Category: Infrastructure Resource Management

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Dude, is Dell doing a disk deal again with Compellent?

Over in Eden Prairie (Minneapolis Minnesota suburb) where data storage vendor Compellent (CML) is based, they must be singing in the hallways today that it is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

Sure we had another dusting of snow this morning here in the Minneapolis area and the temp is actually up in the balmy 20F temperature range (was around 0F yesterday) and holiday shopping is in full swing.

The other reason I think that the Compellent folks are thinking that it feels a lot like Christmas are the reports that Dell is in exclusive talks to buy them at about $29 per share or about $876 million USD.

Dell is no stranger to holiday or shopping sprees, check these posts out as examples:

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

Back to school shopping: Dude, Dell Digests 3PAR Disk storage (we now know Dell was out bid)

Data footprint reduction (Part 2): Dell, IBM, Ocarina and Storwize

Data footprint reduction (Part 1): Life beyond dedupe and changing data lifecycles

Post Holiday IT Shopping Bargains, Dell Buying Exanet?

Did someone forget to tell Dell that Tape is dead?

Now some Compellent fans are not going to be happy with only about $29 a share or about $876 million USD price given the recent stock run up into the $30 plus range. Likewise, some of the Compellent fans may be hoping for or expecting a bidding war to drive the stock back up into the $30 range however keep in mind that it was earlier this year when the stock adjusted itself down into the mid teens.

In the case of 3PAR and the HP Dell budding war, that was a different product and company focused in a different space than where Compellent has a good fit.

Sure both 3PAR and Compellent do Fibre Channel (FC) where Dells EqualLogic only does iSCSI, however a valuation based just on FC would be like saying Dell has all the storage capabilities they need with their MD3000 series that can do SAS, iSCSI and FC.

In other words, there are different storage products for different markets or price bands and customer application needs. Kind of like winter here in Minnesota, sure one type of shovel will work for moving snow or you can leverage different technologies and techniques (tiering) to get the job done effectively the same holds for storage solutions.

Compellent has a good Cadillac product that is a good fit for some SMB environments. However the SMB space is also where Dell has several storage products some of which they own (e.g. EqualLogic), some they OEM (MD3000 series and NX) as well as resell (e.g. EMC CLARiiON).

Can the Compellent product replace the lowered CLARiiON business that Dell has itself been shifting more to their flagship EqualLogic product?

Sure however at the risk of revenue cannibalization or worse, introduction of revenue prevention teams.

Can the Compellent product then be positioned lower down under the EqualLogic product?

Sure, however why hold it back not to mention force a higher priced product down into that market segment.

Can the Compellent product be taken up market to compete above the EqualLogic head to head with the larger CLARiiON systems from EMC or comparable solutions from other vendors?

Sure, however I can hear choruses of its sounding a lot like Christmas from New England, the bay area and Tucson among others.

Does this mean that Dell is being overly generous and that this is not a good deal?

No, not at all.

Sure it is the holiday season and Dell has several billion dollars of cash laying around however that in itself does not guarantee a large handout or government sized bailout (excuse me, infusion). At $30 or more, that would be overly generous simply based on where the technology fits as well as aligns to the market realities. Consequently, at $29, this is a great deal for Compellent and also for Dell.

Why is it a good deal for Dell?

I think that it is as much about Dell getting a good deal (ok, paying a premium) to acquire a competitor that they can use to fill some product gaps where they have common VARs. However I also think that this is very much about the channel and the VAR as much if not more than it is just about a storage product. Servers are part of the game here which in turn supports storage, networking, management tools, backup/recovery, archiving and services.

Sure Dell can maybe take some cost out of the Compellent solution by replacing the Supermicro PCs that are the hardware platform for their storage controllers with Dell servers. However the bigger play is around further developing its channel and VAR ecosystems, some of whom were with EqualLogic before Dell bought them. This can also be seen as a means of Dell getting that partner ecosystem to sell overall, more dell products and solutions instead of those from Apple, EMC, Futjisu, HP, IBM, Oracle and many others.

Likewise, I doubt that Mr. Dell is paying a premium simply to make the Compellent shareholders and fans happy to create monetary velocity to stimulate holiday shopping and economic stimulus. However, for the fans, sure, while drowning your sorrows in egg nogg of holiday cheer that you are not getting $30 or higher, instead buy a round for your mates and toast Dell for your holiday gift.

