news Archives

August 1, 2012November 25, 2019

What does new EMC and Lenovo partnership mean?

The past several weeks have been busy with various merger, acquisitions and collaborating activity in the IT and data storage world. Summer time often brings new relationships and even summer marriages. The most recent is EMC and Lenovo announcing a new partnership that includes OEM sourcing of technology, market expansion and other initiatives. Hmm, does anybody remember who EMCs former desktop and server partner was, or who put Lenovo out for adoption several years ago?

Here is the press release from EMC and Lenovo that you can read yourself vs. me simply paraphrasing it:

Lenovo and EMC Team Up In Strategic Worldwide Partnership
A Solid Step in Lenovo’s Aspiration to Be a Player in Industry Standard Servers and Networked Storage with EMC’s Leading Technology; EMC Further Strengthens Ability to Serve Customers’ Storage Solutions Needs in China and Other Emerging Markets; Companies Agree to Form SMB-Focused Storage Joint Venture
BEIJING, China – August 1, 2012
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) and EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today announced a broad partnership that enhances Lenovo’s position in industry standard servers and networked storage solutions, while significantly expanding EMC’s reach in China and other key, high-growth markets. The new partnership is expected to spark innovation and additional R&D in the server and storage markets by maximizing the product development talents and resources at both companies, while driving scale and efficiency in the partners’ respective supply chains.
The partnership is a strong strategic fit, leveraging the two leading companies’ respective strengths, across three main areas:

First, Lenovo and EMC have formed a server technology development program that will accelerate and extend Lenovo’s capabilities in the x86 industry-standard server segment. These servers will be brought to market by Lenovo and embedded into selected EMC storage systems over time.
Second, the companies have forged an OEM and reseller relationship in which Lenovo will provide EMC’s industry-leading networked storage solutions to its customers, initially in China and expanding into other global markets in step with the ongoing development of its server business.
Finally, EMC and Lenovo plan to bring certain assets and resources from EMC’s Iomega business into a new joint venture which will provide Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems to small/medium businesses (SMB) and distributed enterprise sites.

“Today’s announcement with industry leader EMC is another solid step in our journey to build on our foundation in PCs and become a leader in the new PC-plus era,” said Yuanqing Yang, Lenovo chairman and CEO. “This partnership will help us fully deliver on our PC-plus strategy by giving us strong back-end capabilities and business foundation in servers and storage, in addition to our already strong position in devices. EMC is the perfect partner to help us fully realize the PC-plus opportunity in the long term.”
Joe Tucci, chairman and CEO of EMC, said, “The relationship with Lenovo represents a powerful opportunity for EMC to significantly expand our presence in China, a vibrant and very important market, and extend it to other parts of the world over time. Lenovo has clearly demonstrated its ability to apply its considerable resources and expertise not only to enter, but to lead major market segments. We’re excited to partner with Lenovo as we focus our combined energies serving a broader range of customers with industry-leading storage and server solutions.”
In the joint venture, Lenovo will contribute cash, while EMC will contribute certain assets and resources of Iomega. Upon closing, Lenovo will hold a majority interest in the new joint venture. During and after the transition from independent operations to the joint venture, customers will experience continuity of service, product delivery and warranty fulfillment. The joint venture is subject to customary closing procedures including regulatory approvals and is expected to close by the end of 2012.
The partnership described here is not considered material to either company’s current fiscal year earnings.
About Lenovo
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a $US30 billion personal technology company and the world’s second largest PC company, serving customers in more than 160 countries. Dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile internet devices, Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the Company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services. Its product lines include legendary Think-branded commercial PCs and Idea-branded consumer PCs, as well as servers, workstations, and a family of mobile internet devices, including tablets and smart phones. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information, see www.lenovo.com.
About EMC
EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

What is my take?

Disclosures
I have been buying and using Lenovo desktop and laptop products for over a decade and currently typing this post from my X1 ThinkPad equipped with a Samsung SSD. Likewise I bought an Iomega IX4 NAS a couple of years ago (so I am a customer), am a Retrospect customer (EMC bought and then sold them off), used to be a Mozy user (now a former customer) and EMC has been a client of StorageIO in the past.

