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Data Storage - Call PBM IT Solutions at (888) 233-6471The management of IT and data center facilities are often outsourced to third party companies that specialize in the monitoring, maintenance and remediation of systems and facilities on a shared services basis. Recent changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure put IT on the front lines for ensuring a business is complying with regulations, notably Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA. Not only is it necessary to store key data for longer periods, but being able to retrieve information at a granular level - right down to specific emails - is now an IT responsibility, so a data center that is not handled properly could result in a trip before a judge. Energy costs are the fastest-rising cost element in the data center cost portfolio. Operating system virtualization is the use of software to allow a piece of hardware to run multiple operating system images at the same time. Network virtualization is a method of combining the available resources in a network by splitting up the available bandwidth into channels, each of which is independent from the others, and each of which can be assigned (or reassigned) to a particular server or device in real time. While virtualization faded from the limelight for a while, it is now one of the hottest trends in the industry again, as organizations aim to increase the utilization, flexibility and cost-effectiveness in a distributed computing environment. VMWare, Citrix, Microsoft, IBM, RedHat and many other vendors offer virtualization solutions. In many businesses, critical data is stored on desktop and laptop computers outside the reach of most enterprise storage management software products. This data is at significant risk. The Cisco UCS uses three adapter types, with four specific models: the Cisco UCS 82598KR-CI 10 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, UCS M71KR-Q QLogic Converged Network Adapter, UCS M71KR-E Emulex Converged Network Adapter, and UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Card. Each of these cards has a pair of 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections to the Cisco Unified Computing System backplane that support the IEEE 802.1 Data Center Bridging function (formerly called Cisco Data Center Ethernet) to facilitate I/O unification within these adapters. On each adapter type, one of these backplane ports is connected through 10GBASE-KR to the A-side I/O module; then that connection goes to the A-side fabric interconnect. 10GBASE-KR is a copper midplane technology for interfacing adapters and switching elements through these midplanes. The other connection is 10GBASE-KR to the B-side I/O module; that connection then goes to the B-side fabric interconnect. Figure 3 later in this document shows this connectivity. There is growing pressure from environmentalists and, increasingly, the general public for governments to offer green incentives: monetary support for the creation and maintenance of ecologically responsible technologies. According to one aspect of the invention, a data storage system includes a disk drive array including a plurality of disk drives; a first storage processor for controlling the operation of the data storage system; a second storage processor forcontrolling the operation of the data storage system; a first arbiter for controlling communication of data from the first storage processor and the second storage processor to a first group of disk drives of the disk drive array; and a second arbiterfor controlling communication of data from the first storage processor and the second storage processor to a second group of disk drives of the disk drive array. Selected data is redundantly stored on disk drives in the first group of disk drives andthe second group of disk drives, such that, upon failure of the first arbiter, the selected data is available to the first storage processor and the second storage processor through the second arbiter. The Cisco Nexus 5010 Switch foundation is built upon High-performance 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Data Center Ethernet, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and Virtual-machine-optimized networking. |