Backup in a snap: A guide to snapshot technologies by Marc Staimer
Snapshots are used to enhance backup systems and shorten RTOs and RPOs. But you need to know how snapshots can vary, and what those differences could mean to your environment.

Storage redux: Purchase plans reviving by Rich Castagna
Our latest Storage Purchasing Intentions survey suggests that there may be a glimmer of hope for the economy based on storage managers purchase plans.

What's inside internal storage clouds? by Alan Radding
If you thought you knew cloud storage, think again. With scores of vendors touting internal storage clouds, we'll give you the lowdown on what makes a storage cloud "internal."

Storage magazine October 2009 PDF
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Coming in Storage magazine's November/December 2009 issue
A sneak peek at Storage magazine's next issue.

Solid-state storage update by Jacob Gsoedl
Solid-state storage is still mostly for well-heeled shops with power-hungry apps, but new developments could bring solid state down to earth soon.

Use storage more efficiently by Robert L. Scheier
Getting the most out of what you already have isn't just smart, it might be the only way to keep your storage shop alive and well.

Software vendors expand data deduplication offerings by Beth Pariseau, News Writer
You can add data deduplication to your backup operations with an appliance, VTL or target array -- but backup application vendors offer software-only alternatives.

Storage magazine September 2009 PDF
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Coming in Storage magazine's October 2009 issue
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Virtual servers put pressure on backup by W. Curtis Preston
Virtual servers solve many problems in the data center, but they also make backup harder. There are several ways to back up virtual servers, each with advantages and disadvantages.

Virtual desktops and storage by Jacob Gsoedl
Server virtualization has had a profound impact on storage infrastructures, but the coming wave of desktop virtualization will place new demands on storage environments.

Quality Awards IV: Sun shines again in tape library challenge by Rich Castagna
Sun Microsystems Inc. tape libraries took top honors in both the midrange and enterprise categories in the latest Storage magazine Quality Awards survey

Storage magazine July/August 2009 PDF
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Coming in Storage magazine's September 2009 issue
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Storage, heal thyself by Marc Staimer
Several storage system vendors claim their products can detect and repair hard disk problems automatically. Here's how they do it and the low-down on how well they work.

Dueling directors by Jacob Gsoedl
Director-class switches have been used to maintain performance in large storage networks for years, but soon they'll act as the hubs that unify data center networks.

Storage magazine June 2009 PDF
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Coming in Storage magazine's July/August 2009 issue
A sneak peek at Storage magazine's next issue.

Put data dedupe to the test by W. Curtis Preston
You can take your chances and believe the deduplication ratios and performance the vendors say you'll get, or you can do it right and test the systems yourself.

Storage magazine May 2009 PDF
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The time is right for efficient storage by Rich Castagna
Storage budgets are lower this year, forcing storage managers to think creatively and act strategically.

A dynamic four-tier storage design
A comprehensive revamping of the storage environment at a major government agency shows how a tiered storage design can meet operational expectations without busting the budget.

Coming in Storage magazine's June 2009 issue
A sneak peek at Storage magazine's next issue.

Replication alternatives by Jacob Gsoedl
Data replication is great for protecting critical data and ensuring quick recoveries. Find out where you should deploy replication: in your array, network or servers.

Virtual jobs
Virtualizing servers, storage and even networks will change the face of IT and significantly impact the roles of storage professionals.

Power-smart disk systems
Disk drive systems use more power than just about any other data center gear, but storage vendors are addressing this problem with a variety of technologies.

Value-based data protection
There's no skimping when it comes to data protection, but tight budgets mean that storage managers will be looking for solid value in their backup products.

Storage magazine April 2009 PDF
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Coming in Storage magazine's May 2009 issue
A sneak peek at Storage magazine's May 2009 issue.

Quality Awards IV: Dell plus EqualLogic -- A winning combination by Rich Castagna
Dell's midrange arrays soar from last to first in our user service and reliability survey.

Remote-office backups made easy by Rick Cook
With plenty of economical disk-based backup products and cloud-based services available, remote offices can be brought back into the fold

Dedupe update: What's coming in 2009
Everybody knows that the hottest thing in storage in 2008 was data deduplication. Don't expect it to cool off in 2009.

Storage magazine March 2009 PDF
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Coming in Storage magazine's April 2009 issue
A sneak peek at Storage magazine's April 2009 issue.

Best storage Products of the Year 2008 by Editors of Storage and SearchStorage.com
Scores of excellent storage products were rolled out in the past year, introducing new technologies or adding significant enhancements to tried-and-true storage technologies.

Timetable for 10 Gigabit Ethernet by Christine Cignoli
The next generation of Ethernet is likely to have a profound effect on storage -- pumped-up iSCSI performance may challenge Fibre Channel's tier 1 dominance.

The under-over on DR by James Damoulakis
One size doesn't fit all, especially when it comes to disaster recovery planning. Learn how to build a multitiered DR services capability.

Storage magazine February 2009 issue PDF
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Disaster recovery site options by Jacob Gsoedl
Hot site, warm site or cold site? Here's how to figure out the best disaster recovery strategy for your company.

Consolidated archiving by Stephen Foskett
There are two approaches to archiving: independent architectures for single apps or one architecture to consolidate all archives on a single platform. We examine the pros and cons.

Storage magazine January 2009 issue PDF
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Next year's hot technologies by Ellen O'Brien
In our annual look ahead at hot storage technologies, we present our nominees for those storage technologies that are poised to break out of the pack and become essential building blocks for new products that make storage easier to manage, less costly and better performing.

2009: Do more with less by Rich Castagna
According to Storage magazine's 2009 Storage Priorities survey, budgets earmarked for storage technologies will increase on average by only 3.8%. Tighter purse strings will affect most, if not all, companies, but mid-sized businesses may get hit a little harder than their smaller and larger cousins. But having less to spend doesn't mean storage managers will have less to do in 2009.

How your SAN will evolve by Alan Radding
We asked storage vendors, industry analysts and technologists serving on storage industry associations about where they saw the SAN heading. There may not be sweeping architectural changes in five years, but there will be changes in the basic building blocks of the SAN infrastructure: networks and protocols; switches; storage arrays, disks and controllers; and SAN management.

DR for virtualized servers by Jacob Gsoedl
A high level of mobility and the relative hardware independence of virtual servers greatly reduces the cost and complexity of putting disaster recovery (DR) in place, enabling companies to expand DR to a larger number of servers and applications.

Economy down, salaries up by Ellen O'Brien
Our sixth annual Storage Salary Survey shows storage salaries are rising overall, and climbing even higher as the number of terabytes managed increases. Experienced storage pros remain in demand but many respondents say that heavier workloads, smaller staffs, longer hours and tighter budgets are all contributing to stress and making the job of managing storage even tougher.

Five things that mess up your backups by W. Curtis Preston
Data backups are still job No. 1--and problem No. 1--for most storage managers. In this article, backup guru W. Curtis Preston describes the five most prevalent backup system problems and explains what you can do to prevent or remedy them.

Show-me state shows how to consolidate storage by Alan Radding
Whether it's the result of a merger or just good housekeeping, at some point in time storage managers will have a storage consolidation project. The Missouri state government embarked on a major storage consolidation project that included numerous political and technical hurdles.

Data migration tips by Robert L. Scheier
Data moves. Or, it has to be moved when you're refreshing array technology, merging storage resources with an acquired company or shifting data around to more economical tiers. Data migration is a common task, but it's often a difficult one. We describe some technologies and tools to ease the pain of data migrations.

Second-generation CDP by Jacob Gsoedl
Continuous data protection (CDP) received lots of attention but garnered few takers as a standalone product. Since then, the technology has been incorporated into data protection products and its role is now likely to expand. In addition, rapid data growth and shrinking backup windows are two of the trends that support the increased adoption of CDP.

Economy and capacity at odds by Rich Castagna
With fewer bucks in the budget, storage managers are facing some constraints in dealing with growing storage capacities. But, according to Storage magazine's Purchasing Intentions survey, they're responding by earmarking some of those dollars to newer technologies like data deduplication that will help them cope with burgeoning data stores.

The green storage gap by Ellen O'Brien
Storage departments are trying energy-saving technologies, but measuring ROI is still a challenge. Some storage administrators are plugging vendor-supplied product power consumption numbers into so-called green calculators, but it's no easy task as there are inconsistencies in how each vendor presents its product's power requirements.

Storage for high-performance computing by Deni Connor
The storage and server cluster installed at The University of Texas at Austin is a lesson in how to do high-performance computing (HPC). Storage requirements for HPC go beyond massive capacity and include the use of high-performance file systems.

Dedupe myths and methods by Alan Radding
Exaggerated claims, rapidly changing technology and persistent myths make navigating the deduplication landscape treacherous. We list the top five dedupe myths and provide tips to help you get a deduplication product that fits your organization's needs at a competitive price.

Virtual server backup tips by Alan Radding
Virtualized servers yield many benefits, but they can also add complexity to backup operations. There are three main ways to back up a virtual server. Here's how to determine which method is best for your virtualized server environment and storage requirements.

CDP in depth by Jerome M. Wendt
Continuous data protection (CDP) technology is now a viable alternative to traditional backup software and storage system-based replication software. But CDP products can vary significantly, especially in the context of different storage architectures. Depending on specific environments, companies may have to evaluate very different criteria before settling on a CDP product.

Are full backups a thing of the past? by Kevin Suttle
In the not-so-distant past, we relied on tape backups for operational recovery, disaster recovery and long-term data retention. But are full nightly backups to tape still needed now that we have new disk-based technologies like snapshots and continuous data protection?

Quality Awards IV: On top again: CommVault Galaxy, EMC Retrospect by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
CommVault's Galaxy solidified its position as the top enterprise backup product by finishing first for the third time in the four years we've conducted the Quality Awards. Among the midrange products, EMC Retrospect retained its crown as group champion.

Centralize virtualization at the switch by Jacob Gsoedl
There are a number of ways you can virtualize your storage, but because a switch-based virtualization engine works out-of-band, there's no need for server agents, making it the most scalable and highest performing of all virtualization architectures.

Move data fast by Ellen O'Brien
As the WAN optimization market has matured, vendors have been competing on features such as advanced compression techniques and traffic management, including load balancing and protocol optimization for Web-based apps. But make sure the new or enhanced product features are truly priorities for your environment and test them thoroughly before buying.

Small disks, big specs by Alan Radding
Hard disk drives have been around for more than 50 years, but the technology is on the cusp of big changes--SAS, a shift to the 2.5-inch form factor and a steady increase in disk drive capacity--that will affect enterprise storage for years to come.

Enterprise-ready VTLs by Robert L. Scheier
Enterprise-class virtual tape libraries (VTLs) are an increasingly cost-effective destination for data that needs to be backed up or restored quickly, and isn't quite ready for offsite archiving. But the more complex the storage environment, the more attention users should pay to how the VTL provides scalability, performance, manageability and deduplication.

Quality Awards IV: It's a tie--EMC and NetApp share enterprise array honors by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
In the four years we've conducted our Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Award for enterprise arrays, we've never had co-winners ... until now. EMC Corp. rode to the top on very strong scores in the product features and reliability sections, while co-winner NetApp was a model of consistency.

Storage at your service by Ellen O'Brien
Storage-as-a-service (SaaS) companies learned from the mistakes of their dot-com era predecessors. Today, SaaS is being driven by economic factors, as well as runaway data growth, compliance requirements, security issues and disaster recovery mandates. And a few well-established storage heavyweights entering the market hasn't hurt any.

Lights, camera, storage! by Deni Connor
The digital media business and corporate multimedia departments are looking at increasing terabytes and even petabytes of information generated in the creation, editing, archiving and distribution of digital content. In addition, the move to high-definition television and higher resolution camera work will tax storage boundaries.

Solid State: New frontier for storage by Jacob Gsoedl
Solid-state media is starting to show up as an option for traditional storage arrays because it offers higher performance and lower power consumption. However, there are still reliability concerns related to wear out, the slower write performance of flash cells, and issues related to array management and interoperability.

Server blades and storage by Ellen O'Brien
Many IT shops are moving from traditional rack-mounted servers to blade configurations in hopes of reducing power and floor space requirements in their data centers. But combining blade architectures with server virtualization can cause problems with I/O and storage systems.

Here comes 8Gig Fibre Channel by Alan Radding
New 8Gb/sec host bus adapters (HBAs) and switch devices have started arriving. But with storage arrays incorporating the new, higher speed technology still months away, end-to-end 8Gb storage infrastructures are still in the planning stages. Storage managers can get a jump on their 8Gig configurations by upgrading switches and HBAs now, or by considering networking gear that supports Fibre Channel over Ethernet.

Storage gets a dose of medical data by Alan Radding
By 2014, healthcare providers will be required to make every patient's medical information available electronically. While having all of a patient's data in one place will make it easier to diagnose and treat them, many medical IT departments don't have the IT infrastructure, storage and network bandwidth to accommodate these records.

Migrate data without mistakes by Deni Connor
Data migrations are a fact of life. In many cases, the migration ends up being a tedious process. Automated tools can help ease migration woes. Host-based migration software takes the load off the storage array and can easily bridge the gap when migrating data between heterogeneous storage systems. But array-based migration may be preferred for technology refreshes.

The big crunch: Capacity grows, budgets shrink by Rich Castagna
The brief respite storage managers enjoyed from the ever-escalating need for more disk capacity appears to be over. Respondents to our 2008 Purchasing Intentions survey say they'll add an average of 47TB of new disk capacity this year. But they'll have to do it with smaller storage budgets. And while virtualization could help respondents use their storage more efficiently, it's still receiving a cool reception.

10 key considerations for email archiving by Stephen Foskett
If you haven't standardized on an email archiving product, it can be time-consuming to find one that fits your company's needs. We list the 10 questions that will help you narrow down the list of available products and find the one that best suits your requirements.

QUALITY AWARDS III: NetApp sweeps NAS awards by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
After a clean sweep of both the enterprise and midrange categories, NetApp is the undisputed NAS king. BlueArc Corp., last year's enterprise winner, didn't have a chance to challenge NetApp with too few responses to make the final cut.

Tools to test your DR plan by Robert L. Scheier
Periodically testing a disaster recovery (DR) plan is essential, but it can be a time-consuming and expensive task. New tools that check DR configurations and constantly monitor your site's readiness to recover from a disaster can cut costs and testing time, and provide a level of confidence that your DR plan will actually work when it's needed.

Big files create big backup issues by Stephen Foskett
Big files and millions of files clogging storage systems can create big backup headaches. While there's no quick fix to the problem of big backups, there are many effective approaches, including adjustments to your backup process and newer technologies from backup vendors.

Legal toolkit for storage systems by Alan Radding
Storage managers may be reluctant to admit it, but they and the storage systems they manage are key players in most companies' compliance and legal readiness procedures. While ediscovery is the current buzzword, there's currently no all-encompassing ediscovery tool on the market. But you can assemble an effective toolkit with some of the point products that are available now.

Automate storage management by Rich Bourdeau
IT process automation tools provide workflows that can help automate manual storage management processes. The real value is when these workflow engines are integrated with storage management apps to not only guide administrators through the process, but provide them with information to make intelligent decisions and automate some of the more basic tasks.

Is iSCSI good enough? by Deni Connor
Organizations of all sizes have adopted iSCSI because it's easy to install, inexpensive, behaves just like Ethernet and doesn't require specialized skill sets like Fibre Channel does. But do analyst claims that iSCSI performance falls short of that for Fiber Channel hold up?

The benefits of clustered storage by Robert L. Scheier
Clustered storage combines multiple arrays or controllers to increase their performance, capacity or reliability. But the technology isn't right for every company. We outline what you need to know before deciding to adopt clustered storage.

QUALITY AWARDS III: Compellent shakes up midrange array field by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
No "big name" vendor has yet won the top spot in our Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Awards for midrange arrays. This year, two relative newcomers--Compellent and EqualLogic--topped the field of competitors.

Automate application recovery by Eric Burgener
Today's application continuity computing (ACC) products are best suited for small- and medium-sized businesses, and are focused exclusively on Exchange, which most companies now consider a business-critical application. But the concentration on Exchange will likely change over the next few years, as several ACC vendors plan support for SQL Server and SharePoint in the future.

Arrays score with both file and block storage by Jacob Gsoedl
Multiprotocol arrays that support block- and file-based storage through a single controller give users the best of both worlds: NAS for file-based information, and Fibre Channel or ISCSI block-based storage for databases and other transactional apps.

Quality Awards III: IBM and Sun shine among tape libraries by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
Despite their mechanical components, the reliability of tape libraries ranks high among respondents to our Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Awards. This year, IBM takes top honors in the enterprise category, while Sun reigns supreme among midrange products.

Vendors retool SRM apps by Bob Laliberte
The definition of what constitutes storage resource management (SRM) depends on who you ask and what they're selling. A recent study by the Enterprise Strategy Group queried respondents on the SRM features they use most often, their most desired features and if they would purchase an SRM product without a particular feature.

Case study: NY Mets add deduplication to roster by Alan Radding
With an extensive lineup of corporate data, photos and video, the Mets needed to recruit some backup help. The call went out for low-cost disk backup configuration, including deduplication and compression to reduce the amount of data to be backed up, as well as WAN optimization/acceleration to speed up the replication process. After much consideration, Data Domain was drafted for the job.

Best Storage Products of 2007 by Editors of Storage and SearchStorage.com
Our sixth annual Products of the Year awards recognize the 15 new or enhanced storage products that rose to the top in 2007. The editors of Storage magazine and SearchStorage.com, along with a panel of users and industry experts, selected these winning products based on their innovation and performance, among other factors.

Hot Storage Skills by Ellen O'Brien
As storage becomes more complex and costly, businesses are seeking storage professionals who can architect various tiers of networked storage, document what they've done, and help their business units select the type of storage that best supports their applications' requirements at a price that makes the executive suite smile.

More Than Just Backup by Jerome M. Wendt
Data protection is changing rapidly, with point-in-time recoveries, fast legal discovery response and near real-time disaster recoveries becoming new requirements. To address these needs, enterprise backup applications are adding support for continuous data protection, deduplication, ediscovery, single-instance storage and the VMware Consolidated Backup framework. These backup suites promise not only integrated data protection, but overall enterprise data management.

Unlimited storage by Alan Radding
Clemson University has big plans as it upgrades its data center—and those plans call for lots and lots of storage. Their new IT infrastructure is being built along the lines of the National Science Foundation's Cyberinfrastructure initiative. Clemson expects its new world-class facility to attract a new crop of young faculty who will find the storage, bandwidth and CPU resources needed to support their research efforts.

Storage standards: A progress report by Rick Cook
The Storage Management Initiative-Specification (SMI-S), eXtensible Access Method (XAM), encryption key management and the Fabric Application Interface Standard (FAIS) are four standards that could radically change the way you manage storage systems and protect data. We look at the status of each of these standards and where they're headed.

Video focuses on storage by Alan Radding
In the not-so-distant past, IT barely noticed conventional video surveillance. But with digital video on the rise in enterprises, storage teams will need to play a key role in accommodating the petabytes of data generated by video surveillance systems.

Taming storage virtualization by Jerome M. Wendt
Where storage virtualization should reside and how it should be applied depends on the size of the storage infrastructure, the type of applications running in it, and the levels of control and visibility required by administrators. We look at the leading storage virtualization products and help you decide which technology may be best for your storage shop.

Hot technologies for 2008 by Alan Radding
Each year, Storage magazine's editors pore through product introductions, study technology developments and ask users about their plans for the coming year to create a short list of must-have technologies for 2008. We think LTO-4, N_Port ID Virtualization, deduplication, ediscovery and green storage can't be ignored, and are likely to impact your storage shop next year.

Run storage as a utility by Jacob Gsoedl
Converting from a traditional decentralized IT and storage infrastructure to running IT services and storage like a utility isn't a trivial task; it requires a big shift for both business units and IT. But mandates to lower costs and meet compliance requirements will undoubtedly result in an increasing number of organizations opting for centralized storage models with tiered storage offerings.

VTL data management issues by Jerome M. Wendt
As disk libraries become the primary backup target for near-term data recoveries, storage managers are exploring new ways to exploit tape's high capacity, low cost and mobility. Disk is the best medium for fast backups and recoveries, and many companies have turned to virtual tape libraries as a way to put disk in their backup process. On the surface, it may seem easy to implement a VTL, but there are many subtle operational issues that must be dealt with to ensure that your data can be recovered quickly when needed.

New demands, higher salaries for storage pros by Ellen O'Brien
Our fifth annual Storage Salary Survey finds that time in the storage trenches is paying off with bigger salaries. However, stress levels and workloads are also rising, as respondents have to manage more storage with less money and increased scrutiny from upper management.

Do RAID levels still matter? by Bradley W. Hughey
Most new storage arrays automatically distribute data onto a number of spindles, which eliminates the manual task of selecting RAID levels. You can still manually select your RAID levels, but you'll need to balance availability, risks and costs.

Solid-state storage finds its niche by Alan Radding
Storage managers facing critical storage performance problems and needing maximum IOPS have found a feasible option in solid-state disk. Solid-state storage is fast, cool and it barely sips power, but it's still far more expensive than traditional media.

Where encryption fits best by Jerome M. Wendt and Joshua Konkle
Everybody knows they should encrypt tapes that go offsite, but many are still on the fence about where encryption should occur in their storage environments. There are a number of options, ranging from using your backup app's encryption capabilities to installing a purpose-built encryption appliance. We weigh the pros and cons of the available alternatives so that you can decide which approach best suits your shop.

Buying update: Storage managers' purchasing plans by Rich Castagna
The second installment of Storage magazine's 2007 Purchasing Intentions survey reveals some subtle changes in storage managers' buying plans but, for the most part, many storage shops are following through with the goals they laid out in the spring edition of the survey. With capacity growth seemingly under control, more attention is being paid to newer storage technologies.

How useful are storage benchmarks? by Jacob Gsoedl
Most storage vendors like to tout how well their gear performed on benchmark tests, but the results may not always be as they first appear. The benchmarking process can be easily manipulated because of the large number of variables that influence performance results. To level the playing field, test results need to be categorized by product type, configuration standards need to be defined for each category and vendors must strictly adhere to the configurations.

Storage grid pushes the envelope by Jacob Gsoedl
What started out as a test-bed project for Network Appliance is now a good example of architecting enterprise storage systems. The vendor's Kilo-Client project showcases how SAN booting and thinly provisioned snapshots can be used in a storage grid for rapid provisioning, simplified storage management and huge disk space savings.

Protect Exchange data by Jerome Wendt
Email is now firmly established as a critical application, with more than 60% of enterprises using Microsoft Exchange for their corporate email, according to Gartner. This widespread adoption of Microsoft Exchange, and growing electronic discovery requirements, make protecting it a more complicated proposition than just performing simple backups and recoveries.

How SANs aid backup by Bradley W. Hughey
The primary motivation for building a SAN is often to meet a pressing need for performance, scalability or both. But today's new SAN buyers are looking for more than performance and scalability; they're interested in better ways of protecting their data, using such techniques as snapshots of SAN volumes and sometimes even relying on newer technologies to replace traditional backups.

New role for tape libraries by Jerome Wendt
Tape libraries are finally assuming the role they were designed for: longterm protection and preservation of data. But as disk assumes its new role as the initial target for backups and the source for restores, tape library vendors need to shore up their abilities to interact with disk libraries and provide users with some definitive answers on encryption.

New rules, new game for compliance and ediscovery by Jay Brudz, Marilyn Bota and Alan Radding
The updated Federal Rules of Civil Procedure set new standards for electronically stored information, and may have a significant bearing on how your company manages its digital documents. Some of the country's top legal experts weigh-in with suggestions on how to create retention policies that can keep your company on the right side of the law.

Stamp out NAS threats by Jacob Gsoedl
NAS is open to many of the exploits (viruses, worms, unauthorized access, data tampering, snooping and IP spoofing) that have plagued Windows-based systems. But even though NAS runs on ubiquitous Ethernet and TCP/IP transport protocols, it's fairly easy to protect. The hard part is selecting the right level of protection.

CommVault Galaxy, EMC Retrospect best of the backup apps by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
In general, product ratings for the third annual Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Award for backup and recovery software increased over last year's scores. CommVault's Galaxy, this year's enterprise-class winner, returned to the winner's circle after losing its crown to BakBone NetVault: Backup last year. In the SMB area, EMC's Retrospect also returned to the top spot after a one-year hiatus.

The advantages of asynchronous replication by Jerome Wendt
Storage system-based asynchronous replication is becoming the new de facto standard to recover data quickly for business continuity. Asynchronous replication offers advantages over more costly synchronous replication, but it still requires similar arrays at both ends of the replication setup, so it's likely that you'll rely on a single vendor's technology.

Data destruction: When data should disappear by Jo Maitland
Most companies don't have a detailed policy that governs what data they need to keep and what data should be destroyed. Deciding on the destruction levels you're comfortable with is the easiest part of this puzzle. The most complicated piece is figuring out what to destroy and when, and then sticking to it.

How to write an archiving program RFP by Sharon Fisher
With so many archiving systems on the market, putting together a request for proposal (RFP) for an archiving program for structured, semistructured or unstructured data is a key step. It's equally important that your team is well-prepared to evaluate vendor proposals so you'll end up with a product that fits your company's needs at a price that doesn't break your budget.

Demystifying Unix dump by David J. Young
dump is a powerful tool to back up Unix files. In this excerpt from W. Curtis Preston's new book, Backup & Recovery: Inexpensive Backup Solutions for Open Systems, the dump utility is described in detail, including how it works, when to use it and exactly what can go wrong at various stages of the dump backup process.

Fibre Channel director face-off: Brocade vs. Cisco by Jerome Wendt
Fibre Channel directors are the choice for consolidating isolated SAN fabrics. Brocade's 48000 Director and Cisco's MDS 9513 Multilayer Director are the undisputed leaders in this small field, but they offer very different paths to storage services and consolidation options. We'll help you decide which company's product is the best director for your storage environment.

Tools to fine-tune your backups by Jacob Gsoedl
Backup and recovery applications typically include reporting capabilities, but they're often rudimentary and provide only basic information on the success or failure of data protection operations. Data protection and recovery management (DPRM) products, an emerging class of monitoring and planning tools, fill in the gaps where traditional backup apps fall short. DPRM tools provide advanced capacity reporting, predict usage patterns and allow performance tuning, troubleshooting and cost management. Here's how to pick the best product for your shop.

Can iSCSI crack the enterprise? by Stephen Foskett
iSCSI storage systems are showing up in medium-sized businesses, but storage managers at large enterprise shops have been reluctant to embrace them. This is largely because Fibre Channel (FC) is so firmly entrenched in bigger companies. But iSCSI offers some unique benefits that may appeal to shops with FC-only environments.

HDS reigns over enterprise arrays ... again by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
The third annual Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Award for enterprise arrays saw some changes among the vendors, but a familiar theme prevailed as Hitachi Data Systems copped top honors for the third time.

Mix SAS/SATA drives for speed or capacity by Jerome Wendt
The emerging class of mixed SAS and SATA storage systems could be the next big disruptive technology. Mixing high- and low-cost SAS and SATA disk drives within the same system, at interconnect speeds comparable to Fibre Channel, is a recipe for significant change and opens the door to data lifecycle management.

Upstart tops NAS vendors by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
In our second edition of the Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Award for NAS systems, large NAS vendors like Network Appliance and EMC scored well, but a lesser known company emerged as the surprise winner of enterprise NAS.

Consolidating remote offices by Brad O'Neill
Storage magazine and Taneja Group conducted a survey of 254 IT professionals with responsibility for remote-/branch-office (ROBO) management and planning. Our research reveals that while 70% of respondents now view ROBO as central to business operations, there are still many areas of uncertainty and confusion.

Corral virtual server backup by W. Curtis Preston
The popularity of VMware virtual servers has grown significantly in the last few years, prompting questions about how to back them up. In an exclusive excerpt from his new book, Backup & Recovery: Inexpensive Backup Solutions for Open Systems, W. Curtis Preston writes about the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods of protecting virtual server data.

Catching up with deduplication by Jerome Wendt
Deduplication backup products differ in how they recognize and reduce duplicate data. Because vendors implement deduplication differently, the fear, uncertainty and doubt surrounding deduplication products has increased, with questions about when to deploy what product. Here's what you need to know to pick the product that will best fit into your environment.

Negotiating for support
Over a period of just a few years, the amount you spend on support contracts could equal or even exceed the price of the product itself. But storage support contracts are usually optional, and both the extent of coverage and its cost are definitely negotiable. A little hard bargaining and creativity, along with the leverage of seeking maintenance from a third-party support company, can go a long way toward knocking down your support costs.

Storage managers in control
For the first time in five years, the amount of capacity storage managers plan to add this year dropped, according to the results of Storage magazine's latest Purchasing Intentions Survey. To be sure, the decrease was more of a sign that relief may be on the way for storage managers who have spent the last few years trying to keep up with runaway storage growth.

Secure iSCSI storage
One of the raps against iSCSI storage is that it's not as secure as Fibre Channel SANs. But iSCSI can be as secure as you want it to be. It was built from the ground up with strong authentication and encryption capabilities that work … as long as they're used.

Midrange rivals top dog
Midrange arrays are encroaching on enterprise storage territory. Today's high-end midrange arrays and low-end enterprise arrays might look very similar. Features like clustering, mirrored cache, replication and snapshots have trickled down from enterprise arrays, while low-priced SATA drives have moved up to enterprise arrays.

L.L.Bean overhauls its backup process by Alan Radding
With mainframe constraints slowing down its backup, L.L.Bean's IT group created a three-phase initiative to overhaul its entire approach to mainframe and open-systems backup and recovery.

Free up database space by Marc R. Duvoisin
Database archiving is critical to the long-term management of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application. Archiving can shorten backup windows, speed recoveries and improve the database's overall performance. But effective archiving means carefully selecting the data to be removed from the production application and moved to secondary storage, and ensuring that it remains available and adequately protected.

Unsnarl port traffic by Jacob Gsoedl
Configuring the number of ports on storage arrays and switches shouldn't be a guessing game that results in an excess of ports and a big dent in your budget. To properly size a switch or storage array, you need to analyze the average and peak bandwidth requirements of each device. Monitoring current utilization rates will help you determine effective bandwidth requirements.

New connections: SAS and iSCSI HBAs by Jerome M. Wendt
Serial-attached SCSI and iSCSI host bus adapters (HBAs) represent the latest in server-to-storage connectivity technologies. Tailored to specifically address the needs of two emerging storage protocols, these new HBAs can ensure that performance isn't sacrificed when one of these alternatives to Fibre Channel storage is deployed.

Rein in NAS with file virtualization by Jerome M. Wendt
NAS filers have sprung up largely unchecked in many companies, creating major management headaches and forcing companies to reevaluate how they handle this critical piece of storage infrastructure. File virtualization appliances can address multiple filer pain points by pooling disparate storage, providing a global namespace and making short shrift of data migrations.

Are you ready for new compliance rules? by Mike Casey
Two things to know about storage and regulator compliance: There's no single technology product that meets all compliance requirements and there's plenty of prep work to do before you even think about technology. The first step is to define your unique requirements, including compliance and litigation-readiness needs, as well as business productivity and service-level objectives.

Power costs put the squeeze on storage by Alan Radding
Storage shops keep growing and growing, adding capacity to keep up with the business. But the cost of powering all that additional capacity and keeping it cool is growing, too, and some data centers are being pushed to their limits. Thinking green can help stem the tide of soaring power costs and also help you figure in the cost of end-of-life disposal for your aging equipment.

Swap tape for removable disks by Jerome M. Wendt
New removable disk drives combine the speed and reliability of disk with tape's portability. But widespread enterprise adoption may be inhibited until problems, such as costly disk drives and incompatibility with some major backup software products and automated tape libraries, are solved.

Best storage products of 2006 by Editors of Storage and SearchStorage.com
Our fifth annual Products of the Year awards recognize the 15 new or enhanced storage products that rose to the top in 2006. The editors of Storage and SearchStorage.com, along with a panel of users and industry experts, selected these winning products based on their innovation and performance.

Protect laptop data by Alan Radding
When your company's data is mobile, it's far more vulnerable, so protecting laptop data is critical. Protecting data on laptops is a two-pronged process: ensuring the data is always available using backup, and securing data from prying eyes through encryption.

Integrating iSCSI and FC storage by Jacob Gsoedl
Mixing iSCSI with Fibre Channel (FC) allows you to make more efficient use of installed storage capacity, but marrying the two protocols isn't without its challenges. Bringing iSCSI into existing FC SANs raises integration issues and leads to a somewhat more complex storage infrastructure that requires IP and FC knowledge, as well as the ability to manage and troubleshoot a multiprotocol storage environment.

Clustering ERP apps by Marc R. Duvoisin
For mission-critical apps, availability is the key. Clustering those applications can ensure they stay up and running, but clustering often conjures up images of complex technologies and an environment that's fragile and complex. Still, for most companies, the benefits of clustering are profound enough to mitigate its risks.

Face-Off: EMC DMX-3 vs. Hitachi USP1100 by Brad O'Neill
Only a handful of storage vendors produce truly top-of-the-line arrays, and EMC and Hitachi Data Systems dominate those ranks with their respective Symmetrix DMX-3 and TagmaStore USP1100 products. These vendors attain high capacity and high performance using two very different architectures. We examine the differences to see if one approach outstrips the other.

Quality Awards II: Leading libraries by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
Although they're the most mechanical part of a backup system, users are fairly satisfied with the reliability of their tape libraries. And despite high-profile consolidation among tape library vendors, the results of the second edition of the Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Awards largely reinforced last year's results.

Protect remote-office data by Marc Staimer
Centralizing remote-office and branch-office (ROBO) apps and their data in the primary data center has enormous economies of scale. These remote-data apps cut the amount of data sent over the wire, making it possible to economically back up remote data to a central site. We provide a sampling of the various ROBO data management products on the market, and describe how they can best be implemented.

Hot technologies for 2007 by Alan Radding
Storage magazine's editors reviewed technology developments, product introductions and storage standards to come up with this short list of must-have technologies for 2007. We believe iSCSI SANs, hardware-based tape encryption, high-capacity disk drives, virtualization and thin provisioning will have the greatest impact on enterprise storage environments.

SAN consolidation strategies by Jacob Gsoedl
As islands of SANs proliferate in companies, the cost of storage can soar. Sound SAN design strategies allow companies to reduce the number of SAN islands, strengthen a primary SAN, make storage easier to manage and provide more data protection.

Quality Awards II: EqualLogic emerges as top midrange array by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
The second edition of the Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Awards turned up yet another surprise winner, this time for midrange arrays. In its first year in our survey, EqualLogic snagged the top spot with its PS Series of storage arrays.

Configuring storage for ERP by Marc R. Duvoisin
The "crown jewels" of corporate data are typically maintained within enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. But for many storage managers, ERP is a minefield of critical information and competing priorities. In this first installment of a three-part series, we look at ways to protect ERP data while improving performance.

Host-based replication by Jerome M. Wendt
There are three distinct architectures of host-level replication software: Windows-only file system, multi-OS file system and multi-OS blocklevel products. Each alternative offers specific features that make it a better fit for some types of data protection.

Big pay for storage jobs by Rich Castagna
Storage professionals report the highest average salaries in the four years that Storage magazine has conducted its Storage Salary Survey. See how industry, location, education, company size and management responsibilities can affect the size of your paycheck.

Automate data migration by Jerome M. Wendt
Moving seldom-accessed data from primary storage to less-costly storage not only saves money, but can also improve the performance of applications. Hierarchical storage management (HSM) software can help automate the migration of files, but HSM products vary in the way they approach the task. So it's important to identify the requirements of an HSM product before making a choice.

Quality Awards II: Surprise Winner--BakBone NetVault is leader of the backup pack by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
BakBone Software Inc.'s NetVault, which ranked near the bottom in our 2005 survey, is this year's enterprise-class backup and recovery software winner. We'll tell you how BakBone pulled off this stunning turnaround.

Apps to classify and find data by Greg Forest
Data classification may seem like an arcane art, but a growing set of information classification and management products make sorting through your company's data easier than ever. These tools provide the foundation for litigation discovery, cost reduction, record management and retention, archiving, deduplication and usage control.

The right way to provision storage by Alan Radding
Provisioning storage is still mostly a manual job, but solid planning, including the right interested parties and some improved tools, can help ease the chore. Follow these provisioning best practices to gain greater performance and higher disk utilization.

What storage managers are buying and why by Rich Castagna
Our second installment of the 2006 edition of Storage magazine's exclusive Purchasing Intentions Survey reveals key storage technology purchasing decisions by storage managers across all industries.

Case Study: Moving from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange by Alan Radding
Hyperion Solutions Corp. decided it could no longer cope with having two separate e-mail apps. Storage considerations were among the many hurdles the firm had to overcome. Here's how they did it.

Long-term archiving by Logan G. Harbaugh
With some legislative requirements mandating data be kept for as long as 70 years, your organization needs an archiving plan that defines what data needs to be kept and why. But don't overlook how you'll restore old data when it needs to be accessed.

How to manage encryption keys by Logan G. Harbaugh
Encryption is an effective way to secure data. But managing encryption keys can be a major undertaking. While there are no encompassing key management tools available yet, some apps can help you keep track of proliferating encryption keys.

Backup SLAs: The art of diplomacy by Stephen Foskett
Negotiating backup service-level agreements (SLAs) can be one of the toughest elements of transitioning IT from a mere technology competence center to a real part of the business. Detailing what a backup service will provide, and figuring out how to measure and report on these promises, will greatly improve enterprise storage operations.

CDP: Look before you leap by Marc Staimer
Some pundits have postulated that continuous data protection (CDP) will replace backup. But is that just new technology hyperbole or is CDP a must-have technology?

How faster tape drives can slow down your backups by W. Curtis Preston
Today's high-speed tape drives can outrun a network, causing the drive to have to wait for a data stream. This shoe-shining effect can be overcome, but only if you make disk your primary backup target.

Backup-to-disk performance tuning by Craig Everett
Disk-based backup can lower costs, reduce complexity and add scalability. But to achieve top performance, you'll need to do lots of benchmarking and watch for poorly configured production storage.

Backups are not archives by W. Curtis Preston
While it's possible to restore data from old backups, you shouldn't use them as archives. Leading storage expert W. Curtis Preston details the differences between the two technologies and explains why you need an e-mail archiving program.

Three ways to outsource backups by Stephen Foskett and Michael Tobin
Getting third-party help for backup--through insourcing, online backup or hosted backup services--can improve a storage group's productivity, consistency and efficiency.

Anatomy of an upgrade: Veritas NetBackup 6.0 by Jo Maitland
Veritas NetBackup 6.0 is a significant revision of the popular backup application but, like many new software versions, it has had its share of bugs. Did Symantec release Version 6.0 too soon, or did users fail to plan properly?

Storage apps keep Exchange running 24/7 by Alan Radding
E-mail has earned mission-critical status among enterprise applications, and reliable storage systems are the key to keeping it up and running. Storage managers need to understand Microsoft Exchange's unique requirements to ensure its high availability.

Quality Awards II: The elite of enterprise arrays by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
Hitachi Data Systems consolidates its claim as the top-rated enterprise array by sweeping all five user-experience categories in the 2006 edition of our survey.

Disaster recovery: Test, test and test some more by Jacob Gsoedl
Storage managers in New Orleans thought their disaster recovery (DR) plans were solid. Hurricane Katrina showed them otherwise. These dramatic stories are testimony that a DR plan is worthless unless it's been tested, updated and then tested again.

Three ways to create clustered storage by Jerome M. Wendt
Clustered storage provides many benefits, including resiliency in the event of an equipment failure. See which clustering method is best for your needs and storage environment.

Virtualization: Tales from the trenches by Ray Lucchesi
We profile five companies that have deployed, or are currently testing, storage virtualization and analyze their implementation experiences. The storage pros behind these efforts tell us how the products they chose are working in their production environments.

A step-by-step approach to data classification by Greg Forest
The most common shortcoming of a data classification project is the perception that it can be completed through technical analysis at the storage layer without engaging business users. While discovering and analyzing storage is part of the process, good classification requires engaging business users or their IT representatives.

Choosing the right VTL by Jerome M. Wendt
Disk is increasingly a key part of the backup process, and many companies are taking the virtual tape library (VTL) route to disk-based backup. But all VTLs aren't the same. Find out the key differences among VTL products, and how they might work in your shop.

Automate data recovery by Greg Schulz
Policy-based storage management can automate the data recovery process. But you need to know what types of policies various products support, where the policy manager resides and what it's capable of doing.

Data migration: Proceed with caution by Jerome M. Wendt
This first of a three-part series on data migration products focuses on host-level data migration products. Data migration apps can automate, centralize and simplify data migrations while ensuring data integrity.

Special Supplement: Editorial You don't have to be big to buy big-time storage by Rich Castagna

Special Supplement: iSCSI: Low-cost alternative to FC by Jacob Gsoedl
Based on the familiar TCP/IP networking protocol, iSCSI arrays are easy to implement and manage, and cheaper than Fibre Channel (FC)-based systems. They're also becoming a popular alternative to NAS and DAS for SMBs and remote office locations.

Special Supplement: 10 ways to trim storage costs by Tom Becchetti
Despite tight budgets, the demand for storage continues to grow. Here are some tips to cut some of the fat out of your storage systems and save a few dollars in the process.

Special Supplement: Small office SANs by Alan Radding
Leading vendors are offering entry-level Fibre Channel and iSCSI SANs at record low prices. And you can get a lot for your money.

The best way to expand a SAN by Jacob Gsoedl
Building a new SAN or extending an existing SAN requires careful planning to strike the right balance between performance, cost, scalability, high availability and ease of management. Read how to determine what architecture is best for your company's storage access needs.

What's holding up ILM? by Alan Radding
While vendors work to fill in the gaps in the information lifecycle management stack and connect the pieces, IT and business units must hammer out a manageable set of policies to drive the ILM process in their organizations.

Cut data down to size by Arun Taneja
With today's extreme data growth rates, adding disk-based protection is no longer an option but a requisite. Data reduction can help ease growth pains by paring down the data that goes to disk. There are many products with data-reduction capabilities available, but the technologies they use vary widely.

Real disaster recovery testing by Bill Peldzus
You have a disaster recovery plan in place, but how often does it get tested? We describe what parts of a plan should be tested, suggest a few wrinkles that can make your tests more effective and point out some DR-related activities that are often overlooked.

Backup apps: More choices beyond the big three by Jerome M. Wendt
With numerous applications and a variety of hardware and software platforms, a single enterprise backup software product may not suffice for many companies. A bevy of backup applications that aren't as well-known as "the big three" may be better architected to handle new requirements.

Storage growth drives buying plans by Rich Castagna
The results from our exclusive semi-annual Purchasing Intentions Survey are in. Storage growth is a key concern for storage managers, as additional capacity has a ripple effect that touches many other components in the storage environment.

What your DR plan should protect by Mike Casey
If you have a disaster recovery plan in place, you're a step ahead of many other companies. But you need to assess your plan to ensure critical data is being protected properly and that you're not wasting resources by providing too much protection for less-important data.

Scaling storage by Vic Dery & Ashish Nadkarni
"Scalability" is often defined as the ability of a storage system to support more or higher capacity hard drives. But adding capacity is only part of the scalability picture. To address scalability most effectively, you have to consider how additional capacity will affect other elements in the environment, as well as the performance of hosts and their applications.

Is encryption enough? by Alan Radding
Encrypting data at rest is definitely a reliable security measure, but it should be considered only one component of an effective storage security plan.

Lock up data with fixed-content storage by Jerome M. Wendt
For most companies, fixed-content storage requirements are simple: Store the data securely, do it cheaply and provide fast access. With more data subject to external and internal audits, content-addressed storage products are becoming the preferred storage medium for long-term protection of fixed content.

Quality Awards: Top NAS products by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
In the latest Diogenes Labs-Storage Quality Awards survey, users chose enterprise and midrange NAS winners from more than 20 product lines. A NAS mainstay and a relative newcomer to the category took the top honors.

Single-pane storage management by Jacob Gsoedl
Managing a heterogeneous storage environment means juggling a hodgepodge of vendor-specific tools. Some vendors are working toward a consolidated management console, but standards are needed for single-pane storage management to become a reality.

Creating storage tiers for backup services by Mike Drapeau
Tiered storage is a familiar concept, but the idea of data backup service tiers is relatively new. By matching backup services to the value of data, storage shops can improve overall backup performance and create a more cost-effective data protection environment.

Keep end-user storage in check by Alan Radding
With free e-mail services offering up to 2GB of storage, it's tough to convince corporate e-mail users that mailbox limits are needed. But companies are realizing that user storage quotas are a necessary evil.

Vendor support falls short by Robert L. Stevenson
A recent survey from TheInfoPro shows that storage vendors' support of their products is still a sore point among users. The good news is that some vendors are finally paying attention.

New tape formats are bigger, faster & safer by Jerome M. Wendt
Tape capacities and data transfer rates are growing, but before you get hooked on the speeds and feeds, there are several key points worth considering.

Disaster Recovery Extra: Distance your data from disaster by Alex Barrett
Don Moran uses remote replication to protect a key Oracle database and says that if Charlotte, NC-based Hanson Brick & Tile's DR plan kicks in, its database app will be up and running in less than 15 minutes.

Disaster Recovery Extra: 10 hidden perils of DR planning by W. Curtis Preston
Disaster recovery (DR) plans are finally getting the attention they deserve. But many companies don't know if their DR strategies will work. Here are 10 hazards that can undermine a DR plan.

Disaster Recovery Extra: New tools for building business-continuity plans by Phil Tsihlis
A DR plan can give you a false sense of security if it doesn't consider factors such as employees, revenue, supply chain and facility access. New tools to help ensure business continuity can help.

