Drew Robb

Recently we are hearing of just about Everything as a Service (XaaS). There is Software as a Service (SaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), and the less used Storage as a Service (STaaS?) and the commonplace Backup as a Service, which for some reason no one bothers to call BaaS. So if it’s all […]

Storage appliances now exist for all matter of functions. Here are some of the best on the market. EMC Data Domain Gartner graded EMC Data Domain tops in a magic quadrant about backup appliances. The company offers many configurations: as well as appliances, there are rack and software versions. They can also integrate with EMC Avamar and […]

Virtualization was supposed to be the salvation of server inefficiency. The long-term practice of having one physical server per application had resulted in data centers strewn with hundreds of x86 boxes or row after row of racks. Power and cooling bills soared. And most importantly, those servers typically had a shockingly low utilization rate – […]

On the surface, the future of hard disk drives (HDDs) seems secure. They account for the bulk of all storage capacity shipped and have had a strong growth curve for years. It’s a $32 billion-per-year industry, and HDDs are found in just about every office and home. But that rosy picture hides some underlying problems. […]

In a world that already has close to 5 ZB of data in existence and will arrive at 44 ZB within a decade, it is clear that to stay ahead of burgeoning storage demands, flash will have to get faster, cheaper, denser and have greater longevity. “The combination of trends such as BYOD, the proliferation […]

Recently, we’ve covered the facts that storage volumes are set to reach almost obscene levels over the next few years; how disk, flash and tape are evolving to cope; and that you don’t necessarily have to store everything when the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution takes hold. Regardless of all that, the industry needs many […]

Storage needs are growing at an incredible rate. Technologies such as mobility, streaming video and the Internet of Things (IoT) are greatly accelerating the amount of data generated, and the possibility exists that we could reach End of Days with regard to storage capacity. Of course, that does not take into account innovation and development […]

Many of us remember those old computer messages that no more storage space was available on the hard drive. The user had no choice but to offload some data or spend some hours going through the files finding material that could be deleted. Enterprise users will also recall the fondness some storage administrators had for […]

In the first article in this series, we explained what OpenStack is. Now we are following it up with some tips for those thinking about implementing it for specific tasks. Here are ten popular ways to use this open source cloud computing software for storage purposes: 1. Opening Up SDS One reason for the recent […]

In this article, we provide tips for what can be a particularly challenge task: deciding when and how to implement DRaaS in the enterprise. Buy It, Don’t Hire It  Some organizations already have an in-house team with the necessary expertise to establish and maintain a sophisticated DR plan. But plenty of others don’t even come […]

To learn about data storage, it’s best to talk to the actual users. It’s not every day you get the chance to interact intensively with storage users. Increasingly, they are either prevented from talking by overly cautious PR/legal types, or they are frightened to say much for fear of getting into trouble. We did some […]

More and more workloads are being shunted off to the cloud. It appears that the days of having an arsenal of in-house hardware are over. Gone, too, will be expensive offsite mirror Disaster Recovery (DR) facilities – at least for all but the largest, richest and highest-end businesses. So what does this mean to the […]