storage

25 posts

Open hard drive on a white surface, illustrating cloud storage best practices

Cloud Storage Best Practices

Cloud storage is a solution that users are driving IT organizations to use whether we want to or not. Just ask a sales person what they use. They will tell you how great it is and how they use it. As IT organizations, we need to take notice and understand the impact to our process and the effect to the data stored outside of our organization. Here are five things commonly misunderstood about cloud storage: […]

Server room aisle lined with metal equipment racks, illustrating the cloud storage battle

The Cloud Storage Battle

It’s a fact: more data is added via the Internet every second than the Internet had in its entirety twenty years ago. This accumulation of “Big Data” comes from many sources, including consumer and business files — including photos and images, spreadsheets, mobile application data, and more. In the past, much of this data was stored in the memory of computers and mobile devices. Now, data is increasingly being stored “in the Cloud,” which allows […]

Confused man covering his face with his hand, illustrating small business confusion about cloud computing

Cloud Computing Still Confusing to Small Businesses

Only 28 percent of small-business owners completely understand the concept of cloud computing, while 42 percent of respondents said they are not using cloud computing at all and 35 percent said they were using it only for data storage, according to the latest “Brother Small-Business Survey,” from Brother International, which examined the role of technology in small business. Small-business owners also noted using the cloud for document management (21 percent) as well as business applications […]

Two round gold-colored coins, illustrating cloud computing versus SaaS

Cloud Computing Versus SaaS

As our world becomes more and more connected, the terms used to describe online services blur into abstraction. In this article, I’ll clarify the terms “cloud computing” versus “software as a service,” often referred to as SaaS. In some ways, it’s like describing two sides of the same coin. However, there are some clear distinctions, along with risks and rewards to keep in mind. The Internet is increasingly being referred to as the cloud. One […]

A bunch of cables connected to a server, illustrating virtualization as the top CIO priority

Virtualization Top CIO Priority

Virtualization and the server consolidation that it delivers will be the top priority for chief information officers in 2012, according to a survey by the research firm IDC. Savings from server consolidation will be invested in new IT initiatives such as cloud computing, mobility, data analytics, and use of social media for business purposes. When CIOs were asked by IDC to name their top three IT priorities for this year, nearly 40 percent of them […]

Two grey elephants on grass plains during sunset, illustrating Hadoop and big data

What Is Hadoop?

So tell me, what’s a Hadoop when it’s at home? Some kind of dance? Not so much. Think of it as a file system for distributed computing and storage. Because that’s what it is. What’s a file system for distributed computing and storage when it’s at home? Let me take you back to big data. What’s big data? You know all that stuff you’ve got that fits in nice relational databases? Yes. Well, it’s that […]

A person holding two pieces of a puzzle, illustrating service-oriented architecture and cloud success

The Secret To Cloud Success

Those IT organizations that move to cloud computing are moving to SOA (service-oriented architecture), whether they understand it or not. Hear me out: Private and public clouds often rely on APIs for their functionality, which are typically Web services that can be combined and recombined into solutions. The result: SOA, at its essence. The problem is that many of those who define and implement cloud computing don’t have a good grasp of SOA. Although they […]

Layered chocolate cake with chocolate syrup on top, illustrating layers of virtualization

Sorting Out The Different Layers Of Virtualization

Have you found yourself wondering what’s wrong with all of the marketing mavens out there in virtualization land? It seems that everything is virtualization and nothing is virtualization. Over the years, I’ve developed a tool or a model that has helped my clients better understand all of the layers of virtualization technology so that they could sort out what would be useful and what doesn’t fit in their world (or their network for that matter). […]

Black framed eyeglasses on white textile, illustrating executive expectations on virtualization

CXO Expectations Still Clouded on Virtualization

Enterprise-level business and IT executives and decision-makers may now have a greater understanding of the benefits of private and hybrid cloud computing environments, but a new study has found that there is still a large gap between expectations and the reality of what cloud computing and virtualization offer. Symantec’s “2011 Virtualization and Journey to the Cloud Survey” surveyed 3,700 executives and decision-makers from 35 countries about their perspectives on the adoption and deployment of private […]

A keyboard with the word trend spelled on it, illustrating notable trends in virtualization

Notable Trends in Virtualization

Notable trends in virtualization: 1. Hybrid clouds mature. The nature of hybrid clouds – meaning parts of your infrastructure are running in both public and private data centers – is getting more mature and sophisticated. New providers are springing up frequently, which make evaluating them all that much harder. Some are traditional hosting providers, other offer more virtualization expertise and some have built their own management tools around their services. One example: Terremark’s VMware-based computing […]