Big three apps adjust to disk-based backup by Jerome M. Wendt
EMC's NetWorker, IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager and Symantec's Veritas NetBackup are still the leaders for enterprise backup. But as more and more shops back up to disk, the big three have had to adapt to the new requirements of disk-based backup.

Finding Data by Rich Castagna
Archiving applications are increasingly being used to minimize online data stores and to meet compliance requirements. Most of those archivers include search features, but the capabilities vary widely. Understanding how these search tools work will help you find the best fit for your company.

Fine-tune storage networks by Jerome M. Wendt and Mike Skomal
How key SAN components, principally host bus adapters and switches, are configured will determine overall SAN performance. If you know what to look for and how to make adjustments, performance issues can be greatly reduced.

Voice apps can strain storage by Ray Lucchesi
Digital voice recordings are creeping up on storage like e-mail did a decade or so ago, but they're roughly 1,000 times larger per element. Here's how to prevent them from overwhelming your data center.

New life for InfiniBand by Stephen J. Bigelow
InfiniBand storage is finally emerging, but despite its cost, speed and scalability advantages over Fibre Channel, acceptance has been slow in enterprise data centers. But clustered, high-performance computing and demanding applications have helped renew interest in InfiniBand-based storage networks.

Surviving microcode upgrades by Jo Maitland
Vendors often claim that the upgrades to their systems' microcode will be non-disruptive, but installing upgrades often becomes an arduous process. Storage pros, burned by so-called non-disruptive upgrades, have come up with strategies to take the sting out of software updates.

Microsoft's storage push by Brad O'Neill
It's not news that Microsoft wants to become a major player in the storage market, but how the software titan plans to do it may open some eyes. We focus on the four areas that storage managers should track to keep a bead on Microsoft's storage efforts.

Cut out the fat by Karl Langdon
It's not too tough to make short-term cuts to reduce costs, but most companies find it difficult to sustain those cost savings over a longer stretch of time. Here's how to make cost cutting a long-range, ongoing effort.

Best storage products of 2005 by Storage Magazine and SearchStorage.com Editors
Our fourth annual Products of the Year awards spotlight the 15 new or enhanced storage products that stood out from the rest in 2005. The editors of Storage and SearchStorage.com, along with a panel of users and industry experts, selected these winning products based on their innovation and performance, among other criteria.

Speed wars: Fibre Channel vs. Ethernet by Alan Radding
Just as 4Gb/sec Fibre Channel is poised to make its move into the data center, Ethernet is roaring back with its 10Gb/sec technology. But the lure of pure speed might not be enough for Ethernet to overtake Fibre Channel--at least for now.

Shopping for storage: One vendor or more? by Alan Radding
Buying storage today is more difficult than ever. You need to get the best acquisition price, the lowest long-term TCO and avoid vendor lock-in. On top of it all, you must decide which is best: one vendor or more?

Not just a big switch by Jerome M. Wendt
Fibre Channel directors don't just provide lots of ports, they also offer ways to connect disparate SANs, isolate data and devices within a fabric, and configure throughput for specific applications. We look at how the big three directors match up.

Pump up array performance by Ray Lucchesi
As data wends it ways from hosts, through the fabric and to the array, it encounters many potential bottlenecks. But that also means there are a number of ways to improve storage subsystem performance. The key to the tuning process is a thorough understanding of your application requirements.

Encryption appliances reviewed by Logan G. Harbaugh
Lost tapes have been headline news lately, making encryption products hotter than ever. We review encryption products from Kasten Chase, NeoScale Systems and Vormetric to help you choose the best product for your shop.

Top tape libraries revealed by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
Read the results of the fourth Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Awards, which focuses on midrange and enterprise tape libraries. Unlike past Quality Awards, where lesser known companies triumphed, the winners this time around are more familiar names and established backup players.

SRM gets smarter by Jerome M. Wendt
Storage resource management (SRM) software is becoming more than a tool to manage storage devices or report on file system or database utilization. SRM vendors are reshaping their products to become the eyes and ears of the enterprise to obtain critical, real-time information.

Hot technologies for 2006 by Alan Radding
Storage's editors considered a wide range of technologies before settling on the five that we feel will be the hottest storage technologies for 2006. Among the many technologies available to storage shops, we see e-mail archiving, midrange arrays, virtual tape and disk-based backup, SAS/SATA drives and remote office support emerging as the technologies that will be most in demand next year.

NAS consolidation options by Ray Lucchesi
There are four main ways to consolidate NAS--upgrading to larger traditional NAS boxes, clustered file systems, parallel file systems and NAS aggregators. We help you determine the best consolidation option for your storage environment.

Smart career moves by Ann Dalrymple
It's a good time to be working in storage, but no matter what your background or training, gone are the days when you could count on your company to have the same concerns about your career that you do. Here are some steps you can follow to take control of your storage career.

Larger SANs drive storage growth by Mark Schlack
Storage's exclusive Purchasing Intentions Survey polled 524 storage professionals. The survey suggests that storage managers are moving away from many small SANs to fewer, larger SANs that can power more services and connect to more places.

Get ready for virtualization by Jerome M. Wendt
The benefits of virtualization are apparent, but getting there is another matter. Many products can deliver some form of virtualization, but behind the promises of storage utopia looms vendor lock-in. But even if the rewards are greater than the risks, you still need to assess which virtualization options are mature enough to deploy.

Storage salaries increase by Alan Radding
The results for Storage's annual salary survey are in and storage professionals report salary growth. While the increases over last year are modest, they do represent the third straight year that our exclusive survey has shown an increase in storage salaries.

File Systems: The state of the art by Brad O'Neill
Generally overlooked, file systems are assuming a prominent place at the heart of new technologies that address some of the most vexing storage problems, such as scaling and performance. New file-system approaches provide the underpinnings for technologies such as clustering, global namespaces and wide-area computing.

Quality Awards: What are the best midrange arrays? by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
Midrange array users are a generally satisfied group, according to the latest Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Awards survey. While all midrange array vendors fared quite well in this third installment of our awards program, the vendor that snared top honors might surprise some people.

Secure your backups by Alex Barrett
The headlines tell the story: Lost tapes can jeopardize the confidentiality of personal information and cause public-relations woes for those companies charged with safeguarding that data. Encryption can solve the problem, but implementing tape encryption isn't so easy, as performance issues could impact backup windows.

The lowdown on replication appliances by Jerome M. Wendt
Operating system- and storage array-agnostic, replication appliances give companies increased flexibility to address one-time and continuous data replication needs, while allowing applications to continue processing without data loss or to recover with minimal downtime.

Will your disaster recovery plan work? by Alan Radding
No matter how many checklists a company creates, the number of disaster scenarios it considers or even how assiduously it backs up data, managers can't be confident in their firm's ability to recover data unless the systems have been tested thoroughly.

Process frameworks and storage by Mike Drapeau
Process frameworks provide guidelines for improving storage practices and procedures. But understanding the differences between process, procedure and policy is essential. Here are 10 ways to ensure a successful process framework implementation.

Better capacity forecasting by Dan Weinstein
There are two methods for devising storage capacity forecasts: quantitative and qualitative. By combining the two, you can develop practical metrics that will make more accurate forecasts.

Data grids for storage by Ray Lucchesi
Data grids are used by the scientific community to access data resources around the world. Companies can use the principles underlying these global grids to link geographically dispersed sites.

Hidden threats to data by Dick Benton
Inadequacies in storage governance and weaknesses in data management may pose far less-visible risks to a company's data. To mitigate these threats, you must be aware of the impact and probability of these risks to reduce or eliminate them.

Keep remote offices in sync by Jerome M. Wendt
With regulatory compliance, data protection requirements and the need to share data, remote office data can no longer be ignored. Wide-area file system products can rein in and protect remote data.

10 basic steps for better backup by Jim Damoulakis
The most evident common denominator in well-functioning backup infrastructures is effective process and control. This checklist highlights 10 areas you should focus on to build a better backup practice.

How disk has changed backup by W. Curtis Preston
Inexpensive disk has spawned a variety of disk-based backup alternatives. But with more choices comes greater complexity compared to the days when you simply had to choose a backup application and tape library. Backup guru W. Curtis Preston explains the advantages of using disk for backup, including virtual tape libraries and disk-as-disk backup targets, and discusses the pros and cons of alternative disk-based backup methods.

Any-point-in-time backups by Brad O'Neill
Continuous data protection captures changes at a file- or block-level as they happen, and provides running recovery journals for all historical data states. This shifts data protection to a more flexible any-point-in-time framework.

Sizing up VTLs by Alex Gorbansky
Virtual tape libraries present disk as tape, so backup apps can perform backups as usual, regardless of the physical backup infrastructure. Learn about hardware and software VTLs, the benefits of each and how they might fit into your backup operation.

Use mainframes for backups by Gary Brown
You can put that big iron sitting in your data center to better use by using it to back up open-systems data, too. The net effect is a streamlined backup and disaster recovery operation.

Make tape libraries work with all platforms by Mike Drapeau and Gary Brown
If tape libraries could share IT resources and data across all processing platforms, data center complexity and cost could be dramatically reduced.

Does host-based replication still make sense? by James Damoulakis
Host-based replication is a mature technology, but it's often not considered an option for architectures that support quick recovery. But there are many cases where a host-based option may fit.

Data migration: Preparation equals success by Richard Harsell
Moving data from one array to another is becoming more commonplace for reasons such as implementing new or upgraded systems, tiering storage or archiving older data. Data migration is a complex and painful process, but these steps can help ease the pain.

Data migration: Tales from the trenches by Alan Radding
Finding the right tools to handle a data migration is no easy task. Here's how several users found the best tool for the job and solved their data migration problems.

Quality Awards: Backup software by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
The latest Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Awards has hands-on users rating 14 enterprise and SMB backup products for service and reliability.

Cisco's switch-based backup by Logan G. Harbaugh
Serverless backup can take the load off servers and ease network traffic. Cisco uses Xcopy on its MDS 9000 switch for serverless backup; see how it compares to other methods and products.

First SAS products arrive by Alan Radding
New serial attached SCSI (SAS) products are beginning to flood the market. SAS, by all accounts, will displace parallel SCSI, but its compatibility with SATA will also allow easy storage tiering in a single box. But will it prove to be a serious challenger to Fibre Channel?

Quality awards: Enterprise arrays by Rich Castagna and Phil Goodwin
We present the results of the first-ever Diogenes Labs-Storage magazine Quality Awards. In the inaugural product category, enterprise arrays, see how users rated the major array vendors and which vendor came out on top.

Bridging the gap by Greg Schulz
Many disaster recovery and remote backup programs rely on an efficient, cost-effective WAN. Fiber-optic network technology is often required for long-distance data transmission, but you need to know what transport is best and the related implementation issues.

Storage for manufacturing by Alan Radding
Manufacturing environments typically have different storage requirements than corporate apps, and have to deal with globally dispersed design teams as well as growing regulatory concerns. Here's how several prominent manufacturers have met the challenge.

New tools to classify data by Brad O'Neill
Putting data on storage systems appropriate to its value requires the ability to classify data. An emerging category of applications, Information Classification and Management apps, can index enterprise information and execute precise actions based on its content.

Archiving unstructured data by Jerome M. Wendt
It may no longer be enough to archive your files and e-mail to meet compliance regulations. You also need to provide a way to search archives and find related information based on specific criteria.

HP reassures the faithful by Rich Castagna
With a bevy of new products, including a long-awaited refresh of its EVA arrays, Hewlett-Packard is trying to convince its users and critics that the company really is committed to storage.

Data classification: Getting started by Karl Langdon and John Merryman
Classifying data and knowing how its value changes over time will improve service levels, create a better working relationship with business units and reduce costs.

