February 2014 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter Data Infrastructure Insights


Welcome to the February 2014 edition of the StorageIO Update (newsletter) containing trends perspectives on cloud, virtualization and data infrastructure topics. Its winter here in North America and specifically in the Stillwater Minnesota to say that there is plenty of snow and cold would be an understatement. However in a few months instead of dealing with -20F or -40F wind chills, it will be 100F head index, thus the saying of if you don’t like the weather, either leave or wait a bit as it will change.

In case you missed the December 2013 StorageIO holiday greeting which was in place of the normal newsletter you can view that here. In the absence of the regular December and January StorageIO Update newsletters, this is a larger edition to get caught up. However not to worry as there is more content and items in the wings for March.

2013 wrapped up with a flurry of industry activity including some acquisitions (Avago buying LSI and Seagate acquiring Xyratex among others). Likewise 2014 so far is continuing the momentum living up to the mantra that while there may be economic challenges, there is no such thing as a data or information recession.

Greg Schulz StorageIO
Watch for future posts, commentary, perspectives and other information down the road (and in the not so distant future) pertaining to information and data infrastructure topics, themes and trends across cloud, virtual, legacy server, storage, networking, hardware and software. Also check out our backup, restore, BC, DR and archiving (Under the resources section on StorageIO.com) for various presentation, book chapter downloads and other content.

Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO Update newsletter and keep in mind, at least here in North America spring is just around the corner with summer not to far off either.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers gs

StorageIO Industry Trends and PerspectivesIndustry trends tips, commentary, articles and blog posts
What is being seen, heard and talked about while out and about

The following is a synopsis of some StorageIOblog posts, articles and comments in different venues on various industry trends, perspectives and related themes about clouds, virtualization, data and storage infrastructure topics among related themes.

StorageIO in the newsRecent StorageIO comments and perspectives in the news

SearchSMBStorage: Comments on Lenovo EMC Iomega new SMB NAS products
ChannelProSMB: Comments on what the future holds for HDDs
NetworkAsia: Comments on WORM disk and tape
SeaarchSolidStateStorage: Comments on SSD industry activity and OCZ bankruptcy
EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on software defined storage
Ironmountain: Comments on storage efficiency in small businesses
PC Today: Comments on best practices
PC Today: Commnets on How to recover lost data
PC Today: Comments on Virtualization 101, understand context which virtualization is used
PC Today: Comments on going paperless
PC Today: Optimize Now – Comments on optimize to improve IT productivity
Processor: Comments on Know Which Emerging Technologies Could Make An Impact
Processor: Comments on Backup Problems – What To Do Before & After Issues Arise
Processor: Comments on Know When & When Not To Replace Servers
Processor: Comments on Enterprise Backup Solutions Buying Tips
Processor: Comments on Server Trends, Technologies Reshape The Industry

StorageIO tips and articles Recent StorageIO tips and articles in various venues

Information Security Buzz: How Secure Is Your Data Storage?
SearchStorage: Bridging the gap: Choosing storage-over-distance network technology 
SearchEnterpriseWAN: Wide area network resiliency best practices 
StateTech: 5 Tips for Factoring Software into Disaster Recovery Plans
BizTech: How to Turn Storage Networks into Better Performers
InfoStor: The Many Variations of RAID Storage

StorageIOblog postRecent StorageIOblog posts and perspectives

  • Server Storage I/O Network Benchmark Winter Olympic Games – Click to read more
  • Removing complexity and cost to drive return on innovation – Click to read more
  • StorageIO data infrastructure links page updated (1,200+ entries) – Click to read more
  • Welcome to Data Protection Diaries – Visit www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/
  • Data Protection Diaries series – My data protection needs and wants – Click to read more
  • Until focus expands to data protection, backup is staying alive! – Click to read here
  • IT and data center sustainability, the other convergence zone – Click to read more
  • Lenovo buys IBM’s xSeries server business, what about EMC? – Click to read more
  • Securing your information assets and data, what about storage?Click to read more
  • Dell Inspiron 660 i660, Virtual Server Diamond in the rough?Click to read more
  • Book review: Rethinking Enterprise Storage by Marc FarleyClick to read more
  • Some Windows Server Storage I/O related commandsClick to read more
  • IoD, IoT, IoE, IoS, IoP, IoU and IoX are in your futureClick to read more
  • Goodbye 2013, hello 2014, predictions past, present and futureClick to read more
  • Small Medium Business (SMB) IT gains respect, what about SOHO?Click to read more
  • Seasons Greetings, Happy Holidays 2013 from StorageIOClick to read more
  • Server virtualization nested and tiered hypervisorsClick to read more
  • Remember to check out our objectstoragecenter.com page where you will find a growing collection of information and links on cloud and object storage themes, technologies and trends from various sources.

    Server and StorageIO seminars, conferences, web cats, events, activities StorageIO activities (out and about)

    Seminars, symposium, conferences, webinars
    Live in person and recorded recent and upcoming events

    The StorageIO calendar continues to evolve, here are some recent and upcoming activities.

    March 13, 2014 BrightTalkBusiness Resiliency (BR), Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) ManagementWebinar
    9AM PT
    March 12, 2014 BrightTalkHybrid Clouds – Bridging the Gap between public and private environmentsWebinar
    9AM PT
    February 18, 2014 BrightTalkNetworking with your Servers and Storage – Cloud, virtual and physical environmentsWebinar
    9AM PT
    January 28, 2014 Backup.UData Protection for Hybrid Environments 201Backup.U
    Google+ hangout
    January 23, 2014 DataCenter
    Acceleration
    Building and Managing the Sustainable Datacenter – Driving efficiency, productivity, effectiveness and economicsLive chat
    11AM PT
    January 15, 2014 BrightTalkModernizing Data Protection For Cloud, Virtual and Physical EnvironmentsWebinar
    11AM CT
    January 14, 2014 Backup.UData Protection for Hybrid Environments 101Backup.U
    Online Webinar
    December 12, 2013 Backup.UData Protection for Cloud 201Backup.U
    Google+ hangout
    December 6, 2013
    Code42
    Panelist – Endpoint Data Management
    Protecting the Perimeter of the Internet of Things
    (Replay)
    1PM CT
    Web Based
    December 3, 2013 Backup.UData Protection for Cloud 101Backup.U
    Online Webinar

    Click here to view other upcoming along with earlier event activities. Watch for more 2014 events to be added soon to the StorageIO events calendar page. Topics include data protection modernization (backup/restore, HA, BC, DR, archive), data footprint reduction (archive, compression, dedupe), storage optimization, SSD, object storage, server and storage virtualization, big data, little data, cloud and object storage, performance and management trends among others.

    Vendors, VAR’s and event organizers, give us a call or send an email to discuss having us involved in your upcoming pod cast, web cast, virtual seminar, conference or other events.

    Thank you to the current StorageIoblog.com site sponsor advertisers

    Druva (End Point Data Protection)

    EMC (EMC Community Network)
    Unitrends (Enterprise backup solution and management tools)
    Veeam (VMware and Hyper-V virtual server backup and data protection tools).

    Contact StorageIO to learn about sponsorship and other partnership opportunities.

    Click here to view previous StorageIO Update newsletters (HTML and PDF versions). Subscribe to this newsletter (and pass it along) click here to subscribe to this news letter. View archives of past StorageIO update news letters as well as download PDF versions at: www.storageio.com/newsletter.

    Thank you for reading this edition of the StorageIO Update Newsletter.

    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

    StorageIO data infrastructure industry vendors links page updated with over 1,200 entries

    Storage I/O trends

    StorageIO data infrastructure industry vendors links page updated with over 1,200 entries

    Is your company, organization or one that you are a fan of, or represent listed on the StorageIO industry links page?

    The StorageIO industry links page has been updated with over thousand different industry related companies, vendors, vars, trade groups, part and solution suppliers along with cloud and managed service providers. The common theme with these industry links is information and data infrastructures which means severs, storage, IO and networking, hardware, software, applications and tools, services, products and related items for traditional, virtual and cloud environments.

