News

Storage

• July 27, 2009 27 Jul'09

  Managing enterprise data storage more efficiently: Part 1

  Storage managers must learn to improve storage efficiency though smarter spending, while taking steps to reduce operating expenditures during budget crunches.

• July 23, 2009 23 Jul'09

  HP, EMC slam NetApp, HDS laughs at EMC, NetApp digs at HP

  The usual suspects in the storage blogosphere have initiated another round of brawling, as EMC, NetApp, HDS and HP all get stuck in again.

• July 22, 2009 22 Jul'09

  Storage roundup: Former NetApp UK director to head up Isilon EMEA sales, City of London data centre

  Storage roundup: Former NetApp UK director to head Isilon EMEA sales; City of London data centre host expands in the square mile; Infortrend offers EonStor Plus disk bundle service.

• July 21, 2009 21 Jul'09

  Open source backup tools Amanda, BackupPC and Bacula compared

  We compare open source backup tools Amanda, BackupPC and Bacula and assess their strengths and weaknesses.

• July 17, 2009 17 Jul'09

  Storage roundup: New Acronis product adds deduplication, virtualization support

  Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 gets data deduplication and virtualisation support; Clearpace NParchive now archives on Centera; Airport deploys DataCore SANmelody

• July 16, 2009 16 Jul'09

  Solid-state drives, 2.5-inch drives boost IOPS without wasting capacity

  Small form factor hard disk drives and solid-state drives (SSDs) are becoming attractive ways companies can boost IOPS without wasting capacity.

• July 16, 2009 16 Jul'09

  NetApp gets up HP's nose, attacks EMC, which sneers at IBM while HDS picks a blogfight

  The storage industry’s blog wars have escalated with HP’s Australian PR crew deciding that SearchStorage ANZ needs to know how mean and nasty NetApp is being to its LeftHand line of products, while HP, EMC and HDS indulge in the usual brawling.

• July 14, 2009 14 Jul'09

  Virtual tape libraries grow up, speed up, up the ante

  A new wave of virtual tape libraries are faster, scale higher and offer more flexibility for their owners.

• July 13, 2009 13 Jul'09

  Which RAID level has the best price-to-performance comparison?

  Configuring disk in RAID arrays brings a variety of benefits, most notably data protection and I/O performance. But which RAID level wins in terms of price vs. performance?

• July 10, 2009 10 Jul'09

  What's the best Unix for you? We compare AIX, HP-UX and Solaris

  Learn the differences between Sun Solaris, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX and IBM AIX to help you make a smarter Unix purchasing decision.

• July 09, 2009 09 Jul'09

  With one eye on the cloud, EMC enters enterprise management market

  EMC has rebranded and revamped its management products, labelled them “Ionix” and believes it can beat the likes of HP, CA and IBM’s enterprise management efforts.

• July 09, 2009 09 Jul'09

  NetApp gives up on Data Domain, EMC wins the spoils

  NetApp has terminated its bid for Data Domain, leaving EMC with the prize.

• July 09, 2009 09 Jul'09

  NetApp gives up, gets slapped by HP while EMC parties and HDS defends its turf

  Another week of storage blogs finds the usual suspects – HDS, EMC, HP and Netapp – continuing to behave like feuding wrestlers.

• July 08, 2009 08 Jul'09

  ITV switches channel from Apple Xsan to Nexsan SATABeast Xi

  ITV switches from Apple Xsan to Nexsan SATABeast Xi with MAID technology to improve data storage needs, as well as space, and power and cooling issues.

• July 08, 2009 08 Jul'09

  How to Implement Hyper-V R2's new Cluster Shared Volumes feature

  Learn how to adopt the new Cluster Shared Volumes feature in R2 of Microsoft's Hyper-V.

• July 08, 2009 08 Jul'09

  EMC to take on Tivoli, OpenView with "Ionix"

  EMC has entered the enterprise management market with asuite it says will be far cheaper to implement than rivals’ products.

