Read the StorC Final Report
Posted on December 22, 2011 | by Liam Goldstein | No Comments
Now that StorC is now live, why not read the StorC Final Report and see how the project went.
StorC is live!
Posted on December 9, 2011 | by Liam Goldstein | No Comments
Yep you heard it here folks, StorC is now live! You can read the press release below:
To enable institutions to view the potential energy and cost savings that could be made through employing a tiered filestore approach, Cardiff University’s Information Services Directorate has launched the StorC (Storage Calculator) tool.
StorC, which was part-funded by JISC, provides an easy, interactive online way for institutions to model the environmental and financial savings of different scenarios of tiered file storage. This approach was explored in Information Services’ recent Planet Filestore project, which investigated solutions for greener, more sustainable and more cost effective data storage using dynamic storage tiering. The technique identifies the files which are no longer actively changing, and automatically moves them onto lower energy, greener storage.
An initial beta version of StorC was released to the user community earlier in the year, and provided the team with a range of feedback resulting in developments to the tool for this final release.
The Storage Calculator now offers users enriched features including split graphical and data views; printer friendly views; help tips to explain how to get the greatest benefit from the tool; and general improvements to the code and interface. The Storage Calculator also includes the Shibboleth access management architecture, which enables institutions to save the data sets they create and edit them at a later date.
“The Storage Calculator is just one of the initiatives developed by Information Services to help Cardiff University and other institutions to evaluate the sustainability of their IT services,” said Martyn Harrow, Director of Information Services. “StorC has the potential to make a real difference to the energy and cost-effectiveness of institutions’ file storage, and to provide an efficient use of resources and return on investment in this area.”
StorC has the potential to empower institutions across the UK and further afield to plan their data storage in a way that reduces energy and cost.
Beta 2 now live…
Posted on November 4, 2011 | by Liam Goldstein | No Comments
Firstly I must apologise for the delay in writing this post, it has been pretty hectic last few weeks but busy is always better than bored in my opinion.
I’m writing this post (as you can probably tell) to let you all know the StorC beta 2 is now live, in reality it’s been live for a while now but I’ve not manager to blog about it.
StorC @ BrainShare 2011
Posted on October 8, 2011 | by Paul Rock | No Comments
For those of you going to BrainShare, the StorC beta will be demonstrated during the “Planet Filestore: Making Your File Service Greener” session on Tuesday at 15:00. This is the biggest conference we’ve yet presented at so we’re hoping for a lot of interest.
StorC Beta is Live!
Posted on August 23, 2011 | by Liam Goldstein | No Comments
We are very pleased to announce the launch of the StorC beta. An online tool that allows users to see how much carbon, energy and money they can save by implementing a tiered storage solution.
Feel free to have a play around with the tool, select tier 1 and tier 2 disks, enter your desired storage capacity and see if the figures add up for you.
Feedback…
The success of the StorC tool is in your hands, we would greatly appreciate any feedback you have to offer. simply click the feedback link above or the feedback button on the tool and let us know your thoughts.
Stay Informed…
If you would like to be kept in the loop about StorC developments and the progress of the beta why not join our mailing list – simply enter your email address on the details page of the app and we will let you know of any future developments.
Enjoy!
StorC Beta Coming Soon…
Posted on June 30, 2011 | by Liam Goldstein | 1 Comment
Today I’ve been preparing StorC for it’s initial beta release which we’re hoping to unveil shortly. I can’t specify dates just yet as the details haven’t been finalised but watch this space in the next few weeks.
The initial tool will be available to everyone and will provide a quick sneak peak into the type of data you can produce – illustrating the cost, energy and carbon savings you can achieve with tiered storage following a planet filestore approach.
StorC @ Gregynog
Posted on June 15, 2011 | by Liam Goldstein | No Comments
Well today is the first day of the 2011 Gregynog Colloquium and I’m sitting in one of the many impressive rooms taking advantage of the free wifi. The conference is going well and as usual with Gregynog the food is flowing freely – eaten lots of cake – yum!
Talks so far have been interesting and have covered Technology Enhanced Learning ranging from Blackboard to iTunesU and the use of Flash to build simulated learning environments.
Really liking the idea of iTunesU but unsure of it’s potential at Cardiff University and would like to follow up on the use of Flash for simulated learning environments – some research definitely needed!
Off for drinks reception and lunch soon (it’s a hard life), will blog again tomorrow with an overview of the days talks and an update on our presentation/demo of PlanetFilestore and StorC for Friday.
Tags: blackboard , conference , flash , Gregynog , gwella , itunesu , jquery , talks
Caution Man @ Work
Posted on May 4, 2011 | by Liam Goldstein | No Comments
After a short break for the Easter and following a StorC project meeting this morning I’m all fired up and ready to tackle the next phase of the interface.
There’s a few minor tweaks needed to the design and some re-arranging of the login scripts and then I’m ready to do some serious Shibboleth integration and some behind the scenes admin interface work.
I’m also going to look into ways to visualise the savings after a failed attempt at using pie charts. I’ll blog my progress in the next few days.
Small Break in Development…
Posted on May 1, 2011 | by Liam Goldstein | No Comments
There’s been a small gap in development thanks to the bank holidays (not that I’m complaining). Looking forward to getting back into full swing on Tuesday.
Should have something to share soon.
Interface Sneak Peak
Posted on April 11, 2011 | by Liam Goldstein | 1 Comment
Firstly apologies for the delay in writing this blog post, what can I say other than I got carried away in development and forgot – oops!
On the plus side it does mean I have more to show off.
I started a rough working mockup for the StorC interface a couple of weeks ago and in the excitement of it all I decided to implement some of the functionality that makes up the final tool for StorC.
Initially I designed a dummy form to allow users to enter their data (carbon rate, electricity tariff, disk type, etc) and a results page. However, that wasn’t enough and before I knew it I’d implemented the backend calculations behind the StorC application, essentially giving me the basis of a working application.