Category: fun

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Cloud conversations: Loss of data access vs. data loss

Have you hugged your cloud or MSP lately?

Why give a cloud a hug and what does it have to do with loss of data access vs. loss of data?

First there is a difference between actually losing data and losing access to it.

Losing data means that you have no backup or copy of the information thus it is gone. This means there are no good valid backups, snapshots, copies or archives that can be used to restore or recover the information.

Losing access to data means that there is a copy of it somewhere however it will take time to make it usable (no data was actually lost). How long you have to wait until the data is restored or recovered will vary and during that time it may seem like data was lost.

Second, industry hype for and against clouds serves as a lighting rod for when things happen.

Lighting recently struck (or at least virtually) with some outages (see links below) including at Google Gmail.

Cloud crowd cheerleaders may need a hug to feel good while they or their technology get tossed about a bit. Google announced that they had a service disruption recently however that data was not lost, only loss of access for a period of time.

Lets take a step back before going forward.

With the Google Gmail disruption, following on previous incidents, true cynics and naysayers will probably jump on the anti cloud FUD feeding frenzy. The true cloud cynics will tell the skeptics all about cloud challenges perhaps never having had actually used any service or technology themselves.

Cloud crowd cheerleaders are generally a happy go lucky bunch with virtual beliefs and physical or real emotions. Cloud crowd cheerleaders have a strong passion for their technology or paradigm taking it various serious in some instances perceiving attacks or fud against cloud as an attack on them or their belief. Some cheerleaders will see this post as snarky or cynical (ok, get over it already).


Ongoing poll at StorageIOblog.com, click on the image to cast your vote.

Then there are the skeptics or interested audience who are not complete cynics or cheerleaders (those in the middle 80 percent of the above chart).

Generally speaking they want to learn more, understand issues to work around or take appropriate steps and institute best practices. They see a place for MSP or cloud services for some things to compliment what they are currently doing and tend to be the majority of audiences outside of special interest, vendor or industry trade groups.

Some additional thoughts, comments and perspectives:

  • Loss of data means you cannot get it back to a specific RPO (Recovery Point Objective or how much data you can afford to lose). Loss of access to data means that you cannot get to your data until a specific RTO (Recovery Time Objective).


Tiered data protection, RTO and RPOs, align technique and technology to SLO needs


RTO and RPOs

  • RAID and replication provide accessibility to data not data protection. The good news with RAID and replication or mirroring is if you make a change to the data it is copied or protected. The bad news is if it is deleted or corrupted that error or problem is also replicated.
  • Backup, snapshots, CDP or other time interval based techniques protect data against loss however may require time to restore, recovery or refresh from. A combination of data availability and accessibility along with time interval based protection are needed (e.g. the two previous above items should be combined). CDP should also mean complete, consistent, coherent or comprehensive data protection including data in application or VM buffers.
  • Any technology will fail either on its own or via human intervention or lack of configuration. It is not if rather when as well as how gracefully a failure along with fault isolation occurs and is remediate (corrected). There is generally speaking, no such thing as a bad technology, rather poor or inappropriate use, configuration or deployment of it.
  • Protect onsite data with offsite mediums including MSP or cloud backup services while keeping a local onsite copy. Why keep an onsite local copy when using a cloud? Simple, when you lose access to the cloud or MSP for extended periods of time, if needed you have a copy of data to work with (assuming it is still valid). On other hand, important data that is onsite needs to be kept offsite. Hence cloud and MSP should compliment what is done for data protection and vise versa. Thats what I do, is what you do?
  • The technology golden rule which applies to cloud and virtualization is whoever controls the management of the technology controls the gold. Leverage CDP, which is Commonsense Data Protection or Cloud Data Protection. Hops are great in beer (as well as some other foods) however they add latency including with networks. Aggregation can cause aggravation, not everything can be consolidated, however much can be virtualized.

Here are some related blog posts:

Additional links to related articles and commentary:

Closing thoughts and comments (for now) regarding clouds.

Its not if, rather when, where, why, how and with what will you leverage a cloud or MSP technologies, products, service, solution or architectures to compliment your environment.

How will cloud or MSP work for you vs. you working for it (unless you actually do work for one of them).

Dont be scared of clouds or virtualization, however look before you leap!

BTW, for those in the Minneapolis St. Paul area (aka the other MSP), check out this event on March 15, 2011. I have been invited to talk about optimizing your data storage and virtual environments and be prepared to take advantage of cloud computing opportunities as they mature.

Nuff said for now

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and coming summer 2011 Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC) at https://storageio.com/books
twitter @storageio

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From bits to bytes: Decoding Encoding

With networking, care should be taken to understand if a given speed or performance capacity is being specified in bits or bytes as well as in base 2 (binary) or base 10 (decimal).

Another consideration and potential point of confusion are line rates (GBaud) and link speed which can vary based on encoding and low level frame or packet size. For example 1GbE along with 1, 2, 4 and 8Gb Fibre Channel along with Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) use an 8b/10b encoding scheme. This means that at the lowest physical layer 8bits of data are placed into 10bits for transmission with 2 bits being for data integrity.

With an 8Gb link using 8b/10b encoding, 2 out of every 10 bits are overhead. To determine the actual data throughput for bandwidth, or, number of IOPS, frames or packets per second is a function of the link speed, encoding and baud rate. For example, 1Gb FC has a 1.0625 Gb per second speed which is multiple by the current generation so 8Gb FC or 8GFC would be 8 x 1.0625 = 8.5Gb per second.

Remember to factor in that encoding overhead (e.g. 8 of 10 bits are for data with 8b/10b) and usable bandwidth on the 8GFC link is about 6.8Gb per second or about 850Mbytes (6.8Gb / 8 bits) per second. 10GbE uses 64b/66b encoding which means that for every 64 bits of data, only 2 bits are used for data integrity checks thus less overhead.

What do all of this bits and bytes have to do with clouds and virtual data storage network?

Quite a bit when you consider what we have talked about the need to support more information processing, moving as well as storing in a denser footprint.

In order to support higher densities faster servers, storage and networks are not enough and require various approaches to reducing the data footprint impact.

What this means is for fast networks to be effective they also have to have lower overhead to avoid moving more extra data in the same amount of time instead using that capacity for productive work and data.

PCIe leverages multiple serial unidirectional point to point links, known as lanes, compared to traditional PCI that used a parallel bus based design. With traditional PCI, the bus width varied from 32 to 64 bits while with PCIe, the number of lanes combined with PCIe version and signaling rate determines performance. PCIe interfaces can have one, two, four, eight, sixteen or thirty two lanes for data movement depending on card or adapter format and form factor.  For example, PCI and PCIx performance can be up to 528 MByte per second with 64 bit 66 MHz signaling rate.

 

PCIe Gen 1

PCIe Gen 2

PCIe Gen 3

Giga transfers per second

2.5

5

8

Encoding scheme

8b/10b

8b/10b

128b/130b

Data rate per lane per second

250MB

500MB

1GB

x32 lanes

8GB

16GBs

32GB

Table 1: PCIe generation comparisons

Table 1 shows performance characteristics of PCIe various generations. With PCIe Gen 3, the effective performance essentially doubles however the actual underlying transfer speed does not double as it has in the past. Instead the improved performance is a combination of about 60 percent link speed and 40 percent efficiency improvements by switching from an 8b/10b to 128b/130b encoding scheme among other optimizations.

Serial interface

Encoding

PCIe Gen 1

8b/10b

PCIe Gen 2

8b/10b

PCIe Gen 3

128b/120b

Ethernet 1Gb

8b/10b

Ethernet 10Gb

64b/66b

Fibre Channel 1/2/4/8 Gb

8b/10b

SAS 6Gb

8b/10b

Table 2: Common encoding

Bringing this all together is that in order to support cloud and virtual computing environments, data networks need to become faster as well as more efficient otherwise you will be paying for more overhead per second vs. productive work being done. For example, with 64b/66b encoding on a 10GbE or FCoE link, 96.96% of the overall bandwidth or about 9.7Gb per second are available for useful work.

By comparison if an 8b/10b encoding were used, the result would be only 80% of available bandwidth for useful data movement. For environments or applications this means better throughput or bandwidth while for applications that require lower response time or latency it means more IOPS, frames or packets per second.

The above is an example of where a small change such as the encoding scheme can have large benefit when applied to high volume or large environments.

Learn more in The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and coming summer 2011 Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC) at https://storageio.com/books

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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Winter 2011 Server and StorageIO News Letter

StorageIO News Letter Image
Winter 2011 Newsletter

 Welcome to the Winter 2011 edition of the Server and StorageIO Group (StorageIO) newsletter. This follows the Fall 2011 edition.

You can access this news letter via various social media venues (some are shown below) in addition to StorageIO web sites and subscriptions. Click on the following links to view the Winter 2011 edition as an HTML or PDF or, to go to the newsletter page to view previous editions.

Follow via Goggle Feedburner here or via email subscription here.

You can also subscribe to the news letter by simply sending an email to newsletter@storageio.com

Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO newsletter, let me know your comments and feedback.

Cheers gs

Nuff said for now

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and coming summer 2011 Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC)
twitter @storageio

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What do VARs and Clouds as well as MSPs have in common?

What do VARs and Clouds as well as MSPs have in common?

Several things it turns out:

  • Some Value Added Resellers (VARS) (links to VAR related content and comments here, here and here) sell cloud services or solutions
  • Some VARs are also cloud or managed solutions providers (MSPs) themselves, thus some cloud or MSPs are VARs
  • Some VARs, cloud and MSPs compete on lowest or cheapest price
  • Some VARs, cloud and MSPs have diverse product offering portfolios
  • Some VARs, cloud and MSPs compete on value (e.g. not price)
  • Some VARs, cloud and MSPs value is in the trust, security and peace of mind that they provide to their client

For some, the value of a given VAR, cloud or MSP is the ability to shop around for a resource to get the lowest price.