Some of my Lenovo(s) and EMC Iomega IX4

Let us take a step back for a moment, Lenovo was the spinout and sale from IBM who has a US base in Raleigh North Carolina. While IBM still partners with Lenovo for desktops, IBM over the past years or decade(s) has been more strategically focused on big enterprise environments, software and services. Note that IBM has continued enhancing its own Intel based servers (e.g. xSeries), propriety Power processor series, storage and technology solutions (here, here, here and here among others). However, for the most part, IBM has moved away from catering to the Consumer, SOHO and SMB server, storage, desktop and related technology environments.

EMC on the other hand started out in the data center growing up to challenge IBMs dominance of data storage in big environments to now being the industry maker storage player for big and little data, from enterprise to cloud to desktop to server, consumer to data center. EMC also was partnered with Dell who competes directly with Lenovo until that relationship ended a few years ago. EMC for its part has been on a growth and expansion strategy adding technologies, companies, DNA and ability along with staff in the desktop, server and other spaces from a data, information and storage perspective not to mention VMware (virtualization and cloud), RSA (security) among others such as Mozy for cloud backup. EMC is also using more servers in its solutions ranging from Iomega based NAS to VNX unified storage systems, Greenplum big data to Centera archiving, ATMOS and various data protection solutions among other products.

StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

Note that this is an industry wide trend of leveraging Intel Architecture (IA) along with AMD, Broadcom, and IBM Power among other general-purpose processors and servers as platforms for running storage and data applications or appliances.

Overall, I think that this is a good move for both EMC and Lenovo to expand their reach into different adjacent markets leveraging and complimenting each other strengths.

Ok, lets see who is involved in the next IT summer relationship, nuff said for now.

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

July 31, 2012May 8, 2022

Oracle, Xsigo, VMware, Nicira, SDN and IOV: IO IO its off to work they go

StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

In case you missed it, VMware recently announced spending $1.05 billion USD acquiring startup Nicira for their virtualization and software technology that enables software defined networks (SDN). Also last week Oracle was in the news getting its hands slapped by for making misleading advertisement performance claims vs. IBM.

On the heals of VMware buying Nicira for software defined networking (SDN) or what is also known as IO virtualization (IOV) and virtualized networking, Oracle is now claiming their own SDN capabilities with their announcement of intent to acquire Xsigo. Founded in 2004, Xsigo has a hardware platform combined with software to enable attachment of servers to different Fibre Channel (SAN) and Ethernet based (LAN) networks with their version of IOV.

Now its Oracle who has announced that it will be acquiring IO, networking, virtualization hardware and software vendor Xsigo founded in 2004 for an undisclosed amount. Xsigo has made its name in the IO virtualization (IOV) and converged networking along with server and storage virtualization space over the past several years including partnerships with various vendors.

Technology buzzwords and buzz terms can often be a gray area leaving plenty of room for marketers and PR folks to run with. Case in point AaaS, Big data, Cloud, Compliance, Green, IaaS, IOV, Orchestration, PaaS and Virtualization among other buzzword bingo or XaaS topics. Since Xsigo has been out front in messaging and industry awareness around IO networking convergence of Ethernet based Local Area Networks (LANs) and Fibre Channel (FC) based Storage Area Networks (SANs), along with embracing InfiniBand, it made sense for them to play to their strength which is IO virtualization (aka IOV).

Too me and among others (here and here and here) it is interesting that Xsigo has not laid claims to being part of the software defined networking (SDN) movement or the affiliated OpenFlow networking initiatives as happens with Nicira (and Oracle for that matter). In the press release that the Oracle marketing and PR folks put out on a Monday morning, some of the media and press, both trade industry, financial and general news agency took the Oracle script hook line and sinker running with it.

What was effective is how well many industry trade pubs and their analysts simply picked up the press release story and ran with it in the all too common race to see who can get the news or story out first, or before it actually happens in some cases.

Image of media, news papers

Too be clear, not all pubs jumped including some of those mentioned by Greg Knieriemen (aka @knieriemen) over at SpeakinginTech highlights. I know some who took the time to call, ask around, leverage their journalistic training to dig, research and find out what this really meant vs. simply taking and running with the script. An example of one of those calls that I had was with Beth Pariseu (aka @pariseautt) that you can read her story here and here.

Interesting enough, the Xsigo marketers had not embraced the SDN term sticking with the more known (at least in some circles) VIO and VIO descriptions. What is also interesting is just last week Oracle marketing had their hands slapped by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) NAD after IBM complained about unfair performance based advertisements on ExaData.

