Leslie Wood

In the second part of our storage outlook series, we examine the need for dedicated teams for automating storage management. Among other issues facing storage end users, interoperability and the future of tape backup continue to generate debate. One widespread notion in the storage industry is that users can’t automate storage management processes such as […]

Today, more than ever, business applications are dependent on data from the corporate storage infrastructure. This means that storage administrators are faced with the challenge of availability requirements that leave no room for error. Storage provisioning offers storage administrators a framework for managing ever more complex enterprise storage environments. Gartner predicts that by 2006, storage […]

As storage environments become more spread out, more organizations are becoming willing to invest in remote monitoring services to manage those environments. While early still, this is no small shift, since in the past, users were reluctant to recognize the value of remote monitoring and management (RMM) services for storage, and have been resistant to […]

Building and managing a cost-effective storage infrastructure is a never-ending challenge. And with increasing demand for data-intensive applications, managing storage growth is becoming more and more a critical part of today’s enterprises. One of the major concerns facing organizations is what, if any, part of their overall storage infrastructure should be outsourced. According to industry […]

It can be difficult to gain perspective on storage growth and how to manage it. One of the most common mistakes end users make is deciding to purchase storage at the end of a lease contract or when there is a large development project looming on the horizon. The added pressure can result in short […]

Enterprise storage users face challenges that go beyond simply looking for the lowest-cost tactical hardware procurement. One of the biggest challenges they face is to reduce their storage total cost of ownership (TCO) and manage storage growth more efficiently. Storage area networks and information lifecycle management top the list of vendor recommendations for managing storage […]

In Part I of the ABCs of Storage Management, we explored SAN management functions and solutions and the readiness of users to adopt technologies such as automated storage management. In this article, we will discuss real-time infrastructure (RTI) products and storage provisioning, storage virtualization and its role as a management tool, and whether storage virtualization […]

With the volume of data being produced and stored within organizations growing at a rapid rate, managing that data and the hardware that stores it can be a major headache. Storage Resource Management (SRM) is one of the solutions being pushed by the storage industry to help ease those storage management headaches. However, according to […]

In Part I of Utility Computing Pioneers, we discussed storage service providers, an early attempt at utility computing, and lessons from that experiment that might apply to current utility computing efforts. In Part 2, we will address some of the other issues that prompted so many SSPs to radically change their business models, and what […]

Before there was utility computing, there was utility storage, but storage service providers (SSPs) never lived up to all the hype. Many went under, and those that survived had to change their business models. In this, the first of a two-part series, we look at what went wrong with the SSP model, and what lessons […]

The amount of new storage capacity installed each year is growing almost 80% annually, according to IDC. And companies across the globe are on the lookout for technologies to help them manage and store the ever-increasing amounts of information flowing in and out of their networks. “Automating management without input from the system’s real users […]

The storage industry continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, and the growth in demand for faster and more efficient computers is supporting new and improved advances in storage technologies. This unprecedented growth isn’t showing any signs of slowing down either, according to industry analysts. This is certainly good news for storage vendors, but what […]