Storage management and analytics
Find the latest news and buying advice about storage management and analytics on this topics page. Storage data analytics collects metrics and data logs for predictive analysis. Modern analytics applications are often SaaS-based and can be understood and used without the expertise required to use comprehensive third-party storage resource management tools.
Top Stories
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Tip
20 May 2025
26 essential Linux storage commands for management
Monitor, manage and secure storage capacity across your Linux servers, devices and dev workstations. These commands aid management of file sizes, partitions and file systems. Continue Reading
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News
29 Apr 2025
NetApp security updates target future quantum threats
The latest data protection and recovery updates bring post-quantum cryptography to NetApp's block and file workloads alongside new BlueXP services. Continue Reading
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Tip
27 Jun 2018
A deep dive into guest clustering for shared virtual storage
When using shared VHDX files to host a guest cluster shared volume, there are some considerations to take into account, such as physical connectivity and potential limitations. Continue Reading
- 06 Jun 2018
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Feature
06 Jun 2018
Office 365 data protection, the enterprise and you
Gain a better understanding of Microsoft Office 365 security and storage management features and how the popular cloud-based productivity and collaboration suite really works. Continue Reading
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Tip
31 May 2018
Edge computing technology can ease bandwidth pressure points
Stockpiling data at endpoints makes sense in a growing number of applications. With storage at the edge, concerns about storage bandwidth and data costs can be mitigated. Continue Reading
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Tip
24 May 2018
The storage administrator skills you need to keep up today
To meet changing enterprise IT needs, storage admins must acquire a new set of skills. If not, they risk being bogged down in an outmoded, outdated career rut. Continue Reading
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Feature
16 May 2018
Managing storage for IoT data at the enterprise edge
Edge computing, the cloud and internet of things data are changing the way businesses store, analyze and manage all the information generated at the perimeter of the enterprise. Continue Reading
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News
03 May 2018
Dell EMC midrange storage keeps its overlapping arrays
Dell EMC plans to keep overlapping midrange storage for now. Dell Technologies World 2018 rollouts included CloudIQ analytics and Isilon SaaS beta with Google Cloud Platform. Continue Reading
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News
02 May 2018
Virtual Instruments VirtualWisdom 5.6 enhances Cisco support
Virtual Instruments shows off newly integrated Cisco SAN Telemetry Streaming and AppDynamics technology and troubleshooting improvements in its VirtualWisdom 5.6 tool. Continue Reading
- 01 May 2018
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Feature
01 May 2018
IT spending priorities for 2018 include cloud and flash storage
More than half of respondents to our survey have larger IT budgets this year, and their storage spending is focused on ways to manage massive data growth. Continue Reading
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Opinion
01 May 2018
IoT initiatives and other emerging workloads force data center change
Internet of things projects and other new technology, such as analytics and machine learning, are tied to software-defined storage and public cloud use, changing the face of IT. Continue Reading
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Opinion
01 May 2018
Cohesity's hyper-converged secondary storage takes on data growth
An out-of-the-box secondary storage strategy to deal with the coming deluge of file and object data promises to overcome scalability, management and capacity limits of NAS. Continue Reading
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Tip
30 Apr 2018
AFA storage tackles big data analytics challenges
The latest generation of all-flash array storage is delivering the high performance and low latency required to support petabyte-scale big data analytics workloads. Continue Reading
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Feature
03 Apr 2018
Learn storage techniques for managing unstructured data use
Rearchitect storage to maximize unstructured data use at the global scale for larger data sets coming from big data analytics and other applications. Continue Reading
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Blog Post
16 Mar 2018
Ctera Networks CEO: enterprise subscriptions spiking
Ctera Networks claimed subscription revenue for its enterprise file services platform more than doubled in fiscal 2017, pushing the company to record results for the year. As a private company, ... Continue Reading
- 08 Mar 2018
- 08 Mar 2018
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Opinion
08 Mar 2018
Is demand for data storage or supply driving increased storage?
