Tag: HCI

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Computer Weekly: Storage articles, November 2021

I am working on the following Computer Weekly articles, and am looking for analyst or other expert input:

Cloud storage compliance pitfalls (deadline for contributions: November 11th)

What are the main laws and regulations that affect UK-based organisations using the cloud?

The piece will look at key areas of compliance, with a focus on the top 4 or 5 that might cause compliance issues, when storing data in the cloud.

Edge storage – an explainer (deadline for contributions: November 15th)

What is edge storage, where, why and how is it used?

What are the challenges around edge storage, including data protection, security, compliance and relocating data?

What solutions are available, on-premises and in the cloud?

Horizontal vs vertical scaling in storage (deadline for contributions: November 21st)

This is a slightly more technical piece, looking at how some storage systems are designed to scale vertically, some horizontally, and more rarely, some both (see this previous piece on HCI for background).

The piece is likely to cover:

  • NAS and SAN systems on-premises
  • On-premises HCI
  • Scaling in cloud storage

Plus why a CIO would specify one or the other (assuming you can’t have both). I will look at vendor resources for this piece, as well as potentially end user examples.

Please get in touch via the usual email address

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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.

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Upcoming article: the benefits of hyper-converged infrastructure

For Computer Weekly, I’m looking at how hyper-converged systems benefit their users.

The piece will break down the main reasons organisations invest in HCI. These could include ease of deployment, resource utilisation, lower demand on skills than conventional architectures, scalability, and their usefulness to SMEs or remote offices.

I am interested in examples of successful HCI deployments, and commentary from industry analysts. Note we cannot quote vendors, although vendor-backed research can be used.

As ever, the best way to contact me is by email, no later than Thursday 12th March,

with a brief introduction to yourself or your client.

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Upcoming commission: virtual server storage

My next article for Computer Weekly will look at the best storage options for virtual servers, including SAN, NAS and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI).

Specifically, the piece will ask:

  • What kind of storage requirements virtual servers and their data have?
  • What are the characteristics of a) SAN b) NAS and c) hyper-converged storage? 
  • What are the pros and cons of SAN vs NAS for virtual machine storage? What are the management and performance issues?
  • What about scale? Is a SAN, NAS or HCI better suited to large or smaller deployments?
  • What impact do workloads have on storage choices? Are all virtual machine workloads created equal in I/O terms?
  • What other factors affect storage choices, such as the applications being used, scale of the deployment and even skills on the IT team?

First and foremost I am looking for background information, analyst research/ technical papers and case studies which will help to answer the points above. If you or your client has expertise in this area, please contact me by email in the first instance. The deadline for input is Monday, 13 May.