Computer storage hardware

Virtual Instruments is now Virtana and aims at cloud, containers

Searches for “Virtual Instruments” returned too many synthesizers, so storage monitoring pioneer went through a blue sky ordeal. It has new plans for cloud and container capability, too Continue Reading

Commvault adds Metallic SaaS backup and Hedvig features

Backup software maker adds software-as-a-service Metallic, which can protect on-premise, cloud and hybrid platforms. Meanwhile, Hedvig gets datacentre features and erasure coding 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

DevOps and storage: APIs and flexibility key

The details of back-end storage are irrelevant to DevOps engineers, but they need enough of it, when they want it, and the ability to manage it programmatically is key Continue Reading

PLC flash: A solid state candidate for analytics and archives?

We thought flash would end at QLC, but storage media makers are working on penta-level cell, which could push capacity to double figures, but at a further performance cost 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

Intel previews Optane persistent memory, QLC SSD and even PLC

Intel sets out roadmap for second-generation Optane persistent memory – between SSD and DRAM – as well as QLC SSD, with talk of PLC (penta-level cell) after that Continue Reading

HPE refurbishes legacy IT assets to make money for users

HPE Financial Services is giving old IT assets a new lease of life at its tech renewal site in Erskine, near Glasgow, as part of a promotion of the circular economy Continue Reading

National Library of Scotland says aye to Scality object storage

National digitised archives move off Hitachi SANs and Qualstar tape, object storage is embraced and a “no backup” strategy put in place with petabyte-scale Scality S3/file deployment Continue Reading

Pure adds Optane and QLC flash to boost performance and capacity

Flash storage player adds Intel Optane modules performance, a capacity flash range based on QLC drives, plus rebranding and GA of its on-premise/cloud leasing service Continue Reading

Cloud provider sweeps away legacy storage for 1PB of Infinidat

Core DataCloud decommissions storage from several vendors to consolidate to 1PB on Infinidat Infinibox, with DRAM and flash to accelerate hot data in front of disk back end Continue Reading

Storage and DevOps: What is required for agile development?

DevOps brings continuous and agile application. Storage has to fit in and make itself just as responsive to development that does away with the inertia of stifling hierarchies Continue Reading

Northwestern cuts storage costs in half with Komprise

Komprise’s Deep Analytics helps university classify and migrate research data to cheaper disk and cloud as it cuts storage costs from $1.1m to $680,000 per annum Continue Reading

Podcast: The Computer Weekly Downtime Upload – Episode 30

The Computer Weekly Downtime Upload podcast team returns from its brief summer hiatus to discuss HPE’s hardware refresh processes, the financial services industry’s changing relationship with cloud and a charity that is helping people with chronic illnesses find work in tech Continue Reading

Top five cloud storage pitfalls

Cloud storage offers apparent simplicity, but unexpected costs, complexity, data movement and integration challenges can arise. We look at how to avoid common cloud storage pitfalls Continue Reading

Hop jumps to Pure Storage to avoid big storage complexity

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Spectra tilts at HSM with StorCycle storage management software

Spectra Logic unveils newly-developed storage management platform and two-tier file access and object storage with all data visible to all users for restore Continue Reading

Ctera launches hybrid cloud HC2400M at media use cases

Edge filer specialist hits up the media and entertainment market with its NAS-like hardware that caches data locally, syncs with other nodes and stages data to the cloud Continue Reading

Commvault buys Hedvig in push for global storage player status

Backup player Commvault aims to bring together datacentre and multi-cloud operations with software-defined storage that can unify access to almost any storage medium, anywhere Continue Reading

Virtual Instruments brings automated VM right-sizing in v6.2

Storage and app performance specialist can now change virtual machine compute and network resources according to workload, with increased shift to analytics and proactive monitoring Continue Reading

Scale-out NAS hits the spot for large datasets, AI and machine learning

Despite the rise of cloud and object storage, scale-out NAS is a key choice for the big datasets increasingly prevalent in artificial intelligence and machine learning scenarios 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

French national research centre insources with Rubrik backup

France’s national research organisation wanted to insource IT back from Atos and built its private cloud on VMware across two locations with Rubrik appliances for backup 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

Storage: How ‘tail latency’ impacts customer-facing applications

Henry He of Virtual Instruments looks at tail latency, the small percentage of storage I/O that could be causing big and costly problems for business applications 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

Cisco pays $8.6m after whistleblower discloses security flaws in video surveillance system

James Glenn, a video surveillance expert working for a Cisco reseller in Denmark, alerted Cisco to security faults and stands to gain a share of a multimillion-dollar settlement with the US government Continue Reading

HPE reiterates focus on edge computing

Enterprise technology bigwig HPE is trumpeting its ability to help companies better manage edge workloads, claiming that its purchase of Aruba has been its most successful acquisition Continue Reading

The pitfalls of hyper-converged infrastructure and how to avoid them

Hyper-converged infrastructure can be an easy win when it comes to datacentre infrastructure upgrades, but there are pitfalls. We discuss how best you can sidestep them Continue Reading

Analytics and GDPR compliance: How to achieve it

Mathieu Gorge, CEO of Vigitrust, looks at technologies such as pseudonymisation that can help organisations stay GDPR-compliant while gaining value from analytics on customer data Continue Reading

BA/Marriott GDPR fines: What they were for and how to avoid them

We talk to Mathieu Gorge, CEO of Vigitrust, about the BA and Marriott GDPR fines and what organisations can do to ensure they achieve compliance with GDPR and similar regulations Continue Reading

Smartodds bets on Rubrik backup appliance with cloud archive

Betting intelligence analytics firm Smartodds replaced its old tape backup infrastructure with Rubrik appliances to cut management time and database restores from hours to minutes Continue Reading

University of Bristol upgrades to Nimble as it takes IT off-site

Higher education institution gets trouble-free hybrid flash performance from Nimble and stores 600TB of data at two colocation sites to which it is transitioning from on-campus Continue Reading

StorOne brings leasing for high-performance multiprotocol flash storage

To make a name for itself in the SME storage market, startup StorOne intends to innovate in technology and its economic approach, with a subscription model for storage Continue Reading

Public cloud: A key component in a disaster recovery plan

The key things to consider when creating a disaster recovery plan that uses public cloud: DIY vs DRaaS, native cloud tools vs third party, and how low can you go with RPO and RTO? Continue Reading

French baby store modernises backup as Veeam handles 150TB a night

France-based maternity, baby and children’s store Orchestra needed to share IT resources between 700 points of sale across multiple time zones, and backup for 100 applications Continue Reading

Cloud snapshots and backups: How to protect data in the cloud

You often need more data protection than native cloud services will give. But should you choose backup or snapshots? And what about third-party backup in the cloud? Continue Reading

Unstructured data compliance: Obstacles and solutions

Stored unstructured data could be a black hole full of unknown risk. We look at the key dangers to compliance in unstructured data and some ways of mitigating the risks Continue Reading

Steel firm adds steel to resilience with Scale hyper-converged

Carrs Tool Steels had to move on from legacy servers and found hyper-converged infrastructure from Scale Computing the ideal fit for a small business that couldn’t afford downtime Continue Reading

CW APAC: Buyer’s guide to NVMe storage

In this handbook, Computer Weekly looks at how NVMe storage is gaining popularity in the race to reduce latency and speed up application performance, and throws light on seven misconceptions around the use of NVMe. Continue Reading

NetApp ports services to NetApp HCI for multi-cloud storage

NetApp will debut multi-cloud services on its NetApp HCI hyper-converged platform, with the first being its Kubernetes orchestrator service and Cloud Volumes Continue Reading

University graduates to Rubrik backup appliance with Azure cloud

University of Reading could only back up 20% of its data on an ageing tape library, so it modernised with a Rubrik appliance and Azure cloud storage in a cost-neutral project Continue Reading

WekaIO adds enterprise features to scale-out NAS file system

WekaIO has Dell EMC’s Isilon, NetApp, GPFS and Lustre in its sights with its massively scalable hybrid-cloud NAS file system that also runs in the Amazon cloud 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

Scale targets edge workloads with HE500 hyper-converged nodes

Scale Computing adds hyper-converged infrastructure nodes to provide edge compute and storage that is fully compatible with its datacentre-scale HCI appliances Continue Reading

Western Digital aims to help rethink unstructured data storage

Zonedstorage.io is Western Digital-backed idea to re-architect unstructured data storage with sequential writes to high-capacity media such as SMR HDDs and ZNS NVMe flash Continue Reading

Enterprise HPC: Why HPE is buying Cray

HPE’s decision to acquire supercomputing pioneer Cray for $1.3bn serves to highlight the growing importance of high-performance computing (HPC) deployments in the enterprise market Continue Reading

Komprise to add Deep Analytics to unstructured data management

New functionality will allow customers to create and interrogate virtual data set from potentially petabytes of unstructured data across multiple shares and physical storage Continue Reading

Cloud storage and its main cost components

We run through the main items charged for by the big cloud storage providers, such as capacity, storage type, transactions, data egress, networks and data protection 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

Blockchain and deep neural networks show digital archive promise

Every event, past and present, is in the digital archive, but there is growing concern that this data can be easily manipulated to change historical facts Continue Reading

Excelero and BeeGFS offer next-gen HPC based on NVMe flash

Super-fast solid-state storage in commodity servers ties up with recently-developed parallel file system BeeGFS to target high-performance computing use cases Continue Reading

V.Pharma swaps Data Domain for Quantum and cuts backup costs

Belgian pharmacy’s Data Domains had reached end-of-life and it wanted to remain in-budget. Quantum DXi worked out a lot cheaper and easy to manage, with good support Continue Reading

Software-defined storage vs NAS/SAN: What are the options?

