SAN, NAS, solid state, RAID

IBM all-flash family gets cloud and enterprise A9000 and A9000R

IBM announces two all-flash arrays – the modular A9000 and rack A9000R, aimed at service providers and enterprises – and the mainframe-connected DS8888 Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

HDS G series arrays get native NAS and cloud as a storage tier

VSP G series enterprise hybrid flash arrays see addition of native NAS functionality on a controller card plus cloud as a storage tier via Hitachi Content Platform Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

How IT in a portacabin supports £1bn London Bridge station overhaul

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we find out how a temporary IT set-up based in a portacabin is supporting the UK’s largest critical infrastructure project – the £1bn redevelopment of London Bridge train station. Our latest buyer’s guide looks at converged infrastructure products. And we analyse research showing data protection topping the list of UK security priorities. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

CW@50: Storage – From punched cards to flash and the cloud

Since the launch of Computer Weekly in 1966, we have moved from a world of punched cards and paper tape to one where flash and the cloud have revolutionised data storage Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

SimpliVity adds Hyper-V support to hyper-converged products

Hyper-converged appliance maker adds Hyper-V support to VMware ESXi capabilities and upgrades OmniStack software to support workload optimisation on SimpliVity clusters Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

OSNexus unlocks Ceph object storage in QuantaStor v4

Software-defined storage maker OSNexus adds Ceph-based object storage to its QuantaStor product, adding it to block and file storage from ZFS, Gluster and Ceph Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Unaligned I/O: A storage performance killer

As the stack piles higher – with virtual servers, their virtual disks and guest operating systems – the scope for unaligned or misaligned I/O to affect performance increases Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

NAS vs object: Which one for large volumes of unstructured data?

Both NAS and object storage offer highly scalable file storage for large volumes of unstructured data, but which is right for your environment? Continue Reading

By

• Bryan Betts, Freeform Dynamics

Top 10 storage stories of 2015

The year 2015 in storage was dominated by the continued rise of flash and Dell’s purchase of EMC, but there were steady upticks in trends such as hyper-converged and software-defined storage Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Top five things to know about flash and storage tiering

Automated storage tiering boosts storage efficiency and saves money, but why is tiering different from caching, why is it suited to use with flash and how do suppliers differ? Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Snapshots: Hypervisor vs Array

Snapshots are a valuable part of the data protection toolkit, but where is it best to run them from – the hypervisor or the storage array? We look at the pros and cons Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

DDN revamp adds SFA14K plus hyper-converged and all-flash options

DataDirect Networks upgrades core HPC storage arrays to create SFA14K, and adds hyper-converged SFA14KE plus all-flash IME14K front end to smooth I/O bottlenecks Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Object storage: Cloud vs in-house

Object storage is a rising star in data storage, especially for cloud and web use. But what are the pros and cons of cloud object storage or building in-house? Continue Reading

By

• Bryan Betts, Freeform Dynamics

Hewlett Packard Enterprise: think of us as a startup

As Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc finally part ways, UK managing director Andy Isherwood shares some insight on what the future holds for the newly minted enterprise business Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Flash in NAS file access storage: Does it need it – and, if so, how much?

While flash is rapidly going mainstream for primary storage with the all-flash datacentre, does NAS file access storage need flash – and, if so, how much? Continue Reading

By

• Bryan Betts, Freeform Dynamics

SanDisk InfiniFlash flash arrays get Nexenta software-defined storage

SanDisk offers its all-flash array InfiniFlash IF100 with Nexenta's storage software on-board in another move in the trend towards choice in storage hardware and software deployments Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Will digital government remain on course?