Figuring out whether we're storing more data than ever because we're producing more data or because constantly evolving storage technology lets us store more of it isn't easy. Continue Reading
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Opinion
08 Mar 2018
Embrace IT digital transformation and the new tech landscape
The digital economy is increasingly defining business, and IT's relationship to business and the bottom line is becoming tied together more tightly. Continue Reading
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News
22 Feb 2018
Hybrid Reduxio storage shifts gears to midrange enterprises
Reduxio's converged primary and secondary storage integrates native tools for data management and protection. Can the hybrid flash vendor turn a profit and pull off an IPO? Continue Reading
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Opinion
13 Feb 2018
Violin Systems and StorOne lead way to shared storage
Two companies head toward a future of shared enterprise storage resources, moving away from siloed software-defined and hyper-converged approaches. Continue Reading
- 12 Feb 2018
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E-Zine
12 Feb 2018
The best enterprise storage systems and services of 2017
For 16 years, Storage magazine and SearchStorage have recognized the best enterprise storage systems with our annual Products of the Year awards. For this year's competition, vendors submitted new and upgraded products from the past year across five categories, including backup and disaster recovery hardware, backup and DR software and services, software-defined storage, storage arrays and storage management tools. Judges for the competition included consultants, users, analysts and Storage magazine and SearchStorage writers and editors. They assessed products based on innovation, performance, ease of integration, ease of use and manageability, functionality and value. Of the 47 finalists, only the best enterprise storage systems won coveted gold, silver or bronze to become one of our 2017 Products of the Year.
Time is of the essence. If you haven't started getting ready for the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it is time to start. GDPR goes into effect May 25, 2018, and is designed to protect EU residents' privacy and personal data by specifying rules, processes and technologies organizations must follow or use. Noncompliance -- both major and minor -- could lead to significant financial penalties that climb high enough to put some companies out of business. Compliance isn't optional; it's a must. While it won't be easy -- in some cases, particularly so -- to meet the GDPR's 87 pages and 99 articles of specifications and regulations, it isn't impossible. Read on to find out everything you need know about GDPR, see what it means for your organization and, most importantly, learn how to make sure you're not on the short end of the GDPR compliance stick.
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Opinion
10 Jan 2018
Future of data storage technology: Transformational trends for 2018
Risk-averse enterprises finally accepted the cloud in 2017, and we didn't even notice. Expect the same for these data storage technology trends in the new year. Continue Reading
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Opinion
10 Jan 2018
IT infrastructure automation boosts digital initiatives
Embracing automation through concepts like composable infrastructure cuts back on the use of manual IT tasks, which inhibit the success of digital business. Continue Reading
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Opinion
10 Jan 2018
NVMe flash storage doesn't mean tape and disk are dying
The advent of NVMe, software-defined storage and other newer storage technologies doesn't mean we'll be looking at all-silicon-based storage any time soon. Continue Reading
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Opinion
10 Jan 2018
SDS, HCI and CDP are key to dream enterprise storage system
Easy to implement and manage may be the buzzwords of the day for enterprise data storage systems, but too often daily experiences of IT professionals belie that rosy scenario. Continue Reading
- 10 Jan 2018
- 10 Jan 2018
- 10 Jan 2018
- 10 Jan 2018
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Definition
07 Dec 2017
MTTR (mean time to repair)
MTTR (mean time to repair) is the average time required to fix a failed component or device and return it to production status. Continue Reading
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E-Zine
05 Dec 2017
The hottest data storage technology trends for 2018
For the past 15 years, Storage magazine has identified the hottest data storage technology trends you'll want to follow in the coming year. All of our selections may be "newish" tech, but they're also tried and true, having demonstrated their effectiveness and worth in the data center. You won't find anything bleeding edge on our list -- only proven and widely available technologies made the cut. Honorees for the hottest data storage technology trends of 2018 cover a wide spectrum of storage tech, from predictive analytics to ransomware protection to converged secondary storage, multi-cloud and nonvolatile memory express over fabrics.
Although we do our best to predict the hottest data storage technology trends, sometimes our crystal ball isn't as clear as we would like. Once again, we've included a report card on how last year's picks panned out. And, as a bonus, we've provided a list of storage trends that aren't quite ready for prime time and didn't make our 2018 hot tech list. There's always 2019 for those technologies!
Not all backups are created equal or even follow the traditional model of only copying files that have changed since the last backup to a storage device on a media server. Take the concept of backup-less backups, commonly called flat backups. Here, storage-level snapshots created on a server or filer are backed up and replicated to another server filer. This is different from a typical backup in a couple ways: There's no media server, and the protected copy is just that, a copy -- in the same format as the original data. Find out more about backup-less backup, the vendors that offer it and how you can best make use of the technology for your organization.
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Feature
05 Dec 2017
Trends in data storage 2018: Five hot techs to watch
Our hot data storage technology trends for 2018 include predictive storage analytics, ransomware protection, converged secondary storage, multi-cloud and NVMe over Fabrics. Continue Reading
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Opinion
05 Dec 2017
Peering into the future of enterprise storage for 2018
Rich Castagna takes a crack at the annual rite of prognostication with a bold look -- unfettered by truth, reality and sanity -- at data storage trends in the coming year. Continue Reading
- 05 Dec 2017
- 05 Dec 2017
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E-Zine
03 Nov 2017
Features disaster recovery-as-a-service providers must offer
A cost-effective disaster recovery as a service lets organizations of all sizes implement a dependable disaster recovery plan. Disaster recovery-as-a-service providers replicate or back up customer data to cloud data centers and then -- should disaster strike -- host and run applications remotely. There's a lot of room for disaster recovery-as-a-service providers to develop features specific to their DRaaS products, which can make sorting through those offerings daunting. Learn about the four key capabilities to look for when comparing DRaaS vendors to ensure the one you choose can handle the full range of potential disasters.
Data that goes into cold storage is often kept for compliance and, increasingly, for big data analysis. Such data is infrequently or never accessed. Typically cheaper and lower performing than primary or secondary storage, cold storage systems are designed for storing such data. Enterprises may need to make this data warm or hot at a moment's notice, though, complicating cold storage design and increasing costs. Initially based on automated tape libraries and optical jukeboxes, cold storage systems have evolved to encompass Linear Tape File System and object storage as the amount of unstructured data has grown in recent years. Software for managing unstructured data has changed the cold data landscape as well.
Employees often access and synchronize corporate data from a variety of consumer-grade sync-and-share services, putting the organization at risk. Enterprise-grade file sync-and-share -- available via the cloud, on premises or in hybrid modes -- includes enhancements to ensure security and compliance. Such features vary among vendors, but there are certain ones you should always look for to maintain data integrity and security.
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News
30 Oct 2017
Cisco telemetry data gets streamed from MDS 9700 32G modules
Cisco SAN telemetry sensors capture insight on network fabrics to aid capacity and infrastructure management. The FC feature provides real-time instrumentation analytics. Continue Reading
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Feature
06 Oct 2017
Multicloud storage mitigates risk of public cloud lock-in
Multicloud storage strategy allows for the shifting of data across public clouds so you can avoid lock-in to a single provider, reduce cost and improve workload efficiency. Continue Reading
- 06 Oct 2017
- 06 Oct 2017
- 06 Oct 2017
- 06 Oct 2017
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Opinion
06 Sep 2017
The power and benefits of encouraging IT disruption
IT can't remain a reactive cost center and cheerful help desk, but must become a competitive, cutthroat service provider and powerful champion of emerging disruptive technology. Continue Reading
- 06 Sep 2017
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Blog Post
10 Aug 2017
Primary Data DataSphere upgrade follows funding grab
Primary Data has beefed up storage analytics and cloud migration in its DataSphere virtualization platform. Now the startup is ready to dip into a fresh stash of cash totaling $40 million to ... Continue Reading
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Feature
02 Aug 2017
Disaggregating network, compute and storage allocation demystified
Explore the ways disaggregation concepts and principles are being applied to create and allocate pools of compute and storage resources to serve applications on demand. Continue Reading
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News
24 Jul 2017
