Cloud Archives

January 24, 2012December 24, 2020

My Server and Storage IO holiday break projects

Happy new years!

Following up from a flurry of posts in the closing days of 2011 including industry trends perspective predictions for 2012 and 2013, top blog posts from 2011, top all time posts, along with a couple of other items here and here, its time to get back to 2012 activity. Also if you missed it, here is the Fall (December) 2011 StorageIO news letter.

Actually I have been busy working on some other projects the past several weeks most of which are NDA so not much else can be said about them, however there are some other things I’m working on that will show themselves in the weeks and months to come. Here is a link to a webinar and live chat that I did the first week of January on CDP (Continuous Data Protection) and how it can be applied to many different environments.

But lets take a step back for a moment and let me share with you some of the things I did or started during the holiday break between christmas and the new years.

Like many others, I found time to relax and get away from normal work activities during the recent holiday season.

However like many of you that may also be techniques or geeks or wanna be geeks at heart, I could not get away from server, storage, IO, networking, data protection, video and other things completely. I used some time to discuss a few projects that I had wanted to do or that I had started before the holidays and here is a synopsis.

Increased storage capacity on a DVR by about 5x In order to get this to work, I modified a 3.5 enclosure with a power supply to accept a 2.5 1.5TB SATA HDD with an eSATA connection, the easy part was then attaching it to the external eSATA port on my DVR. The hard part was then waiting for the DVR to reconfigure and start recording information again. Also as part of upgrading the external storage on the DVR was to get the media share option to do more than basic things leveraging audio and video real-time trans coding using the Tversity software along with various codecs on a media server.

Another project involved upgrading a 500GB HHDD to a 750GB HHDD and did some testing Shortly before the holidays I received a new 750GB Seagate Momentus XT II HHDD to compare to my exiting 500GB previous generation model. I have been using the 750GB HHDD for over a month now and it is amazing to see so much space in a laptop that also has good performance. Some follow-up activities are to go back and analyze some performance data that I collected before and after the upgrade. This includes both workload simulation of reads, writes, random, sequential of different IO size as well as comparing Windows startup and shutdown speed and impact to build on what I did last summer (see this post). More on these in the not so distance future.

Speaking of clouds, I had a chance to do some more testing with my Amazon EC2 and EBS accounts in addition to cleaning up my S3 pool in addition to my other cloud backup and storage providers accounts. This also involved refining some data protection backup/restore and archive frequency and retention settings. In addition to refinements for cloud based backup, I’m also in the process of transitioning from Imation Odyssey Removable Hard Disk Drives (RHDD) too much larger capacity 2.5 portable RHDDs that are used for offsite bulk copies. Part of the migration includes seeing that end of year master or gold backups and archives were made and safely secured elsewhere in addition to having data sent to the cloud.

Another project involved doing some more testing and simulations with my SSD along with more windows boot and shutdown tests mentioned above. More on these results in a future post.

Sometime (actually not very much) was also spent adding some new shares to my Iomega IX4 NAS which is filling up so I also did some more research on what I will upgrade or replace it with. While Iomega has been great (knock on wood), Synology is also looking interesting as a future solution however keeping my options open for now. Right now I’m leaning towards keeping the IX4 and adding another NAS filer using the two for different purposes.

Some other server, storage and IO projects also included upgrading some networking components, and to finish decommissioning old drives making them secure for safe disposal when the time comes.

I also was able to spend time on non tech items including outside enjoying the nice weather, cutting up some fallen trees and roasting them on a bonfire among other things.

Tree cleanup On break

roasting logs walking on frozen water

Ok, nuff said for now, time to get back to work.

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

December 30, 2011November 26, 2023

A conversation from SNW 2011 with Jenny Hamel

Here (.qt) and here (.wmv) is a video from an interview that I did with Jenny Hamel (@jennyhamelsd6) during the Fall 2011 SNW event in Orlando Florida.

Topics covered during the discussion include:

Importance of metrics that matter for gaining and maintaining IT situational awareness
The continued journey of IT to improve customer service delivery in a cost-effective manner
Reducing cost and complexity without negatively impacting customer service experience
Participating in SNW and SNIA for over ten years on three different continents

Industry trends, buzzword bingo (SSD, cloud, big data, virtualization), adoption vs. deployment
Increasing efficiency along with effectiveness and productivity
Stretching budgets to do more without degrading performance or availability
How customers can navigate their way around various options, products and services
Importance of networking at events such as SNW along with information exchange and learning
Why data footprint reduction is similar to packing smartly when going on a journey
Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (now available on Kindle and other epub formats)

View the video from SNW fall 2011 here (.qt) or here (.wmv).

Check out other videos and pod casts here or at StorageioTV.com

Speaking of industry trends, check out the top 25 new posts from 2011, along with the top 25 all time posts and my comments (predictions) for 2012 and 2013.

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

December 29, 2011April 10, 2022

Top storageio cloud virtualization networking and data protection posts

Im in the process of wrapping up 2011 and getting ready for 2012. Here is a list of the top 25 all time posts from StorageIOblog covering cloud, virtualization, servers, storage, green IT, networking and data protection. Looking back, here is 2010 and 2011 industry trends, thoughts and perspective predictions along with looking forward, a 2012 preview here.

Top 25 all time posts about storage, cloud, virtualization, networking, green IT and data protection

Check out the companion post to this which is the top 25 2011 posts located here as well as 2012 and 2013 predictions preview here.

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

December 29, 2011November 26, 2023

2012 industry trends perspectives and commentary (predictions)

2011 is almost over, so its wrap up time of the year as well as getting ready for 2012.

Here is a link to a post of the top 25 new posts that appeared on StorageIOblog in 2011.

As a companion to the above, here is a link to the all time top 25 posts from StorageIOblog.

Looking back, here is a post about industry trends, thoughts and perspective predictions for 2010 and 2011 (preview 2012 and 2013 thoughts and perspectives here).

Im still finalizing my 2012 and 2013 predictions and perspectives which is a work in progress, however here is a synopsis:

Addressing storage woes at the source: Time to start treating the source of data management and protection including backup challenges instead of or in addition to addressing downstream target destination topics.

Big data and big bandwidth meet big backup: 2011 was a buzz with big data and big bandwidth so 2012 will see realization that big backup needs to be addressed. Also in 2012 there will be continued realization that many have been doing big data and big bandwidth thus also big backups for many years if not decades before the current big buzzword became popular.

Little data does not get left out of the discussion even though younger brother big data gets all of the press and praise. Little data may not be the shining diva it once was, however the revenue annuity stream will keep many software, tools, server and storage vendors afloat while customers continue to rely on the little data darling to run their business.

Cloud confusion finds clarity on the horizon: Granted there will be plenty of more cloud fud and hype, cloud washing and cleaning going around, however 2012 and beyond will also find organizations realizing where and how to use different types of clouds (public, private, hybrid) too meet various needs from SaaS and AaaS to PaaS to IaaS and other variations of XaaS. Part of the clarification that will help remove the confusion will be that there are many different types of cloud architectures, products, stacks, solutions, services and products to address various needs. Another part of the clarification will be discussion of what needs to be added to clouds to make them more viable for both new, as well as old or existing applications. This means organizations will determine what they need to do to move their existing applications to some form of a cloud model while understanding how clouds coexist and compliment what they are currently doing. Cloud conversations will also shift from low cost or for free focus expanding to discussions around value, trust, quality of service (QoS), SLOs, SLAs, security, reliability and related themes.

Industry Trends and Perspectives

Cloud and virtualization stack battles: The golden rule of virtualization and clouds is that who ever controls the management and software stacks controls the gold. Hence, watch for more positioning around management and enablement stacks as well as solutions to see who gains control of the gold.

Data protection modernization: Building off of first point above, data protection modernization the past several years has been focused on treating the symptoms of downstream problems at the target or destination. This has involved swapping out or moving media around, applying data footprint reduction (DFR) techniques downstream to give near term tactical relief as has been the cause with backup, restore, BC and DR for many years. Now the focus will start to expand to how to address the source of the problem with is an expanding data footprint upstream or at the source using different data footprint reduction tools and techniques. This also means using different metrics including keeping performance and response time in perspective as part of reduction rates vs. ratios while leveraging different techniques and tools from the data footprint reduction tool box. In other words, its time to stop swapping out media like changing tires that keep going flat on a car, find and fix the problem, change the way data is protected (and when) to cut the impact down stream. This will not happen overnight, however with virtualization and cloud activities underway, now is a good time to start modernizing data protection.

End to End (E2E) management tools: Continue focus around E2E tools and capabilities to gain situational awareness across different technology layers.

FCoE and Fibre Channel continue to mature: One sure sign that Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is continuing to evolve, mature and gain initial traction is the increase in activity declaring it dead or dumb or similar things. FCoE is still in its infancy while Fibre Channel (FC) is in the process of transitioning to 16Gb with a roadmap that will enable it to continue for many more years. As FCoE continues to ramp up over next several years (remember, FC took several years to get where it is today), continued FC enhancements will give options for those wishing to stick with it while gaining confidence with FCoE, iSCSI, SAS and NAS.

Hard drive shortages drive revenues and profits: Some have declared that the recent HDD shortages due to Thailand flooding will cause Solid State Devices (SSD) using flash memory to dramatically grow in adoption and deployment. I think that both single level cell (SLC) and multi level cell (MLC) flash SSDs will continue to grow in deployments counted in units shipped as well as revenues and hopefully also margin or profits. However I also think that with the HDD shortage and continued demand, vendors will use the opportunity to stabilize some of their pricing meaning less discounting while managing the inventory which should mean more margin or profits in a quarter or too. What will be interesting to watch will be if SSD vendors drop the margin in an effort to increase units shipped and deployed to show market revenue and adoption growth while HDD margins rise.

Industry Trends and Perspectives

QoS, SLA/SLOs part of cloud conversations: Low cost or cost avoidance will continue to be the focus of some cloud conversations. However with metrics and measurements to make informed decisions, discussions will expand to QoS, SLO, SLAs, security, mean time to restore or return information, privacy, trust and value also enter into the picture. In other words, clouds are growing up and maturing for some, while their existing capabilities become discovered by others.

Clouds are a shared responsibility model: The cloud blame game when something goes wrong will continue, however there will also be a realization that as with any technology or tool, there is a shared responsibility. This means that customers accept responsibility for how they will use a tool, technologies or service, the provider assumes responsibility, and both parties have a collective responsibility.

Return on innovation is the new ROI: For years, no make that decades a popular buzz term is return on investment the companion of total cost of ownership. Both ROI and TCO as you know and like (or hate) will continue to be used, however for situations that are difficult to monitize, a new variation exists. That new variation is return on innovation which is the measure of intangible benefits derived from how hard products are used to derive value for or of soft products and services delivered.

Solid State Devices (SSD) confidence: One of the barriers to flash SSD adoption has been cost per capacity with another being confidence in reliability and data consistency over time (aka duty cycle wear and tear). Many enterprise class solutions have used single level cell (SLC) flash SSD which has better endurance, duty cycle or wear handing capabilities however that benefit comes at the cost of a higher price per capacity. Consequently vendors are pushing multi level cell (MLC) flash SSD that reduces the cost per capacity, however needs extra controller and firmware functionality to manage the wear leaving and duty cycle. In some ways, MLC flash is to SSD memory what SATA high-capacity desktop drives were to HDDs in the enterprise storage space about 8 to 9 years ago. What I mean by that is that more cost high performance disk drives were the norm, then lower cost higher capacity SATA drives appeared resulting in enhancements to make them more enterprise capable while boosting the confidence of customers to use the technology. Same thing is happening with flash SSD in that SLC is more expensive and for many has a higher confidence, while MLC is lower cost, higher capacity and gaining the enhancements to take on a role for flash SSD similar to what high-capacity SATA did in the HDD space. In addition to confidence with SSD, new packaging variations will continue to evolve as well.

Virtualization beyond consolidation: The current wave of consolidation of desktop using VDI, server and storage aggregation will continue, however a trend that has grown for a couple of years now that will take more prominence in 2012 and 2013 is realization that not everything can be consolidated, however many things can be virtualized. This means for some applications the focus will not be how many VMs to run per PM, rather, how a PM can be more effectively used to boost performance and agility for some applications during part of the day, while being used for other things at different times. For example a high performance database that normally would not be consolidated would be virtualized to enable agility for maintenance, BC, DR load balancing and placed on a fast PM with lots of fast memory, CPU and IO capabilities dedicated to it. However during off hours when little to no database activity is occurring, then other VMs would be moved onto that PM then moved off before the next busy cycle.

Industry Trends and Perspectives

Will applications be ready to leverage cloud: Some applications and functionality can more easily be moved to cloud environments vs. others. A question that organizations will start to ask is what prevents their applications or business functionality from going to or using cloud resources in addition to asking cloud providers what new capabilities will they extend to support old environments.

Zombie list grows: More items will be declared dead meaning that they are either still alive, or have reached stability to the point where some want to see them dead so that their preferred technology or topic can take root.

Some other topics and trends include continued growing awareness that metrics and measurements matter for cloud, virtualization, data and storage networking. This also means a growing awareness that there are more metrics that matter for storage than cost per GByte or Tbyte that include IOPS, latency or response time, bandwidth, IO size, random and sequential along with availability. 2012 and 2013 will see continued respect being given to NAS at both the high end as well as low end of the market from enterprise down to consumer space. Speaking of consumer and SOHO (Small Office Home Office), now that SMB has generally been given respect or at least attention by many vendors, the new frontier will be to move further down market to the lower end of the SMB which is SOHO, just above consumer space. Of course some vendors have already closed the gap (or at least on paper, power point, web ex or you tube video) from consumer to enterprise. Of course Buzzword bingo will continue to be a popular game.

Oh, btw, DevOps will also appear in your vocabulary if it has not already.

Watch for more on these and other topics in the weeks and months to come and if you and to read more now, then get a copy of Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking. Also check out the top 25 new post of 2011 as well as some of the all time most popular posts at StorageIOblog.com that can also be seen on various other venues that pickup the full RSS feed or archive feed. Also check out the StorageIO news letter for more industry trends perspectives and commentary.

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

December 29, 2011December 24, 2020

Top 2011 cloud virtualization storage and networking posts

Im in the process of wrapping up 2011 and getting ready for 2012, here is a list of the top 25 new posts from this past year at StorageIOblog.

Looking back, here is a post about industry trends, thoughts and perspective predictions for 2010 and 2011 (preview 2012 and 2013 thoughts and perspectives here).

Here are the top 25 new blog posts from 2011

Check out the companion posts of the top 25 all time posts here as well as 2012 and 2013 predictions preview here.

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

December 19, 2011January 18, 2021

Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking now on Kindle

It only makes sense that a book about Clouds, Virtualization, Data Storage and Networking be available via a cloud service in electronic format. Today Amazon and my publisher (CRC Press Taylor and Francis) released a Kindle version of my new book Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking which joins the previously released hardcopy version also available at Amazon.com among other venues.

Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking has been declared The New Enterprise Tech Bible by noted industry blogger and host of the Nekkid Tech (@NekkidTech) pod cast Greg Knieriemen (@Knieriemen). Check out Episode #11 (The Enterprise Tech Bible) of the Nekkid Tech pod cast show here.

Comments and reviews about Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking can be found at Amazon.com along with those from Stephen Guendert, PhD (@DrSteveGuendert) at CMG MeasureIT (@cmgnews) who says: Gregs latest book is the ibuprofen that will make these cloud computing information overload headaches go away. Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking is the single source you can read to get a clear understanding of the fundamentals of the cloud.

Greg Brunton, EDS, an HP Company commented: With all the chatter in the market about cloud storage and how it can solve all your problems, the industry needed a clear breakdown of the facts and how to use Cloud cloud storage effectively. Gregs latest book does exactly that.

Google preview of Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking book

Want to know more besides viewing the Google preview above?

Check out this free PDF download of Chapter 1 and view a PDF flyer with more information about the book including discount codes for ordering via the CRC Press or visit the StorageIO books page. In addition to Amazon Kindle version, other ebook formats including (PDF) are available here (bookdepository.com), and here (CRCnetBase) including each chapter.

View this post which has links too more information about cloud conversations and discussions.

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

December 14, 2011November 26, 2023

What industry pundits love and loathe about data storage

Drew Robb has a good article about what IT industry pundits including vendors, analysts, and advisors loath including comments from myself.

In the article Drew asks: What do you really love about storage and what are your pet peeves?

One of my comments and perspectives is that I like Hybrid Hard Disk Drives (HHDDs) in addition to traditional Hard Disk Drives (HDD) along with Solid State Devices (SSDs). As much as I like HHDDs, I also believe that with any technology, they are not the best solution for everything, however they can also be used in many ways than being seen. Here is the fifth installment of a series on HHDDs that I have done since June 2010 when I received my first HHDD a Seagate Momentus XT. You can read the other installments of my momentus moments here, here, here and here.

HHDD with integrated nand flash SSD photo courtesy Seagate.com

Molly Rector VP of marketing at tape summit resources vendor Spectra Logic mentioned that what she does not like is companies that base their business plan on patent law trolling. I would have expected something different along the lines of countering or correcting people that say tape sucks, tape is dead, or that tape is the cause problem of anything wrong with storage thus clearing the air or putting up a fight that tape summit resources. Go figure…

Another of my comments involved clouds of which there are plenty of conversations taking place. I do like clouds (I even recently wrote a book involving them) however Im a fan of using them where applicable to coexist and enhance other IT resources. Dont be scared of clouds, however be ready, do your homework, listen, learn, do proof of concepts to decide best practices, when, where, what and how to use them.

Speaking of clouds, click here to read about who is responsible for cloud data loss and cast your vote, along with viewing what do you think about IT clouds in general here.

Mike Karp (aka twitter @storagewonk ) an analyst with Ptak Noel mentions that midrange environments dont get respect from big (or even startup) vendors.

I would take that a step further by saying compared to six or so years ago, SMB are getting night and day better respect along with attention by most vendors, however what is lacking is respect of the SOHO sector (e.g. lower end of SMB down to or just above consumer).

Granted some that have traditional sold into those sectors such as server vendors including Dell and HP get it or at least see the potential along with traditional enterprise vendor EMC via its Iomega . Yet I still see many vendors including startups in general discounting, shrugging off or sneering at the SOHO space similar to those who dissed or did not respect the SMB space several years ago. Similar to the SMB space, SOHO requires different products, packaging, pricing and routes to market via channel or etail mechanisms which means change for some vendors. Those vendors who embraced the SMB and realized what needed to change to adapt to those markets will also stand to do better with the SOHO.

Here is the reason that I think SOHO needs respect.

Simple, SOHOs grow up to become SMBs, SMBs grow up to become SMEs, SMEs grow up to become enterprises and not to mention that the amount of data being generated, moved, processed and stored continues to grow. The net result is that SMBs along with SOHO storage demands will continue to grow and for those vendors who can adjust to support those markets will also stand to gain new customers that in turn can become plans for other solution offerings.

Not surprising Eran Farajun of Asigra which has been doing cloud backups decades before they were known as clouds loves backup (and restores). However I am surprised that Eran did not jump on the its time to modernize and re architect data protection theme. Oh well, will have to have a chat with Eran on that sometime.

What was surprising were comments from Panzura who has a good distributed (e.g. read also cloud) file system that can be used for various things including online reference data. Panzura has a solution that normally I would not even think about in the context of being pulled into a Datadomain or dedupe appliance type discussion (e.g tape sucks or other similar themes). So it is odd that they are playing to the tape sucks camp and theme vs. playing to where the technology can really shine which IMHO is in the global, distributed, scale out and cloud file system space. Oh well, I guess you go with what you know or has worked in the past to get some attention.

Molly Rector of Spectra also mentioned that she likes High Performance Computing, surprised that she did not throw in high productivity computing as well in conjunction with big data, big bandwidth, green, dedupe, power, disk, tape and related buzzword bingo terms.

Also there are some comments from myself about cost cutting.

While I see the need for organizations to cut costs during tough economic times, Im not a fan of simply cutting cost for the sake of cost cutting as opposed to finding and removing complexity that in turn remove costs of doing work. In other words, Im a fan of finding and removing waste, becoming more effective and productive along with removing the cost of doing a particular piece of work. This in the end meets the aim of bean counters to cut costs, however can be done in a way that does not degrade service levels or customer service experience. For example instead of looking to cut backup costs, do you know where the real costs of doing data protection exist (hint swapping out media is treating the symptoms) and if so, what can be done to streamline those from the source of the problem downstream to the target (e.g. media or medium). In other words, redesign, review, modernize how data protection is done, leverage data footprint reduction (DFR) techniques including archive, compression, consolidation, data management, dedupe and other technologies in effective and creative ways, after all, return on innovation is the new ROI.

Checkout Drews article here to read more on the above topics and themes.

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

November 24, 2011January 1, 2022

Speaking of speeding up business with SSD storage

Solid state devices (SSD) are a popular topic gaining both industry adoption and customer deployment to speed up storage performance. Here is a link to a recent conversation that I had with John Hillard to discuss industry trends and perspectives pertaining to using SSD to boost performance and productivity for SMB and other environments.

SSDs can be a great way for organizations to do IO consolidation to reduce costs in place of using many hard disk drives (HDDs) grouped together to achieve a certain level of performance. By consolidating the IOs off of many HDDs that often end up being under utilized from a space capacity basis, organizations can boost performance for applications while reducing, or reusing HDD based storage capacity for other purposes including growth.

Here is some related material and comments:
Has SSD put Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) On Endangered Species List?
SSD and Storage System Performance
Are Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) getting too big?
Solid state devices and the hosting industry
Achieving Energy Efficiency using FLASH SSD
Using SSD flash drives to boost performance

Four ways to use SSD storage
4 trends that shape how agencies handle storage
Giving storage its due

You can read a transcript of the conversation and listen to the pod cast here, or download the MP3 audio here.

Ok, nuff said about SSD (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

November 24, 2011November 26, 2023

Cloud, virtualization and storage networking conversations

Here is a link to a series cloud, virtualization and storage networking conversations posts that Im doing over at IT-Toolbox. Each post in the series covers various topics along with a frequently asked question that I encounter pertaining to clouds, virtualization and storage networking.

Check out the cloud, virtualization and storage networking conversations series here.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers Gs

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

twitter @storageio

November 10, 2011December 24, 2020

Do you know HDS or what it means?

How much do you know about HDS?

When you hear HDS in the context of information technology do you think of Hitachi Data Systems?

Along with a bunch of other IT industry advisors, analysts, bloggers, consultants, financiers and pundits or influencers, Im attending a event being sponsored by HDS this week in San Jose California (SJC).

For those not familiar, as a division of the much larger Japan based conglomerate named Hitachi, HDS sells various types of data storage systems and associated management tools along with services.

While on the airplane from Seattle (SEA) to SJC the other night (Disclosure: HDS picked up the one way coach ticket) it occurred to me different things that HDS could refer to besides Hitachi Data Systems.

In addition to being the International Airtranspot Transport Association (IATA) code for Hoedspruit Airport in South Africa where HDS is in the process of buying Shoeden Data Systems (SDS), here are some other possibilities of what HDS could mean.

Hadoop Data Solutions
Half height Disk Shelve
Hardware Disks and Software
Has Dedupe Solutions
Has Disaster recovery Solutions
Has Disk Story
Has Disks Servers
Has Diverse Solutions
Has Done Servers
Have Daily Schnitzel (in Vienna aka Wien)

HDDs Depend on Software
Healthcare Data Systems
Helps Datacenters Save
Helps Data Survives
Helps Data Synchronize
Helps Delete Spam
Helps Dell Servers
Helps Disk Spin
High Density SAS
Houses Data on SSD
How Data Saved
Hu (Yoshida) Discusses Storage
Huge Disk System
HVAC Down Stairs (Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning)
Hybrid Data Systems

Ok, nuff said for now in case the HDS influence folks dont have a sense of influence humor.

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

October 25, 2011November 25, 2019

Congratulations to IBM for releasing XIV SPC results

Over the past several years I have done an annual post about IBM and their XIV storage system and this is the fourth in what has become a series. You can read the first one here, the second one here, and last years here and here after the announcement of the IBM V7000.

IBM XIV Gen3
IBM recently announced the generation 3 or Gen3 version of XIV along with releasing for the first time public performance comparison benchmarks using storage performance council (SPC) throughout SPC2 workload.

The XIV Gen3 is positioned by IBM as having up to four (4) times the performance of earlier generations of the storage system. In terms of speeds and feeds, the Gen3 XIV supports up to 180 2TB SAS hard disk drives (HDD) that provides up to 161TB of usable storage space capacity. For connectivity, the Gen3 XIV supports up to 24 8Gb Fibre Channel (8GFC) or for iSCSI 22 1Gb Ethernet (1 GbE) ports with a total of up to 360GBytes of system cache. In addition to the large cache to boost performance, other enhancements include leveraging multi core processors along with an internal InfiniBand network to connect nodes replacing the former 1 GbE interconnect. Note, InfiniBand is only used to interconnect the various nodes in the XIV cluster and is not used for attachment to applications servers which is handled via iSCSI and Fibre Channel.

IBM and SPC storage performance history
IBM has a strong history if not leading the industry with benchmarking and workload simulation of their storage systems including Storage Performance Council (SPC) among others. The exception for IBM over the past couple of years has been the lack of SPC benchmarks for XIV. Last year when IBM released their new V7000 storage system benchmarks include SPC were available close to if not at the product launch. I have in the past commented about IBMs lack of SPC benchmarks for XIV to confirm their marketing claims given their history of publishing results for all of their other storage systems. Now that IBM has recently released SPC2 results for the XIV it is only fitting then that I compliment them for doing so.

Benchmark brouhaha
Performance workload simulation results can often lead to applies and oranges comparisons or benchmark brouhaha battles or storage performance games. For example a few years back NetApp submitted a SPC performance result on behalf of their competitor EMC. Now to be clear on something, Im not saying that SPC is the best or definitive benchmark or comparison tool for storage or other purpose as it is not. However it is representative and most storage vendors have released some SPC results for their storage systems in addition to TPC and Microsoft ESRP among others. SPC2 is focused on streaming such as video, backup or other throughput centric applications where SPC1 is centered around IOPS or transactional activity. The metrics for SPC2 are Megabytes per second (MBps) for large file processing (LFP), large database query (LDQ) and video on demand delivery (VOD) for a given price and protection level.

What is the best benchmark?
Simple, your own application in as close to as actual workload activity as possible. If that is not possible, then some simulation or workload simulation that closets resembles your needs.

Does this mean that XIV is still relevant?
Yes

Does this mean that XIV G3 should be used for every environment?
Generally speaking no. However its performance enhancements should allow it to be considered for more applications than in the past. Plus with the public comparisons now available, that should help to silence questions (including those from me) about what the systems can really do vs. marketing claims.

How does XIV compare to some other IBM storage systems using SPC2 comparisons?

System	SPC2 MBps	Cost per SPC2	Storage GBytes	Price tested	Discount	Protection
DS5300	5,634.17	$74.13	16,383	417,648	0%	R5
V7000	3,132.87	$71.32	29,914	$223,422	38-39%	R5
XIV G3	7,467.99	$152.34	154,619	1,137,641	63-64%	Mirror
DS8800	9,705.74	$270.38	71,537	2,624,257	40-50%	R5

In the above comparisons, the DS5300 (NetApp/Engenio based) is a dual controller (4GB of cache per controller) with 128 x 146.8GB 15K HDDs configured as RAID 5 with no discount applied to the price submitted. The V7000 system which is based on the IBM SVC along with other enhancements consists of dual controllers each with 8GB of cache and 120 x 10K 300GB HDDs configured as RAID 5 with just under a 40% discount off list price for system tested. For the XIV Gen3 system tested, discount off list price for the submission is about 63% with 15 nodes and a total of 360GB of cache and 180 2TB 7.2K SAS HDDs configured as mirrors. The DS8800 system with dual controllers has a 256GB of cache, 768 x 146GB 15K HDDs configured in RAID5 with a discount between 40 to 50% off of list.

What the various metrics do not show is the benefit of various features and functionality which should be considered to your particular needs. Likewise, if your applications are not centered around bandwidth or throughput, then the above performance comparisons would not be relevant. Also note that the systems above have various discount prices as submitted which can be a hint to a smart shopper where to begin negotiations at. You can also do some analysis of the various systems based on their performance, configuration, physical footprint, functionality and cost plus the links below take you to the complete reports with more information.

DS8800 SPC2 executive summary and full disclosure report

XIV SPC2 executive summary and full disclosure report

DS5300 SPC2 executive summary and full disclosure report

V7000 SPC2 executive summary and full disclosure report

Bottom line, benchmarks and performance comparisons are just that, a comparison that may or may not be relevant to your particular needs. Consequently they should be used as a tool combined with other information to see how a particular solution might be a fit for your specific needs. The best benchmark however is your own application running as close to possible realistic workload to get a representative perspective of a systems capabilities.

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

October 23, 2011March 7, 2022

What am I hearing and seeing while out and about

It has been a busy fall 2011 which started out with VMworld 2011 in Las Vegas just before the labor day weekend.

Scenes from the CXI party (@cxi) at VMworld 2011

Besides activity in support of the launch of my new book Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), I have been busy with various client research, consulting and advisory projects. In addition to Las Vegas for VMworld, out and about travel activities for attending conferences and presenting seminars have included visits in Minneapolis (local), Nijkerk Holland and Denver (in the same week) and Orlando (SNW). Upcoming out and about events are scheduled for Los Angles, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle and a couple of trips to San Jose area before the brief thanksgiving holiday break.

My Sunday virtual office in Nijkerk before a busy week
Beer and Bitter ballens on the left, coffee machine in Nijkerk on the right

Day one of two day seminar in Nijkerk

Instead of automobiles lined up a trainstation, its bicycles in Nijkerk Waiting in Nijkerk for 6:30AM train to Schiphol and on to Denver
Bicycles lined up at the Nijkerk train station, waiting for the 6:30 train to Schiphol

Changing trains in Amsfort on way to Schiphol Boarding Delta A333 AMS to MSP then on to DEN
Changing trains on way to Schiphol to board flight to MSP and then to DEN

Climbing out of Denver on way back to MSP, it was a long yet fun week Evening clouds enroute from DEN to MSP
After Denver back to MSP for a few days before SNW in Orlando

While being out and about I have had the chance to meet and visit with many different people. Here are some questions and comments that I have heard while out and about:

What comes after cloud?
Are there standards for clouds and virtualization?
Should cost savings be the justification for going to cloud, virtual or dynamic environments?
How is big data different than traditional stream and flat file analytics and processing using tools such as SAS (Statistical Analysis Software)?
Is big data only about map reduce and hadoop?
Are clouds any less secure or safe for storage and applications?
Do clouds and virtualization removing complexity and simplify infrastructures?
Are cloud storage services cheaper than buying and managing your own?
Is object based storage a requirement for public or private cloud?
Do solution bundles such as EMC vBlock and NetApp FlexPods reduce complexity?
Why is FCoE taking so long to be adopted and is it dead?
Should cost savings be the basis for deciding to do a VDI or virtualization project?
What is the best benchmark or comparison for making storage decisions?

In addition, there continues to be plenty of cloud confusion, FUD and hype around public, private, hybrid along with AaaS, SaaS, PaaS and IaaS among other XaaS. The myth that virtualization of servers, storage and workstations is only for consolidation continues. However there are more people beginning to see the next wave of life beyond consolidation where the focus expands to flexibility, agility and speed of deployment for non aggregated workloads and applications. Another popular myth that is changing is that data footprint reduction (DFR) is only about dedupe and backup. What is changing is an awareness that DFR spans all types of storage and data from primary to secondary leveraging different techniques including archive, backup modernization, compression, consolidation, data management and dedupe along with thin provisioning among other techniques.

Archiving for email, database and file systems needs to be rescued from being perceived as only for compliance purposes. If you want or need to reduce your data footprint impact (DFR), optimize your storage for performance or capacity, enable backup, BC and DR to be performed faster, achieve Green IT and efficiency objectives, expand your awareness around archiving. While discussing archiving, focus is often on the target or data storage medium such as disk, tape, optical or cloud along with DFR techniques such as compression and dedupe or functionally including ediscovery and WORM. The other aspects of archive that need to be looked at include policies, retention, application and software plugins for Exchange, SQL, Sharepoint, Sybase, Oracle, SAP, VMware and others.

Boot storms continue to be a common theme for apply solid state devices (SSD) in support of virtual desktop inititiaves (VDI). There is however a growing awareness and discussions around shutdown storms, day to day maintenance including virus scans in addition to applications that increase the number of writes. Consequently the discussions around VDI are expanding to include both reads and writes as well as reduced latency for storage and networks.

Some other general observations, thoughts and comments:

Getting into Holland as a visitor is easier than returning to the U.S. as a citizen
Airport security screening is more thorough and professional in Europe than in the U.S.
Hops add latency to beer (when you drink it) and to networks (time delay)
Fast tape drives need disk storage to enable streaming for reads and writes
SSD is keeping HDDs alive, HDDs are keeping tape alive and all there roles are evolving while the technologies continue to evolve.
Hybrid Hard Disk Drives (HHDDs) are gaining in awareness and deployments in workstations as well as laptops.
Confusion exists around what are flat layer 2 networks for LANs and Sans
Click here to view additional comments and perspectives

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

October 23, 2011November 26, 2023

SNW Fall 2011 revisited and SNIA Emerald program

A couple of weeks ago I traveled down to Orlando Florida for a few days to attend the fall 2011 SNW (Storage Networking World) produced in conjunction by IDG Computerworld and the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA).

While at the Orlando event, SNIA executive director Leo Legar asked me how many SNWs I had attended and my responses was on which continent?

My answer was part in fun however also serious as I have been attending SNWs (in addition to other SNIA events) for over ten years in both North and South America as well as in Europe including presenting SNIA tutorials and SNW sessions.

SNW is always good for meeting up with old friends and acquaintances along with meeting new ones including twitter tweeps (hashtag #snwusa #snw2011 @sniacloud @snwusa) and the recent event was no exception. Granted SNW is smaller than it was during its peak in the mid 2000s however it was great to go for a couple of days of meetings, checking out the expo hall and some sessions as well as getting out and about meeting people involved with servers, storage, networking, virtualization, cloud, hardware, software and services.

SNW remains as its name implies (Storage Networking World) an event around networking as in conversations, learning, knowledge exchange, information gathering and meetings not to mention the hands on lab. I found the two days I was there adequate to get the meetings and other activities I had planned, along with time for impromptu meetings. ANother observation was that during the peak of the large mega SNW events, while there were more meetings, they were also much shorter along the lines of speed dating vs. those a couple of weeks ago where there was time to have quality conversations.

Some of the news at the recent SNW event, involved SNIA and their Green Storage Initiative (GSI) announcing the availability of the Emerald program Green IT storage energy metrics that have been in the works for several years. The SNIA Emerald program consists of specifications, taxonomies, metrics and measurements standards to gauge various types of storage power or energy usage to gauge its effectiveness. In other words, yes, Green IT and Green storage are still alive, they just are not as trendy to talk about as they were a few years ago which a shift in focus towards productivity, effective use and supporting growth to help close the green gap and missed IT as well as business opportunities.

Also during the recent SNW event, I did a book signing event sponsored by SNIA. If you have not done so, check out the SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative (CSI) who arranged for several of my new book Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking to be given away. Book signings are fun in that I get to meet lots of people and hear what they are doing, encountering, looking for, have done, concerned or excited about. It was handy having SNIA CSI material available at the table as I was signing books and visiting with people to be able to give them information about things such as CDMI not to mention hearing what they were doing or looking for. Note to SNIA, if we do this again, lets make sure to have someone from the CSI at the table to join in the fun and conversations as there were some good ones. Learn more about the activities of the SNIA CSI including their Cloud Data Management Initiative (CDMI) here.

Thanks again to SNIA for arranging the book signing event and for those who were not able to get a copy of my new book before they ran out, my publisher CRC Press Taylor and Francis has arranged a special SNIA and SNW discount code. To take advantage of the SNIA and SNW discount code, go to the CRC Press web site (here) and apply the discount code KVK01 during checkout for catalog item K12375 (ISBN: 9781439851739).

Thanks again to Wayne Adams (@wma01606), Leo Legar and Michael Meleedy among others who arranged for a fantastic fall 2011 SNW event along with everyone who participated in the book signing event and other conversations while in Orlando and to those who were involved virtually via twitter.

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

October 18, 2011November 26, 2023

Commentary on Clouds, Storage, Networking, Green IT and other topics

Rather than doing a bunch of separate posts, here is a collection of different perspectives and commentary on various IT and data storage industry activity.

Various comments and perspectives

In this link are comments and perspectives regarding thin provisioning including how it works as well as when to use it for optimizing storage space capacity. Speaking of server and storage capacity, here in this link are comments on what server and storage would be needed to support an SMB office of 50 people (or more, or less) along with how to back it up.

For those interested or in need of managing data and other records in this link are comments on preparing yourself for regulatory scrutiny.

Storage networking interface or protocol debates (battles) can be interesting, in this link, see the role of iSCSI SANs for data storage environments. Lets not forget about Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) which is discussed in this link and here in this link. Here in this link are comments about how integrated rackem, stackem and package bundles stack up. To support increased continued demand for managed service providers (MSP), cloud and hosted services providers are continuing to invest in their infrastructures, so read some comments here. While technology plays a role particular as it matures, there is another barrier to leveraging converged solutions and that is organizational, read some perspectives and thoughts here.

Storage optimization including data footprint reduction (DFR) can be used to cut costs as well as support growth. In this link see tips on reducing storage costs and additional perspectives in this link to do more with what you have. Here in this link are some wit and wisdom comments on the world of disaster recovery solutions. Meanwhile in this link are perspectives for choosing the right business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) consultant. In this link are comments on BC and DR including planning for virtualization and life beyond consolidation. Are disk based dedupe and virtual tape summit resources libraries a hold over for old backup, or a gateway to the future, see some perspectives on those topics and technologies in this link.

Here are some more comments on DR and BC leveraging the cloud while perspectives on various size organizations looking at clouds for backup in this piece here. What is the right local, cloud or hybrid backup for SMBs, check out some commentary here while viewing some perspectives on cloud disaster recovery here. Not to be forgotten, laptop data protection can also be a major headache however there are also many cures discussed in this piece here.

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Green Storage Initiative (GSI) debut their Emerald power efficiency measurement specification recently, read some perspectives and comments in this link here. While we are on the topic of data center efficiency and effectiveness, here in this link are perspectives on micro servers or mini blade systems. Solution bundles also known as data center in a box or SAN in a CAN have been popular with solutions from EMC (vBlocks) and NetApp (FlexPods) among others, read perspectives on them in this link.

What would a conversation involving data storage and IT (particularly buzzword bingo) be without comments about Big Data and Big Bandwidth which you can read here.

Want to watch some videos, from Spring 2011 SNW, check out starting around the 15:00 to 55:00 time scale in this video from the Cube where various topics are discussed. Interested in how to scale data storage with clustered or scale up and out solutions, check out this video here or if you want to see some perspectives on data de duplication watch this clip.

Various comments and perspectives

Here is a video discussing SMBs as the current sweet spot for server virtualization with comments on the SMB virtualization dark side also discussed here. Meanwhile here are comments regarding EMC Flashy announcements from earlier this year on the Cube. Check out this video where I was a guest of Cali Lewis and John MacArthur on the Cube from the Dell Storage Forum discussing a range of topics as well as having some fun. Check out these videos and perspectives from VMworld 2011.

Whats your take on choosing the best SMB NAS? Here are some of my perspectives on choosing a SMB NAS storage system. Meanwhile here are some perspectives on enterprise class storage features finding their way into SMB NAS storage systems.

Meanwhile industry leaders EMC and NetApp have been busy enhancing their NAS storage solutions that you can read comments here.

Are you familiar with the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA)? Here are some comments about OVA and other server virtualization topics.

Whats your take on Thunderbolt the new interconnect Apple is using in place of USB, here are my thoughts. Meanwhile various other tips and Ask the Expert (AtE) and discussion can be found here.

Check out the above links, as well view more perspectives, comments and news here, here, here, here and here.

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: