Storage

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  • Remembering Jack Harker

    Hu' Blog
    Hu Yoshida
    23 May 2013 | 3:51 pm
    Last month the storage world marked the passing of one of the most beloved pioneers of the storage industry, Jack Harker.  Jack was one of the original developers of the first disk drive, the IBM RAMAC. He joined the IBM Storage Lab in 1952 when it was first established in San Jose, California. As a product manager and then the lab director, he was responsible for the IBM 3330 and the IBM 3340 Winchester, which was the first removable Head Disk Assembly HDA. Jack also led the IBM Technology and Advanced Development groups that were responsible for most of the technical innovations, including…

  • Architecting & integrating flash into enterprise storage

    StorageMojo
    Robin Harris
    16 May 2013 | 11:04 am
    Have you ever noticed that it is difficult to get good information about how flash works? The vendors know but they’ve never been terribly forthcoming. For example, how does flash wear out? When most things break you lose their contents. But once flash stops working your data is still there. Huh? And the fact that flash is a wearing medium spooks many people. How should we think about flash? Can we live with a wearing medium? Or write amplification? How does that work? What can be done to reduce it? That’s why it was a pleasure to sit down with Rob Ober of LSI. Rob is an LSI…

  • Understanding IBM Options for Storage Efficiency

    Inside System Storage -- by Tony Pearson
    TonyPearson
    24 May 2013 | 6:10 pm
    Are you going to Edge 2013 in Las Vegas, June 10-14? In my talks with clients about storage, I find similar hesitation on turning on various storage efficiency features that IBM (and other vendors) have to offer. Let's examine a few of them. Less than half of businesses have activated "thin provisioning" on storage devices that support this feature. Why? IBM introduced thin provisioning on its RAMAC Virtual Array back in 1997! The technology is well proven in the field. Don't know how to report this for charge-back activity? Charge your end-users for the maximum capacity…

  • Getting Ready for IBM Edge 2013

    DrunkenData.com
    Administrator
    23 May 2013 | 8:27 am
    We are closing in on IBM Edge 2013, a multi-track edutainment event focused on Big Blue storage technology taking place at Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas from June 9 through June 14.  The event reprises a very interesting and informative show staged closer to my house in Florida last year about this time.  I [...]

  • ViPR – Frankenstorage Revisited

    Architecting IT
    Chris M Evans
    9 May 2013 | 5:03 am
    Cast your minds back to 2009.  At that time, Chuck Hollis wrote a blog post that quoted the following definition: “Frankenstorage appears to be a new twist on [the Frankenstein] idea — storage arrays, assembled from various parts from multiple vendors, brought to life by the magic of powerpoints and press releases.” The crux of the blog post referencing this lovely term was storage virtualisation.  Apparently in 2009, storage virtualisation was bad.  Why would anyone want to take the opportunity to use a consistent access method for bringing disparate data sources…
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    Hu' Blog

  • Remembering Jack Harker

    Hu Yoshida
    23 May 2013 | 3:51 pm
    Last month the storage world marked the passing of one of the most beloved pioneers of the storage industry, Jack Harker.  Jack was one of the original developers of the first disk drive, the IBM RAMAC. He joined the IBM Storage Lab in 1952 when it was first established in San Jose, California. As a product manager and then the lab director, he was responsible for the IBM 3330 and the IBM 3340 Winchester, which was the first removable Head Disk Assembly HDA. Jack also led the IBM Technology and Advanced Development groups that were responsible for most of the technical innovations, including…

  • A CIO’s Perspective on Embracing BYOD and Enterprise Mobility

    Hu Yoshida
    22 May 2013 | 11:12 am
    I recently interviewed my colleague Rex Carter, CIO of Hitachi Data Systems.  He joined HDS in 2006 and has played a major role in the transformation of our company through the innovative use of IT technology. He is well known to many of our customers and partners as he seeks every opportunity to engage with them and share best practices. Rex and the IT team are rolling out a new BYOD solution, called HCP Anywhere to Hitachi Data Systems 6,000 employees. Q: Rex, thank you for agreeing to do this interview.  One of the biggest challenges that our customers are facing is the proliferation of…

  • Object Storage is a Horizontal Platform: HCP

    Hu Yoshida
    15 May 2013 | 9:27 am
    I have had a busy week in Hong Kong, with several of our executives providing an update for some customers and partners. There was a lot of interest in a new option that we will announce for our Hitachi Content Platform that will address the challenges of BYOD. BYOD is a great enabler for user productivity and innovation but can create a security risk for corporate IP. This option is a gateway that enables enterprise users to sync and share files via secure smart links so the latest version of their document is available on their iPhone, iPad, Windows, Mac, or browser and is shareable with…

  • The World is No Longer Flat – It’s multi-dimensional

    Hu Yoshida
    3 May 2013 | 4:11 pm
    In 2005 Thomas Friedman published his book, “The World is Flat” where he describes how globalization has changed the economy thanks to the Internet and workflow software. Some of the flattening events were: the fall of the Berlin wall that lifted the restrictions on access to technology, Netscape, outsourcing, insourcing, offshoring, and supply chain. He wrote about the epiphany he had on a golf course in India where Bangladesh and Silicon Valley companies were connected and collaborating across time zones and vast distances. Thomas Friedman recently had an article, “It’s a 401(K)…

  • FC or FCoE – Where do you invest for SAN?

    Hu Yoshida
    1 May 2013 | 5:00 am
    While Ethernet networks were available for sometime to connect clients and servers in local area networks; we could not network storage until the introduction of Fibre Channel. Unlike storage systems, clients and servers are software that can be put on hold if the network is busy. If a client sends a data packet and the server or network is busy, Ethernet throws the data packet away and tells the client to try again later. The client waits and resends the packet and repeats this until it gets an acknowledgement of receipt. The server to storage connection is not that polite. Servers do not…
 
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    StorageMojo

  • Architecting & integrating flash into enterprise storage

    Robin Harris
    16 May 2013 | 11:04 am
    Have you ever noticed that it is difficult to get good information about how flash works? The vendors know but they’ve never been terribly forthcoming. For example, how does flash wear out? When most things break you lose their contents. But once flash stops working your data is still there. Huh? And the fact that flash is a wearing medium spooks many people. How should we think about flash? Can we live with a wearing medium? Or write amplification? How does that work? What can be done to reduce it? That’s why it was a pleasure to sit down with Rob Ober of LSI. Rob is an LSI…

  • Cloud money: flip a Bitcoin

    Robin Harris
    11 May 2013 | 2:25 pm
    Digital coinage can’t do everything a physical coin can do, but that’s not stopping people from signing up – or going to conferences. There’s one in Silicon Valley next week and the elite StorageMojo analyst crew will be there in force. Digital currency as a store of value? Today Bitcoin and other digital currencies look more like stocks than bonds because of their volatility. But with Amazon and eBay looking at accepting them, they could become more like money. If that seems unlikely, recall that much of what you use now as “money” is simply electronic…

  • EMC and the 7 dwarves – pt 2

    Robin Harris
    3 May 2013 | 12:52 pm
    Note: This post got so long it needed to be posted in 2 parts. Part 1 is here. And while I promised this 2nd part “tomorrow” the editing took much longer than expected. End note. HP has made the most dramatic bet with their 3PAR-based converged storage line. While the rapid growth of the new products is overwhelmed by the even quicker decline of older products like EVA, they’re off to a good start, claiming over 1200 new customeres. The challenge for former EMC’er Dave Donatelli and 3PAR’s David Scott isn’t technology but sales. Do you have field storage…

  • EMC and the 7 dwarves – part 1

    Robin Harris
    25 Apr 2013 | 1:05 pm
    EMC has been gaining marketshare over the last several years. The world’s largest data storage company is getting larger. Why? IBM and the 7 dwarves Back when mainframes ruled the earth, IBM faced a hardy band of competitors that used its software – usually MVS – but ran it on less costly or more performant hardware. had their own processor architectures and operating systems. Originally known as the 7 dwarves – Burroughs, UNIVAC, Control Data, NCR, GE, RCA and Honeywell – these companies rode the computing boom with varying success until the early 70s. Then the…

  • Is F5′s ARX file virtualization a success?

