White Papers: Storage Efficiency

As IT organisations work to maintain application availability while controlling costs, a greater emphasis on operational efficiency is essential. One key area where operational efficiencies can be achieved is in the storage infrastructure. Traditional storage systems are inherently inefficient, with multiple arrays of dedicated storage and various management points. Thin provisioning is now recognised in the industry as a critical approach to simplifying storage management while drastically improving capacity utilisation. This white paper explains how Oracle’s Pillar Axiom 600 storage system creates an application-aware storage environment to most efficiently provide all the benefits of thin provisioning. Read more.

When it comes to storing data, we find the same concepts of effectiveness and efficiency. Often, these are at odds with each other. Usually, when you make something more effective (think “higher qualities of service”), you do so by spending more per unit of storage. Conversely, when you make storage more efficient (costs less per unit of storage), you often do so by lessening the quality of service in one or more ways. What we all seek is that elusive deal where we don’t affect the quality of service, yet are able to store a lot more (without spending a lot more). Read more.