Ben Woo on Big Data Buzzword Bingo and Business Benefits

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This is a new episode in the continuing StorageIO industry trends and perspectives pod cast series (you can view more episodes or shows along with other audio and video content here) as well as listening via iTunes or via your preferred means using this RSS feed (https://storageio.com/StorageIO_Podcast.xml)

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

In this episode, In this episode, Im joined in Frankfurt Germany by Ben Woo (@benwoony) of Neuralytix.com. Our conversation includes cloud; big data and how buzzword bingo technology focused discussions can result in missed business benefits for both vendors and customers. We also reminisce about MTI where we worked together along with protecting home storage.

Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with Ben and myself.

StorageIO podcast

Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts and other upcoming events. Also be sure to heck out other related pod casts, videos, posts, tips and industry commentary at StorageIO.com and StorageIOblog.com.

Enjoy this episode with Ben Woo talking big data and business benefits vs. buzzword bingo.

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)

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

Ceph Day in Amsterdam and Sage Weil on Object Storage

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This is a new episode in the continuing StorageIO industry trends and perspectives pod cast series (you can view more episodes or shows along with other audio and video content here) as well as listening via iTunes or via your preferred means using this RSS feed (https://storageio.com/StorageIO_Podcast.xml)

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

In this episode, I am at the Ceph day in Amsterdam Holland event at the Tobacco Theatre. My guest for this episode is Ceph (Cephalanthera) creator Sage Weil who is also the founder of inktank.com that provides services and support for the open source based Ceph project.

For those not familiar with Ceph, it is an open source distributed object scale out software platform that can be used for deploying cloud and managed services, general purpose storage for research, commercial, scientific, high performance computing (HPC) or high productivity computing (commercial) along with backup or data protection and archiving destinations.

During our conversation Sage presents an overview of what Ceph is (e.g. Ceph for non Dummies), where and how it can be used, some history of the project and how it fits in with or provides an alternative to other solutions. Sage also talks about the business or commercial considerations for open source based projects, importance of community and having good business mentors and partners as well as staying busy with his young family.

If you are a Ceph fan, gain more insight into Sage along with Ceph day sponsors Inktank and 42on. On the other hand, if you new to object storage, open source storage software or cloud storage, listen in to gain perspectives of where technology such as Ceph fits for public, private, hybrid or traditional environments.

Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with Sage and myself.

StorageIO podcast

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Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts and other upcoming events. Also be sure to heck out other related pod casts, videos, posts, tips and industry commentary at StorageIO.com and StorageIOblog.com.

Enjoy this episode Ceph Day in Amsterdam with Sage Weil.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

Little data, big data and very big data (VBD) or big BS?

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

This is an industry trends and perspective piece about big data and little data, industry adoption and customer deployment.

If you are in any way associated with information technology (IT), business, scientific, media and entertainment computing or related areas, you may have heard big data mentioned. Big data has been a popular buzzword bingo topic and term for a couple of years now. Big data is being used to describe new and emerging along with existing types of applications and information processing tools and techniques.

I routinely hear from different people or groups trying to define what is or is not big data and all too often those are based on a particular product, technology, service or application focus. Thus it should be no surprise that those trying to police what is or is not big data will often do so based on what their interest, sphere of influence, knowledge or experience and jobs depend on.

Traveling and big data images

Not long ago while out traveling I ran into a person who told me that big data is new data that did not exist just a few years ago. Turns out this person was involved in geology so I was surprised that somebody in that field was not aware of or working with geophysical, mapping, seismic and other legacy or traditional big data. Turns out this person was basing his statements on what he knew, heard, was told about or on sphere of influence around a particular technology, tool or approach.

Fwiw, if you have not figured out already, like cloud, virtualization and other technology enabling tools and techniques, I tend to take a pragmatic approach vs. becoming latched on to a particular bandwagon (for or against) per say.

Not surprisingly there is confusion and debate about what is or is not big data including if it only applies to new vs. existing and old data. As with any new technology, technique or buzzword bingo topic theme, various parties will try to place what is or is not under the definition to align with their needs, goals and preferences. This is the case with big data where you can routinely find proponents of Hadoop and Map reduce position big data as aligning with the capabilities and usage scenarios of those related technologies for business and other forms of analytics.

SAS software for big data

Not surprisingly the granddaddy of all business analytics, data science and statistic analysis number crunching is the Statistical Analysis Software (SAS) from the SAS Institute. If these types of technology solutions and their peers define what is big data then SAS (not to be confused with Serial Attached SCSI which can be found on the back-end of big data storage solutions) can be considered first generation big data analytics or Big Data 1.0 (BD1 ;) ). That means Hadoop Map Reduce is Big Data 2.0 (BD2 ;) ;) ) if you like, or dislike for that matter.

Funny thing about some fans and proponents or surrogates of BD2 is that they may have heard of BD1 like SAS with a limited understanding of what it is or how it is or can be used. When I worked in IT as a performance and capacity planning analyst focused on servers, storage, network hardware, software and applications I used SAS to crunch various data streams of event, activity and other data from diverse sources. This involved correlating data, running various analytic algorithms on the data to determine response times, availability, usage and other things in support of modeling, forecasting, tuning and trouble shooting. Hmm, sound like first generation big data analytics or Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and IT Service Management (ITSM) to anybody?

Now to be fair, comparing SAS, SPSS or any number of other BD1 generation tools to Hadoop and Map Reduce or BD2 second generation tools is like comparing apples to oranges, or apples to pears.

Lets move on as there is much more to what is big data than simply focus around SAS or Hadoop.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Another type of big data are the information generated, processed, stored and used by applications that result in large files, data sets or objects. Large file, objects or data sets include low resolution and high-definition photos, videos, audio, security and surveillance, geophysical mapping and seismic exploration among others. Then there are data warehouses where transactional data from databases gets moved to for analysis in systems such as those from Oracle, Teradata, Vertica or FX among others. Some of those other tools even play (or work) in both traditional e.g. BD1 and new or emerging BD2 worlds.

This is where some interesting discussions, debates or disagreements can occur between those who latch onto or want to keep big data associated with being something new and usually focused around their preferred tool or technology. What results from these types of debates or disagreements is a missed opportunity for organizations to realize that they might already be doing or using a form of big data and thus have a familiarity and comfort zone with it.

By having a familiarity or comfort zone vs. seeing big data as something new, different, hype or full of FUD (or BS), an organization can be comfortable with the term big data. Often after taking a step back and looking at big data beyond the hype or fud, the reaction is along the lines of, oh yeah, now we get it, sure, we are already doing something like that so lets take a look at some of the new tools and techniques to see how we can extend what we are doing.

Likewise many organizations are doing big bandwidth already and may not realize it thinking that is only what media and entertainment, government, technical or scientific computing, high performance computing or high productivity computing (HPC) does. I’m assuming that some of the big data and big bandwidth pundits will disagree, however if in your environment you are doing many large backups, archives, content distribution, or copying large amounts of data for different purposes that consume big bandwidth and need big bandwidth solutions.

Yes I know, that’s apples to oranges and perhaps stretching the limits of what is or can be called big bandwidth based on somebody’s definition, taxonomy or preference. Hopefully you get the point that there is diversity across various environments as well as types of data and applications, technologies, tools and techniques.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

What about little data then?

I often say that if big data is getting all the marketing dollars to generate industry adoption, then little data is generating all the revenue (and profit or margin) dollars by customer deployment. While tools and technologies related to Hadoop (or Haydoop if you are from HDS) are getting industry adoption attention (e.g. marketing dollars being spent) revenues from customer deployment are growing.

Where big data revenues are strongest for most vendors today are centered around solutions for hosting, storing, managing and protecting big files, big objects. These include scale out NAS solutions for large unstructured data like those from Amplidata, Cray, Dell, Data Direct Networks (DDN), EMC (e.g. Isilon), HP X9000 (IBRIX), IBM SONAS, NetApp, Oracle and Xyratex among others. Then there flexible converged compute storage platforms optimized for analytics and running different software tools such as those from EMC (Greenplum), IBM (Netezza), NetApp (via partnerships) or Oracle among others that can be used for different purposes in addition to supporting Hadoop and Map reduce.

If little data is databases and things not generally lumped into the big data bucket, and if you think or perceive big data only to be Hadoop map reduce based data, then does that mean all the large unstructured non little data is then very big data or VBD?

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Of course the virtualization folks might want to if they have not already corner the V for Virtual Big Data. In that case, then instead of Very Big Data, how about very very Big Data (vvBD). How about Ultra-Large Big Data (ULBD), or High-Revenue Big Data (HRBD), granted the HR might cause some to think its unique for Health Records, or Human Resources, both btw leverage different forms of big data regardless of what you see or think big data is.

Does that then mean we should really be calling videos, audio, PACs, seismic, security surveillance video and related data to be VBD? Would this further confuse the market, or the industry or help elevate it to a grander status in terms of size (data file or object capacity, bandwidth, market size and application usage, market revenue and so forth)?

Do we need various industry consortiums, lobbyists or trade groups to go off and create models, taxonomies, standards and dictionaries based on their constituents needs and would they align with those of the customers, after all, there are big dollars flowing around big data industry adoption (marketing).

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

What does this all mean?

Is Big Data BS?

First let me be clear, big data is not BS, however there is a lot of BS marketing BS by some along with hype and fud adding to the confusion and chaos, perhaps even missed opportunities. Keep in mind that in chaos and confusion there can be opportunity for some.

IMHO big data is real.

There are different variations, use cases and types of products, technologies and services that fall under the big data umbrella. That does not mean everything can or should fall under the big data umbrella as there is also little data.

What this all means is that there are different types of applications for various industries that have big and little data, virtual and very big data from videos, photos, images, audio, documents and more.

Big data is a big buzzword bingo term these days with vendor marketing big dollars being applied so no surprise the buzz, hype, fud and more.

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)

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

Networking with Bruce Ravid and Bruce Rave

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This is the eighth (here is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh) in a series of StorageIO industry trends and perspective audio blog and pod cast discussions from Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2012 in Santa Clara California.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

In this episode, my co-host Bruce Rave aka Bruce Ravid of Ravid and Associates (twitter @brucerave) recap the recent SNW conference and series of pod casts. Our conversation also covers importance of networking and career tips (Bruce is an executive recruiter aka career advisory consultant) for those of you that are new and upcoming, as well those of you who are seasoned veterans to standout in a crowd.

Bruce also talks about his internet music radio show called Go Deep on moheak.com along with up and coming bands to keep an eye and ear open for in 2013. Check out Bruces sites at ravid.com and godeepmusic.net as well as listen to his internet radio show that airs weekly Sunday evenings 7 to 9PM PT on moheak.com.

Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with Bruce and myself.

StorageIO podcast

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Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts from SNW and other upcoming events. Also be sure to heck out other related pod casts, videos, posts, tips and industry commentary at StorageIO.com and StorageIOblog.com.

Enjoy listening to Networking with Bruce Ravid.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

Industry trends and perspectives: SNW 2012 Rapping with Dave Raffo of SearchStorage

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This is the seventh (here is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth) in a series of StorageIO industry trends and perspective audio blog and pod cast discussions from Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2012 in Santa Clara California.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Given how at conference conversations tend to occur in the hallways, lobbies and bar areas of venues, what better place to have candid conversations with people from throughout the industry, some you know, some you will get to know better.

In this episode, my co-host Bruce Rave aka Bruce Ravid of Ravid and Associates (twitter @brucerave) meets up Sr. News Director Dave Raffo of TechTarget and Search Storage in the SNW trade show expo hall. Our conversation covers past and present SNWs along with other industry conferences, industry trends, software defined buzzwords, Green Bay Packers smack and more.

Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with Dave, Bruce and myself.

StorageIO podcast

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Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts from SNW and other upcoming events. Also be sure to heck out other related pod casts, videos, posts, tips and industry commentary at StorageIO.com and StorageIOblog.com.

Enjoy listening to Rapping with Dave Raffo of Search Storage from the Fall SNW 2012 pod cast.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

Industry trends and perspectives: Ray Lucchesi on Storage and SNW

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This is the sixth (here is the first, second, third, fourth and fifth) in a series of StorageIO industry trends and perspective audio blog and pod cast discussions from Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2012 in Santa Clara California.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Given how at conference conversations tend to occur in the hallways, lobbies and bar areas of venues, what better place to have candid conversations with people from throughout the industry, some you know, some you will get to know better.

In this episode, my co-host Bruce Rave aka Bruce Ravid of Ravid and Associates (twitter @brucerave) meets up with Ray Lucchesi (@RayLucchesi) of Silverton Consulting and Ray on storage blog in the Santa Clara Hyatt (event venue) lobby bar area. Our conversation covers past and present SNWs along with other industry conferences, shows and events, along with social networking, technology, being a soccer dad with teenage kids who are aspiring actors and more.

Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with Ray, Bruce and myself.

StorageIO podcast

Also available via

Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts from SNW and other upcoming events. Also be sure to heck out other related pod casts, videos, posts, tips and industry commentary at StorageIO.com and StorageIOblog.com.

Enjoy listening to Ray on storage and SNW from the Fall SNW 2012 pod cast.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

Industry trends and perspectives: Learning with Leo Leger of SNIA

This is the fifth (here is the first, second, third and fourth ) in a series of StorageIO industry trends and perspective audio blog and pod cast discussions from Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2012 in Santa Clara California.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

In this episode, while I’m on a plane flying home above the clouds, my co-host Bruce Rave aka Bruce Ravid of Ravid and Associates (twitter @brucerave) meets up with SNIA executive director Leo Leger. Some of you may know or know of Leo, for those who do not, he is the person behind the scenes that puts SNW together as well as coordinates many other SNIA activities and events in conjunction with chair Wayne Adams (aka listen to Waynes World here) and other SNIA members and staff.

Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with Leo and Bruce.

StorageIO podcast

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Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts from SNW and other upcoming events. Also be sure to heck out other related pod casts, videos, posts, tips and industry commentary at StorageIO.com, StorageIOblog.com and StorageIO.tv.

Enjoy listening to learning Leo Leger from the Fall SNW 2012 pod cast.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

Industry trends and perspectives: Meeting up with Marty Foltyn of SNIA

This is the fourth (here is the first, second and third) in a series of StorageIO industry trends and perspective audio blog and pod cast discussions from Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2012 in Santa Clara California.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Given how at conference conversations tend to occur in the hallways, lobbies and bar areas of venues, what better place to have candid conversations with people from throughout the industry, some you know, some you will get to know better.

In this episode, while I’m on a plane flying home above the clouds, my co-host Bruce Rave aka Bruce Ravid of Ravid and Associates (twitter @brucerave) meets up with Marty Foltyn (@martyfoltyn) of SNIA Hands On Lab (HOL).

Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with Marty and Bruce.

StorageIO podcast

Also available via

Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts from SNW and other upcoming events.

Enjoy listening to meeting up with Marty Foltyn from the Fall SNW 2012 pod cast.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

Industry trends and perspectives: Catching up with Quantum CTE David Chapa

This is the third (here is the first and the second) in a series of StorageIO industry trends and perspective audio blog and pod cast discussions from Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2012 in Santa Clara California.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Given how at conference conversations tend to occur in the hallways, lobbies and bar areas of venues, what better place to have candid conversations with people from throughout the industry, some you know, some you will get to know better.

In this episode, I’m joined by my co-host Bruce Rave aka Bruce Ravid of Ravid & Associates (twitter @brucerave) as we catch up and visit with David Chapa (@davidchapa) Chief Technology Evangelist (CTE) of Quantum Corporation (@quantumcorp) in the Santa Clara Hyatt (event venue) lobby bar area. Disclosure note, Quantum has in the past been a client of StorageIO.

Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with David and Bruce. Our conversations covers SNW, evolution and transformation of Quantum, global travels in and around the clouds, big data myths and realities, monetizing and transforming data into information, using big data to drive diapers and beer sales, people and data living longer as well as getting larger, managing your diet and data footprint, rethinking and modernizing data protection among other topics.

StorageIO podcast

Also available via

Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts from SNW and other upcoming events.

Enjoy listening to catching up with David Chapa from the Fall SNW 2012 pod cast.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

Industry trends and perspectives: Chatting with Karl Chen at SNW 2012

This is the second (here is the first SNW 2012 Waynes World) in a series of StorageIO industry trends and perspective audio blog and pod cast about Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2012 in Santa Clara California.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Given how at conference conversations tend to occur in the hallways, lobbies and bar areas of venues, what better place to have candid conversations with people from throughout the industry, some you know, some you will get to know better.

In this episode, I’m joined by my co-host Bruce Rave aka Bruce Ravid of Ravid & Associates as we catch up and visit with Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Starboard Storage Systems Karl Chen in the Santa Clara Hyatt (event venue) lobby bar area.

Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with Karl and Bruce. Our conversations covers SNW, VMworld, Americas Cup Yacht racing, storage technology and networking with people during these events.

StorageIO podcast

Also available via

Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts from SNW and other upcoming events.

Enjoy listening to catching up with Karl Chen from the Fall SNW 2012 pod cast.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

How many degrees separate you and your information?

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

In case you are not familiar, degrees of separation refer to how you are connected to other people.

When you know somebody directly then you are a first connection, and you are a second degree of separation from people that they are directly connected to. The theory goes that via a mix of the number of people you are directly connected to, as well as how well they are connected to others, that you are only so many degrees of connection separation from many (if not millions of people) and if you go out seven degrees, that could be billions.

If you are familiar with or use Linked In and are directly connected to somebody like myself, which is a first degree. For example in the following image, person A is a first or 1 degree connection to person B, person B is a direct or first degree connection to person C who in turn is a direct connection to person D. Person A is 2 degree from person C and three degree from person D.

Image degrees of seperation

The reason I bring this up is not to say or play games around who is connected to whom, or compare contacts or the number of them, rather to use the idea of degrees of separation in the context of where and how you get your information. For example, you may get your information, insight or experience directly from what you do. On the other hand, you may get information or knowledge directly from the source or person involved with it, which would be 1 degree of separation.

Image degrees of seperation

You could also get the information from somebody else such as a friend, coworker, blogger, analyst, consultant, media journalist, reporter, vendor, VAR or other person who got it directly from the source, which would be 2 degrees of separation. Another example would be you get your information from somebody who cites a report, study, survey or some research that came from another source that involved another party who collected and analyzed the data.

At each point, there is the potential for the information to be changed, adjusted, reinterpreted, misunderstood, or simply adapted to meet particularly needs. What if person A gets their information from person B who in turn got their information from source C, and that comes from person D who got it directly from person E? Assuming that the information was collected and passed along as is, person A should get what was given from person E to person D. However, along the way, various interpretations, more material and views can be applied resulting in a different message.

Image degrees of seperation and information transformation

There is also another variation, which are your spheres of influence or circles of contacts. For example I get to talk with lots of IT pros around the world live in person, virtually and via different venues, those would be direct or no separation. When I hear from a vendor or PR or some pundit telling me what they heard direct, that’s 1 degree however if they heard it from their marketing who heard it from a sales rep or other source then it’s at least two.

image of ssd technology evolution

Another example of degrees of separation is where you are in relation to technology timelines, evolution, revolution, industry adoption vs. customer deployment. For example, if you are a researcher or development engineer, you are further along on a technology evolution curve than others are. Somebody then takes the researchers work and productize it including making it manufacture able on a cost-effective basis. Along the lines there is also the different degrees of separation between the researcher, initial publicity of a technology breakthrough, general industry adoption and later customer deploy and subsequent success stories. For example, to a research something that they did many years along with those who follow at that point may view what is emerging for real customer deploy as old and yesterday’s news.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

On the other hand, for customers getting ready to deploy a new technology, product or service, some breaking research may be interesting to hear about, however it may be out several years at best from customer actual use. Also on that theme, the customer of a component can be a manufacturer that in turn test, qualifies and sells a finished solution to their customers. Thus, there are different degrees of separation between industry adoption (e.g. talking about and awareness) and customer deployment (actually buying and using on a mainstream basis) in the technology supply chain.

image of you and your big data and little data and cloud

Yet another degree of separation is between you and your information or data. Some of that data is very close in your own memory (e.g. brain), perhaps others written on note pads (physical or digital) with a copy local or remote including at the cloud. Depending on how your data and information are backed up or protected, there can be added degrees of separation between you and your information.

image of data protection from cloud and virtual data storage networking

Thus, there are different degrees of separation between you and your various forms of information.

Your ability to learn and share information, meet and interact with various people from across different sections of environments is bound by what you are willing to engage via various mediums including social media involvement.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

If you are comfortable with where you are at, or what you know, then stay in your comfort zone, or sphere of influence, otherwise, take a chance, venture out, learn what you do not know, meet who you do not know, interact and see new things, or have some dejavu and share what you have seen or experienced before.

After all, knowledge not shared with others is useless if kept only to you. Of course, for NDA material, what is not generally known about, or understood is not discussed and let us leave sleeping dogs lay where they rest. ;)

How good or reliable is your information or G2 that you might be using for forming opinions or making informed decisions around?

Feel free to expand your network getting closer by a degree or two, if not directly too different sources. You can connect with me via Twitter (@storageio), Goggle+, Linked In and Facebook among other means here. Likewise, check out the StorageIO events calendar here for upcoming virtual and live activities. These activities include seminars, web casts, video chats along with in person events while out and about in North America as well as Europe.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

RAID and IOPS and IO observations

Storage I/O trends

There are at least two different meanings for IOPs, which for those not familiar with the information technology (IT) and data storage meaning is Input/output Operations Per second (e.g. data movement activity). Another meaning for IOP that is the international organization for a participatory society (iopsociety.org), and their fundraising activity found here.

I recently came across a piece (here and here) talking about RAID and IOPs that had some interesting points; however, some generalizations could use some more comments. One of the interesting comments and assertions is that RAID writes increase with the number of drives in the parity scheme. Granted the specific implementation and configuration could result in an it depends type response.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Here are some more perspectives to the piece (here and here) as the sites comments seem to be restricted.

Keep in mind that such as with RAID 5 (or 6) performance, your IO size will have a bearing on if you are doing those extra back-end IOs. For example if you are writing a 32KB item that is accomplished by a single front-end IO from an applications server, and your storage system, appliance, adapter, software implementing and performing the RAID (or erasure coding for that matter) has a chunk size of say 8KB (e.g. the amount of data written to each back-end drive). Then a 5 drive R5 (e.g. 4+1) would in fact have five back-end IOPS (32KB / 8KB = 4 + 1 (8KB Parity)).

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Otoh of the front end IOP were only 16KB (using whole numbers for simplicity, otherwise round-up), in the case of a write, there would be three back-end writes with the R5 (e.g. 2 + 1). Keep in mind the controller/software managing the RAID would (or should) try to schedule back-end IO with cache, read-head, write-behind, write-back, other forms of optimization etc.

In the piece (here and here), a good point is the understanding and factoring in IOPS is important, as is also latency or response time in addition to bandwidth or throughput, along with availability, they are all inter-related.

Also very important is to keep in mind the size of the IOP, read and write, random, sequential etc.

RAID along with erasure coding is a balancing act between performance, availability, space capacity and economics aligned to different application needs.

RAID 0 (R0) actually has a big impact on performance, no penalty on writes; however, it has no availability protection benefit and in fact can be a single point of failure (e.g. loss of a HDD or SSD) impacts the entire R0 group. However, for static items, or items that are being journaled and protected on some other medium/RAID/protection scheme, R0 is used more than people realize for scratch/buffer/transient/read cache types of applications. Keep in mind that it is a balance of all performance and capacity with the exposure of no availability as opposed to other approaches. Thus, do not be scared of R0, however also do not get burned or hurt with it either, treat it with respect and can be effective for something’s.

Also mentioned in the piece was that SSD based servers will perform vastly better than SATA or SAS based ones. I am assuming that the authors meant to say better than SAS or SATA DAS based HDDs?

Storage I/O trends

Keep in mind that unless you are using a PCIe nand flash SSD card as a target or cache or RAID card, most SSD drives today are either SAS or SATA (being the more common) along with moving from 3Gb SAS or SATA to 6Gb SAS & SATA.

Also while HDD and SSDs can do a given number of reads or writes per second, those will vary based on the size of the IO, read, write, random, sequential. However what can have the biggest impact and where I have seen too many people or environments get into a performance jam is when assuming that those IOP numbers per HDD or SSD are a given. For example assuming that 100-140, IOPs (regardless of size, type, etc.) can be achieved as a limiting factor is the type of interface and controller/adapter being used.

I have seen fast HDDs and SSDs deliver sub-par performance or not meeting expectations fast interfaces such as iSCSI/SAS/SATA/FC/FCoE/IBA or other interfaces due to bottlenecks in the adapter card, storage system / appliance / controller / software. In some cases you may see more effective IOPs or reads, writes or both, while on other implementations you may see lower than expected due to internal implementation bottlenecks or architectural designs. Hint, watch out for solutions where the vendor tries to blame poor performance on the access network (e.g. SAS, iSCSI, FC, etc.) particular if you know that those are not bottlenecks.

Here are some related content:
Are Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) getting too big?
How can direct attached storage (DAS) make a comeback if it never left?
EMC VFCache re spinning SSD and intelligent caching
SSD and Green IT moving beyond green washing
Optimize Data Storage for Performance and Capacity Efficiency
Is SSD dead? No, however some vendors might be
RAID Relevance Revisited
Industry Trends and Perspectives: RAID Rebuild Rates
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do
More storage and IO metrics that matter
IBM buys flash solid state device (SSD) industry veteran TMS

In terms of fund-raising, if you feel so compelled, send a gift, donation, sponsorship, project, buy some books, piece of work, assignment, research project, speaking, keynote, web cast, video or seminar event my way and just like professional fund-raisers, or IOPS vendors, StorageIO accept visa, Master Card, American express, Pay Pal, check and traditional POs.

