Category: IT Industry Activity

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IBMs Storwize or wise Storage, the V7000 and DFR

A few months ago IBM bought a Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) technology company called Storwize (read more about DFR and Storwize Real time Compression here, here, here, here and here).

A couple of weeks ago IBM renamed the Storwize real time compression technology to surprise surprise, IBM real time compression (wow, wonder how lively that market focus research group study discussion was).

Subsequently IBM recycled the Storwize name in time to be used for the V7000 launch.

Now to be clear right up front, currently the V7000 does not include real time compression capabilities, however I would look for that and other forms of DFR techniques to appear on an increasing basis in IBM products in the future.

IBM has a diverse storage portfolio with good products some with longer legs than others to compete in the market. By long legs, that means both technology and marketability for enabling their direct as well as partners including distributors or vars to effectively compete with other vendors offerings.

The enablement capability of the V7000 will be to give IBM and their business partners a product that they will want go tell and sell to customers competing with Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, NEC, NetApp and Oracle among others.

What about XIV?

For those interested in XIV regardless of if you are a fan, nay sayer or simply an observer, here, here and here are some related posts to view if you like (as well as comment on).

Back to the V7000

A couple of common themes about the IBM V7000 are:

  • It appears to be a good product based on the SVC platform with many enhancements
  • Expanding the industry scope and focus awareness around Data Footprint Reduction (DFR)
  • Branding the storwize acquisition as real-time compression as part of their DFR portfolio
  • Confusion about using the Storwize name for a storage virtualization solution
  • Lack of Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) particularly real-time compression (aka Storwize)
  • Yet another IBM storage product adding to confusion around product positioning

Common questions that Im being asked about the IBM V7000 include among others:

  • Is the V7000 based on LSI, NetApp or other third party OEM technology?

    No, it is based on the IBM SVC code base along with an XIV like GUI and features from other IBM products.

  • Is the V7000 based on XIV?

    No, as mentioned above, the V7000 is based on the IBM SVC code base along with an XIV like GUI and features from other IBM products.

  • Does the V7000 have DFR such as dedupe or compression?

    No, not at this time other than what was previously available with the SVC.

  • Does this mean there will be a change or defocusing on or of other IBM storage products?

    IMHO I do not think so other than perhaps around XIV. If anything, I would expect IBM to start pushing the V7000 as well as the entire storage product portfolio more aggressively. Now there could be some defocusing on XIV or put a different way, putting all products on the same equal footing and let the customer determine what they want based on effective solution selling from IBM and their business partners.

  • What does this mean for XIV is that product no longer the featured or marquee product?

    IMHO XIV remains relevant for the time being. However, I also expect to be put on equal footprint with other IBM products or, if you prefer, other IBM products particularly the V7000 to be unleashed to compete with other external vendors solutions such as those from Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, NEC, NetApp and Oracle among others. Read more here, here and here about XIV remaining relevant.

  • Why would I not just buy an SVC and add storage to it?

    That is an option and strength of SVC to sit in front of different IBM storage products as well as those of third party competitors. However with the V7000 customers now have a turnkey storage solution to sell instead of a virtualization appliance.

  • Is this a reaction to EMC VPLEX, HDS VSP, HP SVSP or 3PAR, Oracle/Sun 7000?

    Perhaps it is, perhaps it is a reaction to XIV, and perhaps it is a realization that IBM has a lot of IP that could be combined into a solution to respond to a market need among many other scenarios. However, IBM has had a virtualization platform with a decent installed base in the form of SVC which happens to be at the heart of the V7000.

  • Does this mean IBM is jumping on the using off the shelf server instead of purpose built hardware for storage systems bandwagon like Oracle, HP and others are doing?

    If you are new to storage or IBM, it might appear that way, however, IBM has been shipping storage systems that are based on general purpose servers for a couple for a couple of decades now. Granted, some of those products are based on IBM Power PC (e.g. power platform) also used in their pSeries formerly known as the RS6000s. For example, the DS8000 series similar to its predecessors the ESS (aka Shark) and VSS before that have been based on the Power platform. Likewise, SVC has been based on general purpose processors since its inception.

    Likewise, while only generally deployed in two node pairs, the DS8000 is architected to scale into many more nodes that what has been shipped meaning that IBM has had clustered storage for some time, granted, some of their competitors will dispute that.

  • How does the V7000 stack up from a performance standpoint?