• July 07, 2009 07 Jul'09

  BlueArc challenges NetApp in the enterprise with Mercury 50, Mercury 100 network-attached storage (N

  With NetApp distracted by Data Domain and late delivering Ontap with clustered NAS capabilities, BlueArc targets the enterprise NAS market with Mercury 50, Mercury 100 NAS systems.

• July 06, 2009 06 Jul'09

  Storage roundup: Fujifilm UK implements DataCore SAN, Symantec disaster recovery survey and more

  Storage roundup: Fujifilm UK implements DataCore SAN; Symantec survey finds viruses and natural disasters most common DR spur; Mimosa NearPoint 4.0; and more.

• July 06, 2009 06 Jul'09

  Council adds solid-state drive (SSD) tier to Compellent SAN for new HillingdonFirst residents' card

  London Borough of Hillingdon installs solid-state drive (SSD) storage to its Compellent SAN to support Oracle databases in rollout of new HillingdonFirst residents' card system.

• July 06, 2009 06 Jul'09

  Continuous data protection (CDP) grows up, finds friends

  Continuous data protection (CDP) has matured and is now a viable complement to current backup regimes.

• July 02, 2009 02 Jul'09

  HDS hits EMC, HDS gets hit, NetApp hits HP, Dr Who spruiks Prime

  Just another week in the storage blogosphere as all the main vendors get stuck into each other. We therefore lighten things up with video of vintage Tom Baker ads for Prime Computer.

• June 30, 2009 30 Jun'09

  Will Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) bring a fabric switch product shakedown?

  Many network switch vendors won't provide deep Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) functionality, so will storage-area network (SAN) fabric management be dominated by Brocade, Cisco Systems and IBM?

• June 30, 2009 30 Jun'09

  Ingram Micro joins SNIA ANZ board

  The Storage Networking Industry Association's Australia/New Zealand chapter has its first New Zealand-based board member.

• June 29, 2009 29 Jun'09

  Storage Roundup: ThinkGrid launches cloud service; Infortrend offers solid-state option; and more

  Storage Roundup: ThinkGrid launches cloud storage service; Infortrend offers solid-state option; eMag Solutions tops 2,000 formats; NetApp achieves Hyper-V partnership status.

• June 25, 2009 25 Jun'09

  NetApp fights HP, as EMC, IBM, 3Par fight HDS

  Our weekly wade through storage blogs finds NetApp, EMC and IBM on the offensive and HP and HDS protesting their innocence.

• June 24, 2009 24 Jun'09

  IT professionals explore disk-based backup, data deduplication to speed backup

  As backup windows expand, UK storage professionals search for new technologies to optimize the process. At the Storage Decisions Advanced Backup School, storage pros agreed that data deduplication and greater use of disk are promising solutions.

• June 23, 2009 23 Jun'09

  Storage roundup: Oxford chooses DataCore for VM4rent service, StorageCraft opens UK office

  Oxford University opts for DataCore SANmelody for VM4rent; Infortrend unveils new ESVA array range; StorageCraft's new UK presence; Compellent gains S3 as a reseller. Read the latest UK storage product news here.

• June 23, 2009 23 Jun'09

  Disk-based trends top Advanced Backup School agenda

  A free Storage Decisions Advanced Backup School in London on 23 June will feature backup expert W. Curtis Preston and draw IT professionals who say backup is a top 2009 priority.

• June 23, 2009 23 Jun'09

  How to fine-tune Backup Exec

  If Backup Exec isn't behaving, check out this list of simple troubleshooting tips to get your backups humming again.

• June 19, 2009 19 Jun'09

  Can you trust your backup application's reporting?

  Third-party data backup reporting/monitoring tools can be a useful safeguard to ensure your backup software is protectingyour data properly.

• June 18, 2009 18 Jun'09

  Bloggers go soft as EMC, NetApp and HDS let HP get away with dodgy product repositioning

  Our weekly roundup of the storage blogosphere finds an unusual absence of criticism of a soft target, but plenty of competitive friction between NetApp, EMC and HDS.

