The History of Flash in a Flash

August 28, 2012

Image representing Fusion-io as depicted in Cr...

Image via CrunchBase

Many people don’t know that flash isn’t really all that new. While it’s only gained popularity in the past decade, flash was invented more than 25 years ago to be used as a new form of memory. Over the years though, developers instead implemented it as storage because flash memory is persistent, like disk drives.

The history of flash is so interesting, our team at Fusion-io wanted to share a bit of it with the world. So we created this whiteboard video to show how flash has changed the world we live in and is now powering the digital age. Along the way, we also reveal the secrets behind the Fusion ioMemory difference.

So take a few minutes and learn how flash is powering both sides of the Internet, how you can unlock its true potential, and how it’s changing the world.


More Data, More Problems? Enterprise Data Protection in the Era of Big Data

July 2, 2012

The explosion of data available today has been both a blessing and a curse to enterprises in all verticals. The ability to collect, store, mine, and analyze huge quantities of data has changed the way that companies do business, providing a competitive advantage to those companies that can best leverage their big data. According to a report by Mckinsey Global Institute, “a retailer using big data to the full could increase its operating margin by more than 60 percent.” Such an advantage is hard to ignore. Yet the increased storage and use of this data increases the complexity associated with securing that data.

As concerns around data security grow apace with the adoption of big data mentality, some companies struggle to find the balance between collecting enough data to compete and ensuring that their business is not threatened by the likelihood of a compromise. Data protection remains a vitally important element. In fact as more data is collected and stored, data protection should become a more prominent concern for enterprises.

Big data can contain many different categories of sensitive data – customer data, corporate information, and even intellectual property. The vast majority of the data is in semi-structured or unstructured format. Both the quantity and the structure of the data bring with it concerns about security and close on its heels, performance. However, performance doesn’t need to be an issue when considering theencryption of big data. Technological innovations, such as IBM’s AES-NI, can help companies have their data and use it, too.

 

What’s Everyone Looking At? Varonis® DatAdvantage® Tells You

April 18, 2012

On your network what is everyone looking at, do they have permissions they shouldn’t and where is all your credit card data stored and who can see it? These questions and many more can be answered by C24.

For more information please contact us at http://www.c24.co.uk


When it comes to backup, recovery is key

March 20, 2012

When it comes to the cloud backup of data, it seems that we’re constantly bombarded by technologies, speeds and feeds, expensive and low cost solutions, and who’s best out there. We all know backup is important, but sometimes I think that because backup is such a main focus for so many vendors, we often forget WHY we backup in the first place. (So now everyone is saying, “to recover data you idiot.” Keep reading…)

When we look at the SMB space, we’re typically looking at an IT staff of one or two people. These people are also heavily over tasked, and backup is just one of the unglamorous and mundane tasks that has to be done. Not only is the IT staff heavily over tasked, more often than not they’re constantly juggling a “break and fix” solution because of being heavily under budgeted. So at 5:00pm every day, IT has to go into the server room/wiring closet and put in today’s backup tape in hopes that a successful backup is completed by the morning. Sounds simple enough right?

Now, everyone’s entitled to a little time away from work now and again. This is where everything that is bad that can happen, WILL. Now that our faithful IT person is away, this usually gets delegated over to the office manager. Prior to taking vacation, there is a quick meeting that takes place to show our office manager where the tapes are, and what to do on a daily basis in order to get our daily backup done.

Unfortunately what that IT person FAILS to do is show our office manager how to RECOVER data and systems should they need to. Doesn’t it make sense that a backup is useless if we can’t recover from it? So how does showing our office manager how to backup protect the business from downtime should there be a data or system loss event? IT DOESN’T! What if our IT person was out for an entire week and the company lost their Exchange, SQL or other critical server on the first day with nobody having the competency to restore it? The company won’t close down until it’s restored, but how are we expected to continue operations?

I hope that if you’ve gotten this far in this story your head is nodding in agreement to some degree.

