Tag: virtualization

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Green IT, Green Gap, Tiered Energy and Green Myths

There are many different aspects of Green IT along with several myths or misperceptions not to mention missed opportunities.

There is a Green Gap or disconnect between environmentally aware, focused messaging and core IT data center issues. For example, when I ask IT professionals whether they have or are under direction to implement green IT initiatives, the number averages in the 10-15% range.

However, when I ask the same audiences who has or sees power, cooling, floor space, supporting growth, or addressing environmental health and safety (EHS) related issues, the average is 75 to 90%. What this means is a disconnect between what is perceived as being green and opportunities for IT organizations to make improvements from an economic and efficiency standpoint including boosting productivity.

 

Some IT Data Center Green Myths
Is “green IT” a convenient or inconvenient truth or a legend?

When it comes to green and virtual environments, there are plenty of myths and realities, some of which vary depending on market or industry focus, price band, and other factors.

For example, there are lines of thinking that only ultra large data centers are subject to PCFE-related issues, or that all data centers need to be built along the Columbia River basin in Washington State, or that virtualization eliminates vendor lock-in, or that hardware is more expensive to power and cool than it is to buy.

The following are some myths and realities as of today, some of which may be subject to change from reality to myth or from myth to reality as time progresses.

Myth: Green and PCFE issues are applicable only to large environments.

Reality: I commonly hear that green IT applies only to the largest of companies. The reality is that PCFE issues or green topics are relevant to environments of all sizes, from the largest of enterprises to the small/medium business, to the remote office branch office, to the small office/home office or “virtual office,” all the way to the digital home and consumer.

 

Myth: All computer storage is the same, and powering disks off solves PCFE issues.

Reality: There are many different types of computer storage, with various performance, capacity, power consumption, and cost attributes. Although some storage can be powered off, other storage that is needed for online access does not lend itself to being powered off and on. For storage that needs to be always online and accessible, energy efficiency is achieved by doing more with less—that is, boosting performance and storing more data in a smaller footprint using less power.

 

Myth: Servers are the main consumer of electrical power in IT data centers.

Reality: In the typical IT data center, on average, 50% of electrical power is consumed by cooling, with the balance used for servers, storage, networking, and other aspects. However, in many environments, particularly processing or computation intensive environments, servers in total (including power for cooling and to power the equipment) can be a major power draw.

 

Myth: IT data centers produce 2 to 8% of all global Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and carbon emissions.

Reality:  Thus might be perhaps true, given some creative accounting and marketing math in order to help build a justification case or to scare you into doing something. However, the reality is that in the United States, for example, IT data centers consume around 2 to 4% of electrical power (depending on when you read this), and less than 80% of all U.S. CO2 emissions are from electrical power generation, so the math does not quite add up. The reality is this, if no action is taken to improve IT data center energy efficiency, continued demand growth will shift IT power-related emissions from myth to reality, not to mention cause constraints on IT and business sustainability from an economic and productivity standpoint.

Myth: Server consolidation with virtualization is a silver bullet to address PCFE issues.

Reality: Server virtualization for consolidation is only part of an overall solution that should be combined with other techniques, including lower power, faster and more energy efficient servers, and improved data and storage management techniques.

 

Myth: Hardware costs more to power than to purchase.

Reality: Currently, for some low-cost servers, standalone disk storage, or entry level networking switches and desktops, this may be true, particularly where energy costs are excessively high and the devices are kept and used continually for three to five years. A general rule of thumb is that the actual cost of most IT hardware will be a fraction of the price of associated management and software tool costs plus facilities and cooling costs. For the most part, at least as of this writing, small standalone individual hard disk drives or small entry level volume servers can be bought and then used in locations that have very high electrical costs over a three  to five year time frame.

 

Regarding this last myth, for the more commonly deployed external storage systems across all price bands and categories, generally speaking, except for extremely inefficient and hot running legacy equipment, the reality is that it is still cheaper to power the equipment than to buy it. Having said that, there are some qualifiers that should also be used as key indicators to keep the equation balanced. These qualifiers include the acquisition cost  if any, for new, expanded, or remodeled habitats or space to house the equipment, the price of energy in a given region, including surcharges, as well as cooling, length of time, and continuous time the device will be used.

For larger businesses, IT equipment in general still costs more to purchase than to power, particularly with newer, more energy efficient devices. However, given rising energy prices, or the need to build new facilities, this could change moving forward, particularly if a move toward energy efficiency is not undertaken.

There are many variables when purchasing hardware, including acquisition cost, the energy efficiency of the device, power and cooling costs for a given location and habitat, and facilities costs. For example, if a new storage solution is purchased for $100,000, yet new habitat or facilities must be built for three to five times the cost of the equipment, those costs must be figured into the purchase cost.

Likewise, if the price of a storage solution decreases dramatically, but the device consumes a lot of electrical power and needs a large cooling capacity while operating in a region with expensive electricity costs, that, too, will change the equation and the potential reality of the myth.

 

Tiered Energy Sources
Given that IT resources and facilitated require energy to power equipment as well as keep them cool, electricity are popular topics associated with Green IT, economics and efficiency with lots of metrics and numbers tossed around. With that in mind, the U.S. national average CO2 emission is 1.34 lb/kWh of electrical power. Granted, this number will vary depending on the region of the country and the source of fuel for the power-generating station or power plant.

Like IT tiered resources (Servers, storage, I/O networks, virtual machines and facilities) of which there are various tiers or types of technologies to meet various needs, there are also multiple types of energy sources. Different tiers of energy sources vary by their cost, availability and environmental characteristics among others. For example, in the US, there are different types of coal and not all coal is as dirty when combined with emissions air scrubbers as you might be lead to believe however there are other energy sources to consider as well.

