Evaluator Series™ Research

Evaluator Group attended the NetApp Analyst Event 2013. Read what they discussed and our opinions.

Russ presented on the mainstage at SPDEcon

This is document is the first in a 6-Part Series on Solid State Performance. Subsequent Education Guides are available through the Basic Subscription.

The IBM Storwize family represents a single architecture applied across several market segments as independent storage systems. This approach of delivering storage systems optimized to meet price, performance, and capacity demands for different markets delivers benefits for Information Technology across … Continued

Higher I/O requirements from Tier 1 mission critical applications and the rapid growth of high density virtualized infrastructures place greater I/O demands on storage than ever before.  This increase in I/O requests can make it more difficult to meet SLAs … Continued

The storage density of a single enterprise disk drive has grown several orders of magnitude since its birth in the late 1950’s while the disk drive’s block interface has remained essentially the same. Challenging this interface is an increasing demand … Continued

There are many events that can trigger the need for a data migration.  Some datacenters do migrations on a weekly basis.  A technology refresh, server and/or storage consolidation, infrastructure relocation, data classifications are all events that could cause a need … Continued

This report covers the results from Astute Networks for their ViSX G3 Flash-based VM Storage appliance. . VDI-IOmark is storage specific benchmark designed to test storage systems performance with a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) type of workload, the report was … Continued

In this Technical Insight Paper, Russ Fellows discusses the importance storage in protecting and processing business information. Introduction: Businesses of all sizes are searching for ways to improve their productivity and competitiveness, resulting in IT systems continuing to increase in … Continued

Achieving VDI – TCO Objectives – an Evaluator Group Technical Insight

In this Technical Insight, John Webster explores data movement in context to data analytics.

In this whitepaper, John Webster discusses storage data growth and the various ways that IT management can develop new and more sustainable practices and processes to adequately manage that data growth. Introduction: The cost of acquiring, managing and maintaining all … Continued

Randy Kerns explores Solid State Technology and its many variations of use in the storage industry. He covers the different approaches to utilize solid state technology and the value of the solutions in different environments.

In this Technical Insight Paper, Leah Schoeb explores the benefits of using Proximal Data’s AutoCache solution in a virtualized infrastructure. Introduction: Information Technology (IT) demands for storing and retrieving information in virtualized environments are based on serving the requirements of … Continued

Leah Schoeb reveals all the Storage Performance Concepts in our Storage Education Series. This is the first of a series on Storage Performance where she explores the performance in physical and virtual environments, and covers various ways that can help diminish storage system bottlenecks.

Download the first chapter of Randy Kerns’ book Information Archiving – Economics and Compliance for free. The rest of the eBook can be purchased from Amazon by clicking here

There have been a lot of performance results demonstrating the performance of SSDs. But how much of this information is verifiable and comparable among the vendors? Most, if not all, SSS manufacturers and vendors have performance (IOPS) and throughput (MB/sec) … Continued

This report examines and details the Hitachi approach to delivering storage capacity efficiency via its USP V and VSP platforms. In doing so, it will highlight how Hitachi looks at the overall economics of storage by reducing relevant operating expenses … Continued

John Webster’s presentation from SNW spring 2012 in Dallas, Texas. Description: Big Data Analytics differs from traditional data warehousing in that it encompasses diverse data formats including unstructured data. A number of platforms have emerged including Hadoop and NoSQL that … Continued

In this test analysis, Evaluator Group assesses Starboard Storage Systems’ AC72 system; The evaluation focuses on several aspects with a particular focus on performance. The validation consisted of quantitative test efforts, which sought to characterize measurable attributes, along with a … Continued

Thin Provisioning Block Storage – A Maturing Technology is the fourth paper in the Storage Efficiency Series.  continuation of the focus on storage efficiency, covering the storage system feature thin provisioning and how it can be used for data center … Continued

Evaluator Group assessed CommVault’s Simpana 9 software in December 2011.  There were several areas of focus during the testing, which included qualitative factors, along with certain quantitative testing. The test objectives were to 1) Validate new Simpana 9 software data … Continued

This short presentation compares terminology and IO processes between mainframe and Open Systems Storage. There is a quick reference table for terminology translation.

Russ’ presentation explores the critical storage features needed for Virtual Desktop Initiatives (VDI). The focus is on storage system features required to meet the performance, and the critical TCO levels necessary for a successful VDI project. The recommendations are taken … Continued

On June 6, 2011, HP announced its Converged Storage strategy—the most significant storage announcement HP has made since the 2010 acquisition of 3PAR. HP Converged Storage represents a number of product portfolio and market direction statements that establish HP’s unique … Continued

Cloud services providers have been phenomenally successful over the past three years. Evaluator Group has observed both large and small companies turn to cloud-based services providers for blending their on-premise capabilities with alternatively managed IT infrastructure. Cloud and other IT … Continued

John Webster’s presentation from SNW 2011 on Big Data Analytics and the impact on Storage

Russ Fellows and Camberley Bates review the Quantum Lab Validation of the DXi 6000 Systems

There are several technology and marketing messages competing for headlines.  The concepts that resonate are those that make life easier for IT users, lower costs or do both.  Storage tiering is an idea gaining traction as it is able to … Continued

Discussion on the difference and planning considerations for bulk versus archive storage types

Virtual Desktop Implementation and scale out poses significant challenges to the IT infrastructure. This paper explores the considerations for storage and designing for scale-out.

The topic of data de-duplication has received a lot of attention from vendors and IT administrators alike.  Both are looking to reduce the pain associated with exponential data growth most data centers are experiencing.  Data de-duplication began to emerge roughly … Continued