Monday, July 18, 2011

NetApp SnapProtect Management Software

SnapProtect software can help meet backup windows and rapidly restore data while reducing administrative costs. With its single management console, you can create, catalog, and manage application-aware Snapshot copies across disk-to-disk-to-tape. It uses Snapshot copies that have
very little impact on production operations, so you can back up more often, reduce backup
windows, and minimize the risk of data loss.
NetApp high-speed Snapshot copies consume less capacity than traditional backups and lower your costs through the use of NetApp storage efficiency technologies including deduplication, compression, and thin replication.
Some key points of SnapProtect are:
·         Shrinks backup window with NetApp Snapshot copies and replication.
·         Minimizes downtime and data loss with application awareness and virtualization.
·         Cuts costs and reduce storage usage up to 90%
·         Recovers, literally in minutes, with fully cataloged snapshot copies.
·         Simplification, with one console for snapshot copies, replication and tape.

HP Vertica Analytics System

The new HP Vertica Analytics System is purpose-built to help companies extract value from big data at the speed and scale they need to thrive in today's economy.
HP combines the Vertica Analytics Platform with HP Converged Infrastructure in a unique appliance, to help customers analyze large amounts of complex data in physical, virtual, and cloud environments, all in real-time. With this capability, customers can quickly gain critical business insights and make faster, more effective decisions.
Some of the key features are :
Real-time analytics
·         Real-time query and loading to capture the time value of data
·         Native columnar storage and execution for up to 1000x faster query performance
·         Aggressive data compression enables up to one Petabyte database in a single rack
Agile environment
·         MPP (Massively Parallel Processing) architecture for linear scale out on low-cost industry standard servers
·         Automatic high availability for non-stop operation with automatic redundancy, failover and recovery
·         Seamless integration with ecosystem of analytics solutions
Faster time to value
·         Built on HP Converged Infrastructure—optimized at every layer of the solution
·         Appliance delivery model for rapid deployment
·         Minimal setup and configuration for optimized performance

For more details , visit : HP Vertica Analytics System - Solution Brief

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

VMware vShield Product Family

VMware vShield family provides a single comprehensive framework that secures virtual data centers and cloud environments at all levels – host, network, application, data and end point and integrates with VMware vCenter Server.
It reduces the complexity of endpoint, application and edge network security by consolidating your security infrastructure.  vShield works seamlessly with existing enterprise IT security measures through REST APIs.    Adaptive security travels with virtual machines as they migrate from host to host providing secure support for virtual machines in dynamic cloud environments.
The vShield family consists of following components :
·         VMware vShield App
·         VMware vShield Edge
·         VMware vShield Endpoint
·         VMware vShield Zones
·         VMware vShield Manager
To watch the video and know more about the components, visit :

Cisco Identity Service Engine

Cisco Identity Service Engine enables you to delivery cross domain application and network services more securely and reliably.
You can get visibility and control over all the users and devices on your network. You can create consistent policy across the infrastructure for corporate governance. And you can increase efficiency by automating labor intensive tasks and simplifying service delivery.
Some of the highlights are :
  • Gathers information from users, devices, infrastructure, and network services to enable organizations to enforce contextual-based business policies across the network.
  • Create and enforce consistent policy from the head office to the branch office.
  • Let IT see who and what is on the network for advanced discovery and troubleshooting.
  • It has a flexible architecture combining authentication, authorization, and accounting, profiling, and guest management.
And watch the video at : Cisco ISE Fundamentals - Video

Monday, March 21, 2011

Mac OS X Lion – A preview

In Summer 2011, Apple will be launching the Mac OS X Lion, which incorporates some of the most popular features on iPad. Following are some of the highlights of the OS, in brief.
The Mac App Store – It’s the best way to find, purchase and download application for Mac.
Launchpad – It gives you instant access to your applications, in the iPad format.
Full Screen Apps – Just like the iPad, the App is displayed full screen, with no distractions, and an easy way to get back to all your other apps.
Mission Control – It gives you a bird’s eye view of everything, including the Dashboard and full screen apps, all in one place.
Gestures and animations – The Mac OS X Lion introduces smoother and more life like responses to gestures.
Auto Save -  Auto Save automatically saves your work, while you work, so that no manual saving is required.
 Versions – Mac OS X Lion automatically creates a version of the document, every time you open it and every hour while you are working on it.
Resume  - Resume lets you restart your Mac, for example, after a software update and return to what you were doing, with all the Apps exactly in the same place as you left them.

