Sanity News

Apple looking to build $1B Nevada data center by year’s end

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:51:00 GMT

Sanity Solutions is excited to be a part of the data center industry with unprecedented changes like this one from Apple. True to Sanity's mission we are also very happy to see that there is the potential for this large data center to be solar powered. We are excited by this news and we will keep you updated.

Apple taking a billion dollars and heading to Reno, but it's going to avoid the slots: it plans to invest the money in a data center and a separate shipping and receiving office.

The proposed data center will actually be located east of Sparks, Nev., a little outside Reno. The business office is intended to be located in downtown Reno.

Read the full article here from GigaOm

Sanity Solutions Receives Active Archive Architect Certification from the Active Archive Alliance

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Sanity Solutions announced today that it has become an Active Archive Certified Architect (AACA) by the Active Archive Alliance. This certification recognizes that Sanity Solutions has been trained with the proper tools and expertise needed to work with data center administrators to create and engineer active archive solutions for data management and storage.

An active archive is a combined solution of open systems applications, disk and tape hardware that gives users an effortless means to store and manage all their data. It is ideal for companies that regularly manage high-volume digital assets or face exponential data growth as it provides a cost effective way to store large amounts of data with high reliability and accessibility.

“Our training and certification program is aimed at companies tasked with providing storage solutions that enable reliable, online and efficient access to unstructured file data,” said Floyd Christofferson, director of storage product marketing at SGI and an Active Archive Alliance board member. “Companies such as Sanity Solutions benefit from the knowledge of the latest data storage technologies that are enabling organizations to store and access vast volumes of data extremely efficiently and cost effectively.”

Drew Milles of Sanity Solutions participated in a two-day training program hosted by the Active Archive Alliance where its representatives were educated on how to best architect an active archive data center environment. The certification enables Sanity Solutions to expand its solution offerings for cloud and Big Data storage and management and to enable affordable ‘Tape as NAS’ storage offerings.

About The Active Archive Alliance
The Active Archive Alliance is a collaborative industry alliance dedicated to promoting active archives for simplified, online access to all archived data. Launched in early 2010 by founding technology partners Dell, FileTek, Inc., QStar Technologies, SGI and Spectra Logic Corporation, the Active Archive Alliance is a vendor neutral organization open to leading providers of active archive technologies including file systems, active archive applications, cloud storage, and high density tape and disk storage, as well as individuals and end-users. Active Archive Alliance members provide active archive solutions, best practices, and industry testimonials so that organizations can achieve fast, online access to all their data in the most cost effective manner. Visit www.activearchive.com for more information.

Media Contact
Chris George
Sanity Solutions
720-570-1668 x615
cgeorge@sanitysolutions.com

X-IO Exceeds 15GB/s of Throughput in Demo

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Using Windows Server 2012 RC and single rack, Sanity Solutions partner X-IO Technologies was demonstrating record-breaking price/performance using Microsoft's new Windows Server 2012 RC at Microsoft TechEd North America 2012, taking place June 11-14 in Orlando, FL.

Running a single equipment rack of 10 ISE-2 Intelligent Storage the company has attained a sustainable rate of over 15GB/s of throughput, achieving up to 100,000+ IOPS with storage capacities exceeding 100TB.

"This is a game changer in the cost of high performance storage solutions, delivering in just one rack what our competitors can only achieve with many times the equipment and at much higher costs," said Steve Sicola, CTO of X-IO. "Now with the added capability of Windows Server 2012, we can clearly demonstrate that X-IO storage matches or exceeds the best performance available from today's servers at a fraction of the cost."

Read the full article from Storage Newsletter

SonicWALL Addresses 'Bring Your Own Device' Trend for SMB Customers

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:45:00 GMT

The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend is forcing IT departments of especially small and medium sized business to quickly adapt and better manage their network security. Sanity's partner SonicWALL, the industry leaders of next generation firewalls, recently launched their SSL VPN 6.0 specifically to provide SMBs the needed tools to control access of non-IT-managed devices to their corporate networks. Our team is excited to be able to offer this best in class service to our customers, as the importance of cyber security continues to rise-

Read the Full Article

Spectra Logic Achieves Top Rankings in 2012 Big Data Tape Library Buyers Guide

Tue, 22 May 2012 17:33:00 GMT

At Sanity we take pride in partnering with the best in the breed, this being one of the biggest reasons we are able to continue to grow our business. Spectra Logic has been a great partner over the years, especially in terms of products and customer service.

Find out why in the Wall Street Journal Report

Big Data Centers Among Top US Construction Projects

Tue, 22 May 2012 17:10:00 GMT

Amidst the downturn in construction throughout the US, large data centers are topping the charts as some of the biggest projects over the next several years. Sanity understands that we are in the age of data, and emphasize the fact that designing efficient and resilient data centers is crucial to large enterprises.

Find out who's building the biggest

Q1 2012 Financial Results for Sanity Solutions, Inc.

Thu, 03 May 2012 06:00:00 GMT

For the quarter ended March 31, 2012. Sanity Solutions reported the following financial results during their most recent earning’s call.

Sanity Solutions continued to build on the Company’s success with posting another solid quarter. When compared to the same quarter, one year prior, Sanity’s revenue increased 45% and the Company also reported a 102% increase in revenue from the previous quarter. Additionally, Gross Profit increased 55% as compared to the fourth quarter of 2011.

The Balance Sheet also showed continued improvement in which Retained Earnings increased175% as compared to one year earlier. “Sanity Solutions had a great year in 2011 and I am confident that we will continue to build on the success that we had in 2012. Our first quarter shows that we are on the right track and we will take this momentum throughout the rest of the year. With the increase in Retained Earnings we will invest in our company and continue with our plan of hiring additional resources that will be able to better serve our customers” said Jason Cherveny, President and CEO.

Success through Strong Partnerships

Wed, 02 May 2012 05:57:00 GMT

As an organization, Sanity Solutions greatly values our relationship with Dell and all of their employees. Dell has been a great partner to work with over the past year, we look forward to great things in the years to come!

Dell Recognized by Partners as Best in Breed

The "Champions" of Disk Backup

Wed, 02 May 2012 04:26:00 GMT

Congratulations to Sanity Solutions' partner Exagrid for being named as one of three "champions on the Info-Tech Research Group's Disk Backup report! We have been very happy with the Exagrid products and even more so with Exagrid's customer support.

