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Arthur Cole

Infrastructure

Data center and networking architecture to keep your data safe and moving

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April 30, 2009

Is a New Era of Storage Upon Us?

Yesterday's post on SSD deployment got me thinking about the future again -- in this case the future of storage. While it may be true that many applications don't lend themselves well to solid-state ... More >

April 29, 2009

Full Data Center Management for Mid-Sized Firms

For mid-market firms, being able to monitor storage networks is all well and good. But wouldn't it be nice to extend that management out over the LAN to better coordinate data flow to the server farm... More >

Wading Through SSD Deployment

It's pretty well-known that SSDs are poised to make a big splash in enterprise storage environments, and by the same token most storage experts recognize that not all situations call for a wholesale ... More >

April 28, 2009

Cassatt Founder Talking to Buyers

Data center virtualization may be a pot of gold to some out there, but for others it simply could not produce a meaningful revenue stream despite some bold new ideas. The latest casualty is Cassatt C... More >

Goodbye Hardware, Hello Data Center Infrastructure

All right, so we all know that the data center is about to become more flexible, efficient, responsive and all around better than it is now through the convergence of virtualization, advanced network... More >

April 27, 2009

Can SAS Make It as an Interconnect?

There's an interesting article on Infostor this week questioning the validity of SAS-based SANS -- not that the technology isn't viable or does not have some appreciable benefits, but whether anyone ... More >

Warehousing in a Time of Diminished Returns

Probably the most annoying fact about the current recession is that while profits may be down, data requirements keep going up. The means enterprises at all economic levels will have to continue maki... More >

April 24, 2009

OnStor Taps Sun's Zettabyte Technology for Low-End Storage

Small businesses are starting to see some of the high-end, open source storage applications that used to be reserved for large organizations. OnStor recently introduced two new Pantera storage appli... More >

Oracle's Hardware Dilemma

Questions are still swirling about the fate of Sun hardware now that the company is about to become a unit of software giant Oracle Corp. Although it's likely that technologies like Sun Fire and Sun ... More >

April 23, 2009

rPath Expands Cloud Application Environment

Shifting workloads to public or even private clouds is becoming less of a burden with a new generation of tools aimed at bridging the integration issues that applications face across multiple environ... More >

Network Performance on the Cloud

Ask a dozen people what cloud computing is and you're bound to get a dozen different answers. To some, it's all about service levels. To others, data migration and load balancing. Still others like t... More >

April 22, 2009

8G Fibre Channel Heading to Mid-Level Enterprises

8 Gbps Fibre Channel is rapidly making its way down-market, bringing a higher bandwidth storage connectivity to mid-level enterprises. LSI Corp. recently introduced a new class of its Engenio 7900 s... More >

The Greening of the Hard Drive

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are clearly the greener solution when it comes to storing enterprise data. But that doesn't change the fact that SSDs are not necessarily the better choice for all your stor... More >

April 21, 2009

Broadcom Makes a Play for Emulex

Merger seasons seems to be hitting full swing -- influenced both by sluggish returns that are lowering valuations for many high-tech firms and expectations that the economy will pull out of its swoon... More >

VMware Unwraps 'Cloud Operating System'

VMware formally took the covers off the new vSphere 4 "cloud operating system" this week in a bid to move beyond mere virtualization by allowing companies to build and maintain their own internal clo... More >

April 20, 2009

Virident Offers Integrated Memory on New Server Line

Virident Systems has come out with a new line of servers optimized for Internet-based services with promises to relieve bottlenecks in high-throughput environments and to simplify network architectur... More >

The Integration of Sun and Oracle

For a company that was facing a financial brick wall, Sun Microsystems should count itself lucky to have had so many buyout options on such short notice. You've probably heard that Oracle has offered... More >

April 17, 2009

Green IT Still Has Legs

The green enterprise movement is still a going concern despite fears that it was beginning to lose its steam, although more firms are looking at it as a way to produce short-term gains rather than lo... More >

Fast Servers Need Faster Storage

I've spent a lot of time talking about storage speed this week, particularly when it comes to building cloud-based architectures. But the simple fact remains that there is still quite a gap between h... More >

April 16, 2009

Iomega Launches Low-End NAS

EMC may concentrate on the high end of the storage market with its new Symmetrix V-Max platform, but it still has an eye out for the low end through Iomega. The subsidiary just launched a low-cost ... More >

Growing Wave of Cloud Management Options

Like virtualization, cloud computing offers a radically new way of looking at the data center and data center resources. No longer are you limited by the physical constraints of your own hardware -- ... More >

April 15, 2009

Vicom Enters SAN Virtualization Biz

Add another name to the list of SAN virtualization vendors. Vicom has announced the release of its Storage Virtualization Engine (SVE) , the heart of what it terms an end-to-end solution that builds... More >

VMware Heading into the Cloud

Say this much for VMware, they know when the times are a'changin.' The company is gearing up to launch the newest version of its hypervisor, dubbed vSphere, and word on the street is that it will lea... More >

April 14, 2009

New Virtual Desktop -- Same Old App

Some good news for enterprises putting off desktop virtualization because they don't like Vista: The latest enhancement to Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack will let you run your older applications... More >

Cloud-Ready Systems Rely on Fast Interconnects

If I'm starting to sound like a broken record, I apologize. But I just can't help noticing that as new cloud-optimized data center systems hit the channel, the focus of development is shifting away f... More >

April 13, 2009

Start-Up Targets Improved Online Application Delivery

More and more applications are being delivered online, putting greater pressure on providers to maintain the kinds of performance levels that users have grown accustomed to with their enterprise or e... More >

Storage Feels the Need for Speed

The shift in storage technology away from greater capacity toward faster data delivery continues unabated as enterprises struggle to keep up with the advances in throughput taking place on the wider ... More >

April 10, 2009

New Low-Cost RAID for OS X

A high-capacity RAID that costs less than 70 cents per gigabyte? As they say in Hollywood, "Is that something you would be interested in?" Active Storage has released a new version of its XRAID syste... More >

New Help for a Green Data Center

When it comes to greening up the data center, there are two basic elements to a comprehensive strategy. One is to invest in the newest technologies, like virtualization and SSDs, that maintain perfor... More >

April 9, 2009

Advantech Taps Nehalem for App Acceleration

The new Xeon 5500 (Nehalem) is finding its way into more than servers and desktops. Advantech just announced a new application acceleration appliance designed for multi-core security and high-bandwid... More >

A Broader View of Virtual Management

Managing a virtual environment is a lot like cleaning your car: No matter how many times you run the vacuum head over the carpet, the sand just bounces around among the fibers. In the IT world, virtu... More >

April 8, 2009

DroboPro Hits the Channel

Call it Instant Backup in a Can. Data Robotics has released a professional version of its Drobo storage appliance designed to provide a direct-attached backup system for either servers or workstati... More >

Internal vs. External Clouds: How About Both?

Should the enterprise adopt public clouds as promoted by Salesforce and other SaaS/IaaS promoters, or are internal/private clouds the way to go? The fact that so many people are still asking either/o... More >

April 7, 2009

Brocade Targets Converged Networking

Brocade threw its hat into the Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) ring this week with a new switch and pair of Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) that the company says allow for a non-disruptive and ra... More >

Will Nehalem Boost Apple's Enterprise Fortunes?

Like much of the desktop and server industry, Apple was quick to jump on the new Xeon 5500 (Nehalem) processor. But is that enough to turn the Mac into a strong contender for enterprise hearts and mi... More >

April 6, 2009

NEC Quick on the Nehalem Draw

NEC America is among the first out of the gate with a new server designed around the Xeon 5500 (Nehalem) processor. The company just released the Express5800/SigmaBlade and Express5800 rack system ... More >

1 Million IOPS and Counting

Speed is truly taking precedence over capacity as data storage architectures head into the future with performance hitting 1 million IOPS and more. And while Flash technology has always had the edge ... More >

April 3, 2009

Real-Time Replication for Virtual Machines

Someone in your enterprise is in need of a dedicated processing environment. In olden times (all of two years ago), this would have been a major hassle for IT, but nowadays the user can simply provis... More >

Tape Is Still the Greenest Storage Around

For those who think tape storage is the old way of doing things, outclassed by newer, more efficient and low-cost disk systems, I have news for you: It turns out that only does tape still cost less t... More >

April 2, 2009

IT Outlook Grim for 2009

It shouldn't come as a surprise, but the latest estimates on the health of the IT economy are sobering nonetheless. Gartner's crystal ball shows downward trends across nearly all sectors of the indu... More >

The Steady March Toward Converged Networking

Converged networking is likely to become standard operating procedure in most data centers before too long now that new generations of server and storage technologies will have the capability built i... More >

April 1, 2009

Intel Eyes New Cloud Appliance

Further evidence of the growing relationship between the cloud and appliances : Intel has tapped a company called GroovyChannel to help devise a series of database appliance servers, dubbed GroovyDB... More >

End of the Line for Silicon Graphics

For some, it may be the end of an era -- for others, simply the inevitable outcome for a technology past its prime. The storied life of Silicon Graphics came to an end this week with the announcement... More >

NAS & SAN Storage

Oracle offers a complete portfolio of best-of-breed storage products and business-ready storage solutions that optimize performance, maximize data protection and reduce the total cost of ownership for Oracle databases, applications, and heterogeneous data management.

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Service-oriented architecture is the catalyst that allows today's companies to respond to business demands faster and more effectively than ever.

Data Warehousing

Comprehensive storage solutions for better data access and retrieval, leading to better-informed business decisions.

Business Intelligence for Business People

Practical and timely business information for better decisions and improved organizational performance.