Coal continues to be a dominant fuel source for electrical power generation both in the United States and abroad, with other fuel sources, including oil, gas, natural gas, liquid propane gas (LPG or propane), nuclear, hydro, thermo or steam, wind and solar. Within a category of fuel, for example, coal, there are different emissions per ton of fuel burned. Eastern U.S. coal is higher in CO2 emissions per kilowatt hour than western U.S. lignite coal. However, eastern coal has more British thermal units (Btu) of energy per ton of coal, enabling less coal to be burned in smaller physical power plants.

If you have ever noticed that coal power plants in the United States seem to be smaller in the eastern states than in the Midwest and western states, it’s not an optical illusion. Because eastern coal burns hotter, producing more Btu, smaller boilers and stockpiles of coal are needed, making for smaller power plant footprints. On the other hand, as you move into the Midwest and western states of the United States, coal power plants are physically larger, because more coal is needed to generate 1 kWh, resulting in bigger boilers and vent stacks along with larger coal stockpiles.

On average, a gallon of gasoline produces about 20 lb of CO2, depending on usage and efficiency of the engine as well as the nature of the fuel in terms of octane or amount of Btu. Aviation fuel and diesel fuel differ from gasoline, as does natural gas or various types of coal commonly used in the generation of electricity. For example, natural gas is less expensive than LPG but also provides fewer Btu per gallon or pound of fuel. This means that more natural gas is needed as a fuel to generate a given amount of power.

Recently, while researching small, 10 to 12 kWh standby generators for my office, I learned about some of the differences between propane and natural gas. What I found was that with natural gas as fuel, a given generator produced about 10.5 kWh, whereas the same unit attached to a LPG or propane fuel source produced 12 kWh. The trade off was that to get as much power as possible out of the generator, the higher cost LPG was the better choice. To use lower cost fuel but get less power out of the device, the choice would be natural gas. If more power was needed, than a larger generator could be deployed to use natural gas, with the trade off of requiring a larger physical footprint.

Oil and gas are not used as much as fuel sources for electrical power generation in the United States as in other countries such as the United Kingdom. Gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum based fuels are used for some power plants in the United States, including standby or peaking plants. In the electrical power G and T industry as in IT, where different tiers of servers and storage are used for different applications there are different tiers of power plants using different fuels with various costs. Peaking and standby plants are brought online when there is heavy demand for electrical power, during disruptions when a lower cost or more environmentally friendly plant goes offline for planned maintenance, or in the event of a trip or unplanned outage.

CO2 is commonly discussed with respect to green and associated emissions however there are other so called Green Houses Gases including Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and water vapors among others. Carbon makes up only a fraction of CO2. To be specific, only about 27% of a pound of CO2 is carbon; the balance is not. Consequently, carbon emissions taxes schemes (ETS), as opposed to CO2 tax schemes, need to account for the amount of carbon per ton of CO2 being put into the atmosphere. In some parts of the world, including the EU and the UK, ETS are either already in place or in initial pilot phases, to provide incentives to improve energy efficiency and use.

Meanwhile, in the United States there are voluntary programs for buying carbon offset credits along with initiatives such as the carbon disclosure project. The Carbon Disclosure Project (www.cdproject.net) is a not for profit organization to facilitate the flow of information pertaining to emissions by organizations for investors to make informed decisions and business assessment from an economic and environmental perspective. Another voluntary program is the United States EPA Climate Leaders initiative where organizations commit to reduce their GHG emissions to a given level or a specific period of time.

Regardless of your stance or perception on green issues, the reality is that for business and IT sustainability, a focus on ecological and, in particular, the corresponding economic aspects cannot be ignored. There are business benefits to aligning the most energy efficient and low power IT solutions combined with best practices to meet different data and application requirements in an economic and ecologically friendly manner.

Green initiatives need to be seen in a different light, as business enables as opposed to ecological cost centers. For example, many local utilities and state energy or environmentally concerned organizations are providing funding, grants, loans, or other incentives to improve energy efficiency. Some of these programs can help offset the costs of doing business and going green. Instead of being seen as the cost to go green, by addressing efficiency, the by products are economic as well as ecological.

Put a different way, a company can spend carbon credits to offset its environmental impact, similar to paying a fine for noncompliance or it can achieve efficiency and obtain incentives. There are many solutions and approaches to address these different issues, which will be looked at in the coming chapters.

What does this all mean?
There are real things that can be done today that can be effective toward achieving a balance of performance, availability, capacity, and energy effectiveness to meet particular application and service needs.

Sustaining for economic and ecological purposes can be achieved by balancing performance, availability, capacity, and energy to applicable application service level and physical floor space constraints along with intelligent power management. Energy economics should be considered as much a strategic resource part of IT data centers as are servers, storage, networks, software, and personnel.

The bottom line is that without electrical power, IT data centers come to a halt. Rising fuel prices, strained generating and transmission facilities for electrical power, and a growing awareness of environmental issues are forcing businesses to look at PCFE issues. IT data centers to support and sustain business growth, including storing and processing more data, need to leverage energy efficiency as a means of addressing PCFE issues. By adopting effective solutions, economic value can be achieved with positive ecological results while sustaining business growth.

Some additional links include:

Want to learn or read more?

Check out Chapter 1 (Green IT and the Green Gap, Real or Virtual?) in my book “The Green and Virtual Data Center” (CRC) here or here.

Ok, nuff said.

Cheers gs

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

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

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Infosmack Episode 34, VMware, Microsoft and More

Following on the heals of several guest appearances late in 2009 ( here, here, here and here) on the Storage Monkeys Infosmack weekly pod cast, I was recently asked to join them again for the inaugural 2010 show (Episode 34).