Read the Full Report from 'Storage Newsletter'

Caution in the Cloud

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:03:00 GMT

In today's world of technology 'the cloud' is often a topic of discussion. We at Sanity believe that these services are here to stay, however it pays to complete your due diligence prior to signing up with a long term contract!

Storage Newsletter Report

-Jason Cherveny, President and CEO

Great Resource for Your Daily Tech News Fix

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 06:00:00 GMT

At Sanity we know that there are many, many, many (did i say 'many'?) places to get information on IT related material. Here is a new one for those of us who are Wall Street Journal subscribers to get our technology fix.

Wall Street Journal- CIO Journal

-Jason Cherveny, President & CEO

Sanity Solutions Inc. included in the Inc. 500|5000

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Sanity Solutions announced that it has been included in the Inc. 500|5000 for the fastest growing private companies in America list.

This is the first time that Sanity Solutions has been included in the popular list. For the years between 2008 and 2010, Sanity achieved top line growth of 81% which places the Company at number 2757 for all companies and 344 within all technology. “I have been part of the Sanity Solutions team for over seven years now and it is great to be part of a winning organization. We can see the momentum building and look forward to it picking up speed,” says Eric Webster, Senior Account Executive of Sanity Solutions.

“All of us are very proud to be included on this year’s list. Our employees work hard to take care of our customers and this list proves that our customers like what we do for them. I am especially impressed that 100% of our growth has been organic as we invest back into the company. We are expecting to continue this growth and earn our way back in 2012”, says Jason Cherveny, President and CEO.

About the List. The Inc. 500 is an annual list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., introduced in 1982. The Inc. 5000 is an expansion of the Inc. 500, which ranks the country’s top 5000 fastest-growing, private companies and also features a special ranking of the top 10 percent of the list as the Inc. 500.

The Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth over a four year period. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by the first week of the starting calendar year, and therefore able to show four full calendar years of sales. Additionally, they had to be U.S.-based, privately held, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31 of the last year measured. Revenue in the initial year must have been at least $200,000, and revenue in the most recent year must have been at least $2 million.

About Sanity Solutions. Founded in 2004, Sanity Solutions is a storage solutions provider that creates distinctive value for every customer. Complete solutions that eliminate data loss, increase data availability, and lower overall costs are determined based on customer needs. As a market leader, Sanity Solutions partners with the industry’s foremost storage and data management companies to offer customers the most advanced products as part of a comprehensive storage solution. For more information, visit www.sanitysolutions.com.

Media Contact: Tracy Weise
Phone: 303-996-9940 ext. 102
E-mail: Tracy@weiseideas.com

Sanity Solutions: Jason Cherveny
Phone: 720.570.1668 ext. 601
Email:jcherveny@sanitysolutions.com

Sanity Solutions Opens Minneapolis Office

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 07:00:00 GMT

Inc. Magazine Top 5000 company’s new office led by former Xiotech account executives

Minneapolis, March 6, 2012 - Sanity Solutions, a provider of comprehensive data storage equipment and services headquartered in Denver, Colo., opens a new office in Minneapolis, bringing innovative and customized data management solutions to mid-sized and larger businesses in the Twin Cities.

Two experienced and knowledgeable data management industry professionals lead the Minneapolis office: Kelly Wallin and Drew Milles. With more than 12 years of experience in the data management industry, Wallin and Milles bring a unique skill set to Sanity Solutions. Wallin’s primary role is to provide unparalleled service to customers. “Kelly has a reputation for going to great lengths to ensure that enterprise data management customers have the highest level of satisfaction, and she prides herself on being a resource partner for all data management needs,” said Jason Cherveny, president and chief executive officer, Sanity Solutions.

Wallin sees herself as a go-to resource for all her customer’s data management needs. “I’ve been working with my customers for years on data storage projects. I want them to think of Sanity Solutions as an all-inclusive data management partner. I am excited to be able to offer them industry leading solutions from key backup and recovery, business continuity, security, infrastructure and storage partners,” explained Wallin.

Milles brings the technical expertise to the Minneapolis office. “Drew’s ability to convey technical specifications and materials in layman terms provides confidence that the customer’s needs will be met,” said Cherveny. Milles engineering experience ensures that even the most complicated solutions will be implemented impeccably. “I’m eager to be able to view our customer’s needs from a comprehensive data management perspective. The partnerships and offerings available through Sanity Solutions will allow me to architect customized, best of breed solutions to overcome even the toughest business challenges.” Sanity Solutions priority is to provide Minneapolis businesses with local expertise and a level of service previously unavailable in the community. Businesses will benefit from a data management solution designed to align with the business continuity needs, disaster and backup recovery needs, and data infrastructure and security needs for any organization. As a result, Sanity Solutions provides an optimized data management system that is reliable while also being cost effective.

“I couldn’t be happier to have Drew and Kelly opening our newest office in Minneapolis,” said Cherveny. “The Sanity Solutions capabilities and partner relationships offer all Minneapolis business customers the greatest customization and flexibility when it comes to planning and building their data management infrastructure. Drew and Kelly are looking forward to creating distinctive value for Sanity Solutions Minneapolis customers, and providing an excellent customer experience to enterprises throughout the Twin Cities.”

For more information about Sanity Solutions Minneapolis, please contact Kelly Wallin 612-220-3232, kwallin@sanitysolutions.com

About Sanity Solutions, Inc. (www.sanitysolutions.com)
Founded in 2004, Sanity Solutions is a storage solutions provider that creates distinctive value for every customer. Complete solutions that eliminate data loss, increase data availability, and lower overall costs are determined based on customer needs. As a market leader, Sanity Solutions partners with the industry’s foremost storage and data management companies to offer customers the most advanced products as part of a comprehensive storage solution.

For more information, visit www.sanitysolutions.com.

Media Contact:
Mark Plumb
Weise Communications
(303) 996-9940, ext. 103
markplumb@weiseideas.com

Q4 2011 Financial Results for Sanity Solutions, Inc.

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 07:00:00 GMT

For the year ended December 31, 2011 Sanity Solutions reported the following financial results during their annual earnings call. All results are compared to the year ended December 31, 2010.

