Reliant Technology Topics

Cisco Plans Product Consolidation for 2012

Tue, 7 Feb 2012 0:00:00 EST

At the Cisco Live event in Europe in early February, Cisco announced that it has created a plan for product consolidation to improve the enterprise’s financial performance. The SAN switch provider created the plan due in part to the consistent criticism that the enterprise was branching in too many different directions.

According to Computerworld and TechTarget, who reported on the event, Cisco plans to consolidate its portfolio into topic areas instead of product lines to simplify the customer purchasing process. Cisco’s five topic areas include collaboration, datacenter, enterprise, security, and service provider categories.

Cisco has fallen behind Brocade in the race to 16 Gbps technology, choosing to focus on the niche FCoE interface instead, and may need to the product consolidation in order to maintain market share among rival brands.

Effects on SAN Switches, Storage

Padmasree Warrior, the chief technology officer for Cisco, spoke about the potential changes for its datacenter products during a question and answer session during the Cisco Live conference. Denying that Cisco would add storage hardware to its datacenter line of products, Warrior said that there would be some changes to Cisco’s three main network operating systems.

Using the term “cross-pollination,” Warrior stated that the XR, NX-OS, and IOS operating systems would share some features in the future in an effort to make the operating systems more programmable. The IOS operating system is currently used in all Cisco MDS SAN switches and switching hardware, including the Cisco MDS 9509 Director and the Cisco MDS 9216 Switch.

The operations systems, however, are not expected to merge in the future as they serve individual and unique networking requirements.

Cisco Fiscal Reports Pending

Cisco plans to report their fiscal results on Wednesday, February 8 for the second quarter of 2012, which ended January 28th.

After cutting nearly 9% of their workforce in July, Cisco hopes that a simplification plan will bring the enterprise improved fiscal results as well as greater market share. In the SAN switching market, Cisco ranks a distant second behind market giant Brocade.

Looking for Cisco MDS switches and directors? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to get expert advice on Cisco MDS switching solutions for your enterprise storage environment.

Western Digital Shipments Down 51%, Hard Drive Prices Increase

Mon, 6 Feb 2012 0:00:00 EST

As Netapp andandnbsp;EMC drive prices are on the rise, Western Digital has reported that the number of hard disk drives (HDD) shipped decreased 51% last quarter when compared to the same quarter in 2010.

Western Digital’s fiscal results, released January 24th, emphasized the major impact of the Thailand flooding on hard drive production, shipments, and drive price.

Shortages Increase Drive Price By 50%

Enterprise hard drive shipments suffered due to the destructive Thai flooding. Western Digital shipped 27% fewer enterprise hard drives in the December quarter than they did before the flooding began.

Vendors have cited the shortage in drives for the NetApp and EMC drive price increases, which have risen 5% to 15% higher than normal.

HDD shipments from Western Digital totaled 52.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2010, but shipments only reached 28.5 million in the same quarter of 2011.

Progress Significantly Ahead of Expectations

Western Digital expected to return to pre-flood production levels in September 2012, almost 1 year after the flooding began in October 2011. As a result of component shortages, however, Western Digital expects that the industry pipeline will not return to normal supply levels until the first half of 2013.

Seagate, which supplies the hardware for EMC drives, NetApp hard drives, and a variety of other storage vendors, also expects the hard disk drive shortages to continue. Seagate predicts that hard drive shortages will reach about 150 million units during 2012.

Western Digital President and CEO, John Coyne, says that he expects hard drive prices to stabilize as supply returns to normal levels in the first half of 2013.

Interested in alternative solutions to high NetApp and EMC drive prices? Reliant Technology can help you expand your capacity at a price you can afford. Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to discover new and used EMC and NetApp disk drive solutions.

Brocade Races Ahead of Cisco with 16 Gbps FC

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

Brocade’s move to 16Gbps Fibre Channel has given the company a significant advantage over competitor Cisco. Since its debut in May 2011, the Brocade 16 Gbps Fibre Channel protocol has seen rapid enterprise adoption, while Cisco’s Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) products has remained a niche technology in core infrastructures.

Brocade 16 Gbps Makes Its Mark

Betting on FCoE has placed Cisco up to 18 months behind Brocade in the Fibre Channel market, according to The Register. Without immediate competition from Cisco, Brocade could have the opportunity to monopolize the 16 Gbps Fibre Channel market sector with its successful product line.

