Tag: vm

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Announcing Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book by Greg Schulz

New SDDI Essentials Book by Greg Schulz of Server StorageIO

Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Update 1/21/2018

Over the past several months I have posted, commenting, presenting and discussing more about Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials aka SDDI or SDDC and SDI. Now it is time to announce my new book (my 4th solo project), Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book (CRC Press). Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials is now generally available at various global venues in hardcopy, hardback print as well as various electronic versions including via Amazon and CRC Press among others. For those attending VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas, I will be doing a book signing, meet and greet at 1PM Tuesday August 29 in the VMworld book store, as well as presenting at various other fall industry events.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book Announcement

(Via Businesswire) Stillwater, Minnesota – August 23, 2017  – Server StorageIO, a leading independent IT industry advisory and consultancy firm, in conjunction with publisher CRC Press, a Taylor and Francis imprint, announced the release and general availability of “Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials,” a new book by Greg Schulz, noted author and Server StorageIO founder.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials

The Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book covers physical, cloud, converged (and hyper-converged), container, and virtual server storage I/O networking technologies, revealing trends, tools, techniques, and tradecraft skills.

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

From cloud web scale to enterprise and small environments, IoT to database, software-defined data center (SDDC) to converged and container servers, flash solid state devices (SSD) to storage and I/O networking,, the book helps develop or refine hardware, software, services and management experiences, providing real-world examples for those involved with or looking to expand their data infrastructure education knowledge and tradecraft skills.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book topics include:

  • Cloud, Converged, Container, and Virtual Server Storage I/O networking
  • Data protection (archive, availability, backup, BC/DR, snapshot, security)
  • Block, file, object, structured, unstructured and data value
  • Analytics, monitoring, reporting, and management metrics
  • Industry trends, tools, techniques, decision making
  • Local, remote server, storage and network I/O troubleshooting
  • Performance, availability, capacity and  economics (PACE)

Where To Purchase Your Copy

Order via Amazon.com and CRC Press along with Google Books among other global venues.

What People Are Saying About Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book

“From CIOs to operations, sales to engineering, this book is a comprehensive reference, a must-read for IT infrastructure professionals, beginners to seasoned experts,” said Tom Becchetti, advisory systems engineer.

"We had a front row seat watching Greg present live in our education workshop seminar sessions for ITC professionals in the Netherlands material that is in this book. We recommend this amazing book to expand your converged and data infrastructure knowledge from beginners to industry veterans."

Gert and Frank Brouwer – Brouwer Storage Consultancy

"Software-Defined Data Infrastructures provides the foundational building blocks to improve your craft in several areas including applications, clouds, legacy, and more.  IT professionals, as well as sales professionals and support personal, stand to gain a great deal by reading this book."

Mark McSherry- Oracle Regional Sales Manager

"Greg Schulz has provided a complete ‘toolkit’ for storage management along with the background and framework for the storage or data infrastructure professional (or those aspiring to become one)."
Greg Brunton – Experienced Storage and Data Management Professional

“Software-defined data infrastructures are where hardware, software, server, storage, I/O networking and related services converge inside data centers or clouds to protect, preserve, secure and serve applications and data,” said Schulz.  “Both readers who are new to data infrastructures and seasoned pros will find this indispensable for gaining and expanding their knowledge.”

SDDI and SDDC components

More About Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials
Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) Essentials provides fundamental coverage of physical, cloud, converged, and virtual server storage I/O networking technologies, trends, tools, techniques, and tradecraft skills. From webscale, software-defined, containers, database, key-value store, cloud, and enterprise to small or medium-size business, the book is filled with techniques, and tips to help develop or refine your server storage I/O hardware, software, Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC), Software Data Infrastructures (SDI) or Software Defined Anything (SDx) and services skills. Whether you are new to data infrastructures or a seasoned pro, you will find this comprehensive reference indispensable for gaining as well as expanding experience with technologies, tools, techniques, and trends.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC content

This book is the definitive source providing comprehensive coverage about IT and cloud Data Infrastructures for experienced industry experts to beginners. Coverage of topics spans from higher level applications down to components (hardware, software, networks, and services) that get defined to create data infrastructures that support business, web, and other information services. This includes Servers, Storage, I/O Networks, Hardware, Software, Management Tools, Physical, Software Defined Virtual, Cloud, Docker, Containers (Docker and others) as well as Bulk, Block, File, Object, Cloud, Virtual and software defined storage.

Additional topics include Data protection (Availability, Archiving, Resiliency, HA, BC, BR, DR, Backup), Performance and Capacity Planning, Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper-Converged, NVM and NVMe Flash SSD, Storage Class Memory (SCM), NVMe over Fabrics, Benchmarking (including metrics matter along with tools), Performance Capacity Planning and much more including whos doing what, how things work, what to use when, where, why along with current and emerging trends.

Book Features

ISBN-13: 978-1498738156
ISBN-10: 149873815X
Hardcover: 672 pages
(Available in Kindle and other electronic formats)
Over 200 illustrations and 70 plus tables
Frequently asked Questions (and answers) along with many tips
Various learning exercises, extensive glossary and appendices
Publisher: Auerbach/CRC Press Publications; 1 edition (June 19, 2017)
Language: English

SDDI and SDDC toolbox

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Data Infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve information along with the applications and data they depend on. With more data being created at a faster rate, along with the size of data becoming larger, increased application functionality to transform data into information means more demands on data infrastructures and their underlying resources.

Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials: Cloud, Converged, and Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft is for people who are currently involved with or looking to expand their knowledge and tradecraft skills (experience) of data infrastructures. Software-defined data centers (SDDC), software data infrastructures (SDI), software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and traditional data infrastructures are made up of software, hardware, services, and best practices and tools spanning servers, I/O networking, and storage from physical to software-defined virtual, container, and clouds. The role of data infrastructures is to enable and support information technology (IT) and organizational information applications.

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Everything is not the same in business, organizations, IT, and in particular servers, storage, and I/O. This means that there are different audiences who will benefit from reading this book. Because everything and everybody is not the same when it comes to server and storage I/O along with associated IT environments and applications, different readers may want to focus on various sections or chapters of this book.

If you are looking to expand your knowledge into an adjacent area or to understand whats under the hood, from converged, hyper-converged to traditional data infrastructures topics, this book is for you. For experienced storage, server, and networking professionals, this book connects the dots as well as provides coverage of virtualization, cloud, and other convergence themes and topics.

This book is also for those who are new or need to learn more about data infrastructure, server, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, and services. Another audience for this book is experienced IT professionals who are now responsible for or working with data infrastructure components, technologies, tools, and techniques.

Learn more here about Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) Essentials book along with cloud, converged, and virtual fundamental server storage I/O tradecraft topics, order your copy from Amazon.com or CRC Press here, and thank you in advance for learning more about SDDI and related topics.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Microsoft Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Reference Resources

Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Architecture Resources

Need to learn more about Microsoft Azure Cloud Software Defined Data Infrastructure topics including reference architecture among other resources for various application workloads?

Microsoft Azure has an architecture and resources page (here) that includes various application workload reference tools.

Microsoft Azure Software Defined Cloud
Azure Reference Architectures via Microsoft Azure

Examples of some Azure Reference Architecture for various application and workloads include among others:

For example, need to know how to configure a high availability (HA) Sharepoint deployment with Azure, then check out this reference architecture shown below.

Microsoft Azure Sharepoint HA reference architecture
Sharepoint HA via Microsoft Azure

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

What This All Means

Data Infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve information along with the applications and data they depend on. Software Defined Data Infrastructures span legacy, virtual, container, cloud and other environments to support various application workloads. Check out the Microsoft Azure cloud reference architecture and resources mentioned above as well as the Azure Free trial and getting started site here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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Microsoft Windows Server, Azure, Nano Life cycle Updates

server storage I/O trends

Microsoft Windows Server, Azure, Nano and life cycle Updates

For those of you who have an interest in Microsoft Windows Server on-premises, on Azure, on Hyper-V or Nano life cycle here are some recently announced updates.
Microsoft Windows Server Nano Lifecycle

Microsoft has announced updates to Windows Server Core and Nano along with semi-annual channel updates (read more here). The synopsis of this new update via Microsoft (read more here) is:

In this new model, Windows Server releases are identified by  the year and month of release: for example, in 2017, a release in the 9th month  (September) would be identified as version 1709. Windows Server will release  semi-annually in fall and spring. Another release in March 2018 would be  version 1803. The support lifecycle for each release is 18 months.

Microsoft has announced that its lightweight variant of WIndows Server 2016 (if you need a refresh on server requirements visit here) known as nano will now be focused for WIndows based containers as opposed to being for bare metal. As part of this change, Microsoft has reiterated that Server Core the headless (aka non-desktop user interface) version of WIndows Server 2016 will continue as the platform for BM along with other deployments where a GUI interface is not needed. Note that one of the original premises of Nano was that it could be leveraged as a replacement for Server Core.

As part of this shift, Microsoft has also stated their intention to further streamline the already slimmed down version of WIndows Server known as Nano by reducing its size another 50%. Keep in mind that Nano is already a fraction of the footprint size of regular Windows Server (Core or Desktop UI). The footprint of Nano includes both its capacity size on disk (HDD or SSD), as well as its memory requirements, speed of startup boot, along with number of components that cut the number of updates.

By focusing Nano for container use (e.g. Windows containers) Microsoft is providing multiple micro services engines (e.g. Linux and Windows) along with various management including Docker. Similar to providing multiple container engines (e.g. Linux and Windows) Microsoft is also supporting management from Windows along with Unix.

Does This Confirm Rumor FUD that Nano is Dead

IMHO the answer to the FUD rumors that are circulating around that NANO is dead are false.

Granted Nano is being refocused by Microsoft for containers and will not be the lightweight headless Windows Server 2016 replacement for Server Core. Instead, the Microsoft focus is two path with continued enhancements on Server Core for headless full Windows Server 2016 deployment, while Nano gets further streamlined for containers. This means that Nano is no longer bare metal or Hyper-V focused with Microsoft indicating that Server Core should be used for those types of deployments.

What is clear (besides no bare metal) is that Microsoft is working to slim down Nano even further by removing bare metal items, Powershell,.Net and other items instead of making those into optional items. The goal of Microsoft is to make the base Nano image on disk (or via pull) as small as possible with the initial goal of being 50% of its current uncompressed 1GB disk size. What this means is that if you need Powershell, you add it as a layer, need .Net then add as a layer instead of having the overhead of those items if you do not need tem. It will be interesting to see how much Microsoft is able to remove as standard components and make them options that you can simply add as layers if needed.

What About Azure and Bring Your Own License

In case you were not aware or had forgotten when you use Microsoft Azure and deploy virtual machine (aka cloud instances), you have the option of bringing (e.g. using) your own WIndows Server licenses. What this means is that by using your own Windows Server licenses you can cut the monthly cost of your Azure VMs. Check out the Azure site and explore various configuration options to learn more about pricing and various virtual machine instances from Windows to Linux here as well as hybrid deployments.

Where To Learn More

What This All Means

Microsoft has refocused Windows Server 2016 Core and Desktop as its primary bare metal including for virtual as well as Azure OS platforms, while Nano is now focused on being optimized for Windows-based containers including Docker among other container orchestration.

Ok, nuff said (for now…).

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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Gaining Server Storage I/O Insight into Microsoft Windows Server 2016

Server Storage I/O Insight into Microsoft Windows Server 2016

server storage I/O trends
Updated 12/8/16

In case you had not heard, Microsoft announced the general availability (GA, also known as Release To Manufacturing (RTM) ) of the newest version of its Windows server operating system aka Windows Server 2016 along with System Center 2016. Note that as well as being released to traditional manufacturing distribution mediums as well as MSDN, the Windows Server 2016 bits are also available on Azure.

Microsoft Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2016 Welcome Screen – Source Server StorageIOlab.com

For some this might be new news, or a refresh of what Microsoft announced a few weeks ago (e.g. the formal announcement). Likewise, some of you may not be aware that Microsoft is celebrating WIndows Server 20th Birthday (read more here).

Yet for others who have participated in the public beta aka public technical previews (TP) over the past year or two or simply after the information coming out of Microsoft and other venues, there should not be a lot of surprises.

Whats New With Windows Server 2016

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Desktop
Windows Server 2016 Desktop and tools – Source Server StorageIOlab.com

Besides a new user interface including visual GUI and Powershell among others, there are many new feature functionalities summarized below:

  • Enhanced time-server with 1ms accuracy
  • Nano and Windows Containers (Linux via Hyper-V)
  • Hyper-V enhanced Linux services including shielded VMs
  • Simplified management (on-premisess and cloud)
  • Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) and Storage Replica (SR) – view more here and here


Storage Replica (SR) Scenarios including synchronous and asynchronous – Via Microsoft.com

  • Resilient File System aka ReFS (now default file system) storage tiering (cache)
  • Hot-swap virtual networking device support
  • Reliable Change Tracking (RCT) for faster Hyper-V backups
  • RCT improves resiliency vs. VSS change tracking
  • PowerShell and other management enhancements
  • Including subordinated / delegated management roles
  • Compliment Azure AD with on premise AD
  • Resilient/HA RDS using Azure SQL DB for connection broker
  • Encrypted VMs (at rest and during live migration)
  • AD Federation Services (FS) authenticate users in LDAP dir.
  • vTPM for securing and encrypting Hyper-V VMs
  • AD Certificate Services (CS) increase support for TPM
  • Enhanced TPM support for smart card access management
  • AD Domain Services (DS) security resiliency for hybrid and mobile devices

Here is a Microsoft TechNet post that goes into more detail of what is new in WIndows Server 2016.

Free ebook: Introducing Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview (Via Microsoft Press)

Check out the above free ebook, after looking through it, I recommend adding it to your bookshelf. There are lots of good intro and overview material for Windows Server 2016 to get you up to speed quickly, or as a refresh.

Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) CI and HCI

Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) builds on Storage Spaces that appeared in earlier Windows and Windows Server editions. Some of the major changes and enhancements include ability to leverage local direct attached storage (DAS) such as internal (or external) dedicated NVMe, SAS and SATA HDDs as well as flash SSDs