Archive for the ‘General Storage’ Category
May 6th, 2013
This is a good article and I am surprised that we have not seem more on this topic recently. I could not agree more with Rich Castagna from Search Storage. Why are we still backing data up using traditional methods and mindsets. Answer is quite simple which is one area that I think is not highlighted enough. In most companies the people who drive retention are not in IT. They think in terms of traditional retention methods and thus the technology that exists is not moving forward because of this though process.
Data storage and backup? Fuggedaboutit! – Rich Castagna is editorial director of TechTarget’s Storage Media Group.
Many storage shops are fighting a losing battle when it comes to data storage and backup protection, with too much data and not enough time. Maybe it’s time to rethink the process.
It’s 2013 and we’re still doing backup. I know things tend to toddle along kind of slowly in IT, but the way we protect our data has barely changed at all in my lifetime, and I’m hardly a kid. Backup keeps getting better, of course, with techs like data deduplication and bigger, faster storage targets to send all that backup data to. But today’s data storage and backup process requires essentially the same oversight and administration it did 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
Few things stagnate like that in the tech universe without a reason, and there are plenty of reasons why backup has been lingering in a time warp for so long. Along with everything else in this world, if you follow the money things start to fall into place and a lot of the mystery disappears. Backup is a complex process involving software, hardware, manpower and special expertise. That makes backup a pretty lucrative endeavor for vendors and offers little motivation to disrupt the status quo by doing anything that might simplify or streamline the process.
We can blame ourselves, too. After so many years, we’re set in our ways and just accept that we need special people with special skills to ensure all that backup hardware and software runs right. There’s definitely a “because that’s the way we do it” mindset when someone asks why so many copies are made or so much data is backed up. And there’s no denying that changing backup procedures and apps is no small matter, especially if you have a lot of old backup data stashed on tape.
There’s some blame that can be shared among vendors and users alike. With the inexorable growth of file data about to put a stranglehold on storage operations in many companies, there are probably a lot of storage pros who realize that keeping everything is impractical but still don’t know what data can be ditched. That usually means shops are backing up data that should have been discarded and making multiple copies of useless stuff. Six or seven years ago, a few startup vendors helped define a new storage product category with data classification products that could help cull the goodies from the garbage. But they were largely ignored and the concept of data classification has mostly gone away, leaving a bunch of backup admins trying to figure out what to keep and what to toss.
Since the great recession put the brakes on a lot of planned storage purchases, data storage managers have learned to use their installed storage as efficiently as possible. Some of that efficiency also shows up in backup operations, but not enough to stem the tide of spiraling data stores.
So maybe it’s time to rethink data storage and backup. Just as RAID and erasure coding are built into systems and run virtually unattended after some setup and with a little oversight, backup ought to be far more integrated with storage systems and processes. As an external process, backup isn’t cutting it; many companies are struggling to complete backup jobs before the morning shift arrives or trying to cope with voluminous, multiple backup sets. And with so much pressure and so little time, it’s inevitable that some data — maybe some important stuff — is slipping through the cracks. A few companies have even stopped trying to back up everything; they just spin off copies of the critical things and keep their fingers crossed about the rest of the data.
It has to be a lot easier than that. Let’s just get rid of backup. The tools and technologies are here, they just need to be better integrated. By now, one would have thought that continuous data protection (CDP) would be an integral part of everybody’s data protection plan, but adoption has been slow. On our most recent Purchasing Intentions survey, only 18% of respondents said they’re using some form of CDP and 13% said they plan to add it to their backup repertoires this year.
The combination of CDP plus snapshots plus replication could be the wonder drug that cures backup’s ills. Rev up CDP, and without doing anything else, your company’s data gets backed up not in big unwieldy batches every night, but in little drips and drabs throughout the day. Now what if CDP was built into the storage system’s operating system just like other services? You might have to turn a few dials to set how frequently the new or modified data should be scooped up and where it should be sent, but the process would be nearly invisible and cause far less disruption than traditional backup operations.
