The Asset Archive

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How To Get The Most Out Of Your Flash Storage Or Move To Cloud

You just went out and upgraded your storage to all-flash. Or, maybe you have moved your systems to the cloud where you can choose the SLA to get the performance you want. We can provide you with a secret weapon that will make you continue to look like a hero and get the real performance you made these choices for. Let’s start with why you made those choices to start with. Why did you make the change? Why not just upgrade the aging storage to a new-gen HDD or hybrid storage subsystem? After all, if you’re like most of us, you’re still experiencing explosive growth in data and HDDs continue to be more cost-effective for whatever data requirements you’re going to need in the future. If you went to all-flash, perhaps it was the decreasing cost that made it more approachable from a budgetary point of view and the obvious gain in speed made it easy to justify. If it was a move to the cloud, there may have been many reasons including: So, what can Diskeeper® and V-locity® do to help make these even better choices to provide the expected performance results at peak times when needed most?

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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Six Best Practices to Improve SQL Query Performance

7 out of 10 Condusiv customers come to us because they are experiencing SQL performance issues and user complaints. MS SQL Server is the world’s leading RDMS and has plentiful benefits and features that empower its efficient operation. As with any such robust platform, however—especially one which has matured as SQL Server has—there have been best practices evolved that allow for its best performance. For any company utilizing it, Microsoft SQL Server is central to a company’s management and storage of information. In business, time is money, so any company that relies on information to function (and in this digital age that would be pretty much all of them) needs access to that information as rapidly as possible. In that information is often obtained from databases through queries, optimizing SQL query performance is vital. As 7 out of 10 Condusiv customers come to us because they were experiencing SQL performance issues and user complaints, we have amassed a great deal of experience on this topic and would like to share. We have done extensive work in eliminating I/O inefficiencies and streamlining I/O for optimum performance. It is especially important in SQL to reduce the number of random and “noisy” I/Os as they can be quite problematic. We will cover this as well as some additional best practices. Some of these practices may be more time-consuming, and may even require a SQL consultant, and some are easy to solve.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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Case Management Solutions Turns to V-locity I/O Reduction Software to Solve Slow MS-SQL Performance

Users complained of sluggish MS-SQL performance and expensive fork-lift upgrades to all-flash was not an option. Case Management Solutions' most mission critical and I/O-intensive application sat on top of an MS-SQL database and had become notoriously slow over time. Files with as many as 500 pages for a particular client would need to be processed to or from their NAS storage, and stole far too much time from employee productivity due to sitting and waiting for it to complete. They turned to their value-added reseller, Dealflow, for an answer that wouldn’t break their budget. “After we completed the server upgrades, we installed Condusiv’s I/O reduction software. After just one week, the software eliminated over 1 million I/O operations from being served from storage and Case Management Solutions saw exactly the kind of performance they were hoping to see. Even their backup times dropped,” said Lee Owens, VP of Sales, Dealflow. “Query times improved by 4X. Employees no longer had to wait to login or process files, and no longer experienced delays when going from page to page within the app. Instead of watching all 50 pages count up before printing, it’s almost instantaneous,” said Hal Brooks, Managing Partner, Case Management Solutions. “From our perspective, when Condusiv says they guarantee to fix application performance issues on Windows servers, that’s exactly what they do. We can attest to everything they claim as being true. It has helped all of our customers remove sluggishness from their most important applications,” said Owens. Owens continued, “Once they put V-locity into play, the only thing they are upset about is not doing it earlier.”

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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Improved Longevity of Hard Drives at MB Financial Bank

The use of Diskeeper for most of the past decade has resulted in quantifiable ROI, ongoing savings to MB, and has helped the IT team to focus on other areas associated with the company’s strategic growth. MB Financial Bank was an early adopter of automatic disk defragmentation, and has been a Condusiv customer since 2002. Their original evaluation was based on the idea that fragmentation slows down system performance and incurs excessive wear and tear on the drive. Delivering proactive technology solutions that benefit the business bottom line is the responsibility of Mike Macikanycz, Vice-President of Information Technology and Senior Technical Lead at MB. He’s convinced a proactive approach to IT in general has resulted in smoother sailing for the organization. That “general approach” includes the area of file fragmentation. “Diskeeper® performance software works so well we just take it for granted,” noted Mike. With Diskeeper in use for over eight years, “we haven’t been faced with the challenges that probably prompt companies to look into disk defragmentation utilities to solve their problems.” Ensuring fragmentation never impacted the ability of MB to service their customers from the get-go all falls in line with the MB IT team’s forward thinking, contributes to the company’s success and allows them to focus their attention on other IT projects. IT benefits as well with Diskeeper’s trademarked “Set It and Forget It”® solution. The IT staff is convinced that because they’ve always used Diskeeper, they have less problems and issues than they would without it. Download the full case study to find out more about the services that MB provides, their environment, and how they have benefited from Diskeeper.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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Lawnswood School recommends V-locity and Diskeeper software after outstanding results.

As happy V-locity and Diskeeper customers, Lawnswood School shared their experience with another school that was suffering from bad IT performance and their recommendation resulted in a doubling of performance. Lawnswood School in northwest Leeds is one of the top performing 20% in the country. Their IT environment supports a workload that is split between the students and the staff. On any given school day, there are around 1,200 student workloads comprising of millions of small files and documents being created and used by eager students. The same environment supports around 200 staff, creating and implementing engaging lesson plans that make full use of information technology. Moreover, the IT environment copes with all of the usual back office operations that you would expect in any organisation, such as anti virus and anti malware, IT security, file and print, communication and messaging solutions and more. One solution in particular that is useful for the staff, is Impero that supports IT staff and teachers with classroom control features that allow them to focus on delivering great education and IT support, in a safe online environment. Knowing how well the IT environment was performing at Lawnswood School, another school reached out to Noel for help, as their IT environment was almost identical, but suffering from slow and sluggish performance. Noel Reynolds noted that: "They were almost a 'clone' school." "We identified six of the 'most hit' servers and installed Condusiv's software on them. Within 24 hours, we saw a 50% boost in performance. Visibly improved performance had been returned to the users, and this really helped the end user experience."

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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A Myriad of Windows Performance Problems Traced to a Single Source

Believe it or not, 12 substantial Windows performance issues that can cause the most frustration and chew up valuable time can be directly traced to a single source. All of the issues that cost you peace of mind can be traced back storage I/O efficiencies. As great as virtualization has been great for server efficiency, one of the biggest downsides to virtualization is that it adds complexity to the data path – otherwise known as the I/O blender effect that mixes and randomizes I/O streams. First, is caused by the behavior of the Windows file system. It will tend to break up writes into separate storage I/Os and send each I/O packet down to the storage layer separately and this causes I/O characteristics that are much smaller, more fractured, more random than they need to be – this along with the I/O Blender effect noted above is the perfect trifecta for bad storage performance. This is a “death by a thousand cuts” scenario that is like pouring molasses on your systems – everything is running, but not running nearly as fast as it could. You could opt to throw more hardware at the problem, but this is expensive and disruptive and can be premature – it is much better to tune what you already own to get the performance you should be. Second, is storage I/O contention. This happens when you have multiple systems all sharing the same storage resource. Windows is breaking up that I/O profile into a much smaller, more fractured, more random I/O profile than it needs to be. If you just clean that up on one VM then all of the data from that one VM to the host is all streamlined, but then you have all the data from neighbor VMs that are still noisy and causing contention. As you can see, your performance is not only penalized once, but twice by storage I/O efficiencies. This means systems process workloads about 50% slower than they should on the typical Windows server because far more I/O is needed to process any given workload. This has been found to be to be the cause of a host of Windows performance problems such as those mentioned earlier.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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Certification of Microsoft® SQL Server I/O Reliability Program

This document describes the full compliance of Condusiv® Technologies V-locity® I/O Reduction Software against the Microsoft® SQL Server® I/O Reliability Program Review Requirements. Microsoft developed the SQL Server I/O Reliability Program to ensure the reliability, integrity, and availability of vendor products with SQL Server. The program includes a set of requirements that, when complied with, ensure the product is fully reliable and highly available for SQL Server systems. The program does not require or show performance characteristics of products, but it does require some I/O testing (Core 1.08) to exhibit the reliability and integrity of the product. Condusiv Technologies’ V-locity is the product that is being documented for compliance with the SQL Server I/O Reliability Program. V-locity is a transparent, “set it and forget it” software-only solution that solves two big I/O inefficiencies. First, it enforces large, clean, contiguous writes and reads, so more payload is delivered with every I/O operation, reducing the number of I/Os to perform the same workload. In addition, V-locity further reduces I/O to storage by caching hot reads from idle, available DRAM. Nothing has to be allocated for cache since V-locity dynamically adjusts to only what is otherwise unused. If a system is memory constrained, V-locity’s caching engine backs off entirely.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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Best Python Courses

