Tag: data storage

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Additional Sept 2024 article: Data centre cooling

For this Computer Weekly feature, we are looking into the state of the art for data centre cooling.

What ticks the boxes for effectiveness, efficiency, cost and energy use? Which solutions are easiest to fit into current data centres, and which improvements bring the greatest benefits?

The rise of new workloads like AI means that datacentre operators need to consider how to get more power in, to support large GPU clusters, and the cooling requirements of these chips.

So how will operators tackle those new power and cooling requirements?

The focus will be on the technologies currently on the market, and which can be applied to existing data centres. We can touch on emerging technologies and those that work with new-build locations, but the focus of the feature is on practical options CIOs and data centre managers can buy now.

I am keen to hear from data centre owners/operators — including CIOs — industry consultants and analysts. Due to the nature of the feature, we are unlikely to quote equipment vendors directly, but happy to receive information on their solutions.

To contribute to this piece, please contact me by email in the first instance. The deadline is Friday 23rd August.

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Upcoming articles: September 2024

I am writing the following pieces, to appear in Computer Weekly in September.

Please note the earlier than usual deadlines, due to the Bank Holiday weekend.

How to succeed at cloud repatriation 

Deadline for input: 1700hrs, Friday 16th August

In this feature, we will look at how to make cloud repatriation work. This will include:

  • Which data are best suited to cloud repatriation?
  • Which workloads (and applications) benefit most from moving back on premises?
  • How should you prepare your private infrastructure tfircloud repatriation? What are the potential pitfalls? What could you overlook?
  • How do you make your data / infrastructure future-proofed if you repatriate from the cloud? How do you ensure you will remain cloud-native
  • How do you ensure you can reverse the decision and smoothly transition to the cloud, if the need arises, or use it for burst use cases?

I am looking for CIOs, analysts or consultants’ views for this piece.

What you need to know about Kubernetes DR 

Deadline for input: 1700hrs, Wednesday 21st August

With Kubernetes becoming more widely used in enterprises, the question of how to ensure it can survive an outage or systems failure is ever more critical. We’ll look at the points below; note this is different to K8 backup, which we have covered before.

  • Why do we need DR for Kubernetes?
  • What are the challenges to doing DR for Kubernetes clusters? 
  • What are the infrastructure requirements of DR for Kubernetes?
  • What are the risks to Kubernetes environments that need to be mitigated by DR; how do these differ from other environments)?
  • What key points would a DR plan for a Kubernetes environment contain?
  • What kind of products can help with Kubernetes DR? 

Again the preference is for analyst and consultant views, not vendors.

Data centre cooling

For this feature, we are looking into the state of the art for data centre cooling. What ticks the boxes for effectiveness, efficiency, cost and energy use? Which solutions are easiest to fit into current data centres, and which improvements bring the greatest benefits?

The rise of new workloads like AI means that datacentre operators need to consider how to get more power in, to support large GPU clusters, and the cooling requirements of these chips.

So how will operators tackle those new power and cooling requirements?

The focus will be on the technologies currently on the market, and which can be applied to existing data centres. We can touch on emerging technologies and those that work with new-build locations, but the focus of the feature is on practical options CIOs and data centre managers can buy now.

I am keen to hear from data centre owners/operators — including CIOs — industry consultants and analysts. Due to the nature of the feature, we are unlikely to quote equipment vendors directly, but happy to receive information on their solutions.

To contribute to any of these pieces, please contact me by email in the first instance.

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New commissions: Computer Weekly, July 2024

For the storage section of Computer Weekly, I am writing a feature on hybrid multicloud storage.

The piece will cover the following points:

  • What is hybrid/multi-cloud storage? 
  • What are the benefits of hybrid/multi-cloud storage?
  • What pitfalls does hybrid/multi-cloud storage bring? 
  • What workloads can most benefit from hybrid/multi-cloud storage?
  • What customers / workloads are a no-no for hybrid multi-cloud storage? 
  • What technical solutions can help make best use of hybrid/multi-cloud storage?

I am happy to receive technical briefs on this topic from vendors, as well as input from analysts or consultants. Any real-world examples of hybrid multicloud storage in use are also welcome.

The deadline for submissions is 1700hrs Tuesday 9th July.

To contribute, please contact me by email in the first instance.