• June 18, 2009 18 Jun'09

  Geoscience Australia tenders for 50 petabytes of storage

  If the account manager at your storage supplier is not returning calls, it could be because Geoscience Australia has the local industry in a tizzy with its tender for 50 petabytes of storage, complete with information lifecycle management and tiered...

• June 17, 2009 17 Jun'09

  Dell bundles software with new SAN

  Dell has announced a new SAN and Microsoft Storage Server Appliance and says it expects both will help it to win more business from vendors of larger arrays.

• June 15, 2009 15 Jun'09

  Storage Roundup: 3PAR cuts costs for online jobs site, Tarmin and more

  3PAR cuts storage costs for TheLadders.com online jobs site; Tarmin Technologies archives GridBank to the cloud; StorMagic bags 20 resellers from the VMware Partner Network.

• June 10, 2009 10 Jun'09

  SNIA hints at cloud storage standards

  The Storage Networking Industry Association has issued two papers on cloud storage standards.

• June 09, 2009 09 Jun'09

  The impact of server virtualisation on storage and backup environments

  Early adopters of server virtualisation share their experiences with the technology. Learn how to avoid backup and load-balancing challenges, and surprise licensing costs.

• June 09, 2009 09 Jun'09

  Disk-based backup is priority: Britannia Building Society's Mathias

  The Britannia Building Society's Dylan Mathias talks about communicating with the business, dealing with massive data growth, and a recent disk-based backup and dedupe project.

• June 08, 2009 08 Jun'09

  Seven questions SMEs should ask a potential service provider

  SMEs should ask service providers many questions, including types of backups supported, how long it takes to back up data and disaster recovery plans, before outsourcing any work.

• June 03, 2009 03 Jun'09

  Co-op Jersey opts for DataCore's SANmelody and more UK storage news

  Co-op Jersey opts for low-cost DataCore SANmelody SAN; Magirus announces Magirus Credit Solutions; Atempo Digital Archive adds Mac and Celerra capabilities.

• June 03, 2009 03 Jun'09

  Aussies and Kiwis create 14 billion gigabytes of data, fail to manage them well

  EMC’s says CIOs must plan to manage ever-increasing mountains of data. But analyst John Brand says their response is short-sighted and tactical.

• June 01, 2009 01 Jun'09

  Storage managers should be proactive, advises Royal Horticultural Society's Martin Taylor

  Martin Taylor at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) says data storage managers must be proactive with users and transition to new technology while remaining within their budget.

• June 01, 2009 01 Jun'09

  RAID 6 vs RAID 10: Choosing the best RAID level for your organisation

  Compare RAID 6 vs RAID 10. What is the best RAID level for your organisation: RAID 6's capacity utilisation and protection against two disk failures or RAID 10's faster rebuild times?

• May 29, 2009 29 May'09

  Sectors – HDS, EMC, philanthropy and zombie storage!

  Our weekly trawl of the storage blogosphere finds a “meh” reaction to HDS’ latest. We also have touching news of storage industry philanthropy, NetWorker tips galore and our usual snarkiness.

• May 28, 2009 28 May'09

  Banyule City Council adopts centralised backup

  After struggling to reliably backup data from 29 sites, Banyule City Council adopted CommVault software to remotely backup its many servers.

• May 27, 2009 27 May'09

  Defining storage-area networks (SANs), network-attached storage (NAS) and unified storage

  Network-attached storage (NAS), storage-area networks (SANs) and unified storage provide storage capacity not directly attached to servers, but use different protocols for data.

• May 27, 2009 27 May'09

  QStar HSM Archive Platform to support OS X v10.5 environment

  Qstar offers archive management for Snow Leopard; Tandberg Data completes restructuring; Compellent's new channel appointment; The Open University implements Overland Storage D2D2T

• May 26, 2009 26 May'09

  Linux backup and recovery tools roundup

  Learn aout Linux backup and recovery tools from Zmanda, Bacula, HP and Symantec in this tip.