    Robin Harris
    22 Apr 2013 | 10:35 am
    In response to the post on Avere’s architecture for fronting backend NAS filers – where StorageMojo said that no front-end to NAS boxes has succeeded – alert reader Jacob Marley asked “What about F5′s ARX to stitch/balance storage across multiple filers?” Good question! What can we deduce from publicly available sources? The F5 ARX product line is billed as an “intelligent file virtualization solution” that “. . .preserves the logical access to files regardless of their current location on storage.” Like earlier file switches The ARX…
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    Inside System Storage -- by Tony Pearson

  • Understanding IBM Options for Storage Efficiency

    TonyPearson
    24 May 2013 | 6:10 pm
    Are you going to Edge 2013 in Las Vegas, June 10-14? In my talks with clients about storage, I find similar hesitation on turning on various storage efficiency features that IBM (and other vendors) have to offer. Let's examine a few of them. Less than half of businesses have activated "thin provisioning" on storage devices that support this feature. Why? IBM introduced thin provisioning on its RAMAC Virtual Array back in 1997! The technology is well proven in the field. Don't know how to report this for charge-back activity? Charge your end-users for the maximum capacity…

  • Facing Your Fears

    TonyPearson
    7 May 2013 | 5:01 pm
    It seems I have been on the road non-stop for the past nine weeks! On my flights, I often find myself sitting next to a young adult who is flying for the first time. Many of these young adults formed their fear of flying a decade ago, in their teenage years, during the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Some are just now trying to face those fears. (What does any of this have to do with storage? Actually, there are similar fears for enabling various storage efficiency functions like data deduplication, thin provisioning and compression, so work with me here!) Flying from Seattle down to…

  • Happy Earth Day! Tucson Selected for IBM Smarter Cities Challenge

    TonyPearson
    22 Apr 2013 | 5:12 pm
    I am back safely from my travels to New Zealand and Australia, and would like to wish everyone today a Happy [Earth Day]! The Tucson area has been continuously-inhabited by people for the past 3,500 years. One of the great challenges for this arid desert region is water. Recently, Tucson was selected for a [2013 IBM Smarter Cities Challenge] grant. Here is an excerpt from a blog post by Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild titled [Ensuring Tucson's Water Future]: "One critical area for cost-effective investment is technology. We are converting all of our customer water meters to digital…

  • My last days teaching Top Gun in Sydney Australia

    TonyPearson
    18 Apr 2013 | 4:03 pm
    Wrapping up my week teaching Top Gun class in Sydney, Australia, I could not resist taking a photo of the cityscape. Sydney is a beautiful city, and the view from the 13th floor of the IBM Centre at St. Leonards in North Sydney is always worth a picture! Vic, Scott and I all have engineering backgrounds, so it is easy for us to drop down into the technical weeds in discussing each product and solution. However, the student feedback from both Auckland and Sydney was that some of our material was just too technical. "Shoe salesman should know how to tie a pair of shoe laces, but do not…

  • Top Gun in Sydney Australia - The First Few Days

    TonyPearson
    17 Apr 2013 | 11:52 pm
    This week, I was in Sydney, Australia teaching IBM Storage Portfolio Top Gun class. Our hotel is near [Circular Quay], and our class is at the IBM Centre at St. Leonards, just six metro stops away. There are also ferry boats from Circular Quay to other parts of the city. Here are other members of the teach team. Scott McPeek covers the IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center, SAN Volume Controller and Tivoli Storage Productivity Center. Vic Peltz covers high-end disk, disk replication, and competitive issues. Here we are in front of the [Sydney Opera House]. Sunday, we took a ferry boat to…
 
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    DrunkenData.com

  • Getting Ready for IBM Edge 2013

    Administrator
    23 May 2013 | 8:27 am
    We are closing in on IBM Edge 2013, a multi-track edutainment event focused on Big Blue storage technology taking place at Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas from June 9 through June 14.  The event reprises a very interesting and informative show staged closer to my house in Florida last year about this time.  I [...]

  • Continuing VA Saga

    Administrator
    22 May 2013 | 1:08 pm
    A couple of posts back, I shared a letter I had sent to Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida.  Variants of the same letter my other Florida Senator, Marco Rubio, and to the POTUS.  I have yet to hear back from those folks, but I was kind of disappointed in the Nelson response this week. A [...]

  • Catching Up

    Administrator
    22 May 2013 | 12:47 pm
    Between seasonal allergies and clients facing disaster events, it has been one heck of a Spring 2013. A little over a week ago, I was in Chicago at an event hosted by a large storage technology distributor aimed at building a fire under its customers, reseller/integrators. Paid for, I take it, by a large storage [...]

  • Not that I Don’t Trust You

    Administrator
    15 Apr 2013 | 11:23 am
    We just completed great editions of our “New Rules:  Backup and Data Protection” seminar in Atlanta and Dallas last week.  (Thank you, Trish, from TechTarget for your great logistics and on-site management, and thanks to all who attended the events.)  At the Dallas event, I was struck by a funny happenstance… Dallas was the first [...]

  • Call to Action

    Administrator
    13 Apr 2013 | 12:51 pm
    Some of my friends who read this blog know that I lost my father a month or so ago.  He was aged and infirmed, and has gone to a better place, I’m sure.  But in his final years, we were frequently challenged by our interaction with the VA’s medical claims and records keeping processes.  Dad’s [...]
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    Architecting IT

  • ViPR – Frankenstorage Revisited

    Chris M Evans
    9 May 2013 | 5:03 am
    Cast your minds back to 2009.  At that time, Chuck Hollis wrote a blog post that quoted the following definition: “Frankenstorage appears to be a new twist on [the Frankenstein] idea — storage arrays, assembled from various parts from multiple vendors, brought to life by the magic of powerpoints and press releases.” The crux of the blog post referencing this lovely term was storage virtualisation.  Apparently in 2009, storage virtualisation was bad.  Why would anyone want to take the opportunity to use a consistent access method for bringing disparate data sources…

  • Gartner ECB (External Controller-Based Disk) – 4Q2012

    Chris M Evans
    26 Mar 2013 | 12:31 am
    Figure 1 – Gartner EBC – All Vendors The latest Gartner ECB survey is out and as discussed in my last post, I’ve updated my data to reflect the latest set of figures.  The vendors all have ups and downs each quarter so this data is particularly interesting as it covers year end 2012 and allows four years of comparisons from 2009 through to 2012. As expected, in absolute terms, EMC continue to power ahead, as is indicated in the “all vendors” graph on the left (figure 1).  What’s more interesting is the obvious sales cycle the vendors go through.  For…

  • Death of The PC (Or Mine At Least)

    Chris M Evans
    24 Mar 2013 | 11:07 am
    Today marks the first time in probably 20 years that none of the computing devices in my home are PCs.  The homebrew PC tower unit used until recently by Son#2 is being shipped out after being stripped of anything useful.  He now uses a Raspberry Pi and screen to RDP into a virtual desktop in the lab. Looking around at how our computing at home has changed, it has been an interesting evolution: Gaming has become a PS3, iPod and iPad pastime, with the PC relegated to playing Age of Empires on an occasional basis. Content creation is a laptop thing with three in the household. Media…

  • Google’s Hollow Cloud Storage Offering

    Chris M Evans
    11 Mar 2013 | 1:19 am
    Reading this recent article on ZDNet I was struck by the pointlessness of Google’s 1TB of user storage offering.  This may seem like a bold statement, but let’s look at the figures and the offering.  If you buy a Chromebook Pixel, it comes with 1TB of Google Drive storage for three years.  Sadly the ZDNet article in question goes on to try and highlight how this is a great deal, if you need 1TB of space. However, what doesn’t get discussed is the time it would take to both make use of that storage and get off it in three years’ time if you went with another storage…

  • Manipulating the Message – The Art of Marketing

    Chris M Evans
    5 Mar 2013 | 10:20 am
    The last few weeks have seen a couple of important flash technology announcements.  They are important as they bring two of the “Big 5/6″ storage vendors up to speed in a market that is already pretty well occupied.  Unfortunately all of these announcements are coupled with hyperbole, figure hiding and in some cases, bare-faced lies. Company N Let’s look first at NetApp’s announcement of their first all-flash array, the EF540.  Here are some of the bold statements NetApp make: In a move that extends its leadership in the industry… With the strongest and…
 
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    ZDNet | Storage Bits Blog RSS

  • Bitcoin 2013 conference: the future of money?

