Tag: Cisco

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Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3) Overview Preview Review

server storage I/O trends

Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3) Overview Preview Review

Perhaps you are aware or use Microsoft Azure, how about Azure Stack?

This is part one of a two-part series looking at Microsoft Azure Stack providing an overview, preview and review. Read part two here that looks at my experiences installing Microsoft Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3).

For those who are not aware, Azure Stack is a private on-premises extension of the Azure public cloud environment. Azure Stack now in technical preview three (e.g. TP3), or what you might also refer to as a beta (get the bits here).

In addition to being available via download as a preview, Microsoft is also working with vendors such as Cisco, Dell EMC, HPE, Lenovo and others who have announced Azure Stack support. Vendors such as Dell EMC have also made proof of concept kits available that you can buy including server with storage and software. Microsoft has also indicated that once launched for production versions scaling from a few to many nodes, that a single node proof of concept or development system will also remain available.

software defined data infrastructure SDDI and SDDC
Software-Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) aka Software-defined Data Centers, Cloud, Virtual and Legacy

Besides being an on-premises, private cloud variant, Azure Stack is also hybrid capable being able to work with public cloud Azure. In addition to working with public cloud Azure, Azure Stack services and in particular workloads can also work with traditional Microsoft, Linux and others. You can use pre built solutions from the Azure marketplace, in addition to developing your applications using Azure services and DevOps tools. Azure Stack enables hybrid deployment into public or private cloud to balance flexibility, control and your needs.

Azure Stack Overview

Microsoft Azure Stack is an on premise (e.g. in your own data center) private (or hybrid when connected to Azure) cloud platform. Currently Azure Stack is in Technical Preview 3 (e.g. TP3) and available as a proof of concept (POC) download from Microsoft. You can use Azure Stack TP3 as a POC for learning, demonstrating and trying features among other activities. Here is link to a Microsoft Video providing an overview of Azure Stack, and here is a good summary of roadmap, licensing and related items.

In summary, Microsoft Azure Stack is:

  • A onsite, on premise, in your data center extension of Microsoft Azure public cloud
  • Enabling private and hybrid cloud with strong integration along with common experiences with Azure
  • Adopt, deploy, leverage cloud on your terms and timeline choosing what works best for you
  • Common processes, tools, interfaces, management and user experiences
  • Leverage speed of deployment and configuration with a purpose-built integrate solution
  • Support existing and cloud native Windows, Linux, Container and other services
  • Available as a public preview via software download, as well as vendors offering solutions

What is Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3)

This version of Azure Stack is a single node running on a lone physical machine (PM) aka bare metal (BM). However can also be installed into a virtual machine (VM) using nesting. For example I have Azure Stack TP3 running nested on a VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5 systems with a Windows Server 2016 VM as its base operating system.

Microsoft Azure Stack architecture
Click here or on the above image to view list of VMs and other services (Image via Microsoft.com)

The TP3 POC Azure Stack is not intended for production environments, only for testing, evaluation, learning and demonstrations as part of its terms of use. This version of Azure Stack is associated with a single node identity such as Azure Active Directory (AAD) integrated with Azure, or Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) for standalone modes. Note that since this is a single server deployment, it is not intended for performance, rather, for evaluating functionality, features, APIs and other activities. Learn more about Azure Stack TP3 details here (or click on image) including names of various virtual machines (VMs) as well as their roles.

Where to learn more

The following provide more information and insight about Azure, Azure Stack, Microsoft and Windows among related topics.

  • Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3) Overview Preview Review
  • Azure Stack TP3 Overview Preview Review Part II
  • Azure Stack Technical Preview (get the bits aka software download here)
  • Azure Stack deployment prerequisites (Microsoft)
  • Microsoft Azure Stack troubleshooting (Microsoft Docs)
  • Azure Stack TP3 refresh tips (Azure Stack)
  • Here is a good post with a tip about not applying certain Windows updates to Azure stack TP3 installs.
  • Configure Azure stack TP3 to be available on your own network (Azure Stack)
  • Azure Stack TP3 Marketplace syndication (Azure Stack)
  • Azure Stack TP3 deployment experiences (Azure Stack)
  • Frequently asked questions for Azure Stack (Microsoft)
  • Deploy Azure Stack (Microsoft)
  • Connect to Azure Stack (Microsoft)
  • Azure Active Directory (AAD) and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
  • Azure Stack TP2 deployment experiences by Niklas Akerlund (@vNiklas) useful for tips for TP3
  • Deployment Checker for Azure Stack Technical Preview (Microsoft Technet)
  • Azure stack and other tools (Github)
  • How to enable nested virtualization on Hyper-V Windows Server 2016
  • Dell EMC announce Microsoft Hybrid Cloud Azure Stack (Dell EMC)
  • Dell EMC Cloud for Microsoft Azure Stack (Dell EMC)
  • Dell EMC Cloud for Microsoft Azure Stack Data Sheet (Dell EMC PDF)
  • Dell EMC Cloud Chats (Dell EMC Blog)
  • Microsoft Azure stack forum
  • Dell EMC Microsoft Azure Stack solution
  • Gaining Server Storage I/O Insight into Microsoft Windows Server 2016
  • Overview Review of Microsoft ReFS (Reliable File System) and resource links
  • Via WServerNews.com Cloud (Microsoft Azure) storage considerations
  • Via CloudComputingAdmin.com Cloud Storage Decision Making: Using Microsoft Azure for cloud storage
  • www.thenvmeplace.com, www.thessdplace.com, www.objectstoragecenter.com and www.storageio.com/converge

    • What this all means

    A common question is if there is demand for private and hybrid cloud, in fact, some industry expert pundits have even said private, or hybrid are dead which is interesting, how can something be dead if it is just getting started. Likewise, it is early to tell if Azure Stack will gain traction with various organizations, some of whom may have tried or struggled with OpenStack among others.

    Given a large number of Microsoft Windows-based servers on VMware, OpenStack, Public cloud services as well as other platforms, along with continued growing popularity of Azure, having a solution such as Azure Stack provides an attractive option for many environments. That leads to the question of if Azure Stack is essentially a replacement for Windows Servers or Hyper-V and if only for Windows guest operating systems. At this point indeed, Windows would be an attractive and comfortable option, however, given a large number of Linux-based guests running on Hyper-V as well as Azure Public, those are also primary candidates as are containers and other services.

    Continue reading more in part two of this two-part series here including installing Microsoft Azure Stack TP3.

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the spring 2017 release of his new book "Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials" (CRC Press).

    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 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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    Dell EMC Announce Azure Stack Hybrid Cloud Solution

    server storage I/O trends

    Dell EMC Azure Stack Hybrid Cloud Solution

    Dell EMC have announced their Microsoft Azure Stack hybrid cloud platform solutions. This announcement builds upon earlier statements of support and intention by Dell EMC to be part of the Microsoft Azure Stack community. For those of you who are not familiar, Azure Stack is an on premise extension of Microsoft Azure public cloud.

    What this means is that essentially you can have the Microsoft Azure experience (or a subset of it) in your own data center or data infrastructure, enabling cloud experiences and abilities at your own pace, your own way with control. Learn more about Microsoft Azure Stack including my experiences with and installing Technique Preview 3 (TP3) here.

    software defined data infrastructures SDDI and SDDC

    What Is Azure Stack

    Microsoft Azure Stack is an on-premises (e.g. in your own data center) private (or hybrid when connected to Azure) cloud platform. Currently Azure Stack is in Technical Preview 3 (e.g. TP3) and available as a proof of concept (POC) download from Microsoft. You can use Azure Stack TP3 as a POC for learning, demonstrating and trying features among other activities. Here is link to a Microsoft Video providing an overview of Azure Stack, and here is a good summary of roadmap, licensing and related items.

    In summary, Microsoft Azure Stack and this announcement is about:

    • A onsite, on-premises, in your data center extension of Microsoft Azure public cloud
    • Enabling private and hybrid cloud with good integration along with shared experiences with Azure
    • Adopt, deploy, leverage cloud on your terms and timeline choosing what works best for you
    • Common processes, tools, interfaces, management and user experiences
    • Leverage speed of deployment and configuration with a purpose-built integrated solution
    • Support existing and cloud-native Windows, Linux, Container and other services
    • Available as a public preview via software download, as well as vendors offering solutions

    What Did Dell EMC Announce

    Dell EMC announced their initial product, platform solutions, and services for Azure Stack. This includes a Proof of Concept (PoC) starter kit (PE R630) for doing evaluations, prototype, training, development test, DevOp and other initial activities with Azure Stack. Dell EMC also announced a larger for production deployment, or large-scale development, test DevOp activity turnkey solution. The initial production solution scales from 4 to 12 nodes, or from 80 to 336 cores that include hardware (server compute, memory, I/O and networking, top of rack (TOR) switches, management, Azure Stack software along with services. Other aspects of the announcement include initial services in support of Microsoft Azure Stack and Azure cloud offerings.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    The announcement builds on joint Dell EMC Microsoft experience, partnerships, technologies and services spanning hardware, software, on site data center and public cloud.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Dell EMC along with Microsoft have engineered a hybrid cloud platform for organizations to modernize their data infrastructures enabling faster innovate, accelerate deployment of resources. Includes hardware (server compute, memory, I/O networking, storage devices), software, services, and support.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    The value proposition of Dell EMC hybrid cloud for Microsoft Azure Stack includes consistent experience for developers and IT data infrastructure professionals. Common experience across Azure public cloud and Azure Stack on-premises in your data center for private or hybrid. This includes common portal, Powershell, DevOps tools, Azure Resource Manager (ARM), Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), Cloud Infrastructure and associated experiences (management, provisioning, services).
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Secure, protect, preserve and serve applications VMs hosted on Azure Stack with Dell EMC services along with Microsoft technologies. Dell EMC data protection including backup and restore, Encryption as a Service, host guard and protected VMs, AD integration among other features.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Dell EMC services for Microsoft Azure Stack include single contact support for prepare, assessment, planning; deploy with rack integration, delivery, configuration; extend the platform with applicable migration, integration with Office 365 and other applications, build new services.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Dell EMC Hyper-converged scale out solutions range from minimum of 4 x PowerEdge R730XD (total raw specs include 80 cores (4 x 20), 1TB RAM (4 x 256GB), 12.8TB SSD Cache, 192TB Storage, plus two top of row network switches (Dell EMC) and 1U management server node. Initial maximum configuration raw specification includes 12 x R730XD (total 336 cores), 6TB memory, 86TB SSD cache, 900TB storage along with TOR network switch and management server.

    The above configurations initially enable HCI nodes of small (low) 20 cores, 256GB memory, 5.7TB SSD cache, 40TB storage; mid size 24 cores, 384GB memory, 11.5TB cache and 60TB storage; high-capacity with 28 cores, 512GB memory, 11.5TB cache and 80TB storage per node.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Dell EMC Evaluator program for Microsoft Azure Stack including the PE R630 for PoCs, development, test and training environments. The solution combines Microsoft Azure Stack software, Dell EMC server with Intel E5-2630 (10 cores, 20 threads / logical processors or LPs), or Intel E5-2650 (12 cores, 24 threads / LPs). Memory is 128GB or 256GB, storage includes flash SSD (2 x 480GB SAS) and HDD (6 x 1TB SAS).
    and networking.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Collaborative support single contact between Microsoft and Dell EMC

    Who Is This For

    This announcement is for any organization that is looking for an on-premises, in your data center private or hybrid cloud turnkey solution stack. This initial set of announcements can be for those looking to do a proof of concept (PoC), advanced prototype, support development test, DevOp or gain cloud-like elasticity, ease of use, rapid procurement and other experiences of public cloud, on your terms and timeline. Naturally, there is a strong affinity and seamless experience for those already using, or planning to use Azure Public Cloud for Windows, Linux, Containers and other workloads, applications, and services.

    What Does This Cost

    Check with your Dell EMC representative or partner for exact pricing which varies for the size and configurations. There are also various licensing models to take into consideration if you have Microsoft Enterprise License Agreements (ELAs) that your Dell EMC representative or business partner can address for you. Likewise being cloud based, there is also time usage-based options to explore.

    Where to learn more

    What this all means

    The dust is starting to settle on last falls Dell EMC integration, both of whom have long histories working with, and partnering along with Microsoft on legacy, as well as virtual software-defined data centers (SDDC), software-defined data infrastructures (SDDI), native, and hybrid clouds. Some may view the Dell EMC VMware relationship as a primary focus, however, keep in mind that both Dell and EMC had worked with Microsoft long before VMware came into being. Likewise, Microsoft remains one of the most commonly deployed operating systems on VMware-based environments. Granted Dell EMC have a significant focus on VMware, they both also sell, service and support many services for Microsoft-based solutions.

    What about Cisco, HPE, Lenovo among others who have to announce or discussed their Microsoft Azure Stack intentions? Good question, until we hear more about what those and others are doing or planning, there is not much more to do or discuss beyond speculating for now. Another common question is if there is demand for private and hybrid cloud, in fact, some industry expert pundits have even said private, or hybrid are dead which is interesting, how can something be dead if it is just getting started. Likewise, it is early to tell if Azure Stack will gain traction with various organizations, some of whom may have tried or struggled with OpenStack among others.

    Given a large number of Microsoft Windows-based servers on VMware, OpenStack, Public cloud services as well as other platforms, along with continued growing popularity of Azure, having a solution such as Azure Stack provides an attractive option for many environments. That leads to the question of if Azure Stack is essentially a replacement for Windows Servers or Hyper-V and if only for Windows guest operating systems. At this point indeed, Windows would be an attractive and comfortable option, however, given a large number of Linux-based guests running on Hyper-V as well as Azure Public, those are also primary candidates as are containers and other services.

    Overall, this is an excellent and exciting move for both Microsoft extending their public cloud software stack to be deployed within data centers in a hybrid way, something that those customers are familiar with doing. This is a good example of hybrid being spanning public and private clouds, remote and on-premises, as well as familiarity and control of traditional procurement with the flexibility, elasticity experience of clouds.

    software defined data infrastructures SDDI and SDDC

    Some will say that if OpenStack is struggling in many organizations and being free open source, how Microsoft can have success with Azure Stack. The answer could be that some organizations have struggled with OpenStack while others have not due to lack of commercial services and turnkey support. Having installed both OpenStack and Azure Stack (as well as VMware among others), Azure Stack is at least the TP3 PoC is easy to install, granted it is limited to one node, unlike the production versions. Likewise, there are easy to use appliance versions of OpenStack that are limited in scale, as well as more involved installs that unlock full functionality.

    OpenStack, Azure Stack, VMware and others have their places, along, or supporting containers along with other tools. In some cases, those technologies may exist in the same environment supporting different workloads, as well as accessing various public clouds, after all, Hybrid is the home run for many if not most legality IT environments.

    Overall this is a good announcement from Dell EMC for those who are interested in, or should become more aware about Microsoft Azure Stack, Cloud along with hybrid clouds. Likewise look forward to hearing more about the solutions from others who will be supporting Azure Stack as well as other hybrid (and Virtual Private Clouds).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the spring 2017 release of his new book "Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials" (CRC Press).

    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 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

    Posted on

    April 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructures Update Newsletter

    Volume 17, Issue IV

    Hello and welcome to the April 2017 issue of the Server StorageIO data infrastructures update newsletter.

    Spring is here in the northern hemisphere which means that there is a lot of things going on, or about to be occurring soon. April has been a busy month for me including spending time in Europe doing some seminar and workshop presentations, along with other consulting advisory activities involving data infrastructures.

    Besides travel, I have been busy working on client projects, attending to various post-production activities for my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (more about this in the May issue). Other things I have been doing include being briefed on upcoming technology announcements along with some hands activities trying out things that will be covered in future updates, as well as working with some interesting NDA items that, well, are NDA.

    Be sure to check out the recent blog posts, as well as industry trends perspectives commentary below, along with recent and upcoming webinar among events.

    In This Issue

    Enjoy this abbreviated edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    Cheers GS

     

    Server StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

    Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

    Via SearchCloudComputing: Virtual private clouds an alternative to on-premisess computing
    Hybrid clouds continue to grow in popularity as well as deployed usage, from storage to compute to networking, said Greg Schulz, the senior advisory analyst at StorageIO in Stillwater, Minn. Most cloud and service providers talk about hybrid along with public clouds, while AWS tends to talk about [VPC aka virtual private clouds].

    Via SearchDataCenter: Ask the right questions before committing to a collocation SLA policy
    Do you just need a physical space to put things, or do you need high bandwidth and ultra-reliable power? asked Greg Schulz, senior advisory analyst at StorageIO, a consultancy in Stillwater, Minn.

    Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Tips for Enterprise SSD Form Factor Selection Deployment
    It’s doubtful that there is one form factor to rule them all. Some may be best for X but lousy for Y. But Greg Schulz, an analyst at StorageIO Group notes that many vendors attempt to champion a particular flash SSD form factor and interface, claiming it’s the best and only fit for the enterprise.

    Via SearchITOperations: Storage performance analysis reveals IT’s ongoing bottleneck
    Sometimes it takes more than an aspirin to cure a headache, said Greg Schulz

    Via SearchDNS: Parsing through the software-defined storage hype
    Beyond scalability, SDS technology aims for freedom from the limits of proprietary hardware, explained StorageIO analyst Greg Schulz.

    Via InfoStor: Data Storage Industry Braces for AI and Machine Learning
    AI could also lead to untapped hidden or unknown value in existing data that has no or little perceived value, said Greg Schulz.

    View more Server, Storage and I/O trends and perspectives comments here

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

    May 11, 2017 – Webinar – Email Archiving, Compliance and Ransomware

    May 8-10, 2017 – Dell EMCworld – Las Vegas

    April 3-7, 2017 – Seminars – Dutch workshop seminar series – Nijkerk Netherlands

    March 15, 2017 – Webinar – SNIA/BrightTalk – HyperConverged and Storage – 10AM PT

    See more webinars and activities on the Server StorageIO Events page here.

    Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

    Useful links and pages:
    Microsoft TechNet – Various Microsoft related from Azure to Docker to Windows
    storageio.com/links – Various industry links (over 1,000 with more to be added soon)
    objectstoragecenter.com – Cloud and object storage topics, tips and news items
    OpenStack.org – Various OpenStack related items
    storageio.com/protect – Various data protection items and topics
    thenvmeplace.com – Focus on NVMe trends and technologies
    thessdplace.com – NVM and Solid State Disk topics, tips and techniques
    storageio.com/converge – Various CI, HCI and related SDS topics
    storageio.com/performance – Various server, storage and I/O benchmark and tools
    VMware Technical Network – Various VMware related items

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the spring 2017 release of his new book Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials(CRC Press).

    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 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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    HPE Continues Buying Into Server Storage I/O Data Infrastructures

    Storage I/O Data Infrastructures trends
    Updated 1/16/2018

    HPE expanded its Storage I/O Data Infrastructures portfolio buying into server storage I/O data infrastructure technologies announcing an all cash (e.g. no stock) acquisition of Nimble Storage (NMBL). The cash acquisition for a little over $1B USD amounts to $12.50 USD per Nimble share, double what it had traded at. As a refresh, or overview, Nimble is an all flash shared storage system leverage NAND flash solid storage device (SSD) performance. Note that Nimble also partners with Cisco and Lenovo platforms that compete with HPE servers for converged systems.

    Earlier this year (keep in mind its only mid-March) HPE also announced acquisition of server storage Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) vendor Simplivity (about $650M USD cash). In another investment this year HPE joined other investors as part of scale out and software defined storage startups Hedvig latest funding round (more on that later). These acquisitions are in addition to smaller ones such as last years buying of SGI, not to mention various divestitures.

    Data Infrastructures

    What Are Server Storage I/O Data Infrastructures Resources

    Data Infrastructures exists to support business, cloud and information technology (IT) among other applications that transform data into information or services. The fundamental role of data infrastructures is to give a platform environment for applications and data that is resilient, flexible, scalable, agile, efficient as well as cost-effective.

    Technologies that make up data infrastructures include hardware, software, cloud or managed services, servers, storage, I/O and networking along with people, processes, policies along with various tools spanning legacy, software-defined virtual, containers and cloud.

    HPE and Server Storage Acquisitions

    HPE and its predecessor HP (e.g. before the split that resulted in HPE) was familiar with expanding its data infrastructure portfolio spanning servers, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software and services. These range from Compaq who acquired DEC which gave them the StorageWorks brand and product line up (e.g. recall EVA and its predecessors), Lefthand, 3PAR, IBRIX, Polyserve, Autonomy, EDS and others that I’m guessing some at HPE (along with customers and partners) might not want to remember.

    In addition to their own in-house including via technology acquisition, HPE also partners for its entry-level and volume low-end MSA (Modular Storage Array) series with DotHill who was acquired by Seagate a year or so ago. In addition to the MSA, other HPE OEMs for storage include Hitachi Ltd. (e.g. parent of Hitachi Data Systems aka HDS) reselling their high-end enterprise class storage system as the XP7, as well as various other partner arrangements.

    Keep in mind that HPE has a large server business from low to high-end, spanning towers to dense blades to dual, quad and cluster in box (CiB) configurations with various processor architectures. Some of these servers are used as platforms for not only HPE, also other vendors software defined storage, as well as tin wrapped software solutions, appliances and systems. HPE is also one of a handful of partners working with Microsoft to bring the software defined private (and hybrid) Azure Stack cloud stack as an appliance to market.

    HPE acquisitions Dejavu or Something New?

    For some people there may be a sense of Dejavu of what HPE and its predecessors have previously acquired, developed, sold and supported into the market over years (and decades in some cases). What will be interesting to see is how the 3PAR (StoreServ) and Lefthand based (StoreVirtual) as well as ConvergedSystem 250-HC product lines are realigned to make way for Nimble and Simplivity.

    Likewise what will HPE do with MSA at the low-end, continue to leverage it for low-end and high-volume basic storage similar to Dell with the Netapp/Engenio powered MD series? Or will HPE try to move the Nimble down market and displace the MDS? What about in the mid-market, will Nimble be unleashed to replace StoreVirtual (e.g. Lefthand), or will they fence it in (e.g. being restricted to certain scenarios?
    Will the Nimble solution be allowed to move up market into the low-end of where 3PAR has been positioned, perhaps even higher up given its all flash capabilities. Or, will there be a 3PAR everywhere approach?

    Then there is Simplivity as the solution is effectively software running on an HPE server (or with other partners Cisco and Lenovo) along with a PCIe offload card (with Simplivity data services acceleration). Note that Simplivity leverages PCIe offload cards for some of their functionality, this too is familiar ground for HPE given its ASIC use by 3PAR.

    Simplivity has the potential to disrupt some low to mid-range, perhaps even larger opportunities that are looking to go to a converged infrastructure (CI) or HCI deployment as part of their data infrastructure needs. One can speculate that Simplivity after repackaging will be positioned along current HPE CI and HCI solutions.

    This will be interesting to watch to see if the HPE server and storage groups can converge not only from a technology point, also sales, marketing, service, and support perspective. With the Simplivity solution, HPE has an opportunity to move the industry thinking or perception that HCI is only for small environments defined by what some products can do.

    What I mean by this is that HPE with its enterprise and SMB along with SME and cloud managed service provider experience as well as servers can bring hyper-scale out (and up) converged to the market. In other words, start addressing the concern I hear from larger organizations that most CI or HCI solutions (or packaging) are just for smaller environments. HPE has the servers, they have the storage from MSAs to other modules and core data infrastructure building blocks along with the robustness of the Simplivity software to enable hyper-scale out CI.

    What about bulk, object, scale-out storage

    HPE has a robust tape business, yes I know tape is dead, however tell that to the customers who keep buying products providing revenue along with margin to HPE (and others). Likewise HPE has VTLs as well as other solutions for addressing bulk data (e.g. big data, backups, protection copies, archives, high volume, and large quantity, what goes on tape or object). For example HPE has the StoreOnce solution.

    However where is the HPE object storage story?

    Otoh, does HPE its own object storage software, simply partner with others? HPE can continue to provide servers along with underlying storage for other vendors bulk, cloud and object storage systems, and where needed, meet in the channel among other arrangements.

    On the other hand, this is where similar to Polyserve and Ibrix among others in the past have come into play, with HPE via its pathfinder (investment group) joining others in putting some money into Hedvig. HPE gets access to Hedvig for their scale out storage that can be used for bulk as well as other deployments including CI, HCI and CIB (e.g. something to sell HPE servers and storage with).

    HPE can continue to partner with other software providers and software-defined storage stacks. Keep in mind that Milan Shetti (CTO, Data Center Infrastructure Group HPE) is no stranger to these waters given his past at Ibrix among others.

    What About Hedvig

    Time to get back to Hedvig which is a storage startup whose software can run on various server storage platforms, as well as in different topologies. Different topologies include in a CI or HCI, Cloud, as well as scale out with various access including block, file and object. In addition to block, file and object access, Hedvig has interesting management tools, data services, along with support for VMware, Docker, and OpenStack among others.

    Recently Hedvig landed another $21.5M USD in funding bringing their total to about $52M USD. HPE via its investment arm, joins other investors (note HPE was part of the $21.5M, that was not the amount they invested) including Vertex, Atlantic Bridge, Redpoint, edbi and true ventures.

    What does this mean for HPE and Hedvig among others? Tough to say however easy to imagine how Hedvig could be leveraged as a partner using HPE servers, as well as for HPE to have an addition to their bulk, scale-out, cloud and object storage portfolio.

    Where to Learn More

    View more material on HPE, data infrastructure and related topics with the following links.

  • Cloud and Object storage are in your future, what are some questions?
  • PCIe Server Storage I/O Network Fundamentals
  • If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?
  • Fixing the Microsoft Windows 10 1709 post upgrade restart loop
  • Data Infrastructure server storage I/O network Recommended Reading
  • Introducing Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL Overview
  • IT transformation Serverless Life Beyond DevOps with New York Times CTO Nick Rockwell Podcast
  • HPE Announces AMD Powered Gen 10 ProLiant DL385 For Software Defined Workloads
  • AWS Announces New S3 Cloud Storage Security Encryption Features
  • NVM Non Volatile Memory Express NVMe Place
  • Data Infrastructure Primer and Overview (Its Whats Inside The Data Center)
  • January 2017 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter
  • September and October 2016 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter
  • HP Buys one of the seven networking dwarfs and gets a bargain
  • Did HP respond to EMC and Cisco VCE with Microsoft Hyper-V bundle?
  • Give HP storage some love and short strokin
  • While HP and Dell make counter bids, exclusive interview with 3PAR CEO David Scott
  • Data Protection Fundamental Topics Tools Techniques Technologies Tips
  • Hewlett-Packard beats Dell, pays $2.35 billion for 3PAR
  • HP Moonshot 1500 software defined capable compute servers
  • What Does Converged (CI) and Hyper converged (HCI) Mean to Storage I/O?
  • What’s a data infrastructure?
  • Ensure your data infrastructure remains available and resilient
  • Object Storage Center, The SSD place and The NVMe place

    • 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

    Generally speaking I think this is a good series of moves for HPE (and their customers) as long as they can execute in all dimensions.

    Let’s see how they execute, and by this, I mean more than simply executing or terminating staff from recently acquired or earlier acquisitions. How will HPE craft go to the market message that leverages the portfolio to compete and hold or take share from other vendors, vs. cannibalize across its own lines (e.g. revenue prevention)? With that strategy and message, how will HPE assure existing customers will be taken care, be given a definite upgrade and migration path vs. giving them a reason to go elsewhere.

    Hopefully HPE unleashes the full potential of Simplivity and Nimble along with 3PAR, XP7 where needed, along with MSA at low-end (or as part of volume scale-out with servers for software defined), to mention sever portfolio. For now, this tells me that HPE is still interested in maintaining, expanding their data infrastructure business vs. simply retrenching selling off assets. Thus this looks like HPE is interested in continuing to invest in data infrastructure technologies including buying into server, storage I/O network, hardware, software solutions, while not simply clinging to what they already have, or previously bought.

    Everything is not the same in data centers and across data infrastructure, so why have a one size fits all approach for organization as large, diverse as HPE.

    Congratulations and best wishes to the folks at Hedvig, Nimble, Simplivity.

    Now, lets see how this all plays out.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

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    VMware Cisco EMC VCE Zen and now server storage I/O convergence

    Storage I/O trends

    VMware Cisco EMC VCE Zen and now server storage I/O convergence

    In case you have not heard, the joint initiative (JV) founded in the fall of 2009 between Intel VMware Cisco and EMC called VCE had a change of ownership today.

    Well, kind of…

    Who is VCE and what’s this Zen stuff?

    For those not familiar or who need a recap, VCE was created to create converged server, storage I/O networking hardware and software solutions combing technologies from its investors resulting in solutions called vBlocks.

    The major investors were Cisco who provides the converged servers and I/O networking along with associated management tools as well as EMC who provides the storage systems along with their associated management tools. Minority investors include VMware (who is majority owned by EMC) who provides the server virtualization aka software defined data center management tools and Intel whose’s processor chip technologies are used in the vBlocks. What has changed from Zen (e.g. yesterday or in the past) and now is that Cisco has sold the majority (they are retaining about 10%) of its investment ownership in VCE to EMC. Learn more about VCE, their solutions and valueware in this post here (VCE revisited, now and Zen).

    Activist activating activity?

    EMC pulling VCE in-house which should prop up its own internal sales figures by perhaps a few billion USDs within a year or so (if not sooner) is not as appealing to activists investors who want results now such as selling off parts of the company (e.g. EMC, VMware or other assets) or the entire company.

    However EMC has been under pressure from activist shareholder Elliot Management to divest or sell-off portions of this business such as VMware so that the investors (including the activist) can make more money. For example there have been the recent stories about EMC looking to sell or merge with the likes of HP (who is now buying back shares and splitting up its own business) among others which certainly must make the activist investors happy.

    However to the activist investors who want to see things sold to make money they are not happy with EMC off buying or investing it appears.

    Via Bloomberg

    “The last thing on investors’ minds is the future of VCE,” Daniel Ives, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, wrote in a note today. “EMC has a fire in its house right now and the company appears focused on painting its bedroom (e.g. VCE), while the Street wants a resolution on the strategic ownership situation sooner rather than later.”

    Read more at Bloomberg

    Whats this EMC Federation stuff?

    Note that EMC has organized itself into a federation that consists of EMC Information Infrastructure (EMCII) or what you might know a traditional EMC based storage and related software solutions, VMware, Pivotal and RSA. Also note that each of those federated companies have their own CEO as well as have holdings or ownership of other companies. However all report to a common federated leadership aka EMC. Thus when you hear EMC that could mean depending on the context the federation mother ship which controls the individual companies, or it could also be used to refer to EMCII aka the traditional EMC. Click here to learn more about the EMC federation.

    Converging Markets and Opportunities

    Looking beyond near-term or quick gains, EMC could be simply doing something others do to take ownership and control over certain things while reducing complexities associated with joint initiatives. For example with EMC and Cisco in a close partnership with VCE, both parties have been free to explore and take part in other joint initiatives such as Cisco with EMC competitors NetApp, HDS among others. Otoh EMC partners with Arista for networking, not to mention via VMware acquired virtual network or software defined network Nicira now called NSX.

    server and storage I/O road map to convergence

    EMC is also in a partnership with Lenovo for developing servers to be used by EMC for various platforms to support storage, data and information services while shifting the lower-end SMB storage offerings such as Iomega to the Lenovo channel.

    Note that Lenovo is in the process of absorbing the IBM xSeries (e.g. x86 based) business unit that started closing earlier in October (will take several months to completely close in all countries around the world). For its part Cisco is also partnering with hyper-converged solution provider Simplivity while EMC has announced its statement of direction to bring to market its own hyper-converged platform by end of the year. For those not familiar, Hyper-converged solutions are simply the next evolution of converged or pre-bundled turnkey systems (some of you might have just had a Dejavu moment) that today tend to be targeted for SMBs and ROBOs however used for targeted applications such as VDI in larger environments.

    Storage I/O trends

    What does this have to do with VCE?

    IF EMC is about to release as it has made statement of direction statements of a hyper-converged solution by year-end to compete head-on with those from Nutanix, Simplivity and Tintri as well as perhaps to a lesser extent VMwares EVO:Rail, by having more control over VCE means reducing if not eliminating complexity around vBlocks which are Cisco based with EMC storage vs. what ever EMC brings to market for hyper-converged. In the past under the VCE initiatives storage was limited to EMC and servers along with networking from Cisco, hypervisors from VMware, however what happens in the future remains to be seen.

    Does this mean EMC is moving even more into servers than just virtual servers?

    Tough to say as EMC can not afford to have its sales force lose focus on its traditional core products while ramping up other business, however, the EMC direct and partner teams want and need to keep up account control which means gaining market share and footprint in those accounts. This also means EMC needs to find ways to take cost out of the sales and marketing process where possible to streamline which perhaps brining VCE will help do.

    Will this perhaps give the EMC direct and partner sales teams a new carrot or incentive to promote converged and hyper-converged at the cost of other competitors or incumbents? Perhaps, lets see what happens in the coming weeks.

    What does this all mean?

    In a nut shell, IMHO EMC is doing a couple of things here one of which is cleaning up some ownership in JVs to give it self more control, as well as options for doing other business transactions (mergers and acquisitions (M&A), sales or divestiture’s, new joint initiatives, etc). Then there is streamline its business from decision-making to quickly respond to new opportunities as well as routes to markets and other activities (e.g. removing complexity and cost vs. simply cutting cost).

    Does this signal the prelude to something else? Perhaps, we know that EMC has made a statement of direction about hyper-converged which with VCE now more under EMC control, perhaps we will see more options from under the VCE umbrella both for lower-end and entry SMB as well as SME and large enterprise organizations.

    What about the activist investors?

    They are going to make noise as long as they can continue to make more money or get what they want. Publicly I would be shocked if the activist investors were not making statements that EMC should be selling assets not buying or investing.

    On the other hand, any smart investor,  financial or other analyst should see though the fog of what this relatively simple transaction means in terms of EMC getting further control of its future.

    Of course the question will stay does EMC remain in control of its current federation of EMC, VMware, Pivotal, RSA along each of their respective holdings, does EMC doe a block buster merger, divestiture or acquisition?

    server and storage I/O road ahead

    Take a step back, look at the big picture!

    Some things to keep an eye on:

    • Will this move help streamline decision-making enabling new solutions to be brought to market and customers quicker?
    • While there is a VMware focus, don’t forget about the long-running decades old relationship with Microsoft and how that plays into the equation
    • Watch for what EMC releases with their hyper-converged solution as well as where it is focused, not to mention how sold
    • Also watch the EMC and Lenovo join initiative, both for the Iomega storage activity as well as what EMC and Lenovo do with and for servers
    • Speaking of Lenovo, unless I missed something as of the time of writing this, have you noticed that Lenovo is not yet part of the VMware EVO:Rail initiative?

    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

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    Server Storage I/O Network Benchmark Winter Olympic Games

    Storage I/O trends

    Server Storage I/O Network Benchmark Winter Olympic Games

    It is time for the 2014 Winter Olympic games in Sochi Russia where competitors including some athletes come together in what has become a mix of sporting and entertainment engaging activities.

    Games of inches and seconds, performance and skill

    Some of these activities including real Olympic game events are heavier on sports appeal, some with artistic and others pure entertainment with a mix of beauty, braun and maybe even a beast or two. Then there are those events that have been around since the last ice age, while others being post global warming era.

    Hence some have been around longer than others showing a mix of old, new in terms of the sports, athletes not to mention technology and their outfits.

    I mean how about some of the new snow boarding and things on skis being done, can you image if they brought in as a new "X" sport roller derby on the short speed skating track sponsored by Red Bull or Bud light? Wait, that sounds like the Red Bull Crashed Ice event (check this out if not familiar with) think motto cross, hockey, down hill on ice. How about getting some of the south African long distance sprinters to learn how to speed skate, talk about moving some gold metal as in medals back to the african continent! On the other hand, the current powers to be would lodge protest, change the benchmark or rules to stay in power, hmm, sound familiar with IT?

    Ok, enough of the fun stuff (for now), let’s get back on track here (catch that pun?).

    Metrics that matter, winners and losers

    Since these are the Olympics, lets also remember that there still awards for personal and team winners (along with second and third place), after all, if all Olympians were winners, there would be no losers and if no losers, how could there be a winner?

    Who or what decides the winners vs. losers involves metrics that matter, something that also applies to servers, storage I/O networking hardware, software and services.

    In the case of the Olympics, some of the sports or events are based on speed or how fast (e.g. time) something is done, or how much is accumulated or done in that amount of time while in other events the metrics that matter may be more of a mystery based on judging that maybe subjective.

    The technologies to record times, scores, movements and other things that go into scoring have certainly improved, as have the ability for fans to engage and vote their choice, or opposition via social media venues from twitter to face book among others.

    What about server storage I/O networking benchmarks

    There could easily be an Information Technology (IT) or data infrastructure benchmarking Olympics with events such as faster server (physical, virtual or cloud, personal or consortium team), storage, I/O and networking across hardware, software or services. Of course there would be different approaches favored by the various teams with disputes, protests and other things sometimes seen during Olympic games. One of the challenges however is what would be the metrics that matter particularly to the various marketing groups of each organization or their joint consortium?

    Just like with sports, which of the various industry trade groups or consortiums would be the ruling party or voice for a particular event specifying the competition criteria, scoring and other things. What happens when there is a break away group that launches their own competing approach yet when it comes time for the IT benchmarking Olympics, which of the various bodies does the Olympic committee defer to? In case you are not familiar with in sports there are various groups and sub-groups who can decide the participants for various supports perhaps independent of an overall group, sound like IT?

    Storage I/O trends

    Let the games begin

    So then the fun starts, however which of the events are relevant to your needs or interest, sure some are fun or entertaining while others are not practical. Some you can do yourself, while others are just fun to watch, both the thrill of victory and agony of defeat.

    This is similar to IT industry benchmarking and specmanship competitions, some of which is more relevant than others, then there are those that are entertaining.

    Likewise some benchmarks or workload claims can be reproduced to confirm the results or claims, while others remain more like the results of figure skating judges.

    Hence some of the benchmark games are more entertaining, however for those who are not aware or informed, they may turn out to be more misinformation or lead to poor decision-making.

    Consequently benchmarks and metrics that matter are those that most closely aging with what your environment is or will be doing.

    If your environment is going to be running a particularly simulation or script, than so be it, otoh, look for comparisons that are reflective.

    On the other hand, if you can’t find something that is applicable, then look at tools and results that have meaning along with relevance, not to mention that provide clarity and repeatable. Being repeatable means that you can get access to the tools, scripts or scenario (preferably free) to run in your own environment.

    There is a long list of benchmarks and workload simulation tools, as well as traces available, some for free, some for fee that apply to components, subsystems or complete application systems from server, storage I/O networking applications and hardware. These include those for Email such as Microsoft Exchange related, SQL databases, , LoginVSI for VDI, VMmark for VMware, Hadoop and HDFS related for big data among many others (see more here).

    Apples to Apples vs. Apple pie vs. Orange Jello

    Something else that matters are apples to apples vs. apples to oranges or worse, apple pie to orange Jello.

    This means knowing or gaining insight into the pieces as we as how they behave under different conditions as well as the entire system for a baseline (e.g normal) vs. abnormal.

    Hence its winter server storage I/O networking benchmark games with the first event having been earlier this week with team Brocade taking on Cisco. Here is a link to a post by Tony Bourke (@tbourke) that provides some interesting perspectives and interactions, along with a link here to the Brocade sponsored report done by Evaluator Group.

    In this match-up, Team Brocade (with HP servers, Brocade switches and an unnamed 16GFC SSD storage system) take on Team Cisco and their UCS (also an un-named 16GFC SSD system that I wonder if Cisco even knows whose’s it was?). Ironic that it was almost six years to the date that there was a similar winter benchmark wonder event when NetApp submitted an SPC result for EMC (read more about that cold day here).

    The Brocade FC (using HP servers and somebody’s SSD storage) vs. Cisco FCoE using UCS (and somebody else’s storage) comparison is actually quite entertaining, granted it can also be educational on what to do or not do, focus on or include among others things. The report also raises many questions that seem more wondering why somebody won in an ice figuring skating event vs. the winner of a men’s or women’s hockey game.

    Closing thoughts (for now)

    So here’s my last point and perspective, let’s have a side of context with them IOPs, TPS, bandwidth and other metrics that matter.

    Take metrics and benchmarks with a grain of salt however look for transparency in both how they are produced, information provided and most important, does it matter or is it relevant to your environment or simply entertaining.

    Lets see what the next event in the ongoing server storage I/O networking benchmark 2014 winter Olympic games will be.

    Some more reading:
    SPC and Storage Benchmarking Games
    Moving Beyond the Benchmark Brouhaha
    More storage and IO metrics that matter
    Its US Census time, What about IT Data Centers?
    March Metrics and Measuring Social Media (keep in mind that March Madness is just around the corner)
    PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?

    How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do?
    Part II: How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do with VMware?

    You can also take part in the on-going or re-emerging FC vs. FCoE hype and fud events by casting your vote here and see results below.

    Note the following poll is from a previous StorageIOblog post (Where has the FCoE hype and FUD gone? (with poll)).

    Disclosure: I used to work for Evaluator Group after working for a company called Inrange that competed with, then got absorbed (via CNT and McData) into Brocade who has been a client as has Cisco. I also do performance and functionality testing, audits, validation and proof of concepts services in my own as well as in client labs using various industry standard available tools and techniques. Otoh, not sure that I even need to disclose anything however its easy enough to do so why not ;).

    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

    Posted on

    Cisco buys Whiptail continuing the SSD storage I/O flash cash cache dash

    Storage I/O trends

    Cisco buys Whiptail continuing the Storage storage I/O flash cash cache dash

    Congratulations to Virident for being bought today for $645 Million USD by Western Digital (WD). Virident a nand flash PCIe card startup vendor has been around for several years and in the last year or two has gain more industry awareness as a competitor to FusionIO among others.

    There is a nand flash solid state devices (SSD) cash-dash occurring, not to mention fast cache dances that is occurring the IT and data infrastructure (e.g. storage and IO) sector specifically.

    Why the nand flash SSD cash dash and cache dance?

    Yesterday hard disk drive (HDD) vendor Western Digital (WD) bought Virident a nand flash PCIe Solid State Device (SSD) card vendor for $650M, and today networking and server vendor Cisco bought Whiptail a SSD based storage system startup for a little over $400M. Here is an industry trends perspective post that I did yesterday on WD and Virident.

    Obviously this begs a couple of questions, some of which I raised in my post yesterday about WD, Virident, Seagate, FusionIO and others.

    Questions include

    Does this mean Cisco is getting ready to take on EMC, NetApp, HDS and its other storage partners who leverage the Cisco UCS server?

    IMHO at least near term no more than they have in the past, nor any more than EMCs partnership with Lenovo indicates a shift in what is done with vBlocks. On the other hand, some partners or customers may be as nervous as a long-tailed cat next to a rocking chair (Google it if you don’t know what it means ;).

    Is Cisco going to continue to offer Whiptail SSD storage solutions on a standalone basis, or pull them in as part of solutions similar to what it has done on other acquisitions?

    Storage I/O trends

    IMHO this is one of the most fundamental questions and despite the press release and statements about this being a UCS focus, a clear sign of proof for Cisco is how they reign in (if they go that route) Whiptail from being sold as a general storage solution (with SSD) as opposed to being part of a solution bundle.

    How will Cisco manage its relationship in a coopitition manner cooperating with the likes of EMC in the joint VCE initiative along with FlexPod partner NetApp among others? Again time will tell.

    Also while most of the discussions about NetApp have been around the UCS based FlexPod business, there is the other side of the discussion which is what about NetApp E Series storage including the SSD based EF540 that competes with Whiptail (among others).

    Many people may not realize how much DAS storage including fast SAS, high-capacity SAS and SATA or PCIe SSD cards Cisco sells as part of UCS solutions that are not vBlock, FlexPod or other partner systems.

    NetApp and Cisco have partnerships that go beyond the FlexPod (UCS and ONTAP based FAS) so will be interesting to see what happens in that space (if anything). This is where Cisco and their UCS acquiring Whiptail is not that different from IBM buying TMS to complement their servers (and storage) while also partnering with other suppliers, same holds true for server vendors Dell, HP, IBM and Oracle among others.

    Can Cisco articulate and convince their partners, customers, prospects and others that the whiptail acquisition is more about direct attached storage
    (DAS) which includes both internal dedicated and external shared device?

    Keep in mind that DAS does not have to mean Dumb A$$ Storage as some might have you believe.

    Then there are the more popular questions of who is going to get bought next, what will NetApp, Dell, Seagate, Huawei and a few others do?

    Oh, btw, funny how have not seen any of the pubs mention that Whiptail CEO Dan Crain is a former Brocadian (e.g. former Brocade CTO) who happens to be a Cisco competitor, just saying.

    Congratulations to Dan and his crew and enjoy life at Cisco.

    Stay tuned as the fall 2013 nand flash SSD cache dash and cash dance activities are well underway.

    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

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    Where has the FCoE hype and FUD gone? (with poll)

    Storage I/O cloud virtual and big data perspectives

    A couple of years ago I did this post about if Is FCoE Struggling to Gain Traction, or on a normal adoption course?

    Fast forward to today, has anybody else noticed that there seems to be less hype and fud on Fibre Channel (FC) over Ethernet (FCoE) than a year or two or three ago?

    Does this mean that FCoE as the fud or detractors were predicting is in fact stillborn with no adoption, no deployment and dead on arrival?

    Does this mean that FCoE as its proponents have said is still maturing, quietly finding adoption and deployment where it fits?

    Does this mean that FCoE like its predecessors Fibre Channel and Ethernet are still evolving, expanding from early adopter to a mature technology?

    Does this mean that FCoE is simply forgotten with software defined networking (SDN) having over-shadowed it?

    Does this mean that FCoE has finally lost out and that iSCSI has finally stepped up and living up to what it was hyped to do ten years ago?

    Does this mean that FC itself at either 8GFC or 16GFC is holding its own for now?

    Does this mean that InfiniBand is on the rebound?

    Does this mean that FCoE is simply not fun or interesting, or a shiny new technology with vendors not spending marketing money so thus people not talking, tweeting or blogging?

    Does this mean that those who were either proponents pitching it or detractors despising it have found other things to talk about from SDN to OpenFlow to IOV to Software Defined Storage (what ever, or who ever definition your subscribe to) to cloud, big or little data and the list goes on?

    I continue hear of or talk with customers organizations deploying FCoE in addition to iSCSI, FC, NAS and other means of accessing storage for cloud, virtual and physical environments.

    Likewise I see some vendor discussions occurring not to mention what gets picked up via google alerts.

    However in general, the rhetoric both pro and against, hype and FUD seems to have subsided, or at least for now.

    So what gives, what’s your take on FCoE hype and FUD?

    Cast your vote and see results here.

     

    Ok, nuff said

    Cheers gs

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

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

    Posted on

    VCE revisited, now & zen

    StorageIO Industry trends and perspectives image

    Yesterday VCE and their proud parents announced revenues had reached an annual run rate of a billion dollars. Today VCE announced some new products along with enhancements to others.

    Before going forward though, lets take go back for a moment to help set the stage to see where things might be going in the future. A little over a three years ago, back in November 2009 VCE was born and initially named ACADIA by its proud parents (Cisco, EMC, Intel and VMware). Here is a post that I did back then.

    Btw the reference to Zen might cause some to think that I don’t how to properly refer to the Xen hypervisor. It is really a play from Robert Plants album Now & Zen and its song Tall Cool One. For those not familiar, click on the link and listen (some will have DejaVu, others might think its new and cool) as it takes a look back as well as present, similar to VCE.

    Robert plant now & zen vs. Xen hypervisor

    On the other hand, this might prompt the question of when will Xen be available on a Vblock? For that I defer you to VCE CTO Trey Layton (@treylayton).

    VCE stands for Virtual Computing Environment and was launched as a joint initiative including products and a company (since renamed from Acadia to VCE) to bring all the pieces together. As a company, VCE is based in Plano (Richardson) Texas just north of downtown Dallas and down the road from EDS or what is now left of it after the HP acquisition  The primary product of VCE has been the Vblock. The Vblock is a converged solution comprising components from their parents such as VMware virtualization and management software tools, Cisco servers, EMC storage and software tools and Intel processors.

    Not surprisingly there are many ex-EDS personal at VCE along with some Cisco, EMC, VMware and many other people from other organizations in Plano as well as other cites. Also interesting to note that unlike other youngsters that grow up and stay in touch with their parents via technology or social media tools, VCE is also more than a few miles (try hundreds to thousands) from the proud parent headquarters on the San Jose California and Boston areas.

    As part of a momentum update, VCE and their parents (Cisco, EMC, VMware and Intel) announced annual revenue run rate of a billion dollars in just three years. In addition the proud parents and VCE announced that they have over 1,000 revenue shipped and installed Vblock systems (also here) based on Cisco compute servers, and EMC storage solutions.

    The VCE announcement consists of:

    • SAP HANA database application optimized Vblocks (two modes, 4 node and 8 node)
    • VCE Vision management tools and middleware or what I have refered to as Valueware
    • Entry level Vblock (100 and 200) with Cisco C servers and EMC (VNXe and VNX) storage
    • Performance and functionality enhancements to existing Vblock models 300 and 700
    • Statement of direction for more specialized Vblocks besides SAP HANA


    Images courtesy with permission of VCE.com

    While VCE is known for their Vblock converged, stack, integrated, data center in a box, private cloud or among other descriptors, there is more to the story. VCE is addressing convergence of common IT building blocks for cloud, virtual, and traditional physical environments. Common core building blocks include servers (compute or processors), networking (IO and connectivity), storage, hardware, software, management tools along with people, processes, metrics, policies and protocols.

    Storage I/O image of cloud and virtual IT building blocks

    I like the visual image that VCE is using (see below) as it aligns with and has themes common to what I have discussing in the past.


    Images courtesy with permission of VCE.com

    VCE Vision is software with APIs that collects information about Vblock hardware and software components to give insight to other tools and management frameworks. For example VMware vCenter plug-in and vCenter Operations Manager Adapter which should not be a surprise. Customers will also be able to write to the Vision API to meet their custom needs. Let us watch and see what VCE does to add support for other software and management tools, along with gain support from others.


    Images courtesy with permission of VCE.com

    Vision is more than just an information source feed for VMware vCenter or VASA or tools and frameworks from others. Vision is software developed by VCE that will enable insight and awareness into the Vblock and applications, however also confirm and give status of physical and logical component configuration. This means the basis for setting up automated or programmatic remediation such as determining what software or firmware to update based on different guidelines.


    Images courtesy with permission of VCE.com

    Initially VCE Vision provides (information) inventory and perspective of how those components are in compliance with firmware or software releases, so stay tuned. VCE is indicating that Vision will continue to evolve after all this is the V1.0 release with future enhancements targeted towards taking action, controlling or active management.

    StorageIO Industry trends and perspectives image

    Some trends, thoughts and perspectives

    The industry adoption buzz is around software defined X where X can be data center (SDDC), or storage (SDS) or networking (SDN), or marketing (SDM) or other things. The hype and noise around software defined which in the case of some technologies is good. On the marketing hype side, this has led to some Software Defined BS (SDBS).

    Thus, it was refreshing at least in the briefing session I was involved in to hear a minimum focus around software defined and more around customer and IT business enablement with technology that is shipping today.

    VCE Vision is a good example of adding value hence what I refer to as Valueware around converged components. For those vendors who have similar solutions, I urge them to streamline, simplify and more clearly articulate their value proposition if they have valueware.

    Vendors including VCE continue to evolve their platform based converged solutions by adding more valueware, management tools, interfaces, APIs, interoperability and support for more applications. The support for applications is also moving beyond simple line item ordering or part number skews to ease acquisition and purchasing. Some solutions include VCE Vblock, NetApp FlexPod that also uses Cisco compute servers, IBM PureSystems (PureFlex etc) and Dell vStart among others are extending their support and optimization for various software solutions. These software solutions range from SAP (including HANA), Microsoft (Exchange, SQLserver, Sharepoint), Citrix desktop (VDI), Oracle, OpenStack, Hadoop map reduce along with other little-data, big-data and big-bandwidth applications to name a few.

    Additional and related reading:
    Acadia VCE: VMware + Cisco + EMC = Virtual Computing Environment
    Cloud conversations: Public, Private, Hybrid what about Community Clouds?
    Cloud, virtualization, Storage I/O trends for 2013 and beyond
    Convergence: People, Processes, Policies and Products
    Hard product vs. soft product
    Hardware, Software, what about Valueware?
    Industry adoption vs. industry deployment, is there a difference?
    Many faces of storage hypervisor, virtual storage or storage virtualization
    The Human Face of Big Data, a Book Review
    Why VASA is important to have in your VMware CASA

    Congratulations to VCE, along with their proud parents, family, friends and partners, now how long will it take to reach your next billion dollars in annual run rate revenue. Hopefully it wont be three years until the next VCE revisited now and Zen ;).

    Disclosure: EMC and Cisco have been StorageIO clients, I am a VMware vExpert that gets me a free beer after I pay for VMworld and Intel has named two of my books listed on their Recommended Reading List for Developers.

    Ok, nuff said, time to head off to vBeers over in Minneapolis.

    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 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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    The Human Face of Big Data, a Book Review

    The Human Face of Big Data, a Book Review

    My copy of the new book The Human Face of Big Data created by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt arrived yesterday compliments of EMC (the lead sponsor). In addition to EMC, the other sponsors of the book are Cisco, VMware, FedEx, Originate and Tableau software.

    To say this is a big book would be an understatement, then again, big data is a big topic with a lot of diversity if you open your eyes and think in a pragmatic way, which once you open and see the pages you will see. This is physically a big book (11x 14 inches) with lots of pictures, texts, stories, factoids and thought stimulating information of the many facets and dimensions of big data across 224 pages.

    While Big Data as a buzzword and industry topic theme might be new, along with some of the related technologies, techniques and focus areas, other as aspects have been around for some time. Big data means many things to various people depending on their focus or areas of interest ranging from analytics to images, videos and other big files. A common theme is the fact that there is no such thing as an information or data recession, and that people and data are living longer, getting larger, and we are all addicted to information for various reasons.

    Big data needs to be protected and preserved as it has value, or its value can increase over time as new ways to leverage it are discovered which also leads to changing data access and life cycle patterns. With many faces, facets and areas of interests applying to various spheres of influence, big data is not limited to programmatic, scientific, analytical or research, yet there are many current and use cases in those areas.

    Big data is not limited to videos for security surveillance, entertainment, telemetry, audio, social media, energy exploration, geosciences, seismic, forecasting or simulation, yet those have been areas of focus for years. Some big data files or objects are millions of bytes (MBytes), billion of bytes (GBytes) or trillion of bytes (TBytes) in size that when put into file systems or object repositories, add up to Exabytes (EB – 1000 TBytes) or Zettabytes (ZB – 1000 EBs). Now if you think those numbers are far-fetched, simply look back to when you thought a TByte, GByte let alone a MByte was big or far-fetched future. Remember, there is no such thing as a data or information recession, people and data are living longer and getting larger.

    Big data is more than hadoop, map reduce, SAS or other programmatic and analytical focused tool, solution or platform, yet those all have been and will be significant focus areas in the future. This also means big data is more than data warehouse, data mart, data mining, social media and event or activity log processing which also are main parts have continued roles going forward. Just as there are large MByte, GByte or TByte sized files or objects, there are also millions and billions of smaller files, objects or pieces of information that are part of the big data universe.

    You can take a narrow, product, platform, tool, process, approach, application, sphere of influence or domain of interest view towards big data, or a pragmatic view of the various faces and facets. Of course you can also spin everything that is not little-data to be big data and that is where some of the BS about big data comes from. Big data is not exclusive to the data scientist, researchers, academia, governments or analysts, yet there are areas of focus where those are important. What this means is that there are other areas of big data that do not need a data science, computer science, mathematical, statistician, Doctoral Phd or other advanced degree or training, in other words big data is for everybody.

    Cover image of Human Face of Big Data Book

    Back to how big this book is in both physical size, as well as rich content. Note the size of The Human Face of Big Data book in the adjacent image that for comparison purposes has a copy of my last book Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC), along with a 2.5 inch hard disk drive (HDD) and a growler. The Growler is from Lift Bridge Brewery (Stillwater, MN), after all, reading a big book about big data can create the need for a big beer to address a big thirst for information ;).

    The Human Face of Big Data is more than a coffee table or picture book as it is full of with information, factoids and perspectives how information and data surround us every day. Check out the image below and note the 2.5 inch HDD sitting on the top right hand corner of the page above the text. Open up a copy of The Human Face of Big Data and you will see examples of how data and information are all around us, and our dependence upon it.

    A look inside the book The Humand Face of Big Data image

    Book Details:
    Copyright 2012
    Against All Odds Productions
    ISBN 978-1-4549-0827-2
    Hardcover 224 pages, 11 x 0.9 x 14 inches
    4.8 pounds, English

    There is also an applet to view related videos and images found in the book at HumanFaceofBigData.com/viewer in addition to other material on the companion site www.HumanFacesofBigData.com.

    Get your copy of
    The Human Face of Big Data at Amazon.com by clicking here or at other venues including by clicking on the following image (Amazon.com).

    Some added and related material:
    Little data, big data and very big data (VBD) or big BS?
    How many degrees separate you and your information?
    Hardware, Software, what about Valueware?
    Changing Lifecycles and Data Footprint Reduction (Data doesnt have to lose value over time)
    Garbage data in, garbage information out, big data or big garbage?
    Industry adoption vs. industry deployment, is there a difference?
    Is There a Data and I/O Activity Recession?
    Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
    Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
    No Such Thing as an Information Recession

    For those who can see big data in a broad and pragmatic way, perhaps using the visualization aspect this book brings forth the idea that there are and will be many opportunities. Then again for those who have a narrow or specific view of what is or is not big data, there is so much of it around and various types along with focus areas you too will see some benefits.

    Do you want to play in or be part of a big data puddle, pond, or lake, or sail and explore the oceans of big data and all the different aspects found in, under and around those bigger broader bodies of water.

    Bottom line, this is a great book and read regardless of if you are involved with data and information related topics or themes, the format and design lend itself to any audience. Broaden your horizons, open your eyes, ears and thinking to the many facets and faces of big data that are all around us by getting your copy of The Human Face of Big Data (Click here to go to Amazon for your copy) book.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

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

    twitter @storageio

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

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

    StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

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

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

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

    Buzz word bingo

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

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

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

    Image of media, news papers

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

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

    Oracle Exadata

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

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

    StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

    Here are some other things to think about:

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

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

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

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

    Oracle has done earlier virtualization related acquisitions including Virtual Iron.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

    What’s my take?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

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

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

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

    Additional related links:
    Data Center I/O Bottlenecks Performance Issues and Impacts
    I/O, I/O, Its off to Virtual Work and VMworld I Go (or went)
    I/O Virtualization (IOV) Revisited
    Industry Trends and Perspectives: Converged Networking and IO Virtualization (IOV)
    The function of XaaS(X) Pick a letter
    What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do
    Why FC and FCoE vendors get beat up over bandwidth?

    StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

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

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

    Cheers Gs

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

    twitter @storageio

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

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    Part IV: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue

    This is the fourth in a five-part series around the recent IBM PureSystems announcements. You can view the earlier post here, and the next post here.

    So what does this mean for IBM Business Partners (BPs) and ISVs?
    What could very well differentiate IBM PureSystems from those of other competitors is to take what their partner NetApp has done with FlexPods combing third-party applications from Microsoft and SAP among others and take it to the next level. Similar to what helped make EMC Centera a success (or at least sell a lot of them) was inclusion and leveraging third-party ISVs and BPs  to add value. Compared to other vendors with object based or content accessible storage (CAS) or online archive platforms that focused on the technology feature, function speeds and feeds, EMC realized the key was getting ISVs to support so that BPs and their own direct sales force could sell the solution.

    With PureSystems, IBM is revisiting what they have done in the past which if offer bundled solutions providing incentives for ISVs to support and BPs to sell the IBM brand solution. EMC took an early step with including VMware with their Vblock combing server, storage, networking and software with NetApp taking the next step adding SAP, Microsoft and other applications. Dell, HP, Oracle and others are following suit so it only makes sense that IBM returns to its roots leveraging its DNA to reach out and get their ISVs who are now, have been in the past, or are new opportunities to be on board.

    IBM is throwing its resources including their innovation centers for training around the world where business partners can get the knowledge and technical support they need. In other words, workshops or seminars on how to sell deploy and setting up of these systems, application and customer testing or proof of concepts and things one would expect out of IBM for such an initiative. In addition to technology and sales training along with marketing support, IBM is making their financing capabilities available to help customers as well as offer incentives to their business partners to simplify acquisitions.

    So what buzzword bingo topics and themes did IBM address with this announcement:
    IBM did a fantastic job in terms of knocking the ball out of the park with this announcement pertaining buzzword bingo and deserves an atta boy or atta girl!

    So what about how this will affect sales of Bladecenters  or other systems?
    If all IBM and their BPs do are, encroach on existing systems sales to circle the wagons and protect the installed base, which would be one thing. However if IBM and their BPs can use the new packaging and model approach to reestablish customers and partnerships, or open and expand into new adjacent markets, then the net differences should be more Bladecenters (excuse me, PureFlex) being sold.

    So what will this cost?
    IBM is citing entry PureSystems Express models starting at around $100,000 USD for base systems with others starting at around $200,000 and $300,000 expandable into larger configurations and budgets. Note that like airlines that advertise a low airfare and then you get to pay extra for peanuts, drinks, extra bag space, changes to reservations and so forth, look at these and related systems not just for the first starting price, also for expansion costs over different time periods. Contact IBM, your BP or ISV to find out what one of these systems will do for and cost you.

    So what about VARs and IBM business partners (BPs)?
    This could be a boon for those BPs and ISVs  that had previously sold their software solutions bundled with IBM hardware platforms who were being challenged by other converged solution stacks or were being forced to unbundled. This will also allow those business partners to compete on par with other converged solutions or continue selling the pieces of what they are familiar with however under a new umbrellas. Of course, pricing will be a focus and concern for some who will want to see what added value exists vs. acquiring the various components. This also means that IBM will have to make incentives available for their partners to make a living while also allowing their customers to afford solutions and maximize their return on innovation (the new ROI) and enablement.

    Click here to view the next post in this series, ok nuff said for now.

    Here are some links to learn more:
    Various IBM Redbooks and related content
    The blame game: Does cloud storage result in data loss?
    What do you need when its time to buy a new server?
    2012 industry trends perspectives and commentary (predictions)
    Convergence: People, Processes, Policies and Products
    Buzzword Bingo and Acronym Update V2.011
    The function of XaaS(X) Pick a letter
    Hard product vs. soft product
    Buzzword Bingo and Acronym Update V2.011
    Part I: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part II: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part III: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part IV: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part V: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking

    Cheers
    Gs

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

    twitter @storageio

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

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    Part V: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue

    This is the fifth in a five-part series around the recent IBM PureSystems announcements. You can view the earlier post here.

    So what about vendor or technology lock in?
    So who is responsible for vendor or technology lock in? When I was working in IT organizations, (e.g. what vendors call the customer) the thinking was vendors are responsible for lock in. Later when I worked for different vendors (manufactures and VARs) the thinking was lock in is what was caused by the competition. More recently I’m of the mind set that vendor lock in is a shared responsibility issue and topic. I’m sure some marketing wiz or sales type will be happy to explain the subtle differences of how their solution does not cause lock in.

    Vendor lock in can be a shared responsibility. Generally speaking, lock in, stickiness and account control are essentially the same, or at least strive to get similar results. For example, vendor lock in too some has a negative stigma. However vendor stickiness may be a new term, perhaps even sounding cool thus it is not a concern. Remember the Mary Poppins song a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down? In other words, sometimes changing and using a different term such as sticky vs. vendor lock in helps make the situation taste better.

    So what should you do?
    Take a closer look if you are considering converged infrastructures, cloud or data centers in a box, turnkey application or information services deployment platforms. Likewise, if you are looking at specific technologies such as those from Cisco UCS, Dell vStart, EMC Vblock (or via VCE), HP, NetApp FlexPod or Oracle (ExaLogic, ExaData, etc) among others, also check out the IBM PureSystems (Flex and PureApplication). Compare and contrast these converged solutions with your traditional procurement and deployment modes including cost of acquiring hardware, software, ongoing maintenance or service fees along with value or benefit of bundled tools. There may be a higher cost for converged systems in some scenarios, however compare on the value and benefit derived vs. doing the integration yourself.

    Compare and contrast how converged solutions enable, however also consider what constraints exists in terms of flexibility to reconfigure in the future or make other changes. For example as part of integration, does a solution take a lowest common denominator approach to software and firmware revisions for compatibility that may lag behind what you can apply to standalone components. Also, compare and contrast various reference architectures with different solution bundles or packages.

    Most importantly compare and evaluate the solutions on their ability to meet and exceed your base requirements while adding value and enabling return on innovation while also being cost-effective. Do not be scared of these bundled solutions; however do your homework to make informed decisions including overcoming any concerns of lock in or future costs and fees. While these types of solutions are cool or interesting from a technology perspective and can streamline acquisition and deployment, make sure that there is a business benefit that can be addressed as well as enablement of new capabilities.

    So what does this all mean?
    Congratulations to IBM with their PureSystems for leveraging their DNA and roots bundling what had been unbundled before cloud and stacks were popular and trendy. IBM has done a good job of talking vision and strategy along lines of converged and dynamic, elastic and smart, clouds and other themes for past couple of years while selling the pieces as parts of solutions or ala carte or packaged by their ISVs and business partners.

    What will be interesting to see is if bladecenter customers shift to buying PureFlex, which should be an immediate boost to give proof points of adoption, while essentially up selling what was previously available. However, more interesting will be to see if net overall new customers and footprints are sold as opposed to simply selling a newer and enhanced version of previous components.

    In other words will IBM be able to keep up their focus and execution where they have sold the previous available components, while also holding onto current ISV and BP footprint sales and perhaps enabling those partners to recapture some hardware and solution sales that had been unbundled (e.g. ISV software sold separate of IBM platforms) and move into new adjacent markets.

    Here are some links to learn more:
    Various IBM Redbooks and related content
    The blame game: Does cloud storage result in data loss?
    What do you need when its time to buy a new server?
    2012 industry trends perspectives and commentary (predictions)
    Convergence: People, Processes, Policies and Products
    Buzzword Bingo and Acronym Update V2.011
    The function of XaaS(X) Pick a letter
    Hard product vs. soft product
    Buzzword Bingo and Acronym Update V2.011
    Part I: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part II: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part III: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part IV: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part V: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking

    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

    Here are some links to learn more:
    Various IBM Redbooks and related content
    The blame game: Does cloud storage result in data loss?
    What do you need when its time to buy a new server?
    2012 industry trends perspectives and commentary (predictions)
    Convergence: People, Processes, Policies and Products
    Buzzword Bingo and Acronym Update V2.011
    The function of XaaS(X) – Pick a letter
    Hard product vs. soft product
    Buzzword Bingo and Acronym Update V2.011
    Part I: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part II: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part III: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part IV: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part V: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking

    Ok, so what is next, lets see how this unfolds for IBM and their partners.

    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

    Posted on

    Part III: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue

    This is the third in a five-part series around the recent IBM PureSystems announcements. You can view the earlier post here, and the next post here.

    So what about the IBM Virtual Appliance Factory?
    Where PureFlex and PureApplication (PureSystems) are the platforms or vehicles for enabling your journey to efficient and effective information services delivery, and PureSystem centre (or center for those of you in the US) is the portal or information center, the IBM Virtual Appliance Factory (VAF) is a collection of tools, technologies, processes and methodologies. The VAF  helps developers or ISVs to prepackage applications or solutions for deployment into Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) on Intel and IBM PowerVM  virtualized environments that are also supported by PureFlex and PureApplication  systems.

    VAF technologies include Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) Open Virtual Alliance (OVA) Open Virtualization Format (OVF) along with other tools for combing operating systems (OS), middleware and solution software into a delivery package or a virtual appliance that can be deployed into cloud and virtualized environments. Benefits include reducing complexity of working logical partions (LPAR) and VM configuration, abstraction and portability for deployment or movement from private to public environments. Net result should be less complexity lowering costs while reducing mean time to install and deploy. Here is a link to learn more about VAF and its capabilities and how to get started.

    So what does cloud ready mean?
    IBM is touting cloud ready capability in the context of rapid out of the box, ease of deployment and use as well as easy to acquire. This is in line with what others are doing with converged server, storage, networking, hardware, software and hypervisor solutions. IBM is also touting that they are using the same public available products as what they use in their own public services SmartCloud offerings.

    So what is scale in vs. scale up, scale out or scale within?
    Traditional thinking is that scaling refers to increasing capacity. Scaling also means increasing performance, availability, functionality with stability. Scaling with stability means that as performance, availability, capacity or other features are increased problems are not introduced or complexity is not increased. For example, scaling with stability for performance should not result in loss of availability or capacity, capacity increase should not be at the cost of performance or availability, should not cost performance or capacity and management tools should work for you, instead of you working for them.

    Scaling up and scaling out have been used to describe scaling performance, availability, capacity and other attributes beyond the limits of a single system, box or cabinet. For example clustered, cloud, grid and other approaches refer to scaling out or horizontally across different physical resources. Scaling up or scaling vertically means scaling within in a system using faster, denser technologies doing more in the same footprint. HDS announced a while back what they refer to 3D scaling which embraces the above notions of scaling up, out and within across different dimensions. IBM is building on that by emphasizing scaling leveraging faster, denser components such as Power7 and Intel processors to scale within the box or system or node, which can also be scaled out using enhanced networking from IBM and their partners.

    So what about backup/restore, BC, DR and general data protection?
    I would expect IBM to step up and talk about how they can leverage their data protection and associated management toolsets, technologies and products. IBM has the components (hardware, software) already for backup/restore, BC, DR, data protection and security along with associated service offerings. One would expect IBM to not only come out with a backup, restore, BC, DR and archiving solution or version, as well as ones for archiving or data preservation, compliance appliance variants as well as related themes. We know that IBM has the pieces, people, process and practices, let us see if IBM has learned from their competitors who may have missed data protection messaging opportunities. Sometimes what is assumed to be understood does not get discussed, however often what is assumed and is not understood should be discussed, hence, let us see if IBM does more than say oh yes, we have those capabilities and products too.

    So what do these have compared to others who are doing similar things?
    Different vendors have taken various approaches for bringing converged products or solutions to the market place. Not surprising, storage centric vendors EMC and NetApp have partnered with Cisco for servers (compute). Where Cisco was known for networking having more recently moved into compute servers, EMC and NetApp are known for storage and moving into converged space with servers. Since EMC and NetApp often compete with storage solutions offerings from traditional server vendors Dell, HP, IBM and Oracle among others, and now Cisco is also competing with those same server vendors it has previously partnered with for networking thus it makes sense for Cisco, EMC and NetApp to partner.

    While EMC owns a large share of VMware, they do also support Microsoft and other partners including Citrix. NetApp followed EMC into the converged space partnering with Cisco for compute and networking adding their own storage along with supporting hypervisors from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware along with third-party ISVs including Microsoft and SAP among others. Dell has evolved from reference architectures to products called vStart that leverage their own technologies along with those of partners.

    A challenge for Dell however is that vStart  sounds more like a service offering as opposed to a product that they or their VARs and business partners can sell and add value around. HP is also in the converged game as is Oracle among others. With PureSystems IBM is building on what their competitors and in some cases partners are doing by adding and messaging more around the many ISVs and applications that are part of the PureSystems initiative. Rest assured, there is more to PureSystems than simply some new marketing, press releases, videos and talking about partners and ISVs. The following table provides a basic high level comparison of what different vendors are doing or working towards and is not intended to be a comprehensive review.

    Who

    What

    Server

    Storage

    Network

    Software

    Other comments

    Cisco

    UCS

    Cisco

    Partner

    Cisco

    Cisco and Partners

    Various hypervisors and OS

    Dell

    vStart

    Dell

    Dell

    Dell and Partners

    Dell and partners

    Various hypervisors, OS and bundles

    EMC
    VCE

    Vblock VSPEX

    Cisco

    EMC

    Cisco and partners

    EMC, Cisco and partners

    Various hypervisors, OS and bundles, VSPEX adds more partner solution bundles

    HP

    Converged

    HP

    HP

    HP and partners

    HP and partners

    Various hypervisors, OS and bundles

    IBM

    PureFlex

    IBM

    IBM

    IBM and partners

    IBM and partners

    Various hypervisors, OS and bundles adding more ISV partners

    NetApp

    FlexPod

    Cisco

    NetApp

    Cisco and partners

    NetApp, Cisco and partners

    Various hypervisors, OS and bundles for SAP, Microsoft among others

    Oracle

    ExaLogic (Exadata  database)

    Oracle

    Oracle

    Partners

    Oracle and partners

    Various Oracle software tools and technologies

    So what took IBM so long compared to others?
    Good question, what is the saying? Rome was not built-in a day!

    Click here to view the next post in this series, ok, nuff said for now.

    Here are some links to learn more:
    Various IBM Redbooks and related content
    The blame game: Does cloud storage result in data loss?
    What do you need when its time to buy a new server?
    2012 industry trends perspectives and commentary (predictions)
    Convergence: People, Processes, Policies and Products
    Buzzword Bingo and Acronym Update V2.011
    The function of XaaS(X) Pick a letter
    Hard product vs. soft product
    Buzzword Bingo and Acronym Update V2.011
    Part I: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part II: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part III: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part IV: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Part V: PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
    Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking

    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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