Podcast #3 – Chris & Matt review the SFD18 presenters

Here’s a little extra podcast Matt Leib and I recorded this afternoon in preparation for Storage Field Day 18.  You can tell this wasn’t recorded in a studio, but actually Matt’s hotel room!  Matt preps coffee in his mini-Nespresso device while we discuss each of the presenting vendors. The discussion is ad-hoc, off the cuff… Read more »

Thoughts from Hitachi NEXT 2018

Earlier this year I was invited to Hitachi NEXT in lovely San Diego.  As part of my trip, I took the time to learn a little more about some of the technology Hitachi has been working on and bringing to market either directly through Hitachi Ltd or Hitachi Vantara.  You may remember that Hitachi Vantara… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – exploiting the cloud

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – exploiting the cloud” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. No modern data platform would be complete if we didn’t talk about the use of public cloud. Public cloud can play a very… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – Out on the edge

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – Out on the edge” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. In this series so far we have concentrated on the data under our control in our datacentres and managed clouds and protected… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – Prevention (Office365)

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – Prevention (Office365)” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. In this series so far, we have looked at getting our initial foundations right and ensuring we have insight and control of our data… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – Control

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – Control” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. In the first parts (here and here) of this series we have looked at ensuring the building blocks of our platform are right… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – Availability

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – Availability” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. In part one we discussed the importance of getting our storage platform right, in part two we look at availability. The idea that availability is a crucial… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – The Storage

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – The Storage” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. It probably isn’t a surprise to anyone who has read my blogs previously to find out that when it comes to the… Read more »

Automating HCI Data Protection

I recently wrote a number of posts covering HYCU, a data protection software solution from HYCU Inc.  During the testing I was curious to understand how easy it would be to automate the build of a dedicated backup environment.  Here’s what I found. HYCU Recap HYCU is a software product that was written specifically for… Read more »

IDC 1Q2018 Data Shows a Rebound for Storage Hardware Sales

The latest IDC Storage Tracker numbers are out and in the spirit of recent analysis, I’ve put the numbers into my tracking spreadsheet.  The figures represent data for Q1, which now has 12 years’ worth of coverage.  With around 42% growth in the general storage hardware figures and 20% in external storage sales, the numbers… Read more »

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Latest

  • 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 »

  • 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 »

  • So Your AWS-based Application is Down? Don’t Blame Amazon

    After a busy day in London I returned home to read the news of issues in one of Amazon’s US data centre locations causing problems with EC2 and database (RDS) instances.  It seems the services of many Internet companies were affected including Reddit, Quora, Hootsuite and FourSquare,  Is it fair that Amazon should shoulder the… Read more »

  • 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 »

  • Enterprise Computing: The Slow Demise of The Hard Drive

    Yesterday Nimbus Data Systems announced the release of their S-Class storage array.  What’s different about this storage device is that it uses purely NAND memory rather than traditional spinning disk.  With it’s arrival, we’re seeing another nail in the coffin of the traditional hard drive. OK, so the S-Class isn’t going to replace hard drives… Read more »

  • 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 »

  • 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 »

  • 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 »