How DBAs view storage by Dean Auger
Storage magazine's exclusive poll gives you the lowdown on how DBAs and storage pros view storage. We detail each group's areas of concern, spotlight their differences and find some common ground.

Switching storage vendors by Alan Radding
Many storage managers would rather push their existing storage to the max rather than install a new vendor's equipment. Three companies describe how they changed vendors with as little pain as possible.

Object-based backup by Jerome M. Wendt
Object-based backup products back up only the data that has changed, reducing storage and bandwidth issues.

New backup strategies by W. Curtis Preston
In the final installment of his series on disk-based data protection, W. Curtis Preston describes how options such as snapshots, replication, continuous data protection and data reduction backup can improve the backup process.

Storage spending report by Mark Schlack
Storage magazine's exclusive semiannual Purchasing Intentions Survey shows budgets slowly climbing, a move toward tiering and an increased focus on using disk for backup.

iFCP vs. FCIP by Norman Owens
Two protocols—iFCP and FCIP—tap the scalability of the Internet Protocol and Ethernet networks, and can be used to overcome Fibre Channel networking limitations when connecting SAN islands. But iFCP and FCIP operate very differently; find out which one is right for your environment.

Is the time right for optical storage? by Alan Radding
Optical storage has languished on the periphery of enterprise storage, but new technologies with higher capacities and more competitive per-gigabyte prices are moving optical into the mainstream.

Directors take on more tasks by Phil Goodwin
The competition among director-class products has never been more intense. If you're considering directors for the first time, or re-examining your fabric strategy, here's what you need to know.

Real-world DR by Marc Staimer
Disaster recovery (DR) is an ongoing issue for every storage shop. Building a plan that works and is cost-effective is a challenge. Here's how six companies met their DR challenges.

Build a winning storage budget by Dick Benton
Building a storage budget—and getting it approved—is an annual uphill battle. By taking a business-plan approach to the process, you'll have a better chance of getting a green light while aligning your budgeting efforts with those of senior management.

Clustering storage by Rich Castagna
Clustered servers have become a mainstay of the data center, and now clustering is quickly becoming the preferred technology for making storage more scalable, reliable and easier to manage.

Pros and cons of VTLs by W. Curtis Preston
For disk-to-disk backup, virtual tape libraries (VTLs) treat disk as tape and offer many advantages compared to disk-as-disk backup targets. But VTLs aren't perfect, and there some caveats about the technology that you need to know before implementing a VTL.

Are SATA drives ready for the enterprise? by Alex Gorbansky
SATA drives are great low-cost alternatives to pricey Fibre Channel and SCSI drives, but they lack the reliability and performance that mission-critical applications demand. But new technologies are bringing SATA up to enterprise-class standards.

Chart a course for consolidation by Bill Peldzus
Consolidating storage is a complex, challenging process. Whether you're tackling DAS, NAS or SAN, there are key issues that must be addressed to have a successful storage consolidation project.

Spotlight on midrange arrays
Midrange arrays can handle most jobs traditionally associated with costly monolithic arrays at a far lower price. Our Special Report describes the benefits of these modular storage systems, profiles 14 of the leading midrange arrays and offers a look at what's coming.

Securing IP SANs by Stephen Foskett
IP SANs use commodity hardware and industry-standard protocols to provide a cost-conscious, easy-to-manage alternative to Fibre Channel arrays. But with IP comes the issue of security. We detail five ways to make an IP SAN more secure.

Tale of the tape by Rich Castagna
Storage magazine's first tape reliability survey reveals that despite its low media cost and portability, many storage pros consider tape a weak link in the backup chain.

No-sweat SAN design by Alan Radding
Whether you're planning a new storage area network (SAN) or dealing with the growing pains of an existing one, SAN design tools can ease the process.

D2D Backup: Disk's dual role by W. Curtis Preston
In part one of a three-part series on disk-based backup, we describe how SAN disk-as-disk and NAS disk-as-disk work, as well as the pros and cons of each configuration.

Scaling SANs by Greg Schulz
Horizontal and vertical scaling are two methods of improving a SAN's capacity and performance. We discuss how to choose the appropriate approach for your environment.

New wave of virtualization by Marc Staimer
A new generation of cost-effective virtualization products promises easier management and better capacity scaling.

Best storage products of 2004
Our third annual Products of the Year presents 15 products that could transform the way you manage storage. The editors of Storage and SearchStorage.com, along with a panel of industry experts, selected these standout products based on innovation and value, among other criteria.

Inside ILM by James E. Geis
Information lifecycle management addresses the overall management of information from its creation to its demise. While full ILM applications aren't here yet, you can begin building an information management framework with the data lifecycle in mind.

Data determines the right disaster recovery by Marc Staimer
The key to cost-effective disaster recovery is first placing a value on data, and then selecting the appropriate data protection technologies. A mix-and-match approach can help you get the right disaster recovery without busting your budget.

SAN-in-a-box by Alan Radding
Small, self-contained SAN products allow remote offices and smaller companies to enjoy the benefits of sophisticated storage. These packages are relatively cheap, easy to deploy and require little attention. Scalability is a shortcoming, but buyers aren't worried.

Storage salaries edge up by Alan Radding
Storage's second annual Salary Survey finds salaries and bonuses inching upward despite a still sluggish economy. Even with hiring remaining flat, 2005 looks promising for storage salaries.

Stress-free firmware upgrades by Dean Auger
Firmware upgrades can be daunting, but you can take some of the fear and frustration out of the process by preparing detailed documentation of your storage environment.

Match snaps to apps by Glenn Duzy
Snapshots are key to most shops' backup and recovery plans. But implementing them requires application analysis to determine the best type of snapshots to use and how often to take them.

IBM's new arrays by Rich Castagna
IBM's new family of arrays is based on its server architectures and united by common software. The DS8000 is built around the Power5 processor, which supports partitioning. The modular DS6000 scales from a mere 292GB to an enterprise-worthy 67TB.

Tiered storage has arrived by Mark Schlack
Our semiannual Purchasing Intentions survey shows spending is up, if not at the levels of earlier this year. Storage managers are spreading money across multiple tiers of storage products.

How to design a core/edge SAN by Norman Owens
The SPICE formula offers a creative and easy way to determine the best design for an efficient core/edge SAN.

The search for cost-effective disaster recovery by Marc Staimer
Creating an efficient DR strategy starts with determining the value of your company's applications and data. You can find the right mix of DR technologies to protect your data without breaking the bank.

4Gb--ready or not, here it comes
You might not need them, but 4Gb/sec Fibre Channel products are coming. Comparably priced to 2Gb/sec and backward compatible, they might end up in your storage network whether you need them or not.

Hot technologies for 2005 and beyond by Alan Radding
Storage editors asked industry leaders what new technologies are likely to have the most impact on storage operations. We look at the top five emerging technologies and tell you why they can change how storage gets done in your shop.

Next-gen switches by Arun Taneja
You can move intelligence to a storage network using intelligent switches or appliances. How the alternatives work, and the pros and cons of each are described.

Better tape restores by Jeff Harbert and John Merryman
Don't find out the hard way that your tape-based backup system isn't working as planned. Here are some best practices that will increase the odds that your restores will work.

The state of standards by Johanna Ambrosio
Confused by FAIS, SMI-S, RAID DDF or iSCSI? We make sense out of the alphabet soup of storage standards and help you determine which ones you should consider when purchasing storage gear.

HDS reinvents high-end arrays by Rich Castagna
Hitachi Data Systems' groundbreaking new arrays don't just offer eye-popping capacity and performance--they can also virtualize petabytes of external storage.

Making disk-based backup work by James Damoulakis and Bill Peldzus
Adding low-cost disk to a backup environment can ease a host of backup woes. Here's how to find the disk-based backup approach that works best for your shop.

Users slow to embrace storage automation by Alan Radding
Some storage managers are still reluctant to put their trust in storage automation. But the users who are implementing automation one step at a time are finding that it can yield big benefits.

Storage at risk by Jon Oltsik
A new survey of Storage magazine readers by the Enterprise Strategy Group reveals that storage security is weak. IT staffs--with help from storage vendors--need to do more to secure storage.

Prime time for secondary storage by Rich Castagna and Alan Radding
Do you want to improve data protection and make better use of primary storage? Creating a layer of so-called second-tier disk is definitely worth investigating.

Shorten your backup window by Matt Rock and Phil Poresky
When your backup windows are out of control, save your sanity with these techniques to shorten backup times.

End-user file recovery: bonus or bust? by Alan Radding
Snapshot technology has made end-user file recovery possible. But will getting end users involved in recovering their own files prove to be more trouble than it's worth?

Inside Windows Storage Server by Jerry Honeycutt
Microsoft's WSS 2003 is an inexpensive way to network file storage, and it's also emerging as the main way to put Exchange on NAS. But Windows patch issues may prove troublesome.

Regulations Squeeze Storage by Rich Castagna
The era of regulatory compliance is here and it will change how you work, even if that picture is not yet completely clear. Here's how to navigate the murky waters of compliance.

Did the backup work? by W. Curtis Preston
Losing sleep over backups? Then check out backup reporting tools--they may be your dream come true.

Servers meet storage, virtually by Alex Barrett
Data centers are being reshaped around virtualization technology. Here's how different virtual server technologies work and how they'll integrate with and affect SANs.

Tune down costs by Marc Farley
To save money and get the best performance, match the right type of storage with the application it's best suited for. We list several practical ways to optimize your storage.

Storage on demand by Rich Castagna
Tired of overbuying, overconfiguring or overallocating storage? Utility storage--used in a similiar fashion as electricity or water in your home--may be the answer to your prayers.

RFPs create savings by Mike Drapeau
Before you even think about buying more storage, you have to write an RFP. Here are four smart steps to creating an RFP to stretch your dollars further.

Continuous protection by James Damoulakis
Do you want to rid yourself of a backup window or two? Continuous backup--also know as continuous data protection--is changing the rules by backing up in real time, or close to it.

NAS on a grand scale by Stephen Foskett, James Damoulakis and Fred Dalrymple
Do you want to rid yourself of a backup window or two? Continuous backup--also know as continuous data protection--is changing the rules by backing up in real time, or close to it.

Navigating the new drives by Michael Desmond
What's the best drive for your shop? That depends on your specific needs. Vendors are cranking out cheaper drives for increasingly specialized applications.

Who's running the storage shop? by Rich Castagna
Companies that set up a storage management group with well-defined job duties can eliminate redundancy and get more bang for their buck.

The best way to move data by Jerome M. Wendt
Don't get mired in sluggish data. There are best practices for migrating data from point A to point B. Here's how to pick the right method that fits with your company's needs and budget.

Green light for disk spending by Mark Schlack
The results from our semiannual Purchasing Intentions Survey are in. Storage managers are investing more in disk, but budgets for networked hardware are decreasing. The technology least likely to be invested in? Storage management software.

WAN Links gain speed by Alan Radding
Can't get past the cost of doing high-speed remote replication? Latency problems driving you nuts? New TCIP/IP accelerators for IP storage promise some relief.

The object is better backup by John Merryman
New object-based backup may forever change the way backup is done. It drastically reduces volumes by backing up only the data that has changed.

Bridging SAN islands by Jerome M. Wendt
To help ensure that a change made to one part of the SAN doesn't interfere with the entire storage network, some new products claim to have developed a new switch-based intelligence that segregates the SAN and protects SAN data.

IP storage delivers by Johanna Ambrosio
Despite all the FUD surrounding IP SANs, early users say IP-based storage isn't all that difficult to manage and that performance is sufficient. The key is knowing what applications IP SANs should be used for.

Disaster recovery relief by Marc Staimer
The cost of disaster recovery tools can be even more than the value of the data that these very tools are supposed to be protecting. Fortunately, newer approaches to DR are restoring sanity to this high-pressure task.

Extreme backup by Arun Taneja
Newsflash: Conventional data protection has reached its limits and will be dramatically changing in the next couple of years. But all roads don't lead to the same result. Here's how to analyze which route is best for you.

Wrestling with regulations by Bill O'Brien
In the health care industry, complicated regulations such as HIPAA, combined with new technologies that require enormous amounts of storage, are driving storage managers to the emergency room.

Get control of capacity by Jerome M. Wendt
Although storage resource management tools can be complicated to implement, they're a better alternative to breaking the bank and rushing out to purchase more storage. Get precise with your vendors on what you need and you'll wind up with better results.

How to get the best deal by Alan Radding
Take this crash course in bargaining for storage. Get the lowdown on effective tactics such as resisting vendor lock-in, working with multiple vendors and leveraging the second tier.

Database archiving done right by James Damoulakis and Steve Jeffreys
Once you have decide what to archive in your database, the hard part begins. Discover how to archive your database in the least costly manner possible.

Slash SAN costs by Marc Farley
SANs are expensive if you operate them according to conventional wisdom. Find out how to break the vicious circle of high costs that limit the places you can use SANs.

Consolidating NAS pays off by Alan Radding
The role of network-attached storage may be changing as more and more storage managers discover the the benefits of using NAS to consolidate file servers.

Tape type matters by Jerome M. Wendt
High-performance tape formats may all seem similar in capacity and throughput, but most formats lend themselves better to some applications then others. Find out how to decide which one is best for you.

LTO tape put to the test by Peter Groel
Before you settle on another archival tape technology, read this article. Recent tests have shown there are differences in the quality of LTO tapes from different manufacturers and even between tapes from the same vendor.

The great divide: mainframe and open-systems storage by Jeff Moad
If you'd like to use the same software to manage mainframe and open-systems storage, don't hold your breath. But there are more immediate ways that you can leverage mainframe best practices in the open-systems world.

Is storage certification worth it? by Susan J. Marks
If you're thinking about advancing your career by becoming certified in a particular storage skill, read this article to help you decide if certification is worth your time and money.

Are full backups dead? by W. Curtis Preston
Tape may not be dead, but the way you use it can change. Consider increasing your use of incremental backup, particularly if you're integrating disk into your backup process.

Remote DR: faster, farther and cheaper by Marc Staimer
Post-Sept. 11, you need to consider disaster sites that are geographically distant from your main data centers. Remote replication software, IP storage and new techniques for long-term storage are changing the DR distance equation.

Rein in e-mail storage by Jerome M. Wendt
With new government regulations and users' gigantic e-mail attachments, new approaches for storing e-mail are called for.

AttachStor reclaims e-mail storage by W. Curtis Preston
We review the AttachStor Suite, a new tool that promises to save money in Exchange and Domino environments by reducing the number of servers and the amount of storage that attachments use.

Best storage products of 2003 by Editors of Storage and SearchStorage.com
The editors of Storage and SearchStorage.com present the winners of the second-annual Products of the Year.

Getting ready for IP SANs by James Damoulakis and Larry Coblentz
IP SANs promise benefits to groups within your organization that up until now haven't had access to these kinds of capabilities. But before you even think of deploying an IP SAN, read this article.

Disk encryption: not just for paranoids by Jeff Moad
Many companies are beginning to do something that years ago would have been thought of as overkill: encrypting data while it is sitting on the array. This article will help you decide if this is something your company should do.

Plan on disk-based backup by Shane O'Neill
Will 2004 be a breakthrough year for disk-based backup solutions? A new survey of Storage readers finds that while users are reluctant to completely eliminate tape from their backup environments, many are planning to deploy disk to complement tape in the next year.

Modular arrays earn new trust by Jerome M. Wendt
Modular arrays have come a long way recently, but are you ready to risk all of your company's mission-critical data on them?

Reeling in a bigger salary by Alan Radding
The results from the first official survey of storage jobs are out, and you'll want to check them before either your staff's or your own performance review.

Is there a need for more speed? by Jeff Moad
Fibre Channel switch and HBA vendors will be shipping 10Gb/s gear in early 2004. The Fibre Channel Industry Association has just backed a 4Gb/s standard, yet how necessary is this when some enterprises have only recently migrated from 1Gb/s to 2Gb/s?

Hot technologies in 2004 by Alan Radding
In 2004, flexible, affordable new technologies are beginning to emerge that will open the door for smaller companies and allow them to sample some advanced storage strategies.

The pitfalls of smart switches by Jerome M. Wendt
Do you want to centralize storage management, cut costs and make your life a whole lot easier? There are a number of storage vendors promising these very things by creating products that move intelligence into the fabric, but smart fabrics will have their own issue.

Starting the ILM process by Jerome M. Wendt
Information life cycle management (ILM) is the buzz right now. But too much emphasis is being put on products and not enough on understanding that ILM is really a process. Before you buy in, here's how to analyze what it means for you.

Sane strategies for SAN growth by James Damoulakis
What's the right way to design storage networks for growth? There's no simple answer to that question, but understanding the implications of storage- or network-centric approaches will help you make the right choices.

Too many SAN islands by Jeff Moad
One of the main challenges to growing SANs is the proliferation of independent SAN islands. We look at how and why a multinational financial services company consolidated many islands into larger ones, but stopped short of a single, unified SAN.

IBM unveils storage tank by Alex Barrett
With SANs growing, should you be thinking of how to leverage them for files? SAN FS, IBM's new clustered file system, is one option and we examine it in detail. Is enterprise IT ready for SAN FS and will IBM be ready to meet the needs of enterprises?

New directions for switches by Jerome M. Wendt
With all of the recent acquisitions and new partnerships forming this year, finding the right Fibre Channel switch for you is even more confusing. This article will help you chose the right one.

Spend less on storage by Marc Farley
Serial ATA disks can save you big bucks, but there's a bigger story here. By using RAID and a SAN, you can overcome many of its inherent reliability and performance limitations. It's time to rethink many of your assumptions about storage costs.

Lock the back door by W. Curtis Preston
In the last installment of our three-part security series, this article discusses SAN management interfaces, which can give a stealthy hacker an easy way to sneak in and potentially damage your data.

Searching for seamless consolidation by Jeff Moad
In this second part of a three-part series featuring organizations in different stages of storage networking, we look at why growth often means abandoning the storage utility notion, at least for the moment.

Apple RAID: innovative but limited by W. Curtis Preston
Surprise! Apple Computer has entered the storage game. Its new storage array, Xserve, has a lot to offer, but mostly for those with Apple servers.

The trouble with measuring SAN performance by Jerome M. Wendt
A common system administrator's nightmare involves the telephone call at 4:oo in the morning from your boss. He's calling to tell you there's a problem with the SAN. Here's how to survive and prevent this from happening again.

Surviving and thriving: facing recession and growth by Mark Schlack
Don't submit your budget without checking the results of Storage's semiannual purchasing intentions survey of 500 storage managers.

SAN/NAS convergence: proceed with caution by Michael Desmond
Until recently, various barriers separated network-attached storage and storage area networks. New hybrid SAN-NAS solutions promise many benefits, but do they actually deliver them?

SAN holdouts by Jeff Moad
In the first of three stories profiling organizations at various stages of storage networking, we look at those who have chosen to wait and find out why.

Where tape belongs by David Braue
Ignore the industry babble about whether tape is dead or not: Tape is here to stay. But with the advantages of new low-cost disk systems--especially for fast restoration--tape's role in backup will likely change. The upshot: You'll likely be using your libraries differently.

Protect your SAN from attack, part 2 by W. Curtis Preston
We continue our security series by looking at how to provide strong authentication for SANs, otherwise known as zoning. The trick is to find the right zoning technique that meets your needs for both security and convenience.

Linux: a good deal with drawbacks by Alan Radding
As Linux servers gain acceptance, the question of how Linux plays on storage networks arises. Not so bad, is the short answer, but not as well as you might hope, either.

The case for high-end arrays by Jerome M. Wendt
The gap between midrange and high-end storage arrays has narrowed, enough so that the decision of which storage array to buy is less of a technical decision and more of a business one.

E-mail: It's worse than you think by Eric Knorr
According to a 2003 study by Meta Group, 80% of businesspeople say e-mail is more essential than the telephone. However, storage managers are struggling to keep pace with the growth in message volume and retention requirements. however.

Protect your SAN from attack by W. Curtis Preston
Think your SAN is secure? Find out the truth by reading Part 1 in our three-part series on storage security.

Why consolidate? by Alan Radding
Organizations trying to consolidate storage often find themselves creating SAN islands that perpetuate traditional stovepipes. Does this solve the problem?

The best way to scale SANs by Stephen Foskett
SAN configurations greatly influence their scalability. There's no perfect model, but here are the trade-offs involved with each major option.

Grid computing will change storage by Marc Staimer
Often described as the Internet on steroids, grid computing has the buzz as the next big thing to change the world of computing as we know it. Here's how storage management will change in the grid world.

Can tools streamline provisioning? by Jerome M. Wendt
Virtualization was last year's buzz word, and it looks like provisioning may be this year's. We dissect what these tools actually do and how to choose which ones that are likely to actually be useful in your environment.

IP SANs take their place by Alan Radding
There's a growing interest in using IP for storage in small to midsized enterprises, although Fibre Channel is still dominant in large organizations. What's right for you: IP, FC or a combination of both?

Virtual SANs put to the test by David Braue
Cisco's new virtual SAN technology has aroused a lot of interest. But how does it work in practice? We look at how Australia's Deakin University uses VSANs to isolate development activity within its large, multisite fabric.

CAD for SANs by John Vacca
New automated design tools can help you build the SAN of your dreams.

Getting remote data right by Marc Farley
The second of a two-part series on business continuity, this article focuses on how to use replicated data and the different types of replication: subsystem, host and network device based.

The evolving storage department by Carol Hildebrand
Here's how to avoid common road blocks as you revolutionize your storage department.

Creating a large e-mail system by Jim Booth
Here's how one storage team transformed a monolithic storage design into a flexible, scalable system.

Taming HBAs by Jerome M. Wendt
New HBA cards promise to ease your HBA administration burden and are loaded with new features. But is this the truth?

Consolidation: The hard truth by Alan Radding
Every large enterprise can benefit from some kind of consolidation. But the benefits come at a price. Despite the hype, consolidation is a long process that can be complicated. Bottom line: You may have to wait to cash in on the benefits, but they will come.

The case for network smarts by Alex Barrett
Let's face it: SANs as they currently exist only deliver about half of what you might hope for in the way of efficiency and optimal utilization. The best bet to deliver the other 50% is network-based storage intelligence. You'll have to get past the magic-wand claims for this latest pancea from storage vendors, though. And not every incarnation of smart switches or appliances is going to be right for you.

Copy basics by David Braue
Snapshot and replication are important tools in building a foolproof disaster recovery plan. This article helps you pick the optimal solution that fits within your budget and is best suited for your company's individual backup needs.

Cost-effective business continuity by Marc Farley
The first of a two-part series on business continuity, this article looks at disk mirroring and store and forward as approaches to keep your business running if disaster strikes.

Management suites come up short by Jerome M. Wendt
With long feature checklists, astonishing ROIs and seamless integration, storage management suites can seem like storage paradise. But look closely, and you may find that what you get isn't what you wanted to see.

Distance: Meeting the new mandate for disaster recovery by Johanna Ambrosio
Tougher government regulations and increasing distance requirements are driving new remote copy tactics and technologies.

Optimize your storage for fixed content by Ed Palmer
Much of your data gets written once, read often and never changes. Here's what's available to handle so-called fixed-content storage--and how storage managers are making use of it.

Shared file systems: a mixed blessing by Benjamin Kuo
Shared file systems promise to simplify managing storage. But you might have to wait a few years before that promise is fulfilled.

The shape of the new data center by John R. Blackman
The key to the next wave of data center technologies is adaptability. Realizing that goal may rest in your hands.

Getting real about iSCSi by Jerome M. Wendt
The picture of iSCSI is a little fuzzy. What advantages or disadvantages do you face if you implement now?

Storage spending continues to rise by Mark Schlack
Our extensive survey of 2003 spending plans show spending is up, but storage managers want more than just raw capacity.

Is storage management software worth it? by Alan Radding
High prices, deep discounts, expensive deployments, uncertain vendor commitment--what's a storage manager to think? We help decode the confusion that abounds in this market.

How global companies are consolidating storage. by Carol Hildebrand
Learn how international companies are managing their storage globally through data center consolidation.

Midrange or high end: what's right for you by Jim Booth
While the line is blurring, it's not gone. We look at what really differentiates high-end from midrange storage. And we look at the virtues of combining them.

Virtual SANs bring order to chaos by Marc Farley
What will Cisco's embedded virtual SAN technology in its new MDS switch line mean to storage managers? For starters, a new way to manage SANs as they spread across the company.

Storage managers grapple with Windows by David Braue
The spread of Windows into ever-more serious applications and the growth of data on Windows servers means that more storage managers are attaching Windows hosts to their SANs. Along with that comes the need to decide whether Windows-based storage management software is the way to go.

Tape: Alive and full of options by Jerome M. Wendt
Sure, disk is going down in price, but don't underestimate the value of tape technology. We look at what's available in tape libraries for large-scale backup.

Ease backup pain by Jerome M. Wendt
OK, maybe there's no cure, but a variety of bandages and pills can help. We look at the major backup packages and analyze what each does best.

How to do hybrid backup by Mark Teter
Disk-based backup is an attractive idea, but you'll want to get a handle on how to optimize it.

Backup exec gets big boost by Tom Henderson
Version 9.0 has a surprising number of features that enable it to work with newer storage technologies.

Make HSM work for open systems by Ed Palmer
Translating this time-honored mainframe concept to open systems requires a completely different approach.

Moving backup off the mainframe by Daniel Sitler
Hobart Corp. migrated their backup environment to open systems, dramatically reducing media and management costs.

Bring DBAs into the SAN era by Jim Booth
You may not want DBAs poking around inside your fabric, but the more they understand about SANs, the better they'll be.

Is it lights out for optical? by Eric Knorr
Blue lasers and other technical advances are pushing optical disks to 30GB soon, with more than 100GB in site.

Pushing storage to the edge by Susan J. Marks
If you're delivering large content files to widely distributed users, consider moving data storage closer to the user.

Inside the new Symmetrix by Michael Desmond
It's not just a new model, but a whole new architecture. EMC is trying to leapfrog the field in performance while finding ways to make Symmetrix more affordable. Here's how.

Modernize mainframe storage by David Braue
The mainframe is a mature technology, but storage for it continues to evolve. Find out how to bring your valuable legacy assets into your contemporary storage network environment.

Storage SLAs--get ready by Carol Hildebrand
Separating storage from servers means separate SLAs, too. Here's how to build one that can help control costs and manage service levels.

Optimize database storage by Jim Booth
The secret to high-performance database storage lies in dividing up the different tables, logs and indexes and placing them on the appropriate form of disk.

Off-site copies on the cheap by W. Curtis Preston
Backing up your off-site files has never been easier--and cheaper--to do.

Virtualization in the switch? Not so fast by Marc Farley
Before you buy into the whole intelligent switch hype, consider that some intelligence is best placed elsewhere.

Next-generation NAS by Jerome M. Wendt
A look at current NAS offerings and how they might fit into your storage environment.

Best storage products of the year by Editors of Storage and SearchStorage.com
The editors of Storage magazine and SearchStorage.com present the winners of the 1st Annual Products of the Year.

The networked storage project: moving ahead by Jeffrey Fritz
Our SAN beginners have done the research and picked the products. Now it's time to implement - here's how they did it.

Keeping laptop backups in sync by W. Curtis Preston
Backing up laptops and keeping them in sync with desktops and servers doesn't have to be torture if you follow these procedures.

Killer serial: is ATA ready for the enterprise? by Carol Hildebrand
As serial ATA rolls out this year, the price will be compelling, but don't expect SCSI to disappear.

San pioneer: start small, but smart by Eric Ihde
Building a SAN? Avoid hidden costs, unforeseen problems and unmanageable expansion by starting with a solid plan. That's one of the key lessons Intuit learned on its way to 200TB.

Pick the right SRM tool by Jerome M. Wendt
With all of the SRM tools on the market, which one will work best for you? Here's how to decide.

Are you paying too much for storage? by Alan Radding
With features, functions and capacity all moving downstream, you may be able to kick the overpriced storage habit.

Tape libraries on the SAN: sharing isn't always good by Darryl Brooks
If your latest project is choosing a new tape library for your SAN, you have a lot of decisions to make--the most important being how to architect your backup.

The networked storage project: Getting started by Jeffrey Fritz
If you're just getting started, check out how West Virginia University built its first SAN to handle e-mail.

Learn from mainframe storage by Johanna Ambrosio
Open systems dudes--it's all been done before on the mainframe as far as systematic storage management goes. Check it out.

Your next data center: Think flexible by David Braue
The second part of our two-part article focuses on the networking infrastructure of the new data center.

HBAs: Why some are better than others by Jerome M. Wendt
The storage chain is only as strong as the weakest HBA. Here's how to spot the strong ones.

Road testing fast HBAs by Tom Henderson
We put four PCI-X adapters to the test and the results are instructive.

Get top performance from database storage by Benjamin Kuo
Taking your SAN beyond backup to run production databases requires the right layout, good practices and better integration. The benefits: high performance, floor-space savings and streamlined operations.

TCO analysis: does it work for storage? by Alan Radding
TCO analysis is all the rage, but use with caution—the numbers can be twisted by vendors trying to make a sale.

Bocada clarifies backup picture by W. Curtis Preston
Bocada's latest version of BackupReport could make your life easier if you have to track multiple backup servers.

Towards the new data center by David Braue
Modular servers, separate storage and networked storage all add up to flexibility and efficiency unprecedented in the glass house.

How to make your budget case by Tom Pisello
Justify yourself to the budget committee - here's how.

Network appliance raises the bar for NAS/SAN convergence by Michael Desmond
The FAS900 series breaks new ground in bringing together file and block storage.

Virtualize the right way by Marc Farley
Here are some guidelines for designing virtualized systems.

Director or core switch: which one works for you? by Jerome M. Wendt
Each brings with it certain assumptions about reliability and manageability. But there's hope: The architectures are converging.

Tame e-mail storage - before it eats you alive by David Braue
E-mail is high on the list of applications driving storage growth at most enterprises. A lot of that growth could be avoided with proper management. Fortunately, for major packages such as Exchange and Notes, help may be on the way.

Where ATA arrays can save you money by Matthew McKenzie
ATA arrays can save you money if you use them where their limitations don't have a deleterious impact.

Veritas raises the bar with NetBackup 4.5 by W. Curtis Preston
We review the latest version of NetBackup. Find out why you may want to upgrade.

Which new technologies are worth it? by Marc Staimer
A look beyond the hype of InfiniBand, smart switches and iSCSI. Which one will work best for you?

Auto provisioning still a tease by Johanna Ambrosio
Vendors can't deliver full automation yet, but here's what limited help you can get.

Analyzers bulk up for storage by Michael Movalli
On today's high-speed Fibre Channel networks, analyzers need more memory, disk and speed than ever before.

Pay the right price for storage by Tony Prigmore
You can spend too much for storage, but you can also underspend. Here's how to figure what you should pay.

Managing storage at the edge by Eric Knorr
As the amount of off-site workers and data increases, you'll need everything from replicating software to USB drives to keep pace.

Optimizing LAN-free backup by Marc Farley
To get the most out of LAN-free backup, zero in on performance capabilities and constraints.

The road to practical SAN security by Benjamin Kuo
The spread of SANs has created a growing number of security products that address specific Achilles' heels, from authentication to transmission to encryption.

Modular vs. Monolithic by Julie Ryan
Modular's price is attractive and features have steadily grown, but modular still has advantages for some scenarios.

Pick the right ATA array for backup by W. Curtis Preston
The cost of inexpensive ATA arrays for disk-to-disk backup is compelling, but they're not all created equal. Here's how to choose what's right for you.

Seven steps to backup and restore by Ed Palmer
As backup and recovery becomes increasingly difficult to manage, creating a backup and restore plan is becoming more necessary.

Will .NET server make Windows storage friendly? by David Braue
Here's how the next version of Windows will change storage managers' lives.

Storage managers plan more SANs by Mark Schlack and Karen Bannan
Our extensive survey of 2003 spending plans documents continuing networked storage growth and selective adoption of new technology.

Where hard drives are headed by Eric Knorr
Bigger used to be better, but get ready for smaller, faster.

What's the best network storage for databases? by Marc Farley
Conventional wisdom says SANs, but that depends what you're doing with your database.

The price of independence by David Braue
As storage has become more strategic, so has the need for focused professionals. Here's how some companies are working that out.

Your worst nightmares ... and how to avoid them by Jon William Toigo
It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your data is?

Managing a SAN the old-fashioned way by Benjamin Kuo
With automation largely a fantasy, you'll need to know how to do it the hard way.

Windows backup: avoid the landmines by W. Curtis Preston
Backing up in Windows may be tricky, but there are shortcuts.

Pushing storage to another level by Johanna Ambrosio
In the extreme worlds of geophysical computing and genomics, storage managers are learning approaches that will be in the mainstream tomorrow.

Distance yourself from disaster by Charles T. Clark
Long-distance replication is reachable with new optical and IP storage networking technologies.

Test before you taste by Benjamin Kuo
If you're putting a SAN together, you'll need to test interoperability. Surprisingly, that goes double for open systems products. Some companies are even doing it themselves - here's how

Standard IT processes: getting to yes at Intel by Bill Whittington
How one man helped standardize corporate backup and restore procedures - and lived to tell about it.

Cutting through the tape maze by Ron Levine
All tape is not created equal. Here's everything you need to know about tape formats for corporate backup.

NDMP restores sanity to NAS backup by David Braue
NDMP has emerged as the best way to provide plug-and-play connectivity between backup software and filer-attached tape drives.

NAS: more than just an appliance by Randy Kerns
New advances in NAS boxes are moving them from mere departmental storage workhorses to servicing mission critical corporate applications.

Virtualization has a credibility problem by Michael Desmond
Although virtualization has found its way into some corners of enterprise computing, storage managers are not rushing to implement it. Here's why.

Honestly, do you really know what storage virtualization is? by Charles T. Clark
Confused by the virtualization hype? We decode the marketspeak.

SAN switches get smarter by Charles T. Clark
As storage networks become larger and more complex, smarter switches are one way to manage that complexity.

Recovering from the WTC: a personal account by Darryl Brooks
A first-hand look at what one company at the World Trade Center went through to restore operations.

Surprise! cheap disks cure slow backup by W. Curtis Preston
Why new ATA/IDE arrays, which are cheaper than tape libraries, might be a better bet for backup.

Snapshots save time and data by Julie Ryan
This powerful technology comes in several flavors - find out which one is right for you.

Delete old data ... really by Alan Joch
Sometimes the delete key isn't enough - you need the electronic equivalent of a shredder.

Tape libraries automate backup by Sam Green
Everything you need to know about tape libraries.