Entries tagged as ‘virtualization’
Data growth and data value trump need to cut costs
Sepaton surveyed enterprise customers and found that data protection stays in the “have to” pile when it comes time to choose which bills to pay in these tough times. A summary of Jon Toigo’s summary of Sepaton’s report:
- Nearly 75% will maintain or increase data protection budgets in 2009
- Investments are focused on reducing the cost of data protection
- Large and growing volumes of data are becoming the business status quo
- Virtualization is increasing data protection demands
- A majority are using tape today; a minority expect to be using tape in 12 months
When times are tough, true priorities emerge. The care and feeding of business data makes the list, it seems.
Categories: Backup · Data Security · Datacenter
Tagged: data protection, Drunken Data, Jon Toigo, Sepaton, tape, virtualization
1. HD broadcast/media is going mainstream. HD video takes 4 times the space of SD video on PCs, DVRs and the web infrastructure.
2. Higher fidelity music downloads. Apple and others race to make their music “better”, which means more megabytes per song.
3. Change in the personal media consumption model from “play” to “record”. We used to listen to phone messages, watch TV and play music. Now we archive emails, collect videos online and build a music library.
4. The expanding digital class in Brazil, Russia, India and China. Most of the planet’s population is in countries where millions of digital consumers will be created even in tough times.
5. Microsoft Vista traction. Vista is finally becoming the dominant OS. It’s a catalyst for consumer and business content.
6. Growth in home backup storage. Mainstream consumers are finally fearing the “digital housefire” enough to back up their PCs to external storage and online services.
7. Increasing mobile content consumption. iPhone and its peers multiply mobile video consumption, creating even more video to be kept somewhere.
8. Photo de-compression. More people are keeping their photos in “raw” format, taking up magnitudes more space. And megapixels continue to grow.
9. Increase in video downloads and views. Hulu.com, iTunes and Amazon Unbox are increasing video consumption for the web massses, which drives consumer and infrastructure storage.
10. The monetization of content. The 99 Cent Song and the Ten Dollar Movie have us all equating our content with cash, driving new demand to store and protect it more like money. That creates more copies.
11. Shift from data centers to the storage cloud. More efficient business storage models drive an increase in business content.
12. Server virtualization. “Free” servers are causing a huge increase in data center storage to support them.
13. Video surveillance. A behind-the-scenes digital video generator that is challenging HD consumer content in size and growth.
14. Increased use of data reduction practices like de-duplication. It’s not intuitive, but there’s evidence that more efficient content results in more, not less, content.
15. Increased financial regulation. The technological result will be more data saved for longer periods, and not just by banks.
16. More companies complying with information regulation. SOX and HIPAA data regulations are finally getting legs, driving more companies to store more to comply.
Digital content is no longer a discretionary item. That’s just as true for consumers as for businesses. Content and the storage to keep It will grow through whatever economic disruption awaits us in the coming year or two.
Categories: Industry trends
Tagged: Backup, cloud storage, content, downloads, growth, HD, HIPAA, photos, recession, server virtualization, SOX, storage, Surveillance, trends, video, virtualization
Virtualization removes the roadblocks to IT construction projects
(photo courtesy MnDOT)
One year ago the I-35W bridge collapsed here in Minneapolis. Amid the somber remembrances today is an amazing feat: there’s a replacement bridge already in place, set to open to traffic this fall.
How could a major freeway river crossing get rebuilt in less than a year?
Political will in this case helped. But the real driver was simplicity. There was no existing bridge to work around, no traffic to keep flowing. The ultimate fast-track project with nothing in the way.
IT works the same way
(more…)
Categories: Datacenter · Industry trends · Servers
Tagged: I-35W bridge collapse, management, Minneapolis, server virtualization, storage, virtualization
Server virtualization is helping storage shrug off a weak economy
Byte and Switch observe that disk storage demand continues to expand, even as a recession threatens in the US economy. They see server virtualization and specifically the SCSI storage systems supporting it as the reason.
No surprise to me. Storage demand is limited primarily by the ability to manage it effectively. Virtualization makes server deployment easy, and iSCSI arrays make it easy to feeding their appetite for terabytes. Case in point: Dell’s Equallogic.
VMWare has helped open the door wide for real-world server virtualization, with Microsoft eager to walk in with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
A future big spark for business storage demand will be the “top-down” mainstream technology shift driven by XIV at IBM and Hulk/Maui at EMC.
Categories: Datacenter · Industry trends · Storage Systems
Tagged: Byte and Switch, Dell, Equallogic, IBM, iSCSI, storage, virtualization, VMWare, XIV
Two petabyte storage consolidation and virtualization up and running
Byte and Switch covered Ford’s revamp of their corporate data storage strategy, including 2 petabytes of virtualized storage. They used IBM’s SAN Volume Controller and DS4000 & DS8000 systems.
Ford’s Vijay Santoran says that they’ve tested EMC gear as well, and are not relying on a single solution.
Consolidation is paying off already, but it’s not a silver bullet
From the sounds of it, Ford has been able to deliver on the promises of virtualized storage, including fewer chasses, less power, delayed storage growth. Despite this, I believe Ford will ultimately be able to support more, not less data with this enabling architecture.
I’m a firm believer that storage as a business enabler trumps storage as a cost savings tool every time.
What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.
Categories: Datacenter · Storage Systems
Tagged: consolidation, DS4000, DS8000, EMC, Ford, IBM, SAN Volume Cobtroller, storage, Vijay Sankaran, virtualization
February 8, 2008 · 1 Comment
The right product at the right time for Dell’s SMB customers
Dell has launched a storage solution for virtualized servers. The Equallogic iSCSI-based PS5000 includes up to 196 TB (16 TB per chassis) and the ease-of-use you expect from Equallogic. Choose SATA or SAS drives, depending on performance needs.
This product reflects the timeliness and fit of Dell’s aquisition of Equallogic. Virtualization is a hot topic for Dell’s SMB customer base, and easily managed storage to enable it is just what the doctor ordered.
Categories: Business Solutions · Products · Storage Systems
Tagged: Dell, Equallogic, iSCSI, PS5000, storage, virtualization
Tony Pearson pointed to a cogent 4-minute video from ZD Net UK on server virtualization with Dan Chu of VMWare. If you’ve wondered what all the fuss is about but were afraid to ask, here’s your chance.
Thanks Tony!
Categories: Business Solutions · Datacenter · Servers
Tagged: Dan Chu, server, training, virtualization, VMWare