Revenue for the year increased 39%
Gross Profit increased 54%
Earnings Before Taxes increased 385%

“During the year Sanity continued to improve our financial position as well as our entire organization. We were able to add additional products and services which helped to increase value to our customers and solve the problems that they are trying to alleviate, all while keeping our costs controlled” said Jason Cherveny, President and CEO of Sanity Solutions. “Last year our Company had goals of making the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies and earning a spot on the CRN Fastest Growing Solution Providers in America. While both of these goals were achieved in 2010 our results for this year were even better than last year. I am very thankful and appreciate the trust and commitment from all of our customers and partners.”

“THE CLOUD” AND YOU"

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:00:00 GMT

So happy together
As we discussed in our last cloud article, the single hottest buzzword in IT today is “cloud” and its secret meaning as a code word for “outsourcing”. We also discussed some of the very real limitations of “The Cloud” concept: bandwidth limitations, storage failure potentials, and the over-arching concern of companies for handing their data off to a third party. OK so to sum up Cloud = bad, right? There are some things “The Cloud” gets right and in this article we will discuss how you can make “The Cloud” a reality for your environment without the risk associated with the real cloud that is out of your control.

The things the cloud gets right are:

Virtualization – not just virtual servers, but complete virtualization from servers through to storage eliminating the inflexibility of traditional hardware platforms
Computing resources on demand – the ability to apply CPU rapidly to demand without the need to add large-scale hardware infrastructure
High-speed networks – pretty simple really – if you are still on 10/100 it is time to come into the 90’s and get Gigabit capable hardware

Putting some Reality into all that Virtual
The single most valuable lesson to take from “The Cloud” is the lesson of full virtualization for both servers and storage. These types of virtualization are both critical to the effective cloud scenario because they support the key cloud concept, flexibility. Virtual servers allow computing resources to be created in minutes and applied to resource intensive tasks, while storage virtualization allows for the mixing of storage platforms, speeds, capacities, and connectivity to reduce wasted storage space and apply the right storage type(s) to the right jobs.

Options for server virtualization are only getting better as more and more companies release virtualization software and chip manufacturers embrace it with virtual extensions built into the hardware. It is important to understand that there are two types of virtualization for servers, but both are built on what is called the “hypervisor” which is fancy geek talk for virtual layer. There key difference between them is that the Type 1 Hypervisor runs directly on the hardware (it is also known as a “bare metal” hypervisor) and it handles all the interaction between hardware and the OS’s running on top of it. The Type 2 Hypervisor requires an OS to run underneath it to handle drivers and interfacing with the lower level system functions. This type of virtual platform is far less efficient since it has to take into account the resources and demands of the root OS.

With the Type 1 Hypervisor it is possible to push the physical hardware right up to its limits in terms of CPU and memory usage. This produces more computing power in the same footprint since all but the most intensive operations cannot fully utilize 100% of a single CPU, much less the 8-32 cores that are now becoming common in most server line-ups. The Hypervisor handles the time-slicing of the CPU, memory, NIC, and all other system functions meaning that systems that need processing can get it while idle ones do not consume fixed resources while they sit idle. This flexible CPU allocation allows for many servers to rapidly be brought to bear against computational tasks and then just as quickly to be removed from front-line service when their usefulness has run out. Put this in context of your environment where you have applications that need additional resources at key times, or where clusters of servers would provide additional computing and redundancy, but hardware costs are too significant to add additional resources to meet these needs, and virtual servers can fill them. Conventional wisdom says that some applications (Oracle, SQL, and Exchange) are best left in the physical world when they are used as production class applications. The virtual assist here is in being able to build P2V clusters where your stand-by node or nodes are virtual servers. HA and redundancy without additional physical hardware is the main advantage of “The Cloud” concept.

On the storage side the virtualization story is about the freedom to apply different storage types, connectivity, and functionality without the need to fix on a specific manufacturer. The virtual layer lives in front of your storage arrays and creates essentially a “single controller” view of the storage arrays which lets the server environment access the SAN in multiple ways simultaneously. As the intermix of speeds and disk drive types grows, this allows the creation of “pools” of SAN storage, regardless of what hardware platform they live on. I can then connect to these pools in whatever way makes the most sense, iSCSI, FC, or CIFS/NFS. In this way I can apply storage types and performance to the data that most matches the characteristics of the storage.

For example, I might have 3 different array types from 3 different manufacturers. Traditional SAN says those are locked in place where they are, and my server can only address each one independently (separate drive letters/volumes and separate paths). With a virtual storage platform I can now build pools of storage that may represent drives in different physical arrays, but they are accessed logically as a single target and can be used as such by my servers. In addition I can also attach to those targets utilizing whatever protocol makes sense without having to fix on a specific SAN fabric type. Imagine being able to use both FC and iSCSI to the same LUN at the same time. That is the magic of storage virtualization and its impact in any environment is obviously very powerful.

The Silver lining in the cloud
In our last cloud article I said that there was no silver lining to “The Cloud”, only rain. This is true of “The Cloud”, but when you bring the cloud concepts into your own environment the silver lining is very much a reality. Building the cloud concepts into your internal IT environment means the ability to apply the same operational flexibility that the cloud offers while not giving up the control over your data.

If you are ready to discuss ways that the cloud technology concepts can help you then give us a call and let us help build the cloud that is right for your environment. With the proven technologies of our partners and our knowledge of the infrastructure required we will give you the cloud like flexibility you need to support your business needs with ease.

About the Author: Chris Harrold is a Consulting Engineer at Sanity Solutions. Sanity Solutions is a nationwide specialist in data management, backup and recovery, business continuity, security, and infrastructure and support. Chris can be reached at charrold@sanitysolutions.com.

ARCHITECTING THE RIGHT ARCHIVING STRATEGY

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:00:00 GMT

The Convergence of Archiving Strategies in the Enterprise In December of 2005 the Federal Courts released a change to the rules that govern court cases
tried in the Federal Court system. Called the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or FRCP, this rule
update contained requirements governing electronic discovery. It is a general practice that all
lower courts (State, Civil, and Criminal) generally adopt the same rules and they have moved
quickly to do so in this case. This means that any organization, large or small, public or private
is subject to the same set of rules in the event of litigation.
Much hay has been made of this rule change, but in spite of the hype and fear surrounding the
rule changes they are actually a boon for IT managers looking to control the explosive growth of
their storage environments. This convergence of disparate archive strategies is the basis for an
effective litigation support strategy and a solid ILM strategy that allows the back-end benefits of
reduce storage utilization and the all important ability to be prepared for litigation.