For others, the value of a given VAR, cloud or MSP is the ability to get the best value which may not be the lowest price rather the most effective overall cost per services with trust, security, experience and peace of mind provided.

Value to often is confused with being cheap or lowest cost.

Value can also mean a higher price that includes more thus providing a better effective option (e.g. super size it).

On the other hand, higher priced should not be confused with always being a better product, service or solution.

You may find that the initial low cost requires other add on fees or activation charges, surcharges for use or activity along with optional services to make the solution useful all resulting in an overall higher amount to be paid.

Lowest cost may result in a bargain now and then if that fits your needs.

Value can also mean a better option providing an improved return on investment if a solution or service meets and exceeds your needs and expectations.

As an example, I recently switched from a cloud backup MSP (Mozy) not due to cost (costs would have gone down with their recent service plan
announcement) rather I needed more value and functionality. With my new cloud backup MSP I get more functionality and capability that I can continue to grow into even though the price per GByte is higher than with my previous provider. What made the change of positive is what I get in the higher fee per GByte that in the end, actually makes it more affordable, not cheaper, just better value and return on investment.

For some low cost is value while for others, value is more than lowest cost including what you get for a given fee including trust, security, service and experience among other items. Different people will have different requirements or needs for what is or is not value.

If you do not like the term value, then try price performer.

Bottom line for now, with VARs, MSPs and Cloud (Public or private) dont be scared, however look before you leap!

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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What have I been doing this winter?

Its been almost a month since my last post and want to say hello and let you know what I have been doing.

What I have been doing is:

  • Accumulating a long list of ideas for upcoming blog post, article, tips, webinars and other content.
  • Recording some podcasts, web casts doing interviews and commentary along with a few articles here and there.
  • Working with some new venues where if all comes together you should be seeing material or commentary appearing soon.
  • Filling some dates for the 2011 out and about events and activities page.
  • Doing research in several different areas as well as working with clients on various project activities, many of which that are NDA.
  • Getting some recently finished content ready to appear on the main web site as well as in the blog and other venues.
  • Attending vendor events and briefing sessions on solutions some of which are yet to be announced.
  • Enjoying the cold and snowy winter as best as can be (see some videos here) while trying to avoid cold and flue season.

In addition to the above, I have been trying to stay very focused on is getting my new book which is titled Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC) wrapped up for a summer 2011 release. This is my third solo book project that is in addition to co writing or contributing to several other book projects.

Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking

Im doing the project the old fashioned way which means writing it myself as opposed to using ghost writers along with a traditional publishing house (CRC, same as my last book) all of which takes a bit more time. For anyone who has done a project like this you know what is involved. For those who have not it includes research, writing, editing, working with editors and copyeditors, subject matter experts doing initial reviews, illustrations and page layouts, markups, more edits and proofs. Then there are the general project management activities along with marketing and rollout plans, companion presentation material working with the publisher and others.

Anyway, hope you are all doing well, look forward to sharing more with you soon, now it is time to get back to work…

Nuff said for now

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and coming summer 2011 Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC)
twitter @storageio

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What records will EMC break in NYC January 18, 2011?

What records will EMC break in NYC January 18, 2011?

In case you have not seen or heard, EMC is doing an event next week in New York City (NYC) at the AXA Equitable Center winter weather snow storm clouds permitting (and adequate tools or technologies to deal with the snow removal), that has a theme around breaking records. If you have yet to see any of the advertisements, blogs, tweets, facebook, friendfeed, twitter, yourtube or other mediums messages, here (and here and here) are a few links to learn more as well as register to view the event.

Click on the above image to see more

There is already speculation along with IT industry wiki leaks of what will be announced or talked about next week that you can google or find at some different venues.

The theme of the event is breaking records.

What might we hear?

In addition to the advisor, author, blogger and consultant hats that I wear, Im also in the EMCs analysts relations program and as such under NDA, consequently, what the actual announcement will be next week, no comment for now. BTW, I also wear other hats including one from Boeing even though I often fly on Airbus products as well.

If its not Boeing Im not going, except I do also fly Airbus, Embrear and Bombardiar products
Other hats I wear

However, how about some fun as to what might be covered at next weeks event with getting into a wiki leak situation?

  • A no brainier would be product (hardware, software, services) related as it is mid January and if you have been in the industry for more than a year or two, you might recall that EMC tends to a mid winter launch around this time of year along with sometimes an early summer refresh. Guess what time of the year it is.
  • Im guessing lots of superlatives, perhaps at a record breaking pace (e.g. revolutionary first, explosive growth, exponential explosive growth, perfect storm among others that could be candidates for the Storagebrain wall of fame or shame)
  • Maybe we will even hear that EMC has set a new record of number of members in Chads army aka the vspecialists focused on vSphere related topics along with a growing (quietly) number of Microsoft HyperV specialist.
  • That EMC has a record number of twitter tweeps engaged in conversations (or debates) with different audiences, collectives, communities, competitors, customers, individuals, organizations, partners or venues among others.
  • Possibly that their involvement in the CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) has resulted in enough savings to offset the impact of hosting the event making it carbon and environment neutral. After all, we already know that EMC has been in the CDP as in Continual or Constant Data Protection as well as Complete or Comprehensive Data Protection along with Cloud Data Protection not to mention Common Sense Data Protection (CSDP) for sometime now.
  • Perhaps something around the number of acquisitions, patents, products, platforms, products and partners they have amassed recently.
  • For investors, wishful thinking that they will be moving their stock into record territories.
  • Im also guessing we will hear or see a record number of tweets, posts, videos and stories.
  • To be fair and balanced, Im also expecting a record number of counter tweets, counter posts, counter videos and counter stories coming out of the event.

Some records I would like to see EMC break however Im not going to hold my breath at least for next week include:

  • Announcement of upping the game in performance benchmarking battles with record setting or breaking various SPC benchmark results submitted on their own (instead of via a competitor or here) in different categories of block storage devices along with entries for SSD based, clustered and virtualized. Of course we would expect to hear how those benchmarks and workload simulations really do not matter which would be fine, at least they would have broken some records.
  • Announcement of having shipped more hard disk drives (HDD) than anyone else in conjunction with shipping more storage than anyone else. Despite being continually declared dead (its not) and SSD gaining traction, EMC would have a record breaking leg to stand on if the qualify amount of storage shipped as external or shared or networked (SAN or NAS) as opposed to collective (e.g. HP with servers and storage among others).
  • Announcement that they are buying Cisco, or Cisco is buying them, or that they and Cisco are buying Microsoft and Oracle.
  • Announcement of being proud of the record setting season of the Patriots, devastated to losing a close and questionable game to the NY Jets, wishing them well in the 2010 NFL Playoffs (Im just sayin…).
  • Announcement of being the first vendor and solution provider to establish SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, DaaS and many other XaaS offerings via their out of this world new moon base (plans underway for Mars as part of a federated offering).
  • Announcement that Fenway park will be rebranded as the house that EMC built (or rebuilt).

Disclosure: I will be in NYC on Tuesday the 18th as one of EMCs many guests that they have picked up airfare and lodging, thanks to Len Devanna and the EMC social media crew for reaching out and extending the invitation.

Other guests of the event will include analysts, advisors, authors, bloggers, beat writers, consultants, columnist, customers, editors, media, paparazzi, partners, press, protesters (hopefully polite ones), publishers, pundits, twitter tweepps and writers among others.

I wonder if there will also be a record number of disclosures made by others attending the event as guests of EMC?

More after (or maybe during) the event.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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As the Hard Disk Drive HDD continues to spin

As the Hard Disk Drive HDD continues to spin

server storage data infrastructure i/o iop hdd ssd trends

Updated 2/10/2018

Despite having been repeatedly declared dead at the hands of some new emerging technology over the past several decades, the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) continues to spin and evolve as it moves towards its 60th birthday.

More recently HDDs have been declared dead due to flash SSD that according to some predictions, should have caused the HDD to be extinct by now.

Meanwhile, having not yet died in addition to having qualified for its AARP membership a few years ago, the HDD continues to evolve in capacity, smaller form factor, performance, reliability, density along with cost improvements.

Back in 2006 I did an article titled Happy 50th, hard drive, but will you make it to 60?

IMHO it is safe to say that the HDD will be around for at least a few more years if not another decade (or more).

This is not to say that the HDD has outlived its usefulness or that there are not other tiered storage mediums to do specific jobs or tasks better (there are).

Instead, the HDD continues to evolve and is complimented by flash SSD in a way that HDDs are complimenting magnetic tape (another declared dead technology) each finding new roles to support more data being stored for longer periods of time.

After all, there is no such thing as a data or information recession!

What the importance of this is about technology tiering and resource alignment, matching the applicable technology to the task at hand.

Technology tiering (Servers, storage, networking, snow removal) is about aligning the applicable resource that is best suited to a particular need in a cost as well as productive manner. The HDD remains a viable tiered storage medium that continues to evolve while taking on new roles coexisting with SSD and tape along with cloud resources. These and other technologies have their place which ideally is finding or expanding into new markets instead of simply trying to cannibalize each other for market share.

Here is a link to a good story by Lucas Mearian on the history or evolution of the hard disk drive (HDD) including how a 1TB device that costs about $60 today would have cost about a trillion dollars back in the 1950s. FWIW, IMHO the 1 trillion dollars is low and should be more around 2 to 5 trillion for the one TByte if you apply common costs for management, people, care and feeding, power, cooling, backup, BC, DR and other functions.

Where To Learn More

View additional NAS, NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and HDD related topics via the following links.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

IMHO, it is safe to say that the HDD is here to stay for at least a few more years (if not decades) or at least until someone decides to try a new creative marketing approach by declaring it dead (again).

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Happy Holidays 2010

Here in the Stillwater Minnesota area we are on the verge of being the snowiest December on record, enough to even challenge SANta.

With the snow we have been accumulating you can a) complain about it, b) go elsewhere, c) do nothing or d) enjoy it.

Having the right technology and tools to address the various snow challenges also helps.

Taking a break between projects including chapters for a new book among other items, following are some videos of enjoying and having some fun snow sledding in the back yard here in the St. Croix river valley.

Click on the following images to see some videos we recorded today using a flip camera including action shots while out on the hill. Fun was had by both the kids and the big kids aka adults!

Click here, here or here to view smaller (e.g. shorter more compact .wmv versions)

Refer to this link (and video in the post) to see how much more snow we have accumulated in the past month since thanksgiving and how the sleeding conditions have evolved.

Rest assured there will be more tech related blog posts coming soon.

Have a safe and happy holiday season.

Nuff said for now

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

Posted on

SANtas IT elf limited time discount

I received a note from Robin, one of SANtas IT elfs over at Shop Timberland.

Robin said to pass along this information about the Timberland Friends and Family Event, Share the savings that starts Thursday December 2nd through Monday December 6th.

Like many of you, I get tons of promotion material or spam. This however came from someone I have meet face to face who also happens to be one of SANtas IT elfs, not to mention that Im also an existing customer of theirs (that was a disclosure BTW…).

With the current holiday shopping season coupled with a common IT theme of stretching budgets, doing more with what you have or less as well as reducing costs, those also seemed like good reasons for sharing this info.

Best that I can tell, you will not be finding any of Timberlands servers, storage, networking hardware or software involved in the sale other than supporting the transactions, however it is a good opportunity for other items at their online or traditional stores.

Here is how it works, quite simple actually.

Go to for example the online store, select the items you are looking for, add them to your virtual shopping cart, then when you go to check out, you will see a box

where you will enter
jsaEJ8M3pjK to receive up to 40 percent off on the online or 30 percent at stores.

Want to see the additional details of what was sent to me, read below (note I redacted Robins full name and contact so that he does not get spammed and placed his note in italics).

 

All,

Here is the official email with the promotional code. 

If you are hesitating to pass it on, not wanting to take advantage, banish the thought!  Once again there is a competition going on here to see whose code is used the most, so if you know other people who may be interested in this discount, by all means share!

Happy Holidays to all –

Robin (One of SANtas IT elfs at Timberland)

From: Shop Timberland
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 9:51 AM
To: SANtas IT Elf aka Robin
Subject: Timberland Friends & Family Event. Share the savings.

FRIENDS & FAMILY SAVINGS start Thursday 12/2

Use my personal event promo code to save: jsaEJ8M3pjK

Shop Timberland Sale

Online at timberland.com use MY PERSONAL EVENT PROMO CODE (above) for savings.
To redeem in store – Print the email or show to a store associate on your mobile phone. Coupon Code: 500064

Shop early for best selection. Share this special discount with your friends & family.

Find a store near you or call 1-888-802-9947 to redeem this special offer. Or take advantage of special hours in our company store located at 200 Domain Drive, Stratham, NH.
Stratham company store hours:
Monday – Thursday: 9 – 5:30
Friday/Saturday: 9 – 5
Sunday: 12 – 5

If you received this email from a friend and would like to subscribe to our email list, click here.

* 40% off at Timberland® Specialty Stores and at timberland.com in the US only. Expires December 6, 2010. Must redeem at time of purchase. Valid on in-stock merchandise only; not valid on prior purchases. Excludes boot style #10061, 15551, 10025, custom footwear orders, Gift Cards, Timberland Boot Company® Elite Collection, Abington Collection, and non-Timberland branded merchandise. See website for details. Cannot be combined with any other coupon or discount offers. Void where prohibited. We reserve the right to limit quantities. Timberland reserves the right to cancel orders arising from pricing, promotions, or other errors. Free ground shipping on orders of $150 or more not valid in Alaska or Hawaii. Free returns not valid on custom footwear orders.

** 30% off at Timberland® Factory Stores offer valid through December 6, 2010 in the US only. Must redeem at time of purchase. Valid on in-stock merchandise only; not valid on prior purchases. Excludes boot style #10061, 10025, Gift Cards, and non-Timberland branded merchandise. Cannot be combined with any other coupon or discount offers. Void where prohibited.

Timberland.com is not directed to children under age 13. Timberland,  and Timberland Boot Company are trademarks of The Timberland Company. All other trademarks or logos used in this copy are the property of their respective owners. © 2010 The Timberland Company. All rights reserved. The Timberland Company, 200 Domain Dr., Stratham, NH, 03885.