    The industry links page is accessed from the StorageIO main web page via the Tools and Links menu tab, or via the URL https://storageio.com/links. An example of the StorageIO industry links page is shown below with six different menu tabs in alphabetical order.

    storage I/O and data infrastructure cloud, virtual and software defined links

    Know of a company, service or organization that is not listed on the links page, if so, send an email note to info at storageio.com. If your company or organization is listed, contact StorageIO to discuss how to expand your presence on the links page and other related options.

    Visit the updated StorageIO industry links page and watch for more updates, and click here to learn more about the links page.

    Ok, 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

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

    Part II Until the focus expands to data protection – What to do about it

    Storage I/O trends

    Part II – Until the focus expands to data protection – What to do about it

    This is the second of a three-part series (read part I here) about how vendors are keeping backup alive, however what they can and should do to shift and expand the conversation to data protection and related themes.

    Modernizing data protection and what to do about it

    Building off of what was mentioned in the first post, lets take a look at what can be done including expanding the conversation around data protection in support of business continuance (BC), disaster recovery (DR), high availability (HA), business resiliency (BR) not to mention helping backup to actually retire (someday). Now when I backup retire, I’m not necessarily talking about a technology such as hardware, software or a service including clouds, rather when, where, why and how data gets protected. What I mean by this is to step back from looking at the tools and technologies to how they are used and can be used in new and different ways moving forward.

    People convergenceStorageIO people convergence
    Converged people and technology teams

    All to often I see where new technologies or tools get used in old ways which while providing some near-term relief, the full capabilities of what is being used may not be fully realized. This also ties into the theme of people not technologies can be a barrier to convergence and transformation that you can read more about here and here.

    Whats your data protection strategy, business or technology focused?

    expand focus beyond tools
    Data protection strategy evolving beyond tools looking for a problem to solve

    Part of modernizing data protection is getting back to the roots or fundamentals including revisiting business needs, requirements along with applicable threat risks to then align application tools, technologies and techniques. This means expanding focus from just the technology, however also more importantly how to use different tools for various scenarios. In other words having a tool-box and know how to use it vs. everything looking like a nail as all you have is a hammer. Check out various webinars, Google+ hangouts and other live events that I’m involved with on the StorageIO.com events page on data protection and related data infrastructure themes including BackupU (getting back to the basics and fundamentals).

    data protection options

    Everything is not the same, leverage different data protection approaches to different situations

    Wrap up (for now)

    Continue reading part three of this series here to see what can be done (taking action) about shifting the conversation about modernizing data protection. Also check out conversations about trends, themes, technologies, techniques perspectives in my ongoing data protection diaries discussions (e.g. www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/).

    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

     

    Until the focus expands to data protection, backup is staying alive!

    Storage I/O trends

    Until the focus expands to data protection, backup is staying alive!

    This is the first of a three-part series discussing how and why vendors are keeping backup alive, read part two here.

    Some vendors, Value Added Resellers (VARs), pundits (consultants, analysts, media, bloggers) and their followers want backup to not only be declared dead, they also want to attend (or send flowers) to the wake and funeral not to mention proof of burial so to speak.

    Yet many of these same vendors, VARs and their pundits also are helping or causing backup to staying alive.

    Sure there are plenty of discussion including industry adoption and customer deployment around modernizing backup and data protection that are also tied to disaster recovery (DR), business continuance (BC), high availability (HA) and business resiliency (BR).

    On the other hand the usual themes are around talking about product or technology deployment to modernize backup by simply swapping out hardware (e.g. disk for tape, cloud for disk), applying data footprint reduciton (DFR) including archiving, compression and dedupe or, another common scenario of switching from one vendors tool to another.

    How vendors are helping backup staying alive?

    One of the routine things I hear from vendors among others is that backup needs to move from the 70’s or 80’s or 90’s to the current era when the John Travolta and Oliva Newton John movie Saturday Night Fever and the Bee Gees song "Stayin Alive" appeared (click here to hear the song via Amazon).

    Stayin Alive Image via Amazon.com

    Some vendors keep talking and using the term backup instead of expanding the conversation to data protection that includes backup/restore, business continuance (BC), disaster recovery (DR) along with archiving and security. Now let’s be that we can not expect something like backup to be removed from the vocabulary overnight as its been around for decades, hence it will take time.

    IMHO: The biggest barrier to moving away from backup is the industry including vendors, their pundits, press/media, vars and customers who continue to insist on using or referring to back up vs. expanding the conversation to data protection. – GS @StorageIO

    Until there’s a broad focus on shifting to and using the term data protection including backup, BC, DR and archiving, people will simply keep referring to what they know, read or hear (e.g. backup). On the other hand if the industry starts putting more focus on using data protection with backup, people will stat following suit using the two and over time backup as a term can fade away.

    Taking a step back to move forward

    Some of the modernizing backup discussions is actually focused on take a step back to reconsider why, when, where, how and with what different applications, systems and data gets protected. certainly there are the various industry trends, challenges and opportunities some of which are shown below including more facts to protect, preserve and service for longer periods of time.

    Likewise there are various threat risks or scenarios to protect information assets from or against, not all of which are head-line news making event situations.

    data protection threat risk scenarios

    Not all threat risks are headline news making events

    There is an old saying in and around backup/restore, BC, DR, BR and HA of never letting a disaster go to waste. What this means is that if you have never noticed, there is usually a flurry of marketing and awareness activity including conversations about why you should do something BC, DR and other data protection activities right around, or shortly after a disaster scenario. However not all disasters or incidents are headline news making events and hence there should be more awareness every day vs. just during disaster season or situations. In addition, this also means expanding the focus on other situations that are likely to occur including among others those in the following figure.

    data protection headline news and beyond

    Continue reading part two of this series here to see what can be done about shifting the conversation about modernizing data protection. Also check out conversations about trends, themes, technologies, techniques perspectives in my ongoing data protection diaries discussions (e.g. www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/).

    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

    Part III Until the focus expands to data protection – Taking action

    Storage I/O trends

    Part III – Until the focus expands to data protection – Taking action

    This is the thrid of a three-part series (read part II here) about how vendors are keeping backup alive, however what they can and should do to shift and expand the conversation to data protection and related themes.

    Modernizing is more than simply swapping one technology for another

    As I have said for a couple of years now, modernizing data protection, or data protection modernization if you prefer is more than simply deduping or swapping out media, mediums, tape, disk, clouds, software or services like a recurring flat tire on an automobile. If you keep getting flat tires, instead of treating the symptom, find and fix the problem which means for backup, taking a step back and realizing that what is really being done is protecting data (e.g. data protection).

    Granted the security people may not like sharing the term data protection as some of them prefer to keep that unique, just like some of the compliance people want to keep archiving exclusive to their focus areas, however lets move on.

    On the other hand, data protection also means that, protect, preserve and enable data and information to be accessed and served when and were needed in a cost-effective way with consistency and coherency.

    Sure there is still the act of making a copy or a backup at time intervals (frequency) with various coverage (how much gets copied) to multiple locations (copies) with versions kept for different amounts of time (retention) to support RTO and RPO, not to mention SLA and SLO for ITSM (how’s that for some buzzword bingo ;).

    Buzzword bingo

    This means using copies, sync (or rsync), snapshots, replication and CDP, discrete copies such as backups along with all the other buzzword bingo enabling tools, technologies and techniques (e.g. Agent or Agent less, Archive, Availability zones. Not to mention Bare metal, virtual bare metal, Block based, CDP, Compression, Consolidation, Deletion, Data management, Dedupe, eDiscovery, durability, erasure coding/parity, file level, meta data and policy management, replication, snapshots, RAID, plugin, object storage, NAS, VTL, disk, tape, cloud, virtual among others). In addition to taking a step back, this also means rethinking why, how, when, where data (and information) gets protected to meet various threat risks as well as diverse business requirements.

    Storage I/O toolbox
    No tools in the toolbox (physical, virtual or cloud)

    Part of the rethinking is expanding the focus from what are the tools, who makes what’s, how do they work, their features and functions to how to use the tool or technology for different things.

    Storage I/O backup and data protection tools
    Various tools (hardware, software, services) for different physical, virtual and cloud tasks

    This is like going into a store like Lowe’s or Home Depot and talking to the sales people their (ok, associates or team members) who can tell you everything thing there is to know about the tool or technology, however they can’t tell you how to use it.