Now, let’s look at this exact same scenario if our IT staff from the same SMB Company offloaded the mundane task of backup to a service provider. There would be no need to worry about that tape at 5:00pm every day. No need to hope and pray for a successful backup job to be completed the next morning as our service provider monitors this on our behalf. No need to worry about having to go and ask for capital budget because we have out-dated backup hardware. No need to worry about going on vacation (and yes, IT guys worry about things going wrong when they go on vacation), and no need to train non-technical staff to perform technical operations that effectively don’t serve much of a purpose in the absence of the IT people to begin with.

While that IT person is enjoying their vacation, should there be any data loss, or system outage, our trusted service provider is available 24×7  for anyone in your organization to call to enlist their help to recover (yes, they provide those type of SLA’s for you!).The best part of all of this is that it’s all rolled into a low cost monthly service.

If you’re ready to alleviate the pressure on your internal IT staff, please visit www.c24.co.uk


Data storage is on everyones mind

March 15, 2012

According to Gartner in 2010, 47% of enterprise survey respondents ranked data growth in their top three challenges. The steady growth in the pace of file creation and systems to save all of those files shows no hint of a slowdown.

In 1986, only 1% of data was stored digitally. In 2007, it was 94%. Enterprises are storing 7 exabytes of data and consumers, 6 exabytes. And while individuals generate 75% of the information in the digital universe, enterprises have some liability for 80% of information in the digital universe at some point in its digital life.

Take a look at this infographic that illustrates some interesting statistics about data growth and how it’s being stored. We also define the various technologies you can use for data storage from cloud to dedicated. Hopefully it gets you thinking about what you or your company is doing when it comes to data storage. If you need to address your data issues please contact us for advice.


C24 becomes HP AllianceONE Partner

October 24, 2011

C24 are proud to announce that they have become an HP AllianceONE partner. The AllianceONE is a comprehensive partner program focused on HP’s Converged Infrastructure strategy of providing a shared services model to deliver secure, best-in-class applications. Achieving this partner accerditation underlines our C24′s commitment to delivering best-in-class solutions for our clients both present and future commented David Ricketts Head Of Marketing C24.

 


When it comes to backup, recovery is key

October 5, 2011

When it comes to the cloud backup of data, it seems that we’re constantly bombarded by technologies, speeds and feeds, expensive and low cost solutions, and who’s best out there. We all know backup is important, but sometimes I think that because backup is such a main focus for so many vendors, we often forget WHY we backup in the first place. (So now everyone is saying, “to recover data you idiot.” Keep reading…)

When we look at the SMB space, we’re typically looking at an IT staff of one or two people. These people are also heavily over tasked, and backup is just one of the unglamorous and mundane tasks that has to be done. Not only is the IT staff heavily over tasked, more often than not they’re constantly juggling a “break and fix” solution because of being heavily under budgeted. So at 5:00pm every day, IT has to go into the server room/wiring closet and put in today’s backup tape in hopes that a successful backup is completed by the morning. Sounds simple enough right?

Now, everyone’s entitled to a little time away from work now and again. This is where everything that is bad that can happen, WILL. Now that our faithful IT person is away, this usually gets delegated over to the office manager. Prior to taking vacation, there is a quick meeting that takes place to show our office manager where the tapes are, and what to do on a daily basis in order to get our daily backup done.

Unfortunately what that IT person FAILS to do is show our office manager how to RECOVER data and systems should they need to. Doesn’t it make sense that a backup is useless if we can’t recover from it? So how does showing our office manager how to backup protect the business from downtime should there be a data or system loss event? IT DOESN’T! What if our IT person was out for an entire week and the company lost their Exchange, SQL or other critical server on the first day with nobody having the competency to restore it? The company won’t close down until it’s restored, but how are we expected to continue operations?

I hope that if you’ve gotten this far in this story your head is nodding in agreement to some degree.

