Storage

Storage requirements for AI, ML and analytics in 2022

We look at what is needed for artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the pros and cons of block, file and object storage to store and access very large amounts of often unstructured data Continue Reading

By

• Stephen Pritchard

CW Middle East: UAE and UK researchers work on ‘trustworthy’ cloud OS for datacentres

Imperial College London is embarking on a three-year project with an Abu Dhabi-based group of researchers to find ways for datacentre operators and cloud providers to secure their infrastructure. Also read how Dubai is positioning itself to reap the benefits of a promising global market for drone technology. Continue Reading

Pure says unstructured data needs storage scale and performance

Podcast: Pure Storage says huge growth of unstructured data and its diversity means storage has to be able to scale with it and offer performance to gain insights Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Snapshots best practice: Five key things you need to know

We look at snapshots best practice, including the way they work, why they are not the same as backups, how to avoid heavy processing overheads and key user permissions tweaks Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

oversubscription

Oversubscription in a storage area network (SAN) is the practice of committing more network bandwidth to devices connected to that network than what is physically available. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon
• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Backup types explained: Full, incremental, differential, synthetic

We look at backup – on-prem and cloud – and the key variants available, from full backup to synthetic full, via incremental, differential, incremental forever and reverse incremental Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Ten years of the Raspberry Pi

In this week’s Computer Weekly, as the Raspberry Pi reaches its 10th anniversary, we look back on how the low-cost computing device went from schools to supercomputers and even into space. Gartner offers tips on how to motivate IT staff in a hybrid working environment. And we meet the Dutch hackers helping to secure the internet. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Backup: N-able emerges from white box to aim at enterprise customers

It spent years integrated with Solarwinds and as a re-sold product, but now it plans to target enterprise customers with a backup product that aims at granular file protection and restore Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

PA-DSS (Payment Application Data Security Standard)

Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) is a set of requirements intended to help software vendors develop secure payment applications for credit card transactions. Continue Reading

By

• Katie Terrell Hanna
• Maggie Sullivan, SEO/Content Specialist

write amplification factor (WAF)

Write amplification factor (WAF) is a numerical value that represents the amount of data a solid-state drive (SSD) controller writes in relation to the amount of data that the host's flash controller writes. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

SSD vs. SSHD vs. HDD: Which one is best?

Hybrid drives promise fast, cost-effective performance for primary and secondary storage. Here's what you need to know about the benefits and drawbacks compared to SSDs and HDDs. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Ad agency slashes NetApp costs with Datadobi data migration

US-based branding agency needed to migrate 20TB of large files to new NetApp hardware, but unwilling to stomach the vendor’s migration costs it chose Datadobi instead Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Biden issues warning about Russian cyber attacks

President Biden has said that US companies running critical infrastructure should immediately harden their defences in anticipation of potential cyber attacks from Russia Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

NetApp Cloud Insights gets AI monitoring and ransomware detection

Cloud Insights adds artificial intelligence-based continuous audit and monitoring of entire IT estate and generates impact assessments from performance events, plus anomaly alerting for ransomware Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

cloud storage API

A cloud storage API is an application programming interface that connects a locally based application to a cloud-based storage system so that a user can send data to it and access and work with data stored in it. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

How 2022’s most significant data privacy trends affect your organisation

Data privacy and protection are now core responsibilities for most, but as we all know by now, compliance is a moving target. Here, expert Alan Calder looks ahead at what to expect in the coming months Continue Reading

By

• Alan Calder, IT Governance

CW APAC: Trend Watch: Storage management

Storage management is a key consideration for organisations of all shapes and sizes. In this handbook, focused on storage management in the Asia-Pacific region, Computer Weekly looks at the benefits of open source, why MediaHub opted for object storage, this year’s emerging cloud supplier trends and how the hyper-converged infrastructure market is changing. Continue Reading

TV provider MediaHub boots SAN and NAS for Scality object storage

Sydney-based TV content provider MediaHub got tired of performance issues and scaling difficulties with SAN and NAS, so it powered its as-a-service offer with Scality object storage Continue Reading

How open source is shaping data storage management

Open source data storage offers a great deal of flexibility, but unlocking its benefits demands strong technical resources to meet requirements such as stability, high availability and security Continue Reading

Storage suppliers put Kubernetes platforms centre stage

How to orchestrate the orchestrator? Storage suppliers’ Kubernetes management platforms aim to meet storage and data protection challenge in containerised application environments Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Quantum launches ‘scale-out’ i6H rackmount tape library

Aimed at hyperscalers and enterprises, the LTO-9 system comes in a rackmount form factor that can be deployed anywhere in the datacentre as part of a common pool of storage Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

How the tech sector is supporting Ukraine

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we examine the global tech sector response to the invasion of Ukraine, and how hackers are responding to calls for an IT army to target Russia. Our latest buyer’s guide looks at cloud-based ERP and other business applications. And IBM’s UK chief tells us how Big Blue is reinventing itself. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

NAND flash wear-out

NAND flash wear-out is the breakdown of the oxide layer within the floating gate transistors of NAND flash memory. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon
• Carol Sliwa

Police EncroChat cryptophone hacking implant did not work properly and frequently failed

Surveillance operation against EncroChat encrypted phone network had repeated technical failures Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

Cloud-era disaster recovery planning: Maintenance and continuous improvement

In the final article in this four-part guide to disaster recovery planning, we look at how and when to update, maintain, audit, review and continually improve the DR plan Continue Reading

By

• Paul Kirvan

Five key points on file locking vs object locking

We look at file vs object storage locking mechanisms, how different forms of storage ensure data consistency, and especially how object storage is tackling the challenge Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

clustered network-attached storage (NAS) system

A clustered network-attached storage (NAS) system is a scale-out storage platform made up of multiple NAS nodes networked together into a single cluster. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon
• Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer Consulting

Cloud-era disaster recovery planning: Assessing risk and business impact

In the first in a series on cloud-era disaster recovery, we provide a step-by-step guide to building firm foundations for the disaster recovery plan, with risk assessment and business impact analysis Continue Reading

Using technology to protect human rights

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we investigate how technology is being used to tackle human rights abuses worldwide. We offer a step-by-step guide to disaster recovery in the cloud era. And we examine the vital, and successful, role of digital and data in the UK Covid-19 vaccine roll-out. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Micron 7450 aims its 176 TLC layers at QLC flash use cases

New 176-layer tech brings densely packed flash cells in drives that come in 2.5”, M.2 and EDSFF form factors, aimed at datacentre workloads from archive to database storage Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

solid-state storage garbage collection

Solid-state storage garbage collection, or SSD garbage collection, is an automated process by which a solid-state drive (SSD) improves write performance. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

LUN masking

LUN masking is an authorization mechanism used in storage area networks (SANs) to make LUNs available to some hosts but unavailable to other hosts. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

Direct action is a risky business for Ukraine's volunteer hackers

Hackers have been responding to Ukraine’s call to create an IT army, but there are many reasons why taking direct action in a kinetic conflict is a bad idea Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

virtual LUN (virtual logical unit number)

A virtual LUN (virtual logical unit number) is a representation of a storage area that is not tied to any physical storage allocation. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

Software firm saves storage array costs with Nutanix hyper-converged

Banking SaaS provider Vialink needed more IOPS when its NetApp arrays slowed up, but Nutanix hyper-converged proved a better package than Pure Storage and Dell EMC, too Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Cloud suppliers eye APAC space industry

Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are working with local governments and supplying cloud technologies to support the region’s growing space industry Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Cloud storage cost challenges and how to tackle them

We look at cloud capacity procurement pitfalls, forecasting challenges, the danger of over-buying, supplier lock-in, deciphering billing and resizing capacity when projects finish Continue Reading

By

• Stephen Pritchard

Define RPO and RTO tiers for storage and data protection strategy

We look at RPO and RTO in defining data protection and disaster recovery strategies and how to specify tiers that reflect the importance of different systems in your organisation Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Backups ‘no longer effective’ for stopping ransomware attacks

Traditional methods of mitigating ransomware are less efficacious thanks to the rise in double and triple extortion techniques Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

virtual hard disk (VHD)

A virtual hard disk (VHD) is a disk image file format for storing the entire contents of a computer's hard drive. Continue Reading

By

• Rahul Awati

Hammerspace offers follow-the-sun access to on-prem and cloud storage

Startup aims to succeed where others have failed and present file, block and object storage data from any and multiple locations as if it were local to the user Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Backup heads to cloud as ransomware hits 76% and RTOs/RPOs fail

Veeam survey finds most can’t recover the data they want or do it in time, ransomware is now a ‘disaster’, use of the cloud is increasing, but the datacentre is still very important Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Storage and 5G: Big impacts likely as wide-area topologies evolve

Enterprise 5G will boost the need for storage generally. It will also push capacity needs closer to the edge and create new locations for processing and storage Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Retrospect Backup refines anomaly detection in ransomware battle

StorCentric backup software brand allows customer fine-tuning of anomaly detection in struggle against ransomware, and adds immutable copies via object locking in Azure Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Botched third-party configuration exposes Internet Society data to web

Personal data on members of The Internet Society was exposed after a supplier failed to secure its Azure storage Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Nebulon gets Ansible collection for datacentre deployment

Provider of cloud-managed and hardware-accelerated – formerly ‘cloud-defined’ – storage makes further moves towards its smartInfrastructure vision, with Terraform support coming Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

The top backup and disaster recovery services of 2021

Products of the Year winners in the backup and disaster recovery services category wowed judges with their innovation, ransomware protection and scalability. Continue Reading

By

• Erin Sullivan, Senior Site Editor

Predictions for the top data storage trends of 2022

The constant need to organize, analyze and protect the hoard of data collected by organizations is pushing technology to new heights. Are these four predictions on your watch list? Continue Reading

By

• Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer Consulting

On a mission to track space junk

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we talk to the space experts tracking orbital debris using graph database technology. We meet the startups taking very different approaches in trying to develop commercial quantum computers. And we ask why it’s so difficult to build a data science team and how to overcome the challenges. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Half of key IT spending to shift to cloud

Some 51% of spending in key areas such as application software, infrastructure software, business process services and system infrastructure will shift to cloud by 2025, says Gartner Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

HD-DVD (high-definition DVD)

HD-DVD (high-definition DVD) is a defunct high-capacity optical storage medium that was once seen as the successor to the DVD. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

Posix vs object storage: How much longer for Posix?

We look at Posix compliance in storage and why it is being challenged by object storage and the need to scale much further than Posix-oriented storage was ever intended to Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Tiger offers lightweight file access for hybrid cloud

Roar data, anyone? Tiger offers local access to cloud data, with only parts of the file being worked on downloaded and file locking in cloud buckets to ensure integrity Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Porn sites will be legally required to verify users’ ages

Porn sites could be legally obliged to verify that their users are 18 or over under proposed online safety rules, in UK government’s second attempt to prevent children from accessing pornography online Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Cloud-era disaster recovery planning: Staff training, incident and media management

In the third in a series on cloud-era disaster recovery, we set out the key components of DR staff awareness and training programmes, as well as incident management and dealing with the media Continue Reading

By

• Paul Kirvan

How open source is shaping data storage management

Open source data storage offers a great deal of flexibility, but unlocking its benefits will require strong technical resources to meet requirements such as stability, high availability and security Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

CIO interview: Brian Roche, director of IT, George Best Belfast City Airport

Data analytics, the internet of things and open source software are central to the Northern Irish airport’s aim to create a seamless, tech-enabled journey for passengers Continue Reading

By

• Mark Samuels

TV provider MediaHub boots SAN and NAS for Scality object storage

Sydney-based TV content provider MediaHub got tired of performance issues and scaling difficulties with SAN and NAS, so powered its as-a-service offer with Scality object storage Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Australia’s cloud market tipped to surpass $14bn in 2025

The growth will be led by growing demand for software-as-a-service offerings as Aussie firms look to tap cloud services in their digital transformation efforts Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP)

Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) is an open protocol to control data backup and recovery communications between primary and secondary storage in a heterogeneous network environment. Continue Reading

By

• Rahul Awati

British Council data exposed by third-party cyber failure

The British Council entrusted confidential data on its students to a third-party and was let down Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

hierarchical storage management (HSM)

Hierarchical storage management (HSM) is policy-based management of data files that uses storage media economically and without the user being aware of when files are retrieved from storage. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

RAIN (redundant/reliable array of inexpensive/independent nodes)

A reliable array of independent nodes (RAIN) is a heterogeneous cluster of compute and storage nodes connected in a fault-tolerant network topology that incorporates multiple interfaces and redundant hardware. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

Nebulon SmartInfrastructure brings cloud-defined storage to datacentre

Cloud-defined storage allows customers to build private clouds on-site, with pools of storage built from commodity hardware, Nebulon PCIe cards and its browser-based console Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Data on children of armed forces personnel exposed in breach

Data on 4,142 children of serving armed forces personnel was exposed in a data breach at the Ministry of Defence Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Cyber skills gap affecting data privacy practice, finds ISACA

Organisations are struggling to fill both legal and technical privacy roles, with potentially damaging consequences, according to a report Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Cloud storage data residency: How to achieve compliance

There’s a conflict between cloud storage and the need to comply with local laws and regulations. We look at cloud data location, data residency, data sovereignty and data adequacy Continue Reading

By

• Stephen Pritchard

Refrigeration firm freezes legacy backup for one Cohesity cluster

France-based Clauger had reached limits of capacity and complexity with multi-supplier legacy backup, so moved to one Cohesity cluster and gained restores that took mere minutes Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Navigating PIPL: European businesses plot their next steps into China

How does China’s strict new Personal Information Protection Law impact European businesses? Continue Reading

By

• Matthew Staff

Cloud-era disaster recovery planning: Setting strategy and developing plans

In the second in a series on cloud-era disaster recovery, we look at how to formulate a DR strategy and develop detailed DR plans for your organisation, while taking cloud services into account Continue Reading

By

• Paul Kirvan

Storage tech brief: Look out for PCIe gen 5 drives in 2022

PCIe 5.0 will offer bandwidth up to 128GBps per drive. We look at what’s available and when, including in the new EDSFF form factor, as well as looking forward to PCIe gen 6 Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

information lifecycle management (ILM)

Information lifecycle management (ILM) is a comprehensive approach to managing an organization's data and associated metadata, starting with its creation and acquisition through when it becomes obsolete and is deleted. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

Why watching your remote workers doesn’t work

In this week’s Computer Weekly, the surge in home working led many firms to mandate use of surveillance software – we look at why it hasn’t worked. It’s an important year for public sector IT – we examine the trends for 2022. And with robotic process automation (RPA) booming, a Swedish bank explains the benefits. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

WORM (write once, read many)

In computer media, write once, read many, or WORM, is a data storage technology that allows data to be written to a storage medium a single time and prevents the data from being erased or modified. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

EDSFF brings built-for-NVMe connectivity to the datacentre

Aimed at enterprise use cases, EDSFF offers incredible flash density in shared storage and hyperscale deployments, but storage products that use it are still thin on the ground Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Object storage: How research institute got 850TB for €150,000

French scientific research institute had its budgets cut and to meet the new cost constraints, it settled on Swarm software-defined object storage from DataCore Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

How Forensic Architecture uses tech to protect human rights

Forensic Architecture speaks to Computer Weekly about how it uses various digital technologies to investigate human rights abuses around the globe, including the pushback of migrants over the Greek border and the killing of Mark Duggan by London police Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Cyber pros: Don’t revel in REvil’s downfall just yet

The arrests of REvil’s alleged kingpins is a welcome step, but as with any disruption to cyber criminal activity, it is never wise to assume law enforcement action means the threat has passed entirely Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Cloud-era disaster recovery planning: Assessing risk and business impact

In the first in a series on cloud-era disaster recovery, we provide a step-by-step guide to building firm foundations for the disaster recovery plan, with risk assessment and business impact analysis Continue Reading

By

• Paul Kirvan

The race to quantum computing

In this week’s Computer Weekly, researchers are racing to create the first commercially useful quantum computer – we look at one of the European candidates. Cyber security is one of the greatest risks facing the global economy, warns the World Economic Forum. And we examine the role of employee experience in hybrid working. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Test police algorithms in court rather than legislate, Lords told

Police algorithms and their impacts should be tested and challenged in court, rather than controlled by new laws, says policing minister Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Podcast: 2022 compliance preview – GDPR goes global

