White Papers

With file capacity projected to grow 55% (CAGR) from 2008 to 2012, file data growth and economic pressures are driving rapid adoption of data reduction technologies. Read this joint Storwize and IBM Technical Validation Report for the results of tests that validate the performance of Storwize’s real-time data compression solution. Included are details of how it delivers the key requirements for primary storage data reduction, including:
· increased data compression and throughput,
· improved storage utilization and reclamation, and
· transparent NAS application integration and high availability.

Server virtualization has become one of the most vital technologies in IT departments today because it reduces operational and capital expenditure through consolidation, rapid server deployment and cost-effective disaster recovery. However, for many organizations server migration takes too long, is too difficult, and backup impact limits virtual machine density. Read this paper to learn what a survey of users showed about the true impact of virtualization migrations on their organizations, and how automating backup can simplify and shorten the migration process. Benefits such as reduced system downtime and greater staff efficiency are outlined.

Server virtualization has become a tremendously valuable IT technology. But as it becomes more widely adopted and moves into production environments, organizations are facing new obstacles to managing enterprise storage that limit the flexibility and scalability of the enterprise and can have significant impact upon Total Cost of Ownership. In this paper, The Taneja Group examines the ramifications of server virtualization for storage management. More specifically, we take an in-depth look at how evolving server virtualization approaches either integrate with or attempt to encapsulate the enterprise storage infrastructure.  Depending on the approach, server virtualization solutions can either limit access to or profitably leverage existing networked storage tools, expertise, and processes. Finally we offer an overview of Citrix StorageLink, a solution that leverages and multiplies the value of server virtualization with existing investment in networked storage.

As data center resource consolidation gains traction, many organizations are missing the big picture. For reducing primary storage footprints, they are looking at virtualization solutions in isolation; and for reducing secondary backup storage, they are focusing on deduplication solutions in isolation. To consolidate optimally, they must consider the full landscape. The convergence of the two consolidation trends, virtualization and deduplication, points to an ironic concurrence: inefficiencies in the traditional data protection model. Inefficient backup both underlies the need for deduplication and imposes debilitating constraints on virtualization. If data protection were inherently efficient, today’s rigorous demand for data reduction on the secondary side, and the backup contention menace that unbalances so many virtualization experiences on the primary side, could both be reined in - while at the same time enhancing backup and recovery performance, reducing hardware purchases, improving protection, easing administrative strain, and successfully positioning you for future growth.

Recovery is something for which all businesses must prepare. Most acknowledge the need for comprehensive business continuity plans, but the expense and complexity of fully implementing these plans leads many enterprises to only partially implement them. Business continuity plans generally cover information technology (IT) infrastructure (applications and data), communications, people, and process recovery. This white paper discusses a cost-effective approach to providing IT infrastructure recovery solutions to meet remote (disaster recovery) and local (backup) requirements.