    22 May 2013 | 7:00 am
    I had many questions about Bitcoin (BTC) and how it works. Some of them got answered.

  • Digital money: store of value or illusion?

    17 May 2013 | 2:37 pm
    Digital coinage like Bitcoin can't do everything a physical coin can do, but that's not stopping people from giving up real money for them. Or are they trading one fake currency for another?

  • Why tablets are winning

    16 May 2013 | 7:00 am
    I had a hulking, 45-pound quad-core Mac Pro for years. But my little, 3-pound i7 MacBook Air has faster Geekbench scores and feels snappier. This is why tablets are winning.

  • Data scientists: Hype or help?

    16 May 2013 | 12:08 am
    Scale matters. Massive data — especially streaming data — requires its own ecosystem. It's not just small data made bigger.

  • Who has your back?

    1 May 2013 | 4:48 pm
    What do Apple, AT&T, Myspace, Verizon and Yahoo! have in common? Little regard for protecting their customers from governmental abuse of power.
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    Integrated Data Storage

  • Speed Up First-time Avamar Backup by “Seeding” the Server

    Jon Austin
    16 May 2013 | 2:50 am
    Avamar is a great tool to backup remote office file servers to a private or hybrid cloud infrastructure. However, performing an initial backup can be a challenge if the server is more than a few GB and the connection to the remote office is less than 100Mb. In this scenario, the recommended process is to ...

  • Clear for Project Takeoff? The Importance of a Check List

    Juan Martinez
    7 May 2013 | 11:23 am
    Like a Pilot before a flight, it’s critical a Project Manager have a check list before any data infrastructure project begins Over my 10 years as a Project Manager, one of the most important documents to have ready before we do the kick-off meeting with the customer is the check list. The list that I’m ...

  • 3 Reasons Why You Need a Cloud Compliance Policy Now

    Jeffrey McDaniel
    30 Apr 2013 | 12:41 pm
    While the debate is still continuing for most as to what the “Cloud” means, the point that can’t be argued is that cloud models are already here and growing. Whether one is talking about a fully hosted cloud model for hosting systems, networks and applications at a 3rd party provider, or looking at a hybrid ...

  • A Clear(er) Definition of Cloud Computing

    Paul Prickett
    24 Apr 2013 | 11:18 am
    What is the Cloud? I get asked this all the time. It is part of many client meetings. My relatives ask me when we get together. My friends ask me. Heck, even my wife asked me at one point. It is probably the most common question I get asked in my life right now. It’s ...

  • Choosing the Best Replication with VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager: vSphere vs. Array-based

    Michael Freisinger
    24 Apr 2013 | 8:24 am
    I recently had the opportunity to implement VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) in three different environments using two different replication technologies (vSphere and Array-based Replication). The setup and configuration of the SRM software is pretty much straightforward. The differences come into play when deciding on what the best replication option is for your business ...
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    Zerowait High Availability Blog

  • Exporter of the Year

    24 May 2013 | 11:48 am
    This week Zerowait received the Exporter of the Year award. It was a great event and it was an interesting evening meeting other award winners and listening to their business histories and stories. The common thread of the evening was that people can have a dream and build a business through hard work and dedication to providing their customers outstanding service and support. In Zerowat's case the business has expanded internationally over the past two decades thanks to the support of our customers and our growing team of employees. Zerowait's team is working on several new initiatives this…

  • Milestones

    14 May 2013 | 7:23 am
    Last week I was reviewing our performance over the last two decades with the government folks who came to our office to discuss our winning the Delaware Small Business Exporter of the Year Award. During the discussions we touched on the number of NetApp legacy equipment service contracts we have and the growth of our SimplStor product line over the last few years. When we started providing customers in the USA with NetApp support contracts a lot of folks said that the business could not be very big. After a couple of years we had over a hundred support contracts and the business was thriving…

  • A cloudy outlook

    5 May 2013 | 10:34 am
    Last week I was in Greensboro and Charlotte, NC visiting with customers who are working on coming up with a reliable and affordable archival storage solutions for day to day usage and also for their disaster recovery solutions.   One customer I met with is a Zerowait SimplStor user and a NetApp support customer of ours. We have been supporting their NetApp equipment for many years, and when they needed an archival solution they chose our SimplStor equipment. We spoke mostly about how to implement scalable storage solutions that will have a service cycle in excess of five years. This…

  • A step at a time

    30 Apr 2013 | 7:29 am
    Last week I was in New York City visiting with customers who are trying to figure out how to affordably manage their vast and growing data archives. They have tried a variety of solutions from start ups and established vendors but nothing seems to solve the problems of data storage and management in a way that they need to.  They use NetApp for their tier one storage and have a home built archival solution which is reliable and affordable, but not a great long term strategic storage solution. Our customer likes the reliability of their NetApp equipment, but it is hard to justify the cost…

  • Archival data like old soldiers, never dies — but can’t be allowed to fade away.

    19 Apr 2013 | 12:02 pm
    This week I was visiting some of our North Carolina customers. Our customers have some pretty diverse business models, but one thing they all have in common is the desire to cut the costs of their operations to increase their profit margins.  Only the government considers a slowdown in the rate of the increase in expenses to be a cut. I heard a number of times this week that Zerowait is helping our customers meet their goals. Our staff is dedicated to customer support and we listen to what are customers are saying so we can provide solutions that answer their specific needs. We can…
 
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    The Storage Team at Microsoft - File Cabinet Blog

  • Storage Service (SMI-S) Tracing and Logging

    Jeff Goldner
    23 May 2013 | 8:40 am
    Microsoft added the ability to manage storage using Storage Management Initiative (SMI-S) providers to Windows Server 2012. Sometimes things don't go quite the way you plan and some debugging is needed to figure out what is going on. So in order to provide better ability for storage vendors and customers to debug problems encountered with SMI-S providers, the Windows Standards-Based Storage Management Service (I’ll refer to it as Storage Service) offers a tracing facility as well as various other logging options. CIMXML Logging If you followed my earlier blogs, you would have learned…

  • Using Indications with the Windows Standards-Based Storage Management Service (SMI-S)

    Jeff Goldner
    22 May 2013 | 5:34 pm
    Indications are a mechanism used in the Common Information Model (CIM) to provide events from a CIM server to a client application. The storage service can use these events to make sure its cached information is up-to-date with the provider and the arrays it manages. When the storage service is the single management point, the chances are pretty good that the cache will be reasonably current. But if multiple management points exist, such as more than one SMI-S client, more than one SMI-S provider managing a single array, or out-of-band mechanisms like vendor tools, the state of a managed…

  • OEM Appliance OOBE update: Set up a 4-node cluster in 30 minutes!

