Like many organizations do at this time of year, DCIG takes time to reflect on the past year. As part of doing so, DCIG takes a look at what blog entry topics caught the fancy of people in the past year and, as happens every year, the blog entries that are the most read are a mix of what I expect and what catch me by surprise. This year is no different. So without further ado, here are the Top 10 most read blog entries on DCIG’s site in 2011 with today’s blog entry covering those entries that came in at the numbers 8, 9 and 10 positions.
#10 – Amazon S3 has 187% CAGR; Enterprise Buyer Priorities for Hybrid Cloud by Joshua Konkle. It does not take a genius to figure out that “Cloud” in general and “Cloud Storage” specifically are hot right now. Further, it can arguably be said that Amazon S3 is the grandfather of all of the cloud storage platforms publicly available on the market right now.
However I use the term “grandfather” loosely. Amazon only launched S3 in the United States in March 2006. But even at this time those covering its release saw it as something special. Michael Arrington, writing for TechCrunch, succinctly concludes in his write-up, “This is game changing.”
Now over five years later, we see how right he was though even Arrington probably could not have forecast a combined annual growth rate for Amazon S3 of 187%. Since Amazon S3’s release it has become a foundational component for how companies operate virtually as it gives them an economical option to implement and scale storage resources.
However as cloud storage adoption has taken off, new priorities for cloud storage have emerged that Amazon S3 may or may not address. This blog entry delves into what these eight functional priorities are for enterprises cloud storage consumers, which of these priorities matter to specific individuals within enterprises and lists some cloud storage providers who meet some or all of these new requirements.
#9 – Backing up an Oracle Database – Putting Vendor Backup Software Solutions Under the Microscope by James Koopmann. Oracle databases often contain an organization’s crown jewels by housing their most important data which drives their business. Yet the tools best suited to backing up and recovering Oracle database are rarely given the same attention as Oracle itself.
As this blog entry points out, there are a lot of considerations to backing up an Oracle database. Should organizations use Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) to do so? Should they develop their own scripts in-house? Or should they be using a third party backup software product that is specifically designed to do Oracle backups? Then if you do want to use a third party backup software product, which product should you use?
It is for the reasons stated in this blog entry and the high visibility that this blog entry had on DCIG’s site in 2011 that DCIG released a Buyer’s Guide on Oracle Backup Software Solutions. While there are many enterprise backup software products on the market, only a subset of them are really well-tuned to backup and recover Oracle providing the necessary features that Oracle admins need to turn the backup of Oracle from a chore into a routine and manageable task.
#8 – StoreOnce Algorithm is HP’s First Step Toward Delivering Deduplication Unification by David Lee Cummings. Deduplication and disk-based backup have become almost inextricably linked over the past 5+ years. However what is getting overlooked is that as deduplication becomes more pervasive, using different techniques to deduplicate data at the host, media server and/or target level creates new sets of management challenges that that include wasted storage capacity and network bandwidth.
To address this, in 2010 HP Storage announced its vision of a single deduplication algorithm that would be used across its entire portfolio of products so that enterprises could centrally manage deduplication that was implemented as efficiently and effectively as possible across the enterprise.
In that vein, this blog entry from April 2011 looks at HP’s new D2D4324 Backup System as well some of the enhancements to the StoreOnce deduplication algorithm. These enhancements facilitate modularity in its deduplication solution as well as make it mobile from one HP platform to another.
Check back next week to find out what were the remaining top 10 most read blog entries on DCIG’s site in 2011 plus I will also share some other blog entries that achieved the status of “Honorable Mention” as these generated a lot of interest but not quite enough to make the Top 10.
Have a Merry Christmas!
12/28/2011 Update – The blog entry announcing the blog entries that achieved positions #4 – #7 in DCIG’s Top 10 for 2011 is now published and may be viewed here.
01/04/2012 Update – The blog entry announcing the blog entries
that achieved positions #1 – #3 in DCIG’s Top 10 for 2011 is now
published and may be viewed here.