Category: Infrastructure Resource Management

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2010 and 2011 Trends, Perspectives and Predictions: More of the same?

2011 is not a typo, I figured that since Im getting caught up on some things, why not get a jump as well.

Since 2009 went by so fast, and that Im finally getting around to doing an obligatory 2010 predictions post, lets take a look at both 2010 and 2011.

Actually Im getting around to doing a post here having already done interviews and articles for others soon to be released.

Based on prior trends and looking at forecasts, a simple predictions is that some of the items for 2010 will apply for 2011 as well given some of this years items may have been predicted by some in 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 or, well ok, you get the picture. :)

Predictions are fun and funny in that for some, they are taken very seriously, while for others, at best they are taken with a grain of salt depending on where you sit. This applies both for the reader as well as who is making the predictions along with various motives or incentives.

Some are serious, some not so much…

For some, predictions are a great way of touting or promoting favorite wares (hard, soft or services) or getting yet another plug (YAP is a TLA BTW) in to meet coverage or exposure quota.

Meanwhile for others, predictions are a chance to brush up on new terms for the upcoming season of buzzword bingo games (did you pick up on YAP).

In honor of the Vancouver winter games, Im expecting some cool Olympic sized buzzword bingo games with a new slippery fast one being federation. Some buzzwords will take a break in 2010 as well as 2011 having been worked pretty hard the past few years, while others that have been on break, will reappear well rested, rejuvenated, and ready for duty.

Lets also clarify something regarding predictions and this is that they can be from at least two different perspectives. One view is that from a trend of what will be talked about or discussed in the industry. The other is in terms of what will actually be bought, deployed and used.

What can be confusing is sometimes the two perspectives are intermixed or assumed to be one and the same and for 2010 I see that trend continuing. In other words, there is adoption in terms of customers asking and investigating technologies vs. deployment where they are buying, installing and using those technologies in primary situations.

It is safe to say that there is still no such thing as an information, data or processing recession. Ok, surprise surprise; my dogs could have probably made that prediction during a nap. However what this means is more data will need to be moved, processed and stored for longer periods of time and at a lower cost without degrading performance or availability.

This means, denser technologies that enable a lower per unit cost of service without negatively impacting performance, availability, capacity or energy efficiency will be needed. In other words, watch for an expanded virtualization discussion around life beyond consolidation for servers, storage, desktops and networks with a theme around productivity and virtualization for agility and management enablement.

Certainly there will be continued merger and acquisitions on both a small as well as large scale ranging from liquidation sales or bargain hunting, to large and a mega block buster or two. Im thinking in terms of outside of the box, the type that will have people wondering perhaps confused as to why such a deal would be done until the whole picture is reveled and thought out.

In other words, outside of perhaps IBM, HP, Oracle, Intel or Microsoft among a few others, no vendor is too large not to be acquired, merged with, or even involved in a reverse merger. Im also thinking in terms of vendors filling in niche areas as well as building out their larger portfolio and IT stacks for integrated solutions.

Ok, lets take a look at some easy ones, lay ups or slam dunks:

  • More cluster, cloud conversations and confusion (public vs. private, service vs. product vs. architecture)
  • More server, desktop, IO and storage consolidation (excuse me, server virtualization)
  • Data footprint impact reduction ranging from deletion to archive to compress to dedupe among others
  • SSD and in particular flash continues to evolve with more conversations around PCM
  • Growing awareness of social media as yet another tool for customer relations management (CRM)
  • Security, data loss/leap prevention, digital forensics, PCI (payment card industry) and compliance
  • Focus expands from gaming/digital surveillance /security and energy to healthcare
  • Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) mainstream in discussions with some initial deployments
  • Continued confusion of Green IT and carbon reduction vs. economic and productivity (Green Gap)
  • No such thing as an information, data or processing recession, granted budgets are strained
  • Server, Storage or Systems Resource Analysis (SRA) with event correlation
  • SRA tools that provide and enable automation along with situational awareness

The green gap of confusion will continue with carbon or environment centric stories and messages continue to second back stage while people realize the other dimension of green being productivity.

As previously mentioned, virtualization of servers and storage continues to be popular with an expanding focus from just consolidation to one around agility, flexibility and enabling production, high performance or for other systems that do not lend themselves to consolidation to be virtualized.

6GB SAS interfaces as well as more SAS disk drives continue to gain popularity. I have said in the past there was a long shot that 8GFC disk drives might appear. We might very well see those in higher end systems while SAS drives continue to pick up the high performance spinning disk role in mid range systems.

Granted some types of disk drives will give way over time to others, for example high performance 3.5” 15.5K Fibre Channel disks will give way to 2.5” 15.5K SAS boosting densities, energy efficiency while maintaining performance. SSD will help to offload hot spots as they have in the past enabling disks to be more effectively used in their applicable roles or tiers with a net result of enhanced optimization, productivity and economics all of which have environmental benefits (e.g. the other Green IT closing the Green Gap).

