One of the things that weigh on an IT director’s mind is how he/she can keep up with their company’s growth in the data center. These areas include server growth, application growth, bandwidth and network growth, and just as important, data growth.  In addition, how do they keep all that up with limited budget, both from a CapEx and OpEx perspective? 

In the real world, the amount of money spent dictates scalability, because as the items I mentioned grow within the data center and beyond, the cost grows at an accelerated rate.  The reason is because every piece of hardware/infrastructure added affects the growth of the network, storage, server capacity, resource utilization, etc.  It’s like the ripple effect of tossing a pebble into a still pond.   This makes real-life scalability follow the red line in the graph below.  What the green line represents is if the cost per added data center piece always stayed the same, and...

Pushing the Life Expectancy of Media Servers; Saving or Costing you Money? 

Are you “penny wise, pound foolish” with your servers? This expression came to mind from a recent IDC report1, Server Refresh Cycles:  The Costs of Extending Life Cycles1. The article stresses that “extending the life of servers too long can lead to an increase in operational expenses that could pay for investments in new technology.” In other words, spend the money to invest in a new server, and it will pay for itself from the increased operational costs that you avoid keeping your current servers up and running.  While the report addresses x86 servers, I thought it was very relevant to backup media servers and Symantec Backup Appliances. It highlights the benefits of the timely refresh of servers and costs of delay. Let’s examine how this applies to backup media servers and how Symantec Backup Appliances can provide additional...

Symantec, the world leader in backup and recovery, provides customers the freedom of choice. With NetBackup and Backup Exec, customers are able to choose the form factor to best meet their needs; a software based solution or a fully integrated appliance. Either choice, the #1 backup solution is delivered in the form factor best suited for the customer’s environment.      

An appliance is a fully integrated device; all of the necessary hardware, software, and components are installed and tested in a single platform. Today, appliances are often taken for granted because they are built with industry standard components, and assembled through qualify processes. Consumers expect the appliance to work out-of-the box, and they do.  However, an equally, and sometimes more important consideration is if it is integrable into your existing environment. Does the appliance easily install and interact with your existing infrastructure? Or does it...