Hmm, I wonder if the SDN police or somebody else will lodge a similar complaint with the BBB on behalf of those doing SDN?

Both Oracle and Xsigo along with other InfiniBand (and some Ethernet and PCIe) focused vendors are members of the Open Fabric initiative, not to be confused with the group working on OpenFlow.

StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

Here are some other things to think about:

Oracle has a history of doing different acquisitions without disclosing terms, as well as doing them based on earn outs such as was the case with Pillar.

Oracle use Ethernet in the servers and appliances as well as has been an adopter of InfiniBand primarily for node to node communication, however also for server to application.

Oracle is also an investor in Mellanox the folks that make InfiniBand and Ethernet products.

Oracle has built various stacks including ExaData (Database machine), Exalogic, Exalytics and Database Appliance in addition to their 7000 series of storage systems.

Oracle has done earlier virtualization related acquisitions including Virtual Iron.

Oracle has a reputation with some of their customers who love to hate them for various reasons.

Oracle has a reputation of being aggressive, even by other market leader aggressive standards.

Integrated solution stacks (aka stack wars) or what some remember as bundles continues and Oracle has many solutions.

What will happen to Xsigo as you know it today (besides what the press releases are saying).

While Xsigo was not a member of the Open Networking Forum (ONF), Oracle is.

Xsigo is a member of the Open Fabric Alliance along with Oracle, Mellanox and others interested in servers, PCIe, InfiniBand, Ethernet, networking and storage.

StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

What’s my take?

While there are similarities in that both Nicira and Xsigo are involved with IO Virtualization, what they are doing, how they are doing it, who they are doing it with along with where they can play vary.

Not sure what Oracle paid however assuming that it was in the couple of million dollars or less, cash or combination of stock, both they and the investors as well as some of the employees, friends and family’s did ok.

Oracle also gets some intellectual property that they can combine with other earlier acquisitions via Sun and Virtual Iron along with their investment in InfiniBand (also now Ethernet) vendor Mellanox

Likewise, Oracle gets some extra technology that they can leverage in their various stacked or integrated (aka bundled) solutions for both virtual and physical environments.

For Xsigo customers the good news is that you now know who will be buying the company, however and should be questions about the future beyond what is being said in press releases.

Does this acquisition give Oracle a play in the software defined networking space like Nicira gives to VMware I would say no given their hardware dependency, however it does give Oracle some extra technology to play with.

Likewise while important and a popular buzzword topic (e.g. SDN), since OpenFlow comes up in conversations, perhaps that should be more of the focus vs. if a solution is all software or hardware and software.

StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

I also find it entertaining how last week the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and NAD (National Advertising Division) slapped Oracles hands after IBM complaints of misleading performance claims about Oracle ExaData vs. IBM. The reason I find it entertaining is not that Oracle had its hands slapped or that IBM complained to the BBB, rather how the Oracle marketers and PR folks came up with a spin around what could be called a proprietary SDN (hmm, pSDN ?) story feed it to the press and media who then ran with it.

Im not convinced that this is an all our launch of a war by Oracle vs. Cisco let alone any of the other networking vendors as some have speculated (makes for good headlines though). Instead Im seeing it as more of an opportunistic acquisition by Oracle most likely at a good middle of summer price. Now if Oracle really wanted to go to battle with Cisco (and others), then there are others to buy such as Brocade, Juniper, etc etc etc. However there are other opportunities for Oracle to be focused (or side tracked on right now).

Oh, lets also see what Cisco has to say about all of this which should be interesting.

StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

If you are interested in learning more about IOV, Xisgo, or are having trouble sleeping, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here (I think that’s enough links for now ;).

Ok, nuff said for now as I have probably requalified for being on the Oracle you know what list for not sticking to the story script, opps, excuse me, I mean press release message.

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

July 24, 2012May 8, 2022

NAD recommends Oracle discontinue certain Exadata performance claims

I Received the following press release in my inbox today from the National Advertising Division (NAD) recommending that Oracle stop making certain performance claims about Exadata after a complaint from IBM.

