Superguide: Storage and servers

Storage and server superguide — all you need to know

By Staff Writer, ZDNet.com.au
22 August 2008 05:26 PM
Tags: nas, san, server, storage, cache, cms, lib, home

Over the last decade the art of maintaining the datacentre of a large organisation has evolved into an art form.

It's a tough field to get your head around. Just a few years ago the trend in corporate datacentres was towards banks of tiny Blade servers. However, the efficiency advantages offered by mainframes means they are as popular as ever.

Virtualisation is also playing a key role: the day of the under-utilised x86 server sitting in a corner and processing print jobs is clearly over. These days that server is likely to be running several other tasks to make maximum use of its CPU cycles.

In the storage arena, most people agree they just can't buy enough gigabytes, and increasingly terabytes, to satisfy their business needs; it's a matter of continuous purchasing just to stay ahead of the game. Storage area network technology has made that process easy by disassociating the storage from the servers that use the data.

In 2008, for many companies, it's just one big pool.

ZDNet.com.au's guide to storage and servers takes you through the current issues, debates and products surrounding this complex area.

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Deduplication Calculator

Enter the size of your backup or archive dataset and get a analysis of: •Cost comparison using DeDuplication •Network and Storage Consumption •Archive to Tape Back-up, Business Process Management, Data Recovery - Security, Financial Research, Knowledge and Data Management, Outsourced...

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Driving Enterprise-level efficiencies and capabilities beyond the corporate data center. Business Process Management, Cost Control - Risk Mgmt., Data Center, Green IT, High Performance Computing, Information Technology Strategy, Infrastructure Management, Modeling, Project Management, Strategic Management Tools ...

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The Dell PowerVault ™ DL2100 - Powered by CommVault ® Simpana ® 8 Advanced Deduplication Edition delivers end-to-end block-based deduplication to significantly reduce MediaAgent disk storage requirements. This technical note discusses how to configure deduplication for primary storage policy copies...

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Ongoing data growth can present major challenges for IT organizations. The combination of CommVault® Simpana® backup-to-disk software and Dell™ EqualLogic™ PS5500E Internet SCSI (iSCSI) storage area network (SAN) arrays can provide a simplified, scalable, cost effective way to gain control...

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Talkback 2 comments

    Where is the story? Anonymous -- 04/09/08

    Storage and server superguide all you need to know?
    I would expect at least one page stating something.
    All you get is lots of other links to sideshow stories.
    No advice, no comment to anything.
    No story.

    random joe gerardi -- 18/09/08

    superguide? Random links hardly related to storage. did I miss something?

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