Red Hat Ceph, Gluster roadmaps focus on HCI, containers
Red Hat's Ceph and Gluster storage roadmaps reflect increased focus on hyper-converged infrastructure, containers and big data, in addition to performance improvements. Continue Reading
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Opinion
06 Jul 2017
IT infrastructure transformation: Backbone of the digital revolution
Maximizing the value of incoming and outgoing data as a core business strategy demands transforming your IT infrastructure into a more agile and flexible entity. Continue Reading
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News
19 Jun 2017
Pure1 META analytics bolsters Pure Storage software
New predictive sizing tool complements other Pure Storage software rollouts from Accelerate. The artificial intelligence engine learns from all workloads running on Pure arrays. Continue Reading
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News
12 Jun 2017
MapR Technologies launches enterprise file storage product
MapR expands beyond analytics into the enterprise storage market with an exabyte-scale data store designed to manage files and containers in data centers and across clouds. Continue Reading
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Blog Post
25 May 2017
DataCore IT survey shows gradual uptake of new storage technologies
A DataCore IT survey on the state of software-defined storage, hyper-converged systems and cloud storage showed a gradual uptake of some of the most heavily promoted new technologies. For instance, ... Continue Reading
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E-Zine
03 Apr 2017
2017 IT spending trends for data storage
For the 15th year, Storage magazine has surveyed storage pros to learn about their IT spending trends for the coming months. As you'd expect, the cloud continues to pick up steam for both primary and secondary projects, while all-flash arrays and SSDs also rated highly. Hyper-converged interest, meanwhile, nearly doubled over 2016. See how your 2017 shopping list compares to today's IT spending trends.
When SSDs supplanted HDDs, it revealed many deficiencies in the traditional RAID array model. Storage vendors changed course, leading to the highly scalable, fast and reliable hyper-converged systems of today. Is it time to go all-in with hyper-convergence?
IT is rapidly evolving to keep pace with today's data-intensive business apps and trends, such as the internet of things. For storage, this means newer silicon tech, inherent analytics, embedding hybrid cloud tiering and (often) convergence with or hosting of core data processing directly, and new management techniques.
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Feature
03 Apr 2017
Flash, cloud top data storage options for storage pros
Cloud is popular among data storage priorities for primary and backup storage, while most say they will use flash in primary data storage. Continue Reading
- 03 Apr 2017
- 03 Apr 2017
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Blog Post
23 Mar 2017
GDPR compliance grips U.S. firms, too
U.S. organizations are taking General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance at least as seriously as their European Union counterparts, according to a recent survey commissioned by Veritas ... Continue Reading
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Blog Post
10 Mar 2017
Veritas Enterprise Vault, backup apps embrace Google cloud
Veritas Technologies has been busy cozying up to public cloud providers in 2017, adding an extended partnership with Google to the list this week. The partnership includes Veritas NetBackup and ... Continue Reading
- 03 Mar 2017
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News
23 Feb 2017
Nexsan Unity adds compliance archive appliance
Nexsan Unity arrays integrate optional secure compliance archive for petabytes of unstructured data. Data files written to primary storage are immediately copied to the archive. Continue Reading
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Blog Post
20 Feb 2017
Cloudian, Panzura expand cloud data archiving options
Cloudian and Panzura have come up with new cloud data archiving products to help organizations move on-premises data to the cloud. Cloudian's new HyperStore 4000 is a 7U scale-out object storage ... Continue Reading
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Opinion
10 Feb 2017
Hyper-convergence: It's for more than primary data storage
The lines between primary and secondary storage and applications such as hyper-convergence remain blurry. But they are a starting point for further discussion. Continue Reading
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Blog Post
31 Jan 2017
Report: Better data theft protection needed for employee exits
The processes for keeping data safe when employees leave a company are fundamental data protection best practices: backup, archive and encryption. Yet barely half of the organizations that took ... Continue Reading
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Blog Post
27 Dec 2016
Using multiple BDR products doesn't always translate into faster data recovery
Companies spend a lot of money on disaster recovery solutions but that doesn’t translate into faster data recovery, according to a survey conducted by Quorum titled the “State of Disaster ... Continue Reading
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Feature