In case you are not familiar with ExaData, it is a database machine or storage appliance that only supports Oracle database systems (learn more here). Oracle having bought Sun microsystems a few years back moved from being a software vendor that competed with other vendors software solutions including those from IBM while running on hardware from Dell, HP and IBM among others. Now that Oracle is in the hardware business, while you will still find Oracle software products running on their competitors hardware (servers and storage), Oracle is also more aggressively competing with those same partners, particularly IBM.

Hmm, to quote Scooby Doo: Rut Roh!

Looks like IBM complained to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) National Advertising Division (NAD) that resulted in the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council (ASRC) making their recommendation below (more about NAD and ASRC can be found here). Based on a billboard sign that I saw while riding from JFK airport into New York City last week, I would not be surprised if a company with two initials that start with an H and end with a P were to file a similar complaint.

I Wonder if the large wall size Oracle advertisement that used to be in the entry way to the white plains (IATA:HPN) airport (e.g. in IBM’s backyard) welcoming you to the terminal as you get off the airplanes is still there?

The following is the press release that I received:

For Immediate Release
Contact: Linda Bean
212.705.0129

NAD Finds Oracle Took Necessary Action in Discontinuing Comparative Performance Claims for Exadata; Oracle to Appeal NAD Decision

New York, NY – July 24, 2012 –TheNational Advertising Division has recommended that Oracle Corporation discontinue certain comparative product-performance claims for the company’s Exadata database machines, following a challenge by International Business Machines Corporation. Oracle said it would voluntarily discontinue the challenged claims, but noted that it would appeal NADs decision to the National Advertising Review Board.

The advertising claims at issue appeared in a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal and included the following:

“Exadata 20x Faster … Replaces IBM Again”
“Giant European Retailer Moves Databases from IBM Power to Exadata … Runs 20 Times Faster”

NAD also considered whether the advertising implied that all Oracle Exadata systems are twenty times faster than all IBM Power systems.

The advertisement featured the image of an Oracle Exadata system, along with the statement: “Giant European Retailer Moves Databases from IBM Power to Exadata Runs 20 Times Faster.” The advertisement also offered a link to the Oracle website: “For more details oracle.com/EuroRetailer.”

IBM argued that the “20x Faster” claim makes overly broad references to “Exadata” and “IBM Power,” resulting in a misleading claim, which the advertiser’s evidence does not support. In particular, the challenger argued that by referring to the brand name “IBM Power” without qualification, Oracle was making a broad claim about the entire IBM Power systems line of products.

The advertiser, on the other hand, argued that the advertisement represented a case study, not a line claim, and noted that the sophisticated target audience would understand that the advertisement is based on the experience of one customer – the “Giant European Retailer” referenced in the advertisement.

In a NAD proceeding, the advertiser is obligated to support all reasonable interpretations of its advertising claims, not just the message it intended to convey. In the absence of reliable consumer perception evidence, NAD uses its experienced judgment to determine what implied messages, if any, are conveyed by an advertisement. When evaluating the message communicated by an advertising claim, NAD will examine the claims at issue in the context of the entire advertisement in which they appear.

In this case, NAD concluded that while the advertiser may have intended to convey the message that in one case study a particular Exadata system was up to 20 times faster when performing two particular functions than a particular IBM Power system, Oracle’s general references to “Exadata” and “IBM Power,” along with the bold unqualified headline “Exadata 20x Faster Replaces IBM Again,” conveyed a much broader message.

NAD determined that at least one reasonable interpretation of the challenged advertisement is that all – or a vast majority – of Exadata systems consistently perform 20 times faster in all or many respects than all – or a vast majority – of IBM Power systems. NAD found that the message was not supported by the evidence in the record, which consisted of one particular comparison of one consumer’s specific IBM Power system to a specific Exadata System.

NAD further determined that the disclosure provided on the advertiser’s website was not sufficient to limit the broad message conveyed by the “20x Faster” claim. More importantly, NAD noted that even if Oracle’s website disclosure was acceptable – and had appeared clearly and conspicuously in the challenged advertisement – it would still be insufficient because an advertiser cannot use a disclosure to cure an otherwise false claim.

NAD noted that Oracle’s decision to permanently discontinue the claims at issue was necessary and proper.

Oracle, in its advertiser’s statement, said it was “disappointed with the NAD’s decision in this matter, which it believes is unduly broad and will severely limit the ability to run truthful comparative advertising, not only for Oracle but for others in the commercial hardware and software industry.”

