Includes Storage Arrays, NAS, File Systems, Clustered and Distributed File Systems, FC Switches/Directors, HBA, CNA, Routers, Components, Semiconductors, Server Blades .

Taneja Group analysts cover all form and manner of storage arrays, modular and monolithic, enterprise or SMB, large and small, general purpose or specialized. All components that make up the SAN, FC-based or iSCSI-based, and all forms of file servers, including NAS systems based on clustered or distributed file systems, are covered soup to nuts. Our analysts have deep backgrounds in file systems area in particular. Components such as Storage Network Processors, SAS Expanders, FC Controllers are covered here as well. Server Blades coverage straddles this section as well as the Infrastructure Management section above.

	Hypervisor Shootout: Maximizing Workload Density in the Virtualization Platform (Report) Twice in 2009, Taneja Group benchmarked the performance of the leading hypervisor platforms, with an eye to understanding which offered the best virtual machine (VM) densities, and we are pleased to update our findings in this new Technology Validation report. Our testing again focused on VM Density, which is our measure of the number of VMs that can run simultaneously—executing a well-defined set of consistent application workloads—on a single hypervisor instance without disruptive performance impact (service-level breach). This time we expanded our testing to include the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 Kernel-Based Virtual Machine (RHEL 5.5 KVM) in addition to the latest available generation of vendor hypervisors: VMware vSphere 4.1 (ESXi 4.1), Microsoft Hyper-V R2 (Hyper-V) and Citrix XenServer 5.6 (XenServer). Aug 26, 2010
	EqualLogic Outperforms Competitive SANs under Heavily Virtualized Exchange 2010 Workloads (Report) The claims of storage vendors vary widely, and this is certainly the case among iSCSI vendors, where architectures and capabilities can be very different. Dell has long claimed that the EqualLogic storage family leverages tried and true internal capabilities to deliver distinctly better ease of use and performance without requiring convoluted or time-consuming configuration efforts. And, they claim, they’ve integrated these proven capabilities into a comprehensive storage infrastructure—based on their elastic pool technology—that also delivers more scalability than their competitors. With these claims in mind, Taneja Group set out to examine Dell’s differentiation in the midst of a crowded and rapidly growing field. To do this, we performed hands-on validation of a Dell EqualLogic PS Series iSCSI SAN array against a leading competitive iSCSI array and a second leading Fibre Channel array. Jun 16, 2010
	Increase IT Performance from the Enterprise to the Cloud with WAN Optimization (Profile) In our 2005 report on WAN optimization, we examined Riverbed’s unique and pioneering technology. Five years later, in the largest datacenters and most complex networks, Riverbed accelerates the greatest number of applications and protocols with the broadest range of optimization appliances and software in the industry. In this updated report, we take a fresh look at the role WAN optimization plays in today’s highly distributed datacenters and cloud computing architectures. Massive consolidation and data mobility, enabled by virtualization, have radically altered how we build servers, design applications, and deploy storage for the emerging “cloud” decade, when IT performance will be constrained, more than ever, by network performance. Jun 16, 2010
	(Nexsan) Simplify Complexity and Lower Cost in Your Storage Infrastructure (Report) Complex storage environments would benefit hugely from highly simplified and consolidated storage. However, this new environment must also be high performance, high availability and high capacity -- a very tall order. We find that Nexsan with Assureon can fulfill these requirements and more, making it an excellent choice for IT that must simplify the environment and control their storage environment and costs without sacrificing their data management needs. Jun 11, 2010
	Primary Storage Optimization for OEMs: Permabit Extends Albireo to Storage OEMs (Report) Production environments increasingly need some level of storage optimization to manage fast-growing data stores and to control attendant performance issues. Taneja Group calls this technology class Primary Storage Optimization (PSO). This area is seeing some exciting growth in the marketplace, and the few vendors who already offer it are profiting from its growing popularity. Many other storage OEMs would love to climb on board the PSO bandwagon but primary deduplication is difficult and time-consuming to develop. Permabit Albireo makes it possible for storage vendors to enter this promising market fast. Jun 11, 2010