In Depth

In Depth

Storage performance

• Storage pros and cons: Block vs file vs object storage

  Despite the many changes in storage, there are still some fundamentals that hold true. We look at the key defining characteristics and use cases of block, file and object storage  Continue Reading

• Decision points in storage for artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data

  Artificial intelligence and machine learning storage is not one-size-fits-all. Analytics work differs, and has varied storage requirements for capacity, latency, throughput and IOPS. We look at key decision points  Continue Reading

• Storage 101: Crash-consistent vs application-consistent snapshots

  We look at crash-consistent and application-consistent snapshots and backup, how they are defined, the pros and cons of each and the benefits and limits of Windows VSS  Continue Reading

• High-performance object storage: What’s driving it?

  Object storage is getting its performance on to meet the needs of content delivery, analytics and IoT use cases while enabled by rapid flash storage media and other tech advances  Continue Reading

• Computational storage: What is it and what are its key use cases?

  Computational storage brings the CPU to the storage and so boosts system performance by tackling processing tasks, such as near the edge or in AI/machine learning workloads  Continue Reading

• How Oxeva delivered budget analytics with Pure Storage flash NAS

  Web hosting provider Oxeva thought the consultants were mistaken and that what suited the web giants for analytics/big data wasn’t necessarily what was needed for enterprise customers  Continue Reading

• Cache vs tier: What’s the difference between cache and storage?

  We look at the key distinctions between cache and tiers of storage, and where the line has become blurred with fast flash, 3D Xpoint and storage class memory technologies  Continue Reading

• Flash storage tiers: Performance, cost and use cases

  We look at performance, cost and potential use cases for the key flash storage types available, such as Nand flash, 3D Xpoint and Intel Optane, plus SAS, SATA and NVMe connectivity  Continue Reading

• Top 10 storage deployment stories of 2019

  Here are ComputerWeekly’s top 10 storage deployment stories for 2019, which see quite a move away from traditional SAN and NAS to hyper-converged, software-defined storage and object storage  Continue Reading

• NVMe-over-TCP brings super-fast flash over standard IP networks

  TCP is the latest transport protocol that can be used to connect NVMe flash storage. We explain how NVMe-over-TCP works and the key advantages for datacentre customers  Continue Reading

• What is QLC flash and what workloads it is good for?

  QLC flash offers low per-gigabyte costs and lots of capacity, but can be limited by endurance and I/O performance. It can be a good disk replacement for several workloads, however  Continue Reading

• Is NVMe flash the right choice for you?

  NVMe flash storage boosts performance for I/O-hungry operations, but how does it work, where can organisations best deploy it, and what are the key uses cases where it can make a difference?  Continue Reading

• How APAC firms can slay the storage management beast

  The data deluge and compliance requirements are shaping how Asia-Pacific firms are approaching storage management issues in the age of cloud  Continue Reading

• How to deploy NVMe flash storage for artificial intelligence

  We run the rule over NVMe flash as a storage choice for AI applications and the key decision points in form factor and hardware specification  Continue Reading

• Hop jumps to Pure Storage to avoid big storage complexity

  Air France short-haul and regional brand Hop jumps to Pure Storage after coming up against Dell EMC, NetApp and HPE, which all tried to sell it solutions ill-suited to its needs  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

• APAC buyer’s guide to NVMe storage

  NVMe storage is becoming popular among Asia-Pacific enterprises that want to reduce latency and speed up application performance  Continue Reading

• Cloud storage 101: Specifying for cloud storage

  We run through key questions to ask when specifying cloud storage, such as disk type, performance, availability and the possible hidden cost of getting data out of the cloud  Continue Reading

• Cloud-era backup appliances aim at hybrid content platform

  While traditional backup apps evolve to meet the cloud via S3 and Azure, a new breed of backup appliances aims to build a single environment across cloud and on-premise  Continue Reading

• NVMe startups’ different routes to flash performance gains

  NVMe offers huge flash performance benefits, but no one is quite sure how to overcome the challenges that brings and startups are trying several different approaches  Continue Reading

• Cloud the rising star of storage: Eight years of text analysis

  Tracking word frequency in nearly a decade’s worth of storage content shows how cloud has come of age, flash has gone mainstream and how we don’t talk about virtualisation any more  Continue Reading

• Australia and New Zealand gear up for storage analytics

  Despite the marketing wars, ANZ is ahead of the adoption curve for storage analytics, which promises to alleviate storage management woes  Continue Reading

• How ASEAN firms can tap storage analytics to improve operations

  With storage systems becoming more heterogeneous and siloed, some organisations in ASEAN are turning to storage analytics to reduce costs and address storage issues before they occur  Continue Reading

• Storage 101: Structured data and its storage needs

  Structured data is declining as a proportion of all data but its importance to business applications and its organised nature make its storage requirements very specific  Continue Reading

• NVMe is fast flash storage, but big five suppliers take it slowly

  NVMe flash offers blistering performance gains but so far the big five storage array makers have tended to opt for gradual implementations rather than radical new architectures  Continue Reading

• What is storage-class memory and what is it used for?

  HPE has announced the availability of storage-class memory in its products and other array makers are expect to follow. So what does SCM do for analytics-centred workloads?  Continue Reading

• Storage 101: Unstructured data and its storage needs

  Unstructured data exists in huge volumes, but often it is semi-structured with metadata. We lift the lid on unstructured data and key approaches to its storage  Continue Reading

• A guide to choosing and using all-flash array storage

  We take a look at the considerations when devising an all-flash array storage strategy, and what enterprises can do to get the most out of the technology  Continue Reading

• Match cache and storage tiers to app needs with new storage media

  How to match cache and storage tier needs to the dizzying array of solid state media now available, including flash, QLC/TLC, NVMe, storage-class memory, NVMDimm and MRAM  Continue Reading

• Intel Optane DIMM aims at persistent storage on the motherboard

  Intel to make 3D Xpoint flash available to applications in a tier below RAM and above storage, with in-memory databases, analytics and high performance computing set to benefit  Continue Reading

• Storage 101: The final flash generation? QLC vs MLC, TLC, SLC

  QLC flash products have arrived in the market, but with a limited performance profile, has NAND flash come up against the realities of the physics that make it possible?  Continue Reading

• Storage class memory set to upset hardware architectures

  Storage class memory and persistent memory products are set to add a layer of superfast storage media between bulk drives and memory, pushing performance to five million IOPS  Continue Reading

• Who needs hybrid cloud object storage?

  Hybrid cloud object storage products are an emerging category. But what use cases are driving their emergence? And which suppliers lead the way?  Continue Reading

• Storage 101: How to create, share and manage a LUN in SAN storage

  Despite pronouncements from some, the days of the logical unit number (LUN) are not over. We look at the LUN in SAN management: How to create, share, provision and manage a LUN  Continue Reading

• Disaggregated systems try to unlock the NVMe conundrum

  NVMe can unlock the true potential of flash, but storage controllers put a bottleneck back in the I/O path. We look at how suppliers are trying to solve the problem  Continue Reading

• NVMe: The flash storage standard in search of a form factor

  NVMe can unleash flash by doing away with the built-for-disk SCSI protocol. But so far there’s no consensus between suppliers about how to build products around NVMe  Continue Reading

• Rethinking storage in the age of big data

  The volume, variety and velocity of data are challenging organisations such as insurance giant IAG to reassess the way storage architectures are designed  Continue Reading

• Does NVMe signal the end of the storage controller?

  NVMe could boost flash storage performance, but controller-based storage architectures are a bottleneck. Does hyper-converged infrastructure give a clue to the solution?  Continue Reading

• NVMe flash storage: What are the deployment options?

  NVMe offers to unleash performance potential of flash storage that is held back by spinning disk-era SAS and SATA protocols. We run through the key NVMe deployment options  Continue Reading

• Understanding analytics and storage performance

  Analytics workloads place specific demands on storage. We take a look at the workload profiles of analytics use cases and the storage platforms available to support them  Continue Reading

• How to tune storage performance for different workloads

  We run the rule over what’s needed to get the best storage performance for databases, virtual servers and desktops, web and email servers and analytics use cases  Continue Reading

• All-flash storage ready for primetime in Australia

  On-premise and cloud-based flash arrays that offer big improvements over spinning disks are making a splash down under  Continue Reading

• Flash: it’s not all over yet

  We look at the need for new approaches to storage as ever-increasing demands are placed on all-flash arrays  Continue Reading

• Storage systems evolve to meet need for speed

  The race is on to develop revolutionary storage-class memory products to meet rocketing data processing requirements  Continue Reading

• Storage performance 101: Server, array and fabric/network basics

  We look at the key performance attributes of storage media in use today, and the choices and basic tuning steps you can take to get the most from your storage  Continue Reading

• Storage 101: Queue depth, NVMe and the array controller

  We look at queue depth and fan-out and fan-in ratios. With NVMe they could become a thing of the past, but for now there’s still a bottleneck at the storage array controller  Continue Reading

• Moore’s Law is running out – but don’t panic

  Can system performance continue to improve to cope with the burgeoning needs of datacentres  Continue Reading

• NVMe: PCIe card vs U.2 and M.2

  We talk NVMe form factor choices – add-in card vs U.2. vs M.2 – and their uses, for primary storage or cache, with Server StorageIO founder and analyst Greg Schulz  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

• Storage briefing: NVMe vs SATA and SAS

  NVMe brings blistering performance gains over existing HDD-era disk protocols, and is a straight swap-in for PCIe server-side flash with array and hyper-converged products on the way  Continue Reading