    Sometimes you can get lucky and there will be somebody working at the tool (hardware or software) store who will ask you what you are trying to do and give you advice based on their experience of a different approach with another tool or tools and some supporting material or parts and supplies.

    Does this sound familiar to data infrastructure or IT in general, not to mention server, storage, backup and data protection among other areas of interest?

    If all you have, or know how to use is a hammer, then everything or situation starts to look like a nail. Expand your toolbox with more tools AND learn how to use or apply them in new and different ways. Align the right tool, technology and technique to the task at hand!

    Expand from talking new technology to using new (and old) things in new ways

    In addition to focusing on new tools and technology along with their associated terminologies across physical, virtual and cloud environments, it is also time to expand the discussion and awareness to using new (and old) things in new ways. This also means expanding the terminology from backup/restore to more comprehensive data protection as part of modernizing your environment.

    For example some people (and vendors) use the term or phrase "Modernizing Data Protection" to mean swap out tape for disk, or disk for cloud, or one cloud for another cloud, or upgrade from one software version to another, or simply swap one vendors software or tool for another, yet continue to use it for all practical purposes in the same way.

    Sure, moving from hourly or daily copies to tape over to direct to disk and then either redeploying tape where it is better suited (streaming large amounts of data, powering off to save energy, e.g. deep cold archive). This also means leveraging fast random access to small files that need to be recovered (usually within first hours or days of being protected).

    technology alignment
    Aligning tools, technologies, techniques to various threat risk scenarios

    Modernizing data protection (also known as transformation) also means recognizing that not everything is the same in the data center or information factory regardless of size, and that there are also different and evolving data access patterns. Another reason and trend to consider is that there is no such thing as an information recession and that people plus data are living longer as well as getting larger.

    Expand your awareness and focus beyond simply knowing what the tools are and who makes them to how, when, where, why along with pros/cons of using them to discuss different situations. This means having multiple tools in your data protection toolbox as well as knowing how to use different tools for various tasks instead of always using a hammer. – GS @StorageIO

    data protection continuum
    The data protection continuum, more than tools and technoligiues

    Call to action, stop talking about it, start walking the talk

    If you or somebody else is tired of hearing about backup, then stop complaining about it and take some action. Following are some things to expand your thinking, awareness, discussions and activities around modernizing data protection (and moving beyond traditional backup).

    • Take a step back and check the basics or fundamentals of data protection which when enabled, allows your organization to move forward after a small or big incident (or disaster).
    • Start thinking beyond backup tools and technologies (hardware, software, services) particular how its been done, to why it needs to be done, how can it be done differently.
    • Revisit why you are protecting different things, realize that not everything is the same, so does that mean you have to protect everything the same way?
    • Learn about how to use different tools and technologies which is different from learning about the tools, features and functions.
    • Also keep in mind that a barrier is often people and process (along with organizational politics) that also result in new (and old) technologies being used in old ways.
    • Think about using different tools and technologies in different e.g. hybrid ways.
    • This means start using new (and old) tools, techniques, techniques in new ways, start to apply your return on innovation by using things to discuss issues, vs. simply using them for the sake of using them.

    In addition to the above items, here are some added links on various topics and themes mentioned here:

    BackupU – Vendor and technology neutral series of on-line webinars, Google+ hangouts, book chapter downloads and other content (Sponsored by Dell Data Protection Software, that’s a disclosure btw )

    Via StorageIOblog – Only You Can Prevent Cloud Data Loss,
    Cloud conversations: confidence, certainty and confidentiality,
    Modernizing data protection with certainty,
    More Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) Material,
    More modernizing data protection, virtualization and clouds with certainty,
    EMC Evolves Enterprise Data Protection with Enhancements and Data protection modernization, more than swapping out media.

    Via StorageIO Reports/Resources Page – backup, restore, BC, DR and archiving available here including presentations and book chapter downloads

    Via Internet evolution – People, Not Tech, Prevent IT Convergence.

    Closing comments (for now)

    Now having said all of that, It would be unrealistic to think that we can simply overnight drop the term backup and switch to data protection, after all, we need backwards compatibility. However until the industry which means from vendors, their pundits (analyst, bloggers, consultants, evangelists), press/media, vars, investors and customers start thinking and speaking in the broader context of data protection, life beyond backup, guess what, we will still be talking about backup. Start calling it (e.g. backup) data protection and perhaps within a generation (or sooner), the term backup will have been ILM, compressed, deduped, tiered, spun down, put into deep cold archive storage to take a long REST on object storage with a NAS interface in a software defined hybrid virtualized cloud ;).

    Watch for more data protection conversations about related trends, themes, technologies, techniques perspectives in my ongoing data protection diaries discussions (e.g. www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/).

    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

    Data Protection Diaries – My data protection needs and wants

    Storage I/O trends

    Blog post: Data Protection Diaries – My data protection needs and wants

    Update 1/10/18

    Rather than talking about what others should do or consider for their data protection needs, for this post I wrote down some notes using my Livescribe about what I need and want for my environment. As part of walking the talk in future posts I’m going to expand a bit more on what I’m doing as well as considering for enhancements to my environment for data protection which consists of cloud, virtual and physical.

    Why and what am I Protecting?

    live scribe example
    Livescribe notes that I used for creating the following content

    What is my environment

    Server and StorageIO (aka StorageIO) is a small business that is focused in and around data infrastructures which includes data protection as a result, have lots of data including videos, audio, images, presentations, reports, research as well, file serving as back-office applications.  Then there are websites, blog, email and related applications, some of which are cloud based that are also part of my environment that have different availability, durable, and accessibility requirements.

    My environment includes local on-site physical as well as virtual systems, mobile devices, as well as off-site resources including a dedicated private server (DPS) at a service provider. On one hand as a small business, I could easily move most if not everything into the cloud using an as a service model. However, I also have a lab and research environment for doing various things involving data infrastructure including data protection so why not leverage those for other things.

    Why do I need to protect my information and data infrastructure?

    • Protect and preserve the business along with associated information as well as assets
    • Compliance (self and client based, PCI and other)
    • Security (logical and physical) and privacy to guard against theft, loss, instrusions
    • Logical (corruption, virus, accidental deletion) and physical damage to systems, devices, applications and data
    • Isolate and contain faults of hardware, software, networks, people actions from spreading to disasters
    • Guard against on-site or off-site incidents, acts of man or nature, head-line news and non head-line news
    • Address previous experience, incidents and situations, preventing future issues or problems
    • Support growth while enabling agility, flexibity
    • Walk the talk, research, learning increasing experience

    My wants – What I would like to have

    • Somebody else pay for it all, or exist in world where there are no threat risks to information (yeh right ;) )
    • Cost effective and value (not necessarily the cheapest, I also want it to work)
    • High availability and durability to protect against different threat risks (including myself)
    • Automated, magically to take care of everything enabled by unicorns and pixie dust ;).

    My requirements – What I need (vs. want):

    • Support mix of physical, virtual and cloud applications, systems and data
    • Different applications and data, local and some that are mobile
    • Various operating environments including Windows and Linux
    • NOT have to change my environment to meet limits of a particular solution or approach
    • Need a solution (s) that fit my needs and that can scale, evolve as well as enable change when my environment does
    • Also leverage what I have while supporting new things

    Data protection topics, trends, technologies and related themes

    Wrap and summary (for now)

    Taking a step back to look at a high-level of what my data protection needs are involves looking at business requirements along with various threat risks, not to mention technical considerations. In a future post I will outline what I am doing as well as considering for enhancements or other changes along with different tools, technologies used in hybrid ways. Watch for more posts in this ongoing series of the data protection dairies via www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/.

    Ok, 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

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

    Welcome to the Data Protection Diaries

    Updated 1/10/2018

    Storage I/O trends

    Welcome to the Data Protection Diaries

    This is a series of posts about data protection which includes security (logical and physical), backup/restore, business continuance (BC), disaster recovery (DR), business resiliency (BR) along with high availability (HA), archiving and related topic themes, technologies and trends.