What it is and what it isn’t
First and most importantly the FRCP ruling DOES NOT say that you have to keep all your data
forever. I saw an ad on a sign at the airport recently that said keeping all your email is the law.
This is 100% false. Companies are using the fear factor surrounding the misunderstanding of
the FRCP change to market products that fit a specific niche while failing to acknowledge the
larger picture of IT strategy. What the FRCP ruling DOES say is that if you have a retention plan
(and you really need to have one) then as long as you can prove you follow it you cannot get in
trouble for deleting stuff “in the course of normal operations”. What that means is that if you
have a policy that says you keep your emails for 45 days and you purge your system at 45 days
then you are just doing what you said you would.

Where this situation changes, and this is part of the FRCP as well, is if you KNOW you are
getting sued or party to a lawsuit. This notification process is the first step in the E-Discover
process and it creates some immediate action items for IT. Once notified of pending action, IT
must identify the data in question in the suit and then retain it until the case is decided – this
can also (and almost always does) include any subsequent data produced after the date of
notification. Well therein lies the rub, doesn’t it? How do you even begin to sort through the
data to find the relevant stuff? Add to this the other little gem in the FRCP that says ALL
electronic information (not just email – this means anything made out of 1’s and 0’s) is fair
game to be requested AND it has to be in its original format. Oh boy. Now what?

This all sounds like a lot of work. It could be if you are not prepared for this situation and taking
steps now to mitigate the risks to your organization. What is fantastic about the FRCP changes
is that on the one hand they are very specific about what you need to do, but on the other hand
they give no real direction as to HOW you need to do it. This gives you a lot of flexibility in
crafting an architecture that meets your needs and protects your company. The policy statement
protects you from getting in trouble for deleting information without knowing it might be
important someday so now you just have to prove enforcement of the policy itself. This is where
a carefully architected and well thought-out archiving strategy is going to be extremely
important.

What, when, and where
Archiving falls into two basic categories: what I call storage archiving – which is the cleanup of
old and infrequently used data (often called HSM, ILM, or Tiered Storage), and what is currently
positioned as “compliance archiving”.

I feel it is very important at this point to say that there is a very common and widely propagated
misconception that by installing a hardware appliance or piece of software you have magically
made yourself compliant. This was the point of the ad I saw in the airport, but the real question
is compliant to what? There are lots of different compliance and governance guidelines out
there and none of them say “install this hardware device and you are good”. All of them say that
you need to have a program that is made up of policies and procedures and anything you install
or apply to this program is just a tool to support your compliance objectives. That said these
tools are still very important and play a role in making what would be an otherwise impossible
task for the IT team something that can be made a reality.

The Convergence of the two archive types
Storage archiving takes data that hasn’t been “touched” in a while and moves it somewhere else.
This could be to a lower tier of storage inside an array, to an alternate tier of storage physically
separate, or even to something like tape or DVD for long-term retention. Most storage archiving
products will either be array based or software based and while they are both called archiving
they both have very different goals. Array based archiving simply moves blocks of data from one
type of disk to another – usually from a higher performance and/or cost disk to a lower one.
This is great, but it is important to note that the data is still in the array. If you want to get it out
of the array and onto something else you will need a software solution.

On the back end of this operation is a concept that dovetails into compliance archiving. Data
cannot live forever and the ability to delete data that has lived to a ripe old age is a critical piece
of compliance to your data retention policy. If you cannot delete it eventually then you are not
adhering to your policy. Software based archiving will give you the ability to delete the data
after a certain time has passed. This is critical to maintaining your compliance plan and keeping
yourself out of hot water!

What has commonly been dubbed the Compliance Archiving model has been focused on the
complete capture of email messages. These systems use some form on inline transit capture to
grab a copy of every email message in and out and around the organization. These messages are
then kept for some period of time as potential evidence and for internal investigations. This was
fine before the FRCP ruling went into effect, but now falls short of the global discovery
requirement that the rule change has created. So while this form of archiving is still very much a
critical part of the overall strategy for archiving it has become less of the focus that it had
previously been.

The complete Archiving Strategy
The complete archiving strategy then must include elements of both types of archives as well as
the ability to perform overarching discovery of data throughout the enterprise regardless of
where it is. It must be simple and scalable in order to not require additional FTE labor to
manage it and it needs to incorporate a good reporting mechanism so that your adherence to
your policies can be validated. When you consider the enormity of your data and the complexity
of your systems this can appear to be a daunting task, but there are many ways to integrate
effective archiving into your storage management plan. When the time comes to begin the
planning and policy creation phases keep this information in mind as you move forward to
develop the archiving strategy that is right for your organization.
If you are thinking about the next step in your archiving strategy, Sanity can help. Our
engineers have deep backgrounds in ILM, Compliance, and E-Discovery and can help you work
through all the phases of developing a comprehensive archive strategy. Contact us today for
more information.

About the Author: Chris Harrold is a Consulting Engineer at Sanity Solutions. Sanity
Solutions is a nationwide specialist in data management, backup and recovery, business
continuity, security, and infrastructure and support. Chris can be reached at
charrold@sanitysolutions.com.

Virtual Desktop in the Enterprise

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 07:00:00 GMT

All Your Base are Belong to Us
Virtual Desktop, VDI, and Desktop Virtualization – whatever you call it, it is one of the top trends for 2010 and beyond. It is funny how the industry seems to travel in the same orbit over and over – thin clients were all set to be the next big thing in the mid 90’s until everyone realized they did not work worth a darn. Before that in the 70’s and 80’s we had the much maligned “green screen” world of the mainframe/thin client world. This time around, before you go and dismiss this round as the next IT phase you should know that the idea is rapidly gaining traction in CIO/CTO offices and this time around, the technology may actually be there to make it fly.

VDI as a “Green” Tool – As in the folding kind of green
In the mainframe world, you had a simple terminal session. The thin clients of the 90’s were built on a super lightweight OS concept (it was neither super, nor lightweight). Now the technology is based on the “bare-metal” style Hypervisor concept and the first major roadblock has been eliminated – what to do with all the PC’s I already have? The concept is simple – those 3 year old PC’s on the desks of the rank and file may be long in the tooth when it comes to running Windows7 locally, but they are more than enough to run the hypervisor client and access a desktop presented via the network. In fact, one of the main VDI selling points is investment protection; sure you will eventually dump those PC’s, but they may last you another 3-5 years beyond the normal 3 year cycle, and there is a lot of value in cutting that back beyond the dollars and cents to the organization.