Oracle noted that it would appeal all of NAD’s findings in the matter.

###

NAD’s inquiry was conducted under NAD/CARU/NARB Procedures for the Voluntary Self-Regulation of National Advertising. Details of the initial inquiry, NAD’s decision, and the advertiser’s response will be included in the next NAD/CARU Case Report.

About Advertising Industry Self-Regulation: The Advertising Self-Regulatory Council establishes the policies and procedures for advertising industry self-regulation, including the National Advertising Division (NAD), Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU), National Advertising Review Board (NARB), Electronic Retailing Self-Regulation Program (ERSP) and Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program (Accountability Program.) The self-regulatory system is administered by the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

Self-regulation is good for consumers. The self-regulatory system monitors the marketplace, holds advertisers responsible for their claims and practices and tracks emerging issues and trends. Self-regulation is good for advertisers. Rigorous review serves to encourage consumer trust; the self-regulatory system offers an expert, cost-efficient, meaningful alternative to litigation and provides a framework for the development of a self-regulatory to emerging issues.

To learn more about supporting advertising industry self-regulation, please visit us at: www.asrcreviews.org.

Linda Bean l Director, Communications,
Advertising Self-Regulatory Council

Tel: 212.705.0129
Cell: 908.812.8175
lbean@asrc.bbb.org

112 Madison Ave.
3rd Fl.
New York, NY
10016

Ok, Oracle is no stranger to benchmark and performance claims controversy having amassed several decades of experience. Anybody remember the silver bullet database test from late 80s early 90s when Oracle set a record performance except that they never committed the writes to disk?

Something tells me that Oracle and Uncle Larry (e.g. Larry Ellison who is not really my uncle) will treat this as any kind of press or media coverage is good and probably will issue something like IBM must be worried if they have to go to the BBB.

Will a complaint which I’m sure is not the fist to be lodged with the BBB against Oracle deter customers, or be of more use to IBM sales and their partners in deals vs. Oracle?

What’s your take?

Is this much ado about nothing, a filler for a slow news or discussion day, a break from talking about VMware acquisition of Nicira or VMware CEO management changes? Perhaps this is an alternative to talking about the CEO of SSD vendor STEC being charged with insider trading, or something other than Larry Ellison buying an Hawaiian island (IMHO he could have gotten a better deal buying Greece), or is this something that Oracle will need to take seriously?

Ok, nuff said for now

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

July 12, 2012April 18, 2022

Give HP storage some love and short strokin

Following up from my last post over at InfoStor about metrics that matter, here is a link to a new piece that I did on storage vendors benchmarking and related topics. This new post looked at an storage performance council (SPC1) benchmark that HP did with their P10000 (e.g. 3PAR) storage system under assertions by some in the industry that they were short stroking to meet better performance.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

I’m surprised some creative technical marketer, blogger or prankster has yet to rework Clarence Carters (e.g. Dr. CC) iconic song into something about storage performance and capacity short strokin.

Ok, nuff said before I get a visit from the HP truth squads, in the meantime, give HP a hug and some love if so inclined.

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

July 11, 2012November 21, 2019

Announcing SAS SANs for Dummies book, LSI edition

There is a new (free) book that I’m a co-author of along Bruce Grieshaber and Larry Jacob (both of LSI) along with foreword by Harry Mason of LSI and President of the SCSI Trade Association titled SAS SANs for Dummies compliments of LSI.

SAS SANs for Dummies, LSI Edition

This new book (ebook and print hard copy) looks at Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and how it can be used beyond traditional direct attached storage (DAS) configurations for support various types of storage mediums including SSD, HDD and tape. These configuration options include as entry-level SAN with SAS switches for small clusters or server virtualization, or as shared DAS as well as being a scale out back-end solution for NAS, object, cloud and big data storage solutions.

Here is the table of contents (TOC) of SAS SANs for Dummies

Chapter 1: Data storage challenges

Storage Growth Demand Drivers

Recognizing Challenges

Solutions and Opportunities

Chapter 2: Storage Area Networks

Introducing Storage Area Networks

Moving from Dedicated Internal to Shared Storage

Chapter 3: SAS Basics

Introducing the Basics of SAS

How SAS Functions

Components of SAS

SAS Target Devices

SAS for SANs

Chapter 4: SAS Usage Scenarios

Understanding SAS SANs Usage

Shared SAS SANs Scenarios including:

SAS in HPC environments
Big data and big bandwidth
Database, e-mail, back-office
NAS and object storage servers
Cloud, wen and high-density
Server virtualization

Chapter 5: Advanced SAS Topics

The SAS Physical Layer

Choosing SAS Cabling

Using SAS Switch Zoning

SAS HBA Target Mode

Chapter 6: Nine Common Questions

Can You Interconnect Switches?

