Stories by: Stacy Collett

Encryption can make up for a litany of security snafus -- from a bad firewall to an unrelenting hacker to a lost laptop. Once data is encrypted, criminals can't use or sell it. Plus, if encrypted data goes missing, companies are protected from disclosure requirements in most states. No wonder 38% of companies surveyed by Forrester Research have already adopted full-disk encryption technology. But data protection doesn't stop there. Encryption keys and digital rights also must be well orchestrated and secured, or else encryption protection goes out the window.

Technology departments prefer to handle projects one at a time.

When touting their company's products, EMC sales reps often get this question from prospective customers: "Do you guys use your own stuff?"

With his 50th birthday looming at the end of July in 2010, Frederick Curiel knew he had to lose weight. But as with many IT professionals, the demands of his job had put diet and exercise on the back burner.

It's 2 p.m. Do you know where your cloud data is? Really? Executives at one large Fortune 500 company thought they knew, but a routine audit of the cloud provider uncovered a serious problem.

We've all heard the predictions: By 2020, the quantity of electronically stored data will reach 35 trillion gigabytes, a forty-four-fold increase from 2009. We had already reached 1.2 million petabytes, or 1.2 zettabytes, by the end of 2010, according to IDC. That's enough data to fill a stack of DVDs reaching from the Earth to the moon and back -- about 240,000 miles each way.

Server virtualization offers a host of efficiencies, but storage administrators say it may open a can of worms on the storage side. Resulting headaches can include huge I/O bottlenecks for primary and backup storage, as well as complicated disaster and recovery efforts, among other things.

In December 2007, a 49-year-old senior database administrator at a Chicago investment firm decided he couldn't take it anymore. Excessive hours and oppressive management had taken their toll; he was also worn down by the fear and uncertainty of a financial crisis that threatened even the most revered institutions. His career was officially in a rut.

Christmas came in midsummer for Nicole Thompson, IS director of applications at HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley.

When it comes to job stability and pay, storage administrators had it made in 2009.