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Upcoming articles: Computer Weekly, April 2024

I am working on two storage-related features for Computer Weekly, with April deadlines.

When is cloud data storage the answer?

Has there been a cooling off in enterprise enthusiasm for cloud storage?

In this piece we will look at some reasons firms should move their data storage to cloud infrastructure.

The piece will follow up on this from earlier in the year: Cloud is not always the answer: Five reasons why

We aim to cover

  • When does on site storage fall short and how cloud can be better?
  • Performance / availability / operations:
  • IT management:
  • Costs
  • Agility and responsiveness
  • Data protection and compliance

The deadline for leads is 1700, Thursday 28 March.

How does AI affect data storage

The second looks at the impact of AI workloads on storage. This includes how data are used in training models, how AI analytics are used, where data are sourced and where they are stored. The piece will also cover compliance, which is a growing concern for anyone using AI.

The piece will not be limited to LLMs or generative AI, but all the different forms of AI being used by enterprises.

On the technology side, we’ll cover IO, the types of storage being used, where the data processing bottlenecks sit, how to feed GPUs and where to store the outputs from AI systems. But that’s not the whole picture.

I’m looking for analysts and consultants with direct experience of AI projects.

Deadline for leads: Wednesday 10th April, 1700hrs.

To contribute to either piece, please contact me by email in the first instance.

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Computer Weekly: storage features, November 2023

I am currently researching the following features. Deadlines for suggested interviews or contributions inline.

The all-flash datacentre: Has its time come?

Deadline: Thursday, 26 October, 1200hrs.

This piece will look at the idea of an all-flaws datacentre, and examine why it might, or might not, happen. It will:

  • Set out to define the all-flash datacentre
  • Map out a timescale for its arrival
  • Set out counter arguments – in which cases are non-flash storage media still more appropriate?
  • What types of organisations can benefit from the all-flash datacentre and which workloads can benefit from continued use of hard drive storage
  • Will it be cost that eventually signals a move to all-flash? Or are there other factors at play?

Storage for ERP systems

Deadline: Monday 30 October, 1700hrs

What are the data storage requirements for modern ERP systems?

ERP systems have developed significantly over the last decade, especially with the widespread move to the cloud. But what does an IT department need to do, to make sure the business has the right infrastructure to support its ERP systems over the next 5-10 years?

This will include:

  • What does ERP do? 
  • What are ERP’s storage I/O requirements? 
  • How do on-site and cloud ERP deployments fit together?
  • What is needed to support ERP’s databases?
  • What storage technologies does that translate to, on premises or or in the cloud?
  • Are there other developments in the field of ERP that will affect data storage requirements?

Please email your submissions in the first instance. I will be looking to complete interviews within a week of the submission deadlines.

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Upcoming articles: Computer Weekly, October 2023

Please see outlines below for features I am currently researching.

Disaster Recovery in the cloud:

This piece will look at at the rapidly-developing market for cloud-based disaster recovery services. The piece aims to cover:

  • What is DRaaS?
  • What variants exist?
  • Who can use it and what are the use cases?
  • What does it cost compared to in house DR?
  • Who offers DRaaS services?

Deadline for leads/case studies etc: Tuesday 26th Sept

When to move to cloud, and when not?

What are the use cases for cloud storage, and when is it better to keep storage on premises (or in your own datacentre)?

It will cover:

  • The benefits of cloud storage
  • Why on-site storage often significantly cheaper than cloud
  • What are the benefits and drawbacks of use of cloud storage for different workloads?
  • What are the different ways an organisation can leverage cloud storage?
  • Where is use of cloud storage heading, possibly including cloud native apps, bursting to cloud, containerisation)

Deadline for leads/case studies etc: Tuesday 17th Oct.

Please email your submissions in the first instance.

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Upcoming articles: Compliance, data storage and generative AI

The first of two articles will look at how data is handled by generative AI applications, such as chatGPT or Bard.

I am looking for analysts or other industry experts who can address the following points:

  • When you use a chatbot or generative AI tool, where does all the generated content go, in terms of physical storage?
  • What are the compliance implications of using a chat tool? 
  • Does a user’s data go into the training pool for AI learning?
  • How is chat-like content backed up? How do I backup chat content in the enterprise.
  • If my company wants to train and offer chat-like functionality, what are the storage (and compute) requirements?