What Is SAS Cable Distance?

How Many Servers Can Be In a SAS SAN?

How Do You Manage SAS Zones?

How Do You Configure SAS for HA?

How Does SAS Zoning Compare to LUN Mapping?

Who Has SAS Solutions?

How Do SAS SANs Compare?

Where Can You Learn More?

Chapter 7: Next Steps

SAS Going Forward

Next Steps

Great Take Away’s

Regardless of if you are looking to use SAS as a primary SAN interface, or leverage it for DAS or implementing back-end storage for big-data, NAS, object, cloud or other types of scalable storage solutions, check out and get your free copy of SAS SANs for Dummies here compliments of LSI.

SAS SANs for Dummies, LSI Edition

Click here to ask your free copy of SAS SANs for Dummies compliments of LSI, tell them Greg from StorageIO sent you and enjoy the book.

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

July 3, 2012January 1, 2021

Dell is buying Quest software, not the phone company Qwest

For those not familiar with Quest, they are a software company not to be confused with the telephone communications company formerly known as Qwest (aka now known as centurylink).

Both Dell and Quest have been on software related acquisition initiatives that past few years with Quest having purchased vKernel, Vizoncore (vRanger virtualization backup), BakBone (who had acquire Alavarii and Asempra) for traditional backup and data protection among others. Not to be out done, as well as purchasing Quest, Dell has also more recently bought Appassure (Disclosure: StorageIOblog site sponsor) for data protection, Sonicwall and Wyse in addition to some other recent purchases (ASAP, Boomi, Compellent, Exanet, EqualLogic, Force10, InsightOne, KACE, Ocarina, Perot, RNA and Scalent among others).

What does this mean?
Dell is expanding the scope of their business with more products (hardware, software), solution bundles, services and channel partnering opportunities Some of the software tools and focus areas that Quest brings to the Dell table or portfolio include:

Database management (Oracle, SQLserver)
Data protection (virtual and physical backup, replication, bc, dr)
Performance monitoring (DCIM and IRM) of applications and infrastructure
User workspace management (application delivery)
Windows server management (migrate and manage, AD, exchange, sharepoint)
Identify and access management (security, compliance, privacy)

What does Dell get by spending over $2B USD on quest?

Additional software titles or product

More software developers for their Software group

Sales people to help promote, partner and sell software solutions

Create demand pull for other Dell products and services via software

Increase its partner reach via existing Quest VARs and business partners

Extend the size of the Dell software and intellectual property (IP) portfolio

New revenue streams that compliment existing products and lines of business

Potential for better rate of return on some of its $12B USD in cash or equivalence

Is this a good move for Dell?
Yes for the above reasons

Is there a warning to this for Dell?
Yes, they need to execute, keep the Quest team focused along with their other teams on the respective partners, products and market opportunities while expanding into new areas. Dell needs to also leverage Quest to further its cause in creating trust, confidence and strategic relationships with channel partners to reach new markets in different geographies. In addition, Dell needs to articulate its strategy and positioning of the various solutions to avoid products being perceived as competing vs. complimenting each other.

Additional Dell related links:
Dell Storage Customer Advisory Panel (CAP)
Dell Storage Forum 2011 revisited
Dude, is Dell doing a disk deal again with Compellent?
Data footprint reduction (Part 2): Dell, IBM, Ocarina and Storwize
Post Holiday IT Shopping Bargains, Dell Buying Exanet?
Dell Will Buy Someone, However Not Brocade (At least for now)

Ok, nuff said for now

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

July 1, 2012December 24, 2020

EPA Energy Star for data center storage draft 3 specification

The U.S. EPA is ready to release DRAFT 3 of the Energy Star for data center storage specification and has an upcoming web session that you can sign up for if are not on their contact list of interested stake holders. If you are not familiar with the EPA Energy star for data center storage program, here is some background information.