The other “green” VDI component is the true environmental impact type of green. While “Green Computing” may seem relegated more to the granola/hybrid/bike-to-work crowds, it is something that will probably have some sticking power, and even more so in the event that any number of green initiatives in congress and at the state and local levels are approved. While dumping a couple hundred PC’s every year (even if they get recycled) is less and less fashionable from a PR standpoint, it will likely become very cumbersome and costly as more and more regulations are imposed upon the disposal of PC’s and related equipment.

Finding the Path to VDI
With all those PC’s now sticking around there is a capable desktop system, but now we have to get data there. Enter high-speed wireless and our old friends Cat5 and 6 and even 7 soon. It is increasingly rare to find an organization that is not running either large-scale wireless networks in the G and N ranges or that has run gigabit connectivity to their desks. In the mid 90’s the idea of the thin-client was actually not as half-baked as it looked on paper, but it was based on a fundamentally flawed assumption: everyone had the connectivity to pull it off. This “build it and they will come” attitude is what really sounded the death knell for thin-client in the 90’s; it was a great idea, but no one had the bandwidth to really pull it off.

With the additional increases in compression, LAN switching and speeds, and general acceptance of these things by the corporate world there is now a real live platform to deliver the service to your users.

Unfortunately this is also a time when more and more bandwidth is being used for everything from huge multi-media files to massive email environments. The need to control the consumption of bandwidth and to allocate the right bandwidth to the right systems is as important as having the bandwidth in the first place. The increased capability of QOS and the relative cost of copper infrastructure mean that this issue can be overcome, but it is definitely something that needs careful consideration before you embark on your VDI plan.

Service with a Smile
The final obstacle to true Desktop Virtualization was in the Data Center; the server and storage platforms up to now have not had the simplicity, flexibility, and most important scalability to deliver reliable and functional desktop experiences to the end user. With the advancements in server, virtualization, and network technologies it is easier than ever to rapidly deploy a “farm” of VDI servers using extremely high powered servers at low cost with a massive capacity for user access. A farm of high-powered servers to service your end-users may have a hefty up-front price-tag, but it is guaranteed to be a lot cheaper than replacing all those PCs on desks as they age out through the 3-5 year cycle.

Storage is another critical component of successful VDI and even more so than server virtualization, VDI requires storage able to handle the load of hundreds of PC’s all booting up at roughly the same time. Real world numbers put the required I/O load per boot at around 150- 175 IOPS per machine over a period of 3-5 minutes of sustained activity. A small amount on a single PC scale, but when multiplied by the full number of PC’s in your environment this can rapidly become a pretty staggering amount of I/O required to support even a small number of PC’s. Fortunately the storage platform has risen to the challenge with an array of solutions to meet this demand from SSD and Flash based disk to I/O acceleration and I/O virtualization, as well as platforms designed to maximize the available throughput and drive capacities.

The other Data Center obstacle is one that is much more deep-rooted, but equally important; Ops guys don’t want desktops in the Data Center. With 15 years of operations experience this is something I fully empathize with and it is understandable given that desktop support is generally the lowest rung of the IT ladder, but there are huge benefits to this approach for both operations and desktop. The first and most obvious is control – not just GP/SMS/RDP style control, but REAL control over the desktop. The ability to lock it down to only the required set of tools, to put it behind a consistent firewall, and to serve it out with consistent rules is a huge advantage to both IT groups. Security, AV control, rapid deployment, the list goes on. There are a lot of pros to the VDI concept for everyone involved.

Is VDI for You?
Probably. There are very few organizations that could not benefit from at least some level of VDI integration. Will it be full blown virtual desktops or something smaller like virtual applications or even a hybrid approach using both? There are as many options as there are solutions out there, and Sanity Solutions can help you map out the right route to VDI, build your environment to support it, and get you ready for success from the start. Contact us today for more information.

Sanity Recognized on the CRN Fast Growth 100 List

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 06:00:00 GMT

Sanity Solutions, today announced that it has been recognized by Everything Channel on the CRN Fast Growth 100 list. The list recognizes the fastest growing solution providers in North America. Companies on the Fast Growth 100 list average a two-year revenue growth of 130 percent and average annual sales of products and services of $172 million.

The ranking is based on two years’ growth of net sales from calendar year 2008 to calendar year 2010. “All of us at Sanity Solutions are very excited and proud that we are among the Nation’s fast growing solution providers. At Sanity we believe in providing a “Legendary Customer Experience”, and it is rewarding to see that our hard work and customer focus mentality are paying off,” says Jason Cherveny, President and CEO of Sanity Solutions. “This year’s Fast Growth 100 list reflects the high growth potential for solution providers offering innovative products, solutions and services,” said Kelley Damore, Vice President and Editorial Director for Everything Channel. “Despite an uncertain market, VARs investing in new technologies and services are still growing at a significant rate - a testament to their hard work and ability to truly understand their customers' needs. We congratulate Sanity Solutions on their well-earned success.” A sample of the 2011 Fast Growth list can be found at www.crn.com.

Achieving Superior Growth in Uncertain Times The 2011 CRN Fast Growth category and special awards will be presented during the annual conference, taking place October 5-6 at the Doral Resort in Miami. At the event, relationships will be formed and business opportunities will take place as channel executives gather together in an intimate setting with North America’s fastest growing solution providers. The event will honor leading-edge solution providers who are setting the agenda in today's channel. To learn more about the event, go to http://everythingchannelevents.com/crnfg_11

About Sanity Solutions

Founded in 2004, Sanity Solutions is a storage solutions provider that creates distinctive value for every customer. Complete solutions that eliminate data loss, increase data availability, and lower overall costs are determined based on customer needs. As a market leader, Sanity Solutions partners with the industry’s foremost storage and data management companies to offer customers the most advanced products as part of a comprehensive storage solution. For more information, visit www.sanitysolutions.com.

About Everything Channel

Everything Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, Everything Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. Everything Channel is a UBM company. To learn more about Everything Channel, visit us at www.everythingchannel.com. Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/everythingchn.

About UBM plc

UBM plc is a leading global business media company. We inform markets and bring the world’s buyers and sellers together at events, online, in print and provide them with the information they need to do business successfully. We focus on serving professional commercial communities, from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewellery traders, from farmers to pharmacists around the world. Our 6,000 staff in more than 30 countries are organised into specialist teams that serve these communities, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently. For more information, go to www.ubm.com

Sanity Solutions Adds Michael Gluck as VP

Wed, 11 May 2011 06:00:00 GMT

Sanity Solutions, a provider of comprehensive data storage equipment and services based in Denver, Colo., has hired Michael Gluck as its new vice president.

With more than 25 years of storage sales and business development experience, Gluck will enhance Sanity Solutions focus on providing best-in-class data management solutions and building long lasting customer relationships. Because Gluck held executive management positions as a storage systems integrator as well as with network storage suppliers that sold directly to end users as well as through Value-Added Resellers such as Sanity Solutions, he has the unique perspective to help accelerate Sanity Solutions growth. Previously, Gluck worked with such companies as Xiotech Corporation, Chaparral Network Storage, Vangard Technology and Fujitsu America.

A key area of emphasis will be to leverage Sanity’s new relationship with Dell Computer that resulted from Dell’s acquisition of Compellent in February this year. “Since Sanity Solutions was the top Compellent reseller in Colorado and has achieved Dell’s highest level of Certified Storage Partner, I am thrilled to be joining such an effective team of professionals, said Gluck. “I am also extremely impressed with the recent strategic acquisitions by Dell including Compellent, Ocarina, Exanet, etc. as part of its enterprise Intelligent Data Management vision, and I welcome the challenge of serving and aiding our clients in finding the best solutions for their business needs.”

“I am excited to welcome Mike to the team,” said Jason Cherveny, president and chief executive officer, Sanity Solutions. “Mike has extensive experience in business development and data management; his knowledge of the industry will undoubtedly positively impact both our company’s aggressive growth plans and our ability to better serve our clients.”

About Sanity Solutions, Inc. (www.sanitysolutions.com)

IT CAME FROM “THE CLOUD”

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 06:00:00 GMT

Back on solid ground
The single hottest buzzword in IT today is “cloud” and its meaning is something that may surprise you. “Cloud” as it is used in the now ubiquitous “Cloud Computing” is secret code for “outsourcing” which as we all know is a dirty word with a recession on. What the cloud that Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Dell, IBM, and about a gazillion others envision is really a giant pile of your data that they hold on their systems. It could be a backup of your data, it could be a replica of your data, it could even be your data itself in some cases.

What this means to you is two-fold:

You are essentially no longer in possession of your data solely since a copy is now outside of your environment.
If there is a failure in your environment or theirs, how long is it going to take you to recover if you can at all?

In this article we will look at the drawbacks both obvious and hidden that make “The Cloud” less than ideal for even a moderately sized business. The model that powers “The Cloud” can also power your environment and at the end we’ll point out those places where cloud technology can be used more realistically in house to build your infrastructure on.

That’s not a silver lining, its rain
When “The Cloud” works it can be very impressive, self-healing storage and highly available systems working in concert to provide data to the consumer at the speed of whatever you can connect with. Unfortunately the things that make the cloud impressive when it is functional are also the root cause when it fails. Let’s look at each of the components of “The Cloud” and see what the real story is.

The root of “The Cloud” model of computing is storage and lots of it. Cloud storage is essentially boxes upon boxes of low cost commodity disk tied together through some level of virtualization. What the largest companies do is actually write their own file systems to handle this virtualization. Even the best of these file systems will eventually be outgrown, for example Google is right now trying to replace its vaunted GFS system as the demands that all of the additional features they and their customers want have pushed it well beyond what it can handle. The other huge weak spot here is the hardware itself. Would you put your company’s mission critical data on desktop class hardware? If you send it to the cloud that is exactly what you are doing – “The Cloud” is not about high-performance and robust hardware platforms. It is about the most you can cram into a box for the least you can spend on it so the $/gig remains as low, and thus as profitable, as possible. This creates an obvious recipe for failure and one that has already happened in multiple cases, the most recent of which involving Microsoft and the Sidekick phone outage, where all Sidekick user’s data was lost due to storage hardware failure and a gross and obvious failure to provide adequate backup. Now that I have my giant box of disk I need to put a pretty face on it so that customers can access it. Enter the server and as is the case with most cloud providers they are largely virtual servers, enabling me to have rapidly provisioned and highly available systems in multiple data centers across the globe. This is one place where aside from the standard pit-falls of servers “The Cloud” has it right. Virtualization is the way of the future and if you have not started on it yet then you should call us immediately before you get left behind. It is faster, cheaper, lighter-weight, easier to manage, and all around just better than a room full of servers could ever be. There are some drawbacks to this model in terms of protection (VM’s have historically been harder to backup easily and quickly), but the pros far outweigh the cons and this is the on technology that every company regardless of size can leverage in house immediately with a very measureable result.

The last and truly most critical bit of “The Cloud” is how you get to it. Consider this chart1:

As you can easily gather from the chart the connectivity rate is everything. OC-768 is pretty much Internet backbone speed so since no one has that level of connectivity we are likely playing somewhere between T1 and OC-3 in most cases. Remember that even a GB Metro fiber connection isn’t really 1GB. Your connectivity is limited by what your ISP, their network, the Cloud providers ISP, their network and the cloud itself can realistically serve up to you. A practical example, 1Tb is a fairly small amount of data anymore. I would venture to guess that most people reading this article likely have well more than 1TB at home. With Comcast cable modem and direct gig links on my own network it took me a little more than a month to replicate 1TB of data to an online backup provider. When you start to apply this math to a realistic amount of business data (4-5TB for most small environments) the math just makes it impossible to get realistic benefit from “The Cloud”. Is an 80+ day recovery window realistic if you lost your data and it was backed up in the cloud?

OK, so “The Cloud” is a bust right now, is there anything I can take from it?
In short, yes. The concepts of the cloud are sound, if not entirely useful or practical in “The Cloud” itself. Virtualized storage is not only a good idea; it offers the simplest management and lowest TCO of any storage. I already blew the horn of VM so I won’t even add to that, and the idea of a fully flexible application delivery platform is not a pipe-dream. You can actually build your own cloud, in house, and guarantee its availability and protection and enjoy the benefits of reduced administration and cost of ownership without giving up your data to someone else.