We talk to Mathieu Gorge, CEO of VigiTrust, about what’s looming in compliance, with regulations based on the principles of the General Data Protection Regulation plus the concept of cyber accountability Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Why hybrid IT means having a squeezed middle

From a pure sense of logic, cloud computing is the right choice for almost every situation requiring enterprise IT. Hardware can be deployed as and when required, used on-demand and the management ... Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

OVHCloud hit with customer class action over March 2021 datacentre fire

OVHCloud said it cannot comment at this time on the legal action, which is being embarked upon to compensate customers who claim to have lost data as a result of the public cloud firm’s datacentre fire in March 2021 Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK

Dispelling the top five myths of modern infrastructure

Modern infrastructure is agile, flexible and scalable. It is at the forefront of every CIO’s digital strategy – and it's everywhere. But with the multitude of choices comes complexity Continue Reading

By

• Paul Delory, Gartner

Macquarie joins NSW government’s cloud supplier panel

New South Wales state agencies will be able to access Macquarie’s sovereign cyber expertise and secure cloud, network and datacentre services Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Need rapid networked storage? Take a look at NVMe-over-TCP

Lightbits helped develop NVMe-over-TCP to provide shared NVMe storage capacity over existing TCP-based networks Continue Reading

By

• Sagi Grimberg, CTO, Lightbits Labs

Proofpoint acquires Singapore data security startup

Proofpoint’s acquisition of Dathena will bolster its data loss prevention capabilities, enabling organisations to better understand information risk through the use of AI Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Understand NVMe 2.0 specification and its related features

NVMe 2.0 added several features for storage administrators to consider, including domain support. The specification also made enhancements, such as to Endurance Group Management. Continue Reading

By

• Jim Handy, Objective Analysis

The role of artificial intelligence in the future of content

AI will play a key role in the future of content, as it can simplify tasks, create new business apps and improve file storage. But these changes won't happen overnight. Continue Reading

By

• Geoffrey Bock, Bock & Company

content-addressed storage (CAS)

Content-addressed storage (CAS) -- also called content-addressable storage -- is a method for storing fixed content as objects and providing fast access to that content. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

One SSD to ruler them all

If you’re at all curious about what comes next in enterprise storage devices, you need to know about EDSFF, the Enterprise and Data Centre SSD Form Factor – better known as the “ruler” format. ... Continue Reading

By

• Bryan Betts, Freeform Dynamics

Scale-up vs scale-out: Horizontal vs vertical scaling for storage

We look at the differences between scale-up and scale-out in storage – or horizontal vs vertical scaling – and the key ways it can be carried out on-prem and in the cloud Continue Reading

By

• Stephen Pritchard

Top 10 cloud storage, DR and datacentre storage stories of 2021

Key articles from 2021 that demonstrate the growing importance of cloud storage and disaster recovery, but also the snags that lead to cloud repatriation and difficulties restoring from the cloud Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

CW APAC: Expert guide to cloud migration

Organisations are increasingly moving their workloads to public cloud. In this handbook, focused on cloud migration in the Asia-Pacific region, Computer Weekly looks at the key strategies to follow, how HPE has transitioned into an as-a-service company, the adoption of cloud in Australia and why VMWare’s chief technology officer endorses a cross-cloud approach Continue Reading

Top 10 ransomware and backup stories of 2021

Key articles from 2021 that highlight the link between ransomware and snapshots and backup and their role in repelling attacks, plus effects of the pandemic on backup and recovery Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Gig economy algorithmic management tools ‘unfair and opaque’

Report published by Worker Info Exchange warns of algorithmically enabled rights abuses in the gig economy, noting the insufficient transparency of employers and the lacklustre nature of legal redress Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

IT priorities 2022: Ransomware and cloud drive storage and backup

The pandemic and the move to the cloud has driven cloud storage as a key priority Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

The rules for a safer internet

In this week’s Computer Weekly, as the government publishes the Online Safety Bill, we look at what the laws mean for internet services. A ransomware victim shares the insider story of the trauma of losing their corporate IT systems. And we ask, what happens when quantum computers get too powerful to verify their output? Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Top IT predictions in APAC in 2022

Operationalising zero trust, talent retention and containerisation are just some of the key trends that will shape Asia-Pacific’s technology landscape in 2022 Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, TechTarget