Virtualization Strategies News, Analysis, White Papers and Case Studies on Virtualization Software and Hardware Strategies

In today’s business climate, the need to protect critical IT systems is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have. Providing a high level of data protection while keeping costs at a minimum can be a challenge for many organizations. Just ask Endocare,  an innovative medical device company, that lost their parent domain controller in July, 2007. The situation was a candid reminder that Endocare needed a real-time way to recover from a disaster.

Endocare solved their disaster recovery problems with two technology vendors, Double-Take Software and VMware, who provided virtualization solutions to consolidate and reduce hardware requirements to solve this exact business problem. VMware provides the virtualization platform while Double-Take Software provides the real-time data replication and recovery software. In this case, using virtualization with Double-Take Software allowed Endocare to implement a real-time disaster recovery solution that would otherwise be cost prohibitive in a non-virtual environment. Read More…

Posted under Storage Virtualization, Virtualization Case Studies

IDC finds demand for Storage-as-a-Service has very strong commercial demand among small, mid-size, and large firms that are facing budgetary and IT staffing pressures. Companies are evaluating online services for backup/disaster recovery, long-term record retention, business continuity, and availability.

In both the commercial and consumer segments, the availability of storage-as-a-service is disrupting traditional storage software markets as it changes how individuals and firms access storage capacity and procure software functions. But, more importantly, storage-as-a-service is a precursor to the longer term cloud storage and cloud computing opportunity. Read More…

Posted under Cloud Computing, SaaS, Storage Virtualization, Virtualization Strategies

There is a data explosion in business and many vendors are working hard to help IT Managers solve their data challenges. Today, HP today continued to do it’s part and announced a software and hardware storage virtualization solution that enables enterprises to improve productivity, simplify operations and achieve lower total cost of ownership for their storage-area network (SAN) environments.

HP has been growing its portfolio of storage virtualization solutions, and this new HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform (SVSP) promises to improves the efficiency and simplify the management of  midrange storage arrays.

HP SVSP is a network-based storage platform that pools capacity across HP and non-HP storage hardware. As a result, enterprise customers deploying Fibre Channel SANs are able to significantly simplify operations and improve overall productivity.

Read More…

Posted under Data Center Virtualization, Hardware Virtualization, Server Virtualization, Storage Virtualization, Virtualization Products / Reviews, Virtualization Software

Today’s business executives are concerned not only with the growing costs of energy to run and cool data centers, but also with presenting a green corporate image in today’s era of heightened environmental awareness. The data center has become a major energy consumer on the corporate balance sheet. At the same time, many IT organizations are facing a multidimensional crisis that is the first of its kind in the history of information processing. These companies are experiencing a virtual explosion of information to process and store as energy costs soar to record levels. More energy efficient data centers can help reduce
environmental impact while curbing IT costs.

The amount of energy consumed by data centers is not to be underestimated. Information storage is one of the fastest growing technologies in today’s data center, driven by ever-expanding volumes of business information. Improving data center efficiency by 20% would save 36 billion kwh of electricity; the equivalent of 22 million tons of carbon dioxide—or the amount of CO2 emitted by 4.2 million passenger cars—according to the U.S. Climate Technology Cooperation Gateway.

In terms of energy consumption, IT managers need to look at the costs of both the physical data center and the IT infrastructure. Read More…

Posted under Data Center, Data Center Virtualization, Green IT, Storage Virtualization, Virtualization Strategies, White Paper, virtualization

In an effort to maintain it’s leadership in storage virtualization HP has acquired LeftHand Networks a leading provider of storage virtualization and iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions. The deal will better enable HP to extend virtualization solutions to midsize companies and remote offices or branches of large corporations and cost-effectively protect critical business data. Additionally, LeftHand Networks’ intelligent cloning technology can reportedly reduce the amount of disk space required for storage by up to 97 percent.

Said Bill Chambers, chief executive officer, LeftHand Networks.”The combination of LeftHand Networks’ virtualization technologies with HP’s has the power to significantly accelerate server consolidation projects by making the deployment of shared storage much easier and more cost-effective.” The good news behind this announcement is that smaller companies can get the benefit of virtualization strategies from industry leaders like HP. Likewise remote locations in major corporations can also have these benefits. Said Dave Roberson, senior vice president and general manager, StorageWorks Division, HP. “The acquisition of LeftHand Networks significantly expands our storage portfolio, enabling HP to deliver customers an expanded suite of storage functionality, scalable capacity and interconnect options for every budget and performance requirement. Stay tuned for more acquisition in this space as major technology vendors look to expand their suite virtualization solutions.

Posted under Storage Virtualization, Virtualization News, Virtualization Strategies