As for this site and comments, outside of those caught in the spam trap, courteous perspectives and discussions are welcome.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers Gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

Trick or treat and vendor fun games

In the spirit of Halloween and zombies season, a couple of thoughts come to mind about vendor tricks and treats. This is an industry trends and perspectives post, part of an ongoing series looking at various technology and fun topics.

The first trick or treat game pertains to the blame game; you know either when something breaks, or at the other extreme, before you have even made a decision to buy something. The trick or treat game for decision-making goes something like this.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Vendor “A” says products succeed with their solution while failure results with a solution from “B” when doing “X”. Otoh, vendor “B” claims that “X” will fail when using a solution from vendor “A”. In fact, you can pick what you want to substitute for “X”, perhaps VDI, PCIe, Big Data, Little Data, Backup, Archive, Analytics, Private Cloud, Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, eDiscovery you name it.

This is not complicated math or big data problem requiring a high-performance computing (HPC) platform. A HPC Zetta-Flop processing ability using 512 bit addressing of 9.9 (e.g. 1 nine) PettaBytes of battery-backed DRAM and an IO capability of 9.99999 (e.g. 5 9’s) trillion 8 bit IOPS to do table pivots or runge kutta numerical analysis, map reduce, SAS or another modeling with optional iProduct or Android interface are not needed.

image of StorageIO big data HPC cloud storageimage of StorageIO big data HPC cloud storage
StorageIO images of touring Texas Advanced Computing (e.g. HPC) Center

Can you solve this equation? Hint it does not need a PhD or any other advanced degree. Another hint, if you have ever been at any side of the technology product and services decision-making table, regardless of the costume you wore, you should know the answer.

Of course the question of would “X” fail regardless of who or what “A” or “B” let alone a “C”, “D” or “F”? In other words, it is not the solution, technology, vendor or provider, rather the problem or perhaps even lack thereof that is the issue. Or is it a case where there is a solution from “A”, “B” or any others that is looking for a problem, and if it is the wrong problem, there can be a wrong solution thus failure?

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Another trick or treat game is vendors public relations (PR) or analyst relations (AR) people to ask for one thing and delivery or ask another. For example, some vendor, service provider, their marketing AR and PR people or surrogates make contact wanting to tell of various success and failure story. Of course, this is usually their success and somebody else’s failure, or their victory over something or someone who sometimes can be interesting. Of course, there are also the treats to get you to listen to the above, such as tempt you with a project if you meet with their subject, which may be a trick of a disappearing treat (e.g. magic, poof it is gone after the discussion).

There are another AR and PR trick and treat where they offer on behalf of their representative organization or client to a perspective or exclusive insight on their competitor. Of course, the treat from their perspective is that they will generously expose all that is wrong with what a competitor is saying about their own (e.g. the competitors) product.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Let me get this straight, I am not supposed to believe what somebody says about his or her own product, however, supposed to believe what a competitor says is wrong with the competition’s product, and what is right with his or her own product.

Hmm, ok, so let me get this straight, a competitor say “A” wants to tell me what somebody say from “B” has told me is wrong and I should schedule a visit with a truth squad member from “A” to get the record set straight about “B”?

Does that mean then that I go to “B” for a rebuttal, as well as an update about “A” from “B”, assuming that what “A” has told me is also false about themselves, and perhaps about “B” or any other?

Too be fair, depending on your level of trust and confidence in either a vendor, their personal or surrogates, you might tend to believe more from them vs. others, or at least until you been tricked after given treats. There may be some that have been tricked, or they tried applying to many treats to present a story that behind the costume might be a bit scary.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Having been through enough of these, and I candidly believe that sometimes “A” or “B” or any other party actually do believe that they have more or better info about their competitor and that they can convince somebody about what their competitor is doing better than the competitor can. I also believe that there are people out there who will go to “A” or “B” and believe what they are told by based on their preference, bias or interests.

When I hear from vendors, VARs, solution or service providers and others, it’s interesting hearing point, counterpoint and so forth, however if time is limited, I’am more interested in hearing from such as “A” about them, what they are doing, where success, where challenges, where going and if applicable, under NDA go into more detail.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Customer success stories are good, however again, if interested in what works, what kind of works, or what does not work, chances are when looking for G2 vs. GQ, a non-scripted customer conversation or perspective of the good, the bad and the ugly is preferred, even if under NDA. Again, if time is limited which it usually is, focus on what is being done with your solution, where it is going and if compelled send follow-up material that can of course include MUD and FUD about others if that is your preference.

Then there is when during a 30 minute briefing, the vendor or solution provider is still talking about trends, customer pain points, what competitors are doing at 21 minutes into the call with no sign of an announcement, update or news in site

Lets not forget about the trick where the vendor marketing or PR person reaches out and says that the CEO, CMO, CTO or some other CxO or Chief Jailable Officer (CJO) wants to talk with you. Part of the trick is when the CxO actually makes it to the briefing and is not ready, does not know why the call is occurring, or, thinks that a request for an audience has been made with them for an interview or something else.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

A treat is when 3 to 4 minutes into a briefing, the vendor or solution provider has already framed up what and why they are doing something. This means getting to what they are announcing or planning on doing and getting into a conversation to discuss what they are doing and making good follow-up content and resources available.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Sometimes a treat is when a briefer goes on autopilot nailing their script for 29 of a 30 minute session then use the last-minute to ask if there are any questions. The reason autopilot briefings can be a treat is when they are going over what is in the slide deck, webex, or press release thus affording an opportunity to get caught up on other things while talk at you. Hmm, perhaps need to consider playing some tricks in reward for those kind of treats? ;)

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

Do not be scared, not everybody is out to trick you with treats, and not all treats have tricks attached to them. Be prepared, figure out who is playing tricks with treats, and who has treats without tricks.

Oh, and as a former IT customer, vendor and analyst, one of my favorites is contact information of my dogs to vendors who require registration on their websites for basic things such as data sheets. Another is supplying contact information of competing vendors sales reps to vendors who also require registration for basic data sheets or what should otherwise be generally available information as opposed to more premium treats. Of course there are many more fun tricks, however lets leave those alone for now.

Note: Zombie voting rules apply which means vote early, vote often, and of course vote for those who cannot include those that are dead (real or virtual).

Where To Learn More

View additiona related material via the following links.

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Watch out for tricks and treats, have a safe and fun Zombie (aka Halloween) season. See you while out and about this fall and don’t forget to take part in the ongoing zombie technology poll. Oh, and be safe with trick or treat and vendor fun games

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

Does Dell have a cloudy cloud strategy story (Part II)?

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

This is the second of two posts (here is the first post) that are part of ongoing industry trends and perspectives cloud conversations series that looks at Dell and their cloud strategy story.

So what does the first post have to do with Dell having a cloudy cloud strategy story?

Simple, there have been some rather low-key, almost quiet or muddled announcements (also here, here and here) about Dell and Nirvanix collaborating around public cloud storage. Keep in mind that Nirvanix and IBM not too long ago also announced a partnership that some jumped to the conclusion that big blue was about to buy the startup vendor, even though IBM already has other cloud and storage as a service, or backup as a service and DR as a service offerings, what the heck, the more the merrier for big blue?

Dell image

What about Dell and their partnership with Nirvanix, (more on that in the first post) did somebody jump the gun, or jump the shark?

Is Dell trying to walk the tightrope between being a supplier to major cloud providers while carefully moving into the cloud services market themselves, or are they simply addressing point customer situation or opportunities, at least for the time being?

Alternatively, is this nothing more than Dell establishing another partnership with a technology partner who also happens to be in the services business, similar to what Dell is doing with OpenStack and others?

OpenStack image for cloud and virtual data storage networking

IMHO Dell has some of the pieces and partnerships and could be a strong contender in the SMB and SME private cloud space, along with VDI and related areas with their Citrix, Microsoft and VMware partnerships. This is also also leveraging their servers and, storage, software, networking and other solutions to supply service providers.

The rest comes down to what markets or areas of focus does Dell want to target, that would in turn dictate how to extend what they already have or what they need to go out and get or partner around.

Dont be scared of clouds, learn and gain confidence with cloud and virtual data storage networking

What say you, what’s your take on Dells cloud strategy story and portfolio?

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

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