 

There you have it.

Now, I wonder if I will recieve a similar note from my Amazon and other SANtas IT elfs contacts, hmmm……

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

Posted on

Happy Thanks giving 2010

Taking a break from industry trends and perspectives activity, here is using some technology to show how even in the snow and cold, for those who are bold, they wont grow old, as kids of all ages enjoy snow sled sliding in the scenic St. Croix River Valley.

Here is a video (.MPG) (and smaller .wmv version) that I put together this afternoon of the neighbor kids and their crew enjoying the snow during the first sled runs of the year.

For those enjoying the thanksgiving holidays in the U.S. try not to eat to much and thus avoid the sleep to much syndrome. However for everyone else, enjoy, have fun and best wishes.

Nuff said for now

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

Posted on

Who is responsible for vendor lockin?

Who is responsible for vendor lockin?

data infrastructure server storage I/O vendor lockin

Updated 1/21/2018

Who is responsible for vendor lockin?

Is vendor lockin caused by vendors, their partners or by customers?

In my opinion vendor lockin can be from any or all of the above.

What is vendor lockin

Vendor lockin is a situation where a customer becomes dependent or locked in by choice or other circumstances to a particular supplier or technology.

What is the difference between vendor lockin, account control and stickiness?

Im sure some marketing wiz or sales type will be happy to explain the subtle differences. Generally speaking, lockin, stickiness and account control are essentially the same, or at least strive to obtain similar results. For example, vendor lockin too some has a negative stigma. However vendor stickiness may be a new term, perhaps even sounding cool thus it is not a concern. Remember the Mary Poppins song a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down? In other words sometimes changing and using a different term such as sticky vs vendor lockin helps make the situation taste better.

Is vendor lockin or stickiness a bad thing?

No, not necessarily, particularly if you the customer are aware and still in control of your environment.

I have had different views of vendor lockin over the years.

These have varied from when I was a customer working in IT organizations or being a vendor and later as an advisory analyst consultant. Even as a customer, I had different views of lockin which varied depending upon the situation. In some cases lockin was a result of upper management having their favorite vendor which meant when a change occurred further up the ranks, sometimes vendor lockin would shift as well. On the other hand, I also worked in IT environments where we had multiple vendors for different technologies to maintain competition across suppliers.

As a vendor, I was involved with customer sites that were best of breed while others were aligned around a single or few vendors. Some were aligned around technologies from the vendors I worked for and others were aligned with someone elses technology. In some cases as a vendor we were locked out of an account until there was a change of management or mandates at those sites. In other cases where lock out occurred, once our product was OEMd or resold by an incumbent vendor, the lockout ended.

Some vendors do a better job of establishing lockin, account management, account control or stickiness than compared to others. Some vendors may try to lock a customer in and thus there is perception that vendors lock customers in. Likewise, there is a perception that vendor lockin only occurs with the largest vendors however I have seen this also occur with smaller or niche vendors who gain control of their customers keeping larger or other vendors out.

Sweet, sticky Sue Bee Honey

Vendor lockin or stickiness is not always the result of the vendor, var, consultant or service provider pushing a particular technology, product or service. Customers can allow or enable vendor lockin as well, either by intent via alliances to drive some business initiative or accidentally by giving up account control management. Consequently vendor lockin is not a bad thing if it brings mutual benefit to the suppler and consumer.

On the other hand, if lockin causes hardship on the consumer while only benefiting the supplier, than it can be a bad thing for the customer.

Do some technologies lend themselves more to vendor lockin vs others?

Yes, some technologies lend themselves more to stickiness or lockin then others. For example, often big ticket or expensive hardware are seen as being vulnerable to vendor lockin along with other hardware items however software is where I have seen a lot of stickiness or lockin around.

However what about virtualization solutions after all the golden rule of virtualization is whoever controls the virtualization (hardware, software or services) controls the gold. This means that vendor lockin could be around a particular hypervisor or associated management tools.

How about bundled solutions or what are now called integrated vendor technology stacks including PODs (here or here) or vBlocks among others? How about databases, do they enable or facilitate vendor lockin? Perhaps, just like virtualization or operating systems or networking technology, storage system, data protection or other solutions, if you let the technology or vendor manage you, then you enable vendor lockin.

Where can vendor lockin or stickiness occur?

Application software, databases, data or information tools, messaging or collaboration, infrastructure resource management (IRM) tools ranging from security to backup to hypervisors and operating systems to email. Lets not forget about hardware which has become more interoperable from servers, storage and networks to integrated marketing or alliance stacks.

Another opportunity for lockin or stickiness can be in the form of drivers, agents or software shims where you become hooked on a feature functionality that then drives future decisions. In other words, lockin can occur in different locations both in traditional IT as well as via managed services, virtualization or cloud environments if you let it occur.

 

Keep these thoughts in mind:

  • Customers need to manage their resources and suppliers
  • Technology and their providers should work for you the customer, not the other way around
  • Technology providers conversely need to get closer to influence customer thinking
  • There can be cost with single vendor or technology sourcing due to loss of competition
  • There can be a cost associated with best of breed or functioning as your own integrator
  • There is a cost switching from vendors and or their technology to keep in mind
  • Managing your vendors or suppliers may be easier than managing your upper management
  • Vendors sales remove barriers so they can sell and setting barriers for others
  • Virtualization and cloud can be both a source for lockin as well as a tool to help prevent it
  • As a customer, if lockin provides benefits than it can be a good thing for all involved

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Ultimately, its up to the customer to manage their environment and thus have a say if they will allow vendor lockin. Granted, upper management may be the source of the lockin and not surprisingly is where some vendors will want to focus their attention directly, or via influence of high level management consultants.

So while a vendors solution may appear to be a locked in solution, it does not become a lockin issue or problem until a customer lets or allows it to be a lockin or sticky situation.

What is your take on vendor lockin? Cast your vote and see results in the following polls.

Is vendor lockin a good or bad thing?

Who is responsible for managing vendor lockin

Where is most common form or concern of vendor lockin

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Have VTLs or VxLs become Zombies, Declared dead yet still alive?

Have you heard or read the reports and speculation that VTLs (Virtual Tape Libraries) are dead?

It seems that in IT the all to popular trend is to declare something dead so that your new product or technology can have a chance of making it in to the market or perhaps seen in a better light.

Sometimes this approach works to temporary freeze the market until common sense and clarity returns to the market or until something else fun to talk about comes along and in other cases, the messages can fall on deft ears.

The approach of declaring something dead tends to play well for those who like shiny new toys (SNT) or new shiny toys (NST) and being on the popular, cool trendy bandwagon.

Not surprisingly, while some actual IT customers can fall into the SNT or NST syndrome, its often the broader industry including media, bloggers, analysts, consultants and other self proclaimed or anointed pundits as well as vendors who latch on to the declare it dead movement. After all, who wants to talk about something that is old, boring and already being sold to paying customers who are using it. Now this is not a bad thing as we need a balance of up and coming challengers to keep the status quo challenged, likewise we need a balance of the new to avoid death grips on the old and what is working.

Likewise, many IT customers particularly larger ones tend to be very risk averse and conservative with their budgets protecting their investments thus they may only go leading bleeding edge if there is a dual redundant blood bank with a backup on hot standby (thats some HA humor BTW).

Another reason that declaring items dead in support of SNT and NST is that while many of the commonly declared dead items are on the proverbial plateau of productivity for IT customers, that also can mean that they are on the plateau of profitability for the vendors.

However, not all good things last and at sometime, there is the need to transition from the old to the new and this is where things like virtualization including virtual tape libraries or virtual disk libraries or virtual storage library or what ever you want to call a VxL (more on what a VxL is in a moment) can come into play.

I realize that for some, particularly those who like to grasp on to SNT, NST and ride the dead pool bandwagons this will probably appear as snarky or cynical which is fine, after all, for some, you should be laughing to the bank and if not, you may in fact be missing out on an opportunity for playing in the dead pool marketing game.

Now back to VxL.

In the case of VTLs, for some it is the T word that bothers them, you know T as in Tape which is not a SNT or NST in an age where SSD has supposedly killed the disk drive which allegedly terminated tape (yeah right). Sure tape is not being used as much for backup as it has in the past with its role shifting to that of longer term retention, something that it is well suited for.

For tape fans (or cynics) you can read more here, here and here. However there is still a large amount of backup/restore along with other data protection or preservation (e.g. archiving) processing (software tools, processes, procedures, skill sets, management tools) that still expects to see tape.

Hence this is where VTLs or VxLs come into play leveraging virtualization in an Life Beyond Consolidation (and here) scenario providing abstraction, transparency, agility and emulation and IMHO are still very much alive and evolving.

Ok, for those who do not like or believe in or of its continued existence and evolving role, substitute the T (tape) with X and you get a VxL. That is, plug in what ever X word that makes you happy or marketable or a Shiny New TLA. For example Virtual Disk Library, Virtual Storage Library, Virtual Backup Library, Virtual Compression Library, Virtual Dedupe Library, Virtual ILM Library, Virtual Archive Library, Virtual Cloud Library and so forth. Granted some VxLs only emulate tape and hence are VTLs while others support NAS and other protocols (or personalities) not to mention functionality ranging from replication, DFR as well as automated policy management.

However, keep in mind that if your preference is VTL, VxL or what ever other buzzword bingo name that you want to use or come up with, look at how virtualization in the form of abstraction, transparency and emulation can bridge the gap between the new (disk based data protection) combined with DFR (Data Footprint Reduction) and the old (existing backup/restore, archive or other management tools and processes.