Adoption of 16 Gbps Fibre Channel has been faster than normal, according to Brocade’s chief technology officer Dave Stevens. The Register reported in December 2011 that 16 Gbps Fibre Channel accounts for about 18% of Brocade’s total SAN switching revenue.*

Incremental Upgrade Provides Speed, Security Benefits

Doubling the speed and performance capabilities of the 8 Gbps, the Brocade 16 Gbps Fibre Channel can be a beneficial for enterprises looking for an incremental upgrade. The meaningful transition from 8- to 16 Gbps will offer enterprises integrated security features and application acceleration capabilities as well as performance and speed benefits.

Performance-demanding hardware will definitely see the benefits of 16 Gbps Fibre Channel. Applications that make huge I/O demands, solid-state drives, and virtualization can make use of the improved bandwidth speed that Brocade 16 Gbps can provide.

Performance and speed improvement seem to be a big benefit for current Fibre Channel consumers. For example, the Brocade 8510 SAN director supports up to 384 16 Gbps Fibre Channel ports, providing provide total chassis bandwidth of 8.2 terabits per second.*

For those who shudder at implementing another new item, the Brocade 16 Gbps Fibre Channel can be an easier upgrade than expected. Since the technology remains the same, upgrading to 16 Gbps does not require learning new hardware.

Additionally, the switch is backwards compatible to 8 Gbps and 4 Gbps, so customers will not have to replace all their older technology immediately and can gradually convert to the higher bandwidth.

Interested in discovering speed and performance benefits from Brocade 16 Gbps Fibre Channel? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today for expert advice on new and used Brocade storage solutions for your enterprise.

EMC Midrange Storage Products Grow 24% in 2011

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

Yesterday, EMC reported their record-breaking fourth quarter and full-year fiscal results for the 2011 year. Bolstered by a strong demand for storage products, fourth quarter revenue grew 14% while total consolidated revenue for the 2011 year reached $20 billion.

Strong Growth for Mid-Range EMC Storage Hardware

Mid-range EMC storage products grew 24% year-over-year, proving that EMC storage hardware and software were key components of EMC’s fourth quarter revenue gains. EMC mid-range storage products included the EMC VNX, EMC CLARiiON series, EMC Celerra, and other EMC hardware and software products.

EMC VNX, a merger of the EMC CLARiiON and EMC Celerra lines, gained over 2,000 new customers in the fourth quarter. Created to be a unified storage system, the VNX contributed to significant EMC market share gains and has been positioned to eventually replace the CLARiiON and Celerra series.

Fourth Quarter Results Break Records

Fourth quarter revenue for 2011 reached $5.6 billion, a 14% increase over the same quarter in 2010. Breaking an all-time record, the 2011 year brought in $20 billion in total consolidated revenue and experienced year-over-year revenue growth of 18%.

Looking Forward

Joe Tucci, EMC Chairman and CEO, stated that he has decided to extend his role at EMC into 2013 and postpone his resignation. Tucci stated that the Board of Directors had requested that he remain CEO, instead of departing in 2012 as planned, because of the outstanding results of the previous year and the potential for even greater results in 2012.

EMC estimates that North American, Japanese and Eastern European markets will increase their IT spending by 3-4% in 2012. Predicting that this will enable future growth and profitability for the enterprise, EMC estimates that they will reach $22 billion in total consolidated revenue in 2012.

Interested in EMC storage solutions for your enterprise environment? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to get expert advice on storage solutions that will optimize your storage evironment while reducing your costs.

IBM Storage Hardware Down 1% In Fourth Quarter of 2011

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

On January 18, IBM announced that fourth quarter revenue increased by 2% over last year’s fourth quarter results. The steady increase represents a positive trend for IBM, who reported their fourth quarter results as well as fiscal year results last week.

Software Revenue Boosts Total IBM Storage Sales

Sales of IBM storage software were the driving force behind IBM’s fourth quarter profits. IBM storage software witnessed 30% growth over last year’s results, led by Websphere, Tivoli, and Information Management software products that experienced double-digit growth.

IBM storage hardware, however, did not fare as well. Revenue for IBM’s systems and technology business decreased by 8% from a year ago as revenue levels reached $5.8 billion. Contributing to the drop in revenue is a 1% decrease in storage sales from 2010 as well as a 31% decrease in System Z mainframe servers from the previous year.

