Enterprise storage: New storage helpers

Here are some technologies that can help you meet the new demands for enterprise storage.

E-mail archiving

E-mail archives could prove to be less of a headache than forcing systems that were not designed with e-discovery in mind to handle that function. Options include systems from EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Mimosa Systems and Symantec, in addition to hosted services from Dell, Google’s Postini and Proofpoint’s Fortiva.

Deduplication

Deduplication products root out redundant data and help ease the backup demands on virtual servers. This technology can be sold as software or embedded in a specialized appliance or storage device, such as a virtual tape library. Deduplication can occur on the backup storage device or the computer that generates the backup stream.

Massive Array of Idle Disks

Massive Array of Idle Disks contributes to green information technology efforts because the drives don’t turn on until someone accesses the data, although they might also turn on for diagnostic purposes. Vendors include Copan Systems, Fujitsu and Nexsan Technologies. Will Layton, co-founder of Copan, said customers can slash power consumption by 85 percent by using MAID.

Cloud storage

A number of service providers host storage at their own facilities for customers who want to get off the capacity treadmill. Cloud storage offerings include Amazon’s Simple Storage Service and Microsoft’s Azure Services Platform, which is available as a Community Technology Preview. Google, which already provides storage for applications such as Gmail, is rumored to be preparing an online storage service named GDrive.