Of course, even if backup was tightly integrated and largely unseen, you’d still need to monitor it to make sure it’s doing what you expect it to do. You need to know, for example, that database tables have been copied in a consistent manner using Microsoft VSS or a similar technology. You’ll also want to control what gets copied and when, so you’ll need to be able to throttle CDP services appropriately for mission-critical data down to user files.
There are many more details that you’d need to work out, but if a decent data protection management app was tossed into the mix, you could keep tabs on the process and be warned if something jumps the tracks at any point.
Backup is tough, but it’s tougher than it should be when it operates in isolation from the rest of a storage system’s processes. A number of startups — as well as established players — are beginning to address the issue, but the required degree of integration is not yet in sight. But as data continues to grow and storage managers get more desperate for a data protection scheme that works, perhaps storage vendors will pay attention. And maybe then you’ll be able to forget about backup.
Many storage shops are fighting a losing battle when it comes to data storage and backup protection, with too much data and not enough time. Maybe it’s time to rethink the process.
It’s 2013 and we’re still doing backup. I know things tend to toddle along kind of slowly in IT, but the way we protect our data has barely changed at all in my lifetime, and I’m hardly a kid. Backup keeps getting better, of course, with techs like data deduplication and bigger, faster storage targets to send all that backup data to. But today’s data storage and backup process requires essentially the same oversight and administration it did 10, 20 or 30 years ago.
Few things stagnate like that in the tech universe without a reason, and there are plenty of reasons why backup has been lingering in a time warp for so long. Along with everything else in this world, if you follow the money things start to fall into place and a lot of the mystery disappears. Backup is a complex process involving software, hardware, manpower and special expertise. That makes backup a pretty lucrative endeavor for vendors and offers little motivation to disrupt the status quo by doing anything that might simplify or streamline the process.
We can blame ourselves, too. After so many years, we’re set in our ways and just accept that we need special people with special skills to ensure all that backup hardware and software runs right. There’s definitely a “because that’s the way we do it” mindset when someone asks why so many copies are made or so much data is backed up. And there’s no denying that changing backup procedures and apps is no small matter, especially if you have a lot of old backup data stashed on tape.
There’s some blame that can be shared among vendors and users alike. With the inexorable growth of file data about to put a stranglehold on storage operations in many companies, there are probably a lot of storage pros who realize that keeping everything is impractical but still don’t know what data can be ditched. That usually means shops are backing up data that should have been discarded and making multiple copies of useless stuff. Six or seven years ago, a few startup vendors helped define a new storage product category with data classification products that could help cull the goodies from the garbage. But they were largely ignored and the concept of data classification has mostly gone away, leaving a bunch of backup admins trying to figure out what to keep and what to toss.
Since the great recession put the brakes on a lot of planned storage purchases, data storage managers have learned to use their installed storage as efficiently as possible. Some of that efficiency also shows up in backup operations, but not enough to stem the tide of spiraling data stores.
So maybe it’s time to rethink data storage and backup. Just as RAID and erasure coding are built into systems and run virtually unattended after some setup and with a little oversight, backup ought to be far more integrated with storage systems and processes. As an external process, backup isn’t cutting it; many companies are struggling to complete backup jobs before the morning shift arrives or trying to cope with voluminous, multiple backup sets. And with so much pressure and so little time, it’s inevitable that some data — maybe some important stuff — is slipping through the cracks. A few companies have even stopped trying to back up everything; they just spin off copies of the critical things and keep their fingers crossed about the rest of the data.
It has to be a lot easier than that. Let’s just get rid of backup. The tools and technologies are here, they just need to be better integrated. By now, one would have thought that continuous data protection (CDP) would be an integral part of everybody’s data protection plan, but adoption has been slow. On our most recent Purchasing Intentions survey, only 18% of respondents said they’re using some form of CDP and 13% said they plan to add it to their backup repertoires this year.