What I dont see occurring, or at least in 2010

  • An information or data recession requiring less server, storage, I/O networking or software resources
  • OSD (object based disk storage without a gateway) at least in the context of T10
  • Mainframes, magnetic tape, disk drives, PCs, or Windows going away (at least physically)
  • Cisco cracking top 3, no wait, top 5, no make that top 10 server vendor ranking
  • More respect for growing and diverse SOHO market space
  • iSCSI taking over for all I/O connectivity, however I do see iSCSI expand its footprint
  • FCoE and flash based SSD reaching tipping point in terms of actual customer deployments
  • Large increases in IT Budgets and subsequent wild spending rivaling the dot com era
  • Backup, security, data loss prevention (DLP), data availability or protection issues going away
  • Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings winning the super bowl

What will be predicted at end of 2010 for 2011 (some of these will be DejaVU)

  • Many items that were predicted this year, last year, the year before that and so on…
  • Dedupe moving into primary and online active storage, rekindling of dedupe debates
  • Demise of cloud in terms of hype and confusion being replaced by federation
  • Clustered, grid, bulk and other forms of scale out storage grow in adoption
  • Disk, Tape, RAID, Mainframe, Fibre Channel, PCs, Windows being declared dead (again)
  • 2011 will be the year of Holographic storage and T10 OSD (an annual prediction by some)
  • FCoE kicks into broad and mainstream deployment adoption reaching tipping point
  • 16Gb (16GFC) Fibre Channel gets more attention stirring FCoE vs. FC vs. iSCSI debates
  • 100GbE gets more attention along with 4G adoption in order to move more data
  • Demise of iSCSI at the hands of SAS at low end, FCoE at high end and NAS from all angles

Gaining ground in 2010 however not yet in full stride (at least from customer deployment)

  • On the connectivity front, iSCSI, 6Gb SAS, 8Gb Fibre Channel, FCoE and 100GbE
  • SSD/flash based storage everywhere, however continued expansion
  • Dedupe  everywhere including primary storage – its still far from its full potential
  • Public and private clouds along with pNFS as well as scale out or clustered storage
  • Policy based automated storage tiering and transparent data movement or migration
  • Microsoft HyperV and Oracle based server virtualization technologies
  • Open source based technologies along with heterogeneous encryption
  • Virtualization life beyond consolidation addressing agility, flexibility and ease of management
  • Desktop virtualization using Citrix, Microsoft and VMware along with Microsoft Windows 7

Buzzword bingo hot topics and themes (in no particular order) include:

  • 2009 and previous year carry over items including cloud, iSCSI, HyperV, Dedupe, open source
  • Federation takes over some of the work of cloud, virtualization, clusters and grids
  • E2E, End to End management preferably across different technologies
  • SAS, Serial Attached SCSI for server to storage systems and as disk to storage interface
  • SRA, E23, Event correlation and other situational awareness related IRM tools
  • Virtualization, Life beyond consolidation enabling agility, flexibility for desktop, server and storage
  • Green IT, Transitions from carbon focus to economic with efficiency enabling productivity
  • FCoE, Continues to evolve and mature with more deployments however still not at tipping point
  • SSD, Flash based mediums continue to evolve however tipping point is still over the horizon
  • IOV, I/O Virtualization for both virtual and non virtual servers
  • Other new or recycled buzzword bingo candidates include PCoIP, 4G,

RAID will again be pronounced as being dead no longer relevant yet being found in more diverse deployments from consumer to the enterprise. In other words, RAID may be boring and thus no longer relevant to talk about, yet it is being used everywhere and enhanced in evolutionary ways, perhaps for some even revolutionary.

Tape remains being declared dead (e.g. on the Zombie technology list) yet being enhanced, purchased and utilized at higher rates with more data stored than in past history. Instead of being killed off by the disk drive, tape is being kept around for both traditional uses as well as taking on new roles where it is best suited such as long term or bulk off-line storage of data in ultra dense and energy efficient not to mention economical manners.

What I am seeing and hearing is that customers using tape are able to reduce the number of drives or transports, yet due to leveraging disk buffers or caches including from VTL and dedupe devices, they are able to operate their devices at higher utilization, thus requiring fewer devices with more data stored on media than in the past.

Likewise, even though I have been a fan of SSD for about 20 years and am bullish on its continued adoption, I do not see SSD killing off the spinning disk drive anytime soon. Disk drives are helping tape take on this new role by being a buffer or cache in the form of VTLs, disk based backup and bulk storage enhanced with compression, dedupe, thin provision and replication among other functionality.

There you have it, my predictions, observations and perspectives for 2010 and 2011. It is a broad and diverse list however I also get asked about and see a lot of different technologies, techniques and trends tied to IT resources (servers, storage, I/O and networks, hardware, software and services).

Lets see how they play out.

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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EPA Server and Storage Workshop Feb 2, 2010

EPA Energy Star

Following up on a recent previous post pertaining to US EPA Energy Star(r) for Servers, Data Center Storage and Data Centers, there will be a workshop held Tuesday February 2, 2010 in San Jose, CA.

Here is the note (Italics added by me for clarity) from the folks at EPA with information about the event and how to participate.

 

Dear ENERGY STAR® Servers and Storage Stakeholders:

Representatives from the US EPA will be in attendance at The Green Grid Technical Forum in San Jose, CA in early February, and will be hosting information sessions to provide updates on recent ENERGY STAR servers and storage specification development activities.  Given the timing of this event with respect to ongoing data collection and comment periods for both product categories, EPA intends for these meetings to be informal and informational in nature.  EPA will share details of recent progress, identify key issues that require further stakeholder input, discuss timelines for the completion, and answer questions from the stakeholder community for each specification.

The sessions will take place on February 2, 2010, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM PT, at the San Jose Marriott.  A conference line and Webinar will be available for participants who cannot attend the meeting in person.  The preliminary agenda is as follows:

Servers (10:00 AM to 12:30 PM)

  • Draft 1 Version 2.0 specification development overview & progress report
    • Tier 1 Rollover Criteria
    • Power & Performance Data Sheet
    • SPEC efficiency rating tool development
  • Opportunities for energy performance data disclosure

 

Storage (1:30 PM to 4:00 PM)

  • Draft 1 Version 1.0 specification development overview & progress report
  • Preliminary stakeholder feedback & lessons learned from data collection 

A more detailed agenda will be distributed in the coming weeks.  Please RSVP to storage@energystar.gov or servers@energystar.gov no later than Friday, January 22.  Indicate in your response whether you will be participating in person or via Webinar, and which of the two sessions you plan to attend.

Thank you for your continued support of ENERGY STAR.

 

End of EPA Transmission

For those attending the event, I look forward to seeing you there in person on Tuesday before flying down to San Diego where I will be presenting on Wednesday the 3rd at The Green Data Center Conference.

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2012 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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RAID Relevance Revisited

Following up from some previous posts on the topic, a continued discussion point in the data storage industry is the relevance (or lack there) of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks).

These discussions tend to evolve around how RAID is dead due to its lack of real or perceived ability to continue scaling in terms of performance, availability, capacity, economies or energy capabilities needed or when compared to those of newer techniques, technologies or products.

RAID Relevance

While there are many new and evolving approaches to protecting data in addition to maintaining availability or accessibility to information, RAID despite the fan fare is far from being dead at least on the technology front.

Sure, there are issues or challenges that require continued investing in RAID as has been the case over the past 20 years; however those will also be addressed on a go forward basis via continued innovation and evolution along with riding technology improvement curves.

Now from a marketing standpoint, ok, I can see where the RAID story is dead, boring, and something new and shiny is needed, or, at least change the pitch to sound like something new.

Consequently, when being long in the tooth and with some of the fore mentioned items among others, older technologies that may be boring or lack sizzle or marketing dollars can and often are declared dead on the buzzword bingo circuit. After all, how long now has the industry trade group RAID Advisory Board (RAB) been missing in action, retired, spun down, archived or ILMed?

RAID remains relevant because like other dead or zombie technologies it has reached the plateau of productivity and profitability. That success is also something that emerging technologies envy as their future domain and thus a classic marketing move is to declare the incumbent dead.

The reality is that RAID in all of its various instances from hardware to software, standard to non-standard with extensions is very much alive from the largest enterprise to the SMB to the SOHO down into consumer products and all points in between.

Now candidly, like any technology that is about 20 years old if not older after all, the disk drive is over 50 years old and been declared dead for how long now?.RAID in some ways is long in the tooth and there are certainly issues to be addressed as have been taken care of in the past. Some of these include the overhead of rebuilding large capacity 1TB, 2TB and even larger disk drives in the not so distant future.

There are also issues pertaining to distributed data protection in support of cloud, virtualized or other solutions that need to be addressed. In fact, go way way back to when RAID appeared commercially on the scene in the late 80s and one of the value propositions among others was to address the reliability of emerging large capacity multi MByte sized SCSI disk drives. It seems almost laughable today that when a decade later, when the 1GB disk drives appeared in the market back in the 90s that there was renewed concern about RAID and disk drive rebuild times.

Rest assured, I think that there is a need and plenty of room for continued innovate evolution around RAID related technologies and their associated storage systems or packaging on a go forward basis.

What I find interesting is that some of the issues facing RAID today are similar to those of a decade ago for example having to deal with large capacity disk drive rebuild, distributed data protecting and availability, performance, ease of use and so the list goes.

However what happened was that vendors continued to innovate both in terms of basic performance accelerated rebuild rates with improvements to rebuild algorithms, leveraged faster processors, busses and other techniques. In addition, vendors continued to innovate in terms of new functionality including adopting RAID 6 which for the better part of a decade outside of a few niche vendors languished as one of those future technologies that probably nobody would ever adopt, however we know that to be different now and for the past several years. RAID 6 is one of those areas where vendors who do not have it are either adding it, enhancing it, or telling you why you do not need it or why it is no good for you.

An example of how RAID 6 is being enhanced is boosting performance on normal read and write operations along with acceleration of performance during disk rebuild. Also tied to RAID 6 and disk drive rebuild are improvements in controller design to detect and proactively make repairs on the fly to minimize or eliminate errors or diminished the need for drive rebuilds, similar to what was done in previous generations. Lets also not forget the improvements in disk drives boosting performance, availability, capacity and energy improvements over time.

Funny how these and other enhancements are similar to those made to RAID controllers hardware and software fine tuning them in the early to mid 2000s in support for high capacity SATA disk drives that had different RAS characteristics of higher performance lower capacity enterprise drives.

Here is my point.

RAID to some may be dead while others continue to rely on it. Meanwhile others are working on enhancing technologies for future generations of storage systems and application requirements. Thus in different shapes, forms, configurations, feature; functionality or packaging, the spirit of RAID is very much alive and well remaining relevant.

Regardless of if a solution using two or three disk mirroring for availability, or RAID 0 fast SSD or SAS or FC disks in a stripe configuration for performance with data protection via rapid restoration from some other low cost medium (perhaps RAID 6 or tape), or perhaps single, dual or triple parity protection, or if using small block or multiMByte or volume based chunklets, let alone if it is hardware or software based, local or disturbed, standard or non standard, chances are there is some theme of RAID involved.

Granted, you do not have to call it RAID if you prefer!

As a closing thought, if RAID were no longer relevant, than why do the post RAID, next generation, life beyond RAID or whatever you prefer to call them technologies need to tie themselves to the themes of RAID? Simple, RAID is still relevant in some shape or form to different audiences as well as it is a great way of stimulating discussion or debate in a constantly evolving industry.

