Storage Nation

There is a growing need for specialized storage servers to provide functions like Network Attached Storage (NAS) over Internet protocols, Content Archives, enterprise document management, Virtual tape Libraries (VTL), deduplication, low cost modular storage, high availability enterprise storage, etc. While storage servers provide benefits for the management and preservation of certain types of data, it can create storage/server sprawl and increase the fragmentation of data center resources if these services are delivered as standalone storage and server bundles

Those of you who subscribe to Gartner reports may have seen their recent report: “ Choosing Between Monolithic Versus Modular Storage: Robustness, Scalability and Price Are the Tiebreakers ” While I agree with some of their definitions of monolithic and modular storage, it is no longer a question of one versus the other. With the Hitachi USP V/VM we combine the best of both worlds, by providing a “monolithic” or enterprise tier 1 front-end with lower cost modular back-end storage. I agree with their description of monolithic storage as having many controllers that share direct access to a large, high performance, global cache, supporting a large number of host connections, including mainframes, and providing redundancy to ensure high availability and reliability. I also agree with their definition of modular storage, which contains two variants, a dual controller architecture with separate cache memory and a scale out architecture that can have many nodes with separate caches in each node.

This is the fourth part in my series on data center transformation. My last post was on storage transformation and the impact of storage virtualization on the data center. In this post I will address the impact of Dynamic Provisioning on the Data Center. The history of storage provisioning The provisioning of storage has been a major effort since the introduction of the random access disk drives in 1956.

This is the second post in my series on data center transformation. In my first post , I offered up several warning signs that indicate why it is time to take action and transform your data center to be agile, sustainable, and business-oriented.

There is an increasing interest in storage virtualization as seen an the increasing number of articles and blog posts on storage virtualization. In the last few days Rick Vanover posted a very balanced overview of storage virtualization for Datamation where he reviewed some of the many options.   Carol Sliwa posted a Storage Pro Guide to block-based storage virtualization for SearchStorage which cited some use cases. One of the use cases was the City of Coquitlan (Canada) who is a 2010 Computerworld Honors Laureate award winners in IDG’s Computerworld Honors Program and a customer of Hitachi.

Last week Hitachi Data Systems held their first blogger day, which was attended by 10 bloggers who cover the IT space.

A new survey by Intercall shows that 48 percent of americans who use technology in their everyday jobs say that they are now required to do more work with fewer resources due to the current economic climate.

Since 1988, the Computerworld Honors Program has been recognizing and documenting the achievements of men, women, organizations and instututions around the world whose visionary use of information technology promotes positive social, economic and educational change. We are pleased to announce that five Hitachi Data Systems customers have been selected as the 2010 Computerworld Honors Laureate award winners by IDG’s Computerworld Honors Program. These Hitachi Data Systems customers will be recognized during the 22nd Annual Laureates Medal Ceremony & Gala Awards Evening on June 7, 2010 at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.

A Computerworld article by Bernard Golden highlights an IDC report that says that the “digital Universe” will grow by 1.2 zeta bytes or 1.2 million peta bytes in 2010. One of the biggest issues with this increasing data growth is the ability to search for that particular piece of data that you need.

The second part of my advice to the recently-launched Active Archive Alliance has been posted to ESJ.com today (or was it yesterday).  In any case, I am delighted that ESJ.com decided also to run concurrently a video clip from an interview I conducted a couple of months back with Molly Rector of Spectra Logic while