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VMware vVOLS – More Than Just Individual LUNs?
During the VMware keynote session today there was a minor discussion on the upcoming concept of VMware vVOLS. Today, a virtual machine sits on a VMFS created on a storage LUN or on an NFS share. An individual virtual machine consists of many files and in the case of VMFS-based VMs, is sitting on a… Read more »
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Is Google Drive Too Late to the Party?
Like many people, the other week I downloaded and installed Google Drive. This is the long-awaited competitor to services like Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive. It offers free online storage with the ability to upgrade to higher capacity at a cost. Dropbox and the various other lookalikes have been around for some time, so is Google… Read more »
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Primary Storage De-duplication: Only for SSD Arrays?
I recently wrote an article for TechTarget that looked at the implementations of data de-duplication in primary storage arrays. One of the things that stood out for me was the lack of de-duplication support in traditional (and some might say legacy) storage arrays. The cynical amongst us would say that the big 5 storage vendors… Read more »
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What to Watch in Storage for 2012
As I write this post, 2012 is already 6.3% completed. So, for the remaining 93.7% of the year, what can we expect the storage themes to be? What will companies be focused on and what can we expect from the vendors? Data Reduction The recent flooding in Thailand has had everyone on high alert about… Read more »
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You can’t trust what you read on the Internet – Unless it’s EMC
Seems like Chris Mellor has struck a raw nerve with EMC and in particular Chad Sakac over this article he wrote for The Register. Unfortunately Chad’s response makes him appear more like a spoilt child than a marketing professional who’s prepared to take the rough with the smooth in IT marketing. Of course this isn’t… Read more »
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Enterprise Computing: Thin Provisioning and The Cookie Monster!
The Gestalt IT Field Day was a great success in bringing together a mixture of delegates from varying discplines. Following the presentations from 3Par and Symantec, there was heated debate about the implementation of Thin Provisioning and the ability to reclaim released storage resources. This post covers the basic concepts of Thin Provisioning and more… Read more »
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Whatever Happened to Hybrid Drives?
Over 18 months ago, I discussed in a post (here) the Hybrid Storage Alliance who were looking to increase the performance of hard drives by adding large amounts of flash to each device. But where are they now? A quick check on their website shows precious little information. In fact what’s on offer seems to… Read more »
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Invista
There’s been a few references to Invista over the last couple of weeks, notably from Barry discussing the “stealth announcement”. I commented on Barry’s blog that I felt Invista had been a failure, due to the number of sales. I’m not quite sure why this is so, as I think that virtualisation in the fabric… Read more »