BTW, Im still waiting for the revolutionary piece of hardware that does not require software, and the software that does not require hardware and that includes playing games with server less servers using hypervisors :) .

Provide your perspective on RAID and its relevance in the following poll.

Here are some additional related and relevant RAID links of interests:

Stay tuned for more about RAIDs relevance as I dont think we have heard the last on this.

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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Upcoming Events and Activities Update V2010.1

The end of year christmas and new years holiday season has come and gone which means of course that 2009 is a wrap along with the travel from being out and about.

In addition to getting some time to relax a bit (playing Wii resort, snow plowing, cooking etc.), I have also been catching up on developing some new content including articles, blogs (some yet to be post), tips as well as podcasts along with some custom research advisory projects.

Check out some recent tips, articles, videos and podcasts here along with perspecitives and comments on indusitry news here.

2009 events and activities saw visits to cities including San Jose, Tucson, Cancun Mexico, Dallas, Tampa, Miami, Los Angles, San Jose, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Atlanta, St. Louis, Birmingham, Cincinnati, Santa Ana, Minneapolis, Boston, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Parsipanny, Raleigh, Providence, Kansas City, Denver, Chicago, Orlando, Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, Richmond, Columbus, Princeton, Seattle, Portland, Dallas, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Toronto, Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland and Detroit among others.

This time of the year also means that the 2010 events and activities including in person keynote and presentations also known as out and about are getting underway. While the 2010 schedule of events is still being finalized, some initial events have are on the calendar, my bags are about to be packed and tickets in hand not to mention finalizing the presentation and discussion content.

In addition to some non public events including keynote presenting at some vendors annual sales (kick off) meetings, the following are some of what are currently on the calendar that you can click on the links below to learn more about the venues.

February 3, 2010 Green Data Center Conference, San Diego, CA
January 21, 2010 Dinner Event keynote Speaker Dynamic IT Infrastructure, Beverly Hills, CA
January 21, 2010 Morning keynote Speaker The Green and Virtual Data Center, San Diego, CA
January 19, 2010 Dinner Event keynote Speaker Dynamic IT Infrastructure, Miami, FL

Watch for updates to the events calendar and I look forward to seeing you all while Im out and about during 2010.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2012 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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StorageIO in the News Update V2010.1

StorageIO is regularly quoted and interviewed in various industry and vertical market venues and publications both on-line and in print on a global basis.

The following are some coverage, perspectives and commentary by StorageIO on IT industry trends including servers, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, services, virtualization, cloud, cluster, grid, SSD, data protection, Green IT and more since the last update.

Realizing that some prefer blogs to webs to twitter to other venues, here are some recent links among others to media coverage and comments by me on a different topics that are among others found at www.storageio.com/news.html:

  • SearchSMBStorage: Comments on EMC Iomega v.Clone for PC data syncronization – Jan 2010
  • Computerworld: Comments on leveraging cloud or online backup – Jan 2010
  • ChannelProSMB: Comments on NAS vs SAN Storage for SMBs – Dec 2009
  • ChannelProSMB: Comments on Affordable SMB Storage Solutions – Dec 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on What to buy a geek for the holidays, 2009 edition – Dec 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on EMC VMAX storage and 8GFC enhancements – Dec 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Data Footprint Reduction – Dec 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Building a private storage cloud – Dec 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on SSD in storage systems – Dec 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on slow adoption of file virtualization – Dec 2009
  • IT World: Comments on maximizing data security investments – Nov 2009
  • SearchCIO: Comments on storage virtualization for your organisation – Nov 2009
  • Processor: Comments on how to win approval for hardware upgrades – Nov 2009
  • Processor: Comments on the Future of Servers – Nov 2009
  • SearchITChannel: Comments on Energy-efficient technology sales depend on pitch – Nov 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on how to get from Fibre Channel to FCoE – Nov 2009
  • Minneapolis Star Tribune: Comments on Google Wave and Clouds – Nov 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on EMC and Cisco alliance – Nov 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on HP virtualizaiton enhancements – Nov 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Apple canceling ZFS project – Oct 2009
  • Processor: Comments on EPA Energy Star for Server and Storage Ratings – Oct 2009
  • IT World Canada: Cloud computing, dot be scared, look before you leap – Oct 2009
  • IT World: Comments on stretching your data protection and security dollar – Oct 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments about Fragmentation and Performance? – Oct 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments about data migration – Oct 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments about What’s inside internal storage clouds? – Oct 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments about T-Mobile and Clouds? – Oct 2009
  • Storage Monkeys: Podcast comments about Sun and Oracle- Sep 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on Maxiscale clustered, cloud NAS – Sep 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Maxiscale clustered NAS for web hosting – Sep 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on whos hot in data storage industry – Sep 2009
  • SearchSMBStorage: Comments on SMB Fibre Channel switch options – Sep 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on using storage more efficiently – Sep 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Data and Storage Tiering including SSD – Sep 2009
  • Enterprise IT Planet: Comments on Data Deduplication – Sep 2009
  • SearchDataCenter: Comments on Tiered Storage – Sep 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on Sun-Oracle Wedding – Aug 2009
  • Processor.com: Comments on Storage Network Snags – Aug 2009
  • SearchStorageChannel: Comments on I/O virtualizaiton (IOV) – Aug 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Clustered NAS storage and virtualization – Aug 2009
  • SearchITChannel: Comments on Solid-state drive prices still hinder adoption – Aug 2009

    • Check out the Content, Tips, Tools, Videos, Podcasts plus White Papers, and News pages for additional commentary, coverage and related content or events.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2012 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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    Recent tips, videos, articles and more update V2010.1

    Realizing that some prefer blogs to webs to twitter to other venues, here are some recent links to articles, tips, videos, webcasts and other content that have appeared in different venues since August 2009.

