Friday | 5 September, 2008
Computerworld

Stories by: Mario Apicella

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    BlueArc Titan 3200 a giant among NAS systems 19/08/2008 03:18:00

    We don't have Olympic Games for file server systems but the SPEC SFS (System File Server) benchmark serves as the next best thing, providing a comparable rank of file server performance. If you sifted through all of the SPEC SFS results published to the SPEC Web site, you'd find that the fastest NAS systems are from NetApp, BlueArc, and EMC, who take what in Beijing would have been a gold, a silver, and a bronze medal, in that order.
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    VMotion and FCoE: A match made in admin heaven 14/08/2008 10:54:00

    In a recent review, I consolidated FC and Ethernet networks using FCoE (fibre channel over Ethernet) and Cisco's new Nexus 5000 switch. As the review showed, the combination merged the two transport protocols easily, allowing FC frames to channel through a 10G connection without giving up features or performance.
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    Debating the merits of SSDs, part two 04/08/2008 10:41:00

    Healthy debate is often necessary to get a balanced view of an emerging technology. Somewhere between endorsements and detractions, a realistic understanding of the long-term outlook for a technology arrives. As such, I have decided to turn to a guest once again for the second installment in what I hope to be an ongoing debate over the merits of flash SSDs (solid-state drives).
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    Cisco Nexus 5000 bridges the network gap 29/07/2008 12:01:30

    Traditionally, network transport has run on two separate technologies, FC (Fibre Channel) and Ethernet, which, like two railroads with different gauges, seemed bound to never meet.
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    Managing storage from your mobile phone 21/07/2008 11:06:03

    Being an optimist, I like to think that storage management is or will be getting better. It's hard, however, to ignore the fact that many admins don't know much about what's going on in the storage boxes they are sitting on. And it's not their fault, as management has been the Cinderella of storage apps for many years, and she hasn't found a prince to rescue her quite yet.
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    Debating the merits of SSDs 14/07/2008 10:15:16

    Would you pay several times more for a technology that yields only dubious performance advantage? How about if that technology is experiencing a high rate of product returns from early adopters?
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    Ironclad Windows backup on a budget 08/07/2008 12:52:01

    Creating an effective backup for Windows is a challenge -- largely because the OS lacks a powerful, simple tool like Linux's dd, for example. However, there are many options for establishing a worthwhile backup system for Windows, some of which are free or rather inexpensive.
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    Dell delivers eco-friendly SAS server for SMBs 30/06/2008 10:28:01

    As the old saying goes, "When you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail." For me, this means more than just seeing a storage angle everywhere I look. Lately, it also means seeing the environmental impact of every product I review.
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    Price makes Imation SSDs a tough sell 19/06/2008 07:43:38

    Solid-state drives (SSDs) have been around for many years. Their high cost, however, has limited their deployment to special environments, such as the military, where their rugged, shock-resilient design, coupled with extremely fast performance, justifies the expense.
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    How green is your provisioning? 16/06/2008 10:29:38

    Reaping the fat savings of thin provisioning may have gotten a little easier, as IBM this week announced new features for managing SVC (SAN Volume Controller). And depending on your strategy for implementing SVC's new thin-provisioning capabilities in your storage environment, the news could come with a green lining.
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    SSDs: Perfect fit for mobile computing? 05/06/2008 12:07:35

    There aren't many products I review that I can test for traveling. In fact, most are large enough for me to hide behind, if not inside. But the Lenovo Thinkpad T61 with a 64GB Samsung SSD (solid state drive) I am currently testing offered a rare opportunity to take my work with me on the road.
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Prioritizing Services with IT Service Management (ITSM)

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