Virtualization Strategy

Cohesity exec: Hyper-converged secondary storage more than a trend

A Cohesity executive wants to make something clear about the company's self-described product line. "Hyper-converged secondary storage is not a trend," chief marketing officer Lynn Lucas said. ... Continue Reading

Factors to consider before evaluating hybrid storage systems

The right hybrid flash storage can help an organization maximize its storage capacity and improve performance. Learn what factors to consider before evaluating hybrid storage arrays. Continue Reading

Key factors that affect NAND flash memory endurance

Program/erase cycles, write amplification and even garbage collection contribute to faster NAND flash wear-out. But wear leveling and bad block can help. Continue Reading

Annual IBM revenue rises, thanks to cloud, flash storage

Aided by gains in cognitive analytics, cloud and storage, annual IBM revenue has finally returned to positive territory after an absence of nearly six years. IBM last week closed its 2017 fiscal ... Continue Reading

Pure Storage FlashStack is recycler's renewable resource

Food waste recycler Valley Proteins chose Pure Storage's all-flash converged infrastructure to replace Dell EMC VNX-Cisco UCS for 24 TB of usable storage with Cohesity backup. Continue Reading

NVMe enterprise flash storage, new memory mean change in 2018

Storage executives and industry analysts predict NVMe, NVMe over Fabrics and new memory technologies will disrupt the storage industry this year and into the future. Continue Reading

How to use REST APIs in Python

Using REST APIs with Python can offer storage administrators increased flexibility in their management tasks, but they need some knowledge of how to code. Continue Reading

Rehearsals over, Violin Systems raises curtain on comeback

Violin flash customers can consume FSP hardware as a service with three-year subscription at guaranteed cost of 1 cent per GB per month, based on 140 TB and data deduplication. Continue Reading

Data storage management tools: 2017 Products of the Year finalists

Storage management tools candidates for this year's Products of the Year competition reflect the growing importance of the cloud and machine learning. Continue Reading

Enterprise storage arrays: 2017 Products of the Year finalists

All-flash and hybrid products comprise the bulk of the 14 storage arrays chosen as finalists in the 2017 Products of the Year contest. Only two arrays rely predominantly on disk. Continue Reading

Software-defined storage products: 2017 Products of the Year finalists

The 11 software-defined storage finalists in this year's competition highlight the most recent developments in flash, cloud and container technologies. Continue Reading

Data management and storage 2017 Products of the Year finalists

We narrowed down the field to 47 finalists in five data storage categories as part of our much anticipated 16th annual Products of the Year competition. Continue Reading

Potential NVMe benefits spark enterprise IT interest

Enterprise IT pros who have seen the benefits of conventional flash storage are looking ahead to potential use cases for faster NVMe-based technologies. Continue Reading

Startup Liqid looks to make a splash in composable storage

Liqid composable storage infrastructure is based on Liqid Grid's custom PCIe fabric switch and orchestration to provision bare-metal servers from disaggregated devices. Continue Reading

Storage startup trends: Vendors to watch in 2018

Another year is behind us, and 2017 wasn't kind to enterprise-storage startups, as a bunch went belly up or sold off their assets. Not deterred by this recent history and startup trends, a new group of companies has emerged to try and make an impact in 2018. These include Aparavi, Attala Systems, Elastifile, Minio, Morro Data, Vexata, Wasabi Technologies and WekaIO. They have products focused on hot storage sectors, such as flash, hybrid cloud, scale-out file systems and object storage. Who's behind these startups? What do they offer that the market doesn't already provide? And, given recent startup trends, what are their chances for success? Find out with an early look at these upstarts.

A server still looks like a server, and network cables and racks haven't changed much over the last couple of decades, but storage has fundamentally transformed. Disk has lost its crown as the king of primary storage and is becoming relegated to the secondary -- and even cold -- storage world. More significantly, the data center is becoming more software-defined. That means storage functions that once demanded specialized hardware now reside in adaptable, pliable, reprogrammable and easily updateable software constructs. Explore the state of the software-defined storage market.

The advent of virtualization and its need to share all resources threatened the relevance of direct-attached storage (DAS) -- storage within the server. Only the emergence of flash storage, most specifically PCIe SSDs, staved off DAS' extinction, with the likes of Fusion-io demonstrating what you could do with high-speed flash integrated in the server. Today, storage is about to move even further into the server thanks to advancements in storage-class memory -- also known as persistent memory -- technologies. Here's how, why and what this development could mean to you.

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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

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

Persistent storage-class memory to revolutionize data centers

Since it doesn't lose data during power outages, persistent memory will revolutionize direct-attached storage in particular and the cost/performance ratio of computing overall. Continue Reading

What's behind the rise of the software-defined storage market

The software-defined approach to storage is catching on. However, for now, enterprises prefer preconfigured SDS products bundled with hardware for easier deployment. Continue Reading

Eight data storage startup vendors to watch in 2018

Even as other storage startup companies fail, newcomers have appeared to take on established enterprise vendors. Can they ride the momentum for flash, hybrid cloud and SDS? Continue Reading

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

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

NVMe flash storage doesn't mean tape and disk are dying

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What's behind the rise of the software-defined storage market

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Future of data storage technology: Transformational trends for 2018

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SDS, HCI and CDP are key to dream enterprise storage system

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IT infrastructure automation boosts digital initiatives

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Persistent storage-class memory to revolutionize data centers

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Eight data storage startup vendors to watch in 2018

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Alert: Dell EMC data protection patches Avamar security holes

Users of Dell EMC data protection are being urged to quickly patch three security flaws that could hijack Avamar-based products. The vulnerabilities revolve around Avamar Installation Manager, a ... Continue Reading

Top five solid-state, cloud storage tips of 2017

In 2017, SearchStorage readers cared most about SSD lifespan, 3D XPoint technology and the difference between SAN and NAS. Check out our most-read articles of the year here. Continue Reading

Digital transformation planning bumps into data management issues

As businesses look to increasingly digitize their information, data management and data access are top concerns, according to a recent survey. "You can't be a digital business if you don't have ... Continue Reading

Microsoft scoops up NAS vendor Avere for hybrid cloud services

Microsoft acquired Avere Systems, a vendor that builds appliances for high-performance NAS in hybrid environments. Avere NAS is used for primary file storage and cloud bursting. Continue Reading

Reduxio Systems' storage wows human resources specialist

Reduxio HX550 hybrid arrays provide primary storage with native data protection for CPP's talent management software, which includes a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment. Continue Reading

iXsystems: 'weird' but profitable NAS vendor

Here’s something you rarely hear from high tech companies today: “We’re a hardware company in our heart and soul.” That is how executive vice president Brett Davis introduced iXsystems during a ... Continue Reading

Taking the software-defined data center market pulse

Most organizations understand the benefits of the SDDC by now, but widespread adoption hasn't hit yet. Challenges such as complexity and internal talent could be to blame. Continue Reading

Toshiba, HPE head 2017 storage acquisitions

Storage acquisitions in 2017 included Hewlett Packard Enterprise's buys of SimpliVity and Nimble Storage, and Toshiba's move to sell off its memory business. Continue Reading

Software-defined data center architecture basics for beginners

The physical, virtualization and management layers of an SDDC make it possible to pool the physical components into logical resources, regardless of the underlying hardware. Continue Reading

NVMe SSD storage costs won't hinder market takeover

Storage vendors agree that NVMe will become the default for solid-state drives, but it must still overcome cost and configuration challenges. Continue Reading

Storage market trends of 2017: Flash, HCI and cloud gain steam

Disruption in the enterprise storage market appears unlikely to subside anytime soon. AI analytics, cloud, HCI, mergers and NVMe flash highlight key themes heading into 2018. Continue Reading

Tintri cloud forecast: stormy, with slight chance of revenue

Flash storage vendor Tintri has had an inauspicious start to life as a public company. On Wednesday, during only its second earnings call, there were hints that Tintri may already be on life ... Continue Reading

Misconfigured Amazon S3 buckets expose sensitive data

Amazon has built more security functions for S3 buckets after cybersecurity firms uncovered a worrisome trend of IT administrators failing to properly secure them. Continue Reading

Hybrid storage arrays join multiple storage types to cut costs

Despite being more complex than all-flash or all-hard disk drive systems, hybrid systems offer the speed and low latency of flash and the economy of HDDs, tape or cloud. Continue Reading

NVMe-focused Toshiba storage node software due in '18

Toshiba plans to deliver storage node software designed to extend the high performance and low latency benefits of NVMe-based solid-state drives over a network fabric. Toshiba Memory America’s ... Continue Reading

Quantum Xcellis scale-out NAS tackles unstructured data

Quantum's new system takes on scale-out NAS and object markets. The vendor says its Xcellis NAS tier will scale from 40 TB to petabytes without a performance hit. Continue Reading

Western Digital-Toshiba flash clash ends

Western Digital and Toshiba settled their NAND dispute with an out-of-court settlement that allows Toshiba’s sale of its NAND chip business while WD keeps its stake in the companies’ joint venture. ... Continue Reading

Hitz: NetApp market growth hinges on cloud, data management

Storage stalwart NetApp celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2017. NetApp founder Dave Hitz reflects on its evolution and the impact of Cloud OnTap, Data Fabric and SolidFire HCI. Continue Reading

SwiftStack object storage integrates file protocol support

New SwiftStack 6.0 storage software supports Universal Access to data with added support for SMB/NFS file protocols to go with Amazon S3 and OpenStack Swift object APIs. Continue Reading

Dell EMC all-flash surge collides with softening storage demand

Growth in Dell EMC all-flash storage is one of the bright spots in what remains a tough slog for legacy array vendors. Dell Technologies on Thursday reported consolidated revenue of $19.6 billion ... Continue Reading

Cheapest enterprise cloud storage providers not always best

One Gartner cloud storage analyst cautions clients not to choose the least expensive provider, even if the offering from a big-name vendor might appear attractive. Continue Reading

Cloud storage providers: What should you look for?

With so many cloud storage options on the market, it's hard to choose the right one. To start, determine whether you need a business service or if a consumer cloud will suffice. Continue Reading

Cloudian HyperFile marries NAS and object storage

Cloudian's HyperFile and HyperStore merge NAS and object storage for unstructured data. The new HyperFile appliance targets medical imaging, engineering files and legal documents. Continue Reading

Hedvig CEO: Who needs backups?

Santa Clara, Calif. -- By now, most people realize this is the age of convergence in IT – especially as it applies to storage. We have converged infrastructure mixing storage, compute and ... Continue Reading

Which enterprise NVMe SSD vendor is right for me?

Picking an NVMe drive is an important decision. Consider thermal control, proprietary software and drive architecture to make the right choice. Continue Reading

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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NVMe-oF and storage class memory set to disrupt storage

NVM Express over Fabrics and storage class memory may disrupt traditional storage over the next half decade in much the same way NAND flash did over the last five years. Continue Reading

Four rules to craft an enterprise data archiving strategy

Follow these four rules to redesign your data archiving system in a way that ramps it up gradually, keeps data flowing from primary storage to the archive and makes everyone happy. Continue Reading

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

Is Caringo leading the next wave in object-level storage?

Caringo facilitates and simplifies cross-platform data movement by bridging its proprietary object storage system to Microsoft Azure object storage service. Continue Reading

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

Is Caringo leading the next wave in object-level storage?

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Four rules to craft an enterprise data archiving strategy

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Trends in data storage 2018: Five hot techs to watch

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Peering into the future of enterprise storage for 2018

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NVMe-oF and storage class memory set to disrupt storage

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Data storage considerations for a DevOps environment

Having good storage can make all the difference when it comes to DevOps. As more organizations get on the DevOps bandwagon, see how storage has changed to match. Continue Reading

Nexenta raises $20 million, shoots for cloud

Bolstered by lead investor SoftBank Corp., Nexenta secured $20 million in financing this week to fund its new cloud portfolio. The Santa Clara, California-based storage software vendor next month ... Continue Reading

Qumulo File Fabric fuses on-prem, cloud storage for studio

Qumulo's File Fabric gives FuseFX ability to burst workloads into Amazon Web Services, giving it a virtual fourth location for file storage for its special effects rendering. Continue Reading

Barracuda Networks going private

Barracuda Networks became the latest public technology vendor to go private when equity firm Thoma Bravo agreed to pay $1.6 billion this week to acquire the security and data protection vendor. The ... Continue Reading

Software-defined storage: Making sense of the data storage technology

Use this guide to help understand what vendors mean by 'software-defined storage,' what experts think of it and how to use it in your environment. Continue Reading

Data recovery plans face tall task as storage levels grow

Too much data is weighing heavily on data recovery plans, according to a recent survey. The problem has scaled beyond what many organizations can handle, said Douglas Brockett, president of backup ... Continue Reading

Pure Storage revenue boost puts it on ‘march to profit’

Pure Storage hit a home run in its first quarter under CEO Charlie Giancarlo. Pure Storage revenue of $278 million last month exceeded the high point of its  guidance and increased 41% from last ... Continue Reading

Like its CEO, HPE storage in transition phase

Meg Whitman says it’s time for “a new generation” to take over Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She was talking about the CEO change when she made that comment during the company’s earnings call last ... Continue Reading

StorOne attacks bottlenecks with new TRU storage software

After six years of development, an Israeli startup launches new Total Resource Utilization storage software that aims to eliminate bottlenecks and improve storage efficiency. Continue Reading

Do users need 3D NAND flash memory?

