Storage

ISCSI TCP/IP TOE card specifications

One means of improving iSCSI traffic performance is to include TOE (TCI/IP Offload Engine) capability on the Ethernet card itself. An iSCSI TOE allows the network adapter to process iSCSI traffic (often all Ethernet LAN traffic) locally -- relieving those burdensome processing tasks from the host server or other computers connected to the LAN. To implement this capability, iSCSI servers must be upgraded with Ethernet NICs that include a TOE chip onboard. Although the selection of iSCSI TOE cards is generally limited to just a few manufacturers, it's important to consider the available ports, host interface, and other card characteristics before making a purchase. The product snapshots in this segment highlight key specifications for a cross-section of popular iSCSI TOE cards. Continue Reading

ISCSI for beginners

iSCSI is an Internet Protocol (IP)-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. Learns the basics in this fast guide. Continue Reading

By

• TechTarget Storage Editorial Staff

Capacity planning software specifications

Gauging storage needs over time is one of the biggest challenges faced by IT administrators, and a new generation of capacity planning tools is emerging to help forecast growth and utilization of storage resources, and even perform predictive modeling of the future storage environment based on historical data collected. The product snapshots in this chapter highlight key specifications for a cross-section of popular capacity planning software products. Continue Reading

Capacity planning tools require serious purchase consideration

Capacity costs money, and new disk acquisitions stand out as a notable part of every IT budget. The trick is to match new capacity with actual storage needs. Gauging storage needs over time is one of the biggest challenges faced by IT administrators, and a new generation of capacity planning tools is emerging to help forecast growth and utilization of storage resources. Consequently, the selection of a capacity planning tool must include a thorough consideration of your applications. It is also important to ensure that the tool is interoperable across all of your storage systems, while still meeting all of your analytical and reporting requirements. This chapter covers the specific considerations for dedicated capacity planning software. You'll find a series of specifications to help make on-the-spot product comparisons between vendors. Continue Reading

CDP platform purchase considerations

Busy IT organizations are employing continuous data protection (CDP) technologies to guard data on the fly, essentially eliminating the backup window and allowing granular file and system restoration -- sometimes down to the individual disk write operation. Several CDP appliances are available, but many are implemented in software, and all require careful consideration before purchase. This article focuses on the specific purchase considerations for CDP products. Continue Reading

NAS appliance purchase considerations

NAS appliances are frequently touted for bringing convenience and simplicity to network storage. Appliances include their own dedicated disks for storage and RAID, and most NAS appliances can be upgraded with more or larger disks for additional storage space. However, NAS appliances do pose some disadvantages. Consequently, the choice of NAS appliance requires careful evaluation. Now that you've reviewed the essential issues involved in any NAS product, this guide focuses on specific considerations for dedicated NAS appliances. You'll also find a series of specifications to help make on-the-spot product comparisons between vendors. Continue Reading

NAS gateway purchase considerations

NAS gateways overcome the inherent limitations of scale and flexibility by utilizing externally connected storage as external standalone disk arrays. NAS storage capacity is typically expanded by simply adding more disks to the appliance, but this only allows users to scale up to the capacity limit of the appliance. It's also common for a NAS gateway to share storage through a storage area network (SAN), allowing users to consolidate their NAS data on SAN storage and realize the benefits of high performance and redundancy. Now that you've reviewed the essential issues involved in any NAS product, this Buying Guide focuses on specific considerations for NAS gateway products. Continue Reading

NAS gateway specifications

A NAS gateway offers file-based accesses to external storage on a disk array -- or a SAN, where users can take advantage of superior performance and reliability while maintaining a level of simplicity. Since storage is moved off of the NAS device, interoperability and connectivity are crucial issues, and virtualization is increasingly important for superior scaling and utilization of the storage resources. The product snapshots in this chapter highlight key specifications for a cross section of major NAS gateway products. Continue Reading

NAS management software specifications

Network attached storage (NAS) appliances and gateways must be configured and managed using NAS management software that allows administrators to allocate space, manage RAID and storage behaviors, perform routine maintenance, and other tasks. Management software ideally provides interoperability with a variety of NAS devices from different vendors and can automate many of the routine management tasks that would otherwise demand manual attention. The product snapshots in this chapter highlight key specifications for a cross section of major NAS management software products. Continue Reading

Gartner: Existing business continuity plans will fail in a pandemic

Existing business continuity plans will not protect a company during an avian flu pandemic, says a Gartner analyst. Business continuity plans assume a geographically specific disaster, while a pandemic will strike everywhere nearly simultaneously. Continue Reading

By

• Shamus McGillicuddy, Enterprise Management Associates

Virtualisation buying guide [Day Two: Virtualisation software examined]

Deploying software on a server or dedicated appliance is often easier for smaller organisations, but the actual product choice demands careful consideration. Now that you've reviewed the essential issues involved in any virtualisation product, this guide focuses on specific considerations for key virtualisation software products. You'll also find a series of specifications to help make on-the-spot product comparisons between vendors, like DataCore Software Corp., EMC Corp., FalconStor Software Inc. and IBM. Continue Reading

By

• TechTarget Storage Editorial Staff

Commentary: We've never met a "thought follower"

