Flash storage arrays take center stage at Storage Decisions

Solid-state storage was a hot topic at the Storage Decisions Conference in Chicago last week, as expert presenters explained its benefits while warning attendees not to go overboard in deploying expensive flash storage arrays.

Presenters suggested instead using flash as a tool in a sound, economical storage strategy that also includes spinning hard disk drives, tape archiving and cloud services.

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The cloud and virtualization haven't made IT disaster recovery plans obsolete

CHICAGO -- Server virtualization and the cloud haven't eliminated the need for good IT disaster recovery plans and those plans should include tape, consultant Jon Toigo said as part of the DR tips offered during his Storage Decisions keynote.

Toigo, CEO and managing partner of Toigo Partners International, said new technologies and budget cuts shouldn't lull IT administrators into thinking they don’t need to make DR a top priority.

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Survey says cloud DR is viable, but security concerns linger

Nearly half IT administrators said they consider cloud disaster recovery (DR) services a viable option for disaster recovery, although security remains the chief concern, according to a survey of 1,473 small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) and enterprise IT professionals in the United States.

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InMage introduces cloud recovery as a service

InMage Systems Inc. this week introduced its ScoutCloud recovery-as-a-service platform for managed service providers (MSPs). The platform includes a recovery engine that handles physical-to-virtual (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual (V2V) failover and failback, automated virtual machine (VM) provisioning, storage, and multi-tenant portal for MSPs looking to offer managed or automated cloud disaster recovery services.

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Only half of SMBs have disaster recovery plans, according to survey

Half of all small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have no disaster recovery plans in place, according to results of Symantec's 2011 SMB Disaster Preparedness survey. The percentage of SMBs surveyed without DR plans was higher than last year, when 47% said they had no plans.

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Actifio launches disaster recovery appliances

Actifio Inc. is coming out of stealth this week with appliances aimed at managing data and enabling disaster recovery in virtual server environments.

On Tuesday, Actifio will launch Actifio DP for data protection, Actifio DR for disaster recovery and Actifio BC for business continuity. Actifio's founder and CEO Ash Ashutosh claims the startup's technology decouples data management from the underlying storage infrastructure to make the process simpler and less expensive.

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Virtualization disaster recovery planning tutorial

If you are considering or starting to implement virtual servers into your IT environment, you should be aware of the differences between virtualization and physical-server environment disaster recovery (DR) planning, preparation and testing.

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Law school council IT disaster recovery plan aces its examinations

While Hurricane Katrina forced many organizations in the New Orleans area to implement IT disaster recovery plans after the fact, the devastating 2005 storm also prompted the Newtown, PA-based Law School Admission Council (LSAC) to plan for a disaster as a preventive measure.

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Nine Technology opens doors for cloud backup managed IT services

Nine Technology is getting into the crowded cloud backup service market with a platform for managed IT service providers that handles data deduplication and compression for PCs, and plans to expand to back up data on servers and eventually provide disaster recovery.

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Local area network disaster recovery tutorial: Redundant power systems and planning key for LAN DR

The coordination and preparation of a disaster recovery (DR) plan can be a complex operation that spans departments and facilities, and affects every IT system including applications, data storage, and telecommunications. One critical system that you may overlook is your local area network (LAN). Ensuring that your networking infrastructure is up and running so your users have access to critical IT applications and data as quickly as possible is a key component of a comprehensive network disaster recovery plan.

In this LAN DR planning tutorial, you will learn how to recognize the events that should trigger your LAN DR plan, how to prevent and mitigate those networking disasters, and the key elements of a solid LAN DR plan.

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