Two data storage vendors are out with new products this week that they claim can save users a bundle over more traditional storage systems.

We are pleased to announce the availability of new Red Hat Storage Server 2.0 features and capabilities that bring enhanced virtual machine storage functionality for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, end-to-end encryption for data at rest and in motion, and enhanced security and data availability.

Data recovery is the process of retrieving data from corrupted or damaged storage media when it cannot be accessed. The storage media in question will often be a hard disk, but it can also be removable media such as CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, and storage tapes. There are many different reasons why a system administrator may need to use data recovery tools.

In my job as a systems engineer, I have handled various storage implementations for our enterprise clients. These may be in the form of direct-attached storage (DAS), network-attached storage (NAS), storage area network (SAN), or Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) systems.

Sun Microsystems has unveiled a new tool that lets developers build an OpenSolaris storage server in 10 minutes, part of its three-year-old open source storage community effort. The vendor contends that open source technology provides cheaper, more cost-effective storage infrastructures, just as open source efforts in the past led to cheaper server environments.

Web developers already have localStorage, which is used for client side storage of simple key-value pairs. This alone doesn’t address the needs of many web applications for structured storage and indexed data. Mozilla is working on a structured storage API with indexing support called IndexedDB, and we will have some test builds in the next few weeks.

Disk pooling is the hottest new function to Amahi. Disk Pooling uses Samba to create a storage pool of all your available hard drives. It also allows you to create redundant copies (from 2 to whatever the max-number of disks you have in the pool) of the files you store. This can help prevent data loss if part of your hardware fails. Click on the external link to view a video on Storage Pooling.

Linux is the Swiss Army knife of file systems, and it also offers a wide variety of storage technologies for both desktops and servers. Beyond the file system, Linux incorporates world-class NAS and SAN technologies, data protection, storage management, support for clouds, and solid-state storage. Learn more about the Linux storage ecosystem and why it's number one in server market share.

One of the most volatile and yet needed industries is the data storage industry. As computing technologies become more cloud centric and rely upon the web for business, productivity, education to even recreation, there is a constant push to increase capacities but even more so increase I/O throughput. As a result of recent demands, our approach with these technologies need to be re-evaluated.