    Scott M. Johnson
    8 May 2013 | 10:55 am
    Hi folks, Scott here to talk about a new OEM Appliance OOBE (Out-of-box-experience) update that is now available for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Storage Server 2012. Windows server manufacturers (OEMs) can leverage this deployment tool to help their end-users rapidly deploy new clusters, in as few as 30 minutes from power-on to continuously-available services. In Windows Server 2012, we included the OEM appliance OOBE to enable our manufacturers to design these custom setup experiences for standalone servers and two node clusters. This included booting the machines, selecting language,…

  • HP StoreEasy and Windows Server 2012 SMB Performance

    NedPyle [MSFT]
    22 Apr 2013 | 12:19 pm
    Hi folks, Ned here again with a quickie post. HP recently released their latest file server SMB testing results, where they used FSCT and IOMeter to collect performance and scalability data with Windows Server 2012 running on HP StoreEasy 5000 Storage NAS servers. The whitepaper holds plenty of details, and here’s a good one to get you started: Even the midline-drive equipped StoreEasy model handled 2,500 peak workload home folder users – and if you went for the top of the line enterprise-class disks, it stood up to 26,000 simultaneous users, staying at ~30% CPU utilization, even while…

  • Safely Virtualizing DFSR

    NedPyle [MSFT]
    5 Apr 2013 | 7:56 pm
    Hi folks, Ned here again. With the massive growth of virtualization, odds are you want to safely and reliably run Distributed File System Replication on Hyper-V, Xen, KVM, or VMware – heck, you may already be doing so. With that in mind, I am here today to save your job! OK that might overstating things; let me try again: I am here today to save your file servers! Multi-Master Background You can virtualize many server workloads transparently without requiring any special considerations; the hypervisor just becomes a standard “hardware platform” within the company. When you…
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    blog.scottlowe.org

  • Learning NVP, Part 1: High-Level Architecture

    slowe
    21 May 2013 | 2:01 pm
    This blog post kicks off a new series of posts describing my journey to become more knowledgeable about the Nicira Network Virtualization Platform (NVP). NVP is, in my opinion, an awesome platform, but there hasn’t been a great deal of information shared about the product, how it works, how you configure it, etc. That’s something I’m going to try to address in this series of posts. In this first post, I’ll start with a high-level description of the NVP architecture. Don’t worry—more in-depth information will come in future posts. Before continuing, it might…

  • Examining Open vSwitch Traffic Patterns

    slowe
    15 May 2013 | 8:52 am
    In this post, I want to provide some additional insight on how the use of Open vSwitch (OVS) affects—or doesn’t affect, in some cases—how a Linux host directs traffic through physical interfaces, OVS internal interfaces, and OVS bridges. This is something that I had a hard time understanding as I started exploring more advanced OVS configurations, and hopefully the information I share here will be helpful to others. To help structure this discussion, I’m going to walk through a few different OVS configurations and scenarios. In these scenarios, I’ll use the…

  • Using pf on OS X Mountain Lion

    slowe
    15 May 2013 | 6:00 am
    I’ve written before about adding an extra layer of network security to your Macintosh by leveraging the BSD-level ipfw firewall, in addition to the standard GUI firewall and additional third-party firewalls (like Little Snitch). In OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion, though, ipfw was deprecated in favor of pf, the powerful packet filter that I believe originated on OpenBSD. (OS X’s version of pf is ported from FreeBSD.) In this article, I’m going to show you how to use pf on OS X. Note that this is just one way of leveraging pf, not necessarily the only way of doing it. I…

  • Joint OpenStack Denver and Infracoders Denver Meetup

    slowe
    14 May 2013 | 8:19 am
    Next Monday, May 20, the OpenStack Denver meetup group will gather jointly with the inaugural meeting of the Infracoders Denver meetup group for a talk titled “Infrastructure as Code with Chef and OpenStack.” The joint meeting will be held at Innovation Pavilion in Centennial/Englewood (location information here). The event will start at 7PM. Giving the presentation will be none other than Joshua Timberman of OpsCode (@jtimberman on Twitter). Joshua will be speaking on Chef, a system integration framework that is commonly used in “infrastructure as code” environments…

  • Using GRE Tunnels with Open vSwitch

    slowe
    7 May 2013 | 3:59 pm
    I’m back with another “how to” article on Open vSwitch (OVS), this time taking a look at using GRE (Generic Routing Encapsulation) tunnels with OVS. OVS can use GRE tunnels between hosts as a way of encapsulating traffic and creating an overlay network. OpenStack Quantum can (and does) leverage this functionality, in fact, to help separate different “tenant networks” from one another. In this write-up, I’ll walk you through the process of configuring OVS to build a GRE tunnel to build an overlay network between two hypervisors running KVM. Naturally, any…
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    DCIG

  • This Is Not Your Father's Clustering Software

    17 May 2013 | 4:00 am
    I have been looking into clustering and high availability (HA) a lot lately, mostly as it pertains to my day job but also because I just like to keep myself up to speed on things. What has been changing? An abundance of things!Thinking back to the late 90's and early 00's, it was difficult, it not impossible, to get a cluster up and running without significant amounts of pre-planning and coordination from many groups (Network, Server, Application, DBA's etc.) This was back in the day before VMware and other hypervisors where if you wanted to protect an application from having a single-point…

  • Breaking Up is Hard to Do

    16 May 2013 | 7:45 am
    I've been in sales for about 20 years now and like anyone in sales or leadership in a company, I've been told that the client/vendor relationship "is over."  With that message, I have been given a myriad of reasons or excuses as to why the relationship was over with my company and my soon to be an ex-client ranging from understandable to totally unique, here are some of the better ones."Our budget has been slashed""A competitor is giving us better pricing""My wife's brother is now doing what you do, and well you know, I'm stuck""We've been purchased and the new parent company has a…

  • Know - Don't Guess - Who is the Most Skilled Person to Backup and Recover Your Business

    14 May 2013 | 8:00 am
    Identifying who the "best" individual is to handle backup and recovery within an organization has always been at best a crapshoot. The choice usually came down to some arbitrary evaluation of a person's education, experience, knowledge, skills and their willingness to perform the task which had mixed results. The customer education services, certification program and online learning portal now available from CommVault trains and equips individuals to perform backup and recovery so this task of identifying the "right" person to do the job is a far more quantifiable and defensible process than…

  • The Difference between a DCIG Buyer's Guide and an Analyst Research Report

    13 May 2013 | 7:00 am
    A question that I often get asked is, "Why does DCIG use the phrase 'Buyer's Guide' instead of 'Analyst Research Report' when it produces its listing, ranking and scoring of products?" More than one individual has said these Guides are more valuable and serve as a better starting point when it comes to helping them making a storage buying decision than most of the analyst research reports available on the market. So why not position the DCIG Buyer's Guides as Analyst Research Reports?The rationale as to why DCIG positions this collateral as "Guides" rather than as "Reports" is a subtle but…

  • Software-defined Storage is "Good" - Just Not All Versions of It May be Equally Well Suited for Your Organization

    10 May 2013 | 8:30 am
    It seemed only moments after EMC announced its ViPR software-defined storage platform at EMC World this week that the attack dogs (primarily its competitors) were out in full force pointing out ViPR's shortcomings and attacking its merits. But its competitors need to be careful how they go about discrediting EMC's version of software-defined storage. EMC promoting it will lift the entire software-defined storage tide and help make it a viable option for end-users which many want and need.EMC's competitors have a love-hate relationship with EMC. They all know who EMC is. They almost inevitably…
 
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    StorageIOblog

  • May 2013 Server and StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Greg Schulz
    21 May 2013 | 9:35 pm
    May 2013 News letter Welcome to the May 2013 edition of the StorageIO Update. This edition has announcement analysis of EMC ViPR, Software Defined Storage (including a video here), server, storage and I/O metrics that matter for example how many IOPS can a HDD do (it depends). SSD including nand flash remains a popular topic, [...]

  • Part II: How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do with VMware?

    Greg Schulz
    19 May 2013 | 9:12 pm
    How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do? This is the second post of a two-part series looking at storage performance, specifically in the context of drive or device (e.g. mediums) characteristics across HDD, HHDD and SSD. In the first post the focus was around putting some context around drive or device performance [...]