We look at the pros and cons of software-defined storage and weigh up when it’s a better option than buying NAS and SAN pre-built hardware shared storage arrays Continue Reading

Reduxio’s Magellan charts course to storage in containers

Reduxio makes its storage product functionality available via microservices in containers aimed at container-native deployments, in an initial closed customer beta Continue Reading

Cloud’s low-hanging fruit: Backup, tiering and data sharing

Native cloud operations can have a steep on-ramp in terms of enterprise IT readiness, but some things are relatively easy to port to a tier of storage in the cloud Continue Reading

Datrium rebrands hybrid cloud data platform as Automatrix

NVMe pioneer Datrium announces ControlShift disaster recovery automation as a service, while bundling its data platform offerings as Automatrix, and lauds the benefits compared to siloed IT Continue Reading

Gorilla bets on Object Matrix for £1m-plus-per-episode TV shows

Customers such as Netflix, Amazon and the BBC need to be sure their content is stored safely. Gorilla Post Production chose object storage from Wales-based Object Matrix Continue Reading

Email firm runs millions of mailboxes with Scality object storage

Open Xchange switches from OpenStack Swift to Scality to run 13PB of storage for millions of mailboxes across two continents for telco, mobile and TV providers Continue Reading

Nasuni aims at analytics and fast migration to the cloud

Cloud NAS and object storage specialist says customers want “Lego blocks” that allow them to build for cloud workloads, and plans cloud migration tools for massive datasets Continue Reading

How to avoid a hyper-convergence minefield

How firms can implement hyper-converged infrastructure to make cost and performance savings Continue Reading

Scality object storage scales to 400k mailboxes for NZ provider

New Zealand-based email hosting provider SMX needed to scale up its infrastructure to be able to handle 400,000 mailboxes, and found object storage from Scality fitted the bill Continue Reading

HPE to launch Cloud Volumes in UK and Ireland

HPE Cloud Volumes will offer enterprise-class block storage for use with AWS and Azure compute plus a replication store for backup and disaster recovery from the end of May Continue Reading

Don’t let datacentres be a waste of space

Storage costs can be saved by improving the utilisation of existing storage infrastructures Continue Reading

LightBits Super SSD brings NVMe on vanilla Ethernet

Israeli startup LightBits offers super-fast NVMe flash storage over plain Ethernet networks in a move that some think will bring “iSCSI for the NVMe generation” Continue Reading

Don’t let datacentres be a waste of space

Storage costs can be saved by improving the utilisation of existing storage infrastructures Continue Reading

NVMe is ‘ready’, say Dell EMC, Virtual Instruments and Cisco

Storage and networks big guns say super-fast NVMe flash is ready for enterprise users, with performance 10x over existing Fibre Channel and ecosystem in place Continue Reading

Scale-out NAS: File storage with cloud and flash from big five

We run the rule over scale-out NAS from the big five storage array makers to find all-flash and hybrid-flash commonplace and use of the cloud as a tier almost ubiquitous Continue Reading

Pure Storage buys Compuverde to put object storage on steroids

Fast flash storage specialist Pure Storage adds object storage to FlashArray and aims to compete with NetApp on NAS while bringing flash performance to web applications 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

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

Qumulo upgrades hybrid-flash hybrid cloud C-series with C-72T

Hybrid cloud-focused clustered NAS provider Qumulo’s C-72T takes advantage of cheaper and better components to start at 72TB and scale to petabytes from a 1U node Continue Reading

JetStream DR cloud replication aims to make backup redundant

JetStream’s IO Filter allows for continuous replication to the cloud of VMware virtual machines and virtual disks instead of scheduled snapshots or backups, and with a near-zero RPO Continue Reading

IBM sees NVMe gains in V5100F, but more to come with better apps

As IBM launches first midrange NVMe box, execs say applications need to have the SCSI designed out of them to gain the full potential of NVMe flash-equipped arrays Continue Reading

Datrium makes European push as it targets storage ‘big guys’

NVMe pioneer turned hybrid cloud and “data platform” provider makes a push for the enterprise and wants to take scalps from those selling “1990s SAN technology” Continue Reading

Cloud storage 101: Cloud gateways for hybrid cloud connectivity

Two of the big three public cloud providers – Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure – offer gateway on-ramps that can speed the deployment of hybrid cloud operations for SME and remote office locations Continue Reading