Loughridge, senior vice-president and CFO at IBM, said that comparisons to 2010 storage hardware sales are difficult because of the record-setting growth in mainframe sales that occurred the previous year.

Despite the decrease in storage sales, the combination of IBM and storage and software sales was up 5% for 4Q11, reaching almost $19 billion in sales and up 5.6% year-over-year.

Interested in deploying IBM storage solutions in your enterprise environment? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to get expert advice and outstanding customer service. Our storage experts are here to help you get the storage you need at a price you can afford.

Optimize Current EMC Drive Capacity with CLARiiON FAST

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

According to a survey from January’s Storage magazine, responding enterprises added an average of 59 TB of disk capacity and averaged total capacity of 413 TB in 2011, signaling a growing demand for enterprise data and disk capacity.

As disk capacity increases, how can an enterprise manage and optimize more and more data? One capacity management solution for enterprises with EMC hardware is EMC FAST. Using EMC FAST with its Unisphere interface can be an excellent way to monitor and manage EMC disk drive usage in any EMC storage environment as well as ensure data resides on the most cost-effective disks.

Optimize Disk Capacity and Performance with EMC FAST

EMC FAST adjusts data placement on a daily basis, moving ‘hot’ data to the solid-state drives, while moving ‘cold’ data to less expensive, higher-capacity SATA drives. EMC FAST is designed to help decrease latency and optimize current data hardware to allow for maximum capacity and performance.

EMC Drives for Use with CLARiiON FAST

EMC FAST will tier data on up to three levels of hardware, most likely being solid-state drives (SSDs), fibre channel drives (FC) and SATA drives.

Automatic tiering using EMC FAST can help make the most effective use of costly SSDs, while maximizing the potential cost savings that Fibre Channel and SATA drives provide. Implementing a storage solution using automatic tiering can help an enterprise get the most value from the storage they already have and limit unnecessary costs or purchases.

EMC Solid-State Drives: Solid-state drives are well suited for data that requires extremely high performance and low levels of capacity. SSDs provide a faster seek time than Fibre Channel because data is retrieved at memory speed, but SSD can be cost prohibitive because they can cost up to ten times more than fibre channel drives. Although SSDs for enterprises are gaining popularity, purchases of SSDs should be made carefully to ensure a suitable return on investment.

Using EMC FAST, frequently used or ‘hot’ data would be moved to EMC SSDs to provide the least amount of latency and seek time with the highest level of performance for demanding applications and data.

EMC Fibre Channel Drives: Fibre Channel can provide high levels of performance as well as cost savings over the more expensive SSDs. EMC Fibre Channel drives are capable of running demanding applications with the most intense I/O requirements. Fibre Channel drives range in size from 72 GB to 600 GB, providing fast response times and meeting performance requirements for demanding data.

Fibre Channel would make excellent Tier 1 or Tier 2 disk storage when planning EMC FAST tier strategies, as FC drives provide the high-level performance without the high cost associated with solid-state drives.

EMC SATA Drives: Providing the greatest amount of capacity at the lowest price, EMC SATA drives are excellent for storing large amounts of data. With slightly slower spin speeds than Fibre Channel drives, SATA are significantly larger than their traditional counterpart and can offer significant cost savings over SSDs and Fibre Channel options.

SATA drives are ideal for the lowest Tier storage when using EMC FAST. The slower, less expensive SATA drives are ideal for ‘cold’ or less-frequently used data that requires a large amount of capacity.

Looking to improve your efficiency with EMC drives and storage tiering? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to get expert advice on EMC storage solutions that help you store, manage, and protect more data.

NetApp Drives Prices Increase in Reaction to Shortages

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

NetApp has announced that they will be increasing NetApp disk drive prices effective February 6, 2012 due to hard disk drive (HDD) shortages resulting from the recent flooding in Thailand.

NetApp is the most recent vendor to increase their list prices in reaction to the destructive flooding that occurred in Thailand this fall. Following the example of EMC and Hewlett-Packard, NetApp made a statement announcing that they will increase NetApp drive prices by 5-15% over the current list pricing.

Vendors React to Shortages

No longer able to absorb the additional cost of hard disk drives, NetApp said that the increased price of hard drives will be only be temporary. In a similar approach, EMC has raised the prices of their drives this quarter. Price increases for EMC disk drives are confirmed by an EMC spokesperson to be 5-15% higher than prices from the fourth quarter of 2011.