04 Nov 2016
A look at the future of data storage careers
Thanks to virtualization, the cloud and solid-state technology, data storage professionals and those who want to pursue a career in it face an uncertain future. Continue Reading
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Feature
02 May 2016
Hadoop Distributed File System helps tackle big data
Hadoop Distributed File System storage systems are being enlisted to tackle big data thanks to vendors like EMC, Hitachi, IBM and NetApp, and Apache. Continue Reading
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Tip
29 Apr 2016
Hadoop data analysis: Common concerns with the HDFS platform
Using HDFS technology as a data analysis platform may be insufficient for your storage needs. Explore the challenges storage administrators may encounter and find out how to address them. Continue Reading
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Opinion
12 Feb 2016
Vendors, analysts guess future of data storage in 2016
After Rich Castagna offered his look at the future of data storage in 2016, vendors and analysts shared their guesses on what will happen this year. Continue Reading
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Blog Post
23 Dec 2015
Backup appliance revenue up slightly
Worldwide factory revenues for backup appliances grew 2.2 percent year-over-year in the third quarter this year, with revenue totaling $813.6 million, according to International Data Corp.'s ... Continue Reading
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Blog Post
08 Sep 2015
External storage sales down as market shifts to hyperscale and server-based storage
External storage sales are shrinking. The total worldwide enterprise storage systems factory revenue grew to an $8.8 billion during the second quarter of 2015, according to IDC. However, sales are ... Continue Reading
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Feature
03 Sep 2015
Big data analytics applications impact storage systems
Analytics applications for big data have placed extensive demands on storage systems, which Mike Matchett says often requires new or modified storage structures. Continue Reading
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Blog Post
13 Aug 2015
Toshiba unveils SAS, NVMe PCIe SSDs at Flash Memory Summit
Count Toshiba among the group of drive makers demonstrating new enterprise PCI Express (PCIe) and SAS SSDs at this week’s Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California. Toshiba unveiled three ... Continue Reading
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Feature
30 Jul 2015
Performance counts when buying a solid-state storage device
More than half of our surveyed companies are using flash now, with plans to use it for more than just mission-critical apps. Continue Reading
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Feature
06 Apr 2015
A closer look at cloud storage use cases, strategies
Find out how primary storage vendors are closely integrating with cloud storage providers in ways that enable new uses for cloud storage. Continue Reading
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Tip
27 Feb 2015
Three reasons why object storage is a good HDFS alternative
HDFS manages data across dispersed nodes, but an object storage system that leverages commodity storage can be a compelling alternative. Continue Reading
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Opinion
12 Feb 2015
Vendors predict the future of data storage 2015
The future of data storage isn’t easy to predict. While some vendors see it clearly, others prove that, going into 2015, their crystal balls may be a little hazy. Continue Reading
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Blog Post
23 Jan 2015
Box shares surged on the first day as a public company
Box Inc. had an excellent coming out party as a public company today. Box priced its initial shares at $14 Thursday. Those shares today opened at $20.20 on the New York Stock Exchange and rose to ... Continue Reading
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Answer
21 Nov 2014
How is big data changing data archiving strategies?
Analyst Jon Toigo explains why performing analytics on big data sets means that data is no longer considered cold, reducing the importance of archives. Continue Reading
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Blog Post
10 Oct 2014
A look at access methods for open systems and mainframes
The term access method is frequently used to identify types of I/O in open systems. Many who use it probably don't understand the historical context for what has been known as an access method for ... Continue Reading
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Blog Post
30 Sep 2014
EMC's XtremIO 3.0 adds compression with disruptive upgrade for existing users
EMC Corp. made available the 3.0 release of its XtremIO all-flash array today with new inline compression capabilities and performance improvements – but existing customers who want the software ... Continue Reading
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Opinion
02 Jul 2014
Deconstructing the storage algorithm
Jon Toigo examines the four steps of the storage algorithm, and concludes that the current storage equation just doesn't add up. Continue Reading
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Answer
24 Feb 2014
Are SSDs necessary to perform analytics on big data efficiently?
Storage expert Phil Goodwin explains how SSDs can speed up analytics, but solid-state technology is only needed in certain types of environments. Continue Reading
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Guide
10 Feb 2014
Choosing storage for streaming large files in big data sets
Learn how to select storage that can both scale and perform to effectively stream large files in big data environments. Continue Reading
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Opinion
30 Jan 2014
External storage might make sense for Hadoop
Using Hadoop to drive big data analytics doesn't necessarily mean building clusters of distributed storage; a good old array might be a better choice. Continue Reading
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Tip
14 Jan 2014
How to create a successful data archiving strategy
A good archiving process provides the automation needed to deliver the necessary application granularity while minimizing the impact to IT operations. Continue Reading
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Tip
16 Dec 2013
Data archiving technology to keep on the radar
Archival storage options are expanding, getting more resilient and less costly. Find out which technologies are making an impression. Continue Reading
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Tip
04 Dec 2013
Five questions to ask when choosing a data archiving technology
Many factors need to be considered when determining what the right archiving platform is for you. Jon Toigo highlights the most important in this tip. Continue Reading
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Feature
28 Oct 2013
Big data storage and analytics
There are two basic types of big data analytics—synchronous and asynchronous—but both have big data storage appetites and specialized needs. Continue Reading
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Guide
02 Oct 2013
Complete guide to Hadoop technology and storage
Learn how Apache Hadoop works, some of its benefits and drawbacks, and what it means for big data and cloud storage. Continue Reading
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Podcast
26 Sep 2013
Erasure coding brings trade-off of resilience vs. performance
IT's decision on using erasure coding in storage rests on data importance, durability more than amount of data, says storage consultant Marc Staimer. Continue Reading
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Feature
28 Aug 2013
Big data storage architecture: Categories, strengths and use cases
We explore distributed nodes, scale-out NAS, all-SSD arrays and object storage as choices for a storage architecture for big data. Continue Reading
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Tip
21 Jun 2013
Hadoop clusters: Benefits and challenges for big data analytics
Brien Posey explains how Hadoop clusters can be extremely beneficial to large amounts of unstructured data, but aren't ideal for all environments. Continue Reading
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Tip
22 Apr 2013
Streaming large video files in today's big data environments
Solid-state drives are a good choice for streaming large video files. Other factors to consider include cost and how often video will be accessed. Continue Reading
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Answer
30 Jan 2013
Can shared storage be used with Hadoop architecture?
Storage expert John Webster discusses three ways to use shared storage together with Hadoop architecture in this Ask the Expert answer. Continue Reading
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Feature
16 Apr 2012
Five data protection guidelines for business continuity
Storage expert Jon Toigo offers data protection guidelines to help storage admins achieve the best possible results when protecting data in their care. Continue Reading
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Feature
05 Oct 2011
Enterprise storage trends: SSDs, capacity optimization, auto tiering
Several enterprise storage trends are emerging at big and small storage vendors. Find out why certain technologies are trending and what they can do for your storage environment. Continue Reading
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Tip
23 May 2011
Using SSD technology to support memory overcommitment in vSphere
Using SSD in a vSphere environment helps with memory overcommitment. Find out how memory overcommitment works and why SSD is better at supporting it than mechanical disk. Continue Reading
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Feature
16 Sep 2010
RAID level comparison chart: A free download
Download our free RAID level comparison chart, where the most important RAID levels are defined, along with information about the pros and cons of each RAID level. Continue Reading
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Feature
15 Sep 2010
How RAID storage systems protect your application data
RAID storage systems improve application performance and data availability. Learn about RAID levels and choosing the right RAID technology. Continue Reading