Along with VMguru Rich Brambley and hosts Greg Knieriemen and Marc Farley we discussed several recent industry topics in this first show of the year which can be accessed here or on iTunes.

Heres a link to the pod cast where you can listen to the discussion including VMware Go, VMware buying Zimbra, Vendor Alliances such as HP and Microsoft HyperV and EMC+Cisco+VMware, along with data protection for virtual servers issues options (or opportunities) among other topics.

I have included the following links that pertain to some of the items we discussed during the show.

Enjoy the show.

Cheers gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

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2010 and 2011 Trends, Perspectives and Predictions: More of the same?

2011 is not a typo, I figured that since Im getting caught up on some things, why not get a jump as well.

Since 2009 went by so fast, and that Im finally getting around to doing an obligatory 2010 predictions post, lets take a look at both 2010 and 2011.

Actually Im getting around to doing a post here having already done interviews and articles for others soon to be released.

Based on prior trends and looking at forecasts, a simple predictions is that some of the items for 2010 will apply for 2011 as well given some of this years items may have been predicted by some in 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 or, well ok, you get the picture. :)

Predictions are fun and funny in that for some, they are taken very seriously, while for others, at best they are taken with a grain of salt depending on where you sit. This applies both for the reader as well as who is making the predictions along with various motives or incentives.

Some are serious, some not so much…

For some, predictions are a great way of touting or promoting favorite wares (hard, soft or services) or getting yet another plug (YAP is a TLA BTW) in to meet coverage or exposure quota.

Meanwhile for others, predictions are a chance to brush up on new terms for the upcoming season of buzzword bingo games (did you pick up on YAP).

In honor of the Vancouver winter games, Im expecting some cool Olympic sized buzzword bingo games with a new slippery fast one being federation. Some buzzwords will take a break in 2010 as well as 2011 having been worked pretty hard the past few years, while others that have been on break, will reappear well rested, rejuvenated, and ready for duty.

Lets also clarify something regarding predictions and this is that they can be from at least two different perspectives. One view is that from a trend of what will be talked about or discussed in the industry. The other is in terms of what will actually be bought, deployed and used.

What can be confusing is sometimes the two perspectives are intermixed or assumed to be one and the same and for 2010 I see that trend continuing. In other words, there is adoption in terms of customers asking and investigating technologies vs. deployment where they are buying, installing and using those technologies in primary situations.

It is safe to say that there is still no such thing as an information, data or processing recession. Ok, surprise surprise; my dogs could have probably made that prediction during a nap. However what this means is more data will need to be moved, processed and stored for longer periods of time and at a lower cost without degrading performance or availability.

This means, denser technologies that enable a lower per unit cost of service without negatively impacting performance, availability, capacity or energy efficiency will be needed. In other words, watch for an expanded virtualization discussion around life beyond consolidation for servers, storage, desktops and networks with a theme around productivity and virtualization for agility and management enablement.

Certainly there will be continued merger and acquisitions on both a small as well as large scale ranging from liquidation sales or bargain hunting, to large and a mega block buster or two. Im thinking in terms of outside of the box, the type that will have people wondering perhaps confused as to why such a deal would be done until the whole picture is reveled and thought out.

In other words, outside of perhaps IBM, HP, Oracle, Intel or Microsoft among a few others, no vendor is too large not to be acquired, merged with, or even involved in a reverse merger. Im also thinking in terms of vendors filling in niche areas as well as building out their larger portfolio and IT stacks for integrated solutions.

Ok, lets take a look at some easy ones, lay ups or slam dunks:

  • More cluster, cloud conversations and confusion (public vs. private, service vs. product vs. architecture)
  • More server, desktop, IO and storage consolidation (excuse me, server virtualization)
  • Data footprint impact reduction ranging from deletion to archive to compress to dedupe among others
  • SSD and in particular flash continues to evolve with more conversations around PCM
  • Growing awareness of social media as yet another tool for customer relations management (CRM)
  • Security, data loss/leap prevention, digital forensics, PCI (payment card industry) and compliance
  • Focus expands from gaming/digital surveillance /security and energy to healthcare
  • Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) mainstream in discussions with some initial deployments
  • Continued confusion of Green IT and carbon reduction vs. economic and productivity (Green Gap)
  • No such thing as an information, data or processing recession, granted budgets are strained
  • Server, Storage or Systems Resource Analysis (SRA) with event correlation
  • SRA tools that provide and enable automation along with situational awareness

The green gap of confusion will continue with carbon or environment centric stories and messages continue to second back stage while people realize the other dimension of green being productivity.

As previously mentioned, virtualization of servers and storage continues to be popular with an expanding focus from just consolidation to one around agility, flexibility and enabling production, high performance or for other systems that do not lend themselves to consolidation to be virtualized.

6GB SAS interfaces as well as more SAS disk drives continue to gain popularity. I have said in the past there was a long shot that 8GFC disk drives might appear. We might very well see those in higher end systems while SAS drives continue to pick up the high performance spinning disk role in mid range systems.

Granted some types of disk drives will give way over time to others, for example high performance 3.5” 15.5K Fibre Channel disks will give way to 2.5” 15.5K SAS boosting densities, energy efficiency while maintaining performance. SSD will help to offload hot spots as they have in the past enabling disks to be more effectively used in their applicable roles or tiers with a net result of enhanced optimization, productivity and economics all of which have environmental benefits (e.g. the other Green IT closing the Green Gap).

