Data Storage
Insight, roundtables, and strategic advice into data storage, data storage solutions, information management and business continuity.
Organizations are storing and using more data than ever before. Data volume is growing exponentially, and government regulations and competitive pres- sures are increasing—forcing organizations to retain more data for longer periods of time. But budgets are flat or being cut. And as everyone becomes more dependent on digital information, the costs of losing any of it are increasingly painful.
Those tackling risk management strategies in their organisations face myriad complexities in dealing with business continuity. If it's not the various threats of a swine flu pandemic, terrorist attacks and tsunamis, then it's the notion of having to communicate to their executive board the importance – and necessity – of everything from disaster recovery to high availability, security, performance capability, compliance and governance in managing risk.
Conclusion: As discussed in "Backup is not Archive!"1, all IT organisations should evaluate deployment of an archival platform. However, based on numerous client conversations and a recent survey, it is clear there are significant project risks in implementing archiving. One-quarter of archiving projects take more than two years to implement and nearly half of IT managers state that they would not recommend the archiving product they had selected!
Most Recent Data Storage
There is increasing concern about the energy implications of the worldwide proliferation of power hungry data centers. The high cost of running these centers, as well as the very real possibility of energy shortages, are forcing many companies and organizations to look at ways to reduce energy consumption and run greener data centers. This wide ranging report by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) proposes some excellent strategies for making this dream a reality.
The current economic downturn, with its resultant pressure on IT budgets, is forcing many companies to take a second look at their tape storage systems. Maintaining tape systems, rather than replacing it with expensive digital systems, represent an obvious cost saving. Many people are concerned, however, that this saving will be at the cost of data integrity. This article points out that this need not be the case as new ways of monitoring tape performance and integrity can significantly increase the lifetime and reliability of tape storage systems.
The IP storage payoff: Turning your investment into efficient, affordable resultsToday's midsize enterprises face the daunting challenge of managing growing volumes of data – and struggle to find ways to do this effectively with constrained budgets and limited staffing resources. But recent advances in IP-based storage technology have made it possible for businesses of all sizes to leverage existing technology and staffing resources to easily and cost-effectively build and maintain sophisticated data storage networks.
Data center power, cooling, and data storage requirements are becoming key IT challenges for organizations of all sizes. At the same time, IT managers are faced with ever-increasing demands for data protection, including better restore performance and longer retention times. For many businesses, strategically combining energy-efficient tape, disk, and deduplication technology is providing welcome relief.
Data storage takes up a significant (and growing) proportion of most IT budgets. This seems counterintuitive, especially since 'plain' storage devices are gaining capacity while decreasing in price. The reason for the growth in cost is the emphasis in the storage industry on expensive storage arrays that include significant amounts of 'value added' services. These services 1) 'Lock in' customers 2) Increase operating costs and 3) Lower the amount of available storage space. This provocative article advocates a moving away from value added storage arrays towards deconstructed, web-managed, services.
Keep the Business Heart PumpingKerry Packer had an intuitive grasp of Business Continuity planning.In 1990, while playing polo at Warwick Farm, Sydney, the “Big Man” suffered a heart attack that left him clinically dead for six minutes. At the time, very few ambulances carried a heart-starting defibrillator, so it added to Packer’s legendary luck as a casino king hitter that the ambulance which responded to his emergency call had one fitted.
Quick Links
Login
Latest Video
Security as a business enabler
Latest Event
Agile Organisations: Business and Process Transformation
September 20, 2010
In a recent study over 4,000 senior executives from the priv... click here
Portal Switch
Switch to the Convergence & Collaboration Portal.