Storage consolidation seems to be a simple concept. If you reduce the number of storage systems, you benefit from fewer devices to manage, less space required, and less power/cooling demands. Yet there is confusion over exactly what the term storage consolidation refers to. The confusion comes from some vendor messaging and what IT storage professionals
Author Archives: Randy Kerns
Confusion over storage consolidation — Storage Soup Blog by Randy Kerns
Advent of modern storage — Storage Soup Blog by Randy Kerns
Storage systems are undergoing important changes. New systems are becoming available that are both sophisticated and make storage “simple.” Simple is mainly a euphemism for automating many complicated tasks that administrators had to deal with before, but there’s a lot more to this than just automation of tasks. There are modern architectures where the underlying
Storage product rollouts are more spread out these days — Storage Soup Blog by Randy Kerns
Last week two major storage vendors made significant system announcements. Hitachi Data Systems rolled out its Hitachi Unified Storage (HUS) that has block and file support and is aimed at the mid-tier market. NetApp unveiled Dynamic Disk Pooling for the E-Series platforms. Dynamic Disk Pooling is a new storage pooling implementation enabling faster drive rebuilds
NAB shows storage plays a big role in media/entertainment — Storage Soup Blog by Randy Kerns
The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas this week drew a large number of storage vendors vying for the growing media and entertainment storage market. I’ve attended this conference the last five years, and seen more storage vendors every year. The storage vendors who go to NAB include those well-known in the
Long-term archives require detailed planning — Storage Soup Blog by Randy Kerns
Conversations with IT people about long-term archiving usually begin by focusing on a specific storage device, and then it quickly becomes apparent that much more is involved. Addressing a long-term archive is a complex issue that requires education to understand. There is no single silver-bullet product. The technology discussions include devices/media for storing data and
Why storage has a short lifespan — Storage Soup Blog by Randy Kerns
How long does an organization keep a storage system? That depends on a few things. For disk systems, there are several driving factors: • The length of the warranty period and the cost of a service contract after the warranty period. • The depreciation period on the system. These factors usually lead organizations to plan
TCO vs. ROI: Remember transition costs
While talking to value added resellers (VARs) recently about selling storage systems, I noticed their presentations about vendor products featured return on investment (ROI) calculations. These ROI calculations focused on cost of the solution, savings in maintenance, floor space, power, and cooling, performance gains that enabled business expansion or consolidation, and savings in day-to-day administration.
Risks from IT changes are real — Storage Soup Blog by Randy Kerns
There is a great hesitancy on the part of IT in data center optimization initiatives due to the risks involved. IT pros are aware of the problems that can occur and almost everyone has painful stories to tell of things that have gone wrong. Even with the great benefits from data center optimization, the hard-earned
Data protection in transition — Storage Soup Blog by Randy Kerns
The increase in data capacity demand makes it difficult for Information Technology to continue with existing data protection practices. Many organizations have realized their protection methods are unsustainable, mainly because of the impact of the increased capacity demand and budget limitations. The increase in capacity demands come from many sources. These include business expansion, the
Organization structures need optimization — Storage Soup Blog by Randy Kerns
One of the most important parts of optimizing the data center involves improving storage efficiency. And that requires more than implementing the latest technologies. While working with IT operations in developing strategies to increase storage efficiency, it has become clear to me that organizational structure must change in order to expedite data center optimization. Like