    Think of data protection like protect, preserve and serve information across cloud, virtual and physical environments spanning traditional servers, storage I/O networking along with mobile (ok, some IoT as well), SOHO/SMB to enterprise.

    Getting started, taking a step back

    Recently I have done a series of webinars and Google+ hangouts as part of the BackupU initiative brought to you by Dell Software (that’s a disclosure btw ;) ) that are vendor and technology neutral. Instead of the usual vendor product or technology focused seminars and events, these are about getting back to the roots, the fundamentals of what to protect when and why, then decide your options as well as different approaches (e.g. what tools to use when).

    In addition over the past year (ok, years) I have also been doing other data protection related events, seminars, workshops, articles, tips, posts across cloud, virtual and physical from SOHO/SMB to enterprise. These are in addition to the other data infrastructure server and storage I/O stuff (e.g. SSD, object storage, software defined, big data, little data, buzzword bingo and others).

    Keep in mind that in the data center or information factory everything is not the same as there are different applications, threat risk scenarios, availability and durability among other considerations. In this series like the cloud conversations among others, I’m going to be pulling various data protection themes together hopefully to make it easier for others to find, as well as where I know where to get them.

    data protection diaries
    Some notes for an upcoming post in this series using my Livescribe about data protection

    Data protection topics, trends, technologies and related themes

    Here are some more posts to checkout pertaining to data protection trends, technologies and perspectives:

    Ok, 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

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

    Book review: Rethinking Enterprise Storage by Microsoft/Storsimple Marc Farley

    Storage I/O trends

    Book review: Rethinking Enterprise Storage – A Hybrid Cloud Model by Marc Farley

    The O’Reilly @oreillymedia media folks (oops, excuse me, Microsoft Press) sent me out (that’s a disclosure btw) an real soft cover print copy of Rethinking Enterprise Storage – A Hybrid Cloud Model by Marc Farley aka @MicroFarley of Microsoft/Storsimple that features a forward by Martin Glassborow aka @Storagebod.

    Rethinking Enterprise Storage - A Hybrid Cloud Model

    Topics and themes covered in the book

    • Understanding scale storage architectures (hmm, great way of saying hybrid ;)
    • Rethinking data protection including disaster recovery (DR) best practices
    • Enhancing data protection using cloud snapshots beyond traditional backups
    • Deterministic thin recovery capabilities while dynamically expanding capacity to the cloud
    • Implement data footprint reduction (DFR) including archiving digital documents to the cloud
    • Insight and awareness into keep performance indicators along with various use cases

    Rethinking Enterprise Storage book Details

    Publisher: Microsoft Press
    Author: Marc Farley
    Paper back
    Features: Many diagrams, figures, index, glossary
    Pages: 101
    ISBN: 978-0-7356-7990-3
    Published: 2013
    MSRP: $9.99 USD

    Sample pages of rethinking enterprise storage
    One of the many books many figures on the right, on the left i needed to hold a page down ;)!

    What’s inside the book

    Make no mistake that this is a Microsoft and Storsimple themed book, however IMHO Marc (aka Farley) does a great job of making it more relevant than just another vendor product book (JAVPB). While it is a Microsoft focused book around enabling hybrid cloud storage for various applications, the premises presented could be adapted for other environments or implementations. The book at 101 pages including table of contents (TOC), index, appendix, glossary and other front matter is a very easy and fast read while providing more information or coverage than what might be found in a "Dummies" type themed book.

    Looking inside Rethinking Enterprise Storage by Marc Farley
    Start thinking outside the box (or cloud), imagine what you can do with a Hybrid cloud!

    Summary

    Overall I found the book to be good and not just because I know Marc or that the O’Reilly folks sent me a free copy (I had actually previously received the electronic ebook version), rather that it is timely and does a nice job of conveying the topic theme and setting up the conversation, time to rethink storage for enterprise and other environments. IMHO the question is not if hybrid cloud storage is in your future, rather when, where, why, for what, how, with whom and related conversations. While you can buy a copy of the book at various venues, it shouldn’t take a lot of effort to get your own printed soft cover copy, or an ebook version.

    Btw, here’s a pod cast discussion with Marc Farley from spring 2013 at SNW, as well as a link to a hybrid cloud and object storage post he did over at Microsoft Technet.

    To summarize and quote Marc Farley "Hey now…."

    Ok, nuff said

    Cheers gs

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

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2013 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

    Goodbye 2013, hello 2014, predictions past, present and future

    Storage I/O trends

    Good by 2013 and hello 2014 along with predictions past, present and future

    First, for those who may have missed this, thanks to all who helped make 2013 a great year!

    2013 season greetings

    Looking back at 2013 I saw a continued trend of more vendors and their media public relations (PR) people reaching out to have their predictions placed in articles, posts, columns or trends perspectives pieces.

    Hmm, maybe a new trend is predictions selfies? ;)

    Not to worry, this is not a wrapper piece for a bunch of those pitched and placed predictions requests that I received in 2013 as those have been saved for a rainy or dull day when we need to have some fun ;) .

    What about 2013 server storage I/O networking, cloud, virtual and physical?

    2013 end up with some end of year spree’s including Avago acquiring storage I/O and networking vendor LSI for about $6.6B USD (e.g. SSD cards, RAID cards, cache cards, HBA’s (Host Bus Adapters), chips and other items) along with Seagate buying Xyratex for about $374M USD (a Seagate suppliers and a customer partner).

    Xyratex is known by some for making the storage enclosures that house hard disk drive (HDD’s) and Solid State Device (SSD) drives that are used by many well-known, and some not so well-known systems and solution vendors. Xyratex also has other pieces of their business such as appliances that combine their storage enclosures for HDD and SSD’s along with server boards, along with a software group focus on High Performance Compute (HPC) Lustre. There is another part of the Xyratex business that is not as well-known which is the test equipment used by disk drive manufacturers such as Seagate as part of their manufacturing process. Thus the Seagate acquisition moves them up market with more integrated solutions to offer to their (e.g. Seagate and Xyratex) joint customers, as well as streamline their own supply chain and costs (not to mention sell equipment to the other remaining drive manufactures WD and Toshiba).

    Storage I/O trends

    Other 2013 acquisitions included (Whiptail by Cisco, Virident by WD (who also bought several other companies), Softlayer by IBM) along with various mergers, company launches, company shutdowns (cloud storage Nirvanix and SSD maker OCZ bankruptcy filing), and IPO’s (some did well like Nimble while Violin not so well), while earlier high-flying industry darlings such as FusionIO are now the high-flung darling targets of the shareholder sock lawsuit attorneys.

    2013 also saw the end of SNW (Storage Network World), jointly produced by SNIA and Computerworld Storage in the US after more than a decade. Some perspectives from the last US SNW held October 2013 can be found in the Fall 2013 StorageIO Update Newsletter here, granted those were before the event was formal announced as being terminated.

    Speaking of events, check out the November 2013 StorageIO Update Newsletter here for perspectives from attending the Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent conference which joins VMworld, EMCworld and a bunch of other vendor world events.

    Lets also not forget Dell buying itself in 2013.

    StorageIO in the news

    Click on the following links read (and here) more about various 2013 industry perspectives trends commentary of mine in various venues, along with tips, articles, newsletters, events, pod cast, videos and other items.

    What about 2014?

    Perhaps 2014 will build on the 2013 momentum of the annual rights of pages refereed to as making meaningless future year trends and predictions as being passe?

    Not that there is anything wrong with making predictions for the coming year, particular if they actually have some relevance, practicality not to mention track record.

    However that past few years seems to have resulted in press releases along with product (or services) plugs being masked as predictions, or simply making the same predictions for the coming year that did not come to be for the earlier year (or the one before that or before that and so forth).

    On the other hand, from an entertainment perspective, perhaps that’s where we will see annual predictions finally get classified and put into perspectives as being just that.

    Storage I/O trends

    Now for those who still cling to as well as look forward to annual predictions, ok, simple, we will continue in 2014 (and beyond) from where we left off in 2013 (and 2012 and earlier) meaning more (or continued):

    • Software defined "x" (replace "x" with your favorite topic) industry discussion adoption yet customer adoption or deployment question conversations.
    • Cloud conversations shifted from lets all go to the cloud as the new shiny technology to questioning the security, privacy, stability, vendor or service viability not to mention other common sense concerns that should have been discussed or looked into earlier. I have also heard from people who say Amazon (as well as Verizon, Microsoft, Blue host, Google, Nirvanix, Yahoo and the list goes on) outages are bad for the image of clouds as they shake people’s confidences. IMHO people confidence needs to be shaken to that of having some common sense around clouds including don’t be scared, be ready, do your homework and basic due diligence. This means cloud conversations over concerns set the stage for increased awareness into decision-making, usage, deployment and best practices (all of which are good things for continued cloud deployments). However if some vendors or pundits feel that people having basic cloud concerns that can be addressed is not good for their products or services, I would like to talk with them because they may be missing an opportunity to create long-term confidence with their customers or prospects.
    • VDI as a technology being deployed continues to grow (e.g. customer adoption) while the industry adoption (buzz or what’s being talked about) has slowed a bit which makes sense as vendors jump from one bandwagon to the new software defined bandwagon.
    • Continued awareness around modernizing data protection including backup/restore, business continuance (BC), disaster recovery (DR), high availability, archiving and security means more than simply swapping out old technology for new, yet using it in old ways. After all, in the data center and information factory not everything is the same. Speaking of data protection, check out the series of technology neutral webcast and video chats that started last fall as part of BackupU brought to you by Dell. Even though Dell is the sponsor of the series (that’s a disclosure btw ;) ) the focus of the sessions is on how to use different tools, technologies and techniques in new ways as well as having the right tools for different tasks. Check out the information as well as register to get a free Data Protection chapter download from my book Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press) at the BackupU site as well as attend upcoming events.
    • The nand flash solid state devices (SSD) cash-dash (and shakeout) continues with some acquisitions and IPO’s, as well as disappearances of some weaker vendors, while appearance of some new. SSD is showing that it is real in several ways (despite myths, fud and hype some of which gets clarified here) ranging from some past IPO vendors (e.g. FusiuonIO) seeing exit of their CEO and founders while their stock plummets and arrival of shareholder investor lawsuits, to Violins ho-hum IPO. What this means is that the market is real, it has a very bright future, however there is also a correction occurring showing that reality may be settling in for the long run (e.g. next couple of decades) vs. SSD being in the realm of unicorns.
    • Storage I/O trends

    • Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Devices (IoD) may give some relief for Big Data, BYOD, VDI, Software Defined and Cloud among others that need a rest after they busy usage that past few years. On the other hand, expect enhanced use of earlier buzzwords combined with IoT and IOD. Of course that also means plenty of questions around what is and is not IoD along with IoT and if actually relevant to what you are doing.
    • Also in 2014 some will discover storage and related data infrastructure topics or some new product / service thus having a revolutionary experience that storage is now exciting while others will have a DejaVu moment that it has been exciting for the past several years if not decades.
    • More big data buzz as well as realization by some that a pragmatic approach opens up a bigger broader market, not to mention customers more likely to realize they have more in common with big data than it simply being something new forcing them to move cautiously.
    • To say that OpenStack and related technologies will continue to gain both industry and customer adoption (and deployment) status building off of 2013 in 2014 would be an understatement, not to mention too easy to say, or leave out.
    • While SSD’s continue to gain in deployment, after the question is not if, rather when, where, with what and how much nand flash SSD is in your future, HDD’s continue to evolve for physical, virtual and cloud environments. This also includes Seagate announcing a new (Kinetic) Ethernet attached HDD (note that this is not a NAS or iSCSI device) that uses a new key value object storage API for storing content data (more on this in 2014).
    • This also means realizing that large amounts of little data can result in back logs of lots of big data, and that big data is growing into very fast big data, not to mention realization by some that HDFS is just another distributed file system that happens to work with Hadoop.
    • SOHO’s and lower end of SMB begin to get more respect (and not just during the week of Consumer Electronic Show – CES).
    • Realization that there is a difference between Industry Adoption and Customer Deployment, not to mention industry buzz and traction vs. customer adoption.

    server storage I/O trends

    What about beyond 2014?

    That’s easy, many of the predictions and prophecies that you hear about for the coming year have also been pitched in prior years, so it only makes sense that some of those will be part of the future.

    • If you have seen or experienced something you are more likely to have DejaVu.
    • Otoh if you have not seen or experienced something you are more likely to have a new and revolutionary moment!
    • Start using new (and old) things in new ways vs. simply using new things in old ways.
    • Barrier to technology convergence, not to mention new technology adoption is often people or their organizations.
    • Convergence is still around, cloud conversations around concerns get addressed leading to continued confidence for some.
    • Realization that data infrastructure span servers, storage I/O networking, cloud, virtual, physical, hardware, software and services.
    • That you can not have software defined without hardware and hardware defined requires software.
    • And it is time for me to get a new book project (or two) completed in addition to helping others with what they are working on, more on this in the months to come…

    Here’s my point

    The late Jim Morrison of the Doors said "There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors.".

    The doors via Amazon.com
    Above image and link via Amazon.com

    Hence there is what we know about 2013 or will learn about the past in the future, then there is what will be in 2014 as well as beyond, hence lets step through some doors and see what will be. This means learn and leverage lessons from the past to avoid making the same or similar mistakes in the future, however doing so while looking forward without a death grip clinging to the past.

    Needless to say there will be more to review, preview and discuss throughout the coming year and beyond as we go from what is unknown through doors and learn about the known.

    Thanks to all who made 2013 a great year, best wishes to all, look forward to seeing and hearing from you in 2014!

    Ok, 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

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

    November 2013 Server and StorageIO Update Newsletter & AWS reinvent info


    November 2013 Server and StorageIO Update Newsletter & AWS reinvent info

    Welcome to the November 2013 edition of the StorageIO Update (newsletter) containing trends perspectives on cloud, virtualization and data infrastructure topics. Fall (here in North America) has been busy with in-person, on-line live and virtual events along with various client projects, research, time in the StorageIO cloud, virtual and physical lab test driving, validating and doing proof of concept research among other tasks. Check out the industry trends perspectives articles, comments and blog posts below that covers some activity over the past month.

    Last week I had the chance to attend the second annual AWS re:Invent event in Las Vegas, see my comments, perspectives along with a summary of announcements from that conference below.

    Watch for future posts, commentary, perspectives and other information down the road (and in the not so distant future) pertaining to information and data infrastructure topics, themes and trends across cloud, virtual, legacy server, storage, networking, hardware and software. Also check out our backup, restore, BC, DR and archiving (Under the resources section on StorageIO.com) for various presentation, book chapter downloads and other content.

    Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO Update newsletter.

    Ok, nuff said (for now)

    Cheers gs

    StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspectives

    Industry trends: Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent

    Last week I attended the AWS re:Invent event in Las Vegas. This was the second annual AWS re:Invent conference which while having an AWS and cloud theme, it is also what I would describe as a data infrastructure event.

    As a data infrastructure event AWS re:Invent spans traditional legacy IT and applications to newly invented, re-written, re-hosted or re-platformed ones from existing and new organizations. By this I mean a mix of traditional IT or enterprise people as well as cloud and virtual geek types (said with affection and all due respect of course) across server (operating system, software and tools), storage (primary, secondary, archive and tools), networking, security, development tools, applications and architecture.

    That also means management from application and data protection spanning High Availability (HA), Business Continuance (BC), Disaster Recovery (DR), backup/restore, archiving, security, performance and capacity planning, service management among other related themes across public, private, hybrid and community cloud environments or paradigms. Hmm, I think I know of a book that covers the above and other related topic themes, trends, technologies and best practices called Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press) available via Amazon.com in print and Kindle (among other) versions.

    During the event AWS announced enhanced and new services including:

    • WorkSpaces (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure – VDI) announced as a new service for cloud based desktops across various client devices including laptops, Kindle Fire, iPad and Android tablets using PCoIP.
    • Kinesis which is a managed service for real-time processing of streaming (e.g. Big) data at scale including ability to collect and process hundreds of GBytes of data per second across hundreds of thousands of data sources. On top of Kinesis you can build your big data applications or conduct analysis to give real-time key performance indicator dashboards, exception and alarm or event notification and other informed decision-making activity.
    • EC2 C3 instances provide Intel Xeon E5 processors and Solid State Device (SSD) based direct attached storage (DAS) like functionality vs. EBS provisioned IOPs for cost-effective storage I/O performance and compute capabilities.
    • Another EC2 enhancement are G2 instance that leverage high performance NVIDIA GRID GPU with 1,536 parallel processing cores. This new instance is well suited for 3D graphics, rendering, streaming video and other related applications that need large-scale parallel or high performance compute (HPC) also known as high productivity compute.
    • Redshift (cloud data warehouse) now supports cross region snapshots for HA, BC and DR purposes.
    • CloudTrail records AWS API calls made via the management console for analytics and logging of API activity.
    • Beta of Trusted Advisor dashboard with cost optimization saving estimates including EBS and provisioned IOPs
    • Relational Database Service (RDS) support for PostgresSQL including multi-AZ deployment.
    • Ability to discover and launch various software from AWS Marketplace via the EC2 Console. The AWS Marketplace for those not familiar with it is a catalog of various software or application titles (over 800 products across 24 categories) including free and commercial licensed solutions that include SAP, Citrix, Lotus Notes/Domino among many others.
    • AppStream is a low latency (STX protocol based) service for streaming resource (e.g. compute, storage or memory) intensive applications and games from AWS cloud to various clients, desktops or mobile devices. This means that the resource intensive functionality can be shifted to the cloud, while providing a low latency (e.g. fast) user experience off-loading the client from having to support increased compute, memory or storage capabilities. Key to AppStream is the ability to stream data in a low-latency manner including over networks normally not suited for high quality or bandwidth intensive applications. IMHO AppStream while focused initially on mobile app’s and gaming, being a bit streaming technology has the potential to be used for other similar functions that can leverage download speed improvements.
    • When I asked an AWS person if or what role AppStream might have or related to WorkSpaces their only response was a large smile and no comment. Does this mean WorkSpaces leverages AppStream? Candidly I don’t know, however if you look deeper into AppStream and expand your horizons, see what you can think up in terms of innovation. Updated 11/21/13 AWS has provided clarification that WorkSpaces is based on PCoIP while AppStream uses the STX protocols.

      Check out AWS Sr. VP Andy Jassy keynote presentation here.

    Overall I found the AWS re:Invent event to be a good conference spanning many aspects and areas of focus which means I will be putting it on my must attend list for 2014.

    StorageIO Industry Trends and PerspectivesIndustry trends tips, commentary, articles and blog posts
    What is being seen, heard and talked about while out and about

    The following is a synopsis of some StorageIOblog posts, articles and comments in different venues on various industry trends, perspectives and related themes about clouds, virtualization, data and storage infrastructure topics among related themes.

    Storage I/O posts

    Recent industry trends, perspectives and commentary by StorageIO Greg Schulz in various venues:

    NetworkComputing: Comments on Software-Defined Storage Startups Win Funding

    Digistor: Comments on SSD and flash storage
    InfoStor: Comments on data backup and virtualization software

    ITbusinessEdge: Comments on flash SSD and hybrid storage environments

    NetworkComputing: Comments on Hybrid Storage Startup Nimble Storage Files For IPO

    InfoStor: Comments on EMC’s Light to Speed: Flash, VNX, and Software-Defined

    InfoStor: Data Backup Virtualization Software: Four Solutions

    ODSI: Q&A With Greg Schulz – A Quick Roundup of Data Storage Industry

    Recent StorageIO Tips and Articles in various venues:

    FedTechMagazine: 3 Tips for Maximizing Tiered Hypervisors
    InfoStor:
    RAID Remains Relevant, Really!

    Storage I/O trends

    Recent StorageIO blog post:

    EMC announces XtremIO General Availability (Part I) – Announcement analysis of the all flash SSD storage system
    Part II: EMC announces XtremIO General Availability, speeds and feeds – Part two of two part series with analysis
    What does gaining industry traction or adoption mean too you? – There is a difference between buzz and deployment
    Fall 2013 (September and October) StorageIO Update Newsletter – In case you missed the fall edition, here it is

    StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspectives

    Check out our objectstoragecenter.com page where you will find a growing collection of information and links on cloud and object storage themes, technologies and trends.

    Server and StorageIO seminars, conferences, web cats, events, activities StorageIO activities (out and about)

    Seminars, symposium, conferences, webinars
    Live in person and recorded recent and upcoming events

    While 2013 is winding down, the StorageIO calendar continues to evolve, here are some recent and upcoming activities.

    December 11, 2013 Backup.UData Protection for Cloud 201Backup.U
    Google+ hangout
    December 3, 2013 Backup.UData Protection for Cloud 101Backup.U
    Online Webinar
    November 19, 2013 Backup.UData Protection for Virtualization 201Backup.U
    Google+ hangout
    November 12-13, 2013AWS re:InventAWS re:Invent eventLas Vegas, NV
    November 5, 2013 Backup.UData Protection for Virtualization 101Backup.U
    Online Webinar
    October 22, 2013 Backup.UData Protection for Applications 201Backup.U
    Google+ hangout

    Click here to view other upcoming along with earlier event activities. Watch for more 2013 events to be added soon to the StorageIO events calendar page. Topics include data protection modernization (backup/restore, HA, BC, DR, archive), data footprint reduction (archive, compression, dedupe), storage optimization, SSD, object storage, server and storage virtualization, big data, little data, cloud and object storage, performance and management trends among others.

    Vendors, VAR’s and event organizers, give us a call or send an email to discuss having us involved in your upcoming pod cast, web cast, virtual seminar, conference or other events.

    If you missed the Fall (September and October) 2013 StorageIO update newsletter, click here to view that and other previous editions as HTML or PDF versions. Subscribe to this newsletter (and pass it along)

    and click here to subscribe to this news letter. View archives of past StorageIO update news letters as well as download PDF versions at: www.storageio.com/newsletter

    Ok, 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)

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

    Some fall 2013 AWS cloud storage and compute enhancements

    Storage I/O trends

    Some fall 2013 AWS cloud storage and compute enhancements

    I just received via Email the October Amazon Web Services (AWS) Newsletter in advance of the re:Invent event next week in Las Vegas (yes I will be attending).

    AWS October newsletter and enhancement updates

    What this means

    AWS is arguably the largest of the public cloud services with a diverse set of services and options across multiple geographic regions to meet different customer needs. As such it is not surprising to see AWS continue to expand their service offerings expanding their portfolio both in terms of features, functionalities along with extending their presences in different geographies.

    Lets see what else AWS announces next week in Las Vegas at their 2013 re:Invent event.

    Click here to view the current October 2013 AWS newsletter. You can view (and signup for) earlier AWS newsletters here, and while you are at it, view the current and recent StorageIO Update newsletters here.

    Ok, 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)

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

    What does gaining industry traction or adoption mean too you?

    Storage I/O trends

    What does gaining industry traction or adoption mean too you?

    Is it based on popularity or how often something that is talked about, blogged, tweeted, commented, video or similar?

    What are the indicators that something is gaining traction?

    Perhaps it is tied to the number of press releases, product or staffing announcements including who has joined the organization along with added coverage of it?

    Maybe its based on how many articles, videos or some other content and coverage that helps to show traction and momentum?

    On the other hand is it tied to how many prospects are actually trying a product or service as part of a demo or proof of concept?

    Then again, maybe it is associated with how many real paying or revenue installed footprints and customers or what is also known as industry deployment (customer adoption).

    Of those customers actually buying and deploying, how many have continued using the technology even after industry adoption subsides or does the solution become shelf ware?

    Does the customer deployment actually continue to rise quietly while industry adoption or conversations drop off (past the cycle of hype)?

    buzzword bingo

    Gaining context with industry traction

    Gaining traction can mean different things to people, however there is also a difference between industry adoption (what’s being talked about among the industry) and industry deployment (what customers are actually buying, installing and continue to use).

    Often the two can go hand in hand, usually one before the other, however they can also be separate. For example it is possible that something new will have broad industry adoption (being talked about) yet have low customer deployment (even over time). This occurs when something is new and interesting that might be fun to talk about or the vendor, solution provider is cool and fun to hang out and be with, or simply has cool giveaways.

    On the other hand there can be customer deployment and adoption with little to no fan fare (industry adoption) for different reasons.

    Storage I/O trends

    Here’s my point

    Not long ago if you asked or listened to some, you would think that once high-flying cloud storage vendor Nirvanix was gaining traction based on their marketing along with other activities, yet they recently closed their doors. Then there was Kim Dotcoms hyped Megacloud launch earlier this year that also has now gone dark or shutting down. This is not unique to cloud service providers or solutions as the same can, has and will happen again to traditional hardware, software and services providers (startups and established).

    How about former high-flying FusionIO, or the new startup by former FusionIO founder and CEO David Flynn called Primary Data. One of the two is struggling to gain or keep up revenue traction while having declined in industry popularity traction. The other is gaining in industry popularity traction with their recently secured $50 Million in funding yet are still in stealth mode so rather difficult to gain customer adoption or deployment traction (thus for now its industry adoption focus for them ;).

    in the news

    If you are a customer or somebody actually deploying and using technology, tools, techniques and services for real world activity vs. simply trying new things out, your focus on what is gaining traction will probably be different than others. Granted it is important to keep an eye on what is coming or on futures, however there is also the concern of how it will really work and keep working over time.

    For example while Hard Disk Drives (HDD) continue to support industry deployment traction (customer adoption and usage) traction. However they are not new and when new models apear (such as Seagate Ethernet based Kinetic) they may not get the same industry adoption traction as a newer technology might. Case in point Solid State Devices (SSD) continue to gain in customer deployment adoption with some environments doing more than others, yet have very high industry adoption traction status.

    Storage I/O SSD trends
    Relative SSD customer adoption and deployment along with future opportunities

    On the other hand if your focus is on what’s new and emerging which is usually more industry centered, then it should be no surprise what traction means and where it is focused. For example the following figure shoes where different audiences have various timelines on adoption (read more here).

    SSD trends
    Current and emerging memory, flash and other SSD technologies for different audiences

    Wrap up

    When you hear that something is gaining traction, ask yourself (or others) what that means along with the applicable context.

    Does that mean something is popular and trending to discuss (based on GQ or looks), or that it is actually gaining real customer adoption based on G2 (insight – they are actually buying vs. simply trying our a free version).

    Does it mean one form of traction along with industry adoption (what’s being talked about) vs. industry deployment (real customer adoption) is better than the other?

    No, it simply means putting things into the applicable context.

    Ok, 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)

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

    Fall 2013 StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Storage I/O trends

    Fall 2013 StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Welcome to the Fall 2013 (joint September and October) edition of the StorageIO Update (newsletter) containing trends perspectives on cloud, virtualization and data infrastructure topics. It is fall (at least here in north America) which means conferences, symposium, virtual and physical events, seminars, webinars in addition to normal client project activities. Starting with VMworld back in late August, that event occurred in San Francisco which kicked off the fall (or back to school) season of activity. VMworld was followed with many other events including in-person along with virtual or on-line such as webinars, Google+ hangouts among others, not to mention all the briefings for vendor product announcements and updates. Check out the industry trends perspectives articles, comments and blog posts below that covers some activity over the past few months.

    VMworld 2013
    Congratulations to VMworld on the 10th anniversary of the event. With the largest installment yet of a VMworld in terms of attendance, there were also many announcements. Here are a synopsis of some of those announcements which of course included plenty of software defined marketing (SDM).

    CMG and Storage Performance
    During mid-September I was invited to give an industry trends and perspectives presentation to the Storage Performance Council (SPC) board. The SPC board were meeting in the Minneapolis area and I gave a brief talk about Metrics that Matter and importance of context with focus on applications. Speaking of the Minneapolis area, Tom Becchetti (@tbecchetti) organized a great CMG event hosted over at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota. I gave a discussion around Technolutionary, technology evolution and revolution, using old and new things in new ways.

    Check out our backup, restore, BC, DR and archiving (Under the resources section on StorageIO.com) for various presentation, book chapter downloads and other content.

    SNW Fall 2013 Long Beach
    Talking about traveling, there was a quick trip out to Long Beach for the fall 2013 edition of Storage Networking World (SNW) where I had some good meetings and conversations with those who were actually there. No need to sugar coat it, likewise no need to kick sand in its face. Plain and simple, SNW is not the event it used to be has been a common discussion theme for several years which I had set my expectation accordingly.

    Some have asked me why I even spent time, money and resources to attend SNW?

    My answer is that I had some meetings to attend to, wanted to see and meet with others who were going to be there, and perhaps even say goodbye to an event that I have been involved with for over a decade.

    Does that mean I’m all done with SNW?

    Not sure yet as will have to wait and see what SNIA and IDG/Computerworld the event co-owners and producers put together for future events. However there are enough other events and activities to pick up the slack which is part of what has caused the steady decline in events like SNW among others.

    Perhaps it is time for SNIA to partner with another adjacent yet like-minded organization such as CMG to collaborate and try doing something like what was done in the early 2000s? That is SNIA providing their own seminars along with others such as myself who involved with both CMG, SNW and SNIA to beef up or set up a storage and I/O focused track at the CMG event.

    Beyond those items mentioned above, or in the following section, there are plenty of interesting and exciting things occurring in the background that I cant talk about yet. However watch for future posts, commentary, perspectives and other information down the road (and in the not so distant future).

    Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO Update newsletter.

    Ok, nuff said (for now)

    Cheers gs

    StorageIO Industry Trends and PerspectivesIndustry trends perspectives and commentary
    What is being seen, heard and talked about while out and about

    The following is a synopsis of some StorageIOblog posts, articles and comments in different venues on various industry trends, perspectives and related themes about clouds, virtualization, data and storage infrastructure topics among related themes.

    Storage I/O trends

    InfoStor: Perspectives on Data Dynamics file migration tool (Read more about StorageX later in this newsletter)
    SearchStorage: Perspectives on Data Dynamics resurrects StorageX for file migration
    SearchStorage: Perspectives on Cisco buying SSD storage vendor Whiptail

    Recent StorageIO Tips and Articles in various venues:

    21cIT:  Why You Should Consider Object Storage
    InfoStor:  HDDs Are Still Spinning (Rust Never Sleeps)
    21cIT:  Object Storage Is in Your Future, Even if You Use Files
    21cIT:  Playing the Name Game With Virtual Storage
    InfoStor:  Flash Data Storage: Myth vs. Reality
    InfoStor:  The Nand Flash Cache SSD Cash Dance
    SearchEnterpriseWAN:  Remote Office / ROBO backup and data protection for networking Pro’s
    TheVirtualizationPractice:  When and Where to use NAND Flash SSD for Virtual Servers
    FedTech:  These Data Center (DCIM) Tools Can Streamline Computing Resources

    Storage I/O posts

    Recent StorageIO blog post:

    Seagate Kinetic Cloud and Object Storage I/O platform (and Ethernet HDD)
    Cloud conversations: Has Nirvanix shutdown caused cloud confidence concerns?
    Cisco buys Whiptail continuing the SSD storage I/O flash cash cache dash
    WD buys nand flash SSD storage I/O cache vendor Virident
    EMC New VNX MCx doing more storage I/O work vs. just being more
    Is more of something always better? Depends on what you are doing
    VMworld 2013 Vmware, server, storage I/O and networking update (Day 1)
    EMC ViPR software defined object storage part II

    Check out our objectstoragecenter.com page where you will find a growing collection of information and links pertaining to cloud and object storage themes, technologies and trends.

    Brouwer Storage Consultancy

    StorageIO in Europe (Netherlands)
    Spent over a week in the Netherlands where I presented three different seminar workshop sessions organized by Brouwer Storage Consultancy who is celebrating their 10th anniversary in business. These sessions spanned five full days of interactive discussions with an engaged diverse group of attendees in the Nijkerk area who came from across Holland to take part in these workshops.

    Congratulations to Gert and Frank Brouwer on their ten years of being in business and best wishes for many more. Fwiw those who are curious StorageIO will be ten years young in business in about two years.

    StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspectives

    Some observations from while in Europe:

    Continued cloud privacy concerns amplified by NSA and suspicion of US-based companies, yet many are not aware of similar concerns of European or UK-based firms from those outside those areas. While there were some cloud concern conversations over the demise of Nirvanix, those seemed less so then in the media or US given that at least in Holland they have seen other cloud and storage as a service firms come and go already. It should be noted that the US has also seen cloud and storage as a service startups come and go, however I think sometimes we or at least the media tends to have a short if not selective memory at times.

    In one of our workshops sessions we were talking about service level objectives (SLO), service level agreements (SLA), recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO) among other themes. Somebody mentioned why the focus of time in RPO and questions why not a transactional perspective which I thought was a brilliant question. We had a good conversation in the group and concurred that while RPO is what the industry uses, that there also needs to be a transactional state context tie to what is inferred or assumed with RPO and RTO. Thus the importance of looking beyond just the point in time, however the importance of a transactional context or state, such as not just the time, however to a given transactional point.

    Note that transactional could mean database, file system, backup or data protection index or catalog, meta data repository or other entity. This is where some should be jumping up and down like Donkey in Shrek wanting to point out that is exactly what RTO and RPO refer to which would be great. However all to often what is assumed is not conveyed, thus those who don’t know, well, they assume or simply don’t know what others.

    StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspectives

    Data Dynamics StorageX 7.0 Intelligent Policy Based File Data Migration – There is no such thing as a data or information recession . Likewise, people and data are living longer as well as getting larger. These span various use cases from traditional to personal or at work productivity. From little to big data content, collaboration including file or document sharing to rich media applications all of which are leveraging unstructured data. For example, email, word processing back-office documents, web and text files, presentations (e.g. PowerPoint), photos, audio and video among others. These macro trends result in the continued growth of unstructured Network Attached Storage (NAS) file data.

    Thus, a common theme is adding management including automated data movement and migration to carry out structure around unstructured NAS file data. More than a data mover or storage migration tool, Data Dynamics StorageX is a software platform for adding storage management structure around unstructured local and distributed NAS file data. This includes heterogeneous vendor support across different storage system, protocols and tools including Windows CIFS and Unix/Linux NFS.
    (Disclosure DataDynamics has been a StorageIO client). Visit Data Dynamics at www.datadynamicsinc.com/

    Server and StorageIO seminars, conferences, web cats, events, activities StorageIO activities (out and about)

    Seminars, symposium, conferences, webinars
    Live in person and recorded recent and upcoming events

    Announcing: Backup.U brought to you by Dell

    Some on-line (live and recorded) events have include an ongoing series tied to data protection (Backup/restore, HA, BC, DR and Archiving) called Backup.U organized and sponsored by Dell Data Protection Software that you can learn more about at the landing page www.software.dell.com/backupu (more on this in a future post). In addition to data protection, some other events and activities including a BrightTalk webinar on storage I/O and networking for cloud environments (here).

    In addition to the above, check out the StorageIO calendar to see more recent and upcoming activities.

    Watch for more 2013 events to be added soon to the StorageIO events calendar page. Topics include data protection modernization (backup/restore, HA, BC, DR, archive), data footprint reduction (archive, compression, dedupe), storage optimization, SSD, object storage, server and storage virtualization, big data, little data, cloud and object storage, performance and management trends among others.

    Vendors, VAR’s and event organizers, give us a call or send an email to discuss having us involved in your upcoming pod cast, web cast, virtual seminar, conference or other events.

    If you missed the Summer (July and August) 2013 StorageIO update newsletter, click here to view that and other previous editions as HTML or PDF versions. Subscribe to this newsletter (and pass it along)

    and click here to subscribe to this news letter. View archives of past StorageIO update news letters as well as download PDF versions at: www.storageio.com/newsletter

    Ok, 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)

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

    Seagate Kinetic Cloud and Object Storage I/O platform (and Ethernet HDD)

    Storage I/O trends

    Seagate Kinetic Cloud and Object Storage I/O platform

    Seagate announced today their Kinetic platform and drive designed for use by object API accessed storage including for cloud deployments. The Kinetic platform includes Hard Disk Drives (HDD) that feature 1Gb Ethernet (1 GbE) attached devices that speak object access API or what Seagate refers to as a key / value.

    Seagate Kinetic architecture

    What is being announced with Seagate Kinetic Cloud and Object (Ethernet HDD) Storage?

    • Kinetic Open Storage Platform – Ethernet drives, key / value (object access) API, partner software
    • Software developer’s kits (SDK) – Developer tools, documentation, drive simulator, code libraries, code samples including for SwiftStack and Riak.
    • Partner ecosystem

    What is Kinetic?

    While it has 1 GbE ports, do not expect to be able to use those for iSCSI or NAS including NFS, CIFS or other standard access methods. Being Ethernet based, the Kinetic drive only supports the key value object access API. What this means is that applications, cloud or object stacks, key value and NoSQL data repositories, or other software that adopt the API can communicate directly using object access.

    Seagate Kinetic storage

    Internal, the HDD functions as a normal drive would store and accessing data, the object access function and translation layer shifts from being in an Object Storage Device (OSD) server node to inside the HDD. The Kinetic drive takes on the key value API personality over 1 GbE ports instead of traditional Logical Block Addressing (LBA) and Logical Block Number (LBN) access using 3g, 6g or emerging 12g SAS or SATA interfaces. Instead Kinetic drives respond to object access (aka what Seagate calls key / value) API commands such as Get, Put among others. Learn more about object storage, access and clouds at www.objectstoragecenter.com.

    Storage I/O trends

    Some questions and comments

    Is this the same as what was attempted almost a decade ago now with the T10 OSD drives?

    Seagate claims no.

    What is different this time around with Seagate doing a drive that to some may vaguely resemble the predecessor failed T10 OSD approach?

    Industry support for object access and API development have progressed from an era of build it and they will come thinking, to now where the drives are adapted to support current cloud, object and key value software deployment.

    Wont 1GbE ports be too slow vs. 12g or 6g or even 3g SAS and SATA ports?

    Keep in mind those would be apples to oranges comparisons based on the protocols and types of activity being handled. Kinetic types of devices initially will be used for large data intensive applications where emphasis is on storing or retrieving large amounts of information, vs. low latency transactional. Also, keep in mind that one of the design premises is to keep cost low, spread the work over many nodes, devices to meet those goals while relying on server-side caching tools.

    Storage I/O trends

    Does this mean that the HDD is actually software defined?

    Seagate or other HDD manufactures have not yet noticed the software defined marketing (SDM) bandwagon. They could join the software defined fun (SDF) and talk about a software defined disk (SDD) or software defined HDD (SDHDD) however let us leave that alone for now.

    The reality is that there is far more software that exists in a typical HDD than what is realized. Sure some of that is packaged inside ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) or running as firmware that can be updated. However, there is a lot of software running in a HDD hence the need for power yet energy-efficient processors found in those devices. On a drive per drive basis, you may see a Kinetic device consume more energy vs. other equivalence HDDs due to the increase in processing (compute) needed to run the extra software. However that also represents an off-load of some work from servers enabling them to be smaller or do more work.

    Are these drives for everybody?

    It depends on if your application, environment, platform and technology can leverage them or not. This means if you view the world only through what is new or emerging then these drives may be for all of those environments, while other environments will continue to leverage different drive options.

    Object storage access

    Does this mean that block storage access is now dead?

    Not quite, after all there is still some block activity involved, it is just that they have been further abstracted. On the other hand, many applications, systems or environments still rely on block as well as file based access.

    What about OpenStack, Ceph, Cassandra, Mongo, Hbase and other support?

    Seagate has indicated those and others are targeted to be included in the ecosystem.

    Seagate needs to be careful balancing their story and message with Kinetic to play to and support those focused on the new and emerging, while also addressing their bread and butter legacy markets. The balancing act is communicating options, flexibility to choose and adopt the right technology for the task without being scared of the future, or clinging to the past, not to mention throwing the baby out with the bath water in exchange for something new.

    For those looking to do object storage systems, or cloud and other scale based solutions, Kinetic represents a new tool to do your due diligence and learn more about.

    Ok, 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)

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