  • i365 Guest Interview: Experts Corner: Q&A with Greg Schulz December 2009

  • SearchCIO Midmarket: Remote-location disaster recovery risks and solutions December 2009

  • BizTech Magazine: High Availability: A Delicate Balancing Act November 2009

  • ESJ: What Comprises a Green, Efficient and Effective Virtual Data Center? November 2009

  • SearchSMBStorage: Determining what server to use for SMB November 2009

  • SearchStorage: Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency October 2009

  • SearchStorage: Optimizing capacity and performance to reduce data footprint October 2009

  • SearchSMBStorage: How often should I conduct a disaster recovery (DR) test? October 2009

  • SearchStorage: Addressing storage performance bottlenecks in storage September 2009

  • SearchStorage AU: Is tape the right backup medium for smaller businesses? August 2009

  • ITworld: The new green data center: From energy avoidance to energy efficiency August 2009

    • Video and podcasts include:
    December 2009 Video: Green Storage: Metrics and measurement for management insight
    Discussion between Greg Schulz and Mark Lewis of TechTarget the importance of metrics and measurement to gauge productivity and efficiency for Green IT and enabling virtual information factories. Click here to watch the Video.

    December 2009 Podcast: iSCSI SANs can be a good fit for SMB storage
    Discussion between Greg Schulz and Andrew Burton of TechTarget about iSCSI and other related technologies for SMB storage. Click here to listen to the podcast.

    December 2009 Podcast: RAID Data Protection Discussion
    Discussion between Greg Schulz and Andrew Burton of TechTarget about RAID data proteciton, techniques and technologies. Click here to listen to the podcast.

    December 2009 Podcast: Green IT, Effiency and Productivity Discussion
    Discussion between Greg Schulz and Jon Flower of Adaptec about data Green IT, energy effiency, inteligent power management (IPM) also known as MAID 2.0 and other forms of optimization techniques including SSD. Click here to listen to the podcast sponsored by Adaptec.

    November 2009 Podcast: Reducing your data footprint impact
    Even though many enterprise data storage environments are coping with tightened budgets and reduced spending, overall net storage capacity is increasing. In this interview, Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst at StorageIO Group, discusses how storage managers can reduce their data footprint. Schulz touches on the importance of managing your data footprint on both online and offline storage, as well as the various tools for doing so, including data archiving, thin provisioning and data deduplication. Click here to listen to the podcast.

    October 2009 Podcast: Enterprise data storage technologies rise from the dead
    In this interview, Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst of the Storage I/O group, classifies popular technologies such as solid-state drives (SSDs), RAID and Fibre Channel (FC) as “zombie” technologies. Why? These are already set to become part of standard storage infrastructures, says Schulz, and are too old to be considered fresh. But while some consider these technologies to be stale, users should expect to see them in their everyday lives. Click here to listen to the podcast.

    Check out the Tips, Tools and White Papers, and News pages for additional commentary, coverage and related content or events.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2012 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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    EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage Update

    Following up on previous posts pertaining to US EPA Energy Star for Servers, Data Center Storage and Data Centers, here is a note received today with some new information. For those interested in the evolving Energy Star for Data Center, Servers and Storage, have a look at the following as well as the associated links.

    Here is the note from EPA:

    From: ENERGY STAR Storage [storage@energystar.gov]
    Sent: Monday, December 28, 2009 8:00 AM
    Subject: ENERGY STAR Data Center Storage Initial Data Collection Procedure

    EPA Energy Star

    Dear ENERGY STAR Data Center Storage Stakeholder or Other Interested Party:

    The U.S. Environmental Production Agency (EPA) would like to invite interested parties to test the energy performance of storage products that are currently being considered for inclusion in the Version 1.0 ENERGY STAR® Data Center Storage specification. Please review the attached cover letter, data collection procedure, and test data collection sheet for further information.

    Stakeholders are encouraged to submit test data via e-mail to storage@energystar.gov no later than Friday, February 12, 2009.

    Thank you for your continued support of ENERGY STAR!

    Attachment Links:

    Storage Initial Data Collection Procedure.pdf

    Storage Initial Data Collection Cover Letter.pdf

    Storage Initial Data Collection Data Sheet.xls

    For more information, visit: www.energystar.gov

     

    For those interested in EPA Energy Star, Green IT including Green and energy efficient storage, check out these following links:

    Watch for more news and updates pertaining to EPA Energy Star for Servers, Data Center Storage and Data centers in 2010.

    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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    Poll: What was hot in 2009 and what was not, cast your vote!

    This is the time of year when people make their predictions for the next year.


    Building on some recent surveys and polls including:

    Whats your take on Windows 7

    Is IBM XIV still relevant

    EMC and Cisco Acadia VCE, what does it mean?

    What do you think of IT clouds

    Whats Your Take on FTC Guidelines For Bloggers?

    Not to mention those over at Storage Monkeys and the customer collective among others


    Before jumping to what will be hot or a flop in 2010, what do you think were the successful as well as disappointing technologies, trends, events, products or vendors of 2009?


    Cast your including adding in your own nominations in the two polls below.

    What technologies, events, products or vendors did not live up to 2009 predictions?



    What do you think were top 2009 technologies, events or vendors?

