Software Defining Your Storage

There is a lot of talk in the technology industry of “software defining”, the idea that elements of our technology stack, traditionally based on a hardware appliance can be abstracted from it and made available as a software-only appliance that can be installed on any hardware.  But why? Wouldn’t you rather your key assets were… Read more »

Pure Storage announces NVMe-oF support for FlashArray

Pure Storage recently announced support for NVMe over Fabrics on FlashArray.  The technology is implemented by an upgrade to Purity (the platform O/S) and installation of RDMA-capable Ethernet NICs.  Pure has chosen to go with Ethernet as the first NVMe fabric offering, while other vendors have chosen the Fibre Channel route.  How has this choice… Read more »

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 »

MAX Data: Optimising Application Performance with SCM

As the slowest part of the computing architecture, persistent storage is in a constant battle to improve performance.  That goal has moved from being focused on throughput a few decades ago to one of reducing latency as low as possible.  To that end, NVM Express and NVMe over Fabrics have become an area of focus… Read more »

NetApp buys into Kubernetes Orchestration with StackPointCloud

In September 2018, NetApp acquired a little-known cloud services company called StackPointCloud.  StackPoint offers a managed Kubernetes service that enables customers to build Kubernetes clusters across a range of public cloud providers.  Why would NetApp want to acquire this technology and where could it be used? Containerisation First of all, let’s take a step back… Read more »

Performance Benchmarks: Reading Between the Lines

As we move into 2019, storage performance becomes more important than ever.  At the media level, vendors are pushing the boundaries with fast solid-state technologies like NAND flash and 3D-Xpoint.  These products provide performance capabilities we’ve never seen before.  Storage system vendors then take components and build storage solutions, either as bespoke hardware or part… Read more »

NVMe in the Data Centre 2.0 Now Published

You can download the latest version of our NVMe in the Data Centre report by registering through the link below.  We do not share email addresses and only use them to send out follow up papers.   Download Now  

Understanding HPE’s Storage Product Portfolio

Towards the end of 2018, I was invited to attend HPE Discover in Madrid.  In previous years, this has been a great opportunity to get up to speed on the storage strategy the HPE Storage team is following.  What did we learn this year? Intelligent Storage Platform The message being broadcast for the last year… Read more »

Databases are the next battleground for Public Cloud

This week, Amazon Web Services announced the availability of Amazon DocumentDB, a MongoDB-compatible document database.  For AWS at least, the database market has been heating up recently.  With so many offerings to choose from, are databases the next land-grab for the public cloud? DocumentDB Let’s look first at the announcement of Amazon DocumentDB.  This new… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – what have we learned?

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at Building a modern data platform – what have we learned? where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. As I reach the end of this series, it raises the question “what have we learned?”. If you’ve read through it all,… Read more »

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Latest

  • Evolving Enterprise Storage Buying Models

    One of the most tedious of tasks I’ve had to undertake over the years has been the planning and deployment of new storage technology.  In that respect, I’m not referring to the physical installation, but rather the process of capacity planning, sourcing and agreeing terms on new storage capacity.  Increasingly, internal businesses consume storage on-demand… 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 »

  • Pure Storage Acquires StorReduce

    Congratulations to the folks at StorReduce for being acquired by Pure Storage.  Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, hopefully, this represents a successful exit for an interesting technology. Background I first looked at StorReduce in March 2015, including a trial of the software.  The premise of the technology is simple.  StorReduce acts as… Read more »