Hewlett-Packard has not yet released pricing plans for their hard disk drives, although HP has stated that any price increases for their disk drives will be temporary. Dell has also declined to comment on any planned price increases for their drives.

Thailand Production Begins to Recover

The severe Thailand flooding killed more than 600 people from July to November 2011, destroying manufacturing facilities and halting the production of products including hard disk drives and automobiles. Despite the terror and destruction the flooding produced, Thailand is beginning to restart production in some areas of the country.

Western Digital, the hard drive producer which received the most damages from Thailand’s flood waters, partially restarted production of disk drives in one facility in December. The facility had been submerged under six feet of flood water for approximately one month before the flooding began to subside.

Interested in learning more about new and used NetApp hardware? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to begin discovering new and used NetApp storage solutions that fit your budget. Expert advice, outstanding service.

IT Spending Slows Amid European Uncertainty and Thailand Flooding

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

First predicted to grow 4.6% this year, Gartner has adjusted the 2012 IT Spending Forecast by reducing expected growth forecasts to 3.7%. A reflection of the current economic conditions in 2012, Gartner vice president Richard Gordon stated that the flooding in Thailand, the economic crisis in Europe, and slow global economic growth influenced the choice to reduce the IT spending forecast.

Gartner says that enterprise software, hardware, and IT services will all see reduced growth in 2012 due to economic conditions. Hardware spending is expected to grow 5.1% this year, replacing the previous prediction of 7.6% growth.

On the global level, IT spending is expected to reach $3.8 trillion this year, although enterprise software and hardware are expected to see reduced rates of growth.

Thailand’s Impact on Forecast Changes

One factor that may impact the hardware spending is the flooding in Thailand, which damaged hard drive factories and shut down production. Predicted hard drive shortages and increased prices could be detrimental to 2012 IT spending, as Garter’s Gordon expects that the hard drive shortages will impact supply for the next six to nine months.

NetApp and EMC price increases are expected to continue through the first quarter of 2012. Both EMC and NetApp announced the price increases on their enterprise hard drive products before the end of 2011, reflecting the cost of the damaging flood waters that destroyed production facilities and closed shipping avenues. Prices for EMC disk drives are expected to increase about 15% across all EMC product lines, while prices for NetApp disk drives are expected to follow suit. NetApp has announced that price increases for NetApp disk drives will range between 5% and 15%*.

Enterprise hard drives from NetApp and EMC are currently produced by companies like Seagate and Western Digital, who are also undergoing changes not related to the Thailand floods. Seagate and Western Digital have both constructed acquisition plans to increase and diversify their product lines.

Read more about how Seagate and Western Digital acquisitions affect enterprise disk storage.

Slow Economic Growth Downgrades Spending Forecasts

Gordon also noted that the eurozone crisis in Europe and slow economic growth may also impact IT spending on the global level. The research firm expects IT spending in Western Europe to decrease as much as 0.7% due to the economic turmoil currently associated with the area.

*More information about NetApp disk drive price increases can be found here.

Looking to improve your storage environment with new or used storage solutions? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to get expert storage advice on EMC, IBM, and NetApp storage equipment. Get the storage you need at a price you can afford with Reliant Technology.

Used CLARiiON? Improve the Array Without Forklift Upgrade

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

EMC has officially put the EMC CLARiiON CX series in End of Life status, causing turmoil for businesses unwilling to pay the high prices for forklift upgrades. The End-of-Life date, which EMC declared as December 31, 2011, means the manufacturer will no longer be marketing, selling, or supporting these arrays.

Although many customers are being told that a forklift upgrade to a CX4 or VNX systems is their only option, there are several viable alternatives to maintain an End of Life or End of Sale like the EMC CLARiiON CX, EMC CLARiiON CX3, or EMC CLARiiON CX4 series storage arrays without the exorbitant expenditure of replacing the entire storage array.

If the storage system still meets the data storage needs of an organization, the environment can be maintained even if it has been declared End of Life (EOL). There are several cost-effective ways to maintain a storage environment that’s been declared EOL or is approaching End-Of-Life:

For Maintenance Warranties, Check Out Independent Maintenance Options: Third party maintenance, also known as independent maintenance, can provide service and support for any storage environment. Whether or not the array has been declared EOL, third party maintenance can reduce maintenance costs by up to 40%.

