Browsing Posts in vDesign

Reading Time: 2 minutesAs written in the previous post related to the upgrade to vSphere 5, the old VCB framework can still be used also with latest version, but is a not supported configuration (I’ve made the test only with a Windows Server 2008 R2 for the VCB proxy, but I suppose that works also with previous OS). Of course the SAN transport mode could not work (or not if you use VMFS5), but the NBD works as on the old vSphere 4.x. The only issue that I get (but honestly I’ve make only few tests) is on […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe Dell EqualLogic team has officially announced the release of Host Integration Tools for Microsoft (HIT/Microsoft) v4.0, now available for download. The EqualLogic Host Integration Tools for Microsoft (HIT/Microsoft) tightly integrate the EqualLogic PS Series arrays with Microsoft host operating platform and host applications enabling consistent data protection (using snapshots and replicas), performance optimization (with a specific multipath module) and streamlined management and operation (for example to help to connect a host or to initialize an array). I’ve see HIT/Microsoft 4.0 during the last Dell Storage Forum and also during the beta period and it’s […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesOne curios thing of both ExaGrid and Dell DR4000 solutions (but also other solutions) is that they lack of a Virtual Tape Library (VTL) feature and only work as a network share (with CIFS or NFS). In both cases the reason was not technical (but I think that the main reason is still just a way to reduce cost and complexity) but marketing/strategy (customers just don’t ask at this feature). But moving from a backup to tape (B2T) to a backup to disk (B2D) solution does not necessary mean move to backup to file (over […]

LTO Tapes

Reading Time: 3 minutesSeveral new solutions seem demonstrate that backup destination is moving from tape to disk. It isn’t really a new trend of last year (for example see this paper from Lisa 2006, or Microsoft that has removed the tape support in his OS included backup solution starting from Windows Vista), but now more products are pointing to the disk solution. The Linear Tape Open (LTO) consortium (whose member include Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Quantum) has officially released specifications for the LTO Generation 5 with around 1,5 TB of native capacity and a throughput of 140MBps (uncompressed)… and […]

Reading Time: 4 minutesThe new Dell DR4000 Advanced Disk Backup and Disaster Recovery Solution was lauched during the last Dell Storage Forum and can optimize data management while reducing reliance on tape backups. The new Dell DR4000 Storage Platform which combines the performance and reliability of disk-based backup with innovative deduplication and compression capabilities from Dell’s Ocarina Networks acquisition. The DR4000 will compete directly with the EMC Data Domain DD160, Quantum DXi4000, Hewlett-Packard D2D StoreOnce, and ExaGrid’s EX Series. Before this product, Dell has sold EMC Data Domain solutions or specific backup vendor solutions, now it start to play in this market (as also reported in […]

Reading Time: 2 minutesKACE is not only a series of management appliances, but also a set of tools, scripts, knowledge base articles, … related to IT world with attention on IT management and security. In the free tools area, one interesting solution is a browser designed for people that require more security during Internet browsing: the name of this solution is Secure Browser. Before the Dell acquisition, this product was sold  by KACE  with a commercial license, but now it is free , both for personal and commercial use and can be downloaded from KACE web site. (just […]

Reading Time: 3 minutesMicrosoft Windows Dynamic Disks (or Dynamic Volumes) are an abstraction layer (introduced in Windows 2000) over the partitions (similar to the LVM layer on Linux environment) to decoupled the volumes (with their NTFS data) from the disk partitions and have a greater flexibility, like hot-extend a volume by simple add new partitions (but also several other advantages). But in a virtual environment there are other way to handle disk flexibility, like hot-extend a virtual disk at hypervisor level (for VMware this feature was introduced in VI 3.5U2)… so there is no need to use dynamic […]

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