Nicos Vekiarides

All the buzz surrounding OpenStack over the past few months may beg the question of whether Openstack can repeat for Cloud what Linux has done for server operating systems over the past several years. With an enthusiastic following and a compelling, if not industry-leading set of functionality, the possibilities may be boundless. This week’s announcement of the HP Cloud public beta, an OpenStack-based cloud that includes compute, object storage and a content delivery network, provides even further momentum to this open source effort. With well-known vendors such as HP, Rackspace and hundreds of others backing them, we can expect OpenStack adoption to increase. In one of the more storied instances of open source successes, the Linux operating system, first released in 1991, was an alternative to existing operating systems embraced primarily by developers. Today, Linu... (more)

How Cloud Solves the IT Maintenance Dilemma – Part 1

It’s only natural that most organizations split their IT budget between new technology to enhance business operations and maintenance of their existing infrastructure. Although the actual split varies across organizations, it is striking how high the typical percentage of budget allocated to IT maintenance is. According to Enterprise Strategy Group’s 2012 Spending Intentions Survey, organizations plan to spend a whopping 60-72% of IT budget maintaining existing infrastructure in 2012. Within that ESG survey group, the highest percentage represents organizations with decreasing IT... (more)

Measuring Cloud Storage Performance

There are many excellent reasons to use cloud storage, but fast and efficient transfer of large amounts of data isn’t usually listed as a benefit. That’s one of the reasons why people use cloud storage gateways: to speed up cloud storage access. Recently, I realized we’ve never published any details on the performance gains that one should expect when using the CloudArray storage gateway, so I decided to create a simple illustrative test. In this article, I describe the results and explain some cloud storage implementation details that contribute to performance differences. I ca... (more)

Has Cloud Finally "Crossed the Chasm" in IT?

Every year, our friends at ESG post results of their annual Spending Intentions Survey, indicating where many businesses are likely to spend their IT dollars over the coming year. Recently Steve Duplessie posted an article on his blog entitled Cloud – The Cost Containment Strategy that concludes cloud has finally “crossed the chasm” in IT. According to preliminary data, cloud represents the largest % projected spending increase for 2012 IT initiatives– a very exciting turn. Truth is, cloud storage addresses long-standing IT priorities, with three of these priorities topping the... (more)

Five Advantages of Virtual Storage Appliances (VSAs)

With hypervisors a ubiquitous component of nearly every IT deployment, virtual appliances present a compelling alternative to traditional physical appliances by offering a simpler and faster software deployment model. In recent years, many data storage vendors have jumped on the “virtual bandwagon,” offering virtual storage appliances, often referred to as VSAs, and bucking the trend of an industry largely dominated by traditional hardware boxes. While virtual storage appliances may seem disruptive to the accepted model of an integrated storage array, their attractiveness is lar... (more)