Now, let’s look at this exact same scenario if our IT staff from the same SMB Company offloaded the mundane task of backup to a service provider. There would be no need to worry about that tape at 5:00pm every day. No need to hope and pray for a successful backup job to be completed the next morning as our service provider monitors this on our behalf. No need to worry about having to go and ask for capital budget because we have out-dated backup hardware. No need to worry about going on vacation (and yes, IT guys worry about things going wrong when they go on vacation), and no need to train non-technical staff to perform technical operations that effectively don’t serve much of a purpose in the absence of the IT people to begin with.

While that IT person is enjoying their vacation, should there be any data loss, or system outage, our trusted service provider is available 24×7 for anyone in your organization to call to enlist their help to recover (yes, they provide those type of SLA’s for you!).The best part of all of this is that it’s all rolled into a low cost monthly service.


The Storage Problem You Can’t Ignore?

July 6, 2011

It’s not news that storage is swamping IT budgets. Our 2011 InformationWeek Analytics State of Storage Survey shows the amount of actively managed storage expanding at around 20% per year. In our practice, we work with a few companies dealing with growth levels in excess of 50%. At this rate, most data centers double storage capacity requirements every two to three years. And as employees start using multiple mobile devices and consumer applications for work, that estimate could be conservative.

In our first InformationWeek Analytics Public Cloud Storage Survey, fielded in April, 59% of respondents using, planning to adopt, or assessing public cloud storage services called out email as the application most responsible for storage growth, followed by increasing demand from new or planned applications (58%). Seventy-six percent said they’re somewhat or very concerned about storage costs, and most CIOs we speak with insist they’re actively seeking to reduce those expenditures while still keeping data available. So you can imagine our surprise that, when asked exactly what they’re spending per gigabyte, nearly half our survey respondents said they have no clue. They have data retention policies, but enforcement is all over the map. When we asked about strategies that could lower storage costs, we got a virtual yawn: Just 10% plan to use external storage services within the next two years. Only half are taking advantage of storage virtualization. Sixty-one percent either make do with the management tools provided by their storage vendors (53%) or don’t actively manage storage resources at all (8%).

To view full article visit: http://eddblogonline.blogspot.com/2011/06/storage-problem-you-cant-ignore.html

Thanks to ediscovery news as well.

If you need to address your storage issues, C24 are experts at on premise and cloud based storage and are currently helpding countless organisations address this ever growing problem. For more information visit www.c24.co.uk


Cloud Backup Leader Asigra Introduces Latest Model

June 6, 2011

Asigra, a leading cloud backup recovery and restore (BURR) software provider since 1986, is bringing a lot of firsts to the market with its latest offering. Today, the company introduced the Asigra Cloud Backup v11 with Cloud BURR industry firsts including: data protection of handheld devices, including tablets and smartphones; the first multi-tenanted client to reduce dramatically management resources; and the industry’s only automated cloud license server.

The new software also takes the title as the first enterprise-class cloud backup platform to protect the entire digital footprint, including storage, servers, desktops, and laptops; to provide data recovery and restore assurance (R2A) for consumers, and to establish new performance benchmarks.

“Our CEO back in 1986 lost his data and he was looking for a solution that would provide in his mind recovery assurance,” Ashar Baig, senior director of product marketing, told TMCnet in a recent interview about why Asigra’s new version was introduced. “Since then, we’ve used this term a lot called R2A which is recovery, restore, assurance, which means that the data is always going to be restored back to you.

” Asigra Cloud Backup v11 offers a variety of benefits including the fact that it will become an industry-first SMB and enterprise-wide cloud backup, recovery and restoration support for tablets and smart phones for end-to-end protection of the digital footprint.

This expanded support allows rollback to any point across any device to meet recovery point and recovery time objectives (RPO/RTO), according to company officials. The Apple App Store, Android (News – Alert) Market and Amazon Appstore now carry Asigra’s mobile backup app. In addition, the latest Asigra version guarantees that it will make good on its promise to return lost data, unlike other consumer backup solutions.

“Lots of consumer backup solutions out in the marketplace provide unlimited backup but they don’t provide recovery assurance that your data is going to be recoverable,” Baig said. “There’s no reason to back up the data if you are not going to be able to recover it so the one thing we do on the enterprise class is we offer R2A.