• Pioneers take flash storage to analytics and big data use cases

  Flash storage is now being applied to big data and analytics workloads as array makers exploit flash performance for rapid access and high throughput for big datasets  Continue Reading

• Object storage product survey 2016: The startups

  In the concluding part of a two-part survey, Computer Weekly looks at the offerings of the object storage startups and includes software-only, virtual and hardware appliances  Continue Reading

• Object storage product survey 2016: The big six

  In the first of a two-part series we run the rule over the big six storage suppliers’ solutions for object storage, an increasingly popular protocol for unstructured data  Continue Reading

• PCIe SSD: Cache vs storage tier

  Adding PCIe flash is a popular way of speeding up application response times, with more rapid I/O guaranteed, but should PCIe SSD be added as cache or as a tier of storage?  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

• PCIe SSD roundup 2016: Some stall while others progress

  The PCIe SSD market is still important, but PCIE flash drive makers are split between those that continue to develop their products and those for whom product evolution has stalled  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

• PCIe SSD vs all-flash for enterprise storage

  We run the rule over PCIe SSD and assess its potential as a server-side alternative to all-flash storage, as cache in conjunction with shared storage and in hyperscale environments  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

• Top five things you need to know about VMware Virtual Volumes

  VMware’s Virtual Volumes (VVOLs) promise a revolution in storage for virtual machines, but what are the key things you need to know?  Continue Reading

• Hybrid cloud storage: What it is and how to deploy it

  Hybrid cloud storage optimises the opportunities provided by the cloud while recognising and working with its limitations  Continue Reading

• Scale-out NAS product survey: The big six

  We survey the big six storage array makers’ scale-out NAS product ranges  Continue Reading

• Key storage performance metrics for virtual environments

  We run the rule over storage performance metrics – latency, throughput and IOPS – that are key to optimising virtual machines  Continue Reading

• Object storage specialist suppliers: Market round-up

  Object storage from specialist vendors aims at cloud, archiving, HPC and big data with products that vary by features and between hardware and software-only products  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

• In-memory databases - what they do and the storage they need

  In-memory databases offer high performance data processing, but how do you protect data in volatile DRAM and what kind of storage is needed for longer term retention?  Continue Reading

• Flash array market roundup: The startups

  Startups have led the flash array fray, despite the efforts of the big suppliers. We examine the startup vanguard in the flash storage revolution  Continue Reading

• Big data storage choices

  Big data storage demands capacity and processing/IOPS performance and a range of choices exist such as scale-out NAS, object storage, hyperscale and hyper-converged storage  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

• Dedicated VM storage emerges to meet virtualisation demands

  Virtual machine (VM) storage built to serve the large and random I/O needs of virtual servers and desktops is a key new trend in storage and a departure from existing SAN and NAS  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

• All-flash array products take aim at virtualisation I/O demands

  The all-flash array is built to meet demanding server and desktop virtualisation I/O requirements. Computer Weekly surveys a rapidly evolving market and looks at use cases and products  Continue Reading

• Server SSD guide to form factors and implementations

  Server SSD offers immense gains in IOPS and throughput. We look at how it works, form factors available and its advantages and pitfalls, and we survey key vendors in the market.  Continue Reading

• Big vendors tail startups in primary storage deduplication

  Primary storage deduplication can slash disk utilisation rates, but it has yet to gain widespread mainstream product implementation. It’s coming though, and startups lead the way.  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

• 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

• Private cloud storage: What is it and how to set it up

  Private cloud storage offers storage capacity that is scalable, billable, easy to manage and rapidly provisioned to users as a service offering within the organisation.  Continue Reading

• MLC vs SLC: Which flash SSD is right for you?

  Which flash SSD you choose depends on the performance you need and the price you want to pay, but the differences are not as great as you may think  Continue Reading

• PCIe SSD: What it is and how you can use it

  PCIe SSD is a new way of adding the speed of a solid-state drive (SSD) to server and storage devices. What are its benefits, drawbacks and adoption rate?  Continue Reading

• Data classification: why it is important and how to do it

  Organisations have a lot to gain from data classification and identification, but there are a few boxes to tick to make sure it’s being done right  Continue Reading

• Data storage components overview

  Data storage components are at the core of any enterprise storage system. This guide to data storage components can help bring things into focus.  Continue Reading

• The three kinds of MSP

  Ovum senior analyst Christina Kasica dissects the sprawling managed service provision market  Continue Reading

• Squeezing more out of your network

  Suppliers would love the network manager to throw money at every problem on the network. But couldn't you get the current set-up...  Continue Reading

• White Paper: Ultra SCSI to Fibre: The preferred performance path

  If users require first class performance and protection of their current investment in Fiber Channel, the FC-AL interface is the...  Continue Reading