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Storage rethinks power strategies
This article is part of the Storage issue of Vol. 6 No. 3 May 2007
Storage power consumption has gotten short shrift compared to the server side of the data center--even from storage users themselves. "[Power consumption's] probably two or three down the list for most customers," says Greg Nightingale, manager of enterprise storage at Sirius Computer Solutions in San Antonio. "There's always some other overriding need, such as improving backups ... or improving performance." In fact, many users realize energy cost savings almost by accident. Seth Sladek, senior systems engineer at Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, MA, deployed one 3PAR InServ S800 storage server in July 2005 and another last spring to store roughly 25TB of data. Sladek's data center was filling up fast, and he felt thin provisioning would help him conserve space. But regarding power consumption, "I'd have to say that, honestly, I wasn't thinking about that per se," he says. Working with 3PAR, Sladek calculated he would have had to purchase, and consequently power and cool, 65 disk drives if he hadn't deployed the S800s. "...
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Features in this issue
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10 ways to get the best storage price
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Survey Says: WAFS adoption picks up
WAFS adoption picks up
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Storage rethinks power strategies
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Snapshot: Email archiving on the rise with users
Email archiving on the rise with users
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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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Users test deduplication limits
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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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More laptop backup options
Columns in this issue
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Hot Spots: Time to learn from Microsoft's mistakes
Security is a cradle-to-grave commitment that spans products, processes and personnel. Microsoft has proved that you can turn on a dime and remedy security shortcomings, and now some leading storage vendors are following its example.
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Storage Bin: 50 years of right is now very wrong
A huge portion of the issues we face today in storage and throughout our infrastructure are caused by us trying to use the same systems, architectures and methodologies we're used to for data that has all new requirements.
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Best Practices: Protecting SharePoint data
SharePoint's collaboration framework is gaining in popularity, but it has a number of data protection challenges that can result in significant levels of complexity rather quickly. Storage and data protection groups must work with application teams to plan an effective data protection strategy.