    Note:

    Feel free to vote early and often, however be advised, you will have to be creative in doing so as single balloting per IP and cookies are enabled to keep things on the down low.

    Check back soon to see how the results play out…


    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – StorageIO, Author The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC)

    Posted on

    What do NAS NASA NASCAR have in common?

    What do NAS NASA NASCAR have in common?

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Updated 2/10/2018

    The other day it dawned on me what do NAS, NASA NASCAR have in common?

    Several things in addition to all starting with the letters NAS it turns out.

    For example, they all deal with round objects, NAS or Network Attached storage involved with circular spinning disk drives, NASA or National Aeronautical Space Administration besides involved with aircraft that have tires that go round and round, or airplanes circling waiting for landing.

    In the case of NASA they are also involved with sending craft or devices to circle other planets or moons and land or crash into them. Sometimes NAS along with other storage systems have disk drives that crash, similar to how NASCAR events see accidents.
    NAS

    Ceder Lake 3M NASCAR at dirt track - Photo (C) 2008 Karen Schulz all rights reserved

    Ceder Lake dirt track 3M NASCAR night (Photo (C) 2008 Karen Schulz)

    NASCAR is also involved with vehicles that dont or at least should not fly, however they do go round and round on a track, often paved however sometimes mud or dirt tracks plus high tech exists with computers and various data models, not to mention the NASCAR air force.

    In addition to being involved with round objects and activities, all three are also involved in computing, generating, processing, storing and retrieving for analysis of data, not to mention high performance requirements.

    NAS based storage can also be relied upon for serving the needs of NASA and NASCAR data and informational needs.

    And FWIW, just for fun, look at what you get when you spell NAS, NASA or NASCAR backwards:

    RACSAN
    ASAN
    SAN

    Where To Learn More

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    What This All Means

    Not much actually other than to stimulate some thought, discussion as well as perhaps have some fun with technology during the holiday season.

    Im sure if I put some more thought to it, more similarities would or will come to mind.

    However, for now, thats it for a quick thought, what similarities do you see or know about with NAS, NASA and NASCAR?

    Ok, nuf fun for now, time to work on some other posts, content and projects.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Is MAID Storage Dead? I Dont Think So!

    Some vendors are doing better than others and first generation MAID (Massive or monolithic Array of Idle Disks) might be dead or about to be deceased, spun down or put into a long term sleep mode, it is safe to say that second generation MAID (e.g. MAID 2.0) also known as intelligent power management (IPM) is alive and doing well.

    In fact, IPM is not unique to disk storage or disk drives as it is also a technique found in current generation of processors such as those from Intel (e.g. Nehalem) and others.

    Other names for IPM include adaptive voltage scaling (AVS), adaptive voltage scaling optimized (AVSO) and adaptive power management (APM) among others.

    The basic concept is to vary the amount of power being used to the amount of work and service level needed at a point in time and on a granular basis.

    For example, first generation MAID or drive spin down as deployed by vendors such as Copan, which is rumored to be in the process of being spun down as a company (see blog post by a former Copan employee) were binary. That is, a disk drive was either on or off, and, that the granularity was the entire storage system. In the case of Copan, the granularly was that a maximum of 25% of the disks could ever be spun up at any point in time. As a point of reference, when I ask IT customers why they dont use MAID or IPM enabled technology they commonly site concerns about performance, or more importantly, the perception of bad performance.

    CPU chips have been taking the lead with the ability to vary the voltage and clock speed, enabling or disabling electronic circuitry to align with amount of work needing to be done at a point in time. This more granular approach allows the CPU to run at faster rates when needed, slower rates when possible to conserve energy (here, here and here).

    A common example is a laptop with technology such as speed step, or battery stretch saving modes. Disk drives have been following this approach by being able to vary their power usage by adjusting to different spin speeds along with enabling or disabling electronic circuitry.

    On a granular basis, second generation MAID with IPM enabled technology can be done on a LUN or volume group basis across different RAID levels and types of disk drives depending on specific vendor implementation. Some examples of vendors implementing various forms of IPM for second generation MAID to name a few include Adaptec, EMC, Fujitsu Eternus, HDS (AMS), HGST (disk drives), Nexsan and Xyratex among many others.

    Something else that is taking place in the industry seems to be vendors shying away from using the term MAID as there is some stigma associated with performance issues of some first generation products.

    This is not all that different than what took place about 15 years ago or so when the first purpose built monolithic RAID arrays appeared on the market. Products such as the SF2 aka South San Francisco Forklift company product called Failsafe (here and here) which was bought by MTI with patents later sold to EMC.

    Failsafe, or what many at DEC referred to as Fail Some was a large refrigerator sized device with 5.25” disk drives configured as RAID5 with dedicated hot spare disk drives. Thus its performance was ok for the time doing random reads, however writes in the pre write back cache RAID5 days was less than spectacular.

    Failsafe and other early RAID (and here) implementations received a black eye from some due to performance, availability and other issues until best practices and additional enhancements such as multiple RAID levels appeared along with cache in follow on products.

    What that trip down memory (or nightmare) lane has to do with MAID and particularly first generation products that did their part to help establish new technology is that they also gave way to second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and beyond generations of RAID products.

    The same can be expected as we are seeing with more vendors jumping in on the second generation of MAID also known as drive spin down with more in the wings.

    Consequently, dont judge MAID based solely on the first generation products which could be thought of as advanced technology production proof of concept solutions that will have paved the way for follow up future solutions.