In this week's Computer Weekly, the UK government's digital chief has announced his shock departure, but what will it mean for the future of digital public services? Dell went back to a private company two years ago – has it proved to be a successful move? And our latest buyer's guide looks at big data appliances. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

OpenStack Swift 101: the object store for OpenStack apps

We run the rule over the OpenStack Swift object storage architecture, its key components, how it achieves resiliency and the data protection methods in use and development Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

All-flash vs hybrid flash for virtual desktop storage

With massive random I/O and a huge bias towards writes, virtual desktop storage – especially for the more feature-rich VDI 2.0 – requires the speed of all-flash and hybrid flash storage Continue Reading

By

• Bryan Betts, Freeform Dynamics

TLC flash storage: What it is and what it's good for

We run the rule over triple-level cell (TLC) flash: What it is, how it performs, what it's good for, why it's a competitor to disk, and how it's all been made possible Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Genomics England rejects open source to deploy EMC Isilon HPC storage

100,000 Genomes Project rejects building open-source parallel file system on x86 servers and opts for EMC Isilon clustered NAS deployed by Capita S3 Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

NetApp adds AFF All-Flash FAS 8000 series storage arrays

NetApp boosts its SSD array portfolio with the addition of AFF All-Flash FAS 8000 series storage arrays built on Data ONTAP, but still no sign of FlashRay general availability Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Council dodges £300,000 NetApp outlay with Atlantis flash caching

Somerset local authority avoids spending £300,000 on extra hard drives for its NetApp arrays and pays half that for Atlantis ILIO flash caching software that runs VDI from RAM Continue Reading

OpenStack Manila: File access storage for the open source cloud

OpenStack Manila is the file level access method in development by the open source cloud platform. What is it, how does it work and when will it be ready? Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Pure Storage replaces FA series all-flash arrays with FlashArray//m

Pure Storage upgrades FA series all-flash arrays with FlashArray//m series devices Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Guide to LUN configuration and virtualisation

LUN storage configuration has long been a cornerstone of storage management. The LUN – a chunk of storage created from RAID partitions on a SAN – presents a logical volume of capacity to an individual server. That’s still relevant today in the era of virtualisation. Many users retain physical servers that need a one-to-one connection between host and LUN. But, the role of the LUN is also changing with the rise of server and desktop virtualisation. It now forms a container for the logical objects used by VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V etc. In this guide you will find all you need to know about LUNs, LUN configuration and management, including their use in virtualised environments. Continue Reading

LTFS tape NAS: What it is and how to build it

In storage, cost is everything. So, imagine a storage medium with the frugal cost profile of tape and access times of NAS. Well, it already exists. Since 2010 the Linear Tape File System (LTFS) has allowed access to tapes as if they are spinning disk. Part of the LTO-5 tape format, LTFS partitions the tape, with one containing indexing information for all the data on the cartridge and the other contains the actual data. Marry this capability to a hardware NAS protocol front end with a disk cache and you have the potential for rapid access to massive amounts of data held on tape. Tiered storage is now mainstream. We have super-rapid flash for virtual machines and their data; Fibre Channel and 15k SAS for other fast access use cases. After that there is high-capacity SATA for bulk data, but here is where LTFS could start treading on the toes of disk vendors. That’s because, in some cases, where the use profile of data requires long retention and infrequent but relatively quick access, LTFS tape now rivals large capacity SATA as a nearline store. Maybe that’s why LTFS has failed to set the world on fire; there are just too many disk vendors who see it as a threat. Nevertheless, LTFS is worth looking at. And in this ComputerWeekly.com Guide you’ll find articles on why LTFS should be taken seriously and explanations of how tape NAS works and who sells products. Continue Reading

Erasure coding vs Raid for disk rebuilds

Erasure coding as a means of data protection has emerged with object storage and offers an alternative to Raid systems Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Load DynamiX adds OpenStack protocols to storage testing product

Storage testing and validation provider adds OpenStack Swift and Cinder support to existing protocols in its Enterprise version 2.6 hardware Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Docker storage 101: How storage works in Docker

Docker nails some of the shortcomings of virtualisation, but what about Docker container storage? Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

VM backup down as a priority while disaster recovery still tops to-do lists

Our survey finds VM backup increasingly “job done”, while disaster recovery, cloud storage, flash storage and mobility remain high priorities; but where is mobile backup? Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Top five things you need to know about VMware Virtual Volumes

VMware’s Virtual Volumes (VVOLs) promise a revolution in storage for virtual machines, but what are the key things you need to know? Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

$/GB vs $/IOPS and how to compare enterprise storage pricing

While raw drive prices are pennies per GB, the actual cost of enterprise storage is much higher. Finding a baseline can save you money Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Dell adds Nutanix-powered XC630 and XC730 hyperconverged systems

Dell targets range of use cases with XC630 and XC730 Nutanix-powered server/storage nodes Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

PernixData FVP boosts RAM as host storage with up to 4x compression

Flash caching firm PernixData adds compression to FVP 2.5 for more scope to use RAM as host-based storage for high-performance datasets Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

IBM moves to MLC in FlashSystem 900 and V9000 all-flash arrays

IBM boosts density with new Micron MLC flash drives in revamped all-flash arrays, the FlashSystem 900 and the V9000 that includes SAN Volume Controller storage virtualisation hardware Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Suse launches Ceph-based cloud software-defined storage

Suse launches commercially-supported object, block and file Ceph distribution Enterprise Storage, software-defined storage Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

EMC launches VSPEX Blue EVO:Rail hyper-converged appliances

EMC announces VSPEX Blue EVO:Rail hyper-converged appliance in general purpose and performance variants Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

UK's fastest supercomputer upgrades to 2Pflops and 5PB of tiered storage

The UK's fastest supercomputer upgrades to 4,920 nodes and 2 Petaflops performance with tiered storage including 5PB of direct-attached disk Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Amatis Networks waves goodbye to LUN woes and deploys Tintri hybrid flash

Managed service provider Amatis Networks deploys Tintri hybrid flash to slash latency and cut time-consuming LUN storage management overheads Continue Reading

Thin provisioning – hypervisor vs array

Thin provisioning can be done at the storage array or virtualisation hypervisor. We look at the pros and cons of each – or both Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Hero Group uses vMotion to replace SAN and servers with Nutanix

Baby food, fruit and cereal bar company Hero Group has migrated its Holland operations over to a single virtual platform Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

Flash storage 101: How solid state storage works

Why flash writes are troublesome, why endurance is limited and what suppliers are doing to overcome these issues Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Key challenges in storage and virtualisation, and how to beat them

Server virtualisation brings benefits but increases storage-capacity needs. Here we survey the key challenges and what to do about them Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Interview: The IT powering animated movie-making

Video special effects require similar processing to oil and gas, but lack the budget, says head of technology at Illumination Mac Guff, Bruno Mahe Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

EMC buys out Cisco’s stakes in VCE as year-on-year revenue jumps 9%

Storage giant EMC has reported a 9% increase year on year for the third quarter of 2014, thanks to revenue rises across its divisions Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

DDN launches scale-out NAS GS7K GPFS product bundle

DataDirect Networks launches the GS7K, a pre-configured GPFS scale-out NAS/parallel file system storage product Continue Reading

A guide to scale-out NAS: The specialists and startups

Specialist suppliers and startups in scale-out NAS, a technology that’s gone mainstream for its superior ability to scale capacity and performance Continue Reading

By

• Manek Dubash

Scale-out NAS product survey: The big six

We survey the big six storage array makers’ scale-out NAS product ranges Continue Reading

By

• Manek Dubash

Key storage performance metrics for virtual environments

We run the rule over storage performance metrics – latency, throughput and IOPS – that are key to optimising virtual machines Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

EMC XtremIO, VMAX and Isilon get new CPUs and data services

EMC boosts XtremIO, VMAX and Isilon with Ivy Bridge CPUs and advanced data services including flash array snapshots Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Big players target object storage at cloud and archive

All but one of the big six storage vendors have object storage products that target public and private cloud environments and/or archiving use cases Continue Reading

By

• Manek Dubash

Facebook shares lessons learnt from deploying Raid in HDFS clusters

Facebook deployed Raid in large HDFS clusters to increase capacity and reduce data replication, but it faced many challenges Continue Reading

OpenStack storage: Cinder and Swift explained

is a rising star in private cloud infrastructures. But what about OpenStack storage? We run the rule over OpenStack Cinder and Swift Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

In-memory databases - what they do and the storage they need

In-memory databases offer high performance data processing, but how do you protect data in volatile DRAM and what kind of storage is needed for longer term retention? Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Erasure coding vs Raid as a data protection method

Erasure coding is mooted as a potential successor to Raid and backup software Continue Reading

By

• Manek Dubash

HDS upgrades its mainframe-friendly VSP G1000 enterprise storage array

Hitachi Data Systems launches the Virtual Storage Platform G1000 enterprise storage array, which boosts capacity, performance and lifespan for the storage virtualisation platform. Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Data set to grow 10-fold by 2020 as internet of things takes off

IDC’s Digital Universe study predicts the world's data will amount to 44 zettabytes by 2020, 10% of it from the internet of things Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

VMware versus Hyper-V storage comparison

VMware versus Hyper-V storage: How do the two leading hypervisors compare when it comes to deploying storage and in terms of their key storage features and functionality? Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Would the real flash storage successor please stand up?

Flash storage will hit a wall in development terms by around the end of the decade. But which successor is best placed to replace it: Memristor, MRAM or phase-change memory? Continue Reading

By

• Tim Stammers and Simon Robinson

Converged stacks: What they are and the benefits they bring

We survey the converged stacks market: Servers, storage and networking in pre-configured product bundles for specific virtualisation and application use cases. Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

NetApp slims product family with launch of FAS8000 series

NetApp launches FAS8000 line that will replace FAS3000 and FAS6000 series filers Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Flash storage: What it is and where to deploy it

A guide to the key decisions in flash storage: MLC vs SLC, all-flash vs hybrid, whether to add flash to an existing SAN, flash as a tier vs cache, and more Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead and Chris Evans

Atlantis joins the software-defined storage fray with USX

Atlantis ILIO USX software-defined storage allows customers to virtualise commodity to create flash, hybrid and hyperscale storage Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

B&Q owner Kingfisher dumps Raid rebuilds and saves 40% on disk with X-IO

Kingfisher puts X-IO drives behind IBM SVC storage virtualisation to save 40% disk costs and dispenses with Raid rebuilds in £120,000 project Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Survey: Virtualisation the engine for key storage projects

Server virtualisation drives key storage projects for European and UK IT departments, with disaster recovery and virtual server backup high on to-do lists Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

EMC brings Hadoop into ViPR upgrade and unifies SRM modules

EMC launches version 1.1 of its software-defined storage/big data platform ViPR by building in Hadoop analytics capability Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

VDI storage basics and persistent versus non-persistent desktops

A look at the fundamentals of VDI storage and how to specify storage for likely workloads and persistent versus non-persistent desktops. Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Flash storage alternative MRAM takes another step forward

MRAM, a likely successor to flash storage, takes a step toward easier manufacture and longer life with new structures theorised by scientists in Singapore Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Top 10 storage stories of 2013

Users tackle virtualisation and growth of data and suppliers battle over flash storage and software-defined storage, while big data and hyperscale emerge into the mainstream Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

SMB 3.0 brings enterprise-class storage to Hyper-V deployments

SMB 3.0 is Microsoft’s replacement for the “chatty” CIFS file access storage protocol that offers enterprise-class storage to Hyper-V deployments Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

School gets Nimble hybrid flash and Barracuda hybrid cloud backup

Berkshire private college has revamped data protection with Nimble hybrid flash storage and Barracuda hybrid cloud backup Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Wellcome Trust maps big data genetics with DDN HPC storage

The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute has invested in DDN SFA10K HPC storage to support petabytes of big data generated by genetic mapping and research into diseases such as malaria Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Big data storage: Hadoop storage basics

Hadoop changes the game for enterprise storage. We look at how Hadoop crunches big data, its key storage requirements and survey the vendors Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Quantum upgrades big data storage to StorNext 5

Quantum’s StorNext big data tiered architecture operating software gets a boost to five billion files and a claimed 10x performance jump via multi-threaded CPU ops Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

When to use flash SSD instead of SAS or SATA?

When to use flash SSDs instead of SAS or SATA spinning disk is all down to application requirements, says David Boyle, senior consultant at GlassHouse Technologies (UK) Continue Reading

By

• David Boyle, senior consultant, GlassHouse Technologies (UK)

LUN storage management for vSphere and Hyper-V

LUN storage partitioning has been transformed with the advent of virtualisation. Find out how it differs between VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V implementations Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

What’s wrong with flash storage: And what will come after?

Flash storage has taken the enterprise by storm, but its days are numbered due to an unfavourable combination of technological obstacles and manufacturing economics Continue Reading

By

• Manek Dubash

Virtualisation and the LUN: Storage configuration for VMs

Virtualisation and the LUN: Storage admins used to match LUNs to physical servers, but that’s all changed. Find out how in this guide to the basics of VM storage Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Inadequate datacentre infrastructure is a barrier to big data analytics

Inadequate datacentre infrastructure and siloed work practices are preventing UK enterprises from benefiting from big data analytics, shows study Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Users’ top datacentre pain points

Storage, network bandwidth, cost and scalability are among the biggest datacentre concerns, say users at Dell Enterprise Forum US Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

VMware storage: SAN configuration basics

For VMware storage basics start here – the fundamentals of configuring SAN storage for VMware, such as VMFS, VMDKs, connectivity options and VMware storage features Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

SSD RAID essentials: What you need to know about flash and Raid

With the advent of flash and high-capacity HDDs, what do today’s storage professionals need to know about Raid and its new variants? Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Storage Through the Looking Glass

This analyst report aims to help you take a much needed step away from the technical detail of storage to create some strategic perspective. Continue Reading

World’s fastest supercomputer gets 40PB of DDN storage

The US Oak Ridge lab builds home-grown HPC NAS for 40PB DataDirect Networks with 1TBps of throughput as a SAN to back-end Spider II file system on Titan supercomputer Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Real-life disaster recovery boost at video firm with HDS clustered NAS

Special effects video firm The Mill boosts HDS/BlueArc clustered NAS capacity to cope with HD movies and build disaster recovery site at London’s Docklands Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Big data storage: Defining big data and the type of storage it needs

Big data storage: What is big data, what compute/storage system configurations are used for big data analytics, and what type of storage infrastructure does it require? Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

DDN launches hScaler Hadoop appliance for enterprises

HPC and clustered NAS supplier Data Direct Networks aims at enterprise customers with Hadoop appliance comprising its SFA12K storage and commodity compute components Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Whiptail tops the class with flash array plus SAN two-tier strategy

School slashes virtual desktop login times with two-tier Whiptail flash array plus budget Huawei SAN Continue Reading

EMC seals deal with Chinese server giant Lenovo for desktop NAS

Storage giant EMC completes joint venture that will see it provide desktop NAS and SME rackmount storage hardware to Lenovo Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Top 10 storage stories of 2012

Top storage stories from 2012 reflect the rapid pace of virtualisation, big data, the proliferation of mobile devices and new twists on storage technologies such as tape and RAID Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Deduplication and single instance storage cut primary data storage costs

Data deduplication and single instance storage can cut costs in primary data environments, but implementations vary between suppliers. Continue Reading

By

• Manek Dubash

Whiptail promises four million IOPS all-flash array performance

All-flash array maker Whiptail has upgraded its Racerunner operating system so Invicta arrays can scale to four million IOPS and 360TB of capacity Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

DataDirect Networks takes aim at clustered NAS with SFA7700

DataDirect Networks (DDN) makes a play for clustered NAS customers with big data needs on its journey from HPC to scale-out supplier Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

CERN turns on new NetApp ONTAP clustered NAS capability

CERN turns on NetApp Data ONTAP 8.1.1 clustered NAS functionality for easy scaling and maintenance on its 2PB LHC data storage cluster Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Tune Raid performance to get the most from your HDDs

Tune Raid performance at the storage controller to match application I/O demands to optimal hard drive (HDD) performance Continue Reading

By

• Martin Taylor

The pros and cons of NAS as VM storage

Virtual server and desktop environments demand the use of shared storage for maximum efficiency. What are the key advantages of NAS as VM storage? Continue Reading

The benefits of an open source file system for storage

An open source file system can bring huge scalability, parallel file system capability and advanced features compared to those bundled with commercial operating systems. Continue Reading

By

• Manek Dubash

The key capabilities of SAN as virtual machine storage

Virtual server and desktop environments demand the use of shared storage for maximum efficiency, but what are the key advantages of SAN as virtual machine storage? Continue Reading

SSD RAID array: What it is and how to use it

An SSD RAID array offers the performance and data protection advantages RAID does with spinning disk, but what levels should you use and can you mix flash and HDDs in the same RAID group? Continue Reading