What I dont see occurring, or at least in 2010

  • An information or data recession requiring less server, storage, I/O networking or software resources
  • OSD (object based disk storage without a gateway) at least in the context of T10
  • Mainframes, magnetic tape, disk drives, PCs, or Windows going away (at least physically)
  • Cisco cracking top 3, no wait, top 5, no make that top 10 server vendor ranking
  • More respect for growing and diverse SOHO market space
  • iSCSI taking over for all I/O connectivity, however I do see iSCSI expand its footprint
  • FCoE and flash based SSD reaching tipping point in terms of actual customer deployments
  • Large increases in IT Budgets and subsequent wild spending rivaling the dot com era
  • Backup, security, data loss prevention (DLP), data availability or protection issues going away
  • Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings winning the super bowl

What will be predicted at end of 2010 for 2011 (some of these will be DejaVU)

  • Many items that were predicted this year, last year, the year before that and so on…
  • Dedupe moving into primary and online active storage, rekindling of dedupe debates
  • Demise of cloud in terms of hype and confusion being replaced by federation
  • Clustered, grid, bulk and other forms of scale out storage grow in adoption
  • Disk, Tape, RAID, Mainframe, Fibre Channel, PCs, Windows being declared dead (again)
  • 2011 will be the year of Holographic storage and T10 OSD (an annual prediction by some)
  • FCoE kicks into broad and mainstream deployment adoption reaching tipping point
  • 16Gb (16GFC) Fibre Channel gets more attention stirring FCoE vs. FC vs. iSCSI debates
  • 100GbE gets more attention along with 4G adoption in order to move more data
  • Demise of iSCSI at the hands of SAS at low end, FCoE at high end and NAS from all angles

Gaining ground in 2010 however not yet in full stride (at least from customer deployment)

  • On the connectivity front, iSCSI, 6Gb SAS, 8Gb Fibre Channel, FCoE and 100GbE
  • SSD/flash based storage everywhere, however continued expansion
  • Dedupe  everywhere including primary storage – its still far from its full potential
  • Public and private clouds along with pNFS as well as scale out or clustered storage
  • Policy based automated storage tiering and transparent data movement or migration
  • Microsoft HyperV and Oracle based server virtualization technologies
  • Open source based technologies along with heterogeneous encryption
  • Virtualization life beyond consolidation addressing agility, flexibility and ease of management
  • Desktop virtualization using Citrix, Microsoft and VMware along with Microsoft Windows 7

Buzzword bingo hot topics and themes (in no particular order) include:

  • 2009 and previous year carry over items including cloud, iSCSI, HyperV, Dedupe, open source
  • Federation takes over some of the work of cloud, virtualization, clusters and grids
  • E2E, End to End management preferably across different technologies
  • SAS, Serial Attached SCSI for server to storage systems and as disk to storage interface
  • SRA, E23, Event correlation and other situational awareness related IRM tools
  • Virtualization, Life beyond consolidation enabling agility, flexibility for desktop, server and storage
  • Green IT, Transitions from carbon focus to economic with efficiency enabling productivity
  • FCoE, Continues to evolve and mature with more deployments however still not at tipping point
  • SSD, Flash based mediums continue to evolve however tipping point is still over the horizon
  • IOV, I/O Virtualization for both virtual and non virtual servers
  • Other new or recycled buzzword bingo candidates include PCoIP, 4G,

RAID will again be pronounced as being dead no longer relevant yet being found in more diverse deployments from consumer to the enterprise. In other words, RAID may be boring and thus no longer relevant to talk about, yet it is being used everywhere and enhanced in evolutionary ways, perhaps for some even revolutionary.

Tape remains being declared dead (e.g. on the Zombie technology list) yet being enhanced, purchased and utilized at higher rates with more data stored than in past history. Instead of being killed off by the disk drive, tape is being kept around for both traditional uses as well as taking on new roles where it is best suited such as long term or bulk off-line storage of data in ultra dense and energy efficient not to mention economical manners.

What I am seeing and hearing is that customers using tape are able to reduce the number of drives or transports, yet due to leveraging disk buffers or caches including from VTL and dedupe devices, they are able to operate their devices at higher utilization, thus requiring fewer devices with more data stored on media than in the past.

Likewise, even though I have been a fan of SSD for about 20 years and am bullish on its continued adoption, I do not see SSD killing off the spinning disk drive anytime soon. Disk drives are helping tape take on this new role by being a buffer or cache in the form of VTLs, disk based backup and bulk storage enhanced with compression, dedupe, thin provision and replication among other functionality.

There you have it, my predictions, observations and perspectives for 2010 and 2011. It is a broad and diverse list however I also get asked about and see a lot of different technologies, techniques and trends tied to IT resources (servers, storage, I/O and networks, hardware, software and services).

Lets see how they play out.

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

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EPA Server and Storage Workshop Feb 2, 2010

EPA Energy Star

Following up on a recent previous post pertaining to US EPA Energy Star(r) for Servers, Data Center Storage and Data Centers, there will be a workshop held Tuesday February 2, 2010 in San Jose, CA.

Here is the note (Italics added by me for clarity) from the folks at EPA with information about the event and how to participate.

 

Dear ENERGY STAR® Servers and Storage Stakeholders:

Representatives from the US EPA will be in attendance at The Green Grid Technical Forum in San Jose, CA in early February, and will be hosting information sessions to provide updates on recent ENERGY STAR servers and storage specification development activities.  Given the timing of this event with respect to ongoing data collection and comment periods for both product categories, EPA intends for these meetings to be informal and informational in nature.  EPA will share details of recent progress, identify key issues that require further stakeholder input, discuss timelines for the completion, and answer questions from the stakeholder community for each specification.

The sessions will take place on February 2, 2010, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM PT, at the San Jose Marriott.  A conference line and Webinar will be available for participants who cannot attend the meeting in person.  The preliminary agenda is as follows:

Servers (10:00 AM to 12:30 PM)

  • Draft 1 Version 2.0 specification development overview & progress report
    • Tier 1 Rollover Criteria
    • Power & Performance Data Sheet
    • SPEC efficiency rating tool development
  • Opportunities for energy performance data disclosure

 

Storage (1:30 PM to 4:00 PM)

  • Draft 1 Version 1.0 specification development overview & progress report
  • Preliminary stakeholder feedback & lessons learned from data collection 

A more detailed agenda will be distributed in the coming weeks.  Please RSVP to storage@energystar.gov or servers@energystar.gov no later than Friday, January 22.  Indicate in your response whether you will be participating in person or via Webinar, and which of the two sessions you plan to attend.

Thank you for your continued support of ENERGY STAR.

 

End of EPA Transmission

For those attending the event, I look forward to seeing you there in person on Tuesday before flying down to San Diego where I will be presenting on Wednesday the 3rd at The Green Data Center Conference.

Cheers
Gs

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

twitter @storageio

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

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Upcoming Events and Activities Update V2010.1

The end of year christmas and new years holiday season has come and gone which means of course that 2009 is a wrap along with the travel from being out and about.

In addition to getting some time to relax a bit (playing Wii resort, snow plowing, cooking etc.), I have also been catching up on developing some new content including articles, blogs (some yet to be post), tips as well as podcasts along with some custom research advisory projects.

Check out some recent tips, articles, videos and podcasts here along with perspecitives and comments on indusitry news here.

2009 events and activities saw visits to cities including San Jose, Tucson, Cancun Mexico, Dallas, Tampa, Miami, Los Angles, San Jose, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Atlanta, St. Louis, Birmingham, Cincinnati, Santa Ana, Minneapolis, Boston, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Parsipanny, Raleigh, Providence, Kansas City, Denver, Chicago, Orlando, Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, Richmond, Columbus, Princeton, Seattle, Portland, Dallas, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Toronto, Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland and Detroit among others.

This time of the year also means that the 2010 events and activities including in person keynote and presentations also known as out and about are getting underway. While the 2010 schedule of events is still being finalized, some initial events have are on the calendar, my bags are about to be packed and tickets in hand not to mention finalizing the presentation and discussion content.

In addition to some non public events including keynote presenting at some vendors annual sales (kick off) meetings, the following are some of what are currently on the calendar that you can click on the links below to learn more about the venues.

February 3, 2010 Green Data Center Conference, San Diego, CA
January 21, 2010 Dinner Event keynote Speaker Dynamic IT Infrastructure, Beverly Hills, CA
January 21, 2010 Morning keynote Speaker The Green and Virtual Data Center, San Diego, CA
January 19, 2010 Dinner Event keynote Speaker Dynamic IT Infrastructure, Miami, FL

Watch for updates to the events calendar and I look forward to seeing you all while Im out and about during 2010.

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

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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)

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    Recent tips, videos, articles and more update V2010.1

    Realizing that some prefer blogs to webs to twitter to other venues, here are some recent links to articles, tips, videos, webcasts and other content that have appeared in different venues since August 2009.

  • i365 Guest Interview: Experts Corner: Q&A with Greg Schulz December 2009

  • SearchCIO Midmarket: Remote-location disaster recovery risks and solutions December 2009

  • BizTech Magazine: High Availability: A Delicate Balancing Act November 2009

  • ESJ: What Comprises a Green, Efficient and Effective Virtual Data Center? November 2009

  • SearchSMBStorage: Determining what server to use for SMB November 2009

  • SearchStorage: Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency October 2009

  • SearchStorage: Optimizing capacity and performance to reduce data footprint October 2009

  • SearchSMBStorage: How often should I conduct a disaster recovery (DR) test? October 2009

  • SearchStorage: Addressing storage performance bottlenecks in storage September 2009

  • SearchStorage AU: Is tape the right backup medium for smaller businesses? August 2009

  • ITworld: The new green data center: From energy avoidance to energy efficiency August 2009

    • Video and podcasts include:
    December 2009 Video: Green Storage: Metrics and measurement for management insight
    Discussion between Greg Schulz and Mark Lewis of TechTarget the importance of metrics and measurement to gauge productivity and efficiency for Green IT and enabling virtual information factories. Click here to watch the Video.

    December 2009 Podcast: iSCSI SANs can be a good fit for SMB storage
    Discussion between Greg Schulz and Andrew Burton of TechTarget about iSCSI and other related technologies for SMB storage. Click here to listen to the podcast.

    December 2009 Podcast: RAID Data Protection Discussion
    Discussion between Greg Schulz and Andrew Burton of TechTarget about RAID data proteciton, techniques and technologies. Click here to listen to the podcast.

    December 2009 Podcast: Green IT, Effiency and Productivity Discussion
    Discussion between Greg Schulz and Jon Flower of Adaptec about data Green IT, energy effiency, inteligent power management (IPM) also known as MAID 2.0 and other forms of optimization techniques including SSD. Click here to listen to the podcast sponsored by Adaptec.

    November 2009 Podcast: Reducing your data footprint impact
    Even though many enterprise data storage environments are coping with tightened budgets and reduced spending, overall net storage capacity is increasing. In this interview, Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst at StorageIO Group, discusses how storage managers can reduce their data footprint. Schulz touches on the importance of managing your data footprint on both online and offline storage, as well as the various tools for doing so, including data archiving, thin provisioning and data deduplication. Click here to listen to the podcast.

