Stories about: Falconstor

Every IT person knows this painful truth: Attention from users for underlying IT operations is not always a good thing. This is especially true when an application or storage system has halted or slowed to a crawl because the infrastructure is not performing at an optimal level.

Network Appliance on Monday introduced deduplication for all types of file data rather than just backup data.

Diligent Technologies is among the pioneers of data deduplication technology, which helps enterprises reduce redundant copies of data and, in turn, shrink storage requirements and shorten backup times. Neville Yates, Diligent's CTO, talked with Network World Senior Editor Deni Connor about the varying deduplication technologies used with today's virtual tape libraries (VTL).

Like overstuffed closets, cluttered enterprise backup operations scream for attention. Fortunately, vendors are coming out with data de-duplication functions -- packed into storage software suites or in stand-alone appliances -- that sort through data destined for the archives and eliminate the redundancies.

Fibre Channel was definitely not top of mind when Chris Brown hit the wall on disk space and, in mid-2005, decided to go shopping for a SAN. Brown is IT manager for DeltaValve, a division of Curtiss-Wright Flow Control. "I have an IT staff of two," he explains, "and we do not have the resources to support Fibre Channel."

In a sign of the growing importance of IP networked storage the SNIA has elected new leaders to an IP Storage Forum and outlined an activity program.

SAN storage virtualization vendor Incipient has announced support for Cisco MDS9000 switches, which the company claims is the first true enterprise-class SAN virtualization product.

Quantum announced the availability of data de-duplication technology in two new models of its DX family of virtual tape libraries (VTL), claiming the new technology can reduce capacity requirements by a factor of 10 to 50.

EMC announced at Storage Networking World this week that it is acquiring data backup and deduplication software vendor Avamar Technologies and is looking to help customers cut their use of tape backup.

Startup Incipient this week launched software for Fibre Channel director-level switches that it says better enables customers to manage data across storage-area networks.

As senior director of enterprise technology operations at Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a prison management firm that handles more than 60 facilities, Brad Wood faces several challenges. His group manages approximately 100TB of data -- including inmate medical records, operational records, e-mail, and so forth -- across four Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) storage arrays in two datacentres. Because of federal and state rules, much of the company's data is mirrored three or four times to keep it accessible in case of failure. Adding to the complexity, Wood buys his hardware based on current price and performance, so he has a mix of suppliers.