Storage Automation « Torsten Volk

The Software-Defined Datacenter: Part 3 of 4 – Questions and Battlefields

posted by Torsten Volk | September 24, 2012 | 0 Comments

The Software Defined Datacenter spurs many debates

After talking about the “grand vision” of the Software Defined Datacenter (SDD) in part 1 of this series and discussing the individual components required to build out the SDD in part 2, this third part will be all about the three core challenges and controversies: Blades vs. Pizza Boxes The miniaturized design of blade servers,...

Posted in Business Service Management, Cloud Administration, IT Service Management, Storage Automation, Storage Virtualization, Systems Management Tags: Blade server, Cisco, Cisco Systems, Cloud Computing, OpenStack, VCloud, VMware

The Software-Defined Datacenter: Part 2 of 4 – Core Components

posted by Torsten Volk | August 22, 2012 | 0 Comments

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In part 1 of this series of four posts, we examined the grand vision of the software-defined datacenter (SDD). In this second post of the series, we will take a look at the core components of the SDD (see Figure 1) and provide a brief evaluation of how mature these components currently are. Figure 1...

Posted in Cloud Administration, IT Service Management, Storage Automation, Storage Virtualization, Systems Management Tags: automation, Cloud, network virtualization, SDD, SDN, Software Defined DataCenter, storage hypervisor, storage virtualization

A Collaborative Journey to the Cloud

posted by Torsten Volk | August 1, 2012 | 0 Comments

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When I picked “The Journey to the Cloud” as the working title for one of my fall research projects, I triggered some immediate reactions from colleagues and customers, whose opinions I value. And while I typically do not place too much importance on selecting a working title and also did not intend to just warm...

Posted in Cloud Administration, IT Service Management, Storage Automation, Storage Virtualization, Systems Management, Uncategorized Tags: Amazon, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Cloud Computing, Customer, Research

From File Share to ownCloud, Dropbox and RES HyperDrive

posted by Torsten Volk | April 11, 2012 | 0 Comments

money burger

I was sitting in a plane recently, pulling out my iPad to enjoy one of my colleague’s excellent publications. After clicking the Dropbox icon, I noticed that I forgot to bookmark the actual document, so it did not replicate to the iPad. This rather annoying experience made me think about how far we have come...

Posted in Storage Automation, Storage Virtualization, Systems Management, Uncategorized Tags: Dropbox, FileNet, iPad, iPhone, Microsoft, Microsoft SharePoint, ownCloud, Personal computer, RES Software

IBM Pulse 2012: Visibility – Control – Automation

posted by Torsten Volk | March 28, 2012 | 0 Comments

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Every March, IBM invites customers and analysts to its annual Pulse user conference. This year, Pulse was all about the more efficient delivery of IT services, a concept that is usually referred to as “cloud”. Since cloud has developed into a term that, due to its overuse, is often frowned upon, to say the least,...

Posted in Business Service Management, Cloud Administration, IT Service Management, Storage Automation, Storage Virtualization, Systems Management, Uncategorized Tags: Cloud Computing, IBM, Information Technology Infrastructure Library, Pulse, SmartCloud, Tivoli, Tivoli Service Automation Manager, Tivoli Usage

Diskless VDI: Resolving the VDI Storage Cost Bottleneck

posted by Torsten Volk | February 8, 2012 | 0 Comments

VDI Expenditure

Why pay $1,500 per virtual desktop, if you can have a physical machine of the same performance-level at half the cost. While the functional and maintenance advantages of virtual desktop computing are evident, the per machine CAPEX often is the key stumbling block for this type of project. It is very hard to convince your...

Posted in Storage Automation, Storage Virtualization, Systems Management Tags: Atlantis Computing, Atlantis ILIO, Capital expenditure, Cisco Systems, IOPS, Virtual machine

Innovation in Enterprise IT

posted by Torsten Volk | January 3, 2012 | 0 Comments

Innovation in Enterprise IT

A friend of mine recently asked why I am even still interested in enterprise computing when all the innovation is happening within the consumer electronics sector. Smartphones, tablet computers, e-book readers, and audio streaming devices have changed the way we live our daily lives. Now that I read the NYTimes on my iPad, I get...

Posted in Storage Automation, Storage Virtualization, Systems Management, Workload Automation Tags: Atlantis Computing, Business transaction management, Cloud Computing, Desktop virtualization, Embotics, Quest Software, RES Software, Workload automation

Welcome

posted by Torsten Volk | October 31, 2011 | 0 Comments

Welcome to my Blog on the latest trends in systems management. In this Blog, I will look at systems management from a business process perspective. The initial focus will lie on server virtualization management, cloud systems management and workload automation. Within this context, I will analyze and try to quantify the efficiency gains that the...

Posted in Business Service Management, Cloud Administration, IT Service Management, Servier Virtualization, Storage Automation, Storage Virtualization, Systems Management, Workload Automation