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March 20, 2018November 26, 2023

March 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

Volume 18, Issue 3 (March 2018)

Hello and welcome to the March 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter.

If you are wondering where the January and February 2018 update newsletters are, they are rolled into this combined edition. In addition to the short email version (free signup here), you can access full versions (html here and PDF here) along with previous editions here.

In this issue:

Data Infrastructure Industry Activity
News Commentary and Tips
Server StorageIOblog posts
Recommended Reading
Various Events and Webinars
Industry Resources and Links

Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure update newsletter.

Cheers GS

Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

Data Infrastructure Data Protection and Backup BC BR DR HA Security

World Backup day is coming up on March 31 which is a good time to remember to verify and validate that your data protection is working as intended. On one hand I think it is a good idea to call out the importance of making sure your data is protected including backed up.

On the other hand data protection is not a once a year, rather a year around, 7 x 24 x 365 day focus. Also the focus needs to be on more than just backup, rather, all aspects of data protection from archiving to business continuance (BC), business resiliency (BR), disaster recovery (DR), always on, always accessible, along with security and recovery.

Data Infrastructure Data Protection Backup 4 3 2 1 rule
Data Infrastructure 4 3 2 1 Data Protection and Backup

Some data spring thoughts, perspectives and reminders. Data lakes may swell beyond their banks causing rivers of data to flood as they flow into larger reservoirs, great data lakes, gulfs of data, seas and oceans of data. Granted, some of that data will be inactive cold parked like glaciers while others semi-active floating around like icebergs. Hopefully your data is stored on durable storage solutions or services and does not melt.

Data Infrastructure Server Storage I/O flash SSD NVMe
Various NAND Flash SSD devices and SAS, SATA, NVMe, M.2 interfaces

Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) including various solid state device (SSD) mediums (e.g. nand flash, 3D XPoint, MRAM among others), packaging (drives, PCIe Add in cars [AiC] along with entire systems, appliances or arrays). Also part of the continue evolution of NVM, SSD and other persistent memories (PM) including storage class memories (SCM) are different access protocol interfaces.

Keep in mind that there is a difference between NVM (medium) and NVMe (access), NVM is the generic category of mediums or media and devices such as nand flash, nvram, 3D XPoint among others SCM (and PMs). In other words, NVM is what data devices use for storing data, NVMe is how devices and systems are accessed. NVMe and its variations is how NVM, SSD, PM, SCM media and devices get accessed locally, as well as over network fabrics (e.g. NVMe-oF an FC-NVMe).

NVMe continues to evolve including with networked fabric variations such as RDMA based NVMe over Fabric (NVMe-oF), along with Fibre Channel based (FC-NVMe). The Fibre Channel Industry Association trade group recently held its second multi-vendor plugfest in support of NVMe over Fibre Channel.

Read more about NVM, NVMe, SSD, SCM, flash and related technologies, tools, trends, tips via the following resources:

Has Object Storage failed to live up to its industry hype lacking traction? Or, is object storage (also known as blobs) progressing with customer adoption and deployment on normal realistic timelines? Recently I have seen some industry comments about object storage not catching on with customers or failing to live up to its hyped expectation. IMHO object storage is very much alive along with block, file, table (e.g. database SQL and NoSQL repositories), message/queue among others, as well as emerging blockchain aka data exchanges.

Various Industry and Customer Adoption Deployment Timeline (Via: StorageIOblog.com)

An issue with object storage is that it is still new, still evolving, many IT environments applications do not yet speak or access objects and blobs natively. Likewise as is often the case, industry adoption and deployment is usually early and short term around the hype, vs. the longer cycle of customer adoption and deployment. The downside for those who only focus on object storage (or blobs) is that they may be under pressure to do things short term instead of adjusting to customer cycles which take longer, however real adoption and deployment also last longer.

While the hype and industry buzz around object storage (and blobs) may have faded, customer adoption continues and is here to stay, along with block, file among others, learn more at www.objectstoragecenter.com. Also keep in mind that there is a difference between industry and customer adoption along with deployment.

Some recent Industry Activities, Trends, News and Announcements include:

In case you missed it, Amazon Web Services (e.g. AWS) announced EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) which as its name implies, is an easy to use and manage Kubernetes (containers, serverless data infrastructure) running on AWS. AWS joins others including Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS), Googles Kubernetes Engine, EasyStack (ESContainer for openstack and Kubernetes),VMware Pivotal Container Service (PKS) among others. What this means is that in the container serverless data infrastructure ecosystem Kubernetes container management (orchestration platform) is gaining in both industry as well as customer adoption along with deployment.

Check out other industry news, comments, trends perspectives here.

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIO Comments Content

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news, tips and articles

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via BizTech: Why Hybrid (SSD and HDD) Storage Might Be Fit for SMB environments
Via Excelero: Server StorageIO white paper enabling database DBaaS productivity
Via Cloudian: YouTube video interview file services on object storage with HyperFile
Via CDW Solutions: Comments on Software Defined Access
Via SearchStorage: Comments on Cloudian HyperStore on demand cloud like pricing
Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments and tips on Software Defined Storage Best Practices
Via PRNewsWire: Comments on Excelero NVMe NVMesh Database and DBaaS solutions
Via SearchStorage: Comments on NooBaa multi-cloud storage management
Via CDW: Comments on New IT Strategies Improve Your Bottom Line
Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Software Defined Storage: Pros and Cons
Via DataCenterKnowledge: Comments on The Great Data Center Headache IoT
Via SearchStorage: Comments on Dell and VMware merger scenario options
Via PRNewswire: Comments on Chelsio Microsoft Validation of iWARP/RDMA
Via SearchStorage: Comments on Server Storage Industry trends and Dell EMC
Via ChannelProSMB: Comments on Hybrid HDD and SSD storage solutions
Via ChannelProNetwork: Comments on What the Future Holds for HDDs
Via HealthcareITnews: Comments on MOUNTAINS OF MOBILE DATA
Via SearchStorage: Comments on Cloudian HyperStore 7 targets multi-cloud complexities
Via GlobeNewsWire: Comments on Cloudian HyperStore 7
Via GizModo: Comments on Intel Optane 800P NVMe M.2 SSD
Via DataCenterKnowledge: Comments on getting data centers ready for IoT
Via DataCenterKnowledge: Comments on Beyond the Hype: AI in the Data Center
Via DataCenterKnowledge: Comments on Data Center and Cloud Disaster Recovery
Via SearchStoragae: Comments on Cloudian HyperFile marries NAS and object storage
Via SearchStoragae: Comments on Top 10 Tips on Solid State Storage Adoption Strategy
Via SearchStoragae: Comments on 8 Top Tips for Beating the Big Data Deluge

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

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIOblog posts

Server StorageIOblog Data Infrastructure Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

Application Data Value Characteristics Everything Is Not The Same
Application Data Availability 4 3 2 1 Data Protection
AWS Cloud Application Data Protection Webinar
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Insiders Preview
Application Data Characteristics Types Everything Is Not The Same
Application Data Volume Velocity Variety Everything Is Not The Same
Application Data Access Lifecycle Patterns Everything Is Not The Same
Veeam GDPR preparedness experiences Webinar walking the talk
VMware continues cloud construction with March announcements
Benefits of Moving Hyper-V Disaster Recovery to the Cloud Webinar
World Backup Day 2018 Data Protection Readiness Reminder
Use Intel Optane NVMe U.2 SFF 8639 SSD drive in PCIe slot
Data Infrastructure Resource Links cloud data protection tradecraft trends
How to Achieve Flexible Data Protection Availability with All Flash Storage Solutions
November 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter
IT transformation Serverless Life Beyond DevOps Podcast
Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Topics Tools Techniques Technologies Tips
HPE Announces AMD Powered Gen 10 ProLiant DL385 For Software Defined Workloads
AWS Announces New S3 Cloud Storage Security Encryption Features
Introducing Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL Overview #blogtober
Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Server StorageIO Recommended Reading (Watching and Listening) List

In addition to my own books including Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) available at Amazon.com (check out special sale price), the following are Server StorageIO data infrastructure recommended reading, watching and listening list items. The Server StorageIO data infrastructure recommended reading list includes various IT, Data Infrastructure and related topics including Intel Recommended Reading List (IRRL) for developers is a good resource to check out. Speaking of my books, Didier Van Hoye (@WorkingHardInIt) has a good review over on his site you can view here, also check out the rest of his great content while there.

In case you may have missed it, here is a good presentation from AWS re:invent 2017 by Brendan Gregg (@brendangregg) about how Netflix does EC2 and other AWS tuning along with plenty of great resource links. Keith Tenzer (@keithtenzer) provides a good perspective piece about containers in a large IT enterprise environment here including various options.

Speaking of IT data centers and data infrastructure environments, checkout the list of some of the worlds most extreme habitats for technology here. Mark Betz (@markbetz) has a series of Docker and Kubernetes networking fundamentals posts on his site here, as well as over at Medium including mention of Google Cloud (@googlecloud). The posts in Marks series are good refresher or intros to how Docker and Kubernetes handles basic networking between containers, pods, nodes, hosts in clusters. Check out part I here and part II here.

Blockchain elements
Image via https://stevetodd.typepad.com

Steve Todd (@Stevetodd) has some good perspectives about Trusted Data Exchanges e.g. life beyond blockchain and bitcoin here along with core element considerations (beyond the product pitch) here, along with associated data infrastructure and storage evolution vs. revolution here.

Watch for more items to be added to the recommended reading list book shelf soon.

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIO event activities

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

March 27, 2018 – Webinar – Veeams Road to GDPR Compliancy The 5 Lessons Learned

Feb 28, 2018 – Webinar – Benefits of Moving Hyper-V Disaster Recovery to the Cloud

Jan 30, 2018 – Webinar – Achieve Flexible Data Protection and Availability with All Flash Storage

Nov. 9, 2017 – Webinar – All You Need To Know about ROBO Data Protection Backup

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

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

Various useful links and resources:

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

Connect and Converse With Us

Subscribe to Newsletter – Newsletter Archives – StorageIO.com – StorageIOblog.com

What this all means and wrap-up

Data Infrastructures are what exists inside physical data centers spanning cloud, converged, hyper-converged, virtual, serverless and other software defined as well as legacy environments. The fundamental role of data infrastructures comprising server (compute), storage, I/O networking hardware, software, services defined by management tools, best practices and policies is to provide a platform for applications along with their data to deliver information services. With March 31 being world backup day, also focus on making sure that on April 1st you are not a fool trying to recover from a bad data protection copy. With the continued movement to flash SSD along with other forms of storage class memory (SCM) and persistent memories (PM), data moves at a faster rate meaning data protection is even more important to get you out of trouble as fast as you get into issues.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

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

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

January 25, 2018November 26, 2023

Data Infrastructure Resource Links cloud data protection tradecraft trends

Data Infrastructure Resource Links Server Storage I/O Network

By Greg Schulz – www.storageioblog.com April 28, 2018

Various data infrastructure resource links.

The following are a collection of server storageioblog data infrastructure resource links.

Where to learn more

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

What This All Means

Check out the above links to data infrastructure resource links.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

February 26, 2017November 26, 2023

Server Storage I/O network Data Infrastructure Tradecraft Overview

Updated 1/17/2018

Data Infrastructure Tradecraft includes server storage I/O network and associated technology, technique, skills, experiences. Tradecraft includes insight as well as tricks of the trade, profession and job function (read more about what is a data infrastructure here). This is the first of a two-part series exploring data infrastructure along with serve storage I/O and related tradecraft. Read part two of this series here.

Data Infrastructure and IT Infrastructure Layers

Data infrastructure encompasses servers, storage, I/O and networking along with associated hardware, software, services and management tasks including data protection among others. Tradecraft is knowing about tools, technologies, and trends in your primary domain as well as adjacent focus areas. However, tradecraft is also about knowing how and when to use different technologies, tools with various techniques to address different scenarios.

What Is Your Tradecraft
An example of expanding tradecraft is, for instance, an automobile technician who has learned how to change oil, check tire air pressure, or other essential entry-level functions. On the other hand, a master mechanic knows how to do more involved tasks, from the engine to transmission repair or rebuilding, bodywork, along with troubleshooting. A master mechanic not only knows what buttons, knobs, tools, and techniques to use for different tasks, he also knows how to diagnose problems, as well as what usually causes those problems to occur.

There are many other examples, including salespeople who have the tradecraft of selling, including account as well as relationship building along with the ability to learn new tradecraft related to the trade or items they are or will be selling. Moreover, then there are pre-sales and systems engineers, technical marketing, product and program management, test and development, R&D engineering, IT and technology architects, among many others.
IT Data Infrastructure Professionals

Another example is engineers and architects (non-IT) who have basic design along with engineering discipline tradecraft, as well as specialties such as mechanical, electrical, heating ventilation air condition (HVAC), or environmental, among others. They can leverage their basic tradecraft while extending and enhancing it by gaining insight as well as experience in adjacent areas of focus.

For IT and data infrastructure tradecraft this means expanding from basic tasks to being able to do more advanced things. For example, developing tradecraft from knowing the different hardware, software, and services resources as well as tools, to what to use when, where, why, and how. Another dimension of expanding data infrastructure tradecraft skills is gaining the experience and insight to troubleshoot problems, gain insight awareness with dashboard or monitoring tools, as well as how to design and manage to cut or reduce the chance of things going wrong.

From Tools and Technologies to Techniques and Tricks of the Trade
Expanding your awareness of new technologies along with how they work is important, so too is understanding application and organization needs. Developing your tradecraft means balancing the focus on new and old technologies, tools, and techniques with business or organizational application functionality.

This is where using various tools that themselves are applications to gain insight into how your data infrastructure is configured and being used, along with the applications they support, is important.

Data Infrastructure Tool Box

Learning the Talk and Walking the Talk
For some people their tradecraft is only learning the talk, so that they can talk the talk of trends, techniques, technology buzzwords to do their job (or get a job) and fit in. The next step is comprehending the talk, gaining more insight and experience ability of what to do (and not do) by walking the talk. Sometimes this means learning from mistakes (yours or others) to prevent them in the future.

Expanding your tradecraft means learning the talk as well as how to walk the talk for adjacent areas. This can mean new skills, ability, tools, and technologies along with proper terminology. For your data infrastructure tradecraft, you need to acquire competencies in these different yet related areas.

Even if your focus is to be a hardware or software or services person, there are opportunities to expand your tradecraft. For example extend into physical, virtualization, cloud, container, networking, storage, performance, data protection, or security, among others. This also means comprehending how the pieces work together to support the business applications, as well as the impact on each other (e.g. cause and effect).

Part of tradecraft is also understanding that various terms and acronyms have different context meaning. For example, SAS can mean big data statistical analysis software or Serial Attached SCSI among others. What this means is as your tradecraft expands, so too does awareness that different terms have various meaning along with the importance of asking for context.

Another example of understanding context is Fabric. Fabric can also have different context and meaning. It can refer to a network of switches, directors, and routers tying together servers, storage, bridges, gateways, and other devices, but it can also be associated with higher-level application functions, or a cluster of servers or services, as well as data. Keep context in mind about fabric: whether it is referring to lower-level physical and logical networks, or applications and data, among others.

Yet another context example includes that client can have different meanings, including software or applications that communicate with a server or service, local or in the cloud. A variation of client can also be a type of device, such as a tablet, laptop, mobile device or phone, as well as a workstation with varying software for accessing different data infrastructure as well as applications. Another context for client is the user, person, or thing such as IoT that accesses and interacts with client software or server and services of application or data resources. Yet another context for client is a consumer of lower-level data infrastructure resources or higher-level applications services.

Where To Learn More

View additional Data Infrastructure and tradecraft related topics via the following links.

Part I and part II of this series
NVMe overview and primer – Part I
PCIe Server I/O Fundamentals
Server storage I/O benchmark tools, workload scripts and examples (Part I) and (Part II)
Data Infrastructure Overview, Its Whats Inside of Data Centers
All You Need To Know about Remote Office/Branch Office Data Protection Backup (free webinar with registration)
Software Defined, Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) resources
The SSD Place (SSD, NVM, PM, SCM, Flash, NVMe, 3D XPoint, MRAM and related topics)
The NVMe Place (NVMe related topics, trends, tools, technologies, tip resources)
Data Protection Diaries (Archive, Backup/Restore, BC, BR, DR, HA, RAID/EC/LRC, Replication, Security)
Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) including SDDC, Cloud, Container and more
Various Data Infrastructure related events, webinars and other activities

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

What this means

Remember that tradecraft is skills, experiences, tricks, and techniques along with knowing what as well as how to use various related tools as part of what it is that you are doing. Continue reading more about data infrastructure along with server storage I/O network hardware software as well as associated management tradecraft in part two of this series here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

February 22, 2017November 26, 2023

Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links A to E

IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Industry Resources

Updated 2/20/2018

Following are some useful Data Infrastructure IT Industry Resource Links A to E to cloud, virtual and traditional IT data infrastructure related web sites. The data infrastructure environment (servers, storage, IO and networking, hardware, software, services, virtual, container and cloud) is rapidly changing. You may encounter a missing URL, or a URL that has changed. This list is updated on a regular basis to reflect changes (additions, changes, and retirement).

Disclaimer and note: URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site.

Best effort has been made to validate and verify the data infrastructure URLs that appear on this page and web site however they are subject to change. The author and/or maintainer(s) of this page and web site make no endorsement to and assume no responsibility for the URLs and their content that are listed on this page.

Send an email note to info at storageio dot com that includes company name, URL, contact name, title and phone number along with a brief 40 character description to be considered for addition to the above data infrastructure list, or, to be removed. Note that Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC (e.g. StorageIO) does not sell, trade, barter, borrow or share your contact information per our Privacy and Disclosure policy. View related data infrastructure Server StorageIO content here, and signup for our free newsletter here.

Links A-E
Links F-J
Links K-O
Links P-T
Links U-Z
Other Links

A3Cube Computer I/O solution startup
AAPT AAPT AWS connect partner, Hosting/cloud/access services
abiquo.com Cloud development and management tools
Above.net/Zayo Group AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
abrevity.com eDiscovery, search, indexing, classification
accellion.com File transfer tools
accessopt.com Holographic storage
acinion.com Video solutions
acopia.com NAS aggregation and global name space (bought by F5)
acronis.com Backup and data protection tools
acsacs.com Value added reseller (VAR)
acs-inc.com Hosting, outsourcing and managed services (Bought by Xerox)
actifio.com Data protection solutions
active-circle.com Data archiving and storage solutions
activestate.com Stackato PaaS for cloud tools
adaptec.com Adapters, iSCSI storage, data backup solutions (See PMC)
adesto.com CBRAM startup
addonics.com SSD storage solutions
adic.com Backup, Dedupe and data protection solutions (Bought by Quantum)
adinfa.com Energy and resource management tools
AdRem Netcrunch Monitoring of Networks, Systems and Applications, DCIM
Adtran Datacom and networking solutions
advancedvault.com Business continuity solutions
advaoptical.com Optical networking
afcom.com Data center industry user group
aforesolutions.com Cloud storage and infrasture management tools
agami.com High performance NAS storage (Shutdown)
agilent.com Host adapters and test equipment
agility.com Optical solutions and components
agilysys.com VAR
aiim.com Archiving and records management trade group
ait.com Cloud and web hosting
Ajubeo Cloud and management solutions
akamai.com Content distribution network (CDN)
akitio.com Storage systems
akorri.com Storage resource and capacity management
alacritech.com Storage networking adapters for iSCSI
alacritus.com Data Protection Software
alcatel.com Networking and storage networking equipment
alliance-it.com Value added reseller (VAR)
allstorage.nl Storage services solution provider
amazon.com Cloud compute and storage services
AmberPoint.com SOA management tools
amcc.com Storage networking components (aka JNI & 3ware Bought by LSI)
amd.com Server and processor chips
americanfibersystems.com Metropolitan storage networks and fiber bandwidth
amphenol.com Storage Networking connectors and cables
Amplidata.com Object and wide area based storage
ancot.com Storage networking testing equipment
anixter.com Networking components
Anobit.com Memory components
ansi.org American National Standards Institute
Anstor64.com iSCSI storage software
anuesystems.com SONET’/SDH and network test equipment
apc.com Environmental and power systems and DCIM solutoins
apcon.com Physical cabling and management
aperture.com Data center tools including CMDB (Bought by Emerson)
appassue.com SQL server and data protection tools (Bought by Dell)
Appcore Cloud management tools
Appfirst IT Ops, Development and DCIM monitoring and PKI metrics
appiq.com Storage Management Software (Bought by HP)
appirio.com Cloud and content tools and services
apple.com Server and storage
apprenda.com Grid and data management tools
Apprenda Platform as a service tools
aprius.com PCIe Server I/O virtualization (IOV) technology
aptare.com Data protection management and backup reporting
arasan.com IP Networking components
Archivas.com Archiving and data management software (Bought by HDS)
arcmail.com Email archiving
Arcplace Data management archiving
arcsight.com Compliance solutions
argent.com Data center management and CMDB tools
ariodata.com Scalable data storage and blade storage systems
aristanetworks.com Networking technologies
aristoslogic.com Storage controller technology (Bought by Adaptec)
Arkeia.com Backup and data protection software (Bought by WD)
arkivio.com Storage management and ILM software
arm.com Microprocessor producer
armor247.com SMB focused data protection solutions
arrow.com Distributor
arsenaldigital.com Managed backup service (Bought by IBM)
arxscan.com SRM and file reporting software
asankya.com Application delivery and cloud access
asciitable.com Site containing the ASCII character set table
ashare.org HVAC Engineers Association
asigra.com Backup and data protection solutions
asnp.org Association Storage Networking Professionals
asperasoft.com High speed file and data transfer tools
astaro.com Security tools
astutenetworks.com iSCSI storage optimized for VMware
atempo.com Backup Software
Atlantic Metro Communications AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
Atlantiscomputing ILIO VDI and I/O optimization, cache tools
atmforum.com ATM trade association
atrato.com Storage systems
attachmate.com IT management tools (bought Novell)
attotech.com Storage networking adapters and gateways
Attunesystems.com NAS and file virtualization (Assets bought by F5)
attunity.com File and data movement tools
autonomy.com Data management and cloud services (Bought by HP) –
autovirt.com Storage automation tiering tools
avagotech.com Semiconductor technologies
availl.com Data movement and replication solutions
avamar.com Dedupe, Backup and Restoration Solutions (Bought by EMC)
avanade.com Var
avaya.com Networking and communications
averesystems.com NAS caching and automated tiering
avg.com Security and anti-virus software
avnet.com Distributor
www.avocent.com Infrastructure resource management tools
axcient.com Cloud data protection solutions
axiossystems.com IRM and service management tools
axsone.com Records and document management
axxana.com Data protection and replication tools
Backblaze Online and cloud backup storage
BackupAssist Backup and Recovery software
backupify.com Backup for google apps
BUMI Backup and data protection tools
backupright.com Online and cloud backup
Backula Opensource Backup and data protection
bakbone.com Backup Software (Bought by Quest bought by Dell)
balesio.com File compression solutions
barracudanetworks.com Networking devices, backup software
basho.com NOSQL Database and object storage technology –
batblue.com Cloud, application delivery networking services
Bestel Bestel AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
Beyondtust Vulnerability assessment and detection
bigswitch.com Openflow based network switches
BitArmor.com Data security software
bitcasa.com Cloud storage and backup
Bitcentral Video management solutions
Bitmicro Solid state devices and other solutions
Blackbox Data center infrastructure, DCIM, KVM and other solutions
BlackMESH FedRAMP and DevOPs hosting
blade.org Trade group for blade servers
bladelogic.com Server management and discovery software
BladeNetwork.net Server and storage blades (Bought by IBM)
Bladeroom Data center and hosting
bladesystems.org Industry trade group for blade servers and storage
bladetechnologies.net Networking technologies
blockbridge.com Elastic Storage Software and Tools
bluearc.com High performance NAS enterprise class storage (Bought by HDS)
bluecoat.com WAN optimization
bluecorenetworks.com Networking infrastructure solutions
Bluehost Web hosting, dedicated and virtual private servers
bluelock.com Hosting, managed service and cloud provider
BlueOSS Cloud and business inteligence solutions
www.bluestripe.com Software for managing virtual data centers
bmc.com Storage management software
bocada.com Backup and management software
bowindustries.com Tape media cleaning tools
box.net Internet/web/cloud storage services
bphx.com Legacy application transformation
bridgestor.com Data reduction and storage optimization
Bridghead.com Storage management software
broadband.com Portal site for finding network bandwidth services
broadbandreports.com Portal site for finding high speed internet access
broadcom.com Storage networking component supplier
brocade.com Switches, WAN gateways, software
brouwerconsultancy.com Storage consultancy service
bswd.com Brian Berg’s Storage Cornucopia web site
btiphotonics.com WDM and Optical networking technologies
buffalotech.com SMB and SOHO NAS storage
bustech.com IBM Mainframe to open systems gateways (Bought by EMC)
bycast.com Grid based fixed content, archive and object storage (Bought by NetApp)
c2c.com Email archiving solutions
c2esoft.com Data center operations and insight management tools
ca.com Data management software
Computer Associates Various data center, DCIM, data protection and other solution tools
call-recall.com Optical storage
Canonical Ubuntu Linux
carbonite.com Cloud storage and backup
caringo.com CAS archiving and object storage tools
casecentral.com Cloud ediscovery
cassandra.apache.org Data management and database alternative software
Apache Cassandra NOSql Data Management tools
cassat.com IRM management tools (Bought by CA)
Catalogic Software Data protection and management tools
cataphora.com Data management tools
catbird.com VM security tools
caviumnetworks.com Networking processors and chip technologies
cdproject.net Carbon Disclosure Project
cdrive.com VAR
cdw.com VAR
celion.com Network services for storage over distance
celona.com Data migration tools
cemaphore.com Messaging solutions
centos.org Cluster Storage
centrepath.com Storage management solutions (formerly Giant Loop)
centrify.com Digital rights management for cloud, virtual, server, desktop and storage
Tier3/CenturyLink Cloud, hosting and managed services
Centurylinkg/Savvis Cloud and hosting solutions
Ceph Cloud and object storage solutions
cert.org Internet Security information
certesnetworks.com Cloud security tools
certon.com VAR
CFN Services AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
chelsio.com High speed Ethernet adapters
chicorporation.com Data protection, cloud and storage VAR
ciena.com Optical networking
Cinenet AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
ciphermax.com Data Storage Encryption Tools
cipheroptics.com Storage networking security
ciprico.com Storage systems (Bought by DotHill)
cirrustore.com Backup data protection tools
cirtas.com Cloud Storage Appliance – Added 6/9/10
cisco.com Switches, WAN and Optical networking
Citrix.com Virtualization solutions
ClearDB.com/.com Local and distributed (GEO) MySQL database software and service
clearpace.com/.com Large scale archive and data management tools
CleverSafe.com Distributed object/esrasure storage
climatesaverscomputing.com Green computing industry trade group
Clonix Data cloning, duplication and protection tools
CloudByte Scale-out and cloud storage
cloudera.com Hadoop data storage and analytics tools
CloudFlare CDN and Web Cache solutions
cloudfuzion.com High performance servers
Cloudian Cloud and object storage tools
Cloudphysics Big data and virtualization tools
cloudreplica.com Cloud data protection tools
cloudscaling.com Open cloud platforms
Apache CloudStack Open Source Cloud tools
cloudtp.com Open cloud deployment solutions
CloudVelocity Hybrid Cloud and data protection management solutins
cloverleafcomm.com Storage Virtualization tools (Bought by DotHill)
clustrix.com Storage software startup
cmg.org Computer Measurement Group
cnt.com Switches, WAN gateways, software (Bought by McData bought by Brocade)
Cobalt Iron Data protection tools
code42.com Cloud storage and backup aka Crashplan
Codenomicon.com Data and security tools
cofio.com Backup and data protection tools
CohesiveFT Cloud solution and management tools
colliercomputing.com VAR
colo-america.com Co-location and hosting services

communities.vmware.com VMware community
commvault.com Data management software
comodo.com Encryption tools
Comparitech Consumer tech reviews
compellent.com SMB Storage sub-systems and software – (Bought by Dell)
comptia.org Computer and Technology Industry Association
compucom.com VAR
computergamedesign.org Computer game design
compuverde.com Big data management tools and object storage
compuware.com IT management and performance tools
condre.com VAR/distributor
Condusiv Data and storage management tools including Diskeeper
XO Communications AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
Connected Cloud Cloud management tools
connectwise.com IT automation tools
conres.com Value added reseller (VAR)
consiliant.com VAR
ConstantData.com Real time data replication and mirroring
continuitysoftware.com Replication and Snapshot data protection management
convirture.com Cloud and virtualization tools
copansys.com Secondary storage for backup and archiving (Assets Bought by SGI)
coraid.com SATA over Ethernet storage
CoreSite AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
corevault.com Cloud services
Cormant DCIM and data center and infrastructure management tools
corning.com Fiber optic cabling
corsair.com SSD
corvis.com Networking solutions
cPanel Web, cloud and hosting management tools
crashplan.com Cloud storage and backup aka Code42
creekpath.com Storage management software
www.critical-links.com Office in a box
crossroads.com Storage routers and data protection management tools
Crosswalkinc.com Clustered NAS storage (Ceased Operations)
crucial.com Memory and SSD solutions
cru-dataport.com Data Archive solutions
Crypto.com Crypto resource site
www.ctera.com Cloud storage appliance
Cumulus Networks Open networking
curtisssd.com SSD solution provider
cya.com Document management and data protection
cyber-ark.com Security data protection tools
cypress.com Storage and networking components
dantz.com Data protection and backup solutions (Aka Retrospect Bought by EMC, EMC sold off)
datacentertechnologies.com Data management solutions (Bought by Symantec)
datacore.com Storage management software
datadepositbox.com Online backup and data protection
datadirectnetworks.com Aka DDN Storage systems, SAN, NAS, Object and cloud
datadomain.com Data Deduplication System (Bought by EMC)
Data Dynamics Inc StorageX Data Movement, Migration and management
datafort.com Online cloud backup
dataglobal.com Data and storage management
Data Gravity Big Data solutions
datagres.com Cloud and application caching acceleration
dataguise.com/ Data security solutions
datalink.com VAR
datallegro.com Data warehouse storage solution (Bought by Microsoft)
datamirror.com Data replication solutions
DataON Storage Storage solutions
Datapipe AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
dataprotection.com Vaultlogix data protection tools for cloud
DataRAM.com SSD solutions
Data sales Storage systems sales and leasing
dataslide.com Hard rectangular disk (HRD)
datastor.com Windows based backup data protection
datcollaborative.org Data collaboration group and DAPL material
datoptic.com Storage VAR
daymarksi.com Value added reseller (VAR)
DBR360 AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
ddifrontline.com Security and access control
debian.org Open source operating system
Debriefing software Storage SRM tools
decru.com Storage networking security solutions (Bought by NetApp)
Asempra.com Data protection bought by Dell via Quest
dell.com Storage networking equipment
Delphix Storage, data management and data protection tools
demandtechnology.com Demand technology software (performance software)
Denodo Data virtualization tools
dexrexgear .com Social media cloud storage
www.dey-sys.com Open source software based sotrage
www.dh2i.com Database virtualization software tools
digidata.com Storage solutions
digistoresolutions.com Archiving and data protection solutions
Digitalocular.com Video data management tools
digitalreefinc.com eDiscovery and compliance tools
digitiliti.com Cloud and managed service backup
diligent.com Virtual Tape Library (VTL) and Dedupe (Bought by IBM)
dimensiondata.com VAR
Dimension Data Hosting and managed services
dincloud.com Cloud virtual desktop
directtextbook.com Online book venue
discoverybox.net Data protection for legal hold and compliance
diskkeeper.com File and disk storage defragmentation (Condusiv)
Disklace.com Disk storage optimization tools
dlink.com Storage, network and cloud technologies
dmtf.org Distributed Management Task Force
dnfstorage.com iSCSI and hybrid storage (formerly Stonefly)
dothill.com Distributed storage solutions
Doubletake.com Data replication software
driveoncloud.com Cloud drive online storage
drivesaversdatarecovery.com Data protection and recovery
drobo.com SMB and SOHO NAS storage
dropbox.com Cloud storage and file sharing
druva.com Backup, Storage, network and cloud technologies
dsireusa.org Database of State Incentives and Renewable Energy
Dundas Data Visualization and mobile dashboards
dvs.de Digital video systems and storage
dynamicsolutions.com Storage and data protection VAR
EaseUS Backup, data protection and cloning tools
ecctek.com Rugged data storage components
econnectix.com Data and storage management solutions
eds.com Data outsourcing and cloud provider (Bought by HP)
eere.energy.gov U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) web site
egenera.com Blade server and server virtualization management software
eginnovations.com Application and infrastructure monitoring
egnyte.com Cloud backup and data protection
eia.doe.gov/fuelelectric.html Portal for electrical power generation, use and costs
emc.com Storage sub-systems software
Emerson.com DCIM IT Data center power, cooling and environmental management tools
Empired FlexScale IT and business cloud solutions
emprisanetworks.com Network management solutions (Bought by BMC)
emulex.com Host bus adapters and embedded switches
enclarity.com Healthcare CRM and analysis tools
encryptstick.com USB based encryption device
enduradata.com Data distribution and protection
energycenter.org California Center for Sustainable Energy
energyshop.com Portal for energy pricing and options
energystar.gov United States EPA Energy Star web site
Enhance-tech.com Storage VAR
enmotus.com SSD storage tiering technology
Ensim IT and cloud provisioning/management tools
enstratus.com Amazon cloud computing management tools (Bought by Dell)
enterprisedb.com Enterprise Database tools
epeat.net Site for comparing desktop and related products
epic.com Medical Information Technology software
equallogic.com iSCSI storage systems (Bought by Dell)
Equinix, Inc. AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
equivio.com Email data protection and retention
ericom.com Desktop and VDI tools
esilicon.com ASIC and custom silicon development
essextec.com VAR
Eucalyptus Open source cloud solutions
Evault.com aka i365 – Remote (Cloud) backup service provider (Bought by Seagate)
Everspin Technologies MRAM memories
evolvingsol.com VAR
evostor.com Storage startup
exablade.com High performance application acceleration
Exablox SMB storage solutions
Exabyte.com Removable tape and robotics
exagrid.com Backup Storage
exanet.com Clustered NAS Storage (Bought by Dell aka FluidFileSystem)
exar.com Server, Storage and Networking components
exavio.com HD and SD data capture
exludus.com Multi core optimize
Expand.com Network and WAN optimization
Expertanalyticalsystems.com Storage analysis tools
Exponential-e Ltd. AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
expresscomputersystems.com Storage solutions VAR
extremenetworks.com Networking switches

Where To Learn More

View additional NAS, NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and HDD related topics via the following links.

Can we get a side of context with them IOPS and other storage metrics?
WHEN AND WHERE TO USE NAND FLASH SSD FOR VIRTUAL SERVERS
Revisiting RAID storage remains relevant and resources
NVMe overview and primer – Part I
Part 1 of HDD for content servers series Trends and Content Application Servers
Part 2 of HDD for content servers series Content application server decisions and testing plans
Part 3 of HDD for content servers series Test hardware and software configuration
Part 4 of HDD for content servers series Large file I/O processing
Part 5 of HDD for content servers series Small file I/O processing
Part 6 of HDD for content servers series General I/O processing
Part 7 of HDD for content servers series How HDD continue to evolve over different generations and wrap up
As the platters spin, HDD’s for cloud, virtual and traditional storage environments
How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do?
Hard Disk Drives (HDD) for Virtual Environments
Server and Storage I/O performance and benchmarking tools
Server storage I/O performance benchmark workload scripts Part I and Part II
How to test your HDD, SSD or all flash array (AFA) storage fundamentals
What is the best server storage I/O workload benchmark? It depends
I/O, I/O how well do you know about good or bad server and storage I/Os?
Big Files Lots of Little File Processing Benchmarking with Vdbench
Part II – NVMe overview and primer (Different Configurations)
Part III – NVMe overview and primer (Need for Performance Speed)
Part IV – NVMe overview and primer (Where and How to use NVMe)
Part V – NVMe overview and primer (Where to learn more, what this all means)
PCIe Server I/O Fundamentals
If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?
NVMe Wont Replace Flash By Itself
Via Computerweekly – NVMe discussion: PCIe card vs U.2 and M.2
Intel and Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatie Memory (NVM) for servers and storage
Part II – Intel and Micron new 3D XPoint server and storage NVM
Part III – 3D XPoint new server storage memory from Intel and Micron
Server storage I/O benchmark tools, workload scripts and examples (Part I) and (Part II)
Data Infrastructure Overview, Its Whats Inside of Data Centers
All You Need To Know about Remote Office/Branch Office Data Protection Backup (free webinar with registration)
Software Defined, Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) resources
The SSD Place (SSD, NVM, PM, SCM, Flash, NVMe, 3D XPoint, MRAM and related topics)
The NVMe Place (NVMe related topics, trends, tools, technologies, tip resources)
Data Protection Diaries (Archive, Backup/Restore, BC, BR, DR, HA, RAID/EC/LRC, Replication, Security)
Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) including SDDC, Cloud, Container and more
Various Data Infrastructure related events, webinars and other activities
www.objectstoragecenter.com and Software Defined, Cloud, Bulk and Object Storage Fundamentals
Server Storage I/O Network PCIe Fundamentals

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

What This All Means

Visit the following additional data infrastructure and IT data center related links.

Links A-E
Links F-J
Links K-O
Links P-T
Links U-Z
Other Links

Ok, nuff said, for now.

February 22, 2017November 26, 2023

Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links K to O

IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Industry Resources

Updated 2/20/2018

Following are some useful Data Infrastructure IT Industry Resource Links K to O to cloud, virtual and traditional IT data infrastructure related web sites. The data infrastructure environment (servers, storage, IO and networking, hardware, software, services, virtual, container and cloud) is rapidly changing. You may encounter a missing URL, or a URL that has changed. This list is updated on a regular basis to reflect changes (additions, changes, and retirement).

Disclaimer and note: URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site.

Links A-E
Links F-J
Links K-O
Links P-T
Links U-Z
Other Links

kaminario.com Scale out high performance database server
kanbox.com Chineese cloud provider
kaseya.com IT Infrastructure resource management tools
kashya.com Data Protection Solutions (Bought by EMC)
kastenchase.com Data and information security solutions
kazeon.com eDiscovery, search, indexing, classification (Bought by EMC)
kcura.com eDiscovery tools
Kerstor.com Cloud storage
kickfire.com Business analytics tools
kineticd.com Storage and data protection solutions
Kingston.com Memory manufacturer
KLSecurity.com Data protection solutions
komnetworks.com Archiving solutions
k-par.com Archiving solutions
ksplice.com Linux management tools
Kubisys.com Virtualization management tools
KVH Co. Ltd. AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
kvsinc.com Email archiving and compliance software
lacie.com Consumer, SOHO and SMB NAS and DAS storage (Bought by Seagate)
laconicsecurity.com Cloud security and storage
lampertz.com Environmental and data center protection
laurustech.com Managed services provider
lecroy.com Analyzers, probes and diagnostics
lefthandnetworks.com iSCSI clustered storage (Bought by HP)
legato.com Storage management software (Bought by EMC)
Lenovo Servers, storage, workstations
Level 3 Communications AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
lexar.com Flash memory
liebert.com Data center power and cooling systems (Bought by Emerson)
Lightower AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
lightsand.com SAN connectivity
likewise.com Open backup software for macs/Linux/windows
liquidcomputing.com High density servers
liquidcoolsolutions.com Liquid cooled servers
Liquidware Labs Desktop management solutions
livedrive.com Cloud storage and backup
www.liveoffice.com Cloud and Email hosting
LiveVault.com Online cloud backup service (Bought by IronMountain)
locknet-inc.com Security and network management
Lockstep.com Backup and data protection tools
logicube.com Hard drive copy tools
LoginVSI VDI Testing solutions
losttapes.org Portal pertaining to lost magnetic tape information
lsi.com Storage and networking chips and controllers (Bought by Avago)
lto-technology.com Information about LTO tape media
lucent.com Networking components
lumigent.com Compliance management tools
luminex.com S390 IBM Mainframe to open systems gateways
luxtera.com High speed network and storage interconnects
m5data.com VAR
MagePlace Backup Backup and data protection solutions
Maginatics.com Storage for virtual environments
magma.com PCIe and storage solutions
mainline.com VAR
Maintech Infrastructure services
maintech.com IT Servers and solutions
Maldivica Cloud and object storage gateway
ManageEngine DCIM, data center and networking management
maponics.com Mapping data solutions
MAPR Hadoop and Big Data Tools

maranti.com Storage systems
marconi.com Networking equipment
marvell.com Data storage components
Masergy AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
Mathon.com eDiscovery
maxava.com HA tools for IBM iSeries
maxell.com Data storage media
maxim-ic.com Data storage components and solutions
maxiscale.com Web infrastructure scale out file system
Maxta Virtualization storage
maxtor.com Disk drives (Bought by Seagate)
maxxan.com Storage systems (Now Ciphermax)
mcdata.com Switches, WAN gateways, software (Bought by Brocade)
mediagateusa.com HD Video streaming appliance
Meditech.com Medical information technology software
Megaport AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
mellanox.com Ethernet and InfiniBand technology
Memeo.com Data and content management tools
Mendocino.com CDP and data protection (Missing in Action)
metalogix.net Sharepoint archiving solutions
methode.com Storage networking transceivers
mezeo.com Cloud storage management tools
micron.com SSD storage solutions
micronet.com Storage solutions
microsoft.com Hyper-V virtualizaiton, Windows Storage Server, Azure Cloud, Storsimple, SkyDrive (aka OneDrive) and more
midwave.com Var
Mimecast email management including archiving
Mimosasystems.com Email protection and archiving (Bought by Iron Mountain)
mindtree.com Testing services
Mirantis OpenStack tools, downloads, service and support
Miray HDClone Storage clone and data protection tools
mirra.com SMB storage sharing
mobiuspartners.com VAR
Modius DCIM power, cooling and monitoring
moka5.com VDI tools
MongoDB Open source document optimized database
Monitis.com IT Monitoring and services (applications, systems, clouds and more)
Monosphere.com Storage planning and usage software (Bought by Quest)
moonwalk.com HSM, ILM and data management software
morphlabs.com Dense converged server platforms
mosaictec.com Value added reseller (VAR)
mosys.com High density memory components
mpstor.com Cloud storage and orchestration software
msiinet.com VAR
mti.com European VAR
mtron.net Solid state storage devices
My Digital SSD SSD solutions
NAKIVO Backup and data protection tools
napatech.com Network tools and analysis
naspa.org System administrator’s user group
nasuni.com Cloud storage access appliance
ncino.com Banking and financial deployment platform
ncipher.com Data protection and security solutions (Bought by Thales)
ncompass-inc.com VAR and services firm
ncr.com Servers and storage solutions
ndci.com Data conversion services
ndmp.org Trade organization for NDMP backup protocol
neartek.com VTL software (Bought by EMC)
nebulassolutions.com Security and data protection
NEC.com Servers and storage
neopathnetworks.com Network file management solutions (Bought by Cisco)
neoscale.com Storage networking security (Assets Bought by nCipher)
nephoscale.com Cloud and object storage
NeptunesCloud.net Cloud IaaS solutions
www.neptuny.com Performance and capacity planning tools
nerc.com North American Electrical Reliability Council
netcelera.com WAN File system caching and acceleration
netcomm.com.au Broadband service provider
netdirectsystems.com VAR
neterion.com High performance iSCSI and Ethernet 10Gb technology Bought by Exar)
netex.com IP compression and channel extension
netezza.com Big Data – Data warehouse storage solutions (Bought by IBM)
Netgear.com SOHO and SMB storage and networking
NetIQ Data center, security, identify and data protection management
netlist.com Memory solutions
netoptics.com Network monitoring
netronome.com Network and I/O optimization technology
netspi.com Network security and digital forensics
networkappliance.com Storage sub-systems, management software
networkgeneral.com Network and application monitoring
networkinstruments.com Network test and diagnostic and performance monitoring
netwrix.com Enterprise systems management tools
netxen.com High performance 10Gb Ethernet chips and NICs
neuwingenergy.com Energy management organization
neuxpower.com File compression and data reduction
Neverfailgroup.com HA software
nevex.com Caching and application acceleration
newboundary.com IT policy management and IRM tools
newisys.com Storage enclosures
newrelic.com Web, cloud and application management
nexenta.com ZFS based storage management solutions
nexgenstorage.com Storage with PCIe flash card
nexsan.com SAS/SATA and MAID storage subsystems (Bought by Imaiton)
nextio.com SSD and application acceleration solutions
NexusMN / Computex VAR (e.g. Formerly Nexus MN and Stratos – now Computex)
nfpa.org National Fire Protection Association
nicira.com Software defined networking and IOV (Bought by VMware)
nimblestorage.com Converged iSCSI SAN, backup and DR
nimbula.com Cloud and application orchestration management tools
Nimbusdata.com iSCSI storage
nirvanix.com Cloud storage provider (Ceased operations)
njvc.com Cloud and technology service provider
Nylte DCIM software tools
noggin.intel.com/rr/ Intel Recommended Reading List
noliosoft.com Cloud application management tools
Norlight.com Data communications and services
nortel.com Networking products
nortelnetworks.com Optical networking
northernsoft.com Medical software
novastor.com Backup and cloud data protection tools
Novell.com Server software vendor (Bought by Attachmate)
Novuscg.com Storage management and services (Bought by IBM)
Nomura Research Institute (NRI) AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
nsic.org National Storage Industry Consortium
ntp.com Storage Management Software
NTT Communications Corporation AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
numarasoftware.com IT Resource management, asset tracking tools
numonyx.com SSD memory solutions
nutanix.com Converged server and storage VM platform
nvelo.com Caching IO performance tools
nvidia.com Graphics and visualization tools
ocarinanetworks.com Data reduction and compression tools (Bought by Dell)
ocztechnology.com SSD drives and PCIe cards (Bought by Toshiba after bankruptcy)
offsitebackups.com Online and cloud backup solutions
olixir.com Removable storage for backup and data protection
omneon.com Archiving and fixed content storage solutions
onapp.com Cloud, CDN and storage tools
onaro.com Storage and Storage Network Management (Bought by NetApp)
onlinebackupsearch.com Various online backup reviews
oblinecourses.com Various online education courses for various topics
onpathtech.com Physical layer networking
onstor.com Clustered NAS storage including NAS gateways (Bought by LSI)
Ontrack.com Email and data protection software
OO Software Windows management and data protection tools
opalis.com Virtual data center management tools
OpenCompute OpenCompute consortium
opendatacenteralliance.org Open Data Center Alliance
open-e.com iSCSI and NAS storage
Open.IO Application aware object and bulk scale out software defined storage
openfabrics.org Open Fabric Alliance
OpenNebula Open source cloud software
opennetworking.org Open Networking Foundation
OpensourceSystems.com Data storage solutions
OpenStack Open source cloud compute and storage software
opnet.com Application and network performance management
Opsware.com Network and storage management (HP)
Optica Tech. Server and storage connectivity including FICON
opticatech.com Mainframe and ESCON encryption
oracle.com Data management software, hardware and services (Bought Sun/STK and others)
Ortera.com Performance monitoring and management
OSNEXUS Quantstor ZFS based Storage management solutions
Outsource Data Recovery Data Recovery services
overlandstorage.com Tape and backup, data retention, NAS solutions
owncloud.org Cloud infrastructure tools

Where To Learn More

View additional NAS, NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and HDD related topics via the following links.

Can we get a side of context with them IOPS and other storage metrics?
WHEN AND WHERE TO USE NAND FLASH SSD FOR VIRTUAL SERVERS
Revisiting RAID storage remains relevant and resources
NVMe overview and primer – Part I
Part 1 of HDD for content servers series Trends and Content Application Servers
Part 2 of HDD for content servers series Content application server decisions and testing plans
Part 3 of HDD for content servers series Test hardware and software configuration
Part 4 of HDD for content servers series Large file I/O processing
Part 5 of HDD for content servers series Small file I/O processing
Part 6 of HDD for content servers series General I/O processing
Part 7 of HDD for content servers series How HDD continue to evolve over different generations and wrap up
As the platters spin, HDD’s for cloud, virtual and traditional storage environments
How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do?
Hard Disk Drives (HDD) for Virtual Environments
Server and Storage I/O performance and benchmarking tools
Server storage I/O performance benchmark workload scripts Part I and Part II
How to test your HDD, SSD or all flash array (AFA) storage fundamentals
What is the best server storage I/O workload benchmark? It depends
I/O, I/O how well do you know about good or bad server and storage I/Os?
Big Files Lots of Little File Processing Benchmarking with Vdbench
Part II – NVMe overview and primer (Different Configurations)
Part III – NVMe overview and primer (Need for Performance Speed)
Part IV – NVMe overview and primer (Where and How to use NVMe)
Part V – NVMe overview and primer (Where to learn more, what this all means)
PCIe Server I/O Fundamentals
If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?
NVMe Wont Replace Flash By Itself
Via Computerweekly – NVMe discussion: PCIe card vs U.2 and M.2
Intel and Micron unveil new 3D XPoint Non Volatie Memory (NVM) for servers and storage
Part II – Intel and Micron new 3D XPoint server and storage NVM
Part III – 3D XPoint new server storage memory from Intel and Micron
Server storage I/O benchmark tools, workload scripts and examples (Part I) and (Part II)
Data Infrastructure Overview, Its Whats Inside of Data Centers
All You Need To Know about Remote Office/Branch Office Data Protection Backup (free webinar with registration)
Software Defined, Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) resources
The SSD Place (SSD, NVM, PM, SCM, Flash, NVMe, 3D XPoint, MRAM and related topics)
The NVMe Place (NVMe related topics, trends, tools, technologies, tip resources)
Data Protection Diaries (Archive, Backup/Restore, BC, BR, DR, HA, RAID/EC/LRC, Replication, Security)
Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) including SDDC, Cloud, Container and more
Various Data Infrastructure related events, webinars and other activities
www.objectstoragecenter.com and Software Defined, Cloud, Bulk and Object Storage Fundamentals
Server Storage I/O Network PCIe Fundamentals

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

What This All Means

Visit the following additional data infrastructure and IT data center related links.

Links A-E
Links F-J
Links K-O
Links P-T
Links U-Z
Other Links

Ok, nuff said, for now.

October 17, 2016November 26, 2023

Updated Software Defined Data Infrastructure Webinars and Fall 2016 events

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Webinars and Fall 2016 events

server storage I/O trends

Here is the updated Server StorageIO fall 2016 webinar and event activities covering software defined data center, data infrastructure, virtual, cloud, containers, converged, hyper-converged server, storage, I/O network, performance and data protection among other topics.

December 7, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – BrightTalk
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Decision Making

Are Converged Infrastructures (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructures (HCI), Cluster in Box or Cloud in Box (CiB) solutions for you? The answer is it depends on what your needs, requirements, application among other criteria are. In addition are you focused on a particular technology solution or architecture approach, or, looking for something that adapts to your needs? Join us in this discussion exploring your options for different scenarios as we look beyond they hype including to next wave of hyper-scale converged along with applicable decision-making criteria. Topics include:

– Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
– What are your application and environment needs along with other objectives
– Explore various approaches for hyper-small and hyper-large environments
– What are you converging, hardware, hypervisors, management or something else?
– Does HCI mean hyper-vendor-lock-in, if so, is that a bad thing?
– When, where, why and how to use different scenarios

November 29-30, 2016 (New) – Converged & Hyper-Converged Decision Making
Is Converged Infrastructure Right For You?
Workshop Seminar – Nijkerk The Netherlands

Agenda and topics to be covered include:

When should decide to evaluate CI/HCI vs. traditional approach
What are decision and evaluation criteria for apples to apples vs. Apples to pears
What are the costs, benefits, and caveats of the different approaches
How different applications such as VDI or VSI or database have different needs
What are the network, storage, software license and training cost implications
Different comparison criteria for smaller environments remote office vs. Larger enterprise
How will you protect and secure a CI, HCI environment (HA, BC, BR, DR, Backup)
What is the risk and benefit of startups, companies with limited portfolios vs. Big vendors
Do it yourself (DiY) vs. Turnkey software vs. Bundled tin wrapped software solution
We will also look at associated trends including software-defined, NVM/SSD, NVMe, VMware, Microsoft, KVM, Citrix/Xen, Docker, OpenStack among others.

Organized by:

November 28, 2016 (New) – Server Storage I/O Fundamental Trends V2.1116
Whats New, Whats the buzz, what you need to know about and whos doing what
Workshop Seminar – Nijkerk The Netherlands

Agenda and topics that will be covered include:

Who’s doing what, who are the new emerging vendors, solutions and technologies to watch
Non-Volatile Memory (NVM), flash solid state device (SSD), Storage Class Memory (SCM)
Networking with your servers and storage including NVMe, NVMeoF and RoCE
Cloud, Object and Bulk storage for data protection, archiving, near-line, scale-out
Data protection and software defined storage management (backup, BC, BR, DR, archive)
Microsoft Windows Server 2016, Nano, S2D and Hyper-V
VMware, OpenStack, Ceph, Docker and Containers, CI and HCI
EMC is gone, now there is Dell EMC and what that means
Various vendors and solutions from legacy to new and emerging
Recommendations, usage or deployment scenarios and tips
Some examples of who’s doing what includes AWS, Brocade, Cisco, Dell EMC, Enmotus, Futjistu, Google, HDS, HP and Huawei, IBM, Intel, Lenovo, Mellanox, Micron, Microsoft, NetApp, Nutanix, Oracle, Pure, Quantum, Qumulo, Reduxio, Rubrik, Samsung, SANdisk, Seagate, Simplivity and Tintri, Veeam, Veritas, VMware and WD among others.

Organized by:

November 23, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT BrightTalk
BCDR and Cloud Backup Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) and Data Protection

The answer is BCDR and Cloud Backup, however what was the question? Besides how to protect preserve and secure your data, applications along with data Infrastructures against various threat risk issues, what are some other common questions? For example how to modernize, rethink, re-architect, use new and old things in new ways, these and other topics, techniques, trends, tools have a common theme of BCDR and Cloud Backup. Join us in this discussion exploring your options for protecting data, applications and your data Infrastructures spanning legacy, software-defined virtual and cloud environments. Topics include:

– Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
– Various cloud storage options to meet different application PACE needs
– Do clouds need to be backed-up or protected?
– How to leverage clouds for various data protection objectives
– When, where, why and how to use different scenarios

November 23, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk
Cloud Storage – Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

You have been told, or determined that you need (or want) to use cloud storage, ok, now what? What type of cloud storage do you need or want, or do you simply want cloud storage? However, what are your options as well as application requirements including Performance, Availability, Capacity and Economics (PACE) along with access or interfaces? Where are your applications and where will they be located? What are your objectives for using cloud storage or is it simply you have heard or told its cheaper. Join us in this discussion exploring your options, considerations for cloud storage decision-making. Topics include:

– Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
– Various cloud storage options to meet different application PACE needs
– Storage for primary, secondary, performance, availability, capacity, backup, archiving
– Public, private and hybrid cloud storage options from block, file, object to application service
– When, where, why and how to use cloud storage for different scenarios

November 22, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT – BrightTalk
Cloud Infrastructure Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

At the core of cloud (public, private, hybrid) next generation data centers are software defined data infrastructures that exist to protect, preserve and serve applications, data along with their resulting information services. Software defined data infrastructure core components include hardware, software servers and storage configured (defined) to provide various services enabling application Performance Availability Capacity and Economics (PACE). Just as there are different types of environments, applications along with workloads various options, technologies as well as techniques exist for cloud services (and underlying data infrastructures). Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services options for cloud infrastructures. Topics include:

– Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
– Software Defined Infrastructures (SDDI) are what enable Software Defined Data Centers and clouds
– Various types of clouds along with cloud services that determine how resources get defined
– When, where, why and how to use cloud Infrastructures along with associated resources

November 15, 2016 (New) – 11AM PT Webinar – Redmond Magazine and Solarwinds
The O.A.R. of Virtualization Scaling
A journey of optimization, automation, and reporting

Your journey to a flexible, scalable and secure IT universe begins now. Join Microsoft MVP and VMware vSAN and vExpert Greg Schulz of Server StorageIO along with VMware vExpert, Cisco Champion and Head Geek of Virtualization and Cloud Practice Kong Yang of SolarWinds for an interactive discussion empowering you to become the master of your software defined and virtual data center. Topics will include:

Trust your instruments and automation, however, verify they are working properl
Insight into how your environment, as well as automation tools, are working
Leverage automation to handle recurring tasks so you can focus on more productive activities
Capture, retain and transfer knowledge and tradecraft experiences into automation policies
Automated system management is only as good as the policies and data they rely upon
Optimize via automation that relies on reporting for insight, awareness and analytics

November 3, 2016 (New) – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and
Dell Software
Tailor Your Backup Data Repositories to
Fit Your Security and Management Needs

Does data protection storage have you working overtime to take care of it? Do you have the flexibility to protect, preserve, secure and serve different workgroups or customers in a shared environment? Is your environment looking to expand with new applications and remote offices, yet your data protection is slowing you down?

In this webinar we will look at current and emerging trends along with issues including how different threat risk challenges impact your evolving environment, as well as opportunities to address them. It’s time to deploy technology that works for you and your environment instead of you working for the solution.

Attend and learn about:

Data protection trends, issues, regulatory compliance, challenges and opportunities
How to utilize purpose built appliances to protect and defend your systems, applications and data from various threat risks
Importance of timely insight and situational awareness into your data protection infrastructure
Protecting centralized and distributed remote office branch offices (ROBO) workgroups
What you can do today to optimize your environment

October 27, 2016 (New) – Webinar 10AM PT – Virtual Instruments
The Value of Infrastructure Insight

This webinar looks at the value of data center infrastructure insight both as a technology as well as a business productivity enabler. Besides productivity, having insight into how data infrastructure resources (servers, storage, networks, system software) are used, enables informed analysis, troubleshooting, planning, forecasting as well as cost-effective decision-making. In other words, data center infrastructure insight, based on infrastructure performance analytics, enables you to avoid flying blind, having situational awareness for proactive Information Technology (IT) management. Your return on innovation is increased, and leveraging insight awareness along with metrics that matter drives return on investment (ROI) along with enhanced service delivery.

October 20, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk
Next-Gen Data Centers Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) including Servers, Storage and Virtualization

At the core of next generation data centers are software defined data infrastructures that enable, protect, preserve and serve applications, data along with their resulting information services. Software defined data infrastructure core components include hardware, software servers and storage configured (defined) to provide various services enabling application Performance Availability Capacity and Economics (PACE). Just as there are different types of environments, applications along with workloads various options, technologies as well as techniques exist for virtual servers and storage. Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services around storage and virtualization for today, tomorrow, and in the years to come. Topics include:

– Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
– Software Defined Infrastructures (SDDI) are what enable Software Defined Data Centers
– Server and Storage Virtualization better together, with and without CI/HCI
– Many different facets (types) of Server virtualization and virtual storage
– When, where, why and how to use storage virtualization and virtual storage

September 20, 2016 – Webinar 8AM PT – BrightTalk
Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) Enabling Software Defined Data Centers – Part of Software-Defined Storage summit

Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs. Software-Defined Infrastructures (SDI) are what enable Software-Defined Data Centers, and at the heart of a SDI is storage that is software-defined. This spans cloud, virtual and physical storage and is at the focal point of today. Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services around SDI and SDDC- today, tomorrow, and in the years to come.

September 13, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and
Dell Software
Windows Server 2016 and Active Directory
Whats New and How to Plan for Migration

Windows Server 2016 is expected to GA this fall and is a modernized version of the Microsoft operating system that includes new capabilities such as Active Directory (AD) enhancements. AD is critical to organizational operations providing control and secure access to data, networks, servers, storage and more from physical, virtual and cloud (public and hybrid). But over time, organizations along with their associated IT infrastructures have evolved due to mergers, acquisitions, restructuring and general growth. As a result, yesterday’s AD deployments may look like they did in the past while using new technology (e.g. in old ways). Now is the time to start planning for how you will optimize your AD environment using new tools and technologies such as those in Windows Server 2016 and AD in new ways. Optimizing AD means having a new design, performing cleanup and restructuring prior to migration vs. simply moving what you have. Join us for this interactive webinar to begin planning your journey to Windows Server 2016 and a new optimized AD deployment that is flexible, scalable and elastic, and enables resilient infrastructures. You will learn:

What’s new in Windows Server 2016 and how it impacts your AD
Why an optimized AD is critical for IT environments moving forward
How to gain insight into your current AD environment
AD restructuring planning considerations

September 8, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT (Watch on Demand) – Redmond Magazine, Acronis and Unitrends
Data Protection for Modern Microsoft Environments

Your organization’s business depends on modern Microsoft® environments — Microsoft Azure and new versions of Windows Server 2016, Microsoft Hyper-V with RCT, and business applications — and you need a data protection solution that keeps pace with Microsoft technologies. If you lose mission-critical data, it can cost you $100,000 or more for a single hour of downtime. Join our webinar and learn how different data protection solutions can protect your Microsoft environment, whether you store data on company premises, at remote locations, in private and public clouds, and on mobile devices.

Where To Learn More

View other upcoming and recent events at the Server StorageIO activities page here.

What This All Means

Its fall back to school and learning time, join me on these and other upcoming event activities.

Ok, nuff said, for now…

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, vSAN and VMware vExpert. Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio

February 4, 2014March 7, 2022

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

Storage I/O trends

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ok, nuff said (for now)

Cheers
Gs

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

July 23, 2013January 23, 2019

Non Disruptive Updates, Needs vs. Wants

Storage I/O trends

Do you want non disruptive updates or do you need non disruptive upgrades?

First there is a bit of play on words going on here with needs vs. wants, as well as what is meant by non disruptive.

Regarding needs vs. wants, they are often used interchangeably particular in IT when discussing requirements or what the customer would like to have. The key differentiator is that a need is something that is required and somehow cost justified, or hopefully easier than a want item. A want or like to have item is simply that, its not a need however it could add value being a benefit although may be seen as discretionary.

There is also a bit of play on words with non disruptive updates or upgrades that can take on different meanings or assumptions. For example my Windows 7 laptop has automatic Microsoft updates enabled some of which can be applied while I work. On the other hand, some of those updates may be applied while I work however they may not take effect until I reboot or exit and restart an application.

This is not unique to Windows as my Ubuntu and Centos Linux systems can also apply updates, and in some cases a reboot might be required, same with my VMware environment. Lets not forget about applying new firmware to a server, or workstation, laptop or other device, along with networking routers, switches and related devices. Storage is also not immune as new software or firmware can be applied to a HDD or SSD, either by your workstation, laptop, server or storage system. Speaking of storage systems, they too have new software or firmware that gets updated.

Storage I/O trends

The common theme here though is if the code (e.g. software, firmware, microcode, flash update, etc) can be applied non disruptive something known as non disruptive code load, followed by activation. With activation, the code may have been applied while the device or software was in use, however may need a reboot or restart. With non disruptive code activation, there should not be a disruption to what is being done when the new software takes effect.

This means that if a device supports non disruptive code load (NDCL) updates along with non disruptive code activation (NDCA), the upgrade can occur without disruption or having to wait for a reboot.

Which is better?

That depends, I want NDCA, however for many things I only need NDCL.

On the other hand, depending on what you need, perhaps it is both NDCL and NDCA, however also keep in mind needs vs. wants.

Ok, nuff said (for now).

Cheers gs

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

September 6, 2012November 26, 2023

Does software eliminate or move location of vendor lockin?

data infrastructure server storage I/O vendor lockin

Updated 1/21/2018

Does software eliminate or move location of vendor lockin?

I’m always interested when I hear or read a software vendor or their value added reseller (VAR) or business partner claim that their solution eliminates vendor lockin.

More often than not, I end up being amazed if not amused over the claims which usually should be rephrased as eliminating hardware vendor lock-in.

What is also amazing or amusing is that while some vendors make claims of eliminating (hardware) vendor lock-in, there is also some misdirection taking place. While some solutions may be architected to cut hardware vendor lock-in, how they are sold or packaged can force certain vendors technology into your solution. For example, the EMC Centera software in theory and architecture is hardware vendor independent, however it is sold as a solution (hardware and software), similar to how Dell sells the DX which uses software from Caringo and you guessed right, Dell hardware among many other similar scenarios from other vendors.

How about virtualization or other abstraction software tools along with cloud, object storage, clustered file systems and related tools.

StorageIO industry trends and perspectives, I/O, clouds, virtualization

Keep in mind the gold rule of management software and tools which includes virtualization, cloud stacks, clustered file systems among other similar tools. The golden rule is simply who ever controls the software and management controls the gold (e.g. your budget). In the case of a storage software tools such as virtualization, cloud or object storage, cluster or NAS system among others, while they can be correct depending on how packaged and sold of eliminating hardware vendor lock-in, the lock-in also moves.

The lock-in moves from the hardware to the software which even though a particular solution may be architected to use industry standard components, often to make it easy for acquisition, a vendor packages the solution with hardware. In other words, sure, the vendor unlocked you from one vendors hardware with their software only to lock you into theirs or somebody else’s.

Now granted, it may not be a hard lock (pun intended), rather a soft marketing and deployment packaging decision. However there are some solutions that give themselves or at least via their marketing on hardware independence only to force you into buying their tin wrapped software (e.g. an appliance) with their choice of disk drives, network components and other items.

So when a software or solution vendor claims to cut vendor lock-in, ask them if that is hardware vendor lock-in and if they are moving or shifting the point of vendor lock-in. Keep in mind that vendor lock-in does not have to be a bad thing if it provides you the customer with value. Also keep in mind that only you can prevent vendor lock-in which is like only you can prevent cloud data loss (actually its a shared responsibility ;) ).

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

What This All Means

Here is my point, so what if a vendor chooses to wrap their software with an appliance to make it easy for you to buy and deploy, however unless they are willing to work with you on what hardware that will be, perhaps they should think about going a bit easier on the vendor lock-in theme.

In the quest to race from hardware vendor lock-in, be aware with ears and eyes wide open to make sure that you are not fleeing from one point of lock-in to another. In other words, make sure that the cure to your vendor lock-in challenge is not going to be more painful than your current ailment.

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

November 8, 2010March 7, 2022

Who is responsible for vendor lockin?

data infrastructure server storage I/O vendor lockin

Updated 1/21/2018

Who is responsible for vendor lockin?

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

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

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

March 29, 2010January 23, 2019

Its US Census time, What about IT Data Centers?

It is that once a decade activity time this year referred to as the US 2010 Census.

With the 2010 census underway, not to mention also time for completing and submitting your income tax returns, if you are in IT, what about measuring, assessing, taking inventory or analyzing your data and data center resources?

Figure 1: IT US 2010 Census forms

Have you recently taken a census of your data, data storage, servers, networks, hardware, software tools, services providers, media, maintenance agreements and licenses not to mention facilities?

Likewise have you figured out what if any taxes in terms of overhead or burden exists in your IT environment or where opportunities to become more optimized and efficient to get an IT resource refund of sorts are possible?

If not, now is a good time to take a census of your IT data center and associated resources in what might also be called an assessment, review, inventory or survey of what you have, how its being used, where and who is using and when along with associated configuration, performance, availability, security, compliance coverage along with costs and energy impact among other items.

Figure 2: IT Data Center Metrics for Planning and Forecasts

How much storage capacity do you have, how is it allocated along with being used?

What about storage performance, are you meeting response time and QoS objectives?

Lets not forget about availability, that is planned and unplanned downtime, how have your systems been behaving?

From an energy or power and cooling standpoint, what is the consumption along with metrics aligned to productivity and effectiveness. These include IOPS per watt, transactions per watt, videos or email along with web clicks or page views per watt, processor GHz per watt along with data movement bandwidth per watt and capacity stored per watt in a given footprint.

Other items to look into for data centers besides storage include servers, data and I/O networks, hardware, software, tools, services and other supplies along with physical facility with metrics such as PUE. Speaking of optimization, how is your environment doing, that is another advantage of doing a data center census.

For those who have completed and sent in your census material along with your 2009 tax returns, congratulations!

For others in the US who have not done so, now would be a good time to get going on those activities.

Likewise, regardless of what country or region you are in, its always a good time to take a census or inventory of your IT resources instead of waiting every ten years to do so.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

March 21, 2010January 23, 2019

Hard product vs. soft product

In the IT industry space and data storage or computers and servers particularly so, mention hard product or software product and what comes to mind?

How about physical vs. virtual servers or storage, hardware vs. software solutions, products vs. services?

By contrast, in the aviation and airline industry among others, mention hard vs. soft product and there is a slight variation, which is the difference between one providers service delivery experience.

For example, two or more different airlines or carriers may fly the same aircraft perhaps even with the same engines, instrumentation, navigation electronics and base features, all part of the hard product.

However, their hard product could vary by type of seats, spacing or pitch along with width, overhead luggage room, Video on Demand (VoD) or In Flight Entertainment (IFE) as well as different cabin treatments (carpeting, wall coverings) and galley configurations. Even in scenarios where carriers have the same equipment and hard product, their soft product can differ.

Example of a Soft Product, that is service (or lack there of) being delivered

Example of a Soft Product (Service or lack there of being delivered)

The soft product is the service delivery experience including by the cabin crew (flight attendants and pursers), food (or lack of), beverage, presentation and so forth. Also part of the soft product can be how seats are allocated or available for selection, boarding process and other items that contribute to the overall customer experience.

This all got me thinking on a recent flight where the hard product (e.g. aircraft) of a particular carrier was identical; however given transitions taking place, the soft product still differed as was not fully integrated or merged yet. What the experience got me thinking about is that in IT, customers or solution providers can buy the same technology or hard product (hardware, software, services) from the same suppliers yet present different soft products or service experience to their customers.

Example IT hard product (hardware and software) delivering soft product services

IT equipment being used for delivery of different soft products

Im sure that some of the cloud crowd cheerleaders might even jump up and down and claim that is the benefit of using managed service producers or similar services to obtain a different soft product. And while that may be true in some instances, it is also true that different traditional IT organizations are able to craft and deploy various types of soft products to their customers to meet different service requirements, cost or economic objectives using the same technology used by others.

A different example of hard vs soft product is a site I have visited that has mainframes, windows and open systems servers whose business requires a soft product that is highly available, reliable, flexible, fast and affordable. Needless to say, in that environment, some of the open systems including windows platforms can have reliability close to if not equal to the mainframes.

Example IT hard product (hardware and software) delivering soft product services
IT equipment being used for delivery of different soft products

What is even more amazing is that no special or different hard products (e.g. servers, storage, networks or software) are being used to achieve those services objectives. Rather it is the soft product that achieves the results in terms of how the techniques are used and managed. Likewise I have heard of other environments that have mixed mainframe and open systems, using common hard products as other organizations yet whose soft product is not as robust or reliable as others. If using the same hard product that is same software, hardware, networks and services, how could the soft product be any less robust?

The answer is that good and reliable technology is important, however the technology is only as good as how it is managed, configured, monitored and deployed centering on processes, procedures and best practices.

Next time you are on an airplane, or, using some other service that leverages common technologies (hardware or software or networks) take a moment to look around at the soft product and how the service experience of a common hard product can vary. That is, using common technology, how can various best practices, policies and operating principals to meet diverse service requirements differ to meet demand as well as economic requirements.

What is your take and experience on different hard vs soft products in or around IT?

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

January 8, 2010November 26, 2023

StorageIO in the News Update V2010.1

StorageIO is regularly quoted and interviewed in various industry and vertical market venues and publications both on-line and in print on a global basis.

The following are some coverage, perspectives and commentary by StorageIO on IT industry trends including servers, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, services, virtualization, cloud, cluster, grid, SSD, data protection, Green IT and more since the last update.

Realizing that some prefer blogs to webs to twitter to other venues, here are some recent links among others to media coverage and comments by me on a different topics that are among others found at www.storageio.com/news.html:

SearchSMBStorage: Comments on EMC Iomega v.Clone for PC data syncronization – Jan 2010

Computerworld: Comments on leveraging cloud or online backup – Jan 2010

ChannelProSMB: Comments on NAS vs SAN Storage for SMBs – Dec 2009

ChannelProSMB: Comments on Affordable SMB Storage Solutions – Dec 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on What to buy a geek for the holidays, 2009 edition – Dec 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on EMC VMAX storage and 8GFC enhancements – Dec 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on Data Footprint Reduction – Dec 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on Building a private storage cloud – Dec 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on SSD in storage systems – Dec 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on slow adoption of file virtualization – Dec 2009

IT World: Comments on maximizing data security investments – Nov 2009

SearchCIO: Comments on storage virtualization for your organisation – Nov 2009

Processor: Comments on how to win approval for hardware upgrades – Nov 2009

Processor: Comments on the Future of Servers – Nov 2009

SearchITChannel: Comments on Energy-efficient technology sales depend on pitch – Nov 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on how to get from Fibre Channel to FCoE – Nov 2009

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Comments on Google Wave and Clouds – Nov 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on EMC and Cisco alliance – Nov 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on HP virtualizaiton enhancements – Nov 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on Apple canceling ZFS project – Oct 2009

Processor: Comments on EPA Energy Star for Server and Storage Ratings – Oct 2009

IT World Canada: Cloud computing, dot be scared, look before you leap – Oct 2009

IT World: Comments on stretching your data protection and security dollar – Oct 2009

Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments about Fragmentation and Performance? – Oct 2009

SearchStorage: Comments about data migration – Oct 2009

SearchStorage: Comments about What’s inside internal storage clouds? – Oct 2009

Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments about T-Mobile and Clouds? – Oct 2009

Storage Monkeys: Podcast comments about Sun and Oracle- Sep 2009

Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on Maxiscale clustered, cloud NAS – Sep 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on Maxiscale clustered NAS for web hosting – Sep 2009

Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on whos hot in data storage industry – Sep 2009

SearchSMBStorage: Comments on SMB Fibre Channel switch options – Sep 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on using storage more efficiently – Sep 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on Data and Storage Tiering including SSD – Sep 2009

Enterprise IT Planet: Comments on Data Deduplication – Sep 2009

SearchDataCenter: Comments on Tiered Storage – Sep 2009

Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on Sun-Oracle Wedding – Aug 2009

Processor.com: Comments on Storage Network Snags – Aug 2009

SearchStorageChannel: Comments on I/O virtualizaiton (IOV) – Aug 2009

SearchStorage: Comments on Clustered NAS storage and virtualization – Aug 2009

SearchITChannel: Comments on Solid-state drive prices still hinder adoption – Aug 2009

Check out the Content, Tips, Tools, Videos, Podcasts plus White Papers, and News pages for additional commentary, coverage and related content or events.

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

November 23, 2009January 23, 2019

How to win approval for upgrades: Link them to business benefits

Drew Rob has another good article over at Processor.com about various tips and strategies on how to gain approval for hardware (or software) purchases with some comments by yours truly.

My tips and advice that are quoted in the story include to link technology resources to business needs impact which may be common sense, however still a time tested effective technique.

Instead of speaking tech talk such as Performance, capacity, availability, IOPS, bandwidth, GHz, frames or packets per second, VMs to PM or dedupe ratio, map them to business speak, that is things that finance, accountants, MBAs or other management personal understand.

For example, how many transactions at a given response time can be supported by a given type of server, storage or networking device.

Or, put a different way, with a given device, how much work can be done and what is the associated monetary or business benefit.

Likewise, if you do not have a capacity plan for servers, storage, I/O and networking along with software and facilities covering performance, availability, capacity and energy demands now is the time to put one in place.

More on capacity and performance planning later, however for now, if you want to learn more, check Chapter 10 (Performance and Capacity Planning) in my book Resilient Storage Networks: Designing Flexible and Scalable Data Infrastructure: Elsevier).

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

March 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

Volume 18, Issue 3 (March 2018)

What this all means and wrap-up

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Data Infrastructure Resource Links Server Storage I/O Network

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What This All Means

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Server Storage I/O network Data Infrastructure Tradecraft Overview

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What this means

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Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links A to E

IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Industry Resources

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What This All Means

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Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links K to O

IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Industry Resources

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What This All Means

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Software Defined Data Infrastructure Webinars and Fall 2016 events

December 7, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – BrightTalk Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Decision Making

November 29-30, 2016 (New) – Converged & Hyper-Converged Decision Making Is Converged Infrastructure Right For You? Workshop Seminar – Nijkerk The Netherlands

November 28, 2016 (New) – Server Storage I/O Fundamental Trends V2.1116 Whats New, Whats the buzz, what you need to know about and whos doing what Workshop Seminar – Nijkerk The Netherlands

November 23, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT BrightTalkBCDR and Cloud Backup Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) and Data Protection

November 23, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalkCloud Storage – Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

November 22, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT – BrightTalkCloud Infrastructure Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

November 15, 2016 (New) – 11AM PT Webinar – Redmond Magazine and Solarwinds The O.A.R. of Virtualization Scaling A journey of optimization, automation, and reporting

November 3, 2016 (New) – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and Dell Software Tailor Your Backup Data Repositories to Fit Your Security and Management Needs

October 27, 2016 (New) – Webinar 10AM PT – Virtual Instruments The Value of Infrastructure Insight

October 20, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk Next-Gen Data Centers Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) including Servers, Storage and Virtualization

September 20, 2016 – Webinar 8AM PT – BrightTalk Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) Enabling Software Defined Data Centers – Part of Software-Defined Storage summit

September 13, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and Dell SoftwareWindows Server 2016 and Active DirectoryWhats New and How to Plan for Migration

September 8, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT (Watch on Demand) – Redmond Magazine, Acronis and UnitrendsData Protection for Modern Microsoft Environments

Where To Learn More

What This All Means

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

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Do you want non disruptive updates or do you need non disruptive upgrades?

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Does software eliminate or move location of vendor lockin?

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Who is responsible for vendor lockin?

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December 7, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – BrightTalk
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Decision Making

November 29-30, 2016 (New) – Converged & Hyper-Converged Decision Making
Is Converged Infrastructure Right For You?
Workshop Seminar – Nijkerk The Netherlands

November 28, 2016 (New) – Server Storage I/O Fundamental Trends V2.1116
Whats New, Whats the buzz, what you need to know about and whos doing what
Workshop Seminar – Nijkerk The Netherlands

November 23, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT BrightTalk
BCDR and Cloud Backup Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) and Data Protection

November 23, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk
Cloud Storage – Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

November 22, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT – BrightTalk
Cloud Infrastructure Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

November 15, 2016 (New) – 11AM PT Webinar – Redmond Magazine and Solarwinds
The O.A.R. of Virtualization Scaling
A journey of optimization, automation, and reporting

November 3, 2016 (New) – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and
Dell Software
Tailor Your Backup Data Repositories to
Fit Your Security and Management Needs

October 27, 2016 (New) – Webinar 10AM PT – Virtual Instruments
The Value of Infrastructure Insight

October 20, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk
Next-Gen Data Centers Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) including Servers, Storage and Virtualization

September 20, 2016 – Webinar 8AM PT – BrightTalk
Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) Enabling Software Defined Data Centers – Part of Software-Defined Storage summit

September 13, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and
Dell Software
Windows Server 2016 and Active Directory
Whats New and How to Plan for Migration

September 8, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT (Watch on Demand) – Redmond Magazine, Acronis and Unitrends
Data Protection for Modern Microsoft Environments