Here are some additional links pertaining to VTLs (excuse me, VxLs):

  • Virtual tape libraries: Old backup technology holdover or gateway to the future?
  • Not to mention here, here, here, here or here.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

Posted on

What do you do when your service provider drops the ball

Do you have a web, internet, backup or other IT cloud service provider of some type?

Do you pay for it, or is it a free service?

Do you take your service provider for granted?

Does your service provider take you or your data for granted?

Does your provider offer some form of service level objectives (SLO)?

For example, Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), Quality of Service (QOS) or if a backup service alternate forms of recovery among others?

So what happens when there is a service disruption, do you threaten to leave the provider and if so, how much does that (or would it) cost you to move?

A couple of weeks ago I was using on a Delta airlines flight from LAX to MSP returning from a west coast speaking engagement event.

During the late evening three hour flight, I was using the gogo inflight wifi service to get caught up on some emails, blog items along with other work items in addition to doing a few twitter tweets while flying high over the real clouds from my virtual office.

During that time, I saw a twitter tweet from Devang Panchigar (@storageNerve) commenting that his hosting service provider Bluehost was down or offline. This caught my attention as Bluehost is also my service provider and a quick check verified that my sites and services were still working. I subsequently sent a tweet to Devang indicating that Bluehost or at least from looking at my sites and services were still functioning, or at least for the time being as I was about to find out. Long story short, about 20 to 25 minutes later, I noticed that I could not longer get to any of my sites, low and behold my Bluehost services were also now offline.

Bluehost

Overall, I have been pleased with Bluehost as a service provider including finding their call support staff very accommodating and easy to work with when I have questions or need something taken care of. Normally I would have simply called Bluehost to see what was going on, however being at about 38,000 feet above the clouds, a quick conversation was not going to be possible. Instead, I checked some forums that revealed Bluehost was experiencing some electrical power issues with their data center (I believe in Utah). Looking at some of the forums as well as various twitter comments, I also decided to check to see if Bluehost CEO Matt Heaton blog was functioning (it was).

It would have been too easy to do one of those irate customer type posts telling them how bad they were, how I was dropping them like a hot potato and then doing a blog post telling everyone to never use them again or along those lines that are far to common and often get deleted as spam.

Instead, I took a different approach (you could have read it here however I just checked and it has been deleted). My comment on Matts blog post took a week or so to be moderated (now since deleted). Essentially my post took the opposite approach of going off on the usual customer tirade instead commenting how ironic that a hosting service for my web site which contains content information about resilient data infrastructure themes was offline.

Now I realize that I am not paying for a high end no downtime always available hosting service, however I also realize that I am paying for a more premium package vs. a basic subscription or even a for free service. While I was not happy about the one hour of downtime around midnight, it was comforting to know that no data was lost and my sites were only offline for a short period of time.

What does all of this mean?

There have been some widely publicized and discussed internet and cloud service related disruptions.

I hope Bluehost continues to improve on their services to stay out of the news for a major disruption as well as minimize or eliminate downtime for their for fee based services.

I also hope that Bluehost CEO Matt Heaton continues to listen to what his customers have to say while improving his services to keep us as customers instead of taking us for granted as some providers or vendors do.

Thanks again to Devang for the tip that there was a service disruption, after all, sometimes we take services for granted and in other situations some service providers take their customers for granted.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

Posted on

Is the new HDS VSP really the MVSP?

Today HDS announced with much fan fare that must have been a million dollar launch budget the VSP (successor to the previous USPV and USPVM).

Im also thinking that the HDS VSP (not to be confused with HP SVSP that HP OEMs via LSI) could also be called the the HDS MVSP.

Now if you are part of the HDS SAN, LAN, MAN, WAN or FAN bandwagon, MVSP could mean Most Valuable Storage Platform or Most Virtualized Storage Product. MVSP might be also called More Virtualized Storage Products by others.

Yet OTOH, MVSP could be More Virtual Story Points (e.g. talking points) for HDS building upon and when comparing to their previous products.

For example among others:

More cache to drive cash movement (e.g. cash velocity or revenue)
More claims and counter claims of industry unique or fists
More cloud material or discussion topics
More cross points
More data mobility
More density
More FUD and MUD throwing by competitors
More functionality
More packets of information to move, manage and store
More pages in the media
More partitioning of resources
More partners to sell thorough or too
More PBytes
More performance and bandwidths
More platforms virtualized
More platters
More points of resiliency
More ports to connect to or through
More posts from bloggers
More power management, Eco and Green talking points
More press releases
More processors
More products to sell
More profits to be made
More protocols (Fibre Channel, FICON, FCoE, NAS) supported
More pundits praises
More SAS, SATA and SSD (flash drives) devices supported
More scale up, scale out, and scale within
More security
More single (Virtual and Physical) pane of glass managements
More software to sell and be licensed by customers
More use of virtualization, 3D and other TLAs
More videos to watch or be stored

Im sure more points can be thought of, however that is a good start for now including some to have a bit of fun with.

Read more about HDS new announcement here, here, here and here:

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved