Virtualisation and storage

Veeam survey finds ransomware blocks digital transformation

Annual report shows secular trend to the cloud and increased use of containers, but prevalence of ransomware attacks means digital transformation is hindered Continue Reading

Top 10 storage and backup customer stories of 2022

Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 storage and backup customer stories of 2022 Continue Reading

CIO interview: Steve Capper, CIO, SNC-Lavalin

Engineering and construction giant SNC-Lavalin has consolidated its global datacentre estate and implemented private cloud to support the unique demands of its business Continue Reading

Pure aims at near bare metal I/O with Portworx PX-Fast

PX-Fast is driven by customer need for scale and high performance in containerised environments and sees reworking of Portworx data architecture to slash storage access time Continue Reading

Scality Ring 9 brings Storage Accelerator enhanced flash tiers

Scality upgrade to Ring 9 of its object (and file) storage software sees enhancements to tiering, the introduction of Prometheus-based monitoring and hooks into VMware vCloud Director Continue Reading

NetApp launches BlueXP as single console across on-prem and cloud

BlueXP gives customers monitoring and control over all NetApp storage on-site and in multiple clouds. Meanwhile, its Ontap OS has added S3 object storage access Continue Reading

SoftIron’s HyperCloud to ease private cloud deployments

SoftIron claims its technology stack fully automates the provisioning of storage, compute, networking and infrastructure services, providing a fully functioning, multi-tenant cloud Continue Reading

CW APAC: Trend Watch: Cloud networking

Organisations are waking up to the importance of utilising updated cloud services. In this handbook, focused on cloud networking in the Asia-Pacific region, Computer Weekly looks at the technology’s advantages, how Cloudflare keeps its customers protected, Tata’s efforts to strengthen its offerings, and how networking and security might evolve in the future. Continue Reading

Tintri pushes for cloud and container storage with Tintri.io

Tintri aims to leverage core technology in its products to meet the needs of containers and microservices with cloud versions of its on-premise appliances Continue Reading

VMware’s vSAN 8 gets a rebuild for the solid-state storage era

At VMware Explore 2022, we interview VMware’s John Gilmartin about the new, faster vSAN, plans to use DPUs, the vSAN+ cloud offering, and VMware Ransomware Recovery Continue Reading

VMware CEO: Broadcom acquisition is on track

Raghu Raghuram claims VMware customers are getting more comfortable with the Broadcom acquisition while employees are ‘more or less focused’ on the job at hand Continue Reading

NetApp storage goes GA for VMware Cloud on AWS

Move will bring up to 50% decrease in TCO for customers running VMware apps in the Amazon cloud, says NetApp. No date yet for extension of the service across other public clouds Continue Reading

Lightbits offers NVMe-over-TCP at 5x less than NVMe-over-FC et al

Lightbits builds NVMe-overTCP SAN clusters for Linux servers with Intel cards that accelerate network processing to give millions of IOPS with storage for public and private clouds Continue Reading

Podcast: How storage AIOps is revolutionising hybrid cloud ops

We talk to Tintri about storage and AIOps, which is the application of AI and machine learning-based software to monitor storage infrastructure to be able to detect patterns and predict failure, the need to upgrade, and so on Continue Reading

VMware CEO defends Broadcom deal

Raghu Raghuram is confident that Broadcom will invest in growing VMware through a broad portfolio of assets that will serve its entire customer base, not just its biggest customers Continue Reading

Vast Data upgrade boosts usable capacity, adds SaaS console

With improved data reduction algorithms, Vast has boosted its unstructured data storage offer, with 25% more usable data possible Continue Reading

NetApp Ontap to be sole vSAN storage alternative in the cloud

NetApp Ontap storage will provide file access capacity to extend VMware data stores in AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google clouds as a cheaper alternative to VMware vSAN Continue Reading

Kubernetes backup products and 10 key players

We look at 10 key players in Kubernetes backup, why they are needed, what they offer and why you need to watch out for duplication between application teams and the IT department Continue Reading

Podcast: How to get truly portable Kubernetes storage

We talk to NetApp CTO Grant Caley about what is needed from storage to really deliver in a world of Kubernetes containerisation and microservices portability in hybrid cloud working Continue Reading

Analysts weigh in on Broadcom-VMware deal

VMware customers in APAC will need to assess their exposure amid uncertainty over the impact of the mega deal on the market Continue Reading

Portworx adds anti-ransomware to PX-Backup for Kubernetes

Pure’s Kubernetes storage and data protection platform adds object locking to combat ransomware Continue Reading

Video effects firm cuts costs by 20% and goes hybrid with Hammerspace

Jellyfish Pictures saves on rising power and office space costs, as well as Brexit difficulties, by using Hammerspace to allow access to large files from any geographic location Continue Reading

Hammerspace the ‘missing link’ for a cloud still lacking

The cloud can’t enable true multi-region working so Hammerspace helps make data visible globally and aggregate it as needed between locations with workflows set via customer policy Continue Reading

NetApp’s cloud-era storage competitors in ‘world of hurt’

NetApp is busily reinventing itself as a cloud services provider, with its competition years behind, according to its public cloud vice-president Continue Reading

Ctera opens up its storage to third-party analytics via APIs

File system software builds pools of NAS-like storage accessible from anywhere, with APIs to third-party tools to interrogate data for business processes, anomaly detection and more Continue Reading

PeerGFS to add AI/ML anomaly detection to distributed file system product

Peer will add AI/ML-based anomaly detection as it ramps up security protection in its PeerGFS distributed file management software, with Linux server support also to come in 2022 Continue Reading

How Veeam helped grocery chain Franprix escape its backup hell

French supermarket chain had backup windows that ran well into the next working day and restoring deleted files could take days. It chose Veeam in a contest with Cohesity Continue Reading

CW APAC: Trend Watch: Storage management

Storage management is a key consideration for organisations of all shapes and sizes. In this handbook, focused on storage management in the Asia-Pacific region, Computer Weekly looks at the benefits of open source, why MediaHub opted for object storage, this year’s emerging cloud supplier trends and how the hyper-converged infrastructure market is changing. Continue Reading

Storage suppliers put Kubernetes platforms centre stage

How to orchestrate the orchestrator? Storage suppliers’ Kubernetes management platforms aim to meet storage and data protection challenge in containerised application environments Continue Reading

Hammerspace offers follow-the-sun access to on-prem and cloud storage

Startup aims to succeed where others have failed and present file, block and object storage data from any and multiple locations as if it were local to the user Continue Reading

Nebulon gets Ansible collection for datacentre deployment

Provider of cloud-managed and hardware-accelerated – formerly ‘cloud-defined’ – storage makes further moves towards its smartInfrastructure vision, with Terraform support coming Continue Reading

Posix vs object storage: How much longer for Posix?

We look at Posix compliance in storage and why it is being challenged by object storage and the need to scale much further than Posix-oriented storage was ever intended to Continue Reading

How open source is shaping data storage management

Open source data storage offers a great deal of flexibility, but unlocking its benefits will require strong technical resources to meet requirements such as stability, high availability and security Continue Reading

Nebulon SmartInfrastructure brings cloud-defined storage to datacentre

Cloud-defined storage allows customers to build private clouds on-site, with pools of storage built from commodity hardware, Nebulon PCIe cards and its browser-based console Continue Reading

Refrigeration firm freezes legacy backup for one Cohesity cluster

France-based Clauger had reached limits of capacity and complexity with multi-supplier legacy backup, so moved to one Cohesity cluster and gained restores that took mere minutes Continue Reading

How Forensic Architecture uses tech to protect human rights

Forensic Architecture speaks to Computer Weekly about how it uses various digital technologies to investigate human rights abuses around the globe, including the pushback of migrants over the Greek border and the killing of Mark Duggan by London police Continue Reading

Top 10 cloud storage, DR and datacentre storage stories of 2021

Key articles from 2021 that demonstrate the growing importance of cloud storage and disaster recovery, but also the snags that lead to cloud repatriation and difficulties restoring from the cloud Continue Reading

IT priorities 2022: Ransomware and cloud drive storage and backup

The pandemic and the move to the cloud has driven cloud storage as a key priority Continue Reading

UK MSP set to use Nebulon cloud-defined storage IaaS

UK service provider Inca to use “cloud-defined storage” to support managed service provider offer in move which shunned hyper-converged infrastructure because of cited costly overheads Continue Reading

Belfast City Airport: Most apps in the cloud by 2031

George Best Belfast City Airport has already achieved 50/50 cloud and on-premise working, with 80% of workloads expected to be cloud-based in the next decade. We look at what hybrid cloud means in practice Continue Reading

iXsystems entry-level NAS goes hyper-converged with TrueNAS Scale

iXsystems TrueNAS can be a fraction of the cost of competitors and with a revamped operating system it can be built into clusters that can run virtual machines and containers Continue Reading

Five ways the hyper-converged infrastructure market is changing

We look at changes in the hyper-converged infrastructure market as suppliers go cool, go soft, disaggregate HCI nodes, provide as-a-service options and look to containers Continue Reading

Spectra Logic unveils Vail hybrid cloud storage virtualisation

Vail provides single pool of storage overlay to on-premise flash, disk and tape, plus cloud via object storage interface with Posix-compliance promised in future releases Continue Reading

Verizon opens shop for private mobile edge compute with AWS Outposts

Cloud and communications giants make generally available private mobile edge compute offering to enterprise customers, bringing compute and storage services to the edge of the network on the customer premises Continue Reading

VMware refines cross-cloud strategy

VMware’s CTO Kit Colbert talks up the evolution of the company’s cross-cloud strategy and how it stands out from other suppliers eyeing the multicloud pie Continue Reading

APAC expert guide to storage management

In this expert guide to storage management in Asia-Pacific, we unpack the developments shaping storage management and key strategies to extract business value from data Continue Reading

Chancellor Rishi Sunak talks tech

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we talk to the Chancellor of the Exchequer about his plans to support innovation and growth in the UK tech sector. Composable IT is the latest trend in building software to support business change. And Halfords built its own service management software – and now is selling it to other retailers. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Flexify brings virtualisation layer to multi-cloud storage

Cloud storage virtualisation provider allows application access via S3 API calls to a single destination while capacity can be in numerous clouds with migration between them Continue Reading

Vast Data will offer containerised storage software, but not yet

Vast Data sticking to its plan to provide no-tier “universal storage” via QLC flash and a 3D Xpoint read/write buffer that uses a containerised control plane Continue Reading

Veeam bolsters portfolio to cover emerging workloads

The groundswell in containerisation and open-source hypervisors is behind Veeam’s recent move to enable backup and recovery of emerging workloads Continue Reading

Valence brings storage virtualisation for the cloud era

Startup 22dot6 launches Valence, software-defined storage that throws a virtualisation layer over any backend storage via multiple nodes that split metadata and storage services Continue Reading

Oil and gas firm halves backup licence cost with Hycu move

Summit E&P made a strategic move to Nutanix hyper-converged and away from NetApp and VMware and wanted backup that could handle virtual machines and physical servers Continue Reading

Where to run containers? Bare metal vs virtual machines

We look at the key differences between running containers in virtualised environments and on bare metal servers and focus in on the main trade-offs and decision points Continue Reading

What digital transformation means for data storage

We survey the key planks of digital transformation and look at the storage technologies emerging to support it, such as NVMe and QLC flash, hyper-converged infrastructure and cloud storage Continue Reading

Portworx gets container-native array management for Pure hardware

Container storage player Portworx builds in container-native functionality to allow discovery, provisioning and management from inside Kubernetes cluster, but only on Pure arrays so far Continue Reading

Backup failure: Four key areas where backups go wrong

We look at the key ways that backups can fail – via software issues, hardware problems, trouble in the infrastructure and good old human error – and suggest ways to mitigate them Continue Reading

Scality launches Artesca container-native object storage

Object storage specialist gets on a burgeoning container object storage market with Artesca, which runs from Kubernetes to provide persistent storage for containerised applications Continue Reading

Five reasons to look at hyper-converged infrastructure

HCI promises easy setup, purchasing flexibility, low procurement and operation costs, reliability and all in one box – but there are challenges too Continue Reading

Winemaker racks Pure all-NVMe all-flash for rapid SAP response

Concha Y Toro also pocketed a 35% saving in storage costs following a move from as-a-service storage provision to Pure Storage FlashArray//X all-flash hardware Continue Reading

Ctera KubeFiler to bring Kubernetes storage to its cloud gateways

KubeFiler uses the container storage interface to allow Kubernetes to access persistent storage as if it were from a local NAS device, and while keeping existing access profiles Continue Reading

Where now for storage? Dell EMC, NetApp and HPE

Part I: Storage supplier strategy in the cloud era: Dell EMC, NetApp and HPE. We snapshot the big six hardware makers, as they take things to the cloud and as-a-service models Continue Reading

The 3-2-1 backup rule: Has cloud made it obsolete?

The 3-2-1 backup rule was made for small-scale use in the pre-cloud era when tape still ruled. Is it relevant in the 2020s, or can we repurpose its fundamental principles? Continue Reading

Ski firm dumps ‘motley’ storage for DataCore software-defined

Eurogroup cuts power usage by 70% and rackspace from 84U to 7U as it consolidates multiple physical servers and storage protocols onto SANsymphony software-defined storage Continue Reading

Scottish farm subsidy body slashes dev time with Pure all-flash

Rural directorate ditched hybrid flash EMC SAN for Pure all-flash storage and cut developer time in half, while beta testing Cloud Block Store and planning container project Continue Reading

Veritas looks beyond NetBackup for growth in ASEAN

Veritas has seen increased demand for its availability tools as it looks to address backup and recovery requirements from cloud, database and VMware workloads Continue Reading

SME backup: Card maker ditches tape-only for Nakivo 3-2-1 setup

IG Design Group gains a modern backup regime with data held on disk, in the cloud and long-term on tape in a move that has helped it to slash backup and restore times Continue Reading

Veeam v11 adds continuous data protection and cloud archive

Backup specialist’s annual upgrade brings continuous data protection to offer better RPOs and RTOs than existing snapshot functionality and without impact on running processes Continue Reading

Five key questions about Kubernetes backup answered

We look at when to back up containers, what to protect, the main methods of backup for Kubernetes and the main Kubernetes backup products available in the market Continue Reading

MinIO stakes leadership claims in cloud object container storage

2016 startup MinIO reckons it has first mover advantage as a container-native platform that provides private/cloud object storage in and orchestrated by Kubernetes Continue Reading

VVOLs and Pure win VM storage beauty parade for French chain

VMware Virtual Volumes and a move from NetApp to Pure Storage saw cosmetics retailer Beauty Success make performance gains and eliminate bottlenecks in ordering and logistics Continue Reading

Robin.io aims its Kubernetes storage at databases and big data

Cloud-native storage runs in Kubernetes and pools storage media to present it to application persistent storage needs, including snapshots and backup on top Continue Reading

Top 10 container storage stories of 2020

Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 container storage stories for 2020, when providing persistent Kubernetes storage, backup and disaster recovery became a key challenge for many organisations Continue Reading

Five hyper-converged infrastructure use cases to watch

We look at workloads ripe for hyper-converged infrastructure deployment. These include virtual servers and desktops, SMEs/remote offices, Kubernetes, and analytics and machine learning Continue Reading

RAID, flash and erasure coding: What works best with solid state?

We look at RAID and flash to highlight key choices when it comes to drive data protection. What RAID levels work best with solid state and when is erasure coding a good choice? Continue Reading

Intel Optane Persistent Memory aims to fill the gap DRAM can’t

We look at Optane and its PMem product that Intel believes will fill a big gap between memory and storage that DRAM technology just cannot deal with Continue Reading

Canada ad firm subtracts 44U with HPE and Ctera hyper-converged

Glenn Davis Group slashed its hardware estate from 48U of rack space to 4U when it ditched its SAN and tape legacy kit for flash-based Ctera X Series and cloud backup Continue Reading

The UK government’s ‘flawed and misleading’ Covid-19 data

In this week’s Computer Weekly, the coronavirus data relied upon by the UK government is ‘flawed and misleading’ say experts – we examine the implications. Ikea talks about how it turned to the cloud to deal with the impact of the pandemic. And we look at the digital transformation underway at credit card giant Capital One. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

CW APAC: Trend Watch – storage

Many organisations turn to cloud to cut storage bills, but the options available and potential costs are many and varied. In this handbook, Computer Weekly takes a peek at future storage technologies, such as helium and DNA, and offers some valuable tips on how to keep cloud storage costs under control. Continue Reading

The future of storage

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we examine emerging technologies in storage such as helium disks and DNA. Ransomware is becoming more sophisticated and the attackers more tactical. And as the EU’s top court challenges the UK over surveillance, we ask what this means for data privacy after Brexit. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Veeam buys Kasten to get a boost in Kubernetes backup

Virtual machine backup pioneer sees $150m purchase of Kasten and the addition of Kubernetes backup to its portfolio as key to becoming a ‘$2bn company’ Continue Reading

Red Hat rivals VMware and Nutanix with hyper-converged OCS 4.5

Red Hat’s OpenShift 4.5 extended container orchestration to virtual machines. The arrival of OCS 4.5 moves the solution into the realm of hyper-converged systems Continue Reading

Nutanix boosts storage performance by 50% with BlockStore

Hyper-converged infrastructure pioneer Nutanix boosts access to NVMe and potentially Optane storage with BlockStore, which avoids the need to access the deepest layers of the OS Continue Reading

Pure flashes the cash, paying $370m for Portworx

Flash storage pioneer believes container storage is the next frontier and pays big money for container persistent storage software provider Portworx in deal set to close this month Continue Reading

Dutch bank set to save €5m via Veeam backup upgrade

Rabobank ditched legacy backup where patching took months and restores took hours. Those times are now cut down massively and the bank has a readily available test environment Continue Reading

Veeam to add CDP, plus Google cloud as a target

Backup giant set to add continuous data protection for the most critical workloads, plus Google cloud as a target – all on the back of a storming quarter during the pandemic Continue Reading

Pure and Cohesity launch FlashRecover for flash-speed restores

Flash market pioneer links up with scale-out backup product maker to provide bundled backup plus super-fast recovery based around Pure FlashBlade storage arrays Continue Reading

Nutanix launches Clusters in AWS for hybrid cloud hyper-converged infrastructure

HCI pioneers launches Nutanix Clusters, which will provide hyper-converged deployments across customer datacentres and the Amazon cloud, but only in Acropolis and on AWS for now Continue Reading

Security Think Tank: Container security starts with good DevOps practice

Adopting containers promises great organisational efficiency advantages, but the fast-evolving technology can be problematic for security teams. What do CISOs need to know to safeguard containers? Continue Reading

Unsecured Elasticsearch server breached in eight hours flat

Comparitech’s Bob Diachenko wanted to find out how long it would take for hackers to find and attack an unsecured, public internet-facing database, so he set up a honeypot Continue Reading

Kaminario offers cut-price virtual SAN in the cloud

Flash pioneer Kaminario builds its VisionOS out to the cloud and says its cloud block storage is much cheaper than what is available from the native cloud services of the big three providers Continue Reading

Cloud storage 101: File, block and object storage in the cloud

We run the rule over file, block and object storage from the big three public cloud providers: AWS, Azure and GCP. We look at what’s on offer and the use cases they are aimed at Continue Reading

Portworx to add application profiles to persistent container storage

Kubernetes persistent container storage that runs from inside the cluster will add application storage profiles for applications such as Apache Kafka, Elasticsearch and Postgres Continue Reading

Dell EMC launches PowerStore NVMe container-based storage array

PowerStore controller software is based on container modules for SAN and NAS storage, while the mid-range array is all-NVMe and aimed at performance-hungry use cases such as Splunk Continue Reading

Storage 101: Replication vs backup, and synchronous vs asynchronous

Storage 101: Can replication replace backup? What are the pros and cons of synchronous and asynchronous backup? What’s the best way to mix backup and replication? Continue Reading

StorageOS v2 puts ‘mini brains’ in Kubernetes storage volumes

StorageOS persistent software-defined storage for Kubernetes distributes control plane decisions to volumes in a cluster and takes away the impact on centralised scheduler Continue Reading

Red Hat-VMware rivalry intensifies with OpenShift virtualisation

New virtualisation features in OpenShift point to an emerging Kubernetes platform war between Red Hat and VMware Continue Reading

Snapshots 101: Array vs backup software

We run the rule over snapshots in storage arrays and backup software and find a range of capabilities that go from mere support to fully snapshot-centric approaches Continue Reading

Smartbox move to Nutanix HCI a catalyst for IT team revamp

Gift supplier reorganises IT team structures as Nutanix hyper-converged infrastructure helps sweep away legacy architecture for hybrid cloud and containerised operations Continue Reading

Nutanix expands virtual desktop service in APAC

Nutanix has expanded its Xi Frame virtual desktop service to five more cloud regions in Asia-Pacific amid the Covid-19 outbreak Continue Reading

Container storage 101: What is CSI and how does it work?

We look at the container storage interface, which provides an interface to persistent storage in the products of storage array makers, and how it relates to Kubernetes Continue Reading