The combination of CDP plus snapshots plus replication could be the wonder drug that cures backup’s ills. Rev up CDP, and without doing anything else, your company’s data gets backed up not in big unwieldy batches every night, but in little drips and drabs throughout the day. Now what if CDP was built into the storage system’s operating system just like other services? You might have to turn a few dials to set how frequently the new or modified data should be scooped up and where it should be sent, but the process would be nearly invisible and cause far less disruption than traditional backup operations.
Of course, even if backup was tightly integrated and largely unseen, you’d still need to monitor it to make sure it’s doing what you expect it to do. You need to know, for example, that database tables have been copied in a consistent manner using Microsoft VSS or a similar technology. You’ll also want to control what gets copied and when, so you’ll need to be able to throttle CDP services appropriately for mission-critical data down to user files.
There are many more details that you’d need to work out, but if a decent data protection management app was tossed into the mix, you could keep tabs on the process and be warned if something jumps the tracks at any point.
Backup is tough, but it’s tougher than it should be when it operates in isolation from the rest of a storage system’s processes. A number of startups — as well as established players — are beginning to address the issue, but the required degree of integration is not yet in sight. But as data continues to grow and storage managers get more desperate for a data protection scheme that works, perhaps storage vendors will pay attention. And maybe then you’ll be able to forget about backup.
March 27th, 2013
CHICAGO, March 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ – Storcom, a leader in the storage and data protection industry, has announced a major enhancement to its highly regarded RecoverSM by Storcom “recovery as a service” offering through its partnering withSingleHop, a Chicago-based global leader in highly automated hosting and infrastructure services.
Recover by Storcom is a complete solution that provides disaster recovery and business continuity planning as well as structured, public, and private cloud-based backups that allow for recovery ranging from individual systems to complete location outages. Each Recover by Storcom solution begins with an on-site review in which design architects use decades of experience and state-of-the-art tools to analyze storage and recovery needs. Storcom creates an optimum disaster recovery solution based on best-of-breed technologies.
“We are delighted to announce the selection of SingleHop as our Tier 4, SAS 70-certified data center,” said David Kluger , Principal Technology Architect at Storcom. “After an extensive search and due diligence we selected SingleHop because of its industry-leading operational standards, automation tools, exceptional support, and its multiple data centers to provide geographically dispersed recovery options.”
Recover by Storcom builds upon SingleHop’s highly scalable, on-demand infrastructure services to provide a range of storage and recovery solutions, including private-cloud deployments. SingleHop, a cloud hosting company that offers highly scalable, on-demand infrastructure services to both end-users and resellers, delivers state of the art resources and services with industry-leading deployment time and custom support.
“We are proud to be partnering with Storcom in providing the industry’s strongest disaster recovery solutions,” said Zak Boca , SingleHop President & CEO. “We’ve long admired and shared Storcom’s commitment to meeting and exceeding customer needs.”
Storcom was drawn to SingleHop for a number of reasons, including the completeness of its offerings. “Prior to SingleHop we felt we had to assemble infrastructure solutions from multiple entities,” Kluger says. “SingleHop offers everything we need, providing us with a unified solution and seamless access to vast infrastructure resources and a level of control that we were not able to get with other data centers.”
“We have looked at all of the moving parts that are necessary to make business continuity in a public or private cloud a reality and bundled them into one solution using the best technologies,” Kluger said. “Outsourcing all or part of backup and recovery frees an organization’s IT staff to focus on projects relevant to their organization’s core business values while reducing the risk of data loss, preventing corruption, and improving the ability to provide business continuance.”
About Storcom
Storcom, a leader in the storage and data protection industry, specializes in understanding the latest technologies—from public cloud storage solutions to solving the performance demands of today’s key applications with emerging technologies in the storage industry & data protection industry. Visit recover.storcom.net to learn more about Recover by Storcom. Visitwww.storcom.net to learn more about all of our other offerings.