Third party maintenance companies can provide faster, more efficient service and flexible contracts that fit the needs of each organization. While most OEM service contracts provide next day or 4-hour responses, some third party maintenance companies can get data hardware running in as little as 15 minutes by providing On-Site Spare Kits. In addition, third party maintenance companies provide flexible contracts that fit the needs and budget of the enterprise. Organizations often find that third party maintenance companies usually meet or exceed the original manufacturer’s SLA, as the organization can choose their level of service depending on the needs of the productions, test, archive, or disaster recovery environment.

For Additional Capacity, Swap for SATA Drives: SATA drives are slower, larger drives that allow storage of greater amounts of data per drive. If additional storage is needed for business images, documents, PDFs, or for data backup and archiving, SATA drives can provide the capacity needed to maintain the array.

SATA drives are perfect for storing Tier 2 data because they provide high-density storage at a lower cost-per-gigabyte than fibre channel drives. Adding EMC SATA drives to the environment, or replacing smaller drives with SATA, can improve storage capacity without a forklift upgrade.

For Improved Performance, Add Smaller FC drives: Fibre channel drives (FC drives) are smaller, faster drives designed for high-demand, Tier 1 data. Spinning at 15,000RPM, fibre channel drives can increase application speed and performance without replacing the entire array.

Fibre channel drives are still the number one choice for enterprise Tier 1 storage, according to Storage Magazine.* Smaller drives have faster response time and are able to handle the most intense I/O demands, making them ideal for high-performance environments. To improve application performance on a CX3 or CX4 without upgrading to a new storage array, try adding some small EMC fibre channel drives to for improved application performance.

For Greater Efficiency, Try Data Tiering: Storage tiering, whether manually or automatically, can help increase the efficiency of a storage environment while maintaining the CX3 or CX4 array. Storage tiering, which involves prioritizing data into storage tiers or levels, is used by 49% of enterprises in an effort to improve their array efficiency.*

Moving data to the appropriate disk drive can help an enterprise to avoid wasted capacity and improve the performance of an EOL array. Place high-performance, Tier 1 data on the fastest storage hardware, and keep less frequently used data on slower, high-density hardware for improved efficiency and performance of a CX3 or CX4 without a total environment upgrade.

EMC CLARiiON FAST is one way of tiering storage on an EMC CX3 or CX4 array. FAST can help optimize the current storage hardware, helping to time and money. CLARiiON FAST automatically moves ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ data to the most cost-effective drives, increasing performance and reducing latency. ‘Hot’ data is moved to the fastest hardware, while ‘cold’ data is moved to higher capacity drives, like EMC SATA drives.

*As reported in a Storage Magazine survey, cited in our blog post here.

Interested in upgrading a EOL CLARiiON CX3 or CX4? Reliant Technology can help you improve your array and reduce your storage costs. Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to begin discovering hardware and maintenance solutions for EMC arrays.

Acquisitions Create Change for Seagate, Western Digital

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

Global hard drive giants Seagate and Western Digital marked 2011 with significant acquisitions that could change the competitive landscape for enterprise hard drives in 2012. The impact of these two mergers could be significant for the enterprise drive market, as the mergers will improve the enterprise hard drive and solid-state offerings of both Seagate and Western Digital.

Market Review: Enterprise Hard Drives

Hard disk drive (HDD) giants Seagate and Western Digital are the main suppliers of enterprise hard disk drives to vendors like EMC, NetApp, and a host of other storage vendors.

In 2010, Seagate led the enterprise hard drive market, which includes Fibre Channel and SAS drives, with approximately 63% market share. Hitachi Global Storage Technology (HGST) following with 24% of the enterprise hard drive market. Western Digital was not a major player in the SAS market, as they just started shipping SAS drives in 2010.

In the global hard disk drive market in 2011, Seagate and Western Digital appeared to be close competition. Seagate held on to 33% of the global hard drive market, while Western Digital followed closely with 29%. However, 2012 market share forecasts predict that Western Digital will take the lead with its newest acquisition.

Acquisitions, Changes Ahead

Currently, the market share of both Seagate and Western Digital are on the brink of a complete change. Just last month, Seagate completed its acquisition of Samsung’s line of enterprise hard drives.

The merger is predicted to significantly improve Seagate’s enterprise hard drives and solid-state technology. Seagate launched its first solid-state drive in March 2011, and hopes to improve this product through the acquisition. Western Digital, similarly, appears to be steps away from acquiring HGST.