We can help architect the right cloud for your environment that won’t end up casting a long shadow over what you are trying to achieve. Give us a call and let us help you get your feet on solid ground and your head out of the clouds.

References in this article

Some chart data gathered from this article by Henry Newman: http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/technology/features/article.php/3843151
Microsoft/T-Mobile Sidekick outage information: http://www.pcworld.com/article/173474/microsoft_to_tmobile_sidekick_users_oops.html

Credit Union of Colorado Banks on Green Storage with Compellent SAN

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 07:00:00 GMT

At the Credit Union of Colorado, a dedication to cutting-edge technology and an understanding of how it can benefit members goes far beyond a friendly face offered by most community credit unions. Applying this technological innovation to a full spectrum of products — including mortgages, loans, checking and savings accounts, investment services and online banking — puts the Credit Union of Colorado on par or better with much larger financial enterprises.

As an organization ultimately run by a board of its members, Credit Union of Colorado has a unique view of the issues most critical to its members. Recently, the board indicated that improved business continuity, redundant data protection and reduced environmental impact were top member concerns — but the credit union's underlying storage infrastructure presented an obstacle to addressing those goals. With cumbersome tape backups as the only recovery source, the restore process could interrupt service for days. "Our IT staff supports 14 branches across the state, and I am the only dedicated storage admin. If we were consumed by a lengthy recovery process, other support calls could go unanswered,"said Jared Cowart, senior network administrator at Credit Union of Colorado. "We needed a new solution that would give us the speed and flexibility to deliver the innovative data protection our management and members expect." Cowart began the search for a storage area network (SAN) that would act as a foundation to better protect member assets. With advanced remote replication functionality, the Compellent® Storage Center™ SAN quickly pulled ahead of the pack.

"While several vendors offered the features I was looking for, they were all tied to expensive add-on software bundles,"Cowart says. "Compellent included everything I needed, plus extensive support for storage and server virtualization that could help us consolidate our environment and reduce energy consumption."

Data Progression and Fast Track Optimize

Utilization and Reduce Costs
The Compellent SAN ultimately helps Credit Union of Colorado deliver better service to their staff and members, and they immediately noticed the SAN's effect on the bottom line. Compellent's Data Progression™ software delivers a complete Automated Tiered Storage solution, which dynamically classifies and moves data between tiers of storage based on how frequently the data is accessed. By managing this process automatically, Data Progression not only cuts administrative time, it reduces the need for costly highperformance disks. "Compellent optimizes how our data is stored, allowing us to buy inexpensive disks as we grow,"says Cowart. "Data Progression migrated 95 percent of our data to a lower tier because it was rarely accessed. We're now saving about $800 per disk without compromising performance." A recent upgrade to Storage Center 4.0 has Cowart looking forward to Compellent's Fast Track feature for even more storage efficiency and performance. Fast Track automates the placement of the most active blocks of data on the fastest edges of each drive. This improves performance and reduces the need for costly high performance drives. "Fast Track acts as another tier in our environment — one that can enable significant gains in performance,"says Cowart. "I'm confident that Fast Track will speed access to data in our seek-intensive applications."

Going Green with Virtualized Storage
From the boardroom to the loan office, the Credit Union of Colorado supports a green initiative to reduce the company's impact on the environment—and the data center is no exception. When adopting the Compellent SAN, Cowart knew support for virtualized storage would be essential to reducing power consumption and consolidating the company's computing environment. Compellent aggregates physical drives into a single pool of virtual storage to quickly and easily support hundreds of VMware® virtual servers with no wasted capacity.

"With Compellent's virtualized storage, we can bring things online fast,"says Cowart. We can boot from the SAN, and then we can mount that boot volume to a VMware virtual server or even another piece of hardware at another site."Cowart estimates that this new virtual data center will help the Credit Union of Colorado eliminate 50 percent of its physical servers—a huge savings in terms of power and cooling costs.

With Compellent's advanced thin provisioning capabilities, the Credit Union of Colorado extends the benefits of its green initiative by eliminating the need to buy excess unused storage. Compellent's Dynamic Capacity allows Cowart to allocate any size of virtual volume, consuming capacity only as data is actually written. Free Space Recovery, available with Enterprise Manager, enables deleted file space in a Windows environment to be returned to the Compellent virtualized pool of storage. "Free Space Recovery alone is a feature that makes Enterprise Manager worth every penny,"says Cowart. "We've been able to reclaim 10 to 20 percent of our disk space which is huge."

Easy-to-Use Replication
Compellent's Remote Instant Replay™ replicates snapshots of critical systems between the primary SAN and a remote site, ensuring business continuity and data protection at a fraction of the cost of other replication solutions. Cowart uses the bandwidth optimization feature during normal working hours to limit the impact on performance, and then increases bandwidth at night to accelerate the replication process. "Every morning, I have a new backup that's sitting at my other site, and I'm confident our member's financial information is protected," says Cowart. "If I need to restore an Exchange volume or bring a financial database online from the remote site, I can do it in minutes— without the need to deal with tape, and without the cost of an additional software package."

After implementing the SAN and reaping its benefits, Cowart considers ease of use to be the defining asset of Compellent's rich portfolio of features. "It's beautiful. Once a volume is set up and the automated tools are in place, your data becomes an easily managed commodity,"he says. "The depth and simplicity of the Compellent SAN gives us enterprise-level storage that can be managed by a single employee."

VSPHERE 4 – VIRTUALIZING A SERVER NEAR YOU PROBABLY RIGHT NOW

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:00:00 GMT

Someone set up the bomb
VMware is quietly and quickly taking over the world almost without a lot of fanfare, and with the release of VSphere/VCenter 4, VMware has sought to fill some of holes and bulk up some of the features of the previous releases and is definitely going to make some noise as it finds its way into more and more of the IT infrastructure. Focus on storage virtualization technologies, increasing HA functionality, better management, and backup improvements are all on the improved and upgraded list. In this article we will dive deeper into some of the more impactful features in VMware’s new release and identify the impact they will have on any environment.

The big 4 of VSphere’s new feature set are:

VCenter 4 – the new interface into VMware gets a face-lift and some powerful new enhancements
Fault Tolerance and HA improvements – stepping up to true real-time fail-over, better clustering support and options, and a big change in storage management capabilities
Increased and improved Virtual Hardware options – major enhancements to virtual hardware management and configuration options
Storage and backup improvements – integrated (but really this time) back

VCenter 4
VCenter is the new and improved virtual management interface for VSphere and it has some impressive new features under the hood. The most obvious improvement is that a single VCenter server can now manage multiple child servers meaning that you can segment out the environment and still have a single management point for all systems. This functionality, called “linked mode” allows you not only to view the entire environment, but also search for objects within the system instead of having to browse to them through the navigation tree. For larger environments, or environment with multiple sites this feature set should really drive down the management overhead associated with larger numbers of VM’s.

In addition to the larger view options around management the new interface offers some greatly increased granularity in the form of permissions at the data store and network levels. This functionality allows you to restrict users’ ability to change the network configurations and to access certain storage areas for specified VM’s, stores, networks, or even entire environments.

This is a great feature for those shops where there is a heavy dev/test environment and access for developers is a nice to have feature. It will prevent those heart-stopping “oops” moments when someone inadvertently does something they should not.

One of the smaller, but certainly one of the nicer enhancements is around the reporting and monitoring in the VCenter server. Integration with perfmon is nice, but the improvements in the built-in reports, graphs, and statistics should make any VMware admin happy. Performance and utilization rates are a key to getting a better handle on the virtual environment and have been a bit lacking until now. This boost in information collection and reporting options should help administrators to nail down exactly what their utilization levels are and what they can do to further optimize performance and capacity.

Fault Tolerance (FT) and High Availability (HA)
While the list of additional features for this area is short, it has one of the most exciting new options that is available with VSphere – Fault Tolerance mode or FT. Fault tolerance mode is an enhanced HA mode where a virtual server is actually active on multiple ESX nodes at once – one is the live server and the other is essentially a shadow that is kept in sync with the primary guest. In the event the primary host has an issue the alternate host can take over instantly and in real time because the systems are in sync. This feature takes clustering to the next level for those shops that cannot experience downtime on certain systems.

Speaking of clustering it is nice to see the VMware has finally embraced MS Clusters. MSCS is fully supported in VSphere including the 2008 server failover modes. This was a sore spot for many users of previous versions as it could be very difficult to cluster virtual systems and the support was spotty at best. It will be interesting to see how this support competes with the FT option in VSphere as both present a great option for organizations to leverage this HA tool set.

Lastly the storage VMotion options get a welcome boost and now include full support and movement across all supported data store types (CIFS, NFS, FC, iSCSI). This feature is long overdue and really offers an immense amount of flexibility and usability to the customer since it is now possible to seamlessly move VMDK files from one type of storage platform to another. This is very useful to organizations looking to tier their VM storage platform and place systems on to alternative storage based on the load and type of system. IT also will be a boost to the DR scenario applications of VSphere since the environment is now freed from the storage back-end and can be moved at will.

Virtual Hardware Updates
All I can say about the long overdue enhancement to virtual hardware is it’s about time. Finally with VSphere and VCenter 4 we have hot-add virtual hardware. No more powering off systems to change RAM, CPU, and disk settings! This longest of long overdue features will certainly be welcome news to any VMware customer out there today. This one weak link in the “always up” chain of VMware’s story is finally closed and now systems can be online even if they need to be modified. Version 7 Virtual Hardware also better supports storage and backup options and increases the overall performance of the VM guest by further optimizing the already pretty streamlined virtual HAL layer.

In addition to this feature there have been the requisite boosts in memory caps (255GB of Ram per VM), processor (8 way SNMP now supported), and the new VMXNET 3 for network operations. There is a bit of cloud to all this silver lining though – no previous VM’s will support the new virtual hardware options (so if you upgrade, your old VM’s cannot take advantage of the new hot-add for example) and you must offline the hosts to upgrade the virtual hardware. This is definitely a bit of a hassle for existing environments, but can be overcome with the new backup and restore options or even third party solutions and in any case is well worth the downtime associated with the conversion (the virtual hardware upgrade takes only a few minutes per system).

Backup and Storage Usage
VCB was a good idea with a really lousy implementation. Scripting of backups is never a good idea and the lack of integration with the Virtual Infrastructure system was really a huge failure on VMware’s part. Well that is all reversed now in VSphere with the integration of backup, snapshot, and dedupe into the console for all virtual systems. You can backup machines directly from VCenter and they will be done on the fly and stored deduplicated. This is obviously a big step up over the previous methods of VCB and Hot-Add Mode.

In addition to the backup option integration storage takes a front and center seat with VSphere. One of the biggest complaints about previous VMware releases is that VM’s chew up disk space like there is no tomorrow. VMware has taken that complaint head on with the inclusion of thinprovisioned VMDK files. This means that when you create a 10gig VMDK instead of blocking out all 10gig the system only consumes the actual amount of data written to the device. This is a big deal in larger environments where multiple TB of VMDK files are common. The nice dovetail here is that the storage VMotion option will allow you to go from a “full” VMDK to a thin one on the fly.

The list of storage enhancements is a long one and there are many features that will undoubtedly have impact for a lot of customers. Just a few include:

Paravirtualized iSCSI adapters – these are dedicated devices that can be configured per VM to give the virtual guest server a dedicated iSCSI resource which uses less CPU and memory than a standard NIC.
Jumbo frame support for NFS and iSCSI – almost a prerequisite for files as large as a VMDK and for the amount of data transferred
Hot extend for VMFS and VMDK – VMFS data stores can be extended on the fly now instead of being “bridged” across multiple volumes. VMDK files can also be grown on the fly instead of having to be mounted and extended.
FCoE support – pretty self explanatory here, but good that they are embracing the coming changes to the SAN world
Better integration with storage snapshots – live mounts and snapshots can be performed through VCenter and can be used more effectively than before for recovery and day-today operations

Conclusion
VSphere is a big step forward from the recognized leader in virtualization and it clearly shows they have no intention of resting on their laurels. This release packs a ton of features in under the hood and serves it up to the administrator in a much more concise and usable presentation. It also is a critical step in maintaining market share as Citrix ZEN and Microsoft’s Hyper-V are nipping at the heels of the leader. We will explore these other technologies in future articles and look at the impact of mixed hypervisor environments and the resulting management and options they can create.

Thinking about upgrading or implementing VSphere in your environment? Let Sanity Solutions help you build the right architecture for your needs.

Also check out the follow-up article to this around VM View and the move to virtual desktops and apps.