For details on these and other new features like Mail 5, File Vault, Air Drop and Lion server, please visit
 http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/

HP E5000 Messaging System for Exchange 2010

HP Storageworks division has launched the all new E5000 Appliance which provides a messaging solution that is large, low cost and highly available mail boxes that can be deployed in hours instead of days.
IT is the industry’s first fully self contained platform built for the next-generation of Microsoft Exchange to deliver enterprise-class messaging to businesses of all sizes.
Some of the highlights are :
·         With single part number appliance, less time is spent on planning and fewer configuration steps are required.
·         Push button wizards lets you migrate quickly without disruption to your messaging service.
·         Best practice configurations from HP and Microsoft for Exchange 2010, ensure that the service levels are met.
·         iLO2, HP SIM and Microsoft Systems Centre integration enables Centralized, remote management.
·         It can balance workloads automatically and increase mailbox size.
·         With the E5000 you can scale from 100 to 15000 mailboxes and deploy in hours, not days.
·         You can maintain regulatory compliance with centralized messaging archiving.
·         HP and Microsoft have jointly developed a infrastructure to application model, of which the Exchange is a major component.

For more details on this visit :

Thursday, February 24, 2011

IT News from around the world

Following are the interesting news headlines from around the world in the IT Industry.

 VMware and HP to develop and market security technology for the cloud
The collaboration is designed to build on the success of the existing HP TippingPoint IPS solution for VMware vSphere deployments, taking current integrations to new levels.

HP to acquire Vertica, leading provider for next generation analytics platforms
The acquisition of Vertica will enhance HP capabilities for information optimization, adding sophisticated, real-time business analytics for large and complex sets of data in physical, virtual and cloud environments.

Gartner positions Netapp as Visionary in the Enterprise Disk based backup/recovery Magic Quadrant

Cisco reaches 3000 customer milestone in Digital Signage
Cisco joined the digital signage market in 2007 and has rapidly introduced innovations around digital signage scalability and reliability, network integration, and content development.

Microsoft and Nokia announce a strategic partnership to build a new global mobile ecosystem
Nokia and Microsoft intend to jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

HP FlexFabric – Virtualize your network connections and capacity

IT Organizations have long realized the disadvantages of a traditional datacenter architecture and underutilization of isolated server, storage and network resources. Since then, virtualization of servers and storage to meet changing business needs has been an accepted fact.  But this drive is applying new pressures on the multiple networks in the data centre. Some of the issues faced are : frequent changes to network configurations due to increased population of virtual machines,  requirement of more network bandwidth per server as server utilization increases. So the traditional network architecture cannot provide the performance, low latency , and quality of service required by virtualized data centres of today.
HP FlexFabric creates a new, wired-once , virtual I/O network, that provides a new data centre network architecture that is more coherent, flexbile and agile.  It can connect multiple servers to a virtualized, high performance, low latency, multi protocol network. Once the FlexFabric is wired and pre-provisioned, servers and virtual machines can be added or moved dynamically and the connections are automatically migrated as they are moved.
Some of the benefits of FlexFabric  are -
·         Predictable performance and low latency for demanding application workloads.
·         Capacity scaling and provisioning connections can be done dynamically and securely, improving business agility.
·         Change management processes which are costly and time consuming, can be removed.
·         Compatibility to existing Layer 3 switches and support for open standards gives investment protection.

For a deep dive into HP FlexFabric  please visit :
 HP FlexFabric Whitepaper

6 ways to work more effectively on a virtual team

The world is becoming a smaller place as organizations are going global and IT is creating bridges between teams which are geographically far apart. It is becoming commonplace to find yourself working with a colleague who may be in a different city, country or  half a globe away in a different time zone.
I found a interesting document from Microsoft which suggests six ways which might help working with people who are in a different geographical location.
The six ways , in brief, are :
Ø  Using instant messaging for quick meetings.
Ø  Using a virtual conference room for formal group meetings.
Ø  Keeping the meetings organized.
Ø  Setting up a virtual water cooler, where you can have a informal discussion.
Ø  Reviewing the edits of co-workers , wherever they may be.
Ø  Staying in touch, using a PDA.
Most of us would be knowing about first, second and sixth. For those of you do not know, the document gives quick insights.  
As such virtual meetings become common and frequent , organizing them is a very useful idea. The third point talks about it. 
The fourth one is interesting.  By this you can have a feel of those informal chats with your colleagues, when you meet at the water cooler or the café. This is important since you get to know your co-workers and can work as a team. 
The fifth one talks about when you’re and your team member cannot go through a document together, then the ability to track the changes that any of the team member makes could be very useful and important.
The link to the document is :