Stories by Johanna Ambrosio

EMC opening up a bit

There are some encouraging signs that EMC is playing nice with others. Although the vendor has rightly gotten a reputation for eschewing some independent initiatives in favor of its own products and services, there are signs that this attitude may be changing.

BAM goes your storage needs

There's a new acronym on the horizon, and if it comes to pass it will wreak havoc on your storage requirements.

Mitigating SAN security risks

The world of SAN security is complex, but there are some emerging ideas about how to approach the issue.

Solving backup woes?

The Enhanced Backup Solutions Initiative (EBSI) is a group of vendors that's been quietly trying to figure out how best to do backup on a large scale. They're proposing an interesting mix of tape and disk that walks a middle ground between the two worlds in terms of performance and cost.

Microsoft releases iSCSI drivers

Microsoft's recent release of iSCSI drivers for its operating systems will no doubt fuel mass market acceptance of the newly minted standard.

Self-managing storage

If analysts are right, some vendors' smart storage systems are ready enough for prime time to start investigating them.

Diligence rewarded

Their methods may vary, but IT executives who calculate return on investment before launching major technology projects say they reap benefits that make doing the maths worthwhile.

ROI in a weird new world

Phil Goodwin, research director for the Meta Group, recently proposed some better ways of making a financial case for new storage systems than the old tried-and-true return on investment (ROI) calculations. He suggests using mean time to data recovery, data availability statistics, and the amount of storage managed per administrator

Sun's storage management platform bows

Sun recently took the wraps off its newest storage management platform, which promises a "fundamental change" in the way customers deploy and manage storage. From where I sit, this is worth checking into for any Sun shop of significant size or computing infrastructure.

Backing up IM

If you're like many companies, you're making increasing "official" use of instant messenger (IM) - like communications tools. And if you're like most, you're not backing up any of it.

Examine your service contracts – part 2

Last week I talked about why it's so important to make sure your support and service contracts are iron-clad. Here are some suggestions about what to look for.

Examine your service contracts - Part 1

It seems like the much-hoped-for, long-awaited economic recovery isn't quite happening on schedule. In the meantime, make sure your service contracts are iron-clad.

Predictions 2003

I love this time of the year. There's still a whole 12 months to look forward to, wonder about and plan for. And even though the holidays are over - a mixed blessing, certainly - there are always the pundits to look forward to. Herewith, the most interesting predictions of the bunch, in my opinion.

Open source storage may not come to pass anytime soon

The notion of open-source storage hasn't really caught on in a big way, and I'm wondering whether it ever really will.

Sun peels back more N1 layers

Sun Microsystems recently made some announcements about its N1 data-center management plan.