A couple of days back, a vendor tried to convince us that their new security consultancy services should be of interest to you, our readers. Continue Reading

By

• Simon Sharwood

Capacity planning: Reclaim orphaned storage

This tip takes a look at how to maximize your storage capacity utilization by finding orphaned data and storage that can in turn be re-allocated for another productive use. Continue Reading

By

• Greg Shulz

ISCSI gains strength from servers

More powerful servers are helping ease some performance concerns for users considering IP SANs, but others say they still want to see more improvement. Continue Reading

Universities lean on each other for better disaster recovery

As another school year begins, colleges and universities are opening their doors to each other in order to get enterprise-level disaster recovery plans working. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

iSCSI network configuration, design and optimization

It's a must to consider more than just cabling when designing an iSCSI-based storage network. Learn to look at the bigger picture when configuring or optimizing an iSCSI-based storage network. Continue Reading

By

• Greg Schulz, The Server and StorageIO Group

Real life experiences: Lessons learned in disaster recovery planning

Debbie Schwartz shares the lessons she has learned in keeping disaster recovery implementations up-to-date with new and changing business needs. Continue Reading

By

• Debbie Schwartz

Disaster recovery report card: Measuring your company's disaster recovery profile

Disaster recovery planning is challenging because you don't know what you're planning for or how well your disaster recovery plan will hold up in the face of an emergency. Use this report card to measure your disaster recovery plan and identify areas that need improvement. Continue Reading

By

• Dennis C. Brewer

Testing iSCSI SAN performance with Iometer

Iometer, a performance test tool for tuning Windows environments, can also be used to tune performance in iSCSI SANs. The tool lets you simulate the SAN's performance by setting many of the parameters and running tests. Repeated runs with different parameters such as block sizes will let you tune your system. Continue Reading

By

• Rick Cook

NAS: How does a client access files?

NAS expert Randy Kerns offers advice to a reader who asked: "How does NAS appear to machines accessing files from it?" Continue Reading

By

• Randy Kerns, Evaluator Group

Remote backup: What are the alternatives to tape?

Archiving expert Bill Tolson offers advice to a reader looking for alternatives to shipping tape offsite, including a graphical representation of the remote replication backup process. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Tolson, Tolson Communications

CDP overview

Storage volumes are growing at an alarming pace, and tape-based backups are not always possible within an available backup window. Today's businesses are increasingly focused on tighter RTO and RPO. Faster restorations and more recent recovery points that minimize the threat of lost data. Disk storage technologies are systematically replacing tape, spawning specialized storage systems that bring better performance and reliability to the backup process. One emerging data protection technology that has attracted significant attention is CDP. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

NAS: Can you add capacity non-disruptively?

Storage expert Randy Kerns offers advice about adding capacity to a NAS system non-disruptively in this Q&A. Continue Reading

By

• Randy Kerns, Evaluator Group

Tape and disk encryption product roundup

With tape and disk encryption products becoming more popular, storage administrators have more options in how to protect sensitive information at rest in the data center and in flight across public networks. Continue Reading

ISCSI SANs: How to alleviate the congestion

Careful configuration of an iSCSI SAN will usually preclude most problems. But for slow network performance, adapter and switch settings can help speed things up. Continue Reading

By

• Rick Cook

Archiving unstructured data

Companies must find ways to automate and simplify the process of archiving files and e-mail messages. ECM software addresses this large pool of unstructured data. Continue Reading

By

• Jerome Wendt

Remote backup services get affordable

Remote backup services, traditionally reserved for major banks and cash-rich Fortune 500 companies, are now available to small and midsized businesses. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

CDP: Super snapshots -- eventually

This tip details two different definitions of CDP, the offerings from vendors in each camp and how continuous data protection differs from snapshots. Continue Reading

By

• Rick Cook

How to use NAS gateways

What you will learn from this tip: NAS gateways are moving off the array and into the network. Here's how to manage them. Continue Reading

By

• Jerome Wendt

How to create a business continuity plan

In today's business environment, the only acceptable data loss is none at all. Find out how to create a business continuity plan that really works. Continue Reading

By

• Doug Owens, ScaleMatrix

Five ways to secure iSCSI

Storage expert Stephen Foskett outlines five specific ways to secure an iSCSI SAN. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen Foskett, Gestalt IT

Pros and cons of remote mirroring for DR

Remote mirroring takes place over MAN or WAN distances. It's usually between storage arrays or storage appliances, and can be synchronous or asynchronous. Continue Reading

By

• Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer Consulting

Archive: Bits & Bytes column library

Bits & Bytes column library archive -- 2003 to 2004 Continue Reading

By

• TechTarget Storage Editorial Staff

Pros and cons of disk-to-disk backup

Some of the characteristics of disk-to-disk can make it a poor choice for your only form of backup. Continue Reading

By

• Rick Cook

Microsoft supports iSCSI SAN clusters -- kind of

This expert tip outlines how to get the support you need for iSCSI SANs using more than two clusters. Continue Reading

By

• Rick Cook

Capacity planning in the enterprise

Capacity planning is becoming an increasingly important way to balance future hardware costs with computing needs. Continue Reading

By

• Edward Hurley