In a year of dramatic change and mergers for the data storage industry, it should come as no surprise that the most-read stories on Enterprise Storage Forum this year were about … dramatic change and mergers.
With EMC (NYSE: EMC) besting NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) in the battle to acquire Data Domain, IBM and Oracle fighting over Sun Microsystems, Emulex (NYSE: ELX) spurning Broadcom’s advances, and NetApp and others rumored to be takeover targets, mergers, acquisitions and alliances accounted for four of the top 10 stories on ESF this year.
But once again, columnist Henry Newman topped them all, with his insightful articles on everything from the future of RAID and clouds to pNFS and solid state drives accounting for half of the most-read stories this year.
So without further ado, here’s the list of our 10 most-read stories this year:
RAID’s Days May Be Numbered: Possibly the most-read (and debated) article in the history of Enterprise Storage Forum was this examination by Henry Newman of the challenges facing RAID technology.
Rocks Don’t Need to Be Backed Up: A day in the park turns into a rumination on the perils of data preservation.
Why Cloud Storage Use Could Be Limited in Enterprises: Even if enterprises are willing to turn their data over to external clouds, they face technological challenges that could prove insurmountable.
Error Correction: An Urgent Need for Files: Why can’t files degrade like film, instead of being made worthless by a single bit error? Henry Newman offers a unique solution to the problem.
SSDs, pNFS Will Test RAID Controller Design: Technological change is coming to the data storage industry, and RAID controllers may not be up to the challenge.
EMC, Cisco and VMware to Release Joint Data Center Product: You read it here first — months before the joint venture between the tech titans was formally announced, our own Drew Robb was the first to report that a deal was in the works.
Could Brocade and NetApp Get Acquired? Reports that Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) was up for sale were later denied by management, while NetApp seems to remain eternally under takeover speculation.
Could Cisco Buy VMware? The answer appeared to be ‘no,’ so Cisco opted for a partnership instead.
10 Reasons Why ZFS Rocks: Oracle might want to consider keeping ZFS around post-merger, if reader response to this article is any indication.
Speculation Abounds as Sun-Oracle Wedding Day Nears: Okay, the headline was a little premature, but a good overview of the storage and other issues that will have to be resolved if the merger closes next month, as Oracle hopes.
For a look at 2008’s top stories, see Top Storage Stories of 2008.
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