Streamlining IT Operations

Consolidation is Cool
So much has been written about consolidation that IT managers can be forgiven for thinking of it as old hat. Most IT shops either periodically consolidate servers as part of an ongoing process or else undertake occasional projects to reduce the number of servers in the datacenter. Read more »

iSCSI Storage: The Advantages of iSCSI Storage in a Virtualized Environment (Part 2 of 2)
Enterprises that have enjoyed virtualization's benefits in their test/development environments have long wanted to use it in their production systems. But until recently, many small and medium-sized businesses have been put off by the cost and complexity of connecting virtualized servers to storage area networks. Read more »

iSCSI Storage: The Cost-Effective, Manageable Alternative to Fibre Channel (Part 1 of 2)
Fibre channel storage has long been considered the gold standard, but there's no doubt that it can be expensive to implement and requires a steep learning curve to master its specialized equipment. Read more »

Building Efficiency into Your Data Center
Maintaining an efficient data center is hard work, and with the proliferation of servers and dramatic year-to-year growth in storage needs, it isn't getting any easier. Read more »

Systems Management for the Scalable Enterprise (Part 1)
In the last several years, managing IT systems has become a major challenge for administrators. Most IT departments are stretched to the limit, as they contend with exploding volumes of data, proliferating systems and applications, and an ever more complex operating environment. Read more »

Systems Management for the Scalable Enterprise (Part 2)
In "Systems Management for the Scalable Enterprise (Part 1)", we discussed how enterprises can move from passive, reactive systems monitoring to more proactive systems management. Now we'll look at the next level—moving to policy-based management, in which automated IT systems implement your management plan in real-time. Read more »

Utilizing Assets Efficiently (Part 1): Consolidation
Consolidation should be "business as usual" for most IT organizations. It often doesn't make sense to run disparate data centers, servers or storage systems. By consolidating, you can improve manageability, availability and security in your IT environment. Read more »

Utilizing Assets Efficiently (Part 2): Virtualization
From test and development to mainstream production environments, server virtualization can significantly increase datacenter efficiency. By running multiple applications and operating systems independently on fewer servers, you greatly improve asset utilization and reduce the complexity of managing many stand-alone systems. Read more »

Driving Business with IT

Scaling Business Applications
There's a move underway that is quietly signaling a fundamental shift in enterprise computing. Over the last couple of years, many businesses of all sizes have moved their critical applications from proprietary UNIX platforms to industry-standard servers running Windows and Linux.
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Moving Ahead with Data Protection (Part 2): How Much Can You Afford To Lose?
In Data Protection Part 1, we looked at tiered storage environments as a way to cost-effectively backup data onto disk and tape without bogging down production systems. Now let's look at some ways to manage the process of storing data to disk.
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Moving Ahead with Data Protection (Data Protection - Part 1)
With the volume of corporate data growing from 40 percent to 50 percent each year, backing up and protecting this valuable asset is more challenging than ever. Read more »

The Always Running Data Center
Today's IT environments cannot afford downtime—customers, employees and suppliers demand access to information resources around the clock. Read more »

Developing a Compliance Program
Complying with thousands of data retention regulations can be mind boggling. Enterprises need to ensure that data is stored securely and completely while being quickly retrievable. Establishing a flexible, secure and scalable infrastructure to support your compliance program is key to its success. Read more »

Scaling for the Future

Multi-core Computing: Delivering Outstanding Performance and Performance-per-watt
With the cost of electricity to power and cool the datacenter going through the roof, enterprises are looking for relief. Today's new dual-socket, multi-core servers deliver the performance needed to build a truly scaled-out infrastructure, while consuming a lot less power.
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How to Protect Your Data in a Virtualized Environment
Virtualization is about to take the leap from test and development systems to the production environment. But with fewer physical machines hosting applications, it's more important than ever to protect your data.
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Managing Energy Use in the Data Center
The rising cost of energy has put the squeeze on the data center—these days, typically 30 percent of a data center's operating costs go to pay its electric bill. Read more »

Moving to Open Standards
Today's industry standard servers deliver outstanding performance and availability. Open standards give you the freedom to choose the hardware, applications and management tools that are right for your business. Learn how the continuing development of standards means things will only get better. Read more »