  • How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do?

    Greg Schulz
    19 May 2013 | 9:12 pm
    How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do? A common question I run across is how many IOPS (IO Operations Per Second) can a storage device or system do or give. The answer is or should be it depends. This is the first of a two-part series looking at storage performance, and in [...]

  • FusionIO (FIO) SSD vendor CEO out in a flash, whats up with that?

    Greg Schulz
    8 May 2013 | 11:38 am
    FusionIO (FIO) who recently bought Nexgen to expand their reach from just a server centric to a more broad flash focus has seen their CEO and founder David Flynn race out the door. Not surprisingly, wall street who does not like to be surprised were surprised just a week or two after the most recent [...]

  • EMC ViPR software defined object storage part III

    Greg Schulz
    7 May 2013 | 10:28 am
    This is part III in a series of posts pertaining to EMC ViPR software defined storage and object storage. You can read part I here and part II here. More on the object opportunity Other object access includes OpenStack storage part Swift, AWS S3 HTTP and REST API access. This also includes ViPR supporting EMC [...]
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    Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat» Enterprise storage

  • How Does OpenFlow Impact The Daily Life Of Networkers?

    Stephen
    16 May 2013 | 7:48 am
    Interop is the last of a proud breed: A truly vendor-independent trade show with some fantastic technical presentations to boot. And Interop Las Vegas is the biggest Interop show. So I was pleased to be able to bring Tech Field Day to Interop for the first time, including technical roundtable discussions with Spirent, Juniper Networks, and NEC. Bob Muglia addresses the question of software-defined networking at the Juniper Tech Field Day Roundtable at Interop But what I’d really like to talk about is the great conversations that come at Interop. From the Roundtables to lunch and dinner…

  • It’s Time To Speak Out Against Sexism In IT Recruiting

    Stephen
    6 May 2013 | 8:42 am
    I have waged a long-standing battle against the sexist and offensive use of scantily-clad, non-technical “models” at technical trade shows. Sometimes known (offensively) as “booth babes”, the use of women in this way harms our entire industry and makes companies look stupid to boot. But when a recruiting firm uses such offensive tactics, it does even more harm, verging on illegal! “Booth babes” perpetuate the “men only” stigma of high-tech Sexist Tech Marketing Is Wrong But Legal Let me be clear: I’ve got nothing against sex generally or…

  • Storage Field Day 3 Is Here!

    Stephen
    23 Apr 2013 | 1:53 pm
    As most of my readers are probably aware, I run the Tech Field Day event series, bringing in a panel of independent IT folks like myself with cool companies. This week is Storage Field Day 3, and I thought you might like to know a bit about what we’ve got planned! We started with a generalist event (Tech Field Day) before adding Networking Field Day, Wireless Field Day, and Virtualization Field Day. But it took three years for me to hold my first Storage Field Day – after all, I’m a storage guy, and I didn’t want the event to be sidelined as “a storage…

  • What’s (Still) Wrong With Dropbox For Business

    Stephen
    17 Apr 2013 | 8:14 am
    I am a heavy (and paying) user of Dropbox, using it both for business and personal storage and synchronization. Although I find the service incredibly useful, Dropbox is far from perfect, especially for business users. So I thought I would take a few moments to talk about what I’d like to see Dropbox improve. This is a box with a cat in it. It doesn’t really have anything to do with this article about Dropbox for Business, but cats love boxes, just like your employees love Dropbox! Or something… The Ultimate Honeypot I often wonder why Dropbox hasn’t yet had a major…

  • Storage and WiFi are the Overlooked Keys to VDI

    Stephen
    18 Feb 2013 | 4:41 pm
    Virtual desktop designs tend to overlook two key infrastructure components: Storage responsiveness and wireless network availability and performance. Yet without these two ingredients, VDI is doomed! VDI loves Wi-Fi and Storage. So much that it overwhelms both, ruining their relationship! Tofu isn’t important for VDI. VDI Issues? It’s the Storage… I despise pat answers and rules of thumb, but one truism has emerged from my experience with virtual desktop deployments: Storage I/O performance is by far the most important back-end element. Slow storage doesn’t just mean slow…
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    Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat» Virtual Storage

  • How Does OpenFlow Impact The Daily Life Of Networkers?

    Stephen
    16 May 2013 | 7:48 am
    Interop is the last of a proud breed: A truly vendor-independent trade show with some fantastic technical presentations to boot. And Interop Las Vegas is the biggest Interop show. So I was pleased to be able to bring Tech Field Day to Interop for the first time, including technical roundtable discussions with Spirent, Juniper Networks, and NEC. Bob Muglia addresses the question of software-defined networking at the Juniper Tech Field Day Roundtable at Interop But what I’d really like to talk about is the great conversations that come at Interop. From the Roundtables to lunch and dinner…

  • Storage Field Day 3 Is Here!

    Stephen
    23 Apr 2013 | 1:53 pm
    As most of my readers are probably aware, I run the Tech Field Day event series, bringing in a panel of independent IT folks like myself with cool companies. This week is Storage Field Day 3, and I thought you might like to know a bit about what we’ve got planned! We started with a generalist event (Tech Field Day) before adding Networking Field Day, Wireless Field Day, and Virtualization Field Day. But it took three years for me to hold my first Storage Field Day – after all, I’m a storage guy, and I didn’t want the event to be sidelined as “a storage…

  • What’s (Still) Wrong With Dropbox For Business

    Stephen
    17 Apr 2013 | 8:14 am
    I am a heavy (and paying) user of Dropbox, using it both for business and personal storage and synchronization. Although I find the service incredibly useful, Dropbox is far from perfect, especially for business users. So I thought I would take a few moments to talk about what I’d like to see Dropbox improve. This is a box with a cat in it. It doesn’t really have anything to do with this article about Dropbox for Business, but cats love boxes, just like your employees love Dropbox! Or something… The Ultimate Honeypot I often wonder why Dropbox hasn’t yet had a major…

  • Storage and WiFi are the Overlooked Keys to VDI

    Stephen
    18 Feb 2013 | 4:41 pm
    Virtual desktop designs tend to overlook two key infrastructure components: Storage responsiveness and wireless network availability and performance. Yet without these two ingredients, VDI is doomed! VDI loves Wi-Fi and Storage. So much that it overwhelms both, ruining their relationship! Tofu isn’t important for VDI. VDI Issues? It’s the Storage… I despise pat answers and rules of thumb, but one truism has emerged from my experience with virtual desktop deployments: Storage I/O performance is by far the most important back-end element. Slow storage doesn’t just mean slow…

  • VMware’s Hardware Partner Strategy: Heads I Win, Tales You Lose

    Stephen
    11 Feb 2013 | 9:30 am
    VMware is in an enviable but tricky situation: The company must work closely with hardware partners, keeping these prime sales and promotional channels happy and supportive. But VMware must also innovate around proprietary OEMs, subverting their products with integrated software before a rival steps up with an integrated alternative. This two-prong “coopetition” strategy has worked marvelously so far, but is it sustainable? VMware has a two-prong strategy, but are they at a fork in the road? Ok, I’ll quit with the puns now… Looking Backward The server virtualization…
 
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    Storagebod

  • Storage is Interesting…

    Martin Glassborow
    21 May 2013 | 12:49 am
    A fellow blogger has a habit of referring to storage as snorage and I suspect that is the attitude of many. What’s so interesting about storage, it’s just that place that you keep your stuff? And many years ago as an entry level systems programmer; there were two teams that I was never going to join…one being the test team and the other being the storage team, because they were boring. Recently I have run both a test team and a storage team and enjoyed the experience immensely. So why do I keep doing storage? Well, firstly I have little choice but to stick to infrastructure;…

  • Viperidae – not that venomous?