Thus if you are interested, see the email and information below, signup and take part if so inclined as opposed to saying that you did not have a chance to comment.

Dear ENERGY STAR® Data Center Storage Manufacturer or Other Interested Party:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would like to announce the release of the Draft 3 Version 1.0 ENERGY STAR Specification for Data Center Storage. The draft is attached and is accompanied by a cover letter and Draft Test Method. Stakeholders are invited to review these documents and submit comments to EPA via email to storage@energystar.gov by Friday, July 27, 2012.

EPA will host a webinar on Wednesday, July 11, 2012, tentatively starting at 1:00PM EST. The agenda will be focused on elements from Draft 3, Product Families, and other key topics. Please RSVP to storage@energystar.gov no later than Tuesday, July 3, 2012 with the subject "RSVP – Storage Draft 3 specification meeting."

If you have any questions, please contact Robert Meyers, EPA, at Meyers.Robert@epa.gov or (202) 343-9923; or John Clinger, ICF International, at John.Clinger@icfi.com or (202) 572-9432.

Thank you for your continued support of the ENERGY STAR program.

For more information, visit: www.energystar.gov

This message was sent to you on behalf of ENERGY STAR. Each ENERGY STAR partner organization must have at least one primary contact receiving e-mail to maintain partnership. If you are no longer working on ENERGY STAR, and wish to be removed as a contact, please update your contact status in your MESA account. If you are not a partner organization and wish to opt out of receiving e-mails, you may call the ENERGY STAR Hotline at 1-888-782-7937 and request to have your mass mail settings changed. Unsubscribing means that you will no longer receive program-wide or product-specific e-mails from ENERGY STAR.

Ok, you have been advised, nuff said for now

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

June 7, 2012November 26, 2023

NetApp on rough ground, or a diamond in the rough?

Storage I/O Industry Trends and Perspectives

In case you missed it, NetApp announced their most recent quarterly earnings a few weeks ago which in themselves were not bad. However what some of their competition jumping up and down for joy while others are scratching their heads is the forward-looking guidance given by NetApp.

NetApp can be seen as being on rough ground given their forward-looking guidance over the next year which could be seen as either very conservative, or an admission that they are not growing as fast as some of their competitors are challenging them.

Reading between the lines, looking at various financial and other resources in addition to factoring in technology items, there is more to NetApp then meets the eye and current stock price or product portfolio.

For example, NetApp is sitting on over $4 Billion USD cash that they could use for an acquisition, buying back stock, launching a major sales and marketing initiative to expand into new or adjacent markets or other activities. Speaking of acquisitions, NetApp has done some in the past including Spinnaker, which is now integrated with Ontap (e.g. clustering), Topio, Decru (security encryption) and Onaro (DCIM and IRM management software tools). More recently, NetApp has acquired Bycast (archiving and policy storage management software), Akorri (capacity management and DCIM and IRM software) and Engenio. NetApp is also maintaining good margins via both direct, channel and OEM activities while launching new products such as the channel and SMB focused FAS 2220.

Its arguable depending upon your point of view (or who you for or are a fan of) if NetApp has all the right product pieces now, in the works, or on their radar for acquisitions. Assuming that NetApp has the pieces, they also need to move beyond selling simply what is on the truck or what is safe and comfortable or perhaps easy to sell. This is not to say that NetApp is not being effective in selling what they have and pushing the envelope, however keeping in mind who their main competitor is, the old sales saying of being able to sell ice to an Eskimo comes to mind.

In the case of NetApp, when the competition makes an issue about scalibility or performance of their flagship storage systems FAS and Ontap storage software, change the playing field leveraging all the tools in their portfolio. NetApp like EMC before them is figuring out how to sell via different channels or venues their complete portfolio with a mix of direct, channel and OEM. After all, it seems like only yesterday that EMC was trying to figure out where and when to sell CLARiiON (e.g. now VNX) as opposed to avoiding competing with the Symmetrix (aka now the VMAX) not to mention expanding from a direct to channel and OEM model. Perhaps NetApp can continue to figure out how to leverage more effectively the Engenio E series for big bandwidth beyond their current OEMs. NetApp can also leverage their existing partners who have embraced Bycast (aka StorageGrid) while finding new ones.