    October 2009 Podcast: Enterprise data storage technologies rise from the dead
    In this interview, Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst of the Storage I/O group, classifies popular technologies such as solid-state drives (SSDs), RAID and Fibre Channel (FC) as “zombie” technologies. Why? These are already set to become part of standard storage infrastructures, says Schulz, and are too old to be considered fresh. But while some consider these technologies to be stale, users should expect to see them in their everyday lives. Click here to listen to the podcast.

    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)

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    StorageIO debuts at 79 in Technobabble top 400 analyst list

    Following on the heals of being named one of three EcoTech warriors earlier in the year, and then number 5 in the top ten independent bloggers at StorageMonkeys earlier this year (plus appearing on InfoSmack), the momentum continues more recently being named as the 23rd out of the top 30 influential virtualization bloggers.

    If that were not enough, I was also surprised to learn recently that I have also made a debut appearance at number 79 in the Technobabble top 400 analyst and independent blogger lists as well.

    To say that Im honored and flattered would be an understatement and I thank all of the growing number of readers and commenters to the various blogs, twitter tweets along with other content at the different venues and events Im involved with.

    Thanks to all of you and have a safe happy holiday season along with a prosperous new years, look forward to future conversations and discussions.

    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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    Green IT and Virtual Data Centers

    Green IT and virtual data centers are no fad nor are they limited to large-scale environments.

    Paying attention to how resources are used to deliver information services in a flexible, adaptable, energy-efficient, environmentally, and economically friendly way to boost efficiency and productivity are here to stay.

    Read more here in the article I did for the folks over at Enterprise Systems Journal.

    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

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    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)
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    What is the Future of Servers?

    Recently I provided some comments and perspectives on the future of servers in an article over at Processor.com.

    In general, blade servers will become more ubiquitous, that is they wont go away even with cloud, rather become more common place with even higher density processors with more cores and performance along with faster I/O and larger memory capacity per given footprint.

    While the term blade server may fade giving way to some new term or phrase, rest assured their capabilities and functionality will not disappear, rather be further enhanced to support virtualization with VMware vsphere, Microsoft HyperV, Citrix/Zen along with public and private clouds, both for consolidation and in the next wave of virtualization called life beyond consolidation.

    The other trend is that not only will servers be able to support more processing and memory per footprint; they will also do that drawing less energy requiring lower cooling demands, hence more Ghz per watt along with energy savings modes when less work needs to be performed.

    Another trend is around convergence both in terms of packaging along with technology improvements from a server, I/O networking and storage perspective. For example, enhancements to shared PCIe with I/O virtualization, hypervisor optimization, and integration such as the recently announced EMC, Cisco, Intel and VMware VCE coalition and vblocks.

    Read more including my comments in the article here.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
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    Did HP respond to EMC and Cisco VCE with Microsoft HyperV bundle?

    Last week EMC and Cisco along with Intel and VMware created the VCE collation along with a consumption model based service joint venture called Acadia.

    In other activity last week, HP made several announcements including:

    • Improvements in sensing technologies
    • StorageWorks enhancements (SVSP, IBRIX, EVA and HyperV, X9000 and others)

    EMC and Cisco were relatively quiet this week on announcement front, however HP unleashed another round of announcements that among others included:

    • Quarterly financial results
    • SMB server, storage, network and virtualization enhancements (here, here, here and here)
    • Acquisitions of 3COM (see related blog post here)

    The reason I bring up all of this HP activity is not to simply re-cap all of the news and announcements which you can find on many other blogs or news sites, rather I see as a trend.

    That trend appears to be one of a company on the move, not ready to sit back on its laurels, rather a company that continues to innovate in-house and via acquisitions.

    Some of those acquisitions including IBRIX were relatively small, some like EDS last year and the one this week of 3COM to some would be large while to others perhaps as being seen as medium sized. Either way, HP has been busy expanding its portfolio of technology solution and services offerings along with its comprehensive IT stack.

    Cisco, EMC and HP are examples of companies looking to expand their IT stacks and footprint in terms of diversifying current product focus and reach, along with extending into new or further into existing customer and market sector areas. Last weeks EMC and Cisco signaled two large players combing their resources to make virtualization and private clouds easy to acquire and deploy for mid to large size environments with a theme around VMware.

    This week buried in all of the HP announcements was one that caught my eye which is a virtualization solution bundle designed for small business (that is something smaller than a vblock0), something that was missing in the Cisco and EMC news of last week however one that Im sure will be addressed sooner versus later.

    In the case of HP, the other thing with their virtualization bundle was the focus on the mid to small business that fall into the broad and diverse SMB category, not to mention including Microsoft.

    Yes, that is right, while a VMware based solution from HP would be a no-brainer given all of the activity the two companies are involved  in as joint partners, Microsoft HyperV was front and center.

    Is this a reaction to last weeks Cisco and EMC salvo?

    Perhaps and some will jump to that conclusion. However I will also offer this alternative scenario, 85-90 percent of servers consolidated into virtual machines (VMs) on VMware or other hypervisors including Microsoft HyperV are Windows based.

    Likewise as one of the largest if not largest server vendors (pick your favorite server category or price band) who also happens to be one of the largest Microsoft Windows partners, I would have been more surprised if HP had not done a HyperV bundle.

    While Cisco and EMC may stay the course or at least talk the talk with a VMware affinity in the Acadia and VCE coalition for the time being, I would expect HP to flex its wings a bit and show diversity of support for multiple Hypervisors, Operating Systems across its various server, network, storage and services platforms.

    I would not be surprised to see some VMware based bundles appear over time building on previous announced HP blade systems matrix solution bundles.

    Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, that is the on-going server, storage, networking, virtualization, hardware, software and services solutions game for enabling the adaptive, dynamic, flexible, scalable, resilient, service oriented, public or private cloud, infrastructure as a service green and virtual data center.

    Stay tuned, there is much more to come!

    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

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    Poll: EMC and Cisco Acadia VCE, what does it mean?

    EMC and Cisco recently announced their new Acadia VCE coalition along with Intel and VMware.

    As part of the VCE the collation or joint venture is also providing to market pre-acted vblocks that include Cisco servers power by Intel and network switches, EMC storage and management tools (Inonx and RSA for security), VMware vsphere virtualization along with pre-post sales services.

    How does this move from a technology, packaging, integration as well as business or alliance perspective change the server, storage, networking, hardware, software and services game?

    Whats your take?

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – StorageIO, Author “The Green and Virtual Data Center” (CRC)

    Posted on

    Acadia VCE: VMware + Cisco + EMC = Virtual Computing Environment

    Was today the day the music died? (click here or here if you are not familar with the expression)

    Add another three letter acronym (TLA) to your IT vocabulary if you are involved with server, storage, networking, virtualization, security and related infrastructure resource management (IRM) topics.

    That new TLA is Virtual Computing Environment (VCE), a coalition formed by EMC and Cisco along with partner Intel called Acadia that was announced today. Of course, EMC who also happens to own VMware for virtualization and RSA for security software tools bring those to the coalition (read press release here).

    For some quick fun, twittervile and the blogosphere have come up with other meanings such as:

    VCE = Virtualization Communications Endpoint
    VCE = VMware Cisco EMC
    VCE = Very Cash Efficient
    VCE = VMware Controls Everything
    VCE = Virtualization Causes Enthusiasm
    VCE = VMware Cisco Exclusive

    Ok, so much for some fun, at least for now.

    With Cisco, EMC and VMware announcing their new VCE coalition, has this signaled the end of servers, storage, networking, hardware and software for physical, virtual and clouding computing as we know it?

    Does this mean all other vendors not in this announcement should pack it up, game over and go home?

    The answer in my perspective is NO!

    No, the music did not end today!

    NO, servers, storage and networking for virtual or cloud environments has not ended.

    Also, NO, other vendors do not have to go home today, the game is not over!

    However a new game is on, one that some have seen before, for others it is something new, exciting perhaps revolutionary or an industry first.

    What was announced?
    Figure 1 shows a general vision or positioning from the three major players involved along with four tenants or topic areas of focus. Here is a link to a press release where you can read more.

    CiscoVirtualizationCoalition.png
    Figure 1: Source: Cisco, EMC, VMware

    General points include:

    • A new coalition (e.g. VCE) focused on virtual compute for cloud and non cloud environments
    • A new company Acadia owned by EMC and Cisco (1/3 each) along with Intel and VMware
    • A new go to market pre-sales, service and support cross technology domain skill set team
    • Solution bundles or vblocks with technology from Cisco, EMC, Intel and VMware

    What are the vblocks and components?
    Pre-configured (see this link for a 3D model), tested, and supported with a single throat to choke model for streamlined end to end management and acquisition. There are three vblocks or virtual building blocks that include server, storage, I/O networking, and virtualization hypervisor software along with associated IRM software tools.

    Cisco is bringing to the game their Unified Compute Solution (UCS) server along with Nexus 1000v and Multilayer Director (MDS) switches, EMC is bringing storage (Symmetrix VMax, CLARiiON and unified storage) along with their RSA security and Ionix IRM tools. VMware is providing their vSphere hypervisors running on Intel based services (via Cisco).

    The components include:

    • EMC Ionix management tools and framework – The IRM tools
    • EMC RSA security framework software – The security tools
    • EMC VMware vSphere hypervisor virtualization software – The virtualization layer
    • EMC VMax, CLARiiON and unified storage systems – The storage
    • Cisco Nexus 1000v and MDS switches – The Network and connectivity
    • Cisco Unified Compute Solution (UCS) – The physical servers
    • Services and support – Cross technology domain presales, delivery and professional services

    CiscoEMCVMwarevblock.jpg
    Figure 2: Source: Cisco vblock (Server, Storage, Networking and Virtualization Software) via Cisco

    The three vblock models are:
    Vblock0: entry level system due out in 2010 supporting 300 to 800 VMs for initial customer consolidation, private clouds or other diverse applications in small or medium sized business. You can think of this as a SAN in a CAN or Data Center in a box with Cisco UCS and Nexus 1000v, EMC unified storage secured by RSA and VMware vSphere.

    Vblock1: mid sized building block supporting 800 to 3000 VMs for consolidation and other optimization initiatives using Cisco UCS, Nexus and MDS switches along with EMC CLARiiON storage secured with RSA software hosting VMware hypervisors.

    Vblock2 high end supporting up 3000 to 6000 VMs for large scale data center transformation or new virtualization efforts combing Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), Nexus 1000v and MDS switches and EMC VMax Symmetix storage with RSA security software hosting VMware vSpshere hypervisor.

    What does this all mean?
    With this move, for some it will add fuel to the campfire that Cisco is moving closer to EMC and or VMware with a pre-nuptial via Acadia. For others, this will be seen as fragmentation for virtualization particularly if other vendors such as Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM and Microsoft among others are kept out of the game, not to mention their channels of vars or IT customers barriers.

    Acadia is a new company or more precisely, a joint venture being created by major backers EMC and Cisco with minority backers being VMware and Intel.

    Like any other joint ventures, for examples those commonly seen in the airline industry (e.g. transportation utility) where carriers pool resources such as SkyTeam whose members include Delta who had a JV with Airframe owner of KLM who had a antitrust immunity JV with northwest (now being digested by Delta).

