The allure of client virtualization is the promise that it can deliver a robust corporate desktop experience to any user at any time or place using any device. The reality is that to date client virtualization deployments pretty much required rocket scientists to configure, implement and manage them, especially when it came to the underlying storage architectures upon which they are based. (read more)

When it comes to hosting Microsoft Exchange 2010, small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) have many if not all of the same performance requirements of a storage system that hosts Exchange that large enterprises have. What these smaller companies do not possess are the deep pockets that enterprises have and which are typically needed to acquire such a storage system. Using the latest midrange HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 storage system, these organizations can get the storage performance attributes that they need while staying within their budget constraints. (read more)

Enterprises are looking for better returns on IT investments, including dramatically increasing the ability to respond to changing business requirements. They want cloud service provider-like flexibility, performance, and security even when they don't have service provider-sized budgets. (read more)

More enterprises than ever are ready to take the next step in their virtualization journey by virtualizing mission critical applications such as Microsoft Exchange 2010. Yet taking Exchange 2010 virtual in enterprise environments involves much more than simply hosting Exchange on a powerful server and then hoping that the underlying storage is up to the challenge. (read more)

Fitting "enterprise" storage systems into small and midsized businesses (SMBs) requires they deliver all of the features without the up-front capital or ongoing management costs. To date, that has rarely been the case with SMBs either needing to make trade-offs in cost or ease of use to get the storage system they need. That changed earlier this month with HP's introduction of its HP StoreEasy and StoreVirtual that bring into SMBs the storage system efficiency, security, reliability and availability once previously only reserved for enterprise storage products. (read more)

Many businesses are allocating a portion of their IT budgets to Big Data analytics projects. At the same time, a certain amount of technology spending is necessarily tied to risk management and compliance because a failure to meet minimum eDiscovery and legal hold requirements can have disastrous consequences. While these twin priorities often compete for funding, it is now possible for an enterprise to adopt a single core technology to address both their data analytics and compliance requirements and double their bang for the buck in the process. (read more)

Virtual storage appliances (VSAs) are emerging as an ideal way for small and midsized businesses (SMBs) to keep their storage hardware costs under control while retaining the benefits that networked storage systems have to offer. But as VSA offerings proliferate, determining which vendor's VSA solution is the right one for an SMB to adopt becomes more difficult. Helping to make that decision easier is the latest series of enhancements that HP adds to its StoreVirtual VSA making it arguably the best VSA solution available today. (read more)

In the last few years deduplication and backup have become almost inseparable. Yet where a large degree of separation still exists is in how deduplication is implemented with different deduplication techniques implemented at various stages in the backup process. Dedupe 2.0 promises to fix this jumbled approach to deduplication but to fix it, there first has to be someone delivering it. HP's new StoreOnce Catalyst release starts to introduce some order in today's backup process by doing more than simply delivering on its Dedupe 2.0 vision. It potentially gives organizations some hours back in their day as well. (read more)

The allure of client virtualization is increasing in the eyes of enterprise organizations. Aside from its obvious benefits of eliminating the management headaches and upgrade cycles of corporate desktops and laptops, organizations can better meet the growing demands of employees who want to bring their own devices (BYOD) to access corporate networks. However client virtualization can result in enterprises simply swapping one set of problems for another unless organizations first assess what their requirements are so they may put a solution in place with the right framework for their environment. (read more)

New found agility, reduced CAPEX and OPEX and centralized IT infrastructure management are driving the adoption of private clouds. But as organizations enter them their dark side of management complexities becomes more plainly seen. This is where HP's heightened integration with Microsoft Systems Center 2012 with its Virtual Machine Manager component comes into play. (read more)