Even if you have no coding or programming experience, it is still possible to learn Python. Thanks to its straightforward syntax, learning how to code using Python is accessible to everybody -- including beginners. Python is a popular computer programming language. Many people choose to learn Python because it is easy to pick up compared with other programming languages. It is often the language of choice for automation and data science tasks, and is used to build applications on a range of platforms. As an alternative to SQL, Ruby and Java, Python focuses on readability. When compared with the alternatives, Python is more efficient and productive. It uses fewer lines of code, which means executing commands is faster and requires less computing effort. If you want to learn Python, it is possible to pick up the basics in a few weeks. During this time frame, you can expect to learn how to write simple scripts to solve problems at work. If you want to work with Python on a full-time basis, you will need to study computer programming for a significantly longer period.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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The Communication Process

Communication is a natural element of being human, and it’s something we all do without thinking much about it. However, communication is also a skill we can develop to become more effective and create the outcomes we want – which can be very useful in the workplace. This article takes a closer look at communication styles and processes that can help you develop better communication skills in your professional role.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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How to Make a Letterhead

A letterhead is a heading that sits at the top of a professional (and sometimes personal) document. It is unique to the sender and contains information specific to them. When used for business correspondence, a letterhead usually contains the company name and logo, and contact details such as street address, telephone number, email and website URL. Letterheads are used for multiple types of professional communication – both internal and external. You may see a letterhead on documents, including: - Covering letters for proposals and presentations sent to prospective clients - Quotes and invoices sent to customers - Job offer and confirmation letters - Press releases - Internal company updates - Personal and character references - Meeting minutes - Public notices and letters sent to official bodies

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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How to Make Money Blogging Online

Perhaps you’ve looked at brand ambassadors and influencers and wondered what makes them special compared to other people? Maybe you want to emulate the lifestyle of a digital nomad, traveling the world while earning a passive income via your blog. You may think that it is easy to make money via a blog. After all, you don’t need to have any specific qualifications. All you need is an idea, a laptop and a Wifi connection.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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Virtual Networking Tips for Remote Workers

More people than ever are working remotely, largely due to the coronavirus pandemic but also a more general shift in attitudes to flexible working and work/life balance. When you are working from home, effective networking becomes more important than ever. Not only can it open new opportunities and help you to progress in your career, but it also prevents the feelings of isolation that are often an issue for homeworkers. A survey by social media experts Buffer revealed that loneliness was the main drawback of working remotely for 21% of respondents. Virtual networking reduces this by building community and connections. While networking can happen organically in a physical office, for example during meetings or in the break room, remote workers need to make more of an effort to forge and maintain such professional relationships.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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Non-IT Roles That Could Benefit From Gaining Cloud Skills

Cloud computing is becoming increasingly relevant and prolific. Businesses around the world are moving more of their data storage, operations and customer-interface online. Cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud are vying for the top cloud position by providing a constantly evolving service. Therefore, employers need a workforce keen to embrace cloud computing skills. Once squarely in the territory of IT roles, cloud computing has evolved into a skill set that can benefit, and is indeed essential, for many non-IT roles.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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What Is Commission-Based Pay and How Does It Work

Commission and commission pay is an additional payment that is earned based on your performance. Depending on your job role, your commission may subsidize your paycheck or be dependent on it. Meaning you either have a base salary and earn extra money through bonus schemes or incentives, or you must make sales if you want to receive a paycheck at the end of the month. Depending on how the company runs, you might be paid this commission monthly, bimonthly or simultaneously with your paycheck. Regardless of your role or the company you work for, this article will help you understand your commission-based pay.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium

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Research Skills: What They Are and Why They Are Important?

This article will explore what research skills are and why they are important, identify some core research skills and explain how you can develop them, and answer some frequently asked questions. Research skills are highly valued by employers in all industries, because employees with strong research skills can be invaluable to a company’s performance and growth. While you may already possess research skills, you must be able to identify what these skills actually are, so that you can highlight them in your applications and interviews.

Apr 15, 2026 8 min read Premium