    Just like RAID has become so ubiquitous it has been declared dead making it another zombie technology (dead however still being developed, produced, bought and put to use), follow on IPM enabled generations of technology will be more transparent. That is, similar to finding multiple RAID levels in most storage, look for IPM features including variable drive speeds, power setting and performance options on a go forward basis. These newer solutions may not carry the MAID name, however the sprit and function of intelligent power management without performance compromise does live on.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

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

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

    Posted on

    EMC Storage and Management Software Getting FAST

    EMC has announced the availability of the first phase of FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering) functionality for their Symmetrix VMAX, CLARiiON and Celerra storage systems.

    FAST was first previewed earlier this year (see here and here).

    Key themes of FAST are to leverage policies for enabling automation to support large scale environments, doing more with what you have along with enabling virtual data centers for traditional, private and public clouds as well as enhancing IT economics.

    This means enabling performance and capacity planning analysis along with facilitating load balancing or other infrastructure optimization activities to boost productivity, efficiency and resource usage effectiveness not to mention enabling Green IT.

    Is FAST revolutionary? That will depend on who you talk or listen to.

    Some vendors will jump up and down similar to donkey in shrek wanting to be picked or noticed claiming to have been the first to implement LUN or file movement inside of storage systems, or, as operating system or file system or volume manager built in. Others will claim to have done it via third party information lifecycle management (ILM) software including hierarchal storage management (HSM) tools among others. Ok, fair enough, than let their games begin (or continue) and I will leave it up to the variou vendors and their followings to debate whos got what or not.

    BTW, anyone remember system manage storage on IBM mainframes or array based movement in HP AutoRAID among others?

    Vendors have also in the past provided built in or third party add on tools for providing insight and awareness ranging from capacity or space usage and allocation storage resource management (SRM) tools, performance advisory activity monitors or charge back among others. For example, hot files analysis and reporting tool have been popular in the past, often operating system specific for identifying candidate files for placement on SSD or other fast storage. Granted the tools provided insight and awareness, there was still the time and error prone task of decision making and subsequently data movement, not to mention associated down time.

    What is new here with FAST is the integrated approach, tools that are operating system independent, functionality in the array, available for different product family and price bands as well as that are optimized for improving user and IT productivity in medium to high-end enterprise scale environments.

    One of the knocks on previous technology is either the performance impact to an application when data was moved, or, impact to other applications when data is being moved in the background. Another issue has been avoiding excessive thrashing due to data being moved at the expense of taking performance cycles from production applications. This would also be similar to having too many snapshots or raid rebuild that are not optimized running in the background on a storage system lacking sufficient performance capability. Another knock has been that historically, either 3rd party host or appliance based software was needed, or, solutions were designed and targeted for workgroup, departmental or small environments.

    What is FAST and how is it implemented
    FAST is technology for moving data within storage systems (and external for Celerra) for load balancing, capacity and performance optimization to meet quality of service (QoS) performance, availability, capacity along with energy and economic initiatives (figure1) across different tiers or types of storage devices. For example, moving data from slower SATA disks where a performance bottleneck exists to faster Fibre Channel or SSD devices. Similarly, cold or infrequently data on faster more expensive storage devices can be marked as candidates for migration to lower cost SATA devices based on customer policies.

    EMC FAST
    Figure 1 FAST big picture Source EMC

    The premise is that policies are defined based on activity along with capacity to determine when data becomes a candidate for movement. All movement is performed in the background concurrently while applications are accessing data without disruptions. This means that there are no stub files or application pause or timeouts that occur or erratic I/O activity while data is being migrated. Another aspect of FAST data movement which is performed in the actual storage systems by their respective controllers is the ability for EMC management tools to identify hot or active LUNs or volumes (files in the case of Celerra) as candidates for moving (figure 2).

    EMC FAST
    Figure 2 FAST what it does Source EMC

    However, users specify if they want data moved on its own or under supervision enabling a deterministic environment where the storage system and associated management tools makes recommendations and suggestions for administrators to approve before migration occurs. This capacity can be a safeguard as well as a learn mode enabling organizations to become comfortable with the technology along with its recommendations while applying knowledge of current business dynamics (figure 3).

    EMC FAST
    Figure 3 The Value proposition of FAST Source EMC

    FAST is implemented as technology resident or embedded in the EMC VMAX (aka Symmetrix), CLARiiON and Cellera along with external management software tools. In the case of the block (figure 4) storage systems including DMX/VMAX and CLARiiON family of products that support FAST, data movement is on a LUN or volume basis and within a single storage system. For NAS or file based Cellera storage systems, FAST is implanted using FMA technology enabling either in the box or externally to other storage systems on a file basis.

    EMC FAST
    Figure 4 Example of FAST activity Source EMC

    What this means is that data at the LUN or volume level can be moved across different tiers of storage or disk drives within a CLARiiON instance, or, within a VMAX instance (e.g. amongst the nodes). For example, Virtual LUNs are a building block that is leveraged for data movement and migration combined with external management tools including Navisphere for the CLARiiON and Symmetrix management console along with Ionix all of which has been enhanced.

    Note however that initially data is not moved externally between different CLARiiONs or VMAX systems. For external data movement, other existing EMC tools would be deployed. In the case of Celerra, files can be moved within a specific CLARiiON as well as externally across other storage systems. External storage systems that files can be moved across using EMC FMA technology includes other Celleras, Centera and ATMOS solutions based upon defined policies.

    What do I like most and why?