The population of users who need 3D NAND flash chips on their computers is limited to those who run extremely large workloads, such as big applications or multiple virtual machines. Continue Reading

NAND flash memory basics: Comparing SLC, MLC and TLC NAND

NAND is the most popular type of flash, but there are many different types, and they each serve a different purpose. Do you know your NAND flash basics? Continue Reading

Infinidat embeds SAN, NAS replication in InfiniBox R4

Infinidat's software upgrade eschews SCSI in favor of custom IP-based replication protocol. The vendor claims InfiniBox R4 delivers target writes at sub-400-millisecond latency. Continue Reading

Quobyte preps 2.0 Data Center File System software update

One startup's 'Google-style' software-defined storage upgrade features 'table stakes,' such as volume mirroring for disaster recovery and support for Mac and Windows clients. Continue Reading

NetApp revenue rides flash gravy train

NetApp is showing a legacy storage array vendor can still increase revenue impressively during these days of scant storage growth. NetApp Wednesday night reported its fourth straight quarter of ... Continue Reading

NOR vs. NAND flash memory: What companies need to know

NOR and NAND flash memory each suit different use cases, and companies looking at a flash memory product need to know the difference before they buy. Continue Reading

Amazon not to blame for S3 cloud storage lapses

The Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) has been giving big businesses –and their customers -- big trouble. It was reported earlier this summer that high-profile companies left data in their S3 ... Continue Reading

Dell EMC: Big data lakes will like our Elastic Data Platform

Dell EMC big data storage has a sharper focus. The vendor recently launched Elastic Data Platform (EDP), a series of reference architecture geared for Hadoop and related big data environments.  EDP ... Continue Reading

Panasas storage, director blades split into separate devices

Panasas hybrid storage offers 57 PB of raw capacity with 200 shelves. ActiveStor Director 100 sits atop a rack of Panasas arrays. Customers can scale types and capacities of media. Continue Reading

Commvault GO: ‘Sully,’ Swan emphasize good data’s value

We hear a lot of talk these days about machine learning and artificial intelligence. Those are hot and valuable technologies, but two speakers at Commvault GO last week highlighted the importance ... Continue Reading

Nutanix backup choices expand

Options for Nutanix backup are growing for customers using the hyper-converged vendor’s AHV hypervisor. At Nutanix’s European .NEXT user conference last week, backup software market leader Veritas ... Continue Reading

Quantum CEO Gacek’s a goner after poor quarter

Quantum CEO Jon Gacek is out following poor sales results for the data protection and scale-out storage vendor last quarter. The Quantum board named director Adalio Sanchez as interim CEO. Chairman ... Continue Reading

SMB ransomware report: Attacks frequent, backups key piece

Ransomware attacks on SMBs have increased, according to a recent survey, but backup and disaster recovery platforms can calm data protection fears. An estimated 5% of SMBs worldwide fell victim to ... Continue Reading

Three reasons to consider a multi-cloud storage strategy

Storing data in multiple clouds is a fairly new strategy, but it's useful for companies that want to control cloud costs, protect privacy and ensure their data is always available. Continue Reading

Red Hat Ceph Storage 3 adds file, iSCSI, container support

Red Hat updates Ceph storage software with support for CephFS file system, iSCSI block interface and Linux container-based storage implementations, plus usability improvements. Continue Reading

Dell EMC all-flash SC Series prepped for launch

Dell EMC all-flash inclusive added to the mix for SC Series and Unity arrays. The vendor said each of the midrange storage products has a large customer base. Continue Reading

CEO discusses changing Nasuni storage customer base

Nasuni's customer base has expanded to large enterprises, and most are right to be concerned about cloud storage performance, says CEO Andres Rodriguez. Continue Reading

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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Explosion in unstructured data storage drives modernization

Increasing amounts of unstructured data are a key part of modern secondary storage environments with their distributed file systems and a scale-out object storage design. Continue Reading

Are you ready for NVMe storage and the future of flash?

Three factors to consider beyond technical capabilities before designing and investing money and resources in a low-latency NVMe flash storage network. Continue Reading

Demand for cold data storage heats up

The exponential rise in unstructured data is one of many reasons for the upsurge in demand for cost-effective cold storage products, services and media. Continue Reading

Cloud storage adoption decisions weigh capacity and cost

Acquiring storage capacity -- particularly for backup, archiving, DR and collaborative purposes -- dominates as the main reason for storage cloud adoption trends in the enterprise. Continue Reading

Navigating cloud-based data storage requires some caution

Cloud services are economical and easy to use -- if you know the ropes. Approach cloud computing issues with caution; you just might run into familiar on-premises storage problems. Continue Reading

Demand for cold data storage heats up

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Are you ready for NVMe storage and the future of flash?

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Cloud storage adoption decisions weigh capacity and cost

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