Drobo is Big Storage in a Small Box. Physically, a single Drobo looks like a black rectangular box with LED capacity and disk status indicators on the front, with 4 to 12 disk-drive bays, and various connectivity options (iSCSI, Ethernet / File Sharing, USB 3.0, eSATA, Firewire).



The Drobo allows any combination of types, sizes, or speeds of hard drives to be placed in some or all of the drive bays, at any time (hot-swapping is possible), where they form a larger logical redundant…

Common helpdesk challenges in today's enterprise:



Mobile users. The help desk technician still needs to be able to support users who are on-the-go. As long as there is an internet connection, the right support tool gives the technician access and the ability to help the user. 



"Drive-by's" - Chance encounters between end-users and help desk technicians during which the end user asks for support. An organized approach to support is needed and results in…

IT Organizations are faced with the constant demand to process, move and store more information, including multiple copies of the same or similar data for longer periods of time while reducing per unit costs. In addition, IT organizations also need to maintain or enhance quality of service (QoS) levels. The result is a squeeze play that requires innovation to allow more to be done with already available resources without compromise of customer services. Many approaches are being used…

Concerns over security and lack of control have prompted IT departments to turn away from public cloud options in favor of home-grown private cloud services. Organizations that make this decision risk losing the core benefits that cloud computing was intended to provide in the first place – a more cost-effective and less resource-intensive model for managing enterprise-class systems and applications. 



What if the problem wasn’t in the public cloud model itself but with the way that…

Why is multimedia communications important in today's Enterprise?



Today’s workplace is behind when it comes to emulating our personal technology lives. To offer mutli-media communications options helps enterprises take a step toward bridging the gap between our work and personal lives. Additionally, more employees are part-time remote workers or are trying to do more in off hours to stay on top.

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In the data center, the cloud-optimized network connects virtual servers and their application workloads to other virtual servers and to virtual LUNs in storage resource pools, while maintaining secure, load-balanced client access connections to the Web, applications, and databases deployed on virtual machines. The cloud-optimized network connects to virtualized resource pools and physical clients, servers, and storage using a single logical network. Ultimately, a cloud-optimized network can…

Not many companies have thought about digital storage costs. Is this true, and why is this so?



Many companies are not approaching storage holistically, so they can’t analyze the true costs of storing their digital and paper-based information. 



In the face of the current data explosion, storage itself is actually cheap. However, with information comes risk. Data can be subject to compliance regulations, such as SEC mandates, legal discovery requests, and security…

DCs Codes/standards/normas around the globe

I ´ve had the opportunity to teach the BICSI DC110 data centres desig best practices for two times now. This course is mainly based in USA documents TIA942 and BICSI-002 standards.



And in both occassions people have asked me regarding the comparison among:



EPAs, UP Time Institute, EU code of conduct, Green Grid, CEEDA, LEED and other local or international papers.



As I see…

A new year tends to bring about reflections on the previous twelve months as well as anticipation for what lies ahead in the coming year. In this three part series on Data Center POST, we are going to take a deeper look at some of the trends we feel will shape the data center industry today and throughout 2011: business efficiencies, regulation, and security risk management.

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Computing as a utility remains the dream of data center managers, where more resources are just available when you need them, like electricity when you turn on the lights.



Dynamic hosting and cloud computing are the core technologies that are going to make that dream of utility computing a reality.



In dynamic hosting and cloud computing environments, new network, server, VM and applications can be provisioned dynamically, by customer and at various time periods. That…

FCoE is a protocol which allows Ethernet to encapsulate fibre channel SAN networking traffic into Ethernet Frames. This is an important capability since it will allow IT managers to deploy an unified network based on 10 Gigabit Ethernet - in place of the separate IP and SAN networks which are common in the enterprise today.



The technology is becoming increasingly popular because the network consolidation provided by FCoE can deliver reduced data center costs for power and rackspace…

FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) provides the convergence of LAN and Fibre Channel storage traffic on a single lossless 10 Gigabit Ethernet link. This enables the network to provide the flexibility to either run FCoE, Fibre Channel (FC), IP-based storage such as NAS & iSCSI or combination of these technologies on a single converged network referred to as Unified Fabric.



FCoE is the logical step for converging LAN and Storage networks and has no downside. FCoE provides the…

Server and desktop virtualization has become the new normal in the majority of IT departments. Companies can no longer ignore the benefits of virtualization, and a key component to virtualization of servers and desktops is to use a shared storage appliance. Virtualization combined with data increasing at an increasingly rapid pace means IT managers face huge problems when it comes to investing in high-performance storage environments that are cost effective. SAN’s are one of the biggest…

1. Vendors often update systems to address known issues (RFCs) which means updating servers contributes to operational reliability

2. Given security vulnerability issues, many patches and releases address address known vulnerabilities that may be exploitable – updates thereby can reduce security risks

3. Depending on regulatory and industry compliance standards and service level commitments, system integrity and maintenance may be required – updates support…

Data is constantly at risk from hackers that launch advanced, automated, and large scale attacks as well as from malicious and privileged insiders that may abuse their access for economic or personal gain. Data Security has also become subject to intense regulatory scrutiny – so much so that any viable Data Security solution must be able to address the requirements imposed by auditors and regulators.

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