Data centers have changed quite a bit since pizza boxes reigned supreme. We replaced those servers with virtualization, reducing our physical footprint and utilizing more of the CPUs and memory. Next came the idea of fully tested systems in the form of converged infrastructure: making sure different components of compute, storage and networking worked well…

Often, I hear people talk about hyperconverged infrastructure as though it’s still an emerging, almost experimental solution. But the reality is that many organizations have deployed hyperconvergence — which combines storage, computing and networking into a single system — for years. As these organizations have learned, HCI can have a significant impact on their IT…

Many enterprises know and understand the role and the associated benefits an integrated managed services partner can bring to their IT functions — but what about mid-market organizations, those maybe not sure how to evaluate and measure the benefits of managed services partnerships? Many IT managers and leaders are struggling with this quandary today —…

Like their peers in other industries, state and local IT leaders are interested in modernization, but budget constraints often stand in the way. In my experience working with government agencies, many organizations wait five years or even longer to upgrade their data center infrastructures. One obvious consequence of maintaining this legacy infrastructure is suboptimal performance….

In the past decade, organizations across all industries have come to realize that new technologies and methodologies can eliminate many of the management challenges that have traditionally been a part of supporting email and other applications. Today, the same thing is happening with storage, computing and networking. While cloud software has streamlined software support, technologies…

It’s been about three years since NetApp bought SolidFire, a maker of all-flash storage systems for data center applications. The acquisition was part of NetApp’s new Data Fabric strategy, which promised to simplify management across on-premises and cloud resources. Today, that work is paying off for organizations looking to transform their data environments with hyperconverged…