Category Archives: Storage Features

One platform to rule them all – Compellent&EqualLogic&Exanet from Dell

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Ray

Dell and Compellent may be a great match because Compellent uses commodity hardware combined with specialized software to create their storage subsystem. If there’s any company out there that can take advantage of commodity hardware it’s probably Dell. (Of course … Continue reading →

Posted in Block Storage, File Storage, Storage, Storage Features, System effectiveness, Systems | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Data compression lives on

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Ray

Last week NetApp announced the availability of data compression on many of their unified storage platforms, which includes block and file storage.  Earlier this year EMC announced data compression for LUNs on CLARiion and Celerra.  I must commend both of … Continue reading →

Posted in Block Storage, Data, Data compression, File Storage, Storage, Storage Features, Storage performance | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Commodity hardware always loses

Posted on November 5, 2010 by Ray

A recent post by Stephen Foskett has revisted a blog discussion that Chuck Hollis and I had on commodity vs. special purpose hardware.  It’s clear to me that commodity hardware is a losing proposition for the storage industry and for … Continue reading →

Posted in Business economics, Storage, Storage Features, Strategy, System effectiveness, System quality, Systems | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Poor deduplication with Oracle RMAN compressed backups

Posted on October 20, 2010 by Ray

I was talking with one large enterprise customer today and he was lamenting how poorly Oracle RMAN compressed backupsets dedupe. Apparently, non-compressed RMAN backup sets generate anywhere from 20 to 40:1 deduplication ratios but when they use RMAN backupset compression, … Continue reading →

Posted in Storage Backup, Storage Features, System effectiveness | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

CommVault’s Simpana 9 release

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Ray

CommVault annoucned a new release of their data protection product today – Simpana® 9.  The new software provides significantly enhanced support for VM backup, new source-level deduplication capabilities and other enhanced facilities. Simpana 9 starts by defining 3 tiers of … Continue reading →

Posted in data protection, Server virtualization, Storage Backup, Storage Features | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Hitachi’s VSP vs. VMAX

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Ray

Today’s announcement of Hitachi’s VSP brings another round to the competition between EMC and Hitachi/HDS in the enterprise. VSP’s recent introduction which is GA and orderable today, takes the rivalry to a whole new level. I was on SiliconANGLE‘s live TV … Continue reading →

Posted in Block Storage, Server virtualization, Storage architecture, Storage Features, Storage performance | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Data storage features for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Ray

Was talking with someone yesterday about one of my favorite topics, data storage for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments.  In my mind there are a few advanced storage features that help considerably with VDI implemetations: Deduplication – almost every one … Continue reading →

Posted in desktop virtualization, File Storage, Storage Features, Storage performance, Storage reliability | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Enterprise data storage defined and why 3PAR?

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Ray

Recent press reports about a bidding war for 3PAR bring into focus the expanding need for enterprise class data storage subsystems.  What exactly is enterprise storage? Defining enterprise storage is frought with problems but I will take a shot.  Enterprise … Continue reading →

Posted in Block Storage, Data growth, File Storage, Storage availability, Storage Features, Storage performance, Storage reliability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment