as a potential successor to Raid and backup software  Continue Reading

• Cloud storage options in Scandinavia

  It has never been faster or cheaper to store data in the cloud and Scandinavian businesses have taken up cloud storage with gusto  Continue Reading

• Virtualisation and cloud ubiquitous in midrange backup software

  Midrange backup software supports virtual environments and the cloud as a target, but like enterprise products support for mobile devices is largely absent  Continue Reading

• Enterprise backup embraces VMs and cloud, but lags on mobile

  We survey enterprise backup products and find the top five tightly meshed with hypervisors and integrated with cloud, but lacking mobile device support  Continue Reading

• Storage startup survey: Funding tops $1.2bn in 2013

  IPOs are in the air and storage startups are magnets for investors, with $1.2bn of funding flung at flash arrays, hybrid flash, converged storage, cloud and object storage  Continue Reading

• VMware and Hyper-V virtual machine disaster recovery

  VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V have a number of features aimed at virtual machine disaster recovery. Computer Weekly surveys some of the key hypervisor features for data protection  Continue Reading

• Cloud file-sharing for enterprise users

  Cloud file-sharing services have become near-ubiquitous among enterprise users. We survey the risks, benefits and alternatives to Dropbox  Continue Reading

• SSD RAID essentials: What you need to know about flash and Raid

  With the advent of flash and high-capacity HDDs, what do today’s storage professionals need to know about Raid and its new variants?  Continue Reading

• LTFS tape NAS: A great idea stuck in a niche

  LTFS tape NAS: Linear Tape File System offers the potential to build nearline storage at the cost of tape but with NAS-like file access. Sounds great, but when will it catch on?  Continue Reading

• CW500: Thinking outside the big storage box

  Big data doesn’t necessarily mean big storage infrastructure  Continue Reading

• How to tackle big data from a security point of view

  Before leaping into big data, companies must be clear what they are trying to achieve, otherwise their investment will be wasted  Continue Reading

• Public sector backup strategy: Easier than ever; harder than ever

  Public sector backup strategy is a complex beast that must operate in large and heterogenous IT environments.  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

• 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

• VoIP security strategy helps WNS tackle cross-party risk

  Indian BPO major WNS ensures robust risk management and PCI-DSS compliance through simple VoIP security solution, despite outdated client infrastructure.  Continue Reading

• SMEs see the benefits of cloud disaster recovery

  Cloud disaster recovery cuts costs and puts effective DR provision within reach of SMEs. We talk to two SMEs that opted for it  Continue Reading

• CW500: Inside the government's CloudStore

  The government's cloud store means an end to the big four to five-year IT projects of the past, says the CloudStore lead of the G-Cloud programme  Continue Reading

• CW500: The legal risks of migrating to the cloud

  Experts from the public and private sectors discuss the legal challenges of moving to the cloud  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

• Is cloud data storage right for your organisation?

  Find out if cloud data storage is a serious option for you with this evaluation of its suitability for primary, nearline, backup and archive data  Continue Reading

• The implications for storage of EU data protection regulation

  EU data protection regulations are set to change, and the implications for data storage are manifold and include far-reaching effects on in-house and external cloud storage.  Continue Reading

• Cloud archive: The most mature of the cloud storage services

  Cloud archive: The cloud is an ideal fit for long-term remote service provider data retention. We list the key benefits of cloud archive services and some UK providers.  Continue Reading

• VMware data protection: An overview of how it works

  There is a variety of tools that improve VMware data protection, with advantages in the areas of VM backup, replication and snapshots, compared with a traditional server environment.  Continue Reading

• VMware backup and the VMware snapshot

  The VMware snapshot is a critical component of VMware backup. In this guide to the basics of VMware backup, we walk you through the key processes and suggest some best practices.  Continue Reading

• Cloud backup options: Pure cloud vs hybrid cloud backup

  Cloud backup is increasingly being seen as a flexible and cost-effective option by many organisations, but what are the pros and cons of pure cloud backup and hybrid cloud backup?  Continue Reading

• SMB backup products embrace virtual/physical and cloud environments

  Product survey: Midrange and SMB backup products bring enterprise features with ease of use and embrace virtualised environments, cloud as a target and improved deduplication.  Continue Reading

• Backup appliance product survey: Which one is right for your business?

  We look at the backup appliance market, examining products from six vendors and highlighting key features that can help you choose the one for your SMB or branch office.  Continue Reading

• Airtel’s DLP technology rollout makes data egress a thing of the past

  Airtel’s DLP technology implementation, India’s largest, went live in December 2010. Join us in exploring its inner workings, even as it is poised for bigger things.  Continue Reading

• Disk backup deduplication vendors boost performance and features

  In a fast-maturing market space, disk-based backup deduplication vendors have boosted performance, upped deduplication efficiency and improved integration with backup software products.  Continue Reading

• Laptop data protection is a mixed bag of bespoke and product add-ons

  Product survey: Laptop data protection products range from those engineered for laptops to those that are bolted on to existing backup applications.  Continue Reading

• WAN optimisation fits the bill for disaster recovery

  WAN optimisation can overcome bandwidth limitations on disaster recovery data transfers by managing application traffic, reworking protocols and using caching technologies.  Continue Reading

• Open source backup software lags in the cloud and VM backup

  The response of open source backup products to server virtualisation and the cloud is uneven. Zmanda offers full VMware and cloud compatibility, but others have yet to catch up.  Continue Reading

• Hybrid cloud solutions address cloud data storage’s three key challenges

  Hybrid cloud storage addresses the three key challenges of cloud storage—latency, security and reliability—by building in local cache storage and hardware security.  Continue Reading

• Product survey: Tape storage drive capacities and libraries still growing

  Tape storage drive capacities and throughputs grow while the biggest tape libraries nudge into exabyte territory. Not bad for a storage format whose death knell has been rung for years.  Continue Reading

• Encryption techniques and products for hardware-based data storage security

  Encryption techniques can be applied to data on the drive or array, at the host or in the fabric. We survey the key hardware-based methods and products available for data storage security.  Continue Reading

• Cloud backup is ready for the enterprise

  Cloud backup services have seen increased adoption by SMBs, but with a choice of methods and tighter controls, cloud backup is now also a viable enterprise alternative.  Continue Reading

• Cloud archive: What it is and what types of cloud archive services exist

  Learn about cloud archiving, the difference between hybrid and full-service cloud archive offerings, and the key cloud archive vendors and offerings in the market today.  Continue Reading