Storage and Server Virtualization Resources

Data centers that use hyperscale architectures face a unique challenge. They have to respond to an ever widening variety of I/O requests from an ever increasing number of users, while at the same time providing a cost competitive service. A solid state only approach addresses the performance problem and significantly reduces operating cost but threatens cost competitiveness.

In this webinar George Crump, Lead Analyst with Storage Switzerland and Esther Spanjer, Director, SSD Technical Marketing at SMART Storage Systems will discuss why hyperscale data center managers should consider an all-flash design and more importantly how they can afford it.

All pre-registrants to the webinar will receive an advanced copy of Storage Switzerland's latest report "High Performance Storage For Hyperscale Data Centers".

One of the core offerings of most Managed Service Providers (MSPs) is providing an online backup offering to their customers. It is one of the first processes that IT is willing to outsource and it is one that can show substantial improvement when monitored and managed full time. Many MSPs have settled into a existing backup offering and new MSPs may opt for the status quo.

In this webinar George Crump, Lead Analyst of Storage Switzerland and Neal Bradbury, VP of Business Development at Intronis, will explain the five weaknesses of MSP Backup Software solutions and then provide guidance on how to fix them. Those weaknesses include lack of:
1. Platform Coverage including online applications and VMware
2. Storage Flexibility both for the customer and the MSP
3. Performance – For Cloud Backup and Recovery, performance matters
4. Protection of the protected data
5. MSP Visibility - MSPs must show value while running their business

During this webinar MSPs will learn more about these problems and get steps on how to fix them.

Server side solid state storage is the storage performance equivalent to a surgical strike. It places storage performance right where the problem is, the server or host having to respond to workload or application demands. Over the last few years PCIe SSD has emerged as the performance solution but the state of server side SSD is changing. Drive form factor SSDs like IBM’s recently announced offering of SMART Storage Systems’ Optimus SSD are out to prove that drive form factor SSDs can provide a superior alternative to PCIe based solutions.

In this webinar Storage Switzerland will explore the state of server side SSD and IBM will detail its SMART Storage Systems’ Optimus SSD announcement.

All pre-registrants will get an advanced copy of Storage Switzerland’s latest report “Buying SSDs: What's More Important $ per GB Stored or $ per TB Written?”

Solid State Storage has established itself as the go-to storage technology for solving the performance issues typically faced by databases, virtualized servers and virtualized desktop environments. As a result the industry has flooded the market with an almost overwhelming number of both all-flash and hybrid flash-based solutions to address that challenge. Most of these solutions are expensive and require that you throw out your current investment and switch to the new technology entirely.

But if you have a budget to adhere to these kinds of ‘forklift’ upgrades aren’t always feasible. The costs to achieve the performance benefits of flash can be a major constraint. In this seminar, led by Storage Switzerland’s Lead Analyst George Crump and Len Rosenthal, SVP of Marketing from Astute Networks, you will learn how to best leverage flash on a budget of less than $50K.

As the SMB data center becomes increasingly virtualized the limitations of legacy backup solutions set in and the IT administrator is left scrambling for a more VM-aware backup solution. What they often find is complicated, expensive solutions that were designed for the enterprise not for the unique requirements of the SMB. The virtualized SMB needs a data protection solution that can leverage the cloud so they can provide the same quality of data protection and uptime as larger enterprises.

In this webinar George Crump, Lead Analyst With Storage Switzerland and Bruce Talley, CEO of NAKIVO will discuss how to leverage the Cloud to solve the SMB virtual backup problem

Join Storage Switzerland's George Crump, Chief Steward and Eric Slack Lead Analyst for an informative and entertaining 45 minute webcast were we predict what will happen in the storage industry in 2013. We will cover:

#1 – Will 2013 Be All Flash and No Drive?

#2 – Will Object Storage be ready for the enterprise?

#3 – Will 2013 be the year we stop doing backups?

#4 – What vendors will get bought and who will be the new market leader?

Three Things You Need To Know About Your Environment Before Buying SSD in 30 Minutes

Solid State Disk (SSD) is quickly become the default choice for environments facing a storage performance problem. But there is a concern that the extra 15X dollar-per-GB investment SSDs require won’t deliver the IOPS per GB promises the SSD vendors are making. There are five things you need to know before purchasing SSD that will help make sure you get the maximum return on your SSD investment.

In this 30-minute webinar Storage Switzerland's Chief Steward, George Crump and SolarWinds' Brian Radovich for an informative discussion that will tell you the three key things you need to know about your environment before investing SSD. This webinar will save you money, time and maximize your investment.

At this fast paced, information filled Webinar you will learn

1. Make sure the application can take advantage of SSD
2. Understand Your Data Profile to Know What Type of SSD you Require (cache, tiering or static placement)
3. Understand Your Workloads to predict peak loads, making sure the right data is on SSD at the right time.

Cloud Backup seems like the perfect match for the data protection needs of small to medium sized businesses (SMBs), government agencies and even large enterprises. As a result there is a wide selection of solutions to choose from. The IT team at these organizations has to be careful not to assume that all cloud backup solutions are created equal.

Attend this informative webinar featuring Storage Switzerland's Lead Analyst, George Crump and Zetta's VP of Products, Chris Schin, to learn the five critical questions to ask when selecting a cloud backup vendor; backup performance, data safety, restoration performance, architecture and price.

The Four Challenges To Backing Up The Virtualized SMB

Virtualization has made its way into the small to medium sized business (SMB). In fact many SMBs have a higher percentage of virtualization than do larger enterprises. But like the larger enterprise they face four challenges when it comes to protecting these environments.

•First, because of their high percentage of virtualization, the shortcomings of legacy data protection applications are harder to overlook.

•Second, the typically thin SMB IT staff needs a product that is easy to learn and operate but also can take care of itself.

•Third, the SMB IT staff can't afford an elaborate disk backup target to deliver disaster recovery capabilities. The SMB virtualized backup product must leverage simple cost effective methods to both curtail on-premise data storage growth and establish an off-site repository.

•Finally the SMB Virtualized Backup solution needs to be within the reach of the typically modest SMB budget.

In this informative seminar Storage Switzerland's Lead Analyst, George Crump and NAKIVO's CEO Bruce Talley will lead an interactive discussion that covers these four data protection challenges facing the virtualized SMB and how to overcome them.

Thursday December 6th at 1PM ET / Noon Central / 10AM PT

Solid State Disk is increasingly the “goto” option for data centers looking to solve the I/O blender that their virtual environments are creating. This is caused when dozens of virtual machines per host are making constant but random data requests from the storage infrastructure. The problem is that while SSD is a I/O problem solver it is also a premium priced solution. In this insightful webinar we will show you four ways that you can reduce your SSD expense while at the same time improving overall performance of those SSDs