The reality is that NetApp is being challenged by EMC who is moving down market into some of NetApp’s traditional accounts along with in the scale-out NAS and big data sectors. This is where NetApp can leverage their technical capabilities including people combined with some effective sales and marketing execution to change the playing field vs. responding to EMC and others.

NetApp has many of the pieces, parts, products, people, programs and partners so now how can they leverage those to expand both their revenues, as well as support margin to grow the business, unless they are looking to be acquired.

I still subscribe that NetApp and EMC are two similar companies on parallel tracks offset by time, by about a decade or decade and a half.

Storage I/O Industry Trends and Perspectives

Thus, IMHO NetApp is a diamond in the rough, granted I am guessing EMC and some others do not see it that way. However, there was a time when EMC was seen as a diamond in the rough while others discounted that notion, particularly an Itty Bitty Manufacturing company from New York who is now focusing on services among other things.

Keep in mind however, diamonds can also be lost or taken as well as there can be fake gems.

Here are some related links:
Unified storage systems showdown: NetApp FAS vs. EMC VNX
Two companies on parallel tracks moving like trains offset by time: EMC and NetApp
NetApp buying LSI’s Engenio Storage Business Unit

Ok, nuff said for now

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

May 20, 2012November 26, 2023

Spring (May) 2012 StorageIO news letter

Spring (May) 2012 News letter

Welcome to the Spring (May) 2012 edition of the Server and StorageIO Group (StorageIO) news letter. This follows the Fall (December) 2011 edition.

You can get access to 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 Spring May 2012 edition as an HTML or PDF or, to go to the news letter page to view previous editions.

You can subscribe to the news letter by clicking here.

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

Nuff said for now

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

May 20, 2012January 23, 2019

Various cloud, virtualization, server, storage I/O poll’s

The following are a collection of on-going industry trends and perspectives poll’s pertaining to server, storage, IO, networking, cloud, virtualization, data protection (backup, archive, BC and DR) among other related themes and topics.

In addition to those listed below, check out the comments section where additional poll’s are added over time.

Storage I/O Industry Trends and Perspectives

Here is a link to a poll as a follow-up to a recent blog post Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD? (also check these posts pertaining to storage arrays and SSD and flash SSD’s emerging role).

Poll: Are large storage arrays day’s numbered?

Poll: What’s your take on magnetic tape storage?

Poll: What do you think of IT clouds?

Poll: Who is responsible for cloud storage data loss?

Poll: What are the most popular Zombie technologies?

Storage I/O Industry Trends and Perspectives

Poll: What’s your take on OVA and other alliances?

Poll: Where is most common form or concern of vendor lockin?

Poll: Who is responsible for, or preventing vendor lockin?

Poll: Is vendor lockin a good or bad thing?

Poll: Is IBM V7000 relevant?

Storage I/O Industry Trends and Perspectives

Poll: What is your take on EMC and NetApp on similar tracks or paths?

Poll: What’s your take on RAID still being relevant?

Poll: What do you see as barriers to converged networks?

Poll: Who are you?

Poll: What is your preferred converged network?

Storage I/O Industry Trends and Perspectives

Poll: What is your converged network status?

Poll: Are converged networks in your future?

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

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

Storage I/O Industry Trends and Perspectives

Poll: What do you think of IT clouds?

Poll: What is your take on the new FTC blogger disclosure guidelines?

Poll: Is RAID dead?

Poll: When will you deploy Windows 7? Note: I upgraded all my systems to Windows 7 during summer of 2011

Poll: EMC and Cisco VCE, what does it mean?

Poll: Is IBM XIV still relevant?

Storage I/O Industry Trends and Perspectives

Note: Feel free to share, use and make reference to the above poll’s and their results however please remember to attribute the source.

Ok, nuff said for now

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

April 30, 2012December 24, 2020

Congratulations to new and returning 2012 VMware vExperts

A quick note of congratulations to all the new as well as too my fellow returning 2012 VMware vExperts from around the world.

Here is a link listing the 2012 VMware vExperts including how you can follow them on twitter if you are interested in virtualization, cloud, data and storage networking related topics either VMware specific or industry and technology general.

Also, here are some added links to follow and check out.

twitter @VMwareCommunity
plantetv12n blogs and information
Wmware and community blogs
VMware communities
vExpert spotlights (follow links to various profiles)

I’m honored to be among such a great group of people and again, congratulations to all.

Ok, nuff said for now.

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

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