    Martin Glassborow
    9 May 2013 | 4:58 am
    There’s a lot of discussion about what ViPR is and what it isn’t; how much of this confusion is deliberate and how much is simply the normal of fog of war which pervades the storage industry is debateable. Having had some more time to think about it; I have some more thoughts and questions. Firstly, it is a messy announcement; there’s a hotch-potch of products here, utilising IP from acquisitions and from internal EMC initiatives. There’s also an attempt to build a new narrative which doesn’t seem to work; perhaps it worked better when put into the context of an…

  • A New Job – for you maybe?

    Martin Glassborow
    8 May 2013 | 6:15 am
    Although it is no great secret as to who my employer is; I’m sure you can all use Google and LinkedIn, I very rarely post about the specifics of my job. It does influence what I write about obviously but often less than you might think. This post however is entirely linked to my employer. I have a vacancy in my team and perhaps someone reading this might be interested in coming to work for me. The job advert is here and very good it is too; well, I wrote most of it. However perhaps you might want some more detail. My storage team provides support and delivery expertise for storage in…

  • Snakebite….

    Martin Glassborow
    7 May 2013 | 10:32 am
    So EMC have unveiled ViPR; their software defined storage initiative; like many EMC World announcements, there’s not a huge amount of detail, especially if you aren’t at EMC World. It has left many of blogger peers scratching their heads and wondering what the hell it is and whether it is something new. Now like them, I am in that very same camp but unlike them, I am foolish enough to have a bit of guess and make myself look a fool when the EMCers descend on me and tell me how wrong I am. Firstly, let me say what I think it isn’t; I really don’t believe that is a…

  • Can Pachyderms Polka?

    Martin Glassborow
    26 Apr 2013 | 7:03 am
    Chris’ pieces on IBM’s storage revenues here and here make for some interesting reading. Things are not looking great with the exception of XIV and Storwize products. I am not sure if Chris’ analysis is entirely correct as it is hard to get any granularity from IBM. But it doesn’t surprise me either; there are some serious weaknesses in IBM’s storage portfolio. Firstly, there is still an awful lot of OEMed kit from NetApp in the portfolio; it certainly appears that this is not selling or being as sold as well as it was in the past. So IBM’s struggles have some interesting knock-on…
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    Network Computing

  • NSA Caught Unawares By Data Center Tax

    Kevin Fogarty
    24 May 2013 | 12:23 pm
    The National Security Agency, which is building a massive information-gathering data center in Utah, was caught by surprise on a tax bill that might have added millions to its costs.

  • WAN Optimization Part 2: Put Performance Second

    David Greenfield
    24 May 2013 | 9:05 am
    If you’re looking to purchase WAN optimization gear, don’t get wrapped up in performance numbers. Start instead with pricing, deployment and operational issues, and the protocols and applications you need to support.

  • Strike Back If China Steals IP, Companies Told

    24 May 2013 | 6:37 am
    When online attackers operating from China or other countries steal corporate secrets, let businesses strike back and retrieve stolen information from attackers' networks. That gloves-off approach is just one of many recommendations for combating industrial espionage outlined in a new report from the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, which is headed by the former director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, as well as Jon Huntsman, who's served as the governor of Utah as well as U.S. ambassador to China. "China is two-thirds of the intellectual property theft…

  • F5 Combines Application Acceleration With Traffic Management

    Gary Hilson
    23 May 2013 | 11:03 am
    News roundup: Big-IP AAM aims to improve SaaS performance; Hitachi unveils enterprise file sync and share; Sourcefire adds network file and device trajectory to malware protection; Lantronix supports remote power management for branch IT.

  • IT Vendors Need More Pricing Transparency

    Kurt Marko
    23 May 2013 | 9:37 am
    Compiling our SDN product comparison provided a vivid lesson in the difficulty of getting meaningful prices for enterprise IT equipment.
 
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    Storage

  • How to Recover Pictures from Corrupt Memory Card

    23 May 2013 | 5:59 pm
    Memory card corruption is a common problem that anyone can face, not necessary you must be a photographer or mobile user. Find the complete solution here for recovering your data from corrupt memory card.

  • Features of an Efficient Mac Photo Recovery Tool

    14 Apr 2013 | 10:07 pm
    The advanced image editing and viewing features of Mac makes it one of the best operating systems for professional photographers, graphic artists, and all those who deal with photos. Apart from these features, the less vulnerability of this Operating System (OS) to viruses and file system inconsistencies makes it stand out from the competition.

  • Securely Recovering Lost Image Files from Digital Camera

    14 Apr 2013 | 10:01 pm
    Losing photos from digital camera can be a stressful situation as it causes loss of your invaluable memories stored with them. Despite taking all the precautions to avoid such circumstances, you come across photo loss at least once.

  • How to Get Back Deleted or Lost RAW Photos

    9 Apr 2013 | 9:16 pm
    In digital photography, the RAW image format is same like negatives of your photos in film-based photography. The RAW format basically contains all the raw text extracted by digital camera’s sensor before processing and converting it to JPEG or TIFF format.

  • How to Recover Photos Lost from External Storage Media

    9 Apr 2013 | 9:07 pm
    Just like the internal hard drive of your computer, an external hard drive is also used for storing data, but by connecting to the computer externally. The portable nature of these drives makes them best to buy when you want to carry your data with you or when you need the backup of your valuable files in a location other than your main hard drive.
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    Free IT - Storage Magazines and Downloads from alltop.tradepub.com

  • 6 Job Scheduling Tactics for Windows Server Sprawl

    24 May 2013 | 12:00 am
    Built-in schedulers often fall short when you need to include dependencies, the behavior of other applications, or the completion of business processes on other servers.If your data center is starting to get out of control, it’s time to consider an enterprise scheduler, also known as workload automation.Request Free!

  • Saving Time and Money with Savvy Use of Flash in Automated Storage Tiering

    24 May 2013 | 12:00 am
    In this white paper, IDC examines EMC's FLASH 1st strategy — which pairs Flash drives with EMC's FAST VP tiering solution and FAST Cache, effectively an extension of the DRAM Cache, in its VNX arrays. Find out how your organization can leverage and benefit from this easy to manage storage insfrastructure.Request Free!

  • 6 Ways to Calculate Returns from Your Network Monitoring Investment

    24 May 2013 | 12:00 am
    Financial constraints put all technology investments under a microscope; even technology that ensures network reliability. Depending on an organization's business model, network infrastructure and overall goals, Return On Investment (ROI) for network monitoring might be realized in five minutes or over five months. This paper outlines the areas in which network monitoring, mapping and alerting solutions deliver ROI. It discusses how to compare those returns to the costs for achieving them.Request Free!

  • Private Cloud in 2013: Strategies and Implementation eBook and Virtual Conference

    24 May 2013 | 12:00 am
    Among the multitude of capabilities that the Cloud can offer, you want to know exactly how it will benefit you and your business, right? Learn how HP and Microsoft have teamed up to create a private cloud system that utilizes the benefits of both Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and HP Converged Infrastructure that will advance your system to its fullest potential. Because the cloud is such a complex, yet advanced tool, getting advice from those who know it best will save you time and energy when it comes to implementation, planning, deployment, operations, and more.Along with this eBook also…

  • Evaluating Blade Servers for your IT Infrastructure

    15 May 2013 | 4:50 pm
    Choosing the right blade server may be more costly upfront, but savings will be realized in the investment protection that comes throughout the blade server's lifecycle, delivering greater value, particularly through its scalability and upgradeability.The HP BladeSystem offers this investment protection. Designed with the entire lifecycle of the blade in mind, it delivers both innovation and standardization. At least one flavor of the solution is sure to meet any enterprise’s computing needs.Request Free!
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    DataCore Announcements & Press Releases

  • NTH Generation Joins DataCore Premier Partner Program to Fulfill Data Center Demand

    7 May 2013 | 6:44 am
    Industry Leading Solution Provider Partners with Storage Virtualization Vanguard to Solve the Most Challenging IT Barriers Customer are Facing Today FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. & SAN DIEGO, Calif. – May 7, 2013 – DataCore Software, the premier provider of storage virtualization software, and NTH Generation, Southern California’s leading IT solutions provider with more than 500 aggregate years of industry experience, today announced that NTH Generation has joined the DataCore™ Premier Partner Program to provide organizations with the most advanced, scalable, high performance and cost…

  • IT Survey Finds High Storage Costs and Performance Remain Key Obstacles to Virtualization of Critical Business Apps

    30 Apr 2013 | 6:48 am
    DataCore Software’s annual ‘State of Virtualization Survey’ reveals a widespread desire to virtualize mission critical applications, tempered by cost concerns – surprisingly,  six out of 10 are not currently using Flash/SSD FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – April 30, 2013 – A survey of 477 IT professionals from a broad range of industries finds that organizations are eager to virtualize their mission critical applications, but that storage-related costs and I/O performance issues remain significant obstacles to achieving those objectives.  DataCore Software’s Third Annual State…

  • The Irish League of Credit Unions uses DataCore SANsymphony-V storage virtualization to facilitate its core infrastructure

    30 Apr 2013 | 6:44 am
    ILCU achieves an optimised virtual environment with Disaster Recovery, Highly Performing Applications at 60% cost reduction to alternative storage environments. READING, UK. – April 30, 2013 – DataCore Software, the storage hypervisor leader and premier provider of storage virtualisation software, today announced that the Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU) has adopted DataCore’s™ SANsymphony-V storage hypervisor solution. The ILCU represents 484 financial institutions across Ireland, with combined assets of €13.6 Billion and membership of over 3 Million in credit unions. Whilst…

  • DataCore Storage Virtualization Software Delivers Faster Performance and Five-Nines Reliability to Mission Critical Databases and Tier-1 Business Applications

    9 Apr 2013 | 7:49 am
    SANsymphony™-V Storage Hypervisor Supercharges I/O Intensive Virtualized Tier-1 Applications; SQL, Exchange and SharePoint Lead the Way FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – April 9, 2013 – DataCore Software, the storage hypervisor leader and premier provider of storage virtualization software, today announced that companies and organizations around the globe are realizing the benefits of the software-defined data center and simultaneously improving the performance of their Tier-1, mission-critical business applications through its SANsymphony-V storage virtualization software. The SANsymphony-V…

  • DataCore Software Named to CRN’s 2013 5-Star Partner Program Guide

    3 Apr 2013 | 9:25 am
    5-Star designation in annual guide identifies the IT channel’s most elite vendor partner programs FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. – April 3, 2013 – DataCore Software, the storage hypervisor leader and premier provider of storage virtualization software, today announced it has been named to CRN’s 2013 Partner Program Guide and awarded a 5-Star Partner rating. The CRN Partner Program Guide is the definitive listing of manufacturers and software publishers that service solution providers or provide products to the IT Channel. The guide recognizes those vendors who have channel programs and derive a…
 
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    Paragon Software Blog

  • Stay Current! Get latest product updates for Mac based applications

    Ksenia Schevjeva
    23 May 2013 | 2:01 am
    Paragon Software releases a stream of FREE SOFTWARE UPDATES for Mac users ensuring the most up-to-date user experience possible! How to download your update: 1. Please, choose your software update from the list below and click on “Update now” 2. Login to your account 3. Go to “Products” / “View registered products” 4. Find the product you want to update [...]

  • D-Link signs agreement with Paragon Software Group to embed exFAT, NTFS, and HFS+ driver technology

    Ksenia Schevjeva
    21 May 2013 | 11:47 pm
    Paragon Drivers Enable Select D-Link Products to Support High Capacity SDXC cards along with exFAT, Windows and Mac formatted USB Drives Paragon Software Group announces a partnership with D-Link, the global leader in connectivity for home, business, and service providers, to license Paragon’s Universal File System Driver (UFSD) technology on select products. OEMs embed Paragon Software’s [...]

  • Paragon Software adds ExtFS for Windows Beta to its broad cross-platform UFSD technology portfolio

    Ksenia Schevjeva
    14 May 2013 | 1:58 am
    The industry’s only solution to provide full read and write access to Ext2/Ext3/Ext4 partitions under all latest Windows versions. Immediately open to free beta testing! Paragon Software is happy to announce the beta launch of its new Paragon ExtFS for Windows – a special utility designed to eliminate barriers between Linux and Windows operating systems by [...]

  • Paragon Software Group’s Backup and Recovery Software Suite, Hard Disk Manager, selected by Converse College

    Ksenia Schevjeva
    8 May 2013 | 11:51 pm
    Chosen for Easy Deployment, Reliable Recovery, Flexible Scheduling Features and Cost Effectiveness South Carolina-based Converse College selected Hard Disk Manager (HDM) Premium for ease of deployment, dependable backup and recovery, job-scheduling features and cost effectiveness. “It was time to update our tape backup solution or find a more cost-effective replacement,” said Cori Williams McClure, network administrator at [...]

  • Paragon Software Group unveils Paragon Protect & Restore for centralized backup and disaster recovery of virtual and physical servers

    Ksenia Schevjeva
    29 Apr 2013 | 3:09 am
    Tight Integration With Hypervisors for Agentless Backups, VM Replications and Seamless Restores Paragon Software launches Paragon Protect & Restore (PPR), featuring centralized remote management of physical and virtual machines. The software provides agentless backup of virtual servers and workstations through a tight integration with VMware vSphere (Microsoft Hyper-V coming soon). PPR additionally supports agent-based backup of [...]
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    Blog

  • Tags and Folders: Find Your Files Quickly and Efficiently

    24 May 2013 | 2:25 pm
    We have written a number of blog posts about the LedgerDocs Document Management System, and how it can save businesses and bookkeepers time by allowing for the sharing and collaboration of financial documents. Our latest blog post, for example, talked about the importance of organizing your documents with tags and folders, and we received a lot of questions regarding the proper use of these functions. The truth is, there is no right or wrong way to use tags and folders, as they will be used differently for each user's needs. With this said, there are some universal ways of effectively…

  • Consolidating Your Files Makes Tax Season a Breeze

    8 May 2013 | 2:45 pm
    Tax season is over, and for most business owners, it has been another stressful and demanding experience. The majority of people tend to leave their taxes to the last minute, where they gather all of their paper receipts, word documents, spreadsheets, and electronic statements from the previous year, and quickly organize and file them. This is one of the most time consuming and harrowing tasks of tax season, at least in our humble opinion. Throughout this post, we will give some examples of how we consolidate our files during the year to minimize the impact that the tax season plays on our…

  • Get Client Documents Faster & Reduce Emails

    25 Apr 2013 | 4:27 pm
    One of the most time consuming task for a bookkeeper is the process of acquiring relevant documents to get the work completed that often involves an unnecessarily high volume of email exchange. As a bookkeeper myself, I can understand the vast amount of emails that go back and forth in order to gain an understanding of where a specific receipt came from, and what it was for. Using the LedgerDocs Document Management Online System, I have found it as a way to exchange documents efficiently, while cutting down on those time consuming emails. Below you will find a 5 step guide to setting this…

  • LedgerDocs Case Study: A California Bookkeeping Firm

    9 Apr 2013 | 2:19 pm
    The Company:M. Lloyd Bookkeeping is an individually run bookkeeping firm based out of San Francisco, California. Megan has focused her business strategy on providing small business clients with bookkeeping help on a contract basis, with work ranging from bank reconciliations to payroll management. Like many small bookkeeping firms, Megan would spend a great deal of time structuring and organizing the various files she received from clients via courier and email, which lead to less time available to complete the work. Although business was doing well, she felt that she would be much more…

  • LedgerDocs Case Study: A Vancouver Accounting Firm

    28 Mar 2013 | 11:15 am
    The Company:Dayna Holland Ltd is a small accounting firm that specializes with assisting women entrepreneurs in growing their businesses and making the financial and tax aspects less intimidating. The fim provides accounting and tax services to businesses in the retail, service, and distribution sectors, as well as in-house tax support for large corporations. As a small firm, one of the biggest challenges for this accounting firm was acquiring documents from clients in a timely and efficient manner. Clients would generally drop off shoe-boxes of files with little to no organization. Other…
 
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    Computerworld Blogs - Data Storage

  • If files were bricks, you'd change your backup strategy

    Peter Eicher
    13 May 2013 | 11:49 am
    If somebody asked you to do the exact same work over and over again, would you think that was a smart thing to do? Of course not. But that’s exactly what many of us are doing in our backup environments.