The real reason I think this is a good reason for Dell is that from a business and financial perspective, assuming they stick to the $29 range, it is a good bargain for both parties. Dell gets a company who has been competing with their EqualLogic product in some cases with the same VARs or resellers. Sure it gets a Fibre Channel based product however Dell already has that with the MD3000 series which I realize is less function laden then Compellent or EqualLogic; however it is also more affordable for a different market.

If Dell can close on the deal sticking to its offer which they have the upper hand on, execute including rolling out a strategy as well as product positioning plan. Then educate their own teams as well as VARs and customers of what products fit where and when in such a manner that does not cause revenue prevention (e.g. one product or team blocking the other) or cannibalization instead expanding markets, they can do well.

While Compellent gets a huge price multiple based on their revenue (about $125M USD), if Dell can get the product revenue up from the $125 to $150 million plateau to around $250 to $300 million without cannibalizing other Dell products, the deal pays for itself in many ways.

Keep in mind that a large pile of cash sitting in the bank these days is not exactly yielding the best returns on investment.

For the Compellent fans and shareholders, congratulations!

You have gotten or perhaps are about to get a good holiday gift so knock of the complaining that you should be getting more. The option is that instead of $28 per share, you could be getting 28 lumps of coal in your Christmas stocking.

For the Dell folks, assuming the deal is done on their terms and that they can quickly rationalize the product overlap, convey and then execute on a strategy while keeping the revenue prevention teams on the sidelines you too have a holiday gift to work with (some assembly will be required however). This also is good for Dell outside of storage which may turn out to be one of the gems of the deal in keeping or expanding VARs selling Dell based servers and associated technologies.

For EMC who was slapped in the face earlier this year when Dell took a run at 3PAR, sure there will be more erosion on the lower end CLARiiOn as has been occurring with the EqualLogic. However Dell still needs a solution to effectively compete with EMC and others at the higher end of the SMB or lower end of the enterprise market.

Sure the EqualLogic or Compellent products could be deployed into such scenarios; however those solutions are then playing on a different field and out of their market sweet spots.

Lets see what happens shall we.

In the meantime, what say you?

Is this a good deal for Dell, who is the deal good for assuming it goes through and at the terms mentioned, what is your take?

Who benefits from this proposed deal?

Note that in the holiday gift giving spirit, Chicago style voting or polling will be enabled.

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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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Fall 2010 StorageIO News Letter

StorageIO News Letter Image
Fall 2010 Newsletter

 Welcome to the Fall 2010 edition of the Server and StorageIO Group (StorageIO) newsletter. This follows the August 2010 edition building on the great feedback received from recipients.

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 Fall 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

Nuff said for now

Cheers gs

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

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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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Another StorageIO Hybrid Momentus Moment

Its been a few months since my last post (read it here) about Hybrid Hard Disk Drive (HHDD) such as the Seagate Momentus XT that I have been using.

The Momentus XT HHDD I have been using is a 500GB 7,200RPM 2.5 inch SATA Hard Disk Drive (HDD) with 4GB of embedded FLASH (aka SSD) and 32MB of DRAM memory for buffering hence the hybrid name.

I have been using the XT HHDD mainly for transferring large multi GByte size files between computers and for doing some disk to disk (D2D) backups while becoming more comfortable with it. While not as fast as my 64GB all flash SSD, the XT HHDD is as fast as my 7,200RPM 160GB Momentus HDD and in some cases faster on burst reads or writes. The notion of having a 500GB HDD that was affordable to support D2D was attractive however the ability to get some performance boost now and then via the embedded 4GB FLASH opens many different possibilities particularly when combined with compression.

Recently I switched the role of the Momentus XT HHDD from that of being a utility drive to becoming the main disk in one of my laptops. Despite many forums or bulletin boards touting issues or problems with the Seagate Momentus XT causing system hangs or Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSoD), I continued on with the next phase of testing.

Making the switch to XT HHDD as a primary disk

I took a few precaution including eating some of my own dog food that I routinely talk about. For example, I made sure that the Lenovo T61 where the Momentus XT was going to be installed was backed up. In addition, I synced my traveling laptop so that it was the primary so that I could continue working during the conversion not to mention having an extra copy in addition to normal on and offsite backups.

Ok, lets get back to the conversion or migration from a regular HDD to the HHDD.

Once I knew I had a good backup, I used the Seagate Discwizard (e.g. Acronis based) tool for imaging the existing T61 HDD to the Momentus XT HHDD. Using Discwizard (you could use other tools as well) I configured it to initialize the HHDD which was attached via a Seagate Goflex USB to SATA cable kit as well as image or copy the contents of the T61 HDD partitions to the Momentus XT. During the several hours it took to copy and create a new bootable disk image on the HHDD I continued working on my travel or standby laptop.

