Virtualisation and storage

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, Computer Weekly

Case study: Airbus sets out challenges of changing IT supplier

Aircraft manufacturer sets out what it learned from switching IT provider after 12 years of working together. Continue Reading

Case study: Airbus sets out challenges of changing IT supplier

Aircraft manufacturer sets out what it learned from switching IT provider after 12 years of working together Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK

Disaster recovery planning: Where virtualisation can help

The disaster recovery planning process is not fundamentally technology-centric, so when can virtualisation make it quicker and easier to restore services after an unplanned outage? Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

The most influential people in UK IT 2015

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we announce our sixth annual UKtech50 list of the 50 most influential people in UK IT, and talk to this year’s winner – BT chief executive Gavin Patterson, about the challenges facing the telecoms giant in 2016. Also, we find out how the genomics industry is pushing big data technology to its limits. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

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

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

VMware reacts to the cloud and containerisation

At VMworld Europe, VMware restates products and roadmap visions that see it react to the perceived inevitability of the cloud, while also getting a grip on containers Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Computer Weekly

Virtualisation and disaster recovery: DR features in Hyper-V

We run the rule over the key functionality in Microsoft Hyper-V that can help with disaster recovery, including backup, migration, high availability and replication Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Keeping up with Cassandra, the NoSQL database

What does Call of Duty, the Hive smart thermostats, Social Weather and the William Hill bookie app all have in common? They are all powered by the Apache Cassandra NoSQL database Continue Reading

By

• Lis Evenstad

Virtualisation and disaster recovery: DR features in VMware

The key areas of functionality in VMware that can help with disaster recovery – including VMware backup, migration, high availability and replication Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

Cloudian boosts object storage HyperStore compliance features

Distributed object storage software maker Cloudian upgrades HyperStore with added granularity of data protection features that can help meet compliance requirements Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Computer Weekly

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

Computer Weekly European User Awards 2015 winners revealed

The winners have been announced for the Computer Weekly European User Awards 2015. See who made the top spots Continue Reading

By

• Kayleigh Bateman, Computer Weekly

OpenStack Cinder: Block storage on the open-source cloud platform

OpenStack Cinder 101: The fundamentals of Cinder, how it is implemented, how to provision it, how it works with third-party storage arrays, its features and more Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

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

VMware vs OpenStack: How they handle storage

The opportunities and challenges presented by the two virtualisation environments when it comes to storage, backup and disaster recovery. Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

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

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

EMC predicts return to double-digit sales growth

Storage giant's EMEA chief claims downbeat first quarter results are as bad as things will get for EMC, and that normal service will soon resume Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK

VCE takes wraps off "hyper-converged" VxRacks to fast-track users to the cloud

EMC-owned converged infrastructure specialist expands portfolio of cloud-enabling platforms Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK

Veeam upgrades Availability Suite to support VMware VVOLs

Virtual machine backup specialist Veeam upgrades Availability Suite version 8 to support VMware Virtual Volumes Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Computer Weekly

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, Computer Weekly

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

Taking stock of e-commerce systems

In this week's Computer Weekly, the first of our three-part buyer's guide to next generation e-commerce looks at managing inventory in multi-channel retailers. We highlight the six technology companies that are threats to the dominance of high-street banks. And we examine the top five issues in virtual machine backup. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

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, Computer Weekly

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

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, Computer Weekly

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, Computer Weekly

How to combat VM sprawl

VMs are easy to create, but when unmanaged they proliferate around your infrastructure. Here, we explain VM sprawl and how to combat it Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

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, Computer Weekly

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

Top five issues in VM backup

Virtual machine backup is a vital task for IT departments. But pitfalls abound. We look at the top five issues encountered in VM backup Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

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, Computer Weekly

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

Backup and disaster recovery in the age of virtualisation

One of the benefits of using virtual machines is the scope for improved backup. We look at the product offerings from traditional and new suppliers Continue Reading

By

• Bob Tarzey

Why has HP split?

In this week’s Computer Weekly, HP has announced plans to split the company in two – we look at the reasons and assess the future prospects for the IT giant. We examine the best practice in security policy to support a bring your own device (BYOD) scheme for staff mobile technology. And we find out how one company moved its entire datacentre from Berlin to London. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Virtual backup appliance pros and cons

Computer Weekly examines virtual backup appliances that run backup and restore from a virtual machine Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

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

Microsoft adds StorSimple hybrid storage arrays to Azure cloud service

Azure users get more storage, archiving and disaster recovery from 1 August 2014 with Microsoft's StorSimple 8000 series hybrid storage arrays Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Airbus deploys modular datacentre strategy to boost HPC capacity

The aircraft manufacturer has deployed HP's performance optimised datacentres (PODs) to increase its high performance compute capabilities for its engineers Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

Backup vs replication, snapshots, CDP in data protection strategy

Best practice data protection strategy combines backup with snapshots, CDP and replication for different levels of recovery Continue Reading

By

• Chris Evans

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

Facebook debuts ‘Rapid Deployment Data Centre’ design in Swedish facility

Facebook is expanding its Luleå datacentre in Sweden by deploying Rapid Deployment Data Centre (RDDC) design developed in collaboration with Emerson Power Network Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

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

BT and Microsoft to offer secure fast lane to Azure cloud

Microsoft’s UK cloud chief hails service as critical step in supporting CEO Satya Nadella’s ambitious plans for global cloud dominance Continue Reading

By

• Jim Mortleman

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

EMC upgrades Avamar, Networker and Data Domain products

EMC boosts application and hypervisor integration on Avamar, Networker and Data Domain as part of a strategic push to "backup-less backup" and a "data protection continuum" Continue Reading

Global taskforce agrees on green datacentre metric

DCeP hopes to win widespread support as a useful and meaningful standard for measuring datacentre efficiency Continue Reading

By

• Jim Mortleman

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

Case study: Virtualised storage adds value to Denmark's tunnel vision

State construction firm Femern selects DataCore system to help speed up Fehmarnbelt undersea odyssey and keep the sharks at bay Continue Reading

By

• Jim Mortleman

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, Computer Weekly

The UK’s problem with power

Datacentre power buyers say Britain’s deregulated energy market is as complex as trading in derivatives Continue Reading

By

• Nick Booth

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

Schneider accreditation aims to boost green datacentre skills

Datacentre supplier offers free vendor-neutral courses and certification through its online Energy University Continue Reading

By

• Jim Mortleman

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, Computer Weekly

Amazon nets lion’s share of $10bn public cloud market

AWS continues its unassailable domination of the sector, despite recent moves by Google, IBM and Microsoft Continue Reading

By

• Jim Mortleman

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, Computer Weekly

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, Computer Weekly

WIll open source save the datacentre industry?

IT rivals stand cheek-by-jowl to praise Facebook’s Open Compute Project, but is the love-in a Damascene conversion or just damage limitation? Continue Reading

By

• Jim Mortleman

Microsoft joins Open Compute Project

Redmond giant makes server specs public in bid to influence future datacentre design Continue Reading

By

• Jim Mortleman

IBM to open London datacentre as part of $1.2bn global cloud push

New facility first in UK to be based on IBM SoftLayer cloud architecture Continue Reading

By

• Jim Mortleman

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

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, Computer Weekly

Virtualisation continues to drive European server purchases

TechTarget survey finds 97.3% of large organisations plan to expand their deployments in 2014, with consolidation the main driver Continue Reading

By

• Jim Mortleman

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

Business-defined storage will help reconnect businesses with IT, says Forrester

Business-defined storage and datacentres will make IT more business-centric, according to Forrester Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist

Lotus F1 Team invests in converged datacentre to support race strategy

Lotus F1 Team is about to go live with a converged datacentre infrastructure as it begins the development of a championship-winning car for 2015 Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

Array-based or vSphere Replication for VMware SRM?

What’s the best replication method for VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM)? GlassHouse Technologies’ Paul Grimwood runs the rule over array-based replication and vSphere Replication Continue Reading

By

• Paul Grimwood, GlassHouse Technologies (UK)

Will project Baadal stimulate India’s MSME engine?

The Indian government wants to help its massive community of small businesses become more competitive in the age of the internet through a cloud computing resource, known as Baadal. Continue Reading

By

• Satarupa Bhattacharya

Disaster recovery planning: Don’t be fooled by suppliers

Disaster recovery planning is all about good preparation and not falling for supplier hype. Build appropriate systems, test them and train people well Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Computer Weekly

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, Computer Weekly

Podcast: Virtual server backup fundamentals

Virtual server backup is different to traditional backup. This podcast looks at the differences and examines key choices in selecting backup products Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Computer Weekly

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

VDI and the enterprise app

Over 200 attendees headed down to Briforum recently for two days of in-depth discussions on VDI, application virtualisation, etc including a look at the current state of the market across Europe. CW Europe looks at how European businesses are utilising the technology. This month’s digital magazine brings you the leading stories and expert tips from across Europe. Continue Reading

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

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

— Computer Weekly

Businesses wasting billions storing unnecessary data

CIOs are urged to rethink their backup strategies following warnings that companies are wasting billions on unnecessary storage Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Investigations 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

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, Computer Weekly

Digitising the BFI National Archive

The BFI has the largest film archive in the world, with 200,000 films and nearly 900,000 TV shows in its collection. Of that, 75% is British. The institute is undergoing a major digitisation programme in under to preserve its wealth of social history and bring the archive’s treasures to millions. Continue Reading

By

• Kathleen Hall, TechTarget

We need European datacentres to 'be successful' says Box CEO

Computer Weekly speaks to founder and CEO of cloud storage firm Box about why enterprises are embracing this type of technology and what his firm has to do to keep them happy Continue Reading

Thin provisioning best practices for virtual server environments

This tip emphasizes on the key factors to consider while provisioning thin storage for virtual server environments. Continue Reading

By

• Anuj Sharma, Contributor

A guide to storage virtualization

Few technologies are more confusing than storage virtualization. Without a guide to explain the different storage virtualization solutions, storage administrators who want to deploy this technology will be lost. Continue Reading

Green storage best practices control costs, increase energy efficiency

Green storage best practices control power and cooling costs, and increase energy efficiency in your data center. Tiered storage, consolidating storage arrays, solid-state drives (SSDs) and MAID can help. Continue Reading

By

• James Damoulakis, GlassHouse Technologies

NetApp dedupes data on rivals' primary storage

NetApp extends its free data deduplication to its V-Series gateways, making it possible for its customers to dedupe their primary storage. But users say what's missing is a GUI and data dedupe for VTLs. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

3PAR shrinks virtual desktop storage

3PAR's software package allows users of its high-end disk arrays to store a single "golden image" of virtual desktops and hold that image in cache for better boot performance. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer

Friction grows between storage vendors, VMware

As the booming server virtualisation market spawns new competitors to VMware, how virtual machines connect with storage is becoming a matter of contention among vendors. Continue Reading

By

• Beth Pariseau, Senior News Writer