StorageIO books by Greg Schulz added to Intel Recommended Reading Lists

My two most recent books The Green and Virtual Data Center and Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking both published by CRC Press/Taylor and Francis have been added to the Intel Recommended Reading List for Developers.

Intel Recommended Reading

If you are not familiar with the Intel Recommended Reading List for Developers, it is a leading comprehensive list of different books across various technology domains covering hardware, software, servers, storage, networking, facilities, management, development and more.

Cloud and Virtual Data Storage NetworkingIntel Recommended Reading List

So what are you waiting for, check out the Intel Recommended Reading list for Developers where you can find a diverse line up of different books of which I’m honored to have two of mine join the esteemed list. Here is a link to a free chapter download from Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking.

Ok, nuff said for now.

cheers
gs

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

twitter @storageio

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StorageIO going Dutch: Seminar for Storage and I/O professionals

Data and Storage Networking Industry Trends and Technology Seminar

Greg Schulz of StorageIO in conjunction with or dutch parter Brouwer Storage Consultancy will be presenting a two day seminar for Storage Professionals Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th of May 2011 at Ampt van Nijkerk Netherlands.

Brouwer Storage ConsultanceyThe Server and StorageIO Group

This two day interactive education seminar for storage professionals will focus on current data and storage networking trends, technology and business challenges along with available technologies and solutions. During the seminar learn what technologies and management techniques are available, how different vendors solutions compare and what to use when and where. This seminar digs into the various IT tools, techniques, technologies and best practices for enabling an efficient, effective, flexible, scalable and resilient data infrastructure.

The format of this two seminar will be a mix of presentation and interactive discussion allowing attendees plenty of time to discuss among themselves and with seminar presenters. Attendees will gain insight into how to compare and contrast various technologies and solutions in addition to identifying and aligning those solutions to their specific issues, challenges and requirements.

Major themes that will be discussed include:

  • Who is doing what with various storage solutions and tools
  • Is RAID still relevant for today and tomorrow
  • Are hard disk drives and tape finally dead at the hands of SSD and clouds
  • What am I routinely hearing, seeing or being asked to comment on
  • Enabling storage optimization, efficiency and effectiveness (performance and capacity)
  • What do I see as opportunities for leveraging various technologies, techniques,trends
  • Supporting virtual servers including re-architecting data protection
  • How to modernize data protection (backup/restore, BC, DR, replication, snapshots)
  • Data footprint reduction (DFR) including archive, compression and dedupe
  • Clarifying cloud confusion, don’t be scared, however look before you leap

In addition this two day seminar will look at what are some new and improved technologies and techniques, who is doing what along with discussions around industry and vendor activity including mergers and acquisitions. Greg will also preview the contents and themes of his new book Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC) for enabling efficient, optimized and effective information services delivery across cloud, virtual and traditional environments.

Buzzwords and topic themes to be discussed among others include:
E2E, FCoE and DCB, CNAs, SAS, I/O virtualization, server and storage virtualization, public and private cloud, Dynamic Infrastructures, VDI, RAID and advanced data protection options, SSD, flash, SAN, DAS and NAS, object storage, application optimized or aware storage, open storage, scale out storage solutions, federated management, metrics and measurements, performance and capacity, data movement and migration, storage tiering, data protection modernization, SRA and SRM, data footprint reduction (archive, compress, dedupe), unified and multi-protocol storage, solution bundle and stacks.

For more information or to register contact Brouwer Storage Consultancy

Brouwer Storage Consultancy
Olevoortseweg 43
3861 MH Nijkerk
The Netherlands
Telephone: +31-33-246-6825
Cell: +31-652-601-309
Fax: +31-33-245-8956
Email: info@brouwerconsultancy.com
Web: www.brouwerconsultancy.com

Brouwer Storage Consultancey

Learn about other events involving Greg Schulz and StorageIO at www.storageio.com/events

Ok, nuff said for now

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Author The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and coming summer 2011 Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC)
twitter @storageio

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2011 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

Data footprint reduction (Part 2): Dell, IBM, Ocarina and Storwize

Dell

IBM

Over the past couple of weeks there has been a flurry of IT industry activity around data footprint impact reduction with Dell buying Ocarina and IBM acquiring Storwize. For those who want the quick (compacted, reduced) synopsis of what Dell buying Ocarina as well as IBM acquiring Storwize means read the first post in this two part series as well as some of my comments here and here.

This piece and it companion in part I of this two part series is about expanding the discussion to the much larger opportunity for vendors or vars of overall data footprint impact reduction beyond where they are currently focused. Likewise, this is about IT customers realizing that there are more opportunities to address data and storage optimization across your entire organization using various techniques instead of just focusing on backup or vmware virtual servers.

Who is Ocarina and Storwize?
Ocarina is a data and storage management software startup focused on data footprint reduction using a variety of approaches, techniques and algorithms. They differ from the traditional data dedupers (e.g. Asigra, Bakbone, Commvault, EMC Avamar, Datadomain and Networker, Exagrid, Falconstor, HP, IBM Protectier and TSM, Quantum, Sepaton and Symantec among others) by looking at data footprint reduction beyond just backup.

This means looking at how to reduce data footprint across different types of data including videos, image as well as text based documents among others. As a result, the market sweet spot for Ocarina is for general data footprint reduction including static along with active data including entertainment, video surveillance or gaming, reference data, web 2.0 and other bulk storage application data needs (this should compliment Dells recent Exanet acquisition).

What this means is that Ocarina is very well suited to address the rapidly growing amount of unstructured data that may not otherwise be handled as efficiently with by dedupe alone.

Storwize is a data and storage management startup focused on data footprint reduction using inline compression with an emphasis on maintaining performance for reads as well as writes of unstructured as well as structured database data. Consequently the market sweet spot for Storwize is around boosting the capacity of existing NAS storage systems from different vendors without negatively impacting performance. The trade off of the Storwize approach is that you do not get the spectacular data reduction ratios associated with backup centric or focused dedupe, however, you maintain performance associated with online storage that some dedupers dream of.

Both Dell and IBM have existing dedupe solutions for general purpose as well as backup along with other data footprint impact reduction tools (either owned or via partners). Now they are both expanding their focus and reach similar to what others such as EMC, HP, NetApp, Oracle and Symantec among others are doing. What this means is that someone at Dell and IBM see that there is much more to data footprint impact reduction than just a focus on dedupe for backup.

Wait, what does all of this discussion (or read here for background issues, challenges and opportunities) about unstructured data and changing access lifecycles have to do with dedupe, Ocarina and Storwize?

Continue reading on as this is about the expanding opportunity for data footprint reduction across entire organizations. That is, more data is being kept online and expanding data footprint impact needs to be addressed to meet business objectives using various techniques balancing performance, availability, capacity and energy or economics (PACE).

Dell

IBM

What does all of this have to do with IBM buying Storwize and Dell acquiring Ocarina?
If you have not pieced this together yet, let me net it out.

This is about the opportunity to address the organization wide expanding data footprint impact across all applications, types of data as well as tiers of storage to support business growth (more data to store) while maintaining QoS yet reduce per unit costs including management.

This is about expanding the story to the broader data footprint impact reduction from the more narrowly focused backup and dedupe discussion which are still in their infancy on a relative basis to their full market potential (read more here).

Now are you seeing where this is going and fits?

Does this mean IBM and Dell defocus on their existing Dedupe product lines or partners?
I do not believe so, at least as long as their respective revenue prevention departments are kept on the sidelines and off of the field of play. What I mean by this is that the challenge for IBM and Dell is similar to that of what others such as EMC are faced with having diverse portfolios or technology toolboxes. The challenge is messaging to the bigger issues, then aligning the right tool to the task at hand to address given issues and opportunities instead of singularly focused on a specific product causing revenue prevention elsewhere.

As an example, for backup, I would expect Dell to continue to work with its existing dedupe backup centric partners and technologies however find new opportunities to leverage their Ocarina solution. Likewise, IBM I would expect to continue to show customers where Tivoli software based dedupe or Protectier (aka the deduper formerly known as Diligent) or other target based dedupe fits and expand into other data footprint impact areas with Storewize.

Does this change the playing field?
IMHO these moves as well as some previous moves by the likes of EMC and NetApp among others are examples of expanding the scope and dimension of the playing field. That is, the focus is much more than just dedupe for backup or of virtual machines (e.g. VMware vSphere or Microsoft HyperV).

This signals a growing awareness around the much larger and broader opportunity around organization wide data footprint impact reduction. In the broader context some applications or data gets compressed either in application software such as databases, file systems, operating systems or even hypervisors as well as in networks using protocol or bandwidth optimizers as well as inline compression or post processing techniques as has been the case with streaming tape devices for some time.

This also means that where with dedupe the primary focus or marketing angle up until recently has been around reduction ratios, to meet the needs of time or performance sensitive applications data transfer rates also become important.

Hence the role of policy based data footprint reduction where the right tool or technique to meet specific service requirements is applied. For those vendors with a diverse data footprint impact reduction tool kit including archive, compression, dedupe, thin provision among other techniques, I would expect to hear expanded messaging around the theme of applying the right tool to the task at hand.

Does this mean Dell bought Ocarina to accessorize EqualLogic?
Perhaps, however that would then beg the question of why EqualLogic needs accessorizing. Granted there are many EqualLogic along with other Dell sold storage systems attached to Dell and other vendors servers operating as NFS or Windows CIFS file servers that are candidates for Ocarina. However there are also many environments that do not yet include Dell EqualLogic solutions where Ocarina is a means for Dell to extend their reach enabling those organizations to do more with what they have while supporting growth.

In other words, Ocarina can be used to accessorize, or, it can be used to generate and create pull through for various Dell products. I also see a very strong affinity and opportunity for Dell to combine their recent Exanet NAS storage clustering software with Dell servers, storage to create bulk or scale out solutions similar to what HP and other vendors have done. Of course what Dell does with the Ocarina software over time, where they integrate it into their own products as well as OEM to others should be interesting to watch or speculate upon.

Does this mean IBM bought Storwize to accessorize XIV?
Well, I guess if you put a gateway (or software on a server which is the same thing) in front of XIV to transform it into a NAS system, sure, then Storwize could be used to increase the net usable capacity of the XIV installed base. However that is a lot of work and cost for what is on a relative basis a small footprint, yet it is a viable option never the less.

IMHO IBM has much more of a play, perhaps a home run by walking before they run by placing Storwize in front of their existing large installed base of NetApp N series (not to mention targeting NetApps own install base) as well as complimenting their SONAS solutions. From there as IBM gets their legs and mojo, they could go on the attack by going after other vendors NAS solutions with an efficiency story similar to how IBM server groups target other vendors server business for takeout opportunities except in a complimenting manner.

Longer term I would not be surprised to see IBM continue development of the block based IP (as well as file) in the storwize product for deployment in solutions ranging from SVC to their own or OEM based products along with articulating their comprehensive data footprint reduction solution portfolio. What will be important for IBM to do is articulating what solution to use when, where, why and how without confusing their customers, partners and rest of the industry (something that Dell will also have to do).

Some links for additional reading on the above and related topics

Wrap up (for now)

Organizations of all shape and size are encountering some form of growing data footprint impact that currently, or soon will need to be addressed. Given that different applications and types of data along with associated storage mediums or tiers have various performance, availability, capacity, energy as well as economic characteristics multiple data footprint impact reduction tools or techniques are needed. What this all means is that the focus of data footprint reduction is expanding beyond that of just dedupe for backup or other early deployment scenarios.

Note what this means is that dedupe has an even brighter future than where it currently is focused which is still only scratching the surface of potential market adoption as was discussed in part 1 of this series.

However this also means that dedupe is not the only solution to all data footprint reduction scenarios. Other techniques including archiving, compression, data management, thin provisioning, data deletion, tiered storage and consolidation will start to gain respect, coverage discussions and debates.

Bottom line, use the most applicable technologies or combinations along with best practice for the task and activity at hand.

For some applications reduction ratios are an important focus on the tools or modes of operations that achieve those results.

Likewise for other applications where the focus is on performance with some data reduction benefit, tools are optimized for performance first and reduction secondary.

Thus I expect messaging from some vendors to adjust (expand) to those capabilities that they have in their toolboxes (product portfolios) offerings

Consequently, IMHO some of the backup centric dedupe solutions may find themselves in niche roles in the future unless they can diversity. Vendors with multiple data footprint reduction tools will also do better than those with only a single function or focused tool.

However for those who only have a single or perhaps a couple of tools, well, guess what the approach and messaging will be. After all, if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, if all you have is a screw driver, well, you get the picture.

On the other hand, if you are still not clear on what all this means, send me a note, give a call, post a comment or a tweet and will be happy to discuss with you.

Oh, FWIW, if interested, disclosure: Storwize was a client a couple of years ago.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

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

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?

US 2010 Cenus formsUS 2010 Cenus forms
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.

IT Data Center Resources
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

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

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

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

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

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

Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories

There is a good and timely article titled Green IT Can Save Money, Too over at Business Week that has a familiar topic and theme for those who read this blog or other content, articles, reports, books, white papers, videos, podcasts or in-person speaking and keynote sessions that I have done..

I posted a short version of this over there, here is the full version that would not fit in their comment section.

Short of calling it Green IT 2.0 or the perfect storm, there is a resurgence and more importantly IMHO a growing awareness of the many facets of Green IT along with Green in general having an economic business sustainability aspect.

While the Green Gap and confusion still exists, that is, the difference between what people think or perceive and actual opportunities or issues; with growing awareness, it will close or at least narrow. For example, when I regularly talk with IT professionals from various sized, different focused industries across the globe in diverse geographies and ask them about having to go green, the response is in the 7-15% range (these are changing) with most believing that Green is only about carbon footprint.

On the other hand, when I ask them if they have power, cooling, floor space or other footprint constraints including frozen or reduced budgets, recycling along with ewaste disposition or RoHS requirements, not to mention sustaining business growth without negatively impacting quality of service or customer experience, the response jumps up to 65-75% (these are changing) if not higher.

That is the essence of the green gap or disconnect!

Granted carbon dioxide or CO2 reduction is important along with NO2, water vapors and other related issues, however there is also the need to do more with what is available, stretch resources and footprints do be more productive in a shrinking footprint. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as an information, data or processing recession with all indicators pointing towards the need to move, manage and store larger amounts of data on a go forward basis. Thus, the need to do more in a given footprint or constraint, maximizing resources, energy, productivity and available budgets.

Innovation is the ability to do more with less at a lower cost without compromise on quality of service or negatively impacting customer experience. Regardless of if you are a manufacturer, or a service provider including in IT, by innovating with a diverse Green IT focus to become more efficient and optimized, the result is that your customers become more enabled and competitive.

By shifting from an avoidance model where cost cutting or containment are the near-term tactical focus to an efficiency and productivity model via optimization, net unit costs should be lowered while overall service experience increase in a positive manner. This means treating IT as an information factory, one that needs investment in the people, processes and technologies (hardware, software, services) along with management metric indicator tools.

The net result is that environmental or perceived Green issues are addressed and self-funded via the investment in Green IT technology that boosts productivity (e.g. closing or narrowing the Green Gap). Thus, the environmental concerns that organizations have or need to address for different reasons yet that lack funding get addressed via funding to boost business productivity which have tangible ROI characteristics similar to other lean manufacturing approaches.

Here are some additional links to learn more about these and other related themes:

Have a read over at Business Week about how Green IT Can Save Money, Too while thinking about how investing in IT infrastructure productivity (Information Factories) by becoming more efficient and optimized helps the business top and bottom line, not to mention the environment as well.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

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

Clouds are like Electricity: Dont be Scared

Clouds

IT clouds (compute, applications, storage, and services) are like electricity in that they can be scary or confusing to some while being enabling or a necessity s to others not to mention being a polarizing force depending on where you sit or view them.

As a polarizing force, if you are a cloud crowd cheerleader or evangelist, you might view someone who does not subscribe or share your excitement, views or interpretations as a cynic.

On the other hand, if you are a skeptic, or perhaps scared or even a cynic, you might view anyone who talks about cloud in general or not specific terms as a cheerleader.

I have seen and experienced this electrifying polarization first hand having being told by crowd cloud cheerleaders or evangelists that I dont like clouds, that Im a cynic who does not know anything about clouds.

As a funny aside (at least I thought it was funny), I recently asked someone who gave me an ear full while they were trying to convert me to be a cloud believer if they had read any of the chapters in my new book The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC). The response was NO and I said to the effect to bad, as in the book, I talk about how clouds can be complimentary to existing IT resources as being another tier of servers, storage, applications, facilities and IT services.

On the other hand, and this might be funny for some of the crowd cloud, when I bring up tiered IT resources including servers, storage, applications and facilities as well as where or how clouds can fit to compliment IT, I have been told by cynics or naysayers that Im a cloud cheerleader.

Wow, talk about polarized sides!

Now, what about all those that are somewhere in the middle, those that are skeptics who might see value for IT clouds for different scenarios and may in fact already be using clouds (depending upon someones definition).

For those in the middle, whether they are vendors, vars, media, press, analysts, consultants, IT professionals, investors or others, they can easily be misunderstood, misrepresented, and a missed opportunity, perhaps even lamented by those on either of the two extremes (e.g. cloud crowd cheerleaders or true skeptic nay sayers).

Time for some education, don’t be scared, however be careful!

When I worked for an electric power generating and transmission utility an important lesson was not to be scared of electricity, however, be educated, what to do, what not to do in different situations including what to do or not do in the actual power plant or substation. I was taught that when in the actual plant, or at a substation of which I visited in support of the applications and systems I was developing or maintaining, to do certain things. For example, number one, dont touch certain things, number two, if you fall, don’t grab anything, the fall may or may not hurt you, let alone the sudden stop where ever you land, however, if you grab something, that might kill you and you may not be able to let go further injuring yourself. This was a challenging thought as we are taught to grab onto something when falling.

What does this have to do with clouds?

Don’t grab and hang-on if you don’t know what you are grabbing on to if you don’t have to.

The cloud crowd can be polarizing and in some ways acting as a lightning rod drawing the scorns, cynicism ,skeptics, lambasting or being poked fun of given some of the over the top hype around clouds today. Now granted, not all cloud evangelists, vendors or cheerleaders deserve to be the brunt of some of this backlash within the industry; however, it comes with the territory.

Im in the middle as I pointed out above when I talk with vendors, vars, media, investors and IT customers.  Some I talk with are using clouds (perhaps not compliant with some of the definitions). Some are looking at clouds to move problems or mask issues, others are curious yet skeptical to see where or how they could use clouds to compliment their environments. Yet others are scared however maybe in the future will be more open minded as they become educated and see technologies evolve or shift beyond a fashionable trend.

So its time for disclosure, I seeIT clouds as being complimentary that can co-exist with other IT resources (servers, storage, software). In essence, my view is that clouds are just another tier of IT resources to be used when and where applicable as opposed to being a complete replacement, or, simply ignored.

My point is that cloud computing is another tier of traditional computing or servers providing a different performance, availability, capacity, economic and management attributes compared to other traditional technology delivery vehicles. Same thing with storage, same thing with data centers or hosting sites in general. This also applies to application services, in that a cloud web, email, expense, sales, crm, erp, office or other applications is a tier of those same implementations that may exist in a traditional environment. After all, legacy, physical, virtual, grid and cloud IT datacenters all have something in common, they rely on physical servers, storage, networks, software, metrics and management involving people, processes and best practices.

Now back to disclosure, I like clouds, however Im not a cloud cheerleader, Im a skeptic at times of some over the top hype, yet I also personally use some cloud services and technologies as well as advise others to leverage cloud services when, or where applicable to compliment, co-exist and help enable a green and virtual data center and information factory.

To the cloud crowd cheerleaders, too bad if I don’t line up with all of your belief systems or if you perceive me as raining on your parade by being a skeptic , or what you might think of as a cynic and non believer, even though I use clouds myself.

Likewise, to the true cynics (not skeptics) or naysayers, ease up, Im not drinking the cool-aid of the cheerleaders and evangelists, or at least not in large excessive binge doses. I agree that clouds are not the solution to every IT issue, regardless of what your definition of a cloud happens to be.

To everyone else, regardless of if you are the minatory or majority out there that do not fall into one of the two above groups I have this to say.

Dont be afraid, dont be scared of clouds, learn to navigate your way around and through the various technologies, techniques, products and services and indemnity where they might compliment and enable a flexible and scalable resilient IT infrastructure.

Take some time to listen and learn, become educated on what the different types of clouds (public, private, services, products, architectures, or marketecture), their attributes (compute, storage, applications, services, cost, availability, performance, protocols, functionality) and value proposition.

Look into how cloud technologies and techniques might compliment your existing environment to meet specific business objectives. You might find there are fits, you might there are not, however have a look and do some research so that you can at least hold your ground if storm clouds roll in.

After all, clouds are just another tier of IT resources to add to your tool box enabling more efficient and effective IT services delivery. Clouds do not have to be the all or nothing value proposition that often end up in discussions due to polarized extreme views and definitions or past experiences.

Look at it this way, IT relies on electricity, however electricity needs to be understood and respected not to mention used in effective ways. You can be scared of electricity, you can be caviler around it, or, it can be part of your environment and enabler as long as you know when, where and how to use it, not to mention not using it as applicable.

So next time you see a cloud crowd cheerleader, give them a hug, give them a pat on the back, an atta boy or atta girl as they are just doing their jobs, perhaps even following their beliefs and in the line of duty taking a lot of heat from the industry in the pursuit of their work.

On the other hand, as to the cynics and naysayers, they may in fact be using clouds already, perhaps not under the strict definition of some of the chieftains of the cloud crowd.

To everyone else, dont worry, don’t by scared about the clouds, instead, focus on your business, you IT issues and look at various tiers of technologies that can serve as an enabler in a cost effective manner.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

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

Summer Book Update and Back to School Reading

August and thus Summer 2009 in the northern hemisphere are swiftly passing by and start of a new school year is just around the corner which means it is also time for final vacations, time at the beach, pool, golf course, amusement park or favorite fishing hole among other past times. In order to help get you ready for fall (or late summer) book shopping for those with IT interests, here are some Amazon lists (here, here and here) for ideas, after all, the 2009 holiday season is not that far away!

Here’s a link to my Amazon.com Authors page that includes coverage of both my books, "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC) and "Resilient Storage Networks – Designing Scalable Flexible Data Infrastructures" (Elsevier).

The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC)Resilient Storage Networks - Designing Flexible Scalable Data Infrastructures (Elsevier)

Click here to look inside "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC) and or inside "Resilient Storage Networks" (Elsevier).

Its been six months since the launch announcement of my new book "The Green and Virtual Data Center" (CRC) and general availability at Amazon.com and other global venues here and here. In celebration of the six month anniversary of the book launch (thank you very much to all who have bought a copy!), here is some coverage including what is being said, related articles, interviews, book reviews and more.

Article: New Green Data Center: shifting from avoidance to becoming more efficient IT-World August 2009

wsradio.com interview discussing themes and topics covered in the book including closing the green gap and shifting towards an IT efficiency and productivity for business sustainability.

Closing the green gap: Discussion about expanding data centers with environmental benefits at SearchDataCenter.com

From Greg Brunton – EDS/An HP Company: “Greg Schulz has presented a concise and visionary perspective on the Green issues, He has cut through the hype and highlighted where to start and what the options are. A great place to start your green journey and a useful handbook to have as the journey continues.”

From Rick Bauer – Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) – Education and Technology Director”
“Greg is one of the smartest “good guys” in the storage industry.
He has been a voice of calm amid all the “green IT hype” over the past few years. So when he speaks of the possible improvements that Green Tech can bring, it’s a much more realistic approach…”

From CMG (Computer Measurement Group) MeasureIT
I must admit that I have been slightly skeptical at times, when it comes to what the true value is behind all of the discussions on “green” technologies in the data center. As someone who has seen both the end user and vendor side of things, I think my skepticism gets heightened more than it normally would be. This book really helped dispel my skepticism.

The book is extremely well organized and easy to follow. Each chapter has a very good introduction and comprehensive summary. This book could easily serve as a blueprint for organizations to follow when they look for ideas on how to design new data centers. It’s a great addition to an IT Bookshelf. – Reviewed by Stephen R. Guendert, PhD (Brocade and CMG MeasureIT). Click here to read the full review in CMG MeasureIT.

From Tom Becchetti – IT Architect: “This book is packed full of information. From ecological and energy efficiencies, to virtualization strategies and what the future may hold for many of the key enabling technologies. Greg’s writing style benefits both technologists and management levels.”

From MSP Business Journal: Greg Schulz named an Eco-Tech Warrior – April 2009

From David Marshall at VMblog.com: If you follow me on Linked in, you might have seen that I had been reading a new book that came out at the beginning of the year titled, “The Green and Virtual Data Center” by Greg Schulz. Rather than writing about a specific virtualization platform and how to get it up and running, Schulz takes an interesting approach at stepping back and looking at the big picture. After reading the book, I reached out to the author to ask him a few more questions and to share his thoughts with readers of VMBlog.com. I know I’m not Oprah’s Book Club, but I think everyone here will enjoy this book. Click here to read more what David Marshal has to say.

From Zen Kishimoto of Altaterra Research: Book Review May 2009

From Kurt Marko of Processor.com Green and Virtual Book Review – April 2009

From Serial Storage Wire (STA): Green and SASy = Energy and Economic, Effective Storage – March 2009

From Computer Technology Review: Recent Comments on The Green and Virtual Data Center – March 2009

From Alan Radding in Big Fat Finance Blog: Green IT for Finance Operations – April 2009

From VMblog: Comments on The Green and Virtual Data CenterMarch 2009

From StorageIO Blog: Recent Comments and Tips – March 2009

From VMblog: Comments on The Green and Virtual Data CenterMarch 2009

From Data Center Links John Rath comments on “The Green and Virtual Data Center

From InfoStor Dave Simpson comments on “The Green and Virtual Data Center

From Sys-Con Georgiana Comsa comments on “The Green and Virtual Data Center

From Ziff Davis Heather Clancy comments on “The Green and Virtual Data Center”

From Byte & Switch Green IT and the Green Gap February 2009

From GreenerComputing: Enabling a Green and Virtual Data Center February 2009

From Sys-con: Comments on The Green and Virtual Data Center – March 2009

From ServerWatch: Green IT: Myths vs. Realities – February 2009

From Byte & Switch: Going Green and the Economic Downturn – February 2009

From Business Wire: Comments on The Green and Virtual Data Center Book – January 2009

Additional content and news can be found here and here with upcoming events listed here.

Interested in Kindle? Here’s a link to get a Kindle copy of "Resilient Storage Networks" (Elsevier) or to send a message via Amazon to publisher CRC that you would like to see a Kindle version of "The Green and Virtual Data Center". While you are at it, I also invite you to become a fan of my books at Facebook.

Thanks again to everyone who has obtained their copy of either of my books, also thanks to all of those who have done reviews, interviews and helped in many other ways!

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Cheers – gs

Greg Schulz – twitter @storageio

StorageIO in the news

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 is 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.

Realizing that some prefer blogs to webs to twitters 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:

  • Virtualization Review: Comments on Clouds, Virtualizaiton and Cisco move into servers – July 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Storage Resource Managemet (SRM) and related tools – July 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on flash SSD – July 2009
  • SearchDataBackup: Comments on Data backup reporting tools’ trends – July 2009
  • SearchServerVirtualization: Comments on Hyper-V R2 matches VMware with 64-processor support – July 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on HP buying IBRIX for clustered and Cloud NAS – July 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on HP buying IBRIX for clustered and Cloud NAS – July 2009
  • eWeek: Comments on NetApps next moves after DDUP and EMC – July 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on NetApps next moves after DDUP and EMC – July 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on EMC buying DataDomain, NetApps next moves – July 2009
  • SearchVirtualization: Comments on Microsft HyperV features and VMware – July 2009
  • SearchITchannel: Comments on social media for business – June 2009
  • SearchSMBstorage: Comments on Storage Resource Management (SRM) for SMBs – June 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on IT Merger & Acquisition activity – June 2009
  • Evolving Solutions: Comments on Storage Consolidation, Networking & Green IT – June 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on EMC letter to DDUP – June 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on best practices for effective thin provisioning – June 2009
  • Processor: Comments on Cloud computing, SaaS and SOAs – June 2009
  • Serverwatch: Comments in How EMC’s World Pulls the Data Center Together – June 2009
  • Processor: Comments on Virtual Security Is No Walk In The Park – May 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on EPA launching Green Storage specification – May 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Storage Provisioning Tools – May 2009
  • Enterprise Systems Journal: Comments on Tape: The Zombie Technology – May 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on Oracle Keeping Sun Storage Business – May 2009
  • IT Health Blogging: Discussion about iSCSI vs. Fibre Channel for Virtual Environments – May 2009
  • IT Business Edge: Discussion about IT Data Center Futures – May 2009
  • IT Business Edge: Comments on Tape being a Green Technology – April 2009
  • Big Fat Finance Blog: Quoted in story about Green IT for Finance Operaitons – April 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on FLASH and SSD Storage – April 2009
  • SearchStorage AU: Comments on Data Classificaiton – April 2009
  • IT Knowledge Exchange: Comments on FCoE and Converged Networking Coming Together – April 2009
  • SearchSMBStorage: Comments on Data Deduplicaiton for SMBs – April 2009
  • SearchSMBStorage: Comments on Blade Storage for SMBs – April 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on MAID technology remaining underutilized – April 2009
  • SearchDataCenter: Closing the green gap: Expanding data centers with environmental benefits – April 2009
  • ServerWatch: Comments on What’s Selling In the Data Storage Market? – April 2009
  • ServerWatch: Comments on Oracle Buys Sun: The Consequences – April 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Tiered Storage – April 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Data Classification for Storage Managers – April 2009
  • wsradio.com Interview closing the Green Gap


  • IT Knowledge Exchange: Comments on FCoE eco-system maturing – April 2009
  • Internet Revolution: Comments on the Pre-mature death of the disk drive – April 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on EMC V-MAX announcement – April 2009
  • MSP Business Journal: Greg Schulz named an Eco-Tech Warrior – April 2009
  • Storage Magazine: Comments on Power-smart disk systems – April 2009
  • Storage Magazine: Comments on Replication Alternatives – April 2009
  • StorageIO Blog: Comments and Tape as a Green Storage Medium – April 2009
  • Inside HPC: Recent Comments on Tape and Green IT – April 2009
  • Processor.com: Recent Comments on Green and Virtual – April 2009
  • SearchDataCenter: Interview: Closing the green gap: Expanding data centers with environmental benefits – April 2009
  • Enterprise Systems Journal: Recent Comments and Tips – March 2009
  • Computer Technology Review: Recent Comments on The Green and Virtual Data Center – March 2009
  • VMblog: Comments on The Green and Virtual Data Center – March 2009
  • Sys-con: Comments on The Green and Virtual Data Center – March 2009
  • Server Watch: Comments on IBM possibly buying Sun – March 2009
  • Bnet: Comments on IBM possibly buying Sun – March 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on Tiered Storage 101 – March 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments – Cisco pushes into Servers March 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments – Cisco Entering Server Market March 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments – State of Storage Job Market – March 2009
  • SearchSMBStorage: Comments on SMB Storage Options – March 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on Sun Proposes New Solid State Storage Spec – March 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Comments on Despite Economy, Storage Bargains Hard to Find – March 2009
  • TechWorld: Comments on Where to Stash Your Data – February 2009
  • ServerWatch: Green IT: Myths vs. Realities – February 2009
  • Byte & Switch: Going Green and the Economic Downturn – February 2009
  • CTR: Comments on Tape Hardly Being On Way Out – February 2009
  • Processor: Comments on SSD (FLASH and RAM) – February 2009
  • Internet News: Comments on Steve Wozniak joining SSD startup – February 2009
  • SearchServerVirtualization: Comments on I/O and Virtualization – February 2009
  • Technology Inc.: Comments on Data De-dupe for DR – February 2009
  • SearchStorage: Comments on NetApp SMB NAS – February 2009
  • Check out the Tips, Tools and 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

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

    Recent tips, videos, articles and more

    Its been a busy year so far and there is still plenty more to do. Taking advantage of a short summer break, I’m getting caught up on some items including putting up a link to some of the recent articles, tips, reports, webcasts, videos and more that I have eluded to in recent posts. Realizing that some prefer blogs to webs to tweets to other venues, here are some links to recent articles, tips, videos, podcasts, webcasts, white papers and more that can be found on the StorageIO Tips, tools and White Papers pages.

    Recent articles, columns, tips, white papers and reports:

  • ITworld: The new green data center: From energy avoidance to energy efficiency August 2009
  • SearchSystemsChannel: Comparing I/O virtualization and virtual I/O benefits July 2009
  • SearchDisasterRecovery: Top server virtualization myths in DR and BC July 2009
  • Enterprise Storage Forum: Saving Money with Green Data Storage Technology July 2009
  • SearchSMB ATE Tips: SMB Tips and ATE by Greg Schulz
  • SearchSMB ATE Tip: Tape library storage July 2009
  • SearchSMB ATE Tip: Server-based operating systems vs. PC-based operating systems June 2009
  • SearchSMB ATE Tip: Pros/cons of block/variable block dedupe June 2009
  • FedTechAt the Ready: High-availability storage hinges on being ready for a system failure May 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part XI – Key Elements For A Green and Virtual Data Center May 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part X – Basic Steps For Building a Green and Virtual Data Center May 2009
  • InfoStor Technology Options for Green Storage: April 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part IX – I/O, I/O, Its off to Virtual Work We Go: Networks role in Virtual Data Centers April 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part VIII – Data Storage Can Become Green: There are many steps you can take April 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part VII – Server Virtualization Can Save Costs April 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part VI – Building a Habitat for Technology April 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part V – Data Center Measurement, Metrics & Capacity Planning April 2009
  • zJournal Storage & Data Management: Tips for Enabling Green and Virtual Efficient Data Management March 2009
  • Serial Storage Wire (STA): Green and SASy = Energy and Economic, Effective Storage March 2009
  • SearchSystemsChannel: FAQs: Green IT strategies for solutions providers March 2009
  • Computer Technology Review: Recent Comments on The Green and Virtual Data Center March 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part IV – Virtual Data Centers Can Promote Business Growth March 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part III – The Challenge of IT Infrastructure Resource Management March 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part II – Building an Efficient & Ecologically Friendly Data Center March 2009
  • Byte & Switch Part I – The Green Gap – Addressing Environmental & Economic Sustainability March 2009
  • Byte & Switch Green IT and the Green Gap February 2009
  • GreenerComputing: Enabling a Green and Virtual Data Center February 2009
  • Some recent videos and podcasts include:

  • bmighty.com The dark side of SMB virtualization July 2009
  • bmighty.com SMBs Are Now Virtualization’s “Sweet Spot” July 2009
  • eWeek.com Green IT is not dead, its new focus is about efficiency July 2009
  • SearchSystemsChannel FAQ: Using cloud computing services opportunities to get more business July 2009
  • SearchStorage FAQ guide – How Fibre Channel over Ethernet can combine networks July 2009
  • SearchDataCenter Business Benefits of Boosting Web hosting Efficiency June 2009
  • SearchStorageChannel Disaster recovery services for solution providers June 2009
  • The Serverside The Changing Dynamic of the Data Center April 2009
  • TechTarget Virtualization and Consolidation for Agility: Intels Xeon Processor 5500 series May 2009
  • TechTarget Virtualization and Consolidation for Agility: Intels Xeon Processor 5500 series May 2009
  • Intel Reduce Energy Usage while Increasing Business Productivity in the Data Center May 2009
  • WSRadio Closing the green gap and shifting towards an IT efficiency and productivity April 2009
  • bmighty.com July 2009
  • Check out the Tips, Tools and White Papers, and News pages for more 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

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

    Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed!

    I continue to see those looking for fast silver bullets in the quest to be green, efficient, optimized or sustainable while addressing issues ranging from power/energy, cooling, floor-space/footprint, EH&S (environmental health & safety) not to mention recycling. Yet, I’m also continued to be  amazed by the focus and emphasis around reduce as in reduce your capacity and your performance or processing capabilities in the form of consolidation or aggregation along with energy avoidance which for some is applicable.

    However, there is also the other side of the tale which is shifting from avoidance to becoming more efficient, that is doing more with what you have or with less while boosting productivity. For example, having a server or processor that can do more work in the same or smaller physical footprint drawing the same or less energy and requiring less cooling is a form of reducing overall impact yet boosting productivity. The same can be done with data and I/O networks, storage and even software.

    Similar to automobiles after the 1970s oil and energy crisis, the focus was on reduction, conservation and avoidance as the form of being efficient. Over time, this approach gave way to levering more efficient engines and vehicles that boosted the MPG city and highway, change in driving or usage habits, awareness of issues including applicable metrics and energy costs, as well as the continuing quest for alternative fuels.

    This is no different than what is happening with the IT organizations or compute focused entities in that there has been an initial focus of avoidance to meet short term tactical requirements, not to mention all of the green hype of a few years ago. Today there is a shift taking place towards efficiency and awareness that optimization and efficiency is more than consolidation, that it also includes boosting productivity as part of achieving reduced energy and cooling demands.

    How this can be done is to leverage multiple different techniques including new servers with processors that have intelligent power management (IPM) also known as adaptive voltage scaling (AVS) or other marketing terms enabling variable performance and energy consumption. For example, vary clock cycles and turn on cores when needed, then to turn off cores, slow clock speed down when there is less work to be done. Likewise there are improvements with cooling closer to the heat source ranging from leveraging inert liquid cooling inside the cabinet of computers to surface attached cooling to emerging micro cooling located inside silicon. There is a fascination with using virtualization to consolidate and reduce servers that are underutilized, which again is applicable for some environments and applications.

    However not all servers including many that are underutilized lend themselves to being consolidated for various reasons including quality of service (QoS) or performance, security, vendor support or software compatibility, politics or finance among others. This however does not mean that they cannot be virtualized, it more than likely mean that they cannot be consolidated. There is a common myth that virtualization equals consolidation and vice versa, however virtualization can also be used for abstraction, transparency, emulation and enabling agility including support for load-balancing, scale-up and scale-out performance oriented clustering among other uses. Thus there is another side of virtualization and that is to achieve   efficiency, life beyond consolidation.

    Needless to say there are many more technologies and techniques to address various issues now along with those that are emerging. The good news in all of this is the growing awareness that there are many different faces or facets of being green. That green wash and green hype may be on the endangered species list, that green means more than reducing carbon footprints or recycling or energy avoidance. That green is really about shifting and becoming more efficient, more optimized to support more processing, more work in a cost effective manner to sustain growth on a go forward basis. For high performance compute (HPC) or other large scale IT organizations, there is a notion that small improvements on a large broad scale have significant impact.

    Some organizations are in pursuit of technologies of solutions that promise significant saving ratios over small sets or instances, solutions that provide  smaller reduction or savings over a larger basis can prove to be more effective. For example, if power is a concern, powering down servers or storage that promises 85-100% savings might only be applicable to less than 5% of the devices. However, if 85-100% of the devices can be upgraded to newer models that boost productivity by 5-15% (or more) in the same or smaller footprint, using 5-15% (or more) less power, the results add up quickly. Think of it this way, a 1% saving for an environment using 1,000 kilo watt hour (kWh) or 1mWh of energy is a savings of 10kWh. The point being that for large environments, don’t forget to look at small savings that apply to a large installed base that then add up to big benefits.

    The net result is that one can pursue being green or being perceived as being green which can have a high cost, or, can pursue various efficiency that help the overall organization by boosting productivity, helping the top and bottom line, doing more in a smaller footprint and guess what, the result is not only economic, it’s also environmental positive. Thus, the byproduct of shifting towards efficiency (and not just avoidance) is to become green!

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

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

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

    Clarifying Clustered Storage Confusion

    Clustered storage can be iSCSI, Fibre Channel block based or NAS (NFS or CIFS or proprietary file system) file system based. Clustered storage can also be found in virtual tape library (VTL) including dedupe solutions along with other storage solutions such as those for archiving, cloud, medical or other specialized grids among others.

    Recently in the IT and data storage specific industry, there has been a flurry of merger and acquisition (M&A) (Here and here), new product enhancement or announcement activity around clustered storage. For example, HP buying clustered file system vendor IBRIX complimenting their previous acquisition of another clustered file system vendor (PolyServe) a few years ago, or, of iSCSI block clustered storage software vendor LeftHand earlier this year. Another recent acquisition is that of LSI buying clustered NAS vendor ONstor, not to mention Dell buying iSCSI block clustered storage vendor EqualLogic about a year and half ago, not to mention other vendor acquisitions or announcements involving storage and clustering.

    Where the confusion enters into play is the term cluster which means many things to different people, and even more so when clustered storage is combined with NAS or file based storage. For example, clustered NAS may infer a clustered file system when in reality a solution may only be multiple NAS filers, NAS heads, controllers or storage processors configured for availability or failover.

    What this means is that a NFS or CIFS file system may only be active on one node at a time, however in the event of a failover, the file system shifts from one NAS hardware device (e.g. NAS head or filer) to another. On the other hand, a clustered file system enables a NFS or CIFS or other file system to be active on multiple nodes (e.g. NAS heads, controllers, etc.) concurrently. The concurrent access may be for small random reads and writes for example supporting a popular website or file serving application, or, it may be for parallel reads or writes to a large sequential file.

    Clustered storage is no longer exclusive to the confines of high-performance sequential and parallel scientific computing or ultra large environments. Small files and I/O (read or write), including meta-data information, are also being supported by a new generation of multipurpose, flexible, clustered storage solutions that can be tailored to support different applications workloads.

    There are many different types of clustered and bulk storage systems. Clustered storage solutions may be block (iSCSI or Fibre Channel), NAS or file serving, virtual tape library (VTL), or archiving and object-or content-addressable storage. Clustered storage in general is similar to using clustered servers, providing scale beyond the limits of a single traditional system—scale for performance, scale for availability, and scale for capacity and to enable growth in a modular fashion, adding performance and intelligence capabilities along with capacity.

    For smaller environments, clustered storage enables modular pay-as-you-grow capabilities to address specific performance or capacity needs. For larger environments, clustered storage enables growth beyond the limits of a single storage system to meet performance, capacity, or availability needs.

    Applications that lend themselves to clustered and bulk storage solutions include:

    • Unstructured data files, including spreadsheets, PDFs, slide decks, and other documents
    • Email systems, including Microsoft Exchange Personal (.PST) files stored on file servers
    • Users’ home directories and online file storage for documents and multimedia
    • Web-based managed service providers for online data storage, backup, and restore
    • Rich media data delivery, hosting, and social networking Internet sites
    • Media and entertainment creation, including animation rendering and post processing
    • High-performance databases such as Oracle with NFS direct I/O
    • Financial services and telecommunications, transportation, logistics, and manufacturing
    • Project-oriented development, simulation, and energy exploration
    • Low-cost, high-performance caching for transient and look-up or reference data
    • Real-time performance including fraud detection and electronic surveillance
    • Life sciences, chemical research, and computer-aided design

    Clustered storage solutions go beyond meeting the basic requirements of supporting large sequential parallel or concurrent file access. Clustered storage systems can also support random access of small files for highly concurrent online and other applications. Scalable and flexible clustered file servers that leverage commonly deployed servers, networking, and storage technologies are well suited for new and emerging applications, including bulk storage of online unstructured data, cloud services, and multimedia, where extreme scaling of performance (IOPS or bandwidth), low latency, storage capacity, and flexibility at a low cost are needed.

    The bandwidth-intensive and parallel-access performance characteristics associated with clustered storage are generally known; what is not so commonly known is the breakthrough to support small and random IOPS associated with database, email, general-purpose file serving, home directories, and meta-data look-up (Figure 1). Note that a clustered storage system, and in particular, a clustered NAS may or may not include a clustered file system.

    Clustered Storage Model: Source The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC)
    Figure 1 – Generic clustered storage model (Courtesy “The Green and Virtual Data Center  (CRC)”

    More nodes, ports, memory, and disks do not guarantee more performance for applications. Performance depends on how those resources are deployed and how the storage management software enables those resources to avoid bottlenecks. For some clustered NAS and storage systems, more nodes are required to compensate for overhead or performance congestion when processing diverse application workloads. Other things to consider include support for industry-standard interfaces, protocols, and technologies.

    Scalable and flexible clustered file server and storage systems provide the potential to leverage the inherent processing capabilities of constantly improving underlying hardware platforms. For example, software-based clustered storage systems that do not rely on proprietary hardware can be deployed on industry-standard high-density servers and blade centers and utilizes third-party internal or external storage.

    Clustered storage is no longer exclusive to niche applications or scientific and high-performance computing environments. Organizations of all sizes can benefit from ultra scalable, flexible, clustered NAS storage that supports application performance needs from small random I/O to meta-data lookup and large-stream sequential I/O that scales with stability to grow with business and application needs.

    Additional considerations for clustered NAS storage solutions include the following.

    • Can memory, processors, and I/O devices be varied to meet application needs?
    • Is there support for large file systems supporting many small files as well as large files?
    • What is the performance for small random IOPS and bandwidth for large sequential I/O?
    • How is performance enabled across different application in the same cluster instance?
    • Are I/O requests, including meta-data look-up, funneled through a single node?
    • How does a solution scale as the number of nodes and storage devices is increased?
    • How disruptive and time-consuming is adding new or replacing existing storage?
    • Is proprietary hardware needed, or can industry-standard servers and storage be used?
    • What data management features, including load balancing and data protection, exists?
    • What storage interface can be used: SAS, SATA, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel?
    • What types of storage devices are supported: SSD, SAS, Fibre Channel, or SATA disks?

    As with most storage systems, it is not the total number of hard disk drives (HDDs), the quantity and speed of tiered-access I/O connectivity, the types and speeds of the processors, or even the amount of cache memory that determines performance. The performance differentiator is how a manufacturer combines the various components to create a solution that delivers a given level of performance with lower power consumption.

    To avoid performance surprises, be leery of performance claims based solely on speed and quantity of HDDs or the speed and number of ports, processors and memory. How the resources are deployed and how the storage management software enables those resources to avoid bottlenecks are more important. For some clustered NAS and storage systems, more nodes are required to compensate for overhead or performance congestion.

    Learn more about clustered storage (block, file, VTL/dedupe, archive), clustered NAS, clustered file system, grids and cloud storage among other topics in the following links:

    "The Many faces of NAS – Which is appropriate for you?"

    Article: Clarifying Storage Cluster Confusion
    Presentation: Clustered Storage: “From SMB, to Scientific, to File Serving, to Commercial, Social Networking and Web 2.0”
    Video Interview: How to Scale Data Storage Systems with Clustering
    Guidelines for controlling clustering
    The benefits of clustered storage

    Along with other material on the StorageIO Tips and Tools or portfolio archive or events pages.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

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

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

    IBM Out, Oracle In as Buyer of Sun

    Following on the heals of IBM in talks with Sun that broke down a week or so ago, today’s news is Oracle has agreed to buy Sun extending Larry Ellison’s software empire as well as boosting his hardware empire from fast sport platforms to server, storage and other IT data center hardware.

    What’s the real play and story here is certainly open to discussion and debate, is it good, is it bad, who are the winners and losers will be determined as the dust settles, not to mention as responses from across the industry, not to mention new product announcements and enhances slated by some for as early as this week. What if any role does Cisco wanting to get into servers and maybe storage play, does Oracle want to make sure they remain at the big table?

    Regarding discussions of this deal, what it means, the twitter world has been abuzz already this morning, click here to see and follow some of the conversations, perspectives and insights being exchanged.

    Nuf said for now, its time to get ready to head off to the airport as I’m doing several events speaking and keynote sessions this week on the right coast while the left coast is abuzz with the Sun & Oracle activity.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

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

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