Note the deadline for input for this first article is Wednesday 7th June, 1700 London time.

The second part will look at how generative AI could be (or even is) being used to manage data storage and compliance.

  • Can it be used for storage configuration, setting up backups, checking compliance etc?
  • Can chat tools be used to streamline reporting back to users?
  • Can they be used to categorise data?
  • Can they be used to protect data against ransomware or other threats?

The deadline for input for this article is Wednesday 14th June, 1700 London time.

Please email with your suggestions/leads.

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Upcoming article for Computer Weekly: data classification tools

This piece – for the Storage section of Computer Weekly – will provide an overview of data classification tools. We will also look at how analytics tools and data classification overlap (and indeed, how analytics is hard to do without data classification). So I am open to hearing from vendors and end users in the storage, data science and business analytics camps.

We aim to cover:

  • What is data classification and why do we need it?
  • What kinds of tools can help with data classification?
  • What do they do? Are there different categories of tools
  • Who are the key provider, including those in the cloud?

I don’t anticipate using direct vendor quotes but I am open to vendors sending a brief summary of their capabilities in this space, along with any end user examples or case studies.

The deadline for leads is Tuesday, 21 March, 1700hrs London time.

Please email me in the first instance.

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Computer Weekly features: June 2022

I am researching the following features for Computer Weekly, with deadlines in June:

Data gravity

What is data gravity, what implications does it have for data storage, and to what extent can it be mitigated

The piece will over these points:

  • What is data gravity? (for a definition see this TechTarget article)
  • What causes it? 
  • Give examples, large and smaller-scale perhaps, on-prem and cloud, any trends (eg, to edge?)
  • What impact does it have on data storage?
  • What impact does it have on cost, management etc.
  • What can be done, from a storage perspective, to mitigate data gravity?

Deadline for contributions: Monday 6 June.

Global file systems 

What are ‘global file systems’, who are the main vendors and what are the key differences between their products?

What are the common features of the ‘global file system’ products offered by vendors

What customer challenges do they solve?

How do they differ from file-and-sync services or just using the cloud?

Note, this piece will build on an earlier article (here) but will focus on the specific vendors in the space and their offerings. Please contact me directly for information on the vendors.

Deadline for contributions: Monday 13 June.

Backup maintenance

What do you need to do to ensure backups are maintained and reliable?

This is an advisory article setting out what should be done to ensure backups are maintained, and work. This will include cloud, virtualised and container environments.

Points we hope to cover include:

  • Ensuring all sources that need to be backed up are backed up
  • Ensuring backup targets are maintained and accessible
  • Potential areas of risk or failure, including hardware and human factors
  • Testing
  • Potential human, infrastructure etc failures
  • The need to keep backup software up to date.

Deadline for contributions: Friday 17 June.

For all these articles please contact me by email in the first instance, if you are contributing to a specific article please note that in the subject line. Many thanks.

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Computer Weekly storage features: October 2021

I am currently working on the following features, and would appreciate technical and other background material (generally, CW does not quote vendors:)

Five things you need to know about hybrid cloud in 2021 (deadline for input: 7th October)

How is hybrid cloud is seen by customers and vendors currently?

  • How is hybrid cloud used?
  • What are the top use cases for hybrid cloud deployments?
  • What are the limitations of hybrid cloud? What does it actually mean in practice?
  • What are the pitfalls of a hybrid cloud architecture?
  • What use cases are least suited to hybrid cloud?
  • Where next for hybrid cloud? (possibly more widespread use of containers allowing for bursting to the cloud as an easier option than currently?)

5 ways HCI has changed in 2021 (deadline: 20 October)

Hyper-converged infrastructure seems to be here to stay as an on-prem solution. But how is it changing in 2021 to meet new IT trends?

Areas could include:

  • HCI being used with containers
  • Being able to scale storage and compute independently (they’re calling it ‘disaggregation’)
  • Vendors dropping products (eg, NetApp)
  • HCI as a service (may be available from many vendors with a consumption model)
  • HCI at the edge

Five reason customers repatriate data from the cloud (deadline: 3 November)

Why do businesses repatriate data from the cloud?

Restoring backups/business recovery is the obvious one, but analytics and possibly regulatory investigations / compliance are others.

The piece will set out the main reasons, and look at the mechanics and costs of data repatriation too.

As ever, please email any leads or submissions.