Manage
Learn to apply best practices and optimize your operations.
Manage
Learn to apply best practices and optimize your operations.
The rising cost of cheap storage
The commoditization of storage has been driving acquisition cost down for quite some time. However, hidden costs are now starting to surface as organizations struggle to manage hundreds of terabytes of data. This tip discusses the some of the ... Continue Reading
How to count the cost of storage
The cost of each gigabyte of storage is declining rapidly in every segment of the market. Enterprise storage today costs what desktop storage did less than a decade ago. So why are overall costs increasing? Continue Reading
SAN performance: Five tips in five minutes
Answers to frequently asked questions about how to improve SAN performance. Continue Reading
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NAS: How does a client access files?
NAS expert Randy Kerns offers advice to a reader who asked: "How does NAS appear to machines accessing files from it?" Continue Reading
What is Information lifecycle security management?
Information lifecycle security (ILS) is a new approach to securing data based on the value of the content. ILS defenses change over time as information ages and its value decreases. Continue Reading
Best practices in data warehouse storage infrastructures
Today's business isn't just about putting products on the market. It's about getting the right product to the right consumer at the right time. But such precision requires much more than a solid product and keen business sense -- it takes business ...Continue Reading
Introduction to data storage management
Storage is a resource, and it must be allocated and managed as a resource in order to truly benefit a corporation. Successful data storage management strategies leverage a suite of tools to configure, provision, archive and report storage activities...Continue Reading
iSCSI, iFCP and FCIP: How do they stack up?
iSCSI, iFCP and FCIP are compared in this Q&A.Continue Reading
FC vs. iSCSI: Five tips in five minutes
Recently, there has been a buzz among storage pros about how FC and iSCSI stack up. Check out this expert advice, so you can decide what is right for your organization.Continue Reading
Five tips in five minutes: A guide to cost management
The following tips offer quick and easy advice on how to keep costs low while maintaining a prolific storage system.Continue Reading
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The winners of Storage magazine's Products of the Year were surprising
Storage Bin: The winners of Storage magazine's Products of the Year were surprising, as so few of them were big-name storage vendors. Here's Steve Duplessie's take on the subject.Continue Reading
How to minimize I/O latency
Storage expert Greg Schulz details how to minimize the latency between a server and a storage device.Continue Reading
How many disk drives do you need for RAID 10?
What is the minimum number of disk drives you can have in a RAID 10 array? I have read you must have at least four, but our server admin said it is HP's default, and he can do it on just two drives. This is on a Window Server 2003 with a total of ...Continue Reading
How to convince management to upgrade
Learn how to effectively convince your boss or other management of the need for an upgrade or technology acquisitions.Continue Reading
Which is the best platform for a storage subsystem management tool?
What is block I/O?
What does I/O stand for?
information lifecycle management
Information life cycle management (ILM) is a comprehensive approach to managing the flow of an information system's data and associated metadata from creation and initial storage to the time when it becomes obsolete and is deleted.Continue Reading
information life cycle management
Information life cycle management (ILM) is a comprehensive approach to managing the flow of an information system's data and associated metadata from creation and initial storage to the time when it becomes obsolete and is deleted.Continue Reading
information life cycle management (ILM)
Information life cycle management (ILM) is a comprehensive approach to managing the flow of an information system's data and associated metadata from creation and initial storage to the time when it becomes obsolete and is deleted.Continue Reading
SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative Specification)
SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative Specification) is a standard developed by the Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA) that is intended to facilitate the management of storage devices from multiple vendors in storage area networks (SANs).Continue Reading
storage area management
Storage area management (SAM) is a still-evolving set of procedures, services, and standards for comprehensively managing the infrastructure of a storage area network (SAN), including all components within all servers, the disk arrays, the tape ...Continue Reading
storage area management (SAM)
Storage area management (SAM) is a still-evolving set of procedures, services, and standards for comprehensively managing the infrastructure of a storage area network (SAN), including all components within all servers, the disk arrays, the tape ...Continue Reading
Storage for manufacturing
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 ...Continue Reading
Encrypting tape: Software vs. hardware and key management
Encrypting data is a high priority for businesses these days. This tip will help you become familiar with the formats of encryption and the importance of key management.Continue Reading
How DBAs view storage
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.Continue Reading
How to troubleshoot SATA drive connection problems
Use this checklist to help troubleshoot your SATA drive connection problems, and find out what to do with the jumpers and how to check the SATA BIOS drive.Continue Reading
How many backup administrators?