    These joint ventures can range from simple marketing alliances like you see with EMC programs such as their Select program to more formal OEM to ownership as is the case with VMware and RSA to this new model for Acadia.

    An airline analogy may not be the most appropriate, yet there are some interesting similarities, least of which that air carriers rely on information systems and technologies provided by members of this collation among others. There is also a correlation in that joint ventures are about streamlining and creating a seamless end to end customer experience. That is, give them enough choice and options, keep them happy, take out the complexities and hopefully some cost, and with customer control come revenue and margin or profits.

    Certainly there are opportunities to streamline and not just simply cut corners, perhaps that’s another area or analogy with the airlines where there is a current focus on cutting, nickel and dimming for services. Hopefully the Acadia and VCE are not just another example of vendors getting together around the campfire to sing Kumbaya in the name of increasing customer adoption, cost cutting or putting a marketing spin on how to sell more to customers for account control.

    Now with all due respect to the individual companies and personal, at least in this iteration, it is not as much about the technology or packaging. Likewise, while important, it is also not just about bundling, integration and testing (they are important) as we have seen similar solutions before.

    Rather, I think this has the potential for changing the way server, storage and networking hardware along with IRM and virtualization software are sold into organizations, for the better or worse.

    What Im watching is how Acadia and their principal backers can navigate the channel maze and ultimately the customer maze to sell a cross technology domain solution. For example, will a sales call require six to fourteen legs (e.g. one person is a two legged call for those not up on sales or vendor lingo) with a storage, server, networking, VMware, RSA, Ionix and services representative?

    Or, can a model to drive down the number of people or product specialist involved in a given sales call be achieved leveraging people with cross technology domain skills (e.g. someone who can speak server and storage hardware and software along with networking)?

    Assuming Acadia and VCE vblocks address product integration issues, I see the bigger issue as being streamlining the sales process (including compensation plans) along with how partners are dealt with not to mention customers.

    How will the sales pitch be to the Cisco network people at VARs or customer sites, or too the storage or server or VMware teams, or, all of the above?

    What about the others?
    Cisco has relationships with Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle/Sun among others that they will be stepping even more on the partner toes than when they launched the UCS earlier this year. EMC for its part if fairly diversified and is not as subservient to IBM however has a history of partnering with Dell, Oracle and Microsoft among others.

    VMware has a smaller investment and thus more in the wings as is Intel given that both have large partnership with Dell, HP, IBM and Microsoft. Microsoft is of interest here because on one front the bulk of all servers virtualized into VMware VMs are Windows based.

    On the other hand, Microsoft has their own virtualization hypervisor HyperV that depending upon how you look at it, could be a competitor of VMware or simply a nuisance. Im of the mindset that its still to early and don’t judge this game on the first round which VMware has won. Keep in mind the history such as desktop and browser wars that Microsoft lost in the first round only to come back strong later. This move could very well invigorate Microsoft, or perhaps Oracle, Citrix among others.

    Now this is far from the first time that we have seen alliances, coalitions, marketing or sales promotion cross technology vendor clubs in the industry let alone from the specific vendors involved in this announcement.

    One that comes to mind was 3COMs failed attempt in the late 90s to become the first traditional networking vendor to get into SANs, that was many years before Cisco could spell SAN let alone their Andiamo startup incubated. The 3COM initiative which was cancelled due to financial issues literally on the eve of rollout was to include the likes of STK (pre-sun), Qlogic, Anchor (People were still learning how to spell Brocade), Crossroads (FC to SCSI routers for tape), Legato (pre-EMC), DG CLARiiON (Pre-EMC), MTI (sold their patents to EMC, became a reseller, now defunct) along with some others slated to jump on the bandwagon.

    Lets also not forget that while among the traditional networking market vendors Cisco is the $32B giant and all of the others including 3Com, Brocade, Broadcom, Ciena, Emulex, Juniper and Qlogic are the seven plus dwarfs. However, keep the $23B USD Huawei networking vendor that is growing at a 45% annual rate in mind.

    I would keep an eye on AMD, Brocade, Citrix, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Huawei, Juniper, Microsoft, NetApp, Oracle/Sun, Rackable and Symantec among many others for similar joint venture or marketing alliances.

    Some of these have already surfaced with Brocade and Oracle sharing hugs and chugs (another sales term referring to alliance meetings over beers or shots).

    Also keep in mind that VMware has a large software (customer business) footprint deployed on HP with Intel (and AMD) servers.

    Oh, and those VMware based VMs running on HP servers also just happen to be hosting in their neighbor of 80% or more Windows based guests operating systems, I would say its game on time.

    When I say its game on time, I dont think VMware is brash enough to cut HP (or others) off forcing them to move to Microsoft for virtualization. However the game is about control, control of technology stacks and partnerships, control of vars, integrators and the channel, as well as control of customers.

    If you cannot tell, I find this topic fun and interesting.

    For those who only know me from servers they often ask when did I learn about networking to which I say check out one of my books (Resilient Storage Networks-Elsevier). Meanwhile for others who know me from storage I get asked when did I learn about or get into servers to which I respond about 28 years ago when I worked in IT as the customer.

    Bottom line on Acadia, vblocks and VCE for now, I like the idea of a unified and bundled solution as long as they are open and flexible.

    On the other hand, I have many questions and even skeptical in some areas including of how this plays out for Cisco and EMC in terms of if it can be a unifier or polarized causing market fragmentation.

    For some this is or will be dejavu, back to the future, while for others it is a new, exciting and revolutionary approach while for others it will be new fodder for smack talk!

    More to follow soon.

    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