SQL Server 2016 and Transaction Log Backup
Backing up SQL Server transaction logs may not end up on the cover of Newsweek. But protecting transaction logs has a big impact on database recoverability, …
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The Role of Cloud Orchestration in Private Clouds
Cloud orchestration is the process of automating myriad interactions and connections between end-users and the cloud, such as automating VM creation in …
Best Practices for FFIEC Business Continuity
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) is a mouthful. It’s also a U.S. government interagency that codifies standards, principles, …
How is Cloud Adoption Changing IT Staffing Trends?
Competition from mega data centers, the cloud and virtualization as well as adoption of automation and management software is leading to downsizing and doing …
Data Storage Outlook for 2016
The world’s stored data is scaling sharply upward, with business data alone growing between 60% and 100% a year in the average data center. Data storage is …
Cloud Backup as a Service and DRaaS: What’s the Difference?
Cloud Backup as a Service (BaaS) means that you have turned over all or portions of your backup and recovery process to a cloud-based backup provider. It’s …
Why Cold Storage?
In one sense, cold storage has been around for decades. It’s called “tape.” Because what is cheaper than keeping decades’ worth of storage in a …
Hyperconvergence for SMB Virtualization
Virtualization is a widely accepted technology and many data centers are at or nearing 100% virtualization. However, many more mid-sized and SMB companies …
NetApp Means to Fill Gaps with SolidFire Acquisition
NetApp acquired SolidFire for the not inconsiderable sum of $870 million cash, NetApp’s largest-ever acquisition. SolidFire is a dynamic web-scale storage …
Erasure Coding: A Big Deal for Data Protection
Unless you are actively managing big data storage, you may not be intimately familiar with erasure coding (EC). Essentially, erasure coding exists to …
Disaster Recovery Horror Stories
When we hear about a data loss and no existing backup, most of us assume a careless consumer. Surely that couldn’t happen to a business, could it? It could, …
The Changing Backup Target
Businesses have a variety of backup target options, plus numerous options within each target. As always when making a significant purchase, IT must first …
Can You Active Archive to the Cloud?
The cloud is a very attractive option for cost-effectively storing growing backup volumes and static archives. Nothing is perfect of course: limited bandwidth, …
How to Offer Backup as an MSP
Many MSPs offer cloud backup services. A few of them make moderate to high profits by cost-effectively offering high-value services and re-signing clients year …
Is There Such a Thing as “Always-On Business”?
The term “always-on business” may be a market-speak term but it has a background in truth. Few businesses these days can afford to slow down or stop …
EMC and Dell: Best or Worst Idea of the Century?
The upcoming EMC/Dell merger is huge and highly complex, and no one can be certain what will happen – including EMC and Dell. That hasn’t stopped the …
Protecting Excel: Not as Easy as It Looks
Many workers keep extremely sensitive information on the lowly Microsoft Excel worksheet. If the worksheet resides on a network share, then network security …
Encrypting Data: Don’t Hand Over Those Keys
Encrypting is a fundamental security factor. And before you murmur “Thanks, Captain Obvious,” consider the large scale data thefts that have occurred just …
IBM Plugs Cloud Holes with Cleversafe Acquisition
IBM has announced that they will acquire object storage developer Cleversafe. Big Blue hasn’t disclosed terms yet; they expect to share them by the end of …
Backing Up Large Datasets Without Losing Your Mind
There is one time-honored way to get bigdata sets into the cloud: dump them onto removable media and call UPS. This decidedly non-technical solution does work …
Secure Passwords: A Cautionary Tale
I am hesitant to bring up the Ashley Madison mess, but someone has to – site security was even worse than we thought. The Impact Team hackers hacked into the …
Is Software-defined Data Center for Real?
VMworld trumpeted VMware’s favorite topic, the software-defined data center (SDDC). Certainly VMware’s products are real and available today, and they are …
VMware’s Unified Hybrid Cloud – VMworld 2015 Recap
VMworld 2015 wrapped up in San Francisco last week. As always, the show generated a slew of announcements from VMware and hundreds of VMware partners at the …
Companies: Say No to Consumer-Level File Sharing (Part 2)
In “Just Say No” Part 1 we talked about Dropbox and why it’s not ready for prime time in the enterprise. In Part 2 we’ll talk about what file share …
Companies: Just Say No to Consumer-Level File Sharing
Dropbox is a big consumer-based file sharing service, famous among users for its simplicity — and infamous among IT professionals for being unmanageable. …