About SingleHop
SingleHop is a cloud hosting company that offers highly scalable, on-demand infrastructure services to both end-users and resellers. With clients in 114 countries, multiple data centers, and over 10,000 servers online, SingleHop delivers state of the art resources and services with industry-leading deployment time and custom support. SingleHop was established in 2006 and makes its home in Chicago. In 2011, the company was named #25 on the Inc. 500 list for the fastest growing companies in America.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/storcom-enhances-its-innovative-recoversm-by-storcom-recovery-as-a-service-partnering-with-singlehop-for-infrastructure-services-199539151.html
SOURCE Storcom
RELATED LINKS
http://www.storcom.net
September 20th, 2012
Storcom introduces a truly new approach to “recovery-as-a-service”
Chicago, IL September 19th 2012
RecoverSM by Storcom is a reliable, complete solution including disaster recovery and business continuity planning as well as structured, public and private cloud-based backups that allow for the recovery of any individual system or complete location outage. The Recover solution brings organizations comfort and peace of mind that your business will continue to run even after the most extreme of emergencies. During the initial review, on-site design architects utilize decades of experience, state-of-the-art tool sets and deep analysis providing a high level of planning detail, setting Recover apart from the failed processes of other solutions. Leading technologies include imaging and replication software along with Storcom’s implementation of best-of-breed corruption prevention technologies.Utilizing the highest-level data protection—private Tier 4, SAS 70 certified data centers—the Recover solution ensures that SLAs are met.
Storcom differentiates Recover from other services by offering a solution to serious backup and recovery issues while providing the planning, hardware and big protection for businesses of all sizes at an affordable rate.
Storcom has created a service that is accessible to any size company. Outsourcing all or part of backup and recovery frees up your IT staff to focus on projects relevant to your organization’s core business values while reducing the risk of data loss, preventing corruption and improving the ability to provide business continuance. Losing touch with your data can cause severe damage to your business, and because all businesses have big data needs, Recover by Storcom offers a service that is essential for any growing company.
Recover by Storcom has been desined as a solution offering to levrage the Storcom continuity cloud but can easily be adapted to provide the same set of functionality within your own organizations private cloud. In these senarios Storcom will still provide the same consulting capacbilities as well as the same levels of managed services. We understand that business continiuty is not a one size fits all solution.
David Kluger , CTO Storcom inc. says, “Recover by Storcom sets itself apart from all of the other offerings to date available to the small to mid tier enterprise customer in that we have looked at all of the moving parts that are necessary to make business continuity in a public or private cloud a reality and bundled them into one solution using the best technologies. We can say, with this solution that we are not just getting your data off-site but actually bringing all aspects of your business that are critical in a disaster into motion, that’s where the competition has failed up to now.”
Learn more at recover.storcom.net
About Storcom
Storcom specializes in understanding the latest technologies- from public cloud storage solutions to solving the performance demands of today’s key applications with emerging technologies in the storage industry & data protection industry. Visit www.storcom.net to learn more about all of our complete offerings.
Media Contact:
Garret Wood
Garrett.Wood@storcom.net
312-532-6579
August 22nd, 2012
Stocom Partner Dell Inc. this week said it’s adding hybrid solid-state arrays tailored for the high IOPS required for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments to its high-end EqualLogic iSCSI SAN PS6500 Series.
The company’s new EqualLogic PS6510ES and PS6500ES arrays are the first hybrid systems within the PS6500 Series, which is Dell’s highest-end iSCSI platform. The new models scale up to 84.8 terabytes (TBs) of raw capacity, and can hold seven 400 GB solid-state drives (SSDs) and 41 2-TB nearline-SAS hard disk drives.
July 24th, 2012
Dell SSD strategy includes plans for flash in storage and servers
BOSTON — At Dell Storage Forum earlier this month, Carter George, the vendor’s executive director of storage strategy, outlined plans for Dell’s flash-based Fluid Cache technology roadmap.
In an interview with SearchSolidStateStorage.com, George explained the Dell SSD strategy, including the motivation behind the server-based Fluid Cache PCI Express (PCIe) card as well as aFluid Cache appliance, which he said would emerge late in the first quarter or second quarter of next year.
George also supplied details about another Dell SSD project, code-named “Big Iron,” that could lead to an all-flash array in Dell’sCompellent product line. George said the all-flash array is currently “under investigation.”
SearchSolidStateStorage.com: Do you view Fluid Cache as Dell’s answer to what EMC has been doing with server-side flash?
George: Yes, part of it. I mean, EMC’s doing a lot of stuff. EMC has so far announced three flash things: [Project] Lightning, orVFCache, a host cache; [Project] Thunder, a cache appliance; then,XtremIO, which is a flash array, and that’s not shipping, either. I think people will find you need to do all three. The only one that could be optional is the [cache appliance], but I actually think there are good reasons to do it. An appliance is a great way that you could go stick a bunch of flash in the network and use it as a cache without having to touch your servers.
This is a really big deal, the transition from disk to flash. In three years, all active data is going to be on flash, or some kind of memory-based storage, and that means fundamentally new array designs. It’s not just sticking SSDs in your existing disk array. It just doesn’t work.
I think EMC correctly saw this as a legitimate threat to their franchise with Symmetrix.
When we first started talking about this, we were thinking, ‘Hey, here’s the opportunity to go knock EMC off their throne.’ But, they saw it just as clearly as we did, and they’ve been investing like crazy. They paid almost $500 million for a company with not a single dollar of revenue [XtremIO], and that tells you that they’re not leaving anything to doubt in this space.
So, if the opportunity isn’t there for us to destroy EMC, too bad. But, I do think there’s an opportunity for Dell to be the other company that gets this right. I think Dell is well ahead of everybody else but EMC in this flash space.
SearchSolidStateStorage.com: How so?
George: We have two things: Fluid Cache and an appliance that, for now, let’s call the Fluid Cache appliance. Thunder and Lightning are both read-only caches, and ours are read and write. That seems like a simple difference, but it makes all the world of difference. There are two things you do in storage: read and write. They’re only doing one, and we do both.
To get things like snapshots and replication to work correctly, if you’re a read cache, those things are easy. But, if you have a write cache, you have dirty data — new data sitting up here in the cache — that’s not down [in the storage array]. If I take a snapshot, that’s a point-in-time consistent image of my data that needs to include that dirty data. We’ve done all this coordination to have snapshots be aware of where the dirty data is and flush it or include it, one way or the other.
Same thing with replication. If I’m replicating Compellent to somewhere else, it’s going to replicate not only what’s here [in the array], it’s going to replicate what’s up there [in the cache], because it knows about it. That’s where all the hard work is, coordinating all those things.
SearchSolidStateStorage.com: What else has Dell done to address challenges with server-side flash?
George: To have it in the server, it has to be reasonable for you to be able to put the flash in there. If you’re buying a new server, great. Put it in the server. It’s the right place for it to be. It’s on the same bus as the CPU. Access times are better.
But, if you have an existing server that’s in production, putting PCIe cards in is a pain. You have to bring the server out of production, take it out of the rack, put a card in and hope that all works out, and then put it back in. People don’t do that with production servers.
We did a bunch of things just a couple months ago. We launched 12th generation servers, and these servers have a bunch of stuff in there specifically for this. Dell and Intel cooperated on a new standard called NVMe, non-volatile memory express. This both defines a software driver standard and a physical connection.
In a server, you have front-facing drive slots. The NVM connector lets you put something in that drive bay that is hot pluggable like a disk drive but is actually a PCI device. It sits directly in the PCI bus. If you have one of these servers, you can go in and just stick one of these [NVM devices] in the front of the server.
SearchSolidStateStorage.com: Will solid-state cache be the main Dell SSD play?
George: Yeah. These cards do 250,000 IOPS each. That’s really fast. That’s about as fast as a Compellent [array]. And I can have four of those in a single server, so that’s a million IOPS. That’s faster than our biggest storage array. I could have 256 servers with a million IOPS of cache each. So, that’s hundreds of millions of potential IOPS.
This doesn’t get you out of wanting to have a flash array. It gets you into it, because if I start going really fast, and I’ve got a bunch of dirty data up here in the cache, and I had a snapshot point or a replication point, this cache wants to be able to flush down here [to the array] to get consistent. And, if there’s a huge difference between how fast your cache goes and how fast your backend storage goes, you’re going to have weird performance, where you go really fast for 30 seconds and then sort of slow for 10 seconds, and then really fast for a minute, and then slow for 20 seconds.
People aren’t going to want that. They’re going to want consistent, even performance. So, as this cache goes faster and faster, you’re going to want this [array] to keep up. That’s why I said you need to have all three pieces, [host cache, a cache appliance and a flash array].
SearchSolidStateStorage.com: Do you think Dell needs to make an acquisition to achieve its flash vision, or can the company do the work internally?
George: We can do it internally, and it would take about two years. There’s a project called Big Iron to design an all-flash, scale-out Compellent using [technology from Dell acquisition] RNA [Networks] in the Compellent head to help with the scaling out and make changes in the code, optimize for flash, and do the wear-leveling and all those things you need to do, the in-band dedupe, not the post-process dedupe. Four or five pretty fundamental things we’d have to do to Compellent to make it an all-flash array. By the end of this year, we will have to make the decision if we can wait two years. Is two years too late? Two years might be too late. If we thought it would be the best thing, but the market will have been settled by the time it happens, we’re going to have to do something else.
Related Topics: Solid state cache appliance implementations, SSD array implementations, Server-based SSD implementations, VIEW ALL TOPIC
July 24th, 2012
On June 28, 2012, Dell awarded MHEC status to Storcom. This status provides the Higher Ed community with many benefits. The agreement provides the volume purchasing power of MHEC with leading edge Dell product all with expertise of a dedicated Storcom team to help pull it all together.
MHEC (
www.mhec.org) is charged with promoting interstate cooperation and resource sharing in higher education through its three core functions: cost savings programs, student access and policy research. MHEC leverages its multi-state purchasing power, via the RFP process, to get discounted pricing from Dell.
Storcom is Dell’s exclusive MHEC integrator for IL.Here is how it works:
- Client contacts Storcom to assess needs and requirements.
- Storcom will then provide recommendations, solution options, architectural consulting and if needed, quotes & SOW’s
- Order is place with Dell via MHEC Contract
- Installation/Integration services are provided by Dell and/or Storcom inc.
Storcom is a Chicago based full services IT solutions provider and exclusive MECH integrator for Illinois, Let us help you IL higher education!
July 12th, 2012
Data deduplication is currently one of the fastest growing technologies in the world of data storage and is expected to be largely implemented into small and medium sized business in the upcoming years. As your company is looking to take on data deduplication, there are many different factors that need to be considered to ensure you choose the right product.
This article outlines the different factors companies must consider when choosing how to implement deduplication into their current IT environment. Companies must evaluate whether they will be using file or block level deduplication, delta block optimization, app-aware deduplication, in-line deduplication, or post-processing deduplication.
At Storcom, we do product research, testing, and comparison so that we can evaluate which deduplication products fit best into any given environment. We will offer up solutions that will reduce the cost of data storage and increase your IT infrastructure’s performance.
http://searchsmbstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Evaluating-data-deduplication-products-for-SMBs
June 4th, 2012
SDD Technology hits mainstream wiih backing from VP Al Gore. Question is what does Al Gore know about SSD technology in the first place? Why does he believe De-Duplication is better then Compression? Does he even know the difference?