Delayed by regulatory scrutiny, Western Digital will have to wait until March 2012 to close their $4.3 billion acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technology (HGST). The deal will give Western Digital more enterprise level products, including a line of enterprise solid-state drives.

Seagate-Samsung Close Deal

Closing their deal before the year-end, Seagate acquired rival hard drive producer Samsung’s M8 product line for $1.4 billion. The deal closed in December, after approximately seven months of regulatory negotiation that focused on marketplace competition.

With the merger, Seagate will acquire Samsung’s enterprise hard drive business in the form of its M8 product line. In addition to the line of 2.5” high-capacity hard drives, Seagate will also receive Samsung chips to create the next generation of enterprise solid-state drives.

Closure Awaits for Western Digital-HGST

Seeking a stronger market presence in the enterprise drives market, Western Digital first announced the acquisition of HGST in March 2011. Western Digital hopes to take advantage of HGST’s enterprise market share, as well as its partnership with Intel to create solid-state drives.

The acquisition has experienced vast amounts of interference due to anti-trust regulations. Regulatory groups feared that competition would be limited with only Seagate and Western Digital producing hard drives. However, the deal has recently received the approval of the European Union, Australia, and Japan, and Western Digital has announced that they plan to complete the acquisition by March of this year.

Looking for new and used EMC, IBM, or NetApp drives? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to begin discovering new and used storage solutions. Our storage experts are trained to get you the storage without overextending your IT budget.

When to Trade Your SAN Switch for a Director

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

As your storage environment increases in complexity, fixed port SAN switches may no longer provide adequate speed or high enough port-count to handle multiple hosts, storage devices, and back-up systems. Enterprises that are currently experiencing rapid growth, or are forecasting added growth and complexity in the next 3 years should be prepared to investigate replacing SAN switches with fibre channel directors to manage their SAN fabric.

When to Trade Your Switch for a Director:

Your speed is limited: SAN switches have limited performance, and can hold your SAN environment back from reaching its potential. Directors are designed to provide high-capacity, high-performance switching with greater bandwidth. For example, the Brocade DCX provides total bandwidth of up to 256 Gbps for each slot or blade. If your environment is faced with heavy I/O traffic, replacing your SAN switches with a SAN director can help you improve your speed and performance.
You’d like to consolidate your SAN fabric: SAN Directors provide for centralized management by providing a greater number of ports consolidated into one unit. In addition to preventing unnecessary ISL hops, directors can provide software that consolidates your SAN fabric management. Software for SAN directors can provide a multitude of functions and options, including bottleneck detection, performance monitoring, quality of service (QoS), and advanced zoning. A director can help you simplify and improve the management of your SAN fabric.
You’re spending too much money managing your SAN fabric: It’s possible to build large SAN fabrics with fixed-port SAN switches, but it can prove to be more costly and difficult than deploying a director switch. If your SAN fabric has more than a few dozen ports, the fabric can become too complex and difficult to manage.

BONUS: Directors can provide the redundancy of an entire SAN fabric and save money by reducing costly downtime. Directors don’t need to go offline to replace failed ports, power supply cables, or fans, so they can reduce the cost of downtime. SAN Switches need to be taken offline to be replaced, while Directors can remain operational while the blades are replaced.

You’re planning site-to-site replication: Directors offer several connectivity options that a single Switch cannot provide. Each Director chassis can house several different types of blades, including blades that connect two Directors over a WAN for long distance replication.
You see growth on the horizon: FC Switches provide a limited or fixed number of ports, usually ranging between 8 and 80, and can severely limit your fabric growth potential. Alternatively, a Director provides you with higher port count, greater connectivity options, and prevent against single points of failure. SAN Directors contain blades, providing space and scalability for up to hundreds of ports in a single chassis. Brocade makes blades in 16-, 32-, and 48-port counts, providing the scalability you need to manage fabric growth. In addition to scalability, directors provide multiple connectivity options including FCoE blades, blades for storage encryption and blades for data replication.

Looking for more information about SAN switches and directors? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to get expert advice and discover budget-friendly solutions for your SAN storage environment. Our storage experts are skilled at helping you do more with less.

Buying Guide: When to Choose EMC CLARiiON Over VNX

Tue, 3 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

There are many reasons to transition your EMC storage environment to the new VNX platform. The powerful performance, SSD options, and unified block and file storage are all tempting features for enterprises looking to upgrade their storage array. However, upgrading to an EMC VNX has its drawbacks. The possibility of a cost-prohibitive forklift upgrade may cause some enterprises to think twice before committing to a VNX.

