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JUNE 2008 |
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FEATURES |
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TOOLS, TRENDS & ANALYSIS |
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COLUMNS |
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Find out more about this month's Storage Magazine advertisers by clicking on the company names below to contact them and request more information on their products and services. |
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December 2003 |
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Reeling in a bigger salary
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. |
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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? |
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Hot technologies in 2004
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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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November 2003 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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? |
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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. |
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October 2003 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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September 2003 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Linux: a good deal with drawbacks
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. |
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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. |
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August 2003 |
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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. |
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Why consolidate?
Organizations trying to consolidate storage often find themselves creating SAN islands that perpetuate traditional stovepipes. Does this solve the problem? |
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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. |
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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. |
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July 2003 |
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IP SANs take their place
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? |
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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. |
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CAD for SANs
by John Vacca
New automated design tools can help you build the SAN of your dreams. |
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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. |
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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? |
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June 2003 |
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Consolidation: The hard truth
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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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May 2003 |
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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. |
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April 2003 |
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Is storage management software worth it?
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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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March 2003 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Moving backup off the mainframe
by Daniel Sitler
Hobart Corp. migrated their backup environment to open systems, dramatically reducing media and management costs. |
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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. |
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February 2003 |
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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. |
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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. |
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