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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 2007 |
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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. |
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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? |
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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. |
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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. |
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November 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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October 2007 |
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CDP in depth
by Jerome 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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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September 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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The skinny on data deduplication
by W. Curtis Preston
There's been a flurry of debate about deduplication--both for and against-- that has generated fear, uncertainty and doubt. Simply put, deduplication technologies identify and eliminate redundant data, significantly reducing capacity requirements. But not all dedupe apps work the same way. You'll need to know which one best fits your data protection environment. |
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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. |
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September 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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August 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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July 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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June 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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May 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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April 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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March 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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February 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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January 2007 |
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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. |
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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. |
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The skinny on data deduplication
by W. Curtis Preston
Data deduplication technology identifies and eliminates redundant data, drastically reducing the amount of disk needed to store the deduped data. This inside look reveals the differences among deduplication systems and explains what key features you need to consider. |
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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. |
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