Our software does five things in the background to make sure that your data are recoverable.” Among those things are data integrity checks– data corruption checks and restore validation.

Other highlights of version 11 include an automated Asigra world-class cloud license server which provides the industry’s highest level of management automation of any cloud backup solution for service providers and end-users; a comprehensive and intuitive Web-based command center that provides complete visibility, control and management of the entire Asigra environment; up to 400 percent performance improvement; and support for 10 Gbps LAN interfaces on storage hardware, network switches and servers.

Moreover, the internal Asigra processes have been improved to handle much faster data read/writes. “How organizations protect their data is increasingly determined by user-driven trends, such as the integration of mobile devices in business environments,” David Farajun, CEO of Asigra, said in a statement. “The launch of version 11 reaffirms our commitment to overcoming the challenges of today’s evolving IT environment by providing the finest technology available to meet the needs of our customers. There simply isn’t a better end-to-end data protection solution in the world.”

Asigra Cloud Backup v11 provides a “simple, single, adaptable, and flexible” cloud BURR platform for end-to-end data protection – from handhelds to distributed data centers, according to company officials. The version offers data protection for Apple (News – Alert) iOS devices such as the iPad, iPod, and iPhone and Google Android–based tablets and smartphones.

“It will be important for IT professionals to deploy comprehensive backup and recovery strategies if they hope to reduce the staff requirements, capital expense and operational inefficiencies of managing multiple islands of data protection in the enterprise,” Dave Russell, research vice president for Gartner (News – Alert), said in a statement.

“Cloud backup, recovery and restore providers that deliver more holistic solutions will see their message resonate rapidly with the growing number of organizations plagued by backup challenges.” Added Baig, “We have 400,000 end customer sites that are protected by Asigra. We have been in business 25 years. But of all these end customer sites if anyone ever initiated a restore their data was always restored to them. That’s a very powerful statement to make in this day and age.”

Carrie Schmelkin is a Web Editor for TMCnet. Previously, she worked as Assistant Editor at the New Canaan Advertiser, a 102-year-old weekly newspaper, covering news and enhancing the publication’s social media initiatives. Carrie holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a bachelor’s degree in English from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Article source: http://it.tmcnet.com/channels/cloud-communications/articles/182569-cloud-backup-leader-asigra-introduces-latest-model.htm


Questions that you need to ask when evaluating a backup and recovery provider

May 25, 2011

Trust that Everything Will Work Well Together

Is a stand-alone backup service provider okay for my business or do I need more integrated services?

Does the service provider offer supplementary services that may help me build an integrated data protection plan e.g. antivirus expertise, data cleaning, hardware life-cycle management, etc?

 •What priority will the service provider give my business if their other customers are hit by a data crisis at the same time e.g. a massive virus attack?

 • Do they demonstrate a high level of discipline when it comes to data protection e.g. do they support and encourage disaster Recovery Drills?

How personal is their service?

  • Too big to care about my company during a crisis?
  • Too small to respond quickly during a crisis?
  • Does the service provider care enough to appraise my existing operations and hardware as part of an overall data protection plan?

Does the vendor consider the bandwidth limitations of my ISP? Does the service provider understand my business?

• The needs of my business and how the solution must address those needs both currently and in the future.

Does the service provider fully understand:

  • The backup and recovery challenges I am now experiencing?
  • My current data volumes and growth?
  • Operating systems I currently run and how this may change in the future?
  • My Recovery Time Objectives?
  • My Recovery Point Objectives?
  • My IT staffing and competence levels?
  • How they can help me lower my operational and management costs?

•Is the vendor transparent about everything?

•Will they provide contacts so I can ask questions of their existing customers?

•Have any of their customers ever com¬plained about hidden fees or surprise charges?

•Will they allow me to see the platform storage facility and its security?

If I have customers that are dependent on my system security, will the vendor also allow them to see the platform storage facility and its security?

•My computer has been stolen. Will they and can they provide a loaner until I can replace mine?


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