Cranfield gets Rubrik backup plus Nutanix in drive to the cloud

Research-led university goes hyper-converged across the board with Rubrik backup appliances and Nutanix in a move to rationalise on-site physical needs and drive to the cloud Continue Reading

Hard drives that do their own data processing

It’s getting hard these days to find places where container technology doesn’t feature, but in a hard drive? Yet that’s what is being explored in one of the Storage Networking Industry Association ... Continue Reading

Azure Stack HCI: Hyper-converged, but not as Azure as you’d think

Microsoft has re-branded Windows Server Software Defined to put hyper-converged to the fore, but Azure Stack HCI isn’t totally in sync with the Azure Stack on-premise cloud platform Continue Reading

Commvault adds “tape killer” AWS Glacier Deep Archive cold storage

Backup provider to offer 1-cent-a-gigabyte AWS Glacier Deep Archive as a target in a move that mirrors a trend towards the cloud and away from tape among Commvault customers Continue Reading

Storage 101: Object storage in the big three public clouds

We look at the object storage services of the big three cloud providers – Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure Blob and Google Cloud Storage – and how customers can achieve compatibility between them Continue Reading

Pivot3 to target Azure, Google clouds and enhance AI/ML

Hyper-converged infrastructure maker Pivot3 plans to extend backup for its appliance clusters to additional public clouds and optimise service levels across storage tiers and cache Continue Reading

Cohesity plans to put backup data to good use

Cohesity’s DataPlatform now makes use of previously dormant backup data with analytics to provide business value and to tackle threats such as ransomware Continue Reading

Ctera teams with HPE to put cloud gateways in Simplivity HCI

X Series appliances marry HPE’s hyper-converged hardware with Ctera’s hybrid cloud file server gateway to provide edge compute with storage tiered to the cloud Continue Reading

Enterprise and midrange SAN survey 2019: Hitachi, IBM and NetApp

Part two of two: While all-flash is mainstream, NVMe is an option as disk replacement for most suppliers, while NetApp leads the way with NVMe end-to-end to hosts Continue Reading

Singapore invests S$200m to upgrade supercomputing capabilities

The investment will shore up Singapore’s supercomputing prowess to facilitate research collaboration, as well as address national and business challenges Continue Reading

Enterprise and midrange SAN survey 2019: Dell and HPE

Part one of two: All-flash is mainstream, with NVMe also offered. Dell offers NVMe drives while HPE reserves it for use as storage-class memory as a cache layer Continue Reading

IT Priorities 2019: What projects are IT professionals spending their budgets on?

The Computer Weekly/TechTarget IT Priorities 2019 survey finds that cloud maturity, security and automation are among the hot areas for spending Continue Reading

SME backup products offer diverse routes to the cloud

We take the temperature on cloud-era SME-focused backup products that come as “traditional” software, replication-centric protection environments and hardware appliances Continue Reading

Cohesity opens up backup data to analytics and applications

Hybrid-cloud backup appliance provider launches marketplace for applications that can apply intelligence, such as analytics, to data held in backup and secondary data stores Continue Reading

Backup product approaches vary as they take aim at the cloud

Use of the public cloud for backup data is something all the backup software suppliers provide, but implementations range from simple S3 connections to expansive software offerings Continue Reading

MWC 2019: Huawei claims massive lead on 5G readiness

At a pre-Mobile World Congress event in London, Huawei’s Ryan Ding shared details of the firm’s rapidly expanding 5G mobile portfolio, and laid into his competitors Continue Reading

Pure launches ObjectEngine cloud dedupe, plus inter-rack NVMe

Flash storage pioneer offers flash-to-flash-to-cloud ObjectEngine on-premise and in the cloud while boosting connectivity between datacentre racks with NVMe-over-fabrics 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

Career choices for storage admins as technologies converge

There is collateral damage in datacentre convergence, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for storage administrators to stick with storage-centric skillsets. Two solutions exist Continue Reading

Australia’s defence department keeps old PCs out of landfills

Department has securely wiped data from used devices and kept 1,300 tonnes of e-waste out of landfills 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

Payday lender cuts troubleshooting by 30% with Virtual Instruments

Curo Financial thought storage was slowing down its websites, but found virtual machine and network issues were to blame. To fix this, it’s going proactive on storage performance issues Continue Reading

Swiss bank moves away from file with Cloudian object storage

PostFinance opts for Cloudian object storage as it migrates 100 million files away from NetApp and builds S3-compatible archives for Hadoop and Apache Spark Continue Reading

Watercolour World digitises ‘photographs’ of the pre-camera age

Charity dedicated to making thousands of fragile pre-1900 watercolour paintings available on the web has launched its site with help from Fujitsu scanner maker PFU Continue Reading