Input/Output

Era of the all-Flash hyperscale data centre

Thomas Kejser — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:05:39 GMT

Few today would doubt that flash memory is far more efficient than trying to scale performance with the humble disk drive, but the cost of flash has caused many companies to reserve it for enterprise servers hosting their most critical...

Atoms vs Electrons: How flash memory is different from disk

Thomas Kejser — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:59:09 GMT

The debate about flash versus disk has morphed significantly over the past few years. We have now shifted from a discussion on whether flash could even be used in the enterprise, to a conversation on price versus performance, to the...

Big data's big questions and answers

Thomas Kejser — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:12:28 GMT

Big is not a precise word - it depends on perspective. You can hide an army of vagueness behind the word ‘big.’ With the amount of attention the term “big data” has been getting lately, the challenge is trying to...

Convergence's big comeback

Gary Orenstein — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 23:34:48 GMT

Convergence is a buzzword like a cat with nine lives. It’s been around the block and back. With industry leaders like Dell, IBM, HP and Microsoft now offering converged solutions, “convergence” is back in the IT limelight, and the term...

Monty Python and IT innovation

Gary Orenstein — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:52:11 GMT

At the risk of being a little stereotypical, it’s safe to say that many of us techies also happen to be fans of science fiction and smart comedy. Given this crossover, it’s interesting to note that whether urban legend...

Human brains, data centres and performance's split from capacity

Gary Orenstein — Mon, 28 May 2012 11:33:52 GMT

Exploring this shift in our society, CNN recently posted a story on how we’re increasingly using digital devices to augment our mental memories. If you’re like me, you probably only remember a few phone numbers now, much fewer than what...

ROI in a Flash: deploying storage memory in the data centre

Gary Orenstein — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:26:38 GMT

Flash is a hot topic, but what is the value of flash in the data centre? Is the price such that adoption in the enterprise will continue at a rapid pace? Or is it still a niche offering, only to...

Data's two masters - Performance and persistence

Gary Orenstein — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:09:24 GMT

Guest post by Fusion-io senior director Mat YoungToday, data storage has two masters, performance and persistence, and serving both leads to compromise, with performance often finding itself on the short end of the stick. Compromising storage performance causes CPUs to...

Getting the most out of flash's potential

Gary Orenstein — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:19:40 GMT

When we need to book a flight these days, most of us go online and buy a ticket with a few clicks. The era when we had to drive to a travel agent, discuss our plans and pick up a...

Storage's new specialisations

Gary Orenstein — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 01:15:40 GMT

Disk drives and Storage Area Networks (SANs) have long been viewed as a one-size-fits-all solution for performance and storage. But the invention of server-based NAND flash memory has changed the storage landscape, and we are seeing storage evolve into two...