The other day NetApp announced that it was planning on doing another acquisition following on their recent purchase of Bycast (policy based storage and management software).
This time, NetApp is doing yet another software acquisition of Infrastructure Resource Management (IRM) as well as End to End (E2E) cross technology domain management and Storage or Systems Resource Analysis (SRA) startup Akorri which also builds on its past acquisition of SRA solution Onaro.
Is this a good move by NetApp?
Assuming they got a good price, yes, this has very potential for NetApp assuming they can assimilate the solution as well as articulate where it fits complimenting its other management tools including SANscreen (aka Onaro).
Is Akorii a good product?
Yes, most of the customers and var partners of Akorri that I talk to have great things to say and having looked into the technology, it has lots of good potential for NetApp. However, there is a common theme around Akorri that has been its high price, something that was also heard from Onaro customers before NetApp did that acquisition. If NetApp can leverage its direct as well as partner touch to reduce the cost of sale for Akorri as well as rationalize the pricing or at least better articulate the value proposition to make it a must have vs nice to have, they can do well.
The importance of E2E awareness of IT resources across different technology domains (or focus areas) is that you can not effectively manage what you do not have timely access or visibility into. Hence the theme of session being You cannot effectively manage what you do not know about in a timely manner. I recently did a couple of Industry Trends and Perspectives webcast events around the topic and themes of End to End (E2E) awareness and cross domain (or technology) management insight for cloud, virtual and other abstracted as well as physical IT environments.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
What records will EMC break in NYC January 18, 2011?
In case you have not seen or heard, EMC is doing an event next week in New York City (NYC) at the AXA Equitable Center winter weather snow storm clouds permitting (and adequate tools or technologies to deal with the snow removal), that has a theme around breaking records. If you have yet to see any of the advertisements, blogs, tweets, facebook, friendfeed, twitter, yourtube or other mediums messages, here (and here and here) are a few links to learn more as well as register to view the event.
Click on the above image to see more
There is already speculation along with IT industry wiki leaks of what will be announced or talked about next week that you can google or find at some different venues.
The theme of the event is breaking records.
What might we hear?
In addition to the advisor, author, blogger and consultant hats that I wear, Im also in the EMCs analysts relations program and as such under NDA, consequently, what the actual announcement will be next week, no comment for now. BTW, I also wear other hats including one from Boeing even though I often fly on Airbus products as well.
Other hats I wear
However, how about some fun as to what might be covered at next weeks event with getting into a wiki leak situation?
A no brainier would be product (hardware, software, services) related as it is mid January and if you have been in the industry for more than a year or two, you might recall that EMC tends to a mid winter launch around this time of year along with sometimes an early summer refresh. Guess what time of the year it is.
Im guessing lots of superlatives, perhaps at a record breaking pace (e.g. revolutionary first, explosive growth, exponential explosive growth, perfect storm among others that could be candidates for the Storagebrain wall of fame or shame)
Maybe we will even hear that EMC has set a new record of number of members in Chads army aka the vspecialists focused on vSphere related topics along with a growing (quietly) number of Microsoft HyperV specialist.
That EMC has a record number of twitter tweeps engaged in conversations (or debates) with different audiences, collectives, communities, competitors, customers, individuals, organizations, partners or venues among others.
Possibly that their involvement in the CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) has resulted in enough savings to offset the impact of hosting the event making it carbon and environment neutral. After all, we already know that EMC has been in the CDP as in Continual or Constant Data Protection as well as Complete or Comprehensive Data Protection along with Cloud Data Protection not to mention Common Sense Data Protection (CSDP) for sometime now.
Perhaps something around the number of acquisitions, patents, products, platforms, products and partners they have amassed recently.
For investors, wishful thinking that they will be moving their stock into record territories.
Im also guessing we will hear or see a record number of tweets, posts, videos and stories.
To be fair and balanced, Im also expecting a record number of counter tweets, counter posts, counter videos and counter stories coming out of the event.
Some records I would like to see EMC break however Im not going to hold my breath at least for next week include:
Announcement of upping the game in performance benchmarking battles with record setting or breaking various SPC benchmark results submitted on their own (instead of via a competitor or here) in different categories of block storage devices along with entries for SSD based, clustered and virtualized. Of course we would expect to hear how those benchmarks and workload simulations really do not matter which would be fine, at least they would have broken some records.
