Storage Nation » enterprise

A Minor Milestone

admin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 14:57:23 +0000

I'm on vacation this week — no blogging, no twitter, etc. — but I did manage to get around to checking my blog for any interesting comments.

Read the original post:
A Minor Milestone

Private Clouds And Dealing With Legacy

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:55:43 +0000

The good news — there's general consensus from the enterprise IT organization I speak with that — yes, they'd like to pursue a private cloud model. The challenging part — as they look around their data centers, all they can see is the legacy of past decisions: incompatible architectures, stove-pipe stacks and the rest. It's like an archeology project: you can see the layers of different waves that have come through the IT organization. How can you move forward when all you can see is history

The rest is here:
Private Clouds And Dealing With Legacy

Data Center Transformation Part 2 – Server Transformation

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:48:16 +0000

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.

Originally posted here:
Data Center Transformation Part 2 – Server Transformation

Storage Is Software

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:43:38 +0000

The title of this post is a variant on the intriguing " infrastructure is code " meme from the #devops community. I think it's a useful idea to remind ourselves of — especially as technology transitions. Even though some of you reading this might thing the statement is blindingly obvious, it's clear that the vast majority of people think of boxes with blinking lights when you say the word "storage"

More here:
Storage Is Software

Private Cloud: From "What" To "Why" … To "How"

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:06:57 +0000

I've been living with the private cloud journey since well before my first public post at the beginning of 2009. The appeal of the private cloud model has steadily grown in the last 18 months, and shows all signs of becoming the primary cloud adoption model for most typical enterprises. And, over that time, I've seen my dialogue with customers and partners evolve from… "what is a private cloud and how is it different from other proposed cloud models" to ..

Read the original:
Private Cloud: From "What" To "Why" … To "How"

Another Step Towards Information Governance

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 20:59:08 +0000

Sorry for falling behind the pace here, but there was a recent EMC product announcement that I found worthy of a deeper discussion. EMC's SourceOne group just announced their new File Intelligence product. And, as organizations struggle to get their arms around unfettered information growth, we may just have a new and important tool in the arsenal

See original here:
Another Step Towards Information Governance

Enterprise Computing: Storage Arrays – Where Data Goes to Die

admin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 07:00:37 +0000

Last week’s news reports that COPAN Systems are back from the dead after their purchase by SGI. The newly branded arrays have been tweaked (for example 50% of drives can be spinning on the SGI incarnation) but essentially the concept is the same; store shedloads of inactive data.

View post:
Enterprise Computing: Storage Arrays – Where Data Goes to Die

Enterprise Computing: Hitachi Bloggers Day

admin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:46:14 +0000

This time next week I shall be in the middle of the first HDS Bloggers Day, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday 15/16th June 2010. I’m well versed in HDS (or Hitachi, depending on how they preferred to be known) storage products, mainly their large enterprise arrays. I doubt we’ll see revelations on the upcoming USP V replacement due in the autumn, however this event does offer me two things: Discussions on the wider Hitachi technology such as blades, unified computing & file/object stores Access to execs to find out what the Hitachi “strategy” is and how they intend to keep ahead of the competition. Taking the first point, it may not be obvious but Hitachi already sell a range of servers and recently announced they intend to join in the unified computing game. At this stage I can’t see how they’re intending to handle the network piece of the stack and am keen to understand how they will address that. In addition, as Hitachi sell servers and storage (and storage they themselves manufacture), I’d expect integration across the stack to be tight and slick (let’s see). The HP Blades Day earlier this year gave me insight into the issues involved in delivering a solid unified computing architecture; the Gestalt IT Field Day last year started that process off, looking at MDS Micro, Xsigo and VMware. Let’s hope HDS/Hitachi have something good up their sleeves. That takes us to the second point; access to execs. So far, we’ve been told the following execs will be present; I’ve listed them here with the Hitachi supplied bios (not my own words). I’m hoping to grab a few minutes with each, to do some video interviews. There are some tough questions to answer, not all technology-based, but rather around the way Hitachi approaches marketing & social media in general. Here’s the list: Hu Yoshida < http://blogs.hds.com/hu/ > - storage industry and virtualization thought leader, is VP and CTO at Hitachi Data Systems

Excerpt from:
Enterprise Computing: Hitachi Bloggers Day

Enterprise Computing: 4 Pillars – Service: More On Chargeback

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:03:34 +0000

This is a series of posts covering the subject of Storage Management. Previous posts: The Four Pillars of Storage Management Four Pillars: Service Four Pillars: The Service Catalogue Four Pillars – Service: Chargeback In the previous article I discussed the subject of Billing and Chargeback. This entry discusses some of the issues raised in that post as additional considerations.

See original here:
Enterprise Computing: 4 Pillars – Service: More On Chargeback

Planning To Fail

admin — Sun, 30 May 2010 14:20:27 +0000

Like many of you, I'm staring in utter horror and disbelief at the ecological catastrophe unfolding in Gulf of Mexico. Indeed, the Deepwater Horizon will go down in history alongside the Exxon Valdez , Bhopal , Chernobyl and other examples of massive infrastructure failure destroying the environment on a mind-numbing scale. And, as I go through all the articles and analysis to date, I am struck by one simple fact: it appears they didn't have a plan for the inevitable. And above all else, I consider that criminal. Bad Stuff Happens We live in an imperfect world where — despite our best efforts — things routinely fail. So we do our best to imagine what can go wrong, and put in place either preventative or remediation mechanisms for when the inevitable happens.

Read more from the original source:
Planning To Fail