    Integration of management tools providing insight with ability for user to setup polices as well as approve or intercede with data movement and placement as their specific philosophies dictate. This is key, for those who want to, let the system manage it self with your supervision of course. For those who prefer to take their time, then take simple steps by using the solution for initially providing insight into hot or cold spots and then helping to make decisions on what changes to make. Use the solution and adapt it to your specific environment and philosophy approach, what a concept, a tool that works for you, vs you working for it.

    What dont I like and why?

    There is and will remain some confusion about intra and inter box or system data movement and migration, operations that can be done by other EMC technology today for those who need it. For example I have had questions asking if FAST is nothing more than EMC Invista or some other data mover appliance sitting in front of Symmetrix or CLARiiONs and the answer is NO. Thus EMC will need to articulate that FAST is both an umbrella term as well as a product feature set combining the storage system along with associated management tools unique to each of the different storage systems. In addition, there will be confusion at least with GA of lack of support for Symmetrix DMX vs supported VMAX. Of course with EMC pricing is always a question so lets see how this plays out in the market with customer acceptance.

    What about the others?

    Certainly some will jump up and down claiming ratification of their visions welcoming EMC to the game while forgetting that there were others before them. However, it can also be said that EMC like others who have had LUN and volume movement or cloning capabilities for large scale solutions are taking the next step. Thus I would expect other vendors to continue movement in the same direction with their own unique spin and approach. For others who have in the past made automated tiering their marketing differentiation, I would suggest they come up with some new spins and stories as those functions are about to become table stakes or common feature functionality on a go forward basis.

    When and where to use?

    In theory, anyone with a Symmetrix/VMAX, CLARiiON or Celerra that supports the new functionality should be a candidate for the capabilities, that is, at least the insight, analysis, monitoring and situation awareness capabilities Note that does not mean actually enabling the automated movement initially.

    While the concept is to enable automated system managed storage (Hmmm, Mainframe DejaVu anyone), for those who want to walk before they run, enabling the insight and awareness capabilities can provide valuable information about how resources are being used. The next step would then to look at the recommendations of the tools, and if you concur with the recommendations, then take remedial action by telling the system when the movement can occur at your desired time.

    For those ready to run, then let it rip and take off as FAST as you want. In either situation, look at FAST for providing insight and situational awareness of hot and cold storage, where opportunities exist for optimizing and gaining efficiency in how resources are used, all important aspects for enabling a Green and Virtual Data Center not to mention as well as supporting public and private clouds.

    FYI, FTC Disclosure and FWIW

    I have done content related projects for EMC in the past (see here), they are not currently a client nor have they sponsored, underwritten, influenced, renumerated, utilize third party off shore swiss, cayman or south american unnumbered bank accounts, or provided any other reimbursement for this post, however I did personally sign and hand to Joe Tucci a copy of my book The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC) ;).

    Bottom line

    Do I like what EMC is doing with FAST and this approach? Yes.

    Do I think there is room for improvement and additional enhancements? Absolutely!

    Whats my recommendation? Have a look, do your homework, due diligence and see if its applicable to your environment while asking others vendors what they will be doing (under NDA if needed).

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

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

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

    Posted on

    SSD and Storage System Performance

    Jacob Gsoedl has a new article over at SearchStorage titled How to add solidstate storage to your enterprise data storage systems.

    In his article which includes some commentary by me, Jacob lays out various options on where and how to deploy solid state devices (SSD) in and with enterprise storage systems.

    While many vendors have jumped on the latest SSD bandwagon adding flash based devices to storage systems, where and how they implement the technologies varies.

    Some vendors take a simplistic approach of qualify flash SSD devices for attachment to their storage controllers similar to how any other Fibre Channel, SAS or SATA hard disk drive (HDD) would be.

    Yet others take a more in depth approach including optimizing controller software, firmware or micro code to leverage flash SSD devices along with addressing wear leveling, read and write performance among other capabilities.

    Performance is another area where on paper a flash SSD device might appear to be fast and enable a storage system to be faster.

    However, systems that are not optimized for higher throughput and or increased IOPs needing lower latency may end up placing restrictions on the number of flash SSD devices or other configuration constraints. Even worse is when expected performance improvements are not realized as after all, fast controllers need fast devices, and fast devices need fast controllers.

    RAM and flash based SSD are great enabling technologies for boosting performance, productivity and enabling a green efficient environment however do your homework.

    Look at how various vendors implement and support SSD particularly flash based products with enhancements to storage controllers for optimal performance.

    Likewise check out the activity of  the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) among other industry trade group or vendor initiatives around enhancing along with best practices for 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 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    The other Green Storage: Efficiency and Optimization

    Some believe that green storage is specifically designed to reduce power and cooling costs.

    The reality is that there are many ways to reduce environmental impact while enhancing the economics of data storage besides simply booting utilizing.

    These include optimizing data storage capacity as well as boosting performance to increase productivity per watt of energy used when work needs to be done.

    Some approaches require new hardware or software while others can be accomplished with changes to management including reconfiguration leveraging insight and awareness of resource needs.

    Here are some related links:

    The Other Green: Storage Efficiency and Optimization (Videocast)

    Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch

    Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency

    How to reduce your Data Footprint impact (Podcast)

    Optimizing enterprise data storage capacity and performance to reduce your data footprint

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Green IT and Virtual Data Centers

    Green IT and virtual data centers are no fad nor are they limited to large-scale environments.

    Paying attention to how resources are used to deliver information services in a flexible, adaptable, energy-efficient, environmentally, and economically friendly way to boost efficiency and productivity are here to stay.

    Read more here in the article I did for the folks over at Enterprise Systems Journal.

    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