    Interestingly, IBM has traditionally been very good if not out front running public benchmarks and workload simulations ranging from SPC to TPC to SPEC to Microsoft ESRP among others for all of their storage systems except one (e.g. XIV). However true to traditional IBM systems and storage practices, just a couple of weeks after the V7000 launch, IBM has released the first wave of performance comparisons including SPC for the V7000 which can be seen here to compare with others.

  • What do I think of the V7000?

    Like other products both in the IBM storage portfolio or from other vendors, the V7000 has its place and in that place which needs to be further articulated by IBM, it has a bright future. I think that the V7000 for many environments particularly those that were looking at XIV will be a good IBM based solution as well as competitor to other solutions from Dell, EMC, HDS, HP, NetApp, Oracle as well as some smaller startups providers.

Comments, thoughts and perspectives:

IBM is part of a growing industry trend realizing that data footprint reduction (DFR) focus should expand the scope beyond backup and dedupe to span an entire organization using many different tools, techniques and best practices. These include archiving of databases, email, file systems for both compliance and non compliance purposes, backup/restore modernization or redesign, compression (real-time for online and post processing). In addition, DFR includes consolidation of storage capacity and performance (e.g. fast 15K SAS, caching or SSD), data management (including some data deletion where practical), data dedupe, space saving snapshots such as copy on write or redirect on write, thin provisioning as well as virtualization for both consolidation and enabling agility.

IBM has some great products, however too often with such a diverse product portfolio better navigation and messaging of what to use when, where and why is needed not to mention the confusion over the current product dejur.

As has been the case for the past couple of years, lets see how this all plays out in a year or so from now. Meanwhile cast your vote or see the results of others as to if XIV remains relevant. Likewise, join in on the new poll below as to if the V7000 is now relevant or not.

Note: As with the ongoing is XIV relevant polling (above), for the new is the V7000 relevant polling (below) you are free to vote early, vote often, vote for those who cannot or that care not to vote.

Here are some links to read more about this and related topics:

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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Re visiting if IBM XIV is still relevant with V7000

Over the past couple of years I routinely get asked what I think of XIV by fans as well as foes in addition to many curious or neutral onlookers including XIV competitors, other analysts, media, bloggers, consultants as well as IBM customers, prospects, vars and business partners. Consequently I have done some blog posts about my thoughts and perspectives.

Its time again for what has turned out to be the third annual perspective or thoughts around IBM XIV and if it is still relevant as a result of the recent IBM V7000 (excuse me, I meant to say IBM Storwize V7000) storage system launch.

For those wanting to take a step back in time, here is an initial thought perspective about IBM and XIV storage from 2008, as well as the 2009 revisiting of XIV relevance post and the latest V7000 companion post found here.

What is the IBM V7000?

Here is a link to a companion post pertaining to the IBM V7000 that you will want to have a look at.

In a nut shell, the V7000 is a new storage system with built in storage virtualization or virtual storage if you prefer that leverages IBM developed software from its San Volume Controller (SVC), DS8000 enterprise system and others.

Unlike the SVC which is a gateway or appliance head that virtualizes various IBM and third party storage systems providing data movement, migration, copy, replication, snapshot and other agility or abstraction capabilities, the V7000 is a turnkey integrated solution.

By being a turnkey solution, the V7000 combines the functionality of the SVC as a basis for adding other IBM technologies including a GUI management tool similar to that found on XIV along with dedicated attached storage (e.g. SAS disk drives including fast, high capacity as well as SSD).

In other words, for those customer or prospects who liked XIV because of its management GUI interface, you may like the V7000.

For those who liked the functionality capabilities of the SVC however needed it to be a turnkey solution, you might like the V7000.

For those of you who did not like or competed with the SVC in the past, well, you know what to do.

BTW, for those who knew of Storwize the Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) vendor with real time compression that IBM recently acquired and renamed IBM Real time Compression, the V7000 does not contain any real time compression (yet).

What are my thoughts and perspectives?

In addition to the comments in the companion post found here, right now Im of the mind set that XIV does not fade away quietly into the sunset or take a timeout at the IBM technology rest and recuperation resort located on the beautiful someday isle.

The reason I think XIV will remain somewhat relevant for some time, (time to be determined of course) is that IBM has expended over the past two and half years significant resources to promote it. Those resources have included marketing time, messaging space and in some instances perhaps inadvertinly at the expense of other IBM storage solutions. Simiarly, a lot of time, money and effort have gone into business partner outreach to establish and keep XIV relevant with those commuities who in turn have gone to their customers to tell and sell the XIV story to some customers who have bought it.

