Shopzilla – IBM Real-time Compression is Transparent
Shopzilla has been a customer of the IBM Real-time Compression technology for over 2 years. Here they describe the benefits of the technology.
Tag: "ROI"
Feb 15, 2011 | 0 comments
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Sever + Storage Optimization = Datacenter Utopia
Matt Prigge had a really great article on his InfoWorld Data Explosion blog called "". In the piece Matt makes two really important points.
1. VMware has taken the world by storm over the past few years. A technology that can lower both CapEx and OpEx costs and ease the burden of administration is a great thing for the data center. And,
2. With all the advantages of virtual server optimization, storage administration, is a big issue.
VSphere has done a lot to help the issues of storage administration (specifically storage performance for virtual servers) but that is only a part of the challenge. Customers consistently tell us that by developing a virtualized server environment, their storage requirements have grown by as much as 4x. The savings that have been realized by server virtualization are soon eclipsed by the need for more storage. This is one of the reasons it has taken a while for server virtualization to really take off in production. In talking to customers, virtualizing a lab or test environment where data can be deleted once it is 'used' without worry is one thing, but in production, where the production data needs to be kept for a long time starts to cause issues.
Now, with all the hype around primary storage optimization, end users can couple the benefits of server virtualization with primary storage optimization to maximize their ROI in the datacenter. The important thing to remember, just like server virtualization didn't force customers to sacrifice anything in terms of performance, availability, process and supportability, you need to look for the same thing from a storage optimization solution.
The valuable features added to vSphere around SIOC combined with the optimization capabilities from Storwize can allow IT to maximize storage performance, maximize their existing storage resources and not affect data integrity or data availability. There is a that outlines how VMware and Storwize can provide customers with the maximum ROI in the datacenter.
Jul 22, 2010 | 0 comments
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Compression 101 for CFOs
CFOs have an incredibly hard job when it comes to helping IT manage a budget. Let’s face it, there have been books written (like ‘Does IT Matter, by Carr) that discuss the value of all those blinking lights in the data center.
The reality is that some of those blinking lights do matter and others are a financial sink hole. Over the past 3 years storage has crept up to be one of the higher cost items in the data center and storage is a lot like death and taxes, it just IS. It is really the applications that drive revenue for your company and these applications just keep generating data which in 45 days will most likely be obsolete – well as least 90% of it. The trick is which 90% and because no one can really tell which 90% you have to keep all of it.
Now let’s switch to technology for a moment. For sure CFO’s have heard all the technology buzz words around IT. Vendors today realize that they have to meet high ROI / TCO demands in order to effectively sell to customers, especially in the storage world. One of these technologies is data deduplication. On the surface (just by nature of its name) it seems like the defacto standard for all storage growth problems – just ‘deduplicate’ your data and all your storage issues go away. Well, I am here to tell you ‘Don’t Get Duped by Dedupe’. It may be the new fancy technology word for storage vendors, but when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
What I mean by this is that just because ‘deduplication’ is today’s storage buzz word, it is not a solution for all data growth challenges, especially for primary storage. Compression, especially when done right – real time and random access, is the best solution for stemming the tide of primary storage growth.
May 20, 2010 | 0 comments
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Storage’s 2010 Hottest Technology
Each year there tends to be one technology that stands out in the storage space. In 2009 it was data deduplication. At the end of 2008 EMC made an acquisition of a source based deduplicaiton solution called Avamar. Later, in 2009, they announced a strategic partnership with Quantum for data deduplication at the target. Then in 2009 EMC made a bid against NetApp for Data Domain and won. In addition, NetApp had data deduplication announcements with its ASIS technology. Quantum, Falconstor, and Symantec all had their own story with data deduplication and a host of non-public companies such as Permabit, Sepaton, and Exagrid all were talking about the merits of data deduplication.
As the story goes, if you haven't put data deduplication in your backup environment yet you're either in an environment where there is not one iota of duplicate data, which is highly unlikely, or the company you work for has gobs of money and has no problem:
- Backing up to slow tape
- No worries about slow recovery from tape
- Keeping massive amounts of data on unreliable tape
- Backing up full streams of data to disk (and wasting valuable storage space)
What I am saying is that if you haven't implemented a data deduplication solution by now, you have been left in the technology dust. Data deduplication just makes too much sense. I know we have all heard the expression "No one ever got fired for buying X." But has anyone ever got promoted because they bought X? I have to believe that the IT team that can save their company 50% or more of their storage will get promoted. Storage is a cost drain on IT. It's the applications that make a company money. Its time to start focusing some of those valuable IT dollars on the applications that make your company money, its time to be the IT Super Hero!
Apr 19, 2010 | 2 comments
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