storage
In the era of consolidation, storage has not been left out. The impact of backup on normal database activity . . . batch processing in one database impacting transactional processing — these are two real life examples of the consequences of storage consolidation known to almost every DBA. Virtualization puts a new twist in consolidation, but storage virtualization methods are very under-developed compared to computing resource virtualization. Storage QoS and storage virtualization must necessarily be very closely-related areas with a lot of overlap.
I tripped across this story about some new 750G disks @ 7200 RPM soon to be released by Seagate. This filled me with a sense of dread about having to, once again, go through the process of convincing purchasing managers at various customer sites that actually, no, they can not just buy three of these and RAID-5 them together into a huge storage area for their terabyte database. So now, tell me, what happens when you use very big disks for high-performance applications? You have way, way too many square feet to service with far, far too few loading docks (and usually only one access road!!!).

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