Well, it has been about 3 days or so since I have returned from VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) in Las Vegas, and to be honest, there still hasn’t been enough time to fully digest all of what I took in while at the conference. At the same time, I thought it would be a ...

VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) is the premier industry event geared towards accelerating partners’ businesses in Cloud computing. There were hundreds of technical sessions, exhibitors, demos and boot camps. EMC’s partner boot camp was standing room only. Chad Sakac (@sakacc) kicked things off with a fantastic two hour keynote highlighting the latest EMC and VMware solutions ...

When I was younger, I believed chronicling the past was far simpler than predicting the future. Little did I know that “history” means “incessant squabbling over what really happened in the past” (did you know there are multiple active magazines about the American Civil War?). On the other hand, people very rarely check on the ...

Calling all partners! VMware Partner Exchange (PEX) 2012 Feb 12 -16 in Las Vegas offers a fantastic conference to accelerate your business and learn how VMware and VMware Partners solutions can transform your customers’ data centers for new levels of efficiencies and cost savings. Don’t gamble by missing this conference – register today! A few ...

It’s that time of year again, and, no, I’m not talking about the time to make resolutions. You should have already done that. (And if you’re surprised that it’s 2012, put down the DLT IV tape cartridge, turn off the Chumbawamba CD and walk outside.) It’s the time of year when bloggers use the “reflections ...

I don’t know about you, but I have a love/hate relationship with New Years. I love it because we’re given a blank slate (of sorts). I hate it because with the blank slate comes certain expectations. And from a professional standpoint, since the timing of New Year’s doesn’t necessarily align with the start of the ...

Every Moo Down in Moo-ville Liked tape backups a lot… But the Grinch, Who lived just north of Moo-ville, Did NOT! The Grinch hated tape backups! He considered it treason! Now, some might ask why. But there’s not just one reason. It could be that he hated working all through the night. It could be, ...

I am sleeping much better lately, but that’s because I recently purchased a new mattress. We all know a good night’s sleep is critical for good health and a productive mind. But, as much as I would like to believe that getting a new mattress will solve all your sleeping woes, the reality is unless ...

Do you remember the anticipation of the conclusion of the serialized stories you loved best? Maybe you waited with breathless anticipation for Harry Potter to finally defeat Lord Voldemort, for Luke Skywalker to defeat the Empire or to find out whether Michael Knight and KITT could save the day in any of the Knight Rider ...

Greetings from Europe! I had a bit of an unusual experience the other day.  I was the first one into a conference room and on one of the chairs was a life jacket. No explanation – just sitting there. Of course, I found it a funny commentary on some of the meetings we have at ...

They can send a man to the moon and millions of phone calls across a fiber optic strand the width of a human hair, so why is it so difficult to backup/recover data on desktop and laptop PCs? Increasing amounts of unstructured data, ubiquitous wireless networks and a growing mobile workforce means lots of remote ...

  Greetings from Europe!  In my first posting, I wanted to add to The Backup Window conversation by highlighting some recent customer experiences in Europe. Like other parts of the world, customers from Europe, the Middle East and Africa trust EMC for backup, recovery and disaster recovery for data and applications.  It’s one thing for ...

Previously on “The Backup Window,” I had described a scene that would rival a classic 1960s Batman cliffhanger. I was desperately trying to get my daughter dressed for church, so I could save my donut from the clutches of some Joker. Backup administrators tried to solve the Riddler’s question, “How can I protect all my ...

EMC backup and recovery has had an exciting year of announcements and we’re not done yet. In January, we delivered Data Domain systems that established new performance benchmarks that remain standing today.  In April, IDC released a study that shows the Purpose Built Backup Appliance market is growing at 16.6% CAGR and that EMC is ...

In my last post, we took a look at the results of running Data Domain Boost on an application server versus on a storage node in a 2TB Exchange 2010 mailbox environment. The results painted a very pretty backup picture, showing a significant reduction in the backup window (i.e., the time it took to complete the ...

The issue isn’t how fast your tape drives are, but how fast you can get to the data when you need it. Tape has always provided the most inexpensive, yet accessible, storage available for batch backups, disaster recovery, and long-term archives, but it has had its limitations (e.g., issues with mechanical components wearing down over ...

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how Changed Block Tracking (CBT) can improve the efficiency of VMware backup, but what is it all about really? How does CBT differ from deduplication? Are the two technologies complementary? Do I need both? A quick definition… Let’s start with a quick definition. CBT is a new ...

In a recent post, EMC product marketing manager Caitlin Moore highlighted the important benefits of Data Domain’s integration with EMC Avamar and EMC NetWorker. But if you’re like me words are great, but demos are even better! You see, I’m a numbers kind of guy. So, with this in mind, I want to share some ...

A recent market analysis report from IDC shines a bright spotlight on the rapidly growing PBBA market. And while PBBA doesn’t roll off the tongue like PB&J quite yet, it has all the signs of becoming just as much a popular favorite – well, at least among IT folks. Just consider the IDC stats/projections about ...

I spend a lot of time talking to people about Avamar. I think it is a great application that pretty radically reinvents backup architectures. It does so many things well, and has consistently been ahead of the curve in terms of delivering advanced backup technologies. For example, Avamar was one of the first to market ...