So, when should you hold off on investing into the VNX platform and improve your existing EMC CLARiiON system? Here are four scenarios where upgrading your CLARiiON may be a better option:

Choose EMC CLARiiON Instead of VNX When -

You Need to Build Out a DR Environment: A disaster recovery environment needs to be reliable and highly available, but it doesn’t have to be the most expensive system on the market to protect your most valuable data. Implementing a used EMC CLARiiON storage array is the best way to build out a cost effective disaster recovery system if you have an existing EMC CLARiiON storage environment.

Used equipment can be acquired at a much lower cost, helping you purchase up to 100% more storage than if you purchased new gear.

You Want to Leverage Existing Hardware: If you plan to reuse your existing hard drives when you purchase your new EMC VNX system, think again. Unfortunately, VNX technology is not compatible with the hard disk drives associated with the EMC CLARiiON arrays. Therefore, if you upgrade to an EMC VNX array, your current hard drives won’t be compatible with the SAS hard drive technology of the EMC VNX and you will need to purchase all new drives.

However, if you choose to upgrade to a CX4-480, you’ll be able to reuse your existing Fibre Channel and SATA drives, lowering your TCO significantly. Upgrading to a CX4 can provide you with the performance upgrade you need without the entire system overhaul. You’ll be able to increase your capacity, improve the speed and performance of your applications, and provide your enterprise with room for growth and avoid the cost of purchasing an entire storage environment.

You’re Experiencing Budget Shortfalls: If your enterprise is experiencing budget shortfalls, now is probably not the time to upgrade to the EMC VNX line. If you need to lower your IT costs, it’s time to make the most of the hardware you already have.

Changing the ratio of hard disk drives in your environment can help you improve your array and maintain your budget. If you want better performance for your Tier 1 applications, adding smaller EMC Fibre Channel drives and increasing spindle count can increase the speed of your applications at minimal cost. If you need more capacity for growing enterprise data, increasing your SATA drive count can increase the capacity of your system. Small, less expensive disk drive upgrades can help you improve your performance without the cost of the VNX overhaul.

You Want to Save Time and Money: Upgrading to an EMC VNX environment can cost your IT staff additional time to learn new hardware interfaces, as well as the extra implementation time it will take to install and set up the VNX system. Learning new hardware can cost your IT staff both time and money.

Why learn new hardware if you don’t yet need to? You can upgrade components of your EMC CLARiiON environment and experience performance improvements without the time and effort it takes to learn a new system. If your IT department is pressed for time, making small changes to your environment may be a better choice than upgrading your entire system to the EMC VNX.

Interested in learning more about the differences between EMC storage products? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to get expert advice and begin discovering new and used EMC storage solutions. Our storage experts are trained to help you get the storage you need at a price you can afford.

Reliant Technology Offers $5,000 for Storage Engineer Referral

Tue, 3 Jan 2012 0:00:00 EST

Reliant Technology is hiring a storage engineer! We’re looking for the best storage engineers who are experienced working with EMC, IBM and/or NetApp storage infrastructure.

Our new storage engineer will have a major impact on a variety of activities at Reliant Technology. He or she will assist the sales team in pre-sales activities such as sizing, architecting, and vetting customer requirements, and will have the opportunity to share their knowledge with customers through awesome educational content.

Reliant is intent on getting the best talent in the industry; therefore, we’re expanding our referral reward program to include you! If the candidate you refer is hired, you’ll receive the $5,000 reward! This program from Reliant will reward anyone (not only our employees) for referring talented employees to our company.

There are 6 simple rules:

Anyone can earn the $5,000 reward! Employee, Colleague, Peer – it doesn’t matter.
The referred candidate must personally know you (of course!) and acknowledge that you sent him/her our way. The referred candidate can note your referral in the space designated on our application.
This reward only applies to full-time Storage Engineer positions in Atlanta, Georgia.
You can either send an email to careers@reliant-technology.com with the candidate’s information, or the candidate can contact us directly and list you as a reference. If we receive multiple introductions for the same candidate, the first email received will win out.
You can be a recruiter, but the $5,000 would be in lieu of any other remuneration you would normally earn with a placement. It would also not construe any ongoing contract for placement with Reliant Technology.
If the candidate you referred is hired at Reliant, you get the $5,000 reward! The $5,000 will be paid out 120 days from the candidate’s start date.

More information about the responsibilities and requirements for this position and details about other available positions can be found on our careers page.

Interested in working at Reliant Technology? Check out the careers page for more details or email careers@reliant-technology.com

Increased Price of EMC Drives Direct Result of Thailand Flooding

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 0:00:00 EST

EMC prices for hard drives are projected to increase by 15% starting January 1, 2012 as a direct result of the flooding in Thailand during this year’s 4th quarter. EMC Vice Chairman Bill Teuber reported the price increase to customers and partners through email last week, reporting that the shortages created by the flooding have driven EMC to increase their prices.

Impact on EMC, Other Enterprises

The price increases associated with EMC drives is not a complete surprise. Teuber stated that EMC absorbed the increased cost of EMC hard drives in the 4th quarter of 2011, but that they will no longer be able to maintain this strategy.

Therefore, starting January 1, EMC will be passing the increased costs on to customers. Prices are expected to rise 15% and will be applied to all EMC product lines. Teuber says that while he cannot predict how long the shortage of EMC drives will last, he anticipates that the EMC price change will be temporary.

While predicted to impact computer hard drives more than enterprise hard drives, it remains to be seen how long the shortages will last. The IDC predicts that supply levels and prices of hard disk drives will return to normal by for the second half of 2012.

Impact on Thailand

While the flood waters continue to recede, Thailand has reduced their economic growth forecast for 2011 to account for the devastating flooding that occurred in the monsoon season in Thailand. The flooding is the worst that Thailand has seen in almost half a century, killing over 400 people and destroying industrial manufacturing plants.

Currently Channel News Asia has reinforced the idea that Thailand should be back to normal by the end of the second fiscal quarter of 2012. Channel News Asia states that that most estimates predict a 3- to 4-month recovery time frame for Thailand’s manufacturing facilities, but it may take several more months for the country’s economic growth to recover.

Interested in new or used EMC drives? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to get expert advice and begin discovering EMC storage solutions during a period of increased drives prices. andnbsp;Our experts will help you develop a cost-effective solution appropriate for your budget.andnbsp;

EMC CLARiiON FAST and FAST Cache for Improved Efficiency

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 0:00:00 EST

With IT budgets shrinking and data growth expanding, doing more with the storage resources you already have is more important than ever. Leveraging the benefits of EMC FAST and FAST Cache can help your enterprise improve your EMC CLARiiON array's efficiency and application performance.

FAST Cache for Application Performance

EMC claims that FAST Cache implementation will improve application performance by up to 200%. If your applications are demanding greater levels of performance, consider implementing FAST Cache to optimize your hardware and accelerate your application performance.

How does FAST Cache work? By creating a secondary cache with Enterprise Flash drives (also known as solid-state drives), your EMC CLARiiON will experience decreased latency and increased I/O performance. The Enterprise Flash drives (SSDs) provide an I/O cache for the most frequently accessed data, providing Flash drive response speeds every time you access that data.

Designed for random I/O workloads, FAST Cache will also help you manage unexpected spikes or bursts in I/O workload. By placing your frequently accessed files on Flash drives, spikes in application workload will be more easily absorbed and improve your overall application performance.

EMC CLARiiON FAST for Improved Storage Array Efficiency

Using FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering) can help your enterprise get the most out of expensive Enterprise Flash drives (SSDs). FAST can help you optimize the storage hardware you already have, saving your IT staff time and money and allowing you to focus on more important tasks.

How does EMC FAST work? FAST moves ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ data to more cost-effective drives to increase the efficiency of the disk drives you already have. ‘Hot’ (frequently used) data is moved to Enterprise Flash drives to increase performance and reduce latency, while ‘cold’ (less frequently used) data is moved to higher capacity EMC SATA drives. The automated usage analysis, created by the Unisphere Interface, saves you time by eliminating the manual workload once associated with storage provisioning.

With FAST working for in your EMC storage array, you can store data more efficiently, improve your EMC CLARiiON performance and effectively use those expensive Enterprise Flash drives to improve your I/O performance.

Looking to improve the efficiency of your EMC CLARiiON array? Talk to a dedicated Reliant Storage Specialist today to discover new and used EMC CLARiiON solutions for your enterprise. Our qualified experts help you get the storage solutions you need at an affordable price.