Two approaches to manage and use “Big Data”

We are in an era of explosive data growth. Huge amount of data, both user generated (digital photos, videos, social media) and machine generated (financial analysis, behavior tracking) is putting enormous pressure on the existing infrastructures and creating new challenges.  Some of the challenges include, designing solutions for containing the data, efficient analysis to get the correct information and improved performance to manage the huge workloads to reduce time to information.

I am enclosing the links to two white papers which discuss the solutions to these challenges.

The one from Netapp talks about how Netapp has divided the solution sets to manage Big Data into 3 main areas – Analytics, Bandwidth and Content, or “The Big Data ABCs”

The Big Data ABCs - Netapp

The other from HP-Vertica talks about data compression, column oriented storage to lower costs and accelerate performance.

The Power Of Compression In Data Warehousing - Vertica-HP

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.

To know more, visit: NetApp SnapProtect Management Software - Datasheet

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

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 :

VMware vShield Product Family

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.

To know more, visit :  Cisco Identity Service engine - Overview

And watch the video at : Cisco ISE Fundamentals - Video

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 :

HP E5000 Exchange 2010 Appliance