Announcement of having shipped more hard disk drives (HDD) than anyone else in conjunction with shipping more storage than anyone else. Despite being continually declared dead (its not) and SSD gaining traction, EMC would have a record breaking leg to stand on if the qualify amount of storage shipped as external or shared or networked (SAN or NAS) as opposed to collective (e.g. HP with servers and storage among others).
Announcement that they are buying Cisco, or Cisco is buying them, or that they and Cisco are buying Microsoft and Oracle.
Announcement of being proud of the record setting season of the Patriots, devastated to losing a close and questionable game to the NY Jets, wishing them well in the 2010 NFL Playoffs (Im just sayin…).
Announcement of being the first vendor and solution provider to establish SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, DaaS and many other XaaS offerings via their out of this world new moon base (plans underway for Mars as part of a federated offering).
Announcement that Fenway park will be rebranded as the house that EMC built (or rebuilt).
Disclosure: I will be in NYC on Tuesday the 18th as one of EMCs many guests that they have picked up airfare and lodging, thanks to Len Devanna and the EMC social media crew for reaching out and extending the invitation.
Other guests of the event will include analysts, advisors, authors, bloggers, beat writers, consultants, columnist, customers, editors, media, paparazzi, partners, press, protesters (hopefully polite ones), publishers, pundits, twitter tweepps and writers among others.
I wonder if there will also be a record number of disclosures made by others attending the event as guests of EMC?
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I recently did a couple of Industry Trends and Perspectives webcast events around the topic and themes of End to End (E2E) awareness and cross domain (or technology) management insight for cloud, virtual and other abstracted as well as physical IT environments.
The importance of E2E awareness of IT resources across different technology domains (or focus areas) is that you can not effectively manage what you do not have timely access or visibility into. Hence the theme of session being You cannot effectively manage what you do not know about in a timely manner.
Here is the abstract for the webcast:
Virtualization, clouds and other forms of abstraction help IT organizations enable flexible and scalable services delivery. While abstraction of underlying resources simplifies services delivery from an IT customers perspective, additional layers of technology along with interdependencies still need to be tracked as well as managed. A key enabler for IT organizations is having end to end (E2E) situational awareness of available resources and how they are being used. By having timely situational awareness across various technology domains, IT organizations gain insight into how resources can be more effectively deployed in an efficient manner.
Join independent IT industry analyst, author and blogger Greg Schulz as he looks at common challenges as well as opportunities for leveraging E2E situational awareness to remove blind spots from efficient effective IT services delivery. Greg will look several scenarios including among others cost reduction, maximize resource usage, shrink migration and data consolidation times for cloud, virtual and traditional IT environments while maintaining or enhancing IT services delivery.
If you are interested in IT Infrastructure Resource Management (IRM) of servers, storage, IO networking, virtualization, cloud, backup or restore, optimization as well as cloud or legacy environments and metrics, I invite you to view the following web cast.
Click on the above image to access the BrightTalk web cast from their recent Virtualization Summit series (may require registration)
If you are interested, here is a link to a previous post I did on E2E management, SRA (systems or storage resource analysis) and management insight along with a recent related white paper sponsored by SANpulse that you can access here.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Despite having been repeatedly declared dead at the hands of some new emerging technology over the past several decades, the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) continues to spin and evolve as it moves towards its 60th birthday.
More recently HDDs have been declared dead due to flash SSD that according to some predictions, should have caused the HDD to be extinct by now.
Meanwhile, having not yet died in addition to having qualified for its AARP membership a few years ago, the HDD continues to evolve in capacity, smaller form factor, performance, reliability, density along with cost improvements.
Back in 2006 I did an article titled Happy 50th, hard drive, but will you make it to 60?
IMHO it is safe to say that the HDD will be around for at least a few more years if not another decade (or more).
This is not to say that the HDD has outlived its usefulness or that there are not other tiered storage mediums to do specific jobs or tasks better (there are).
Instead, the HDD continues to evolve and is complimented by flash SSD in a way that HDDs are complimenting magnetic tape (another declared dead technology) each finding new roles to support more data being stored for longer periods of time.
What the importance of this is about technology tiering and resource alignment, matching the applicable technology to the task at hand.
Technology tiering (Servers, storage, networking, snow removal) is about aligning the applicable resource that is best suited to a particular need in a cost as well as productive manner. The HDD remains a viable tiered storage medium that continues to evolve while taking on new roles coexisting with SSD and tape along with cloud resources. These and other technologies have their place which ideally is finding or expanding into new markets instead of simply trying to cannibalize each other for market share.
Here is a link to a good story by Lucas Mearian on the history or evolution of the hard disk drive (HDD) including how a 1TB device that costs about $60 today would have cost about a trillion dollars back in the 1950s. FWIW, IMHO the 1 trillion dollars is low and should be more around 2 to 5 trillion for the one TByte if you apply common costs for management, people, care and feeding, power, cooling, backup, BC, DR and other functions.
IMHO, it is safe to say that the HDD is here to stay for at least a few more years (if not decades) or at least until someone decides to try a new creative marketing approach by declaring it dead (again).
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.
Over in Eden Prairie (Minneapolis Minnesota suburb) where data storage vendor Compellent (CML) is based, they must be singing in the hallways today that it is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.
Sure we had another dusting of snow this morning here in the Minneapolis area and the temp is actually up in the balmy 20F temperature range (was around 0F yesterday) and holiday shopping is in full swing.
The other reason I think that the Compellent folks are thinking that it feels a lot like Christmas are the reports that Dell is in exclusive talks to buy them at about $29 per share or about $876 million USD.
Dell is no stranger to holiday or shopping sprees, check these posts out as examples:
Now some Compellent fans are not going to be happy with only about $29 a share or about $876 million USD price given the recent stock run up into the $30 plus range. Likewise, some of the Compellent fans may be hoping for or expecting a bidding war to drive the stock back up into the $30 range however keep in mind that it was earlier this year when the stock adjusted itself down into the mid teens.
In the case of 3PAR and the HP Dell budding war, that was a different product and company focused in a different space than where Compellent has a good fit.
Sure both 3PAR and Compellent do Fibre Channel (FC) where Dells EqualLogic only does iSCSI, however a valuation based just on FC would be like saying Dell has all the storage capabilities they need with their MD3000 series that can do SAS, iSCSI and FC.
In other words, there are different storage products for different markets or price bands and customer application needs. Kind of like winter here in Minnesota, sure one type of shovel will work for moving snow or you can leverage different technologies and techniques (tiering) to get the job done effectively the same holds for storage solutions.
Compellent has a good Cadillac product that is a good fit for some SMB environments. However the SMB space is also where Dell has several storage products some of which they own (e.g. EqualLogic), some they OEM (MD3000 series and NX) as well as resell (e.g. EMC CLARiiON).
Can the Compellent product replace the lowered CLARiiON business that Dell has itself been shifting more to their flagship EqualLogic product?
Sure however at the risk of revenue cannibalization or worse, introduction of revenue prevention teams.
Can the Compellent product then be positioned lower down under the EqualLogic product?
Sure, however why hold it back not to mention force a higher priced product down into that market segment.
Can the Compellent product be taken up market to compete above the EqualLogic head to head with the larger CLARiiON systems from EMC or comparable solutions from other vendors?
Sure, however I can hear choruses of its sounding a lot like Christmas from New England, the bay area and Tucson among others.
Does this mean that Dell is being overly generous and that this is not a good deal?
No, not at all.
Sure it is the holiday season and Dell has several billion dollars of cash laying around however that in itself does not guarantee a large handout or government sized bailout (excuse me, infusion). At $30 or more, that would be overly generous simply based on where the technology fits as well as aligns to the market realities. Consequently, at $29, this is a great deal for Compellent and also for Dell.
Why is it a good deal for Dell?
I think that it is as much about Dell getting a good deal (ok, paying a premium) to acquire a competitor that they can use to fill some product gaps where they have common VARs. However I also think that this is very much about the channel and the VAR as much if not more than it is just about a storage product. Servers are part of the game here which in turn supports storage, networking, management tools, backup/recovery, archiving and services.
Sure Dell can maybe take some cost out of the Compellent solution by replacing the Supermicro PCs that are the hardware platform for their storage controllers with Dell servers. However the bigger play is around further developing its channel and VAR ecosystems, some of whom were with EqualLogic before Dell bought them. This can also be seen as a means of Dell getting that partner ecosystem to sell overall, more dell products and solutions instead of those from Apple, EMC, Futjisu, HP, IBM, Oracle and many others.
Likewise, I doubt that Mr. Dell is paying a premium simply to make the Compellent shareholders and fans happy to create monetary velocity to stimulate holiday shopping and economic stimulus. However, for the fans, sure, while drowning your sorrows in egg nogg of holiday cheer that you are not getting $30 or higher, instead buy a round for your mates and toast Dell for your holiday gift.
The real reason I think this is a good reason for Dell is that from a business and financial perspective, assuming they stick to the $29 range, it is a good bargain for both parties. Dell gets a company who has been competing with their EqualLogic product in some cases with the same VARs or resellers. Sure it gets a Fibre Channel based product however Dell already has that with the MD3000 series which I realize is less function laden then Compellent or EqualLogic; however it is also more affordable for a different market.
If Dell can close on the deal sticking to its offer which they have the upper hand on, execute including rolling out a strategy as well as product positioning plan. Then educate their own teams as well as VARs and customers of what products fit where and when in such a manner that does not cause revenue prevention (e.g. one product or team blocking the other) or cannibalization instead expanding markets, they can do well.
While Compellent gets a huge price multiple based on their revenue (about $125M USD), if Dell can get the product revenue up from the $125 to $150 million plateau to around $250 to $300 million without cannibalizing other Dell products, the deal pays for itself in many ways.
Keep in mind that a large pile of cash sitting in the bank these days is not exactly yielding the best returns on investment.
For the Compellent fans and shareholders, congratulations!
You have gotten or perhaps are about to get a good holiday gift so knock of the complaining that you should be getting more. The option is that instead of $28 per share, you could be getting 28 lumps of coal in your Christmas stocking.
For the Dell folks, assuming the deal is done on their terms and that they can quickly rationalize the product overlap, convey and then execute on a strategy while keeping the revenue prevention teams on the sidelines you too have a holiday gift to work with (some assembly will be required however). This also is good for Dell outside of storage which may turn out to be one of the gems of the deal in keeping or expanding VARs selling Dell based servers and associated technologies.
For EMC who was slapped in the face earlier this year when Dell took a run at 3PAR, sure there will be more erosion on the lower end CLARiiOn as has been occurring with the EqualLogic. However Dell still needs a solution to effectively compete with EMC and others at the higher end of the SMB or lower end of the enterprise market.
Sure the EqualLogic or Compellent products could be deployed into such scenarios; however those solutions are then playing on a different field and out of their market sweet spots.
Lets see what happens shall we.
In the meantime, what say you?
Is this a good deal for Dell, who is the deal good for assuming it goes through and at the terms mentioned, what is your take?
Who benefits from this proposed deal?
Note that in the holiday gift giving spirit, Chicago style voting or polling will be enabled.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Welcome to the Fall 2010 edition of the Server and StorageIO Group (StorageIO) newsletter. This follows the August 2010 edition building on the great feedback received from recipients.
You can access this news letter via various social media venues (some are shown below) in addition to StorageIO web sites and subscriptions. Click on the following links to view the Fall 2010 edition as an HTML or PDF or, to go to the newsletter page to view previous editions.
Is vendor lockin caused by vendors, their partners or by customers?
In my opinion vendor lockin can be from any or all of the above.
What is vendor lockin
Vendor lockin is a situation where a customer becomes dependent or locked in by choice or other circumstances to a particular supplier or technology.
What is the difference between vendor lockin, account control and stickiness?
Im sure some marketing wiz or sales type will be happy to explain the subtle differences. Generally speaking, lockin, stickiness and account control are essentially the same, or at least strive to obtain similar results. For example, vendor lockin 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 lockin helps make the situation taste better.
Is vendor lockin or stickiness a bad thing?
No, not necessarily, particularly if you the customer are aware and still in control of your environment.
I have had different views of vendor lockin over the years.
These have varied from when I was a customer working in IT organizations or being a vendor and later as an advisory analyst consultant. Even as a customer, I had different views of lockin which varied depending upon the situation. In some cases lockin was a result of upper management having their favorite vendor which meant when a change occurred further up the ranks, sometimes vendor lockin would shift as well. On the other hand, I also worked in IT environments where we had multiple vendors for different technologies to maintain competition across suppliers.
As a vendor, I was involved with customer sites that were best of breed while others were aligned around a single or few vendors. Some were aligned around technologies from the vendors I worked for and others were aligned with someone elses technology. In some cases as a vendor we were locked out of an account until there was a change of management or mandates at those sites. In other cases where lock out occurred, once our product was OEMd or resold by an incumbent vendor, the lockout ended.
Some vendors do a better job of establishing lockin, account management, account control or stickiness than compared to others. Some vendors may try to lock a customer in and thus there is perception that vendors lock customers in. Likewise, there is a perception that vendor lockin only occurs with the largest vendors however I have seen this also occur with smaller or niche vendors who gain control of their customers keeping larger or other vendors out.
Sweet, sticky Sue Bee Honey
Vendor lockin or stickiness is not always the result of the vendor, var, consultant or service provider pushing a particular technology, product or service. Customers can allow or enable vendor lockin as well, either by intent via alliances to drive some business initiative or accidentally by giving up account control management. Consequently vendor lockin is not a bad thing if it brings mutual benefit to the suppler and consumer.
On the other hand, if lockin causes hardship on the consumer while only benefiting the supplier, than it can be a bad thing for the customer.
Do some technologies lend themselves more to vendor lockin vs others?
Yes, some technologies lend themselves more to stickiness or lockin then others. For example, often big ticket or expensive hardware are seen as being vulnerable to vendor lockin along with other hardware items however software is where I have seen a lot of stickiness or lockin around.
However what about virtualization solutions after all the golden rule of virtualization is whoever controls the virtualization (hardware, software or services) controls the gold. This means that vendor lockin could be around a particular hypervisor or associated management tools.
How about bundled solutions or what are now called integrated vendor technology stacks including PODs (here or here) or vBlocks among others? How about databases, do they enable or facilitate vendor lockin? Perhaps, just like virtualization or operating systems or networking technology, storage system, data protection or other solutions, if you let the technology or vendor manage you, then you enable vendor lockin.
Where can vendor lockin or stickiness occur?
Application software, databases, data or information tools, messaging or collaboration, infrastructure resource management (IRM) tools ranging from security to backup to hypervisors and operating systems to email. Lets not forget about hardware which has become more interoperable from servers, storage and networks to integrated marketing or alliance stacks.
Another opportunity for lockin or stickiness can be in the form of drivers, agents or software shims where you become hooked on a feature functionality that then drives future decisions. In other words, lockin can occur in different locations both in traditional IT as well as via managed services, virtualization or cloud environments if you let it occur.
Keep these thoughts in mind:
Customers need to manage their resources and suppliers
Technology and their providers should work for you the customer, not the other way around
Technology providers conversely need to get closer to influence customer thinking
There can be cost with single vendor or technology sourcing due to loss of competition
There can be a cost associated with best of breed or functioning as your own integrator
There is a cost switching from vendors and or their technology to keep in mind
Managing your vendors or suppliers may be easier than managing your upper management
Vendors sales remove barriers so they can sell and setting barriers for others
Virtualization and cloud can be both a source for lockin as well as a tool to help prevent it
As a customer, if lockin provides benefits than it can be a good thing for all involved
Ultimately, its up to the customer to manage their environment and thus have a say if they will allow vendor lockin. Granted, upper management may be the source of the lockin and not surprisingly is where some vendors will want to focus their attention directly, or via influence of high level management consultants.
So while a vendors solution may appear to be a locked in solution, it does not become a lockin issue or problem until a customer lets or allows it to be a lockin or sticky situation.
What is your take on vendor lockin? Cast your vote and see results in the following polls.
Is vendor lockin a good or bad thing?
Who is responsible for managing vendor lockin
Where is most common form or concern of vendor lockin
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.
Do you have a web, internet, backup or other IT cloud service provider of some type?
Do you pay for it, or is it a free service?
Do you take your service provider for granted?
Does your service provider take you or your data for granted?
Does your provider offer some form of service level objectives (SLO)?
For example, Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), Quality of Service (QOS) or if a backup service alternate forms of recovery among others?
So what happens when there is a service disruption, do you threaten to leave the provider and if so, how much does that (or would it) cost you to move?
A couple of weeks ago I was using on a Delta airlines flight from LAX to MSP returning from a west coast speaking engagement event.
During the late evening three hour flight, I was using the gogo inflight wifi service to get caught up on some emails, blog items along with other work items in addition to doing a few twitter tweets while flying high over the real clouds from my virtual office.
During that time, I saw a twitter tweet from Devang Panchigar (@storageNerve) commenting that his hosting service provider Bluehost was down or offline. This caught my attention as Bluehost is also my service provider and a quick check verified that my sites and services were still working. I subsequently sent a tweet to Devang indicating that Bluehost or at least from looking at my sites and services were still functioning, or at least for the time being as I was about to find out. Long story short, about 20 to 25 minutes later, I noticed that I could not longer get to any of my sites, low and behold my Bluehost services were also now offline.
Overall, I have been pleased with Bluehost as a service provider including finding their call support staff very accommodating and easy to work with when I have questions or need something taken care of. Normally I would have simply called Bluehost to see what was going on, however being at about 38,000 feet above the clouds, a quick conversation was not going to be possible. Instead, I checked some forums that revealed Bluehost was experiencing some electrical power issues with their data center (I believe in Utah). Looking at some of the forums as well as various twitter comments, I also decided to check to see if Bluehost CEO Matt Heaton blog was functioning (it was).
It would have been too easy to do one of those irate customer type posts telling them how bad they were, how I was dropping them like a hot potato and then doing a blog post telling everyone to never use them again or along those lines that are far to common and often get deleted as spam.
Instead, I took a different approach (you could have read it here however I just checked and it has been deleted). My comment on Matts blog post took a week or so to be moderated (now since deleted). Essentially my post took the opposite approach of going off on the usual customer tirade instead commenting how ironic that a hosting service for my web site which contains content information about resilient data infrastructure themes was offline.
Now I realize that I am not paying for a high end no downtime always available hosting service, however I also realize that I am paying for a more premium package vs. a basic subscription or even a for free service. While I was not happy about the one hour of downtime around midnight, it was comforting to know that no data was lost and my sites were only offline for a short period of time.
I hope Bluehost continues to improve on their services to stay out of the news for a major disruption as well as minimize or eliminate downtime for their for fee based services.
I also hope that Bluehost CEO Matt Heaton continues to listen to what his customers have to say while improving his services to keep us as customers instead of taking us for granted as some providers or vendors do.
Thanks again to Devang for the tip that there was a service disruption, after all, sometimes we take services for granted and in other situations some service providers take their customers for granted.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
A new StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspective (ITP) white paper titled “End to End (E2E) Systems Resource Analysis (SRA) for Cloud, Virtual and Abstracted Environments” is now available at www.storageioblog.com/reports compliments of SANpulse technologies.
Abstract: Many organizations are in the planning phase or already executing initiatives moving their IT applications and data to abstracted, cloud (public or private) virtualized or other forms of efficient, effective dynamic operating environments. Others are in the process of exploring where, when, why and how to use various forms of abstraction techniques and technologies to address various issues. Issues include opportunities to leverage virtualization and abstraction techniques that enable IT agility, flexibility, resiliency and salability in a cost effective yet productive manner.
An important need when moving to a cloud or virtualized dynamic environment is to have situational awareness of IT resources. This means having insight into how IT resources are being deployed to support business applications and to meet service objectives in a cost effective manner.
Awareness of IT resource usage provides insight necessary for both tactical and strategic planning as well as decision making. Effective management requires insight into not only what resources are at hand but also how they are being used to decide where different applications and data should be placed to effectively meet business requirements.
Learn more about the importance and opportunities associated with gaining situational awareness using E2E SRA for virtual, cloud and abstracted environments in this StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspective (ITP) white paper compliments of SANpulse technologies by clicking here.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) is a collection of techniques, technologies, tools and best practices that are used to address data growth management challenges. Dedupe is currently the industry darling for DFR particularly in the scope or context of backup or other repetitive data.
However DFR expands the scope of expanding data footprints and their impact to cover primary, secondary along with offline data that ranges from high performance to inactive high capacity.
Consequently the focus of DFR is not just on reduction ratios, its also about meeting time or performance rates and data protection windows.
This means DFR is about using the right tool for the task at hand to effectively meet business needs, and cost objectives while meeting service requirements across all applications.
Examples of DFR technologies include Archiving, Compression, Dedupe, Data Management and Thin Provisioning among others.
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.
This is part of an ongoing series of short industry trends and perspectives blog posts briefs based on what I am seeing and hearing in my conversations with IT professionals on a global basis.
These short posts compliment other longer posts along with traditional industry trends and perspective white papers, research reports, videos, podcasts, webcasts as well as solution brief content found a www.storageioblog.com/reports and www.storageio.com/articles.
Has FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) entered the trough of disillusionment?
IMHO Yes and that is not a bad thing if you like FCoE (which I do among other technologies).
The reason I think that it is good that FCoE is in or entering the trough is not that I do not believe in FCoE. Instead, the reason is that most if not all technologies that are more than a passing fad often go through a hype and early adopter phase before taking a breather prior to broader longer term adoption.
Sure there are FCoE solutions available including switches, CNAs and even storage systems from various vendors. However, FCoE is still very much in its infancy and maturing.
Based on conversations with IT customer professionals (e.g those that are not vendor, vars, consultants, media or analysts) and hearing their plans, I believe that FCoE has entered the proverbial trough of disillusionment which is a good thing in that FCoE is also ramping up for deployment.
Another common question that comes up regarding FCoE as well as other IO networking interfaces, transports and protocols is if they are temporal (temporary short life span) technologies.
Perhaps in the scope that all technologies are temporary however it is their temporal timeframe that should be of interest. Given that FCoE will probably have at least a ten to fifteen year temporal timeline, I would say in technology terms it has a relative long life for supporting coexistence on the continued road to convergence which appears to be around Ethernet.
That is where I feel FCoE is at currently, taking a break from the initial hype, maturing while IT organizations begin planning for its future deployment.
I see FCoE as having a bright future coexisting with other complimentary and enabling technologies such as IO Virtualization (IOV) including PCI SIG MRIOV, Converged Networking, iSCSI, SAS and NAS among others.
Keep in mind that FCoE does not have to be seen as competitive to iSCSI or NAS as they all can coexist on a common DCB/CEE/DCE environment enabling the best of all worlds not to mention choice. FCoE along with DCB/CEE/DCE provides IT professionals with choice options (e.g. tiered I/O and networking) to align the applicable technology to the task at hand for physical or
Again, the questions pertaining to FCoE for many organizations, particularly those not going to iSCSI or NAS for all or part of their needs should be when, where and how to deploy.
This means that for those with long lead time planning and deployment cycles, now is the time to putting your strategy into place for what you will be doing over the next couple of years if not sooner.
For those interested, here is a link (may require registration) to a good conversation taking place over on IT Toolbox regarding FCoE and other related themes that may be of interest.
Here are some links to additional related material:
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
This past week I spent a few days in San Francisco attending the VMworld 2010 event which included a Wednesday evening concert with the Australian band INXS.
Despite some long lines (or queues) waiting to get into sessions, keynotes or lunch resulting in delays reminiscent of trying to put too many virtual machines (VMs) onto a given number of physical machines (PMs) in the quest to drive up utilization, the overall event was fantastic.
While at the event, I had a chance to meet up with fellow vExpert Eric Siebert whose new book Maximum vSphere made its debut. I was honored when asked by Eric to help out with his chapter on storage, learn more about Erics new book here.
Big thanks to @rogerlund for organizing a very impromptu ad hoc lunch discussion with a couple of other IT pros representing vary different as well as diverse spectrums of public, private, small, large and ultra large environments. I was only at the event for two days and thus there were many others that I was looking for at their booths or in the hallways (I saw @ekhnaser among others that I could not call out too in time) or in the meeting rooms as well as in the lunch hall. I look forward to seeing you all at some future event or venue.
On the food scene, while I did not have a chance to dine at one of my local favorites Brandy Hos, I did have a fantastic lunch at Henrys House of Pain (aka Henrys House of Hunan on Sansome). I also had a great outdoor dinner in the alleyway based Cafe Tiramisu where I enjoyed their signature dish. The dish which was essentially a fruit de mer (Fruit of the Sea) over linguine covered with a thin pizza crust that was baked. It was fantastic and brings a whole new dimension to the theme of a classic pot pie meets fruit de mar, give it a try!
On an even lighter or fun note, following are photos and links to some videos of the INXS event courtesy of Karen (aka Mrs Schulz). In addition to being an award winning photographer, Karens day time job is that of an applications development analyst (e.g. an IT Geekette) at a large Minnesota based Mining and Manufacturing company that is also involved in many different sticky and abrasive among other products.
Karen (Photo Courtesy Karen Sculz)
Karen took the following photos (and videos) with her Cannon Powershot S5 Digital camera.
Me heading to INXS show at VMworld 2010 (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)
Me sitting in the middle of the virtual highway (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)
INXS at VMworld 2010 (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)
JD Fortune of INXS at VMworld (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)
Kirk Pengilly and JD Fortune of INXS at VMworld 2010 (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)
Tim Farriss of INXS (Photo Courtesy Karen Schulz)
Here are links to some videos that Karen captured from up front near the stage during the INXS show at VMworld 2010.
Devil Inside (not to be confused with the devil is in the details of clouds, virtualization and other IT topics)
By My Side (Where a vendor or solution partner should be during and after the sale for their customers)
Disappear (What should not happen to your data or virtual machines in physical, virtual or cloud environments)
Never Tear Us Apart (What should not happen between your servers, storage, applications and data)
Need You Tonight (The call that many system admins get during their off hours)
New Sensation (What many are experience with virtualization and clouds)
Dont Change (Ironic final song of encore of a concert at conference with a theme of change)
A big tip of the hat along with thanks goes out to John Troyer of VMware as well as Sarah Shvil of the VMware Analyst Relations team for helping make it possible for me to attend as an independent IT industry analyst instead of on the coat tails of a vendors exhibit hall pass (disclosure: I paid for my own travel, lodging and dinning expenses).
Me hitching a ride on the virtual highway to the clouds and VMworld (Photo Curtsey Karen Schulz)
Hopefully with some luck, I will be able to hitch a ride and attend VMworld again next year in Las Vegas, perhaps even as a repeat vExpert as well as IT Industry Analyst.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Welcome to the August Summer Wrap Up 2010 edition of the Server and StorageIO Group (StorageIO) newsletter. This follows the June 2010 edition building on the great feedback received from recipients. Items that are new in this expanded edition include:
Out and About Update
Industry Trends and Perspectives (ITP)
Featured Article
You can access this news letter via various social media venues (some are shown below) in addition to StorageIO web sites and subscriptions. Click on the following links to view the August 2010 edition as an HTML or PDF or, to go to the newsletter page to view previous editions.
No it is not the Tape Times, or the Oracle Sun times, or IBM Magic Moments, or EMC Money Magazine, nor is it the Oracle Law Journal review. Sorry to say that it is not the Dedupe Discovery Debate Diaries, nor is it the Virtual Vanity Fair or NetApp Networking News.
My favorite late summer reading is not the eDiscovery Entertainment this week, or Mens Metadata Monthly and it is not the Cisco Chronicles let alone the HP national inquirer Pages.
No my favorite late summer reading is not Business Barons, NFL weekly wrap up nor Virtualization Hyperventilation Health tips. Neither is it the editorials, advertisements or cheerleading sections in the Cloud Crowd Confusion Chronicles, nor is it million miler monthly and it is not Green IT Eggs and Spam. While all good reads, it is not Wine Snob Weekly, or the Great Grape Gazette or Beer Brewers News, Minnesota DNR news, Virtual Motor head Monthly, or Freshwater Dock Yachting Yearly review, Aviation Leak and Space Technology nor Rolling Stone.
It is also not one of the local news papers or national ones for that matter although the Singapore Shipping Times is a good diversion read that reminds me of my past visits there.
While I would like to say it is one of the many popular blogs (industry or other), let alone one of the many great books out there in print or kindle, no, it is something completely different.
Granted all of the above or their virtual reality physical variant are in fact great reading material that I enjoy and do recommend (or their reasonable facsimile).
However, there is one that stands out above all others and it is called Cooks Illustrated (FTC disclosure, my wife gave me a subscription).
Is there a point to all of the above which if you could not tell, includes some tongue in cheek humor, perhaps what some might see as, skepticism or snarkyness while others might have a good laugh (to each your own)?
Yes the point is this.
Take a break from your normal wide world of work routine, stop typing or talking for a bit, sit back, maybe put some tunes on and read something to stimulate (as well as relax) the brain for a bit.
Find and enjoy some recreational or diversion reading material no matter how light or heavy, humor or serious, perhaps listen to some music and enjoy a cold (or warm) beverage perhaps even drifting into a drool producing nap. Enjoy the balance of your summer (or winter for friends down under) and take some time to read something to stimulate that gray matter between the ears located slightly behind your eyes.
Ok, now Im hungry have to go.
BTW: What is your favorite late summer reading material (and/or relaxation activity, music, food or beverage)?