The Daily Start-Up: Al Gore Invests In Data Storage Co. GreenBytes
With a fresh $12 million investment round, GreenBytes plans to increase the sales and marketing of its data storage arrays that help customers virtualize desktops at low costs. Al Gore’s investment firm Generation Investment Management led the Series B round that also included capital from return investor Battery Ventures. Matt Aitkenhead, vice president of sales, said the company is tapping into an ever-growing market. “Data grows continually. We always need more storage,” he said.
As the Canadian venture industry continues to find its footing in a troubled economy, several big players are joining forces to boost private drug developers and other life sciences companies north of the border. Canada’s largest technology-focused fund-of-funds, Teralys Capital, has teamed up with global pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. in investing in a new, $150 million fund for early-stage life sciences companies in Canada.
Also in today’s VentureWire: Aiming to bring online learning to every student who can take advantage of it, Echo360 has raised $31 million in growth equity funding from Revolution Growth, the venture firm founded by former AOL executives Steve Case, Ted Leonsis and Donn Davis…mobile IT security company MobileIron said it has closed a $40 million Series E funding round led by Institutional Venture Partners…and betting even more businesses will gamify operations, investors have poured $25 million into Badgeville in a round led by InterWest Partners.
May 9th, 2012
Proven Nimble-Based Reference Architectures Enable Customers to Quickly Deploy VDI Systems Incorporating Compute, Networking and Storage
SAN JOSE, CA, Mar 06, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Nimble Storage, the provider of flash-enabled, no-compromise storage solutions, today announced that VMware-proven reference architectures incorporating Nimble converged storage arrays have been certified by VMware for VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) and are accessible through the VMware View(TM) Rapid Desktop Program.
The program enables customers to quickly deploy comprehensive VDI systems, building on proven and tested reference architectures that map to real-world requirements for successful VDI and are integrated through VMware’s VDI environment, VMware View. Reference architectures enable integration of system components and software, enabling customers to quickly adopt and deploy pretested systems to meet their needs.
Nimble Storage has developed a range of reference architectures that are based on VMware View and incorporate Nimble CS-Series arrays, which together can meet time-to-deployment, capacity, performance, scalability and cost objectives of the customer.
With the integration of Nimble’s CS-Series arrays and VMware infrastructure, customers have the ability to quickly provision new virtualization regimens and cost-effectively provide performance and scalability metrics for specific, proven reference architectures.
For testing of reference architectures, Nimble works with its extensive partner network, providing complete solutions that are fully tested and can be deployed today. Among its VDI partners, Nimble counts Computex, the Houston, Texas-based provider of server, storage and networking systems. Nimble and Computex worked jointly to test the initial Nimble-based reference architectures under typical network loads and to fulfill all the test criteria of the Rapid Desktop Program.
“IT professionals need to mitigate risk, and this alliance is validation for using Nimble for VMware VDI environments,” said Tony Asaro, senior analyst and founder of the INI Group. “Customers I’ve spoken with over the last six months have found that traditional storage systems just don’t have the price/performance they need to deploy. The close partnership of Nimble and VMware is a good thing for the industry, making it easier for users to deploy VDI as the next phase for virtualizing IT with field-proven solutions.”
“Storage is a cornerstone of an effective VDI deployment, as it drives customer value by improving scalability, provisioning of new users, system responsiveness, operating expenditures and related metrics,” said Mason Uyeda, director, End-User Computing Technical Marketing, VMware. “Nimble Storage has demonstrated the strategic vision that is critical in translating customer requirements into efficient VDI systems. We’re pleased to count Nimble among our premier partners in the VMware View(TM) Rapid Desktop Program.”
For more information on Nimble Storage-based VDI solutions, contact Nimble at (408) 432-9600 or visit http://www.nimblestorage.com/solutions/vdi/ . Or check Nimble’s blog post on the announcement here: http://www.nimblestorage.com/blog/3821/ .
About Nimble Storage
Founded and led by storage industry veterans, Nimble Storage is the fastest growing storage vendor in history. Nimble Storage solutions are built on the idea that enterprises should not have to compromise between performance, capacity, ease of management, and price. Nimble’s patented Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout architecture, designed from the ground up to effectively combine flash with high-capacity drives, makes high performance affordable, simplifies and enhances disaster recovery and backup, and delivers pain-free operations. Nimble Storage solutions are available through a global network of world-class channel partners. For more information, visit www.nimblestorage.com .
(R)The name Nimble Storage is a trademark of Nimble Storage. Other trade names or words used in this document are the properties of their respective owners. VMware and VMware View are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. The use of the word “partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.
Media Contact:
Gary Good
Trainer Communications
Email Contact
707-837-1718
May 1st, 2012
SAN JOSE, CA–(Marketwire – 03/15/11) - Nimble Storage has been named to The Wall Street Journal’s The Next Big Thing list which seeks to identify and rank venture-backed companies across all industries that have the capital, executive experience and investor know-how to succeed. Nimble was selected from a pool of more than 5,000 companies and ranked based on proprietary data from Dow Jones VentureSource and input from Dow Jones VentureWire’s reporters and editors.”Venture capitalists are always looking for companies with a new idea that will prove powerful enough to explode into the marketplace,” said Alan Murray, deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. “The Next Big Thing highlights companies that we believe are worth watching and have a chance to make waves in their industry.”"We’ve solved a problem in the storage market that no other vendor has to date. We’ve uniquely combined storage, backup and disaster recovery into a single process. This not only improves system performance and reduces complexity, but more importantly drastically reduces costs for the enterprise,” said Varun Mehta, CEO and co-founder of Nimble. “We’re honored to be recognized in this way and to be included with other companies that also are pushing the boundaries of technology.”The Next Big Thing is an annual ranking published by The Wall Street Journal. To be eligible for the ranking, a company must be based in the U.S., have raised an equity round of financing in the three years ended Nov. 30, 2010 and have a valuation of $1 billion or less. The ranking was calculated by applying a set of four financial criteria: the track records of success for both a company’s founders and management; track records for the investors on its board; the amount of capital raised in the last three years; and the percentage change in a company’s valuation in the last year. Dow Jones VentureWire reporters and editors also provided their perspective and expertise beyond the numbers.To view The Next Big Thing ranking, visithttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703300904576178673309577828.html.About Dow Jones
Dow Jones & Company is a global provider of news and business information and a developer of technology to deliver content to consumers and organizations across multiple platforms. Dow Jones produces newspapers, newswires, Web sites, apps, newsletters, magazines, proprietary databases, conferences, radio and video. Its premier brands include The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, Factiva, Barron’s, MarketWatch, SmartMoney and All Things D. Its information services combine technology with news and data to support business decision making. The company pioneered the first successful paid online news site and its industry leading innovation enables it to serve customers wherever they may be, via the Web, mobile devices and tablets. The Dow Jones Local Media Group publishes community newspapers, Web sites and other products in six U.S. states. Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (NASDAQ:NWS - News) (NASDAQ:NWSA - News) (ASX:NWS - News) (ASX:NWSLV - News) (www.newscorp.com).About Nimble Storage
Nimble Storage has developed the first converged storage and backup solution that significantly reduces the cost and complexity of storing, accessing, and protecting data for enterprises. The company’s CASL architecture uniquely combines flash and high-capacity disk to support the most demanding primary applications and reduces backup windows and restore times from hours to seconds — all for at least 60 percent lower cost than existing solutions. Nimble Storage also provides a simple, cost-effective disaster recovery solution that offers business continuity and long-term data protection. Nimble Storage solutions are available through a nationwide network of IT solution providers. For more information, visitwww.nimblestorage.com.©Nimble Storage and CASL are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nimble Storage. Other trade names or words used in this document are the properties of their respective owners.