• May 21, 2009 21 May'09

  IBM writes software to improve data placement on solid-state drives

  IBM adds solid-state drive support to Data Facility Storage Management Subsystem (DFSMS); will add SSD-specific data placement and monitoring capabilities to software.

• May 21, 2009 21 May'09

  Sectors – EMCWorld blogged to death, Why NetApp is buying cockroaches

  Our weekly trawl of the storage blogosphere brings back plenty of reaction to EMC’s annual conference and the worst storage video we have ever found. We also review the new Star Trek movie.

• May 20, 2009 20 May'09

  Lagan Construction implements Mimosa Systems' NearPoint for email archiving and legal compliance

  Lagan Construction uses Mimosa Systems' NearPoint email archiving product to manage email mailboxes, increase search capability and to track legal compliance record of work won.

• May 18, 2009 18 May'09

  Tape suppliers struggle with disk for recession revenue

  Tape suppliers struggle for revenue against disk's decreasing cost per gigabyte. Try to transition their tape protection expertise and plan for growth once the recession is over.

• May 18, 2009 18 May'09

  How to devise a disaster recovery plan

  Learn how to create a disaster recovery plan that delivers a recovery time your business can live with.

• May 15, 2009 15 May'09

  Turnbull/Rudd battle echoes EMC/NetApp brawl

  Our weekly blogosphere crawl finds NetApp unconsciously positioning EMC as Kevin Rudd, and itself as Malcolm Turnbull. We also find a great Australian blogger covering EMC NetWorker!

• May 13, 2009 13 May'09

  Branding firm LFH uses Overland Storage Snap Server to mirror data

  Branding firm LFH implements disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) backup using Overland Storage Snap Server. Byte-level replication and snapshot capability were factors in choosing NAS.

• May 11, 2009 11 May'09

  First Look - Windows Storage Server 2008

  Microsoft has released Storage Server 2008, complete with improved iSCSI support, better virtualisation features and the ability to scale to 128 volumes.

• May 08, 2009 08 May'09

  Disaster recovery spending on the rise in the UK

  Data storage managers cite increased awareness of risk and data growth as chief factors boosting disaster recovery budgets. Complex infrastructures and compliance also drive spend.

• May 04, 2009 04 May'09

  College uses BakBone Software's NetVault:Backup to shorten backup window

  Cardinal Newman College slashes backup window and staff administration times by 90% with BakBone Software's NetVault:Backup in a local-area network-free backup configuration.

• May 01, 2009 01 May'09

  UK data centres buy disk despite smaller storage budget

  The purchasing process of UK data centres is dominated by the need for greater disk capacity. Buying products from vendor already supplying technology to the company is important.

• May 01, 2009 01 May'09

  UK data centre purchasing intentions by technology

  What information technology products are UK storage managers buying for their data centres? Charts and tables from our purchasing intentions survey provide a quick overview.

• May 01, 2009 01 May'09

  Disaster recovery spending on track despite recession

  Learn how to create a DR plan to protect and recover data with Jon William Toigo, keynote speaker at the Storage Decisions Disaster Recovery Planning seminar in London on Wednesday, May 6.

• May 01, 2009 01 May'09

  Comparing UK and US storage managers' buying behaviour

  The buying behaviour of UK storage managers reveals that they're more loyal to vendors already providing technology to their data centre and are greener than their US counterparts.

• April 28, 2009 28 Apr'09

  Sectors – EMC, 3PAR and Dell fight it out, HP goes to school and Seagate stands alone

  Our weekly roundup of storage blogs finds EMC attracting a new antagonist and HP proclaiming its arrays are preferred by totally inexperienced high school students.

• April 28, 2009 28 Apr'09

  Three best practices for virtual machine backup

  Learn about emerging best practice for backing up virtual machines - including user case studies - in this feature.

• April 27, 2009 27 Apr'09

  Beyond vmkfstools: alternatives to VMware's backup tools

  VMware includes decent tools to backup virtual machines. But there are more poweful alternatives - some free - that deserve your attention.

