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OFS and BaaS – why you need both

2014-01-21

At first glance, the services can be easily confused: A small application is installed on your endpoint device, perhaps from a consumer “app-store” Behind the scenes, there is a cloud-based storage service; typically billed on capacity used Your changes to local files seem to be magically updated, with no effort at all Yes, it’s very…
New BC/DR Infographic from ESG

2013-09-06

Does Virtualization + Cloud = BC/DR? YES! In June 2013, ESG published its “Trends in Protecting Highly Virtualized Environments” report. In September, ESG published its “Data Protection-as-a-Service Trends” report. And for many people, when you virtualize your infrastructure (so that the servers are portable) and then you provide a cost-effective secondary location (the cloud) ……
Which backup products should I test?

2013-08-27

An open letter to my IT Pro friends: It’s been several months since I last set up my Dallas test lab for playing with the various Data Protection products in market. I used to change one of the backup tools every few months, but it’s been a busy year, so I am going to refresh…
Thinking about Xbox Home Server

2013-08-11

My friend Mark Bowker recently blogged about the hypothetical potential of a Microsoft Surface Server. Since he covers Virtualization for ESG, he has a lot of opportunities to think about converged infrastructure, as well as the impressive hardware stacks of converged infrastructure that are powering today’s data centers. At the same time, another friend, Rod…
The Spectrum of Data Protection

2013-08-06

It is interesting to me how marketing folks and technical purists banter IT terms around, in hopes of sounding fresh and compelling to their customers. While “backup” is often thought of as passé or the bane of IT operations, “data protection” is perceived as more strategic, with other lofty terms such as “business continuity” and…
New ESG Infographic on Data Protection Budgets

2013-07-31

One of the reasons that I have stayed in the Data Protection area within IT is that it never seems to be solved. Not that the technologies don’t keep getting better, but the workloads to be protected keep evolving and IT users’ requirements for faster and more agile recoveries continues to evolve. Even today, Data…
My newest Storage Appliance for under $2,000

2013-06-06

After 22+ years in backup, I have become something of a storage geek on the side (or at least pretend to be one). Over the past few weeks, I’ve been playing with a new storage solution in my Dallas lab: The device has two gigabit NICs in it – one offering CIFS/SMB 3.0 shares and…
Quest announces NetVault XA — and it is absolutely gorgeous

2012-06-05

I confess to have been personally blown out of the water by this new UI, when I saw it a few weeks ago. Many backup companies talk about ‘policy-based’ solutions and ‘ease-of-use’ – but what has come out of Quest looks more like a UI from a science fiction movie like Minority Report or video…
HP VS3 announced at MMS 2012

2012-04-18

Today, HP announced the newest offering in its VirtualSystem for Microsoft solutions family – the VS3, leveraging HP hardware that has been assembled and optimized to deliver the entire Microsoft Private Cloud stack, including: HP Proliant “generation 8” BladeSystem servers HP 3PAR storage HP Insight Control management tools Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V Microsoft…
Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track at MMS 2012

2012-04-17

The Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track program puts the best practices and private cloud experience of Microsoft into an IT architecture that provides consistency and flexibility in the Microsoft stack, while still enabling its hardware partners to bring their own expertise and differentiated components together for customers benefit. While at MMS 2012, I had the…

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