How to select storage management tools
This tip offers information about various types of storage management tools, and how to choose the right ones for your needs.Continue Reading
SAN disaster recovery planning
Disaster recovery expert Pierre Dorion offers advice to a reader looking for a feasible and cost effective disaster recovery plan for a SAN environment.Continue Reading
HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management)
HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management) is policy-based management of file backup and archiving in a way that uses storage devices economically and without the user needing to be aware of when files are being retrieved from backup storage media.Continue Reading
The business case for storage networks
The business case for storage networksContinue Reading
Checklist: How to troubleshoot your LUN
LUN issues are difficult to diagnose, because they usually arise from specific features of a specific system's hardware and software.Continue Reading
Checklist: How to set up HBAs
Host bus adapters are one of the most time-consuming parts of a SAN to install.Continue Reading
How to choose the best SAN or LAN switch
Looking to buy a SAN or LAN switch? Here are key questions to ask before you make a product choice.Continue Reading
How many devices can be attached to an IDE cable?
How to plan for a firmware upgrade
Many storage administrators don't manage drivers or firmware until something happens, such as an upgrade or new hardware implementation.Continue Reading
How to choose the right RAID level for your disk array
Cut through vendor hype and determine which RAID level (or levels) is right for your disk array.Continue Reading
How to design a core/edge SAN
Use the SPICE algorithm to simplify the process of designing a large core/edge SAN.Continue Reading
How do you defrag a hard drive on NAS?
There are some situations when you need to defrag a hard drive, but it depends what type of NAS you are using. Learn more in this expert tip.Continue Reading
Ten best practices for moving data files to a SAN
How to defrag a hard drive on NAS to fix unusual hard drive formatting
If a drive is used in a NAS device, you should never have to defrag it. Read one expert's take on why and how to fix unusual hard drive formatting.Continue Reading
How to isolate and solve performance bottlenecks
Find out how to determine whether your subsystem or application is the cause of I/O wait states -- and what to do about the problem.Continue Reading
Best practices: Tackling storage provisioning
Before you even think of provisioning new storage, it's essential to create specific procedures for this multilevel process.Continue Reading
How do I connect a Fibre Channel switch to a router?
How to test your UPS
Uninterruptible Power Supplies are extremely rugged beasts -- which is both good news and bad news for storage administrators who rely on them.Continue Reading
How to prevent common problems in SATA drives
Problems in SATA drives generally stem from one of two causes. This tip will tell you how to prevent both.Continue Reading
How much information is 350 terabytes?
How to troubleshoot SANs using WWN zoning
Identifying devices by their World Wide Name (WWN) when setting up zones on a SAN makes configuration easier, but it also provides some maintenance and troubleshooting advantages.Continue Reading
The differences between Veritas Volume Manager and EMC SRDF
Top 10 tips on storage management
Jamie Gruener offers his top 10 pieces of advice for storage managers.Continue Reading
How to document a SAN
Effective SAN documentation will keep your systems up and running even if your entire staff gets hit by a bus.Continue Reading
How to assign LUNs in a SAN
How WWNs are associated with LUNs
Six steps to improving disk throughput
In Windows 2000, while the disk system is the logical suspect in performance degradation, it's not the only possible culprit--it may mean you need more memory.Continue Reading
How many storage admins do you need?