Consequently or as a result of all of that investment, I would be surprised if IBM were simply to walk away from XIV at least near term.

What I do see as happening including some early indicators is that the V7000 (along with other IBM products) now will be getting equal billing, resources and promotional support. Weather this means the XIV division finally being assimilated into the mainstream IBM fold and on equal footing with other IBM products, or, that other IBM products being brought up to an elevated position of XIV is subject to interpretation and your own perception.

I expect to continue to see IBM teams and subsequently their distributors, vars and other business partners get more excited talking about the V7000 along with other IBM solutions. For example, SONAS for bulk, clustered and scale out NAS, DS8000 for high end, GMAS and Information Archive platforms as well as N and DS3K/DS4K/DS5K not to mentiuon the TS/TL backup and archive target platforms along with associated Tivoli software. Also, lets not forget about SVC among other IBM solutions including of course, XIV.

I would also not be surprised if some of the diehard XIV loyalist (e.g. sales and marketing reps that were faithful members of Moshe Yani army who appears to be MIA at IBM) pack up their bags and leave the IBM storage SANdbox in virtual protest. That is, refusing to be assimilated into the general IBM storage pool and thus leaving for Greener IT pastures elsewhere. Some will stick around discovering the opportunities associated with selling a broader more diverse product portfolio into their target accounts where they have spent time and resources to establish relationships or getting thier proverbial foot in the door.

Consequently, I think XIV remains somewhat relevant for now given all of the resources that IBM poured into it and relationships that their partner ecosystem also spent on establishing with the installed customer base.

However, I do think that the V7000 despite some confusion (here and here) around its recycled Storwize name that is built around the field proven SVC and other IBM technology has some legs. Those legs of the V7000 are both from a technology standpoint as well as a means to get the entire IBM systems and storage group energized to go out and compete with their primary nemesis (e.g. Dell, EMC, HP, HDS, NetApp and Oracle among others).

As has been the case for the past couple of years, lets see how this all plays out in a year or so from now. Meanwhile cast your vote or see the results of others as to if XIV remains relevant. Likewise, join in on the new poll below as to if the V7000 is now relevant or not.

Note: As with the ongoing is XIV relevant polling (above), for the new is the V7000 relevant polling (below) you are free to vote early, vote often, vote for those who cannot or that care not to vote.

Here are some links to read more about this and related topics:

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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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

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More Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) Material

This is part of an ongoing series of short industry trends and perspectives (ITP) blog posts briefs based on what I am seeing and hearing in my conversations with IT professionals on a global basis.

These short posts compliment other longer posts along with traditional industry trends and perspective white papers, research reports, videos, podcasts, webcasts as well as solution brief content found a www.storageioblog.com/reports and www.storageio.com/articles.

If you recall from previous posts including here, here or here among others, Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) is a collection of tools, technologies and best practices for addressing growing data storage management and cost impacts.

DFR encompasses many different tools, techniques and technologies across various applications ranging from active or primary storage to secondary and inactive along with backup and archive.

Some of the technologies techniques and technologies include archiving, backup modernization, compression, data management, dedupe, space saving snapshots and thin provisioning among others.

Following are some links to various articles and commentary pertaining to DFR:

  • Using DFR including dedupe and compression to defry storage and management costs
  • Deduplicate, compress and defray costs of data storage management
  • Virtual tape libraries: Old backup technology holdover or gateway to the future?
  • As well as here, here or here

In the spirit of DFR, that is doing more with less, nuff said (for now).

Of course let me know what your thoughts and perspectives are on this and other related topics.

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 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

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End to End (E2E) Systems Resource Analysis (SRA) for Cloud and Virtual Environments

A new StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspective (ITP) white paper titled “End to End (E2E) Systems Resource Analysis (SRA) for Cloud, Virtual and Abstracted Environments” is now available at www.storageioblog.com/reports compliments of SANpulse technologies.

End to End (E2E) Systems Resource Analysis (SRA) for Virtual, Cloud and abstracted environments: Importance of Situational Awareness for Virtual and Abstracted Environments

Abstract:
Many organizations are in the planning phase or already executing initiatives moving their IT applications and data to abstracted, cloud (public or private) virtualized or other forms of efficient, effective dynamic operating environments. Others are in the process of exploring where, when, why and how to use various forms of abstraction techniques and technologies to address various issues. Issues include opportunities to leverage virtualization and abstraction techniques that enable IT agility, flexibility, resiliency and salability in a cost effective yet productive manner.

An important need when moving to a cloud or virtualized dynamic environment is to have situational awareness of IT resources. This means having insight into how IT resources are being deployed to support business applications and to meet service objectives in a cost effective manner.

Awareness of IT resource usage provides insight necessary for both tactical and strategic planning as well as decision making. Effective management requires insight into not only what resources are at hand but also how they are being used to decide where different applications and data should be placed to effectively meet business requirements.

Learn more about the importance and opportunities associated with gaining situational awareness using E2E SRA for virtual, cloud and abstracted environments in this StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspective (ITP) white paper compliments of SANpulse technologies by clicking 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

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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

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What is DFR or Data Footprint Reduction?

What is DFR or Data Footprint Reduction?

What is DFR or Data Footprint Reduction?

Updated 10/9/2018

What is DFR or Data Footprint Reduction?

Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) is a collection of techniques, technologies, tools and best practices that are used to address data growth management challenges. Dedupe is currently the industry darling for DFR particularly in the scope or context of backup or other repetitive data.

However DFR expands the scope of expanding data footprints and their impact to cover primary, secondary along with offline data that ranges from high performance to inactive high capacity.

Consequently the focus of DFR is not just on reduction ratios, its also about meeting time or performance rates and data protection windows.

This means DFR is about using the right tool for the task at hand to effectively meet business needs, and cost objectives while meeting service requirements across all applications.

Examples of DFR technologies include Archiving, Compression, Dedupe, Data Management and Thin Provisioning among others.

Read more about DFR in Part I and Part II of a two part series found here and here.

Where to learn more

Learn more about data footprint reducton (DFR), data footprint overhead and 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

That is all for now, hope you find these ongoing series of current or emerging Industry Trends and Perspectives posts of interest.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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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Has FCoE entered the trough of disillusionment?

This is part of an ongoing series of short industry trends and perspectives blog posts briefs based on what I am seeing and hearing in my conversations with IT professionals on a global basis.

These short posts compliment other longer posts along with traditional industry trends and perspective white papers, research reports, videos, podcasts, webcasts as well as solution brief content found a www.storageioblog.com/reports and www.storageio.com/articles.

Has FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) entered the trough of disillusionment?

IMHO Yes and that is not a bad thing if you like FCoE (which I do among other technologies).

The reason I think that it is good that FCoE is in or entering the trough is not that I do not believe in FCoE. Instead, the reason is that most if not all technologies that are more than a passing fad often go through a hype and early adopter phase before taking a breather prior to broader longer term adoption.

Sure there are FCoE solutions available including switches, CNAs and even storage systems from various vendors. However, FCoE is still very much in its infancy and maturing.

Based on conversations with IT customer professionals (e.g those that are not vendor, vars, consultants, media or analysts) and hearing their plans, I believe that FCoE has entered the proverbial trough of disillusionment which is a good thing in that FCoE is also ramping up for deployment.

Another common question that comes up regarding FCoE as well as other IO networking interfaces, transports and protocols is if they are temporal (temporary short life span) technologies.

Perhaps in the scope that all technologies are temporary however it is their temporal timeframe that should be of interest. Given that FCoE will probably have at least a ten to fifteen year temporal timeline, I would say in technology terms it has a relative long life for supporting coexistence on the continued road to convergence which appears to be around Ethernet.

That is where I feel FCoE is at currently, taking a break from the initial hype, maturing while IT organizations begin planning for its future deployment.

I see FCoE as having a bright future coexisting with other complimentary and enabling technologies such as IO Virtualization (IOV) including PCI SIG MRIOV, Converged Networking, iSCSI, SAS and NAS among others.

Keep in mind that FCoE does not have to be seen as competitive to iSCSI or NAS as they all can coexist on a common DCB/CEE/DCE environment enabling the best of all worlds not to mention choice. FCoE along with DCB/CEE/DCE provides IT professionals with choice options (e.g. tiered I/O and networking) to align the applicable technology to the task at hand for physical or

Again, the questions pertaining to FCoE for many organizations, particularly those not going to iSCSI or NAS for all or part of their needs should be when, where and how to deploy.