• April 24, 2009 24 Apr'09

  How to evaluate a data classification product

  A data classification product should locate and organize data based on user-defined rules. It should also help move and migrate data to the appropriate storage subsystem.

• April 23, 2009 23 Apr'09

  Sectors - Sun alumni angry, EMC happy about VMware, NetApp arguing about dedupe numbers

  Our weekly trawl of the storage blogosphere finds the usual fighting, plus a fair bit of anger towards Sun’s management team and relief among those already fired by Sun – they’ll get bigger payouts than those fired under the Oracle regime.

• April 22, 2009 22 Apr'09

  Designing a storage architecture

  If your storage architecture design methodology lacks discipline, try implementing a shared services model that incorporates function, strategy and cost.

• April 21, 2009 21 Apr'09

  Analysts say Oracle buying Sun is a game-changer

  Oracle's acquisition of Sun creates potential conflict with other storage vendors the software giant currently considers critical partners and makes industry consolidation more likely.

• April 20, 2009 20 Apr'09

  Brown buildings can host green offices

  NetApp’s Director of Real Estate says it is possible for green companies to live in brown buildings

• April 16, 2009 16 Apr'09

  Sectors – HDS, NetApp say EMC’s V-Max is dated and derivative

  Our weekly trawl of the storage blogosphere finds EMC’s rivals tetchy about its new Symmetrix range, which has generated two videos - one funny, one featuring lots of black boxes in a data centre.

• April 14, 2009 14 Apr'09

  Virtual server environment security in five simple steps

  Data storage administrators need to ensure that their computing environments aren't vulnerable after adopting new technologies.

• April 13, 2009 13 Apr'09

  How to define RAID levels

  Defining RAID; explaining mirroring, striping and parity; and the difference between RAID levels.

• April 09, 2009 09 Apr'09

  Sectors - Cisco to buy NetApp?

  This week's roundup of storage blogs finds Cisco shopping - maybe for NetApp? - and EMC about to attempt time travel.

• April 09, 2009 09 Apr'09

  EXCLUSIVE IBRS ANALYSIS: How to avoid archiving project failure

  Independent analyst firm IBRS has researched Australian and New Zealand organisations attitude to archiving. This article contains their report and is exclusive to SearchStorage ANZ readers.

• April 08, 2009 08 Apr'09

  EMC launching cloud services next week?

  EMC says it will announce “the virtual data centre of the future” at a global event next Wednesday, ANZ time.

• April 06, 2009 06 Apr'09

  Server virtualisation benefits and getting started with virtualisation projects

  Server virtualisation projects need planning, good design and smooth migrations of hosts from physical to virtual targets. Learn to make the transition to virtualised servers easier..

• April 06, 2009 06 Apr'09

  Inside the minds of storage CEOs

  Who runs the storage vendors? Columnist Chris Mellor sketches storage CEOs he's met from Compellent, EMC, FalconStor, Pillar, Seagate and 3PAR.

• April 01, 2009 01 Apr'09

  Data classification best practices create effective policy

  Following data classification best practices and creating an effective data classification policy lets companies store data in line with compliance controls, thereby reducing risk to the business in the event of an audit or legal discovery.

• April 01, 2009 01 Apr'09

  Tape backup alternatives for remote offices

  If you're still running tape drives in your branch or remote offices, it's time to consider the alternatives. Tape has always made for backup headaches and newer alternatives now exist that can be a whole lot easier to manage. Tape at remote offices...

• March 31, 2009 31 Mar'09

  Sectors – EMC and NetApp leave each other alone PLUS another dodgy rap video

  The storage blogosphere bubbles into life again as folks who are not HP or NetApp swing a slipper at EMC, while 3Par gets into the rap video caper.

• March 30, 2009 30 Mar'09

  Importer dumps tape for Acronis backup

  Australasian Merchandisers has abandoned tape backup in favour of disk-based systems and server snapshots.

• March 24, 2009 24 Mar'09

  IT budget constraints force project focus, vendor deals

  Smaller storage budgets mean users have to re-evaluate projects, while suppliers should offer customers staggered payments and other deal sweeteners.

• March 24, 2009 24 Mar'09

  Are application-specific backup tools worth it?

  A new wave of backup vendors promises to do an extra-special job protecting data in a single application. Simon Sharwood explores these tools’ role in a modern backup regime and the revitalised point solution vs. suite debate.

• March 23, 2009 23 Mar'09

  How to troubleshoot SATA hard drive connections and issues

  SATA drives and fast parallel ATA drives vary in several key respects. This checklist can help you with SATA drive installation or troubleshooting.

• March 22, 2009 22 Mar'09

  Sectors - HP takes on EMC and NetApp, swipes Cisco for good measure!

  This week’s dive into the storage blogosphere finds a new belligerent party– HP – taking on EMC and NetApp. We’ve also found evidence of Oracle’s array-busting “Database Machines” in Australia!

• March 18, 2009 18 Mar'09

  How to make the right storage infrastructure decisions

  The total cost of ownership for a storage hardware infrastructure often runs significantly higher than its purchase price, so how can you make the right decisions and lower costs?

• March 16, 2009 16 Mar'09

  Sectors - Dodgy data in HP survey?

  Our weekly trawl of the storage blogosphere finds a writer accusing HP of putting a favourable spin on survey data

• March 12, 2009 12 Mar'09

  Email retention policy key to compliance

  Archiving email is a necessary part of a legal compliance program and, if done well, can boost employee productivity. So what's the best way to develop an email retention policy?

• March 11, 2009 11 Mar'09

  Virtualisation, SSD, dedupe surviving recession

  Storage vendors in the U.K. are banking on virtualisation, solid-state storage, deduplication and refreshed modular arrays to get through tough economic times.

• March 11, 2009 11 Mar'09

  Offsite data storage with tape: Storage best practices

  What are your offsite tape storage practices? Do you send tapes offsite one by one or in batches? Either way, there may be some drawbacks.

• March 10, 2009 10 Mar'09

  Expect to pay top dollar for disaster recovery in virtual environments

  Don't expect continuous availability of virtualised infrastructure unless you are prepared to pay out for almost everything in a virtualisation vendor's catalog.

• March 09, 2009 09 Mar'09

  VMware's cloud computing vision

  VMware's vision of high-availability, cloud-delivered computing threatens existing thinking on backup, data security and compliance.

• March 09, 2009 09 Mar'09

  Sectors - The feud continues: NetApp slams EMC's dedupe plans

  The security blogosphere blows up again, with NetApp sinking the slipper into EMC's new Celerra.

• March 04, 2009 04 Mar'09

  LUN storage and its role in SAN management

  Explore logical unit number (LUN) storage and its role in SAN management. Learn how to create a LUN, how to share a LUN, and find out about LUN provisioning and LUN masking.

• March 03, 2009 03 Mar'09

  Make IT change management part of your disaster recovery plan

  All the disaster recovery technology in the world won't help without the right culture and process, writes Burton analyst Richard Jones.

• February 27, 2009 27 Feb'09

  IDC Europe: Storage safe, short-term investments key

  IDC's European storage survey finds storage relatively safe from recession as data volumes grow, but users are diverting budgets to short-term projects such as expanding capacity.

• February 27, 2009 27 Feb'09

  Sectors – NetApp heads for the ghetto

  Our weekly roundup of the storage blogosphere finds NetApp getting down with its homies on YouTube.

• February 25, 2009 25 Feb'09

  Virtualisation: A remedy for hard times

  Technical teams need re-assess how they optimise their environment. Virtualization --with its reduction in the physical footprint in terms of space, power and cooling -- can help.

• February 25, 2009 25 Feb'09

  Commentary: Social bookmarking failure an obvious example for us all

  The closure of social bookmarking site ma.gnolia offers a very good example of why you need to test your backups.

• February 24, 2009 24 Feb'09

  How to make iSCSI connections in Hyper-V

  Learn the tools and commands you need to make iSCSI connections in Hyper-V - without the iscsicli.exe command line tool.