When creating your dedicated storage management group, there are better ways to determine staff levels than relying on a simplistic metric based on the number of terabytes per manager.Continue Reading
How FC-AL and FC-SW switches are implemented
The best practices of storage management
If you're going to try new technologies, you need to implement them with new processes and procedures to maximize their benefits. This tip will show you how.Continue Reading
Defining critical storage management functions
In this tip, expert Brett Cooper lists several leading areas critical to managing the day-to-day storage environment and a highlights a few improvements of current processes.Continue Reading
Is storage certification worth it?
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.Continue Reading
The great divide: mainframe and open-systems storage
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.Continue Reading
RDCs and SDCs: How to replicate data between clustered nodes
Backup and availability experts describe the difference between using a replicated data cluster (RDC) versus a shared data cluster (SDC), and why one is better.Continue Reading
Make sure you inventory your tapes
Some advice on conducting periodic inventories of your tapes.Continue Reading
How will you implement RAID?
Different ways and tradeoffs for each.Continue Reading
How and where to use snapshot technology
Discover the differences among snapshot, clone and snapclone.Continue Reading
Data management, the next major vendor battleground
Bits & Bytes: Storage expert Randy Kerns explores the importance of lifecycle data management and why vendors need to deliver a timely and effective solution.Continue Reading
How to secure NFS access to NAS devices
Bits & Bytes: Security expert Vijay Ahuja discusses several approaches to prevent unwarranted user access to NAS devices, when made via the Network File System (NFS).Continue Reading
Creating a comprehensive data storage automation plan
Vendors keep creating new acronyms, but are they doing you any good? Ignore the hype and develop a methodical plan toward a comprehensive storage automation plan to ensure success.Continue Reading
How to determine the number of HBAs per server
Simplify your storage management process
Calculating costs of SAN and NAS
Backup basics: Three backup plans -- ten tape backup
Backup basics: Three backup plans -- ten tape backupContinue Reading
How to set up a poor man's SAN
The myth of the nines
The nines of reliability is a theory that refers to the percentage of time a system is running. But the theory's flaw is that it doesn't consider the timing of a system outage.Continue Reading
How do I document my SAN, Part 1
How to calculate availability
DR planning phase three: Implementation
This is the third of four parts of a mini-tutorial covering the disaster recovery planning process, covering the final phase, which you can refer to as Plan Implementation.Continue Reading
Questions to ask when making storage purchase decisions, part 2
Sharing tapes and disks over the same HBA not a best practice
Outsourcing storage management
So you wanna be a storage architect?
What are the pros/cons of implementing storage management in an online services industry company?
What are the real benefits of data storage management software?
In this month’s issues, BMC's pullback is making storage managers think twice about the usual data storage management software vendors. At UAL Loyalty, Gary Pilafas went the data storage management startup route. What's right for you? Also explore ...Continue Reading
How much storage is utilized with RAID-5?
The price per managed GB/month for a SAN
Quiz #4: Backup & recovery
Try your hand at the fourth complete quiz in our Storage Smarts series and find out how much you really know about backup and recovery.Continue Reading
Looking at the cost of purchasing SAN/NAS storage
How to save money on SAN backup
How to efficiently back up your SANContinue Reading
Different types of disasters and how to protect your data
SAN topologies, part 2: How to design your SAN
How to build a SAN using various topologies.Continue Reading
How many HBA adapters are required in a SAN environment for backup and restore policies?
How to split a single fabric SAN and provide a fully redundant solution
How to calculate the availability of an entire network?
How many TBs can be managed per FTE?
What's the best way to do a server availability calculation?
A discussion on the efficacy of predicting site/environment availability.Continue Reading
How does RAID5/parity really work?
How does a hard disk organize data?
Make your SAN administrator's life easier with Brocade's Fabric Manager
Make your SAN administrator's life easier with Brocade's Fabric Manager.Continue Reading
Quiz #2: Storage management
If you missed any of the Storage Smarts questions in our daily e-mails, here's another chance to try your hand at questions 11 to 20.Continue Reading
Issues/benefits of offline, online and Nearline® storage
Graham Irving shares on some of the considerations involved in offline, nearline and online storage.Continue Reading