After the image copy was completed and verified, it was time to reboot and see how Windows (XP SP3) liked the HHDD which all seemed to be normal. There were some parts of the boot that seemed a bit faster, however not 100 percent conclusive. The next step was to shutdown the laptop and physically swap the old internal HDD with the HHDD and reboot. The subsequent boot did seem faster and programs accessing large files also seemed to run a bit faster.

Keep in mind that the HHDD is still a spinning 7,200RPM disk drive so comparisons to a full time SSD would be apples to oranges as would the cost capacity difference between those devices. However, for what I wanted to see and use, the limited 4GB of flash does seem to provide a performance boost and if I needed full time super fast performance, I could buy a larger capacity SSD and install it. Im going to hold off on buying any more larger capacity flash SSD for the time being however.

Do I see HHDD appearing in SMB, SME or enterprise storage systems anytime soon? Probably not, at least not in primary storage systems. However perhaps in some D2D backup, archive or dedupe and VTL devices or other appliances.

Momentus XT Speed Bumps

Now, to be fair, there have been some bumps in the road!

The first couple of days were smooth sailing other than hearing the mystery chirp the HHDD makes a couple of times a day. Low and behold after a couple of days, just as many forums had indicated, a mystery system hang occurred (and no, not like Windows might normally do so for those Microsoft cynics). Other than the inconvenience of a reboot, no data was lost as files being updated were saved or had been backed up not to mention after the reboot, everything was intact anyway. So far just an inconvenience or so I thought.

Almost 24 hours later, same thing except this time I got to see the BSoD which candidly, I very rarely see despite hearing stories from others. Ok, this was annoying, however as long as I did not lose any data, other than lost time from a reboot, lets chalk this up to a learning experience and see where it goes. Now guess what, about 12 hours later, once again, the system froze up and this time I was in the middle of a document edit. This time I did lose about 8 minutes of typing data that had not been auto saved (I have since changed my auto save from 10 minutes to 5 minutes).

With this BSoD incident, I took some notes and using the X61s, started checking some web sites and verified the BIOS firmware on the T61 which was up to date. However I noticed that the Seagate Momentus XT HHDD was at firmware 22 while there was a 23 version available. Reading through some web sites and forums, I was on the fence on trying firmware 23 given that it appears a newer firmware version for the HHDD is in the works. Deciding to forge forward with the experiment, after all, no real data loss had occurred, and I still had the X61s not to mention the original T61 HDD to fall back to worse case.

Going to the Seagate web site, I downloaded the firmware 23 install kit and ran it to their instructions which was a breeze and then did the reboot.

It has not been quite a week yet, however knocking on wood, while I keep expecting to see one, no BSoD or system freezes have occurred. However having said that and knocking on wood, Im also making sure things are backed up protected and ready if needed. Likewise, if I start to see a rash of BSoD, my plan is to fall back to the original T61 HDD, bring it up to date and use it until a newer HHDD firmware version is available to resume testing.

What is next for my Seagate Momentus XT HHDD?

Im going to wait to see if the BSoD and mystery system hangs disappear as well as for the arrival of the new firmware followed by some more testing. However, when Im confident with it, the next step is to put the XT HHDD into the X61s which is used primarily for travel purpose.

Why wait? Simple, while I can tolerate a reboot or crash or data loss or disruption while in the office given access to copies as well as standby or backup systems to work from, when traveling options are more limited. Sure if there is data loss, I can go to my cloud provider and rapidly recall a file or multiple ones as needed or for critical data, recover from a portable encrypted USB device. Consequently I want more confidence in the XT HHDD before deploying it for travel mode which it is probably safe to do as of now, however I want to see how stable it is in the office before taking it on the road.

What does this all mean?

  • Simple, have a backup of your data and systems
  • Test and verify those backups or standby systems periodically
  • Have a fall back plan for when trying new things
  • Keep productivity in mind, at some point you may have to fall back
  • If something is important enough to protect, have multiple copies
  • Be ready to eat your own dog food or what you talk about
  • Do not be scared, however be prepared, look before you leap

How about you are you using a HHDD yet and if so, what are your experiences? I am curious to hear if anyone has tried using a HHDD in their VMware lab environments yet in place of a regular HDD or before spending a boat load of money for a similar sized SSD.

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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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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 2006-2026 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 2006-2026 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 2006-2026 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 2006-2026 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.

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 2006-2026 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 2006-2026 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 2006-2026 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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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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

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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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved