SetUp: August 27, 2001

Need More Space? Hit the Pool

A server on one end of a network needs more storage capacity, pronto. Several nodes away, another department has more storage space than it can possibly use. If the company has a SAN installed, the IT department can address this unbalanced load by tapping storage virtualization.

In the Cover Story beginning at right, Senior Analyst Henry Baltazar examines the current options in virtualization technology, a rapidly evolving technique for pooling storage resources, managing them from a central locale and allocating them where theyre needed most.

How are vendors implementing virtualization in their products? In the review that starts below, eWeek Labs evaluates FalconStors software-based IPStor system, which illustrates the way IP network virtualization is done effectively. eWeek Labs also takes a preliminary look at StorageTeks ASM hardware/software combination.

What a Tuple Is and Why You Must Care

Floor wax? Dessert topping? Series of typed values? A tuple is the latter. Sort of.

Technology Editor Peter Coffees Tech Analysis on the distributed-systems model sheds some light on tuples, a vital aspect of future systems of every stripe. When combined with pattern-based retrieval, tuples can provide IT systems with amazing flexibility.