This means that for those with long lead time planning and deployment cycles, now is the time to putting your strategy into place for what you will be doing over the next couple of years if not sooner.

For those interested, here is a link (may require registration) to a good conversation taking place over on IT Toolbox regarding FCoE and other related themes that may be of interest.

Here are some links to additional related material:

  • FCoE Infrastructure Coming Together
  • 2010 and 2011 Trends, Perspectives and Predictions: More of the same?
  • SNWSpotlight: 8G FC and FCoE, Solid State Storage
  • NetApp and Cisco roll out vSphere compatible FCoE solutions
  • Fibre Channel over Ethernet FAQs
  • Fast Fibre Channel and iSCSI switches deliver big pipes to virtualized SAN environments.
  • Poll: Networking Convergence, Ethernet, InfiniBand or both?
  • I/O Virtualization (IOV) Revisited
  • Will 6Gb SAS kill Fibre Channel?
  • Experts Corner: Q and A with Greg Schulz at StorageIO
  • Networking Convergence, Ethernet, Infiniband or both?
  • Vendors hail Fibre Channel over Ethernet spec
  • Cisco, NetApp and VMware combine for ‘end-to-end’ FCoE storage
  • FCoE: The great convergence, or not?
  • I/O virtualization and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE): How do they differ?
  • Chapter 9 – Networking with your servers and storage: The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC)
  • Resilient Storage Networks: Designing Flexible Scalable Data Infrastructures (Elsevier)

That is all for now, hope you find these ongoing series of current or emerging Industry Trends and Perspectives posts of interest.

Of course let me know what your thoughts and perspectives are on this and other related topics.

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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VMworld 2010 virtual roads, clouds and INXS Devil Inside

This past week I spent a few days in San Francisco attending the VMworld 2010 event which included a Wednesday evening concert with the Australian band INXS.

Despite some long lines (or queues) waiting to get into sessions, keynotes or lunch resulting in delays reminiscent of trying to put too many virtual machines (VMs) onto a given number of physical machines (PMs) in the quest to drive up utilization, the overall event was fantastic.

While at the event, I had a chance to meet up with fellow vExpert Eric Siebert whose new book Maximum vSphere made its debut. I was honored when asked by Eric to help out with his chapter on storage, learn more about Erics new book here.

Eric was just one of many people I was able to catch up with or in some cases meet for the first time face to face. Among the many fellow twitter tweeps included @3parfarley @aebarrett @charleshood @cxi @edsai @ericsiebert @hpstorageguy @iben @jmichelmetz @jtroyer @keithnorbie @KendrickColeman @MesabiGroup @PariseauTT @RayLucchesi @RickVanover @rodos @rogerlund @rootwyrm @sakacc @scott_lowe @ServerVirt_TT @SiliconValleyPR @ssauer @ssharwood @StorageOlogist @stu @Texiwill and @vmworld not to mention many others who are not on twitter.

Big thanks to @rogerlund for organizing a very impromptu ad hoc lunch discussion with a couple of other IT pros representing vary different as well as diverse spectrums of public, private, small, large and ultra large environments. I was only at the event for two days and thus there were many others that I was looking for at their booths or in the hallways (I saw @ekhnaser among others that I could not call out too in time) or in the meeting rooms as well as in the lunch hall.  I look forward to seeing you all at some future event or venue.

On the food scene, while I did not have a chance to dine at one of my local favorites Brandy Hos, I did have a fantastic lunch at Henrys House of Pain (aka Henrys House of Hunan on Sansome). I also had a great outdoor dinner in the alleyway based Cafe Tiramisu where I enjoyed their signature dish. The dish which was essentially a fruit de mer (Fruit of the Sea) over linguine covered with a thin pizza crust that was baked. It was fantastic and brings a whole new dimension to the theme of a classic pot pie meets fruit de mar, give it a try!

On an even lighter or fun note, following are photos and links to some videos of the INXS event courtesy of Karen (aka Mrs Schulz). In addition to being an award winning photographer, Karens day time job is that of an applications development analyst (e.g. an IT Geekette) at a large Minnesota based Mining and Manufacturing company that is also involved in many different sticky and abrasive among other products.

Karen

Karen (Photo Courtesy Karen Sculz)

Karen took the following photos (and videos) with her Cannon Powershot S5 Digital camera.

Greg going to INXS

Me heading to INXS show at VMworld 2010 (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)

Greg On Virtual Road

Me sitting in the middle of the virtual highway (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)

INXS at VMworld 2010
INXS at VMworld 2010 (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)

JD Fortune of INXS at VMworld

JD Fortune of INXS at VMworld (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)

Kirk Pengilly and JD Fortune of INXS at VMworld

Kirk Pengilly and JD Fortune of INXS at VMworld 2010 (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)

Tim Farriss of INXS at VMworld

Tim Farriss of INXS (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)

Here are links to some videos that Karen captured from up front near the stage during the INXS show at VMworld 2010.

Devil Inside (not to be confused with the devil is in the details of clouds, virtualization and other IT topics)

By My Side (Where a vendor or solution partner should be during and after the sale for their customers)

Disappear (What should not happen to your data or virtual machines in physical, virtual or cloud environments)

Never Tear Us Apart (What should not happen between your servers, storage, applications and data)

Need You Tonight (The call that many system admins get during their off hours)

New Sensation (What many are experience with virtualization and clouds)

Dont Change (Ironic final song of encore of a concert at conference with a theme of change)

A big tip of the hat along with thanks goes out to John Troyer of VMware as well as Sarah Shvil of the VMware Analyst Relations team for helping make it possible for me to attend as an independent IT industry analyst instead of on the coat tails of a vendors exhibit hall pass (disclosure: I paid for my own travel, lodging and dinning expenses).

Greg Hitching a Ride to VMworld
Me hitching a ride on the virtual highway to the clouds and VMworld (Photo Curtsey Karen Schulz)

Hopefully with some luck, I will be able to hitch a ride and attend VMworld again next year in Las Vegas, perhaps even as a repeat vExpert as well as IT Industry Analyst.

Thats a wrap for now.

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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August 2010 StorageIO News Letter

StorageIO News Letter Image
August 2010 Newsletter

 Welcome to the August Summer Wrap Up 2010 edition of the Server and StorageIO Group (StorageIO) newsletter. This follows the June 2010 edition building on the great feedback received from recipients.
Items that are new in this expanded edition include:

  • Out and About Update
  • Industry Trends and Perspectives (ITP)
  • Featured Article

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 August 2010 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

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

Posted on

While HP and Dell make counter bids, exclusive interview with 3PAR CEO David Scott

Last week Dell announced (read previous and related posts here) that they were buying 3PAR for $1.15B USD, then HP offered a counter bid, this morning Dell countered with a $1.6B USD bid only to be followed by HPs counter counter counter bid of $1.8B which almost seems like an Ebay autobid raising the question of what is the buy it now price.

Meanwhile, I was asked today to be the guest co host of the Storage Monkeys Infosmack Podcast with regular host Greg Knieriemen filling in for the regular co host Marc Farley who happens to be a 3PAR employee while we interviewed special guest CEO David Scott.

Click here to listen to this exclusive interview with 3PAR CEO David Scott during the midst of the bidding between HP and Dell for some insight into 3PAR, their technology as well as get an inside insight discussion with the man who is the current Belle of the Ball in this current IT industry merger and acquisition bidding battle along with related industry trends and perspective insight commentary.

Cheers gs

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

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My Favorite Late Summer Reading Material

No it is not the Tape Times, or the Oracle Sun times, or IBM Magic Moments, or EMC Money Magazine, nor is it the Oracle Law Journal review. Sorry to say that it is not the Dedupe Discovery Debate Diaries, nor is it the Virtual Vanity Fair or NetApp Networking News.

My favorite late summer reading is not the eDiscovery Entertainment this week, or Mens Metadata Monthly and it is not the Cisco Chronicles let alone the HP national inquirer Pages.

No my favorite late summer reading is not Business Barons, NFL weekly wrap up nor Virtualization Hyperventilation Health tips. Neither is it the editorials, advertisements or cheerleading sections in the Cloud Crowd Confusion Chronicles, nor is it million miler monthly and it is not Green IT Eggs and Spam. While all good reads, it is not Wine Snob Weekly, or the Great Grape Gazette or Beer Brewers News, Minnesota DNR news, Virtual Motor head Monthly, or Freshwater Dock Yachting Yearly review, Aviation Leak and Space Technology nor Rolling Stone.

It is also not one of the local news papers or national ones for that matter although the Singapore Shipping Times is a good diversion read that reminds me of my past visits there.

While I would like to say it is one of the many popular blogs (industry or other), let alone one of the many great books out there in print or kindle, no, it is something completely different.

