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Upcoming article: Backup testing: what you need to know

For Computer Weekly my next article will look at backup testing.

A backup strategy is only effective, if backups are tested. A business can invest in the latest backup tools, but unless they test that backups work — and that they can recover data from them — that investment could well be wasted.

The article will cover:

  • What is the key aim of backup testing?
  • What needs to be tested, and how often?
  • What does effective testing involve?
  • Who needs to run recovery testing?
  • Which products or services can help?

Please send any ideas or contributions for the article by 1200hrs Monday 2 Nov, by email in the first instance.

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Upcoming article: the top 5 storage deployment pitfalls

For Computer Weekly I am investigating the greatest pitfalls for deploying on-premises storage hardware.

The piece can cover flash storage, storage arrays, hyper-converged, or software-defined storage but it needs to be in house, not cloud based.

I am looking for examples from CIOs and IT directors and experienced analysts and consultants – but not vendors.

If you would like to comment for the article please email me with a brief description of your (or your client’s) credentials in this area, and I will reply with some questions.

The deadline for initial approaches is September 9th.

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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.


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Upcoming commission: Scale-out NAS storage

My next article for Computer Weekly will be on “Scale-out NAS in the age of cloud”. The outline for the piece is below.

Scale out NAS is a very important storage technology for those that want to store large amounts of file and unstructured data. 

But in recent years it has had to fight off other methods of storing large amounts of unstructured data, namely on-premises object storage and the rise of the cloud providers and their (often object storage-based) storage offerings.

So, who are the key scale-out NAS providers now? What do they offer in terms of products? And how are they meeting the challenge of the cloud?

If you or your client has expertise in this area, please contact me by email in the first instance. The deadline for pitches and initial input is Monday, 25 March.