  • IBM makes feeble movie about a boy #MadeWithAtoms

    Richi Jennings
    1 May 2013 | 3:22 am
    Atom manipulation makes for world record. IBM (NYSE:IBM) produces the worst animated movie I've ever seen. Terrible production values, laughable plot, and awful soundtrack. At least it's mercifully short. Two thumbs down. Still, it does at least show what's possible when you manipulate and photograph individual atoms. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers think... and make Heisenberg gags.

  • Tape versus disk: The backup war exposed

    Chris Poelker
    29 Apr 2013 | 3:03 am
    The debate over whether disk or tape is the better solution for backup has been going on for some time now, and it seems the answer you get typically depends on who is responding to the question

  • SNW, acronyms and the evolution of the storage industry

    Chris Poelker
    22 Apr 2013 | 2:56 am
    I just returned from the spring 2013 Storage Networking World conference (SNW), and I was amazed at how much smaller the conference is now compared to just a few years ago. The vendor booth areas were especially scaled back. The good news is the speakers were all great, and the content was stimulating and thought-provoking as usual, which is important since the storage industry is evolving faster than many other areas of information technology.

  • Will we ever use flash drives for enterprise backup?

    Peter Eicher
    17 Apr 2013 | 9:27 am
    Is flash the answer for the storage needs of the future?
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    onthenetOffice Official Blog

  • Increase Mobility and Maintain Security with a Hosted Desktop Solution

    Jason
    23 May 2013 | 4:40 pm
    Businesses demonstrate “mobility” when their employees can access their files, emails, and/or applications from anywhere via the Internet (including web-enabled mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones). Mobility benefits companies in several ways: first, it gives businesses the opportunity to establish a single, centralized IT infrastructure that can be accessed by employees everywhere (helpful if the company has multiple offices or if its workers travel or telecommute on a regular basis); second, by letting users access high-performance and full-featured IT resources from…

  • When to Switch to Hosted Desktops

    Jason
    21 May 2013 | 4:58 pm
    A Hosted Desktop Infrastructure from onthenetOffice has a number of advantages over an on-site IT infrastructure (it’s more cost-efficient, easy to access, and less vulnerable to downtime and security breaches); it’s also—because of its quick and easy deployment, familiar interface, and compatibility with all devices, file types, and applications—one of the easiest IT solutions to switch to. As a result, regardless of a business’s current IT infrastructure (on-premise or hosted, recently deployed or nearing the end of its lifecycle), it’s never a bad time to sign up for a Hosted…

  • Stay Ahead of the Curve with onthenetOffice Scalable Solutions

    Jason
    16 May 2013 | 4:35 pm
    To be successful in a fast-paced and highly-competitive economy, you need a flexible hosted IT infrastructure. An adaptable hosted IT infrastructure makes it faster and easier to get a new business up and running; to take advantage of favorable conditions or occurrences in the marketplace such as newly-implemented tax breaks, declining real estate prices, or newly-developed technologies; and to adjust to fluctuations in demand. Usually, it takes less than a week and as little as a few minutes to deploy or make drastic changes to a hosted IT infrastructure. On the other hand, with an on-site…

  • Enterprise QuickBooks Hosting from onthenetOffice

    Jason
    14 May 2013 | 4:56 pm
    QuickBooks Enterprise is a reliable and easy-to-use accounting program for larger businesses, as well as for small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with larger-than-average inventories or voluminous financial records. It provides organizations with an integrated financial solution that covers not only purchases and sales, but also inventory tracking, lead management, taxes, and statistical analysis. QuickBooks Enterprise also improves on the technical capabilities of QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Premier, giving users the ability to open two files within the program at once and raising the…

  • On-Site Servers Vs. Hosted Dedicated Servers

    Jason
    9 May 2013 | 4:29 pm
    In general, hosted IT solutions are more cost-efficient than on-premise IT solutions. A lot of the cost-efficiency associated with hosted solutions can be traced to a technology called virtualization, which increases the flexibility and efficiency of IT hardware. With virtualization, a single physical server can be divided into multiple virtual servers. In the past, a physical server would be limited to supporting only a single hosted solution (an arrangement that results in a 10-15% server utilization rate), but virtualization makes it possible to support multiple solutions on a single…
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  • House Hearing - FDCCI And Cloud Get Skooled

    Steve O'Keeffe
    13 May 2013 | 12:03 pm
    OMB promised $3 billion in FDCCI savings by 2015. Cloud was to reset IT economics. It's time to separate the talk from the truth. House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations Chairman Mica and Ranking Member Connolly are holding a hearing on May 14 at 2:30 p.m. to call in the marker. OGR Chairman Issa has a strong hand in the proceedings - significant implications for FITARA. GSA tells us that we've shuttered 420 data centers.Longitude and latitude - but no dollar-savings data. So, the law makers want to know how much we have saved. What…

  • CIO Council - VanRoekel's Version

    Steve O'Keeffe
    6 May 2013 | 11:23 am
    While the flash and sizzle of Vivek's velocity have fizzled, the Federal CIO Council has not stalled. Here's the skinny on VanRoekel's version - it's insightful to get a peak inside the tent.  Dynamic Duo - SS&SS  The CIO Council's getting beyond IT. Bigger than the IT function, Strategic Sourcing is all about better procurement. Headed by Joe Jordan at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, the Strategic Sourcing working group brings together agency leadership, procurement officers, and yes of course, CIOs. And, running alongside Strategic…

  • Heavens Above - Augmented Reality

    Steve O'Keeffe
    1 May 2013 | 8:51 am
      Some idiot saw the World Wide Web in Santa Cruz in 1993. He sniffed, who's ever going to want this toy? That idiot was yours truly. Twenty years older - and perhaps a few wiser - I'm not going to look another gift horse in the teeth. Sorry Cassandra.Can You Hear Me Major Tom?Tom Soderstrom, CTO at NASA JPL, tech clairvoyant and all-around good guy, presented to the Big Data Exchange in December. Fascinating stuff, but at the end of his presentation, he flashed the gathered big data big brains a glimpse of the future - Augmented Reality. If you haven't heard of AR, rest…

  • Inspired or Ex-Spired?

    Steve O'Keeffe
    23 Apr 2013 | 8:20 pm
    I come here not to praise Richard Spires, but to bury the Federal CIO...DHS is a tough place to work - some say toxic. Richard Spires is not dead. I don't know all the details associated with his leave status - but the way that our community has chased rumors and reported half news is shameful. The allegation as I understand it, he created a hostile work environment - what does that mean at DHS? What I do know is that Richard Spires worked tirelessly to put sound business practices in place at an agency that is pulled in many directions by conflicting…

  • SDN - Infrastructure to Go?

    Steve O'Keeffe
    15 Apr 2013 | 7:46 am
    What does IT really need? "A new TLA," I hear you cry. After cloud and big data, seemed we'd consigned our old friend to the obit pages. But wait, it appears there's still a spark of life in the old girl. Enter SDN - Software Defined Networking. It's poised to both turn IT economics upside down and ensure nobody in the real world has any idea what we're all rabbiting on about. SDN ABCs Here's the skinny. SDN makes large enterprise and cloud networks cheaper and easier to run - it's like virtualization for the network. And, it makes the network more nimble -…
 
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