Granted all of the above or their virtual reality physical variant are in fact great reading material that I enjoy and do recommend (or their reasonable facsimile).

However, there is one that stands out above all others and it is called Cooks Illustrated (FTC disclosure, my wife gave me a subscription).

Is there a point to all of the above which if you could not tell, includes some tongue in cheek humor, perhaps what some might see as, skepticism or snarkyness while others might have a good laugh (to each your own)?

Yes the point is this.

Take a break from your normal wide world of work routine, stop typing or talking for a bit, sit back, maybe put some tunes on and read something to stimulate (as well as relax) the brain for a bit.

Find and enjoy some recreational or diversion reading material no matter how light or heavy, humor or serious, perhaps listen to some music and enjoy a cold (or warm) beverage perhaps even drifting into a drool producing nap. Enjoy the balance of your summer (or winter for friends down under) and take some time to read something to stimulate that gray matter between the ears located slightly behind your eyes.

Ok, now Im hungry have to go.

BTW: What is your favorite late summer reading material (and/or relaxation activity, music, food or beverage)?

Cheers gs

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

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Dell Will Buy Someone, However Not Brocade (At least for now)

Dell

Earlier this week Dell announced that they were buying 3APR for $1.15B USD

As a follow up to this, this and this recent posts, I keep getting asked in different forums, venues, via email, telephone calls and in person who will or should Dell buy next, and will Dell buy Brocade, who will buy Brocade or anyone else for that matter.

Ok, first let me say that everything in this post is just a perspective based on openly (e.g. publicly) available information along with some common sense. Thus there is no NDA or confidential insight or tips from some anonymous source named blue horseshoe (remember the movie wall street?).

However I did used to work for a SAN, MAN and WAN company called INRANGE that was a supplier to server and storage vendors as well as partnered with Emulex, Qlogic as well as Adva among others. INRANGE which became OUT of RANGE (that is some SAN humor btw) when it was sold to CNT was then bought by EMC spin off McData (I left before then) which in turn was bought by Brocade. Now does any of that make more qualified than any other arm chair quarterback pundit with a keyboard and pulse to jump into the whom Dell will buy next sweepstakes to I say no.

However, let me use some experience to analyze a few things, then connect some dots. From there, I will leave it up to you to agree, disagree, bet, guess, speculate or wish upon a falling star as to whom Dell might buy, or for that matter, what others may or may not do.

First, since Brocade keeps coming up in conversations, here is a previous post I did on the topic of them being for sale or who might buy them.

I still think that Brocade can survive on their own, granted they need to kick it into gear on the switch (Ethernet, Fibre Channel and FCoE), distance extension, HBA or CNA if you prefer as well as management tools front. Brocade built their business with OEM partnerships via Dell, EMC, HP, HDS, IBM, NetApp and Oracle/Sun among many others not to mention their channel distribution programs.

Thus Brocade needs to leverage those OEMs on a go forward basis. However, that model and channel partner model also gets in the way of Brocade being bought by one of their OEMs. Keep in mind that EMC once owned McData and made a nice profit on that spin off (or spin out) while IBM sold off their networking division to Cisco, now both do good business with their OEM suppliers. Likewise, both leverage multiple suppliers as that is what their partners and customers want (e.g. choice of suppliers).

Now, keep in mind that HP has had their procurve low end Ethernet switches for some time and historically flipped some business (excuse me, partnered) to Cisco for high end Ethernet LAN networking technology. Lets also not forget about HPs recent acquisition of 3COM (read about it here).

Now with Cisco tip toeing into the server market trying to flex its muscles in the small server pool (no offense Cisco or to your faithful followers) HP and other server vendors might be wanting to flip something else at Cisco besides business. Oh oh, I think I hear the Cisco UCS truth squads knocking at the door with large amounts of truth serum (Ok, Im just kidding folks).

Lets get back to HP and 3COM.

IMHO that was partly an opportunity to pick up some additional revenue, partly to grab a brand name that also has ties into the Chinese market. Keep Huawei (here and here) in mind, you know, that sometimes Cisco nemeses networking company who had 2009 revenues of RMB149.1B or $21.8B USD. Now back to H and 3COM, that was also IMHO play to gain access to additional SMB, SOHO, ROBO and consumer market channels for a bargain price. HP is not alone as others have done similar acquisitions in part or in whole to pick up a brand name that also hade partners, channels, products and revenues. For example among many others, EMC and Iomega, Seagate and Maxtor, Symantec and Norton, CA buying, well, I think or hope you get the picture.

Now back to Brocade and Dell.

Why would Dell need Brocade for which they would have to a pay a premium price of $6-7B USD (assume 3 to 3.5x multiplier on revenue) which would get them just under $900M in debt and a couple of billion in annual revenue. Keep in mind that Dell has somewhere in the neighborhood of $9-10B in cash although while Im not an accountant, the financial people tell me they need to maintain their strategic reserves of which such a deal would put a big dent into.

However, there is more to the story which is that revenue would be in jeopardy if the other server and or storage vendors (e.g. EMC, Fujitsu, HP, HDS, IBM, NEC, NetApp, and Oracle/Sun etc) did not like Dell owning one of their suppliers. In other words, unless Cisco really upsets the server vendors which they have been doing to a lesser degree already, why would Dell want to risk a Texas size pile of cash to get a revenue stream that could blow away in a Texas size hurricane or dust storm?

Granted if Dell could talk Michael Klayko (Brocades CEO) and board as well as other investors into a low ball offer the math might virtually work. However that is also doubtful knowing that Klayko also knows Joe Tucci of EMC who knows how to drive a deal or bargain. Thus, I do not see Brocade rolling over in desperation to sell them at a discount as much as some might want you to believe that they need to do.

Thus, while anything is possible, I do not see Dell buying Brocade except for one possible scenario which could result in a bidding war not to mention utter industry chaos.

That scenario is what I refer to as MAD which is a Mutual Assured Destruction situation. In other words, an all out war or ensuing instability that throws existing OEMs, partners and business into chaos (keep in mind however in chaos or confusion there is opportunity). The MAD scenario could be triggered by Cisco finally getting truly and really serious about servers. Granted Cisco is doing their best to test their partners, OEMs and even customers as too how much they will tolerate in terms of entering the server market.

Im not convinced they are ready to be number one, two or three let alone four or five. After all, my numbers may be off, however best I can tell the number of Cisco blade servers is measured in thousands or best case a few ten thousand since its launch. By comparison, how many thousands of servers do Cisco OEMs Dell, HP, IBM, Oracle among others ship per week or month? In other words, Cisco to really get serious would need to ramp up that server business by several factors of ten, a move that would not sit well (even worse than now) with their major OEM partners.

Thus, if Cisco were to get serious and want to move up into the top two or three spot of the server market, something people always tell me that Cisco feels they have to be in a top market spot, they step all over their OEMs. This in turn would set off the MAD scenario mentioned above, kind of like a scene out of war games, perhaps what you are seeing with some of the early Cisco posturing. Sure Cisco made some moves with their UCS and their EMC alliances as well as dancing with whoever buys them a drink and sure HP bought 3COM which I guess could be seen as a warning shot if you like. Sure Cisco is the 800 lb guerrilla when compared to the networking vendors except do not forget about Huawei (read more here).

Thus for the time being, I expect Cisco to keep making noise, testing the waters, pushing its OEMs and partners. Perhaps Cisco also does some arms treaties in the form of marketing alliances as it continues to push its FCoE and unified compute initiatives. Sure they will keep pushing Virtual Desktop Initiatives (VDI) and anything else that can generate network traffic so they can support those needs. However, also keep in mind that VMwares biggest platform deployment (e.g. servers) customers or partners are HP and Dell in no particular order (I will let you rank them depending on whose data you choose).

Oh no, I have to stop now as I wanted this to be a short post.

So what does this have to do with Dell and Brocade?

Simple, why would Dell want to go down that path if they do not have to?

As to who Dell should buy, real quickly, how about a data protection (security, backup, restore, BC, DR) company or a data management or a desktop management company, how about one that fits all of those like Symantec which from a revenue standpoint is about three times that of Brocade.

Heck, if you think Dell could afford Brocade, then why not a Symantec which might actually be worth more in pieces than as a whole. Dell could sell off what they do not need or want or make that part of a deal or keep it all! As for others, how Dell buying a low end consumer, prosumer, SOHO storage play like Drobo or Snap among others.

Ok, I have to wrap up for now.

Talk to you all soon either here, or in one of the many other different venues or social media as well as traditional mediums as this story is far from being done.

Whats is your take?

Cheers gs

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

Here are some links to read more about the above topics and themes

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