Most enterprise storage solutions (iSCSI and Fibre Channel SANs) include some form of thin provisioning capability. Large enterprises that have already heavily invested in SANs are likely to continue building on these technologies as their storage needs continue to expand. A few examples of SAN product lines that support some form of thin provisioning include:
- NetApp SAN:
http://www.wservernews.com/go/1359026091255 - EMC CLARiiON family:
http://www.wservernews.com/go/1359026093755 - IBM disk storage systems:
http://www.wservernews.com/go/1359026096630 - Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN:
http://www.wservernews.com/go/1359026099193 - HP thin technologies:
http://www.wservernews.com/go/1359026102130 - StarWind iSCSI SAN & NAS:
http://www.wservernews.com/go/1359026104599
There are lots of other storage systems and solutions that target businesses of different sizes and provide some sort of thin provisioning capability.
The above tip was previously published in an issue of WServerNews, a weekly newsletter from TechGenix that focuses on the administration, management and security of the Windows Server platform in particular and cloud solutions in general. Subscribe to WServerNews today by going to http://www.wservernews.com/subscribe.htm and join almost 100,000 other IT professionals around the world who read our newsletter!
Mitch Tulloch is an eleven-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award and a widely recognized expert on Windows Server and cloud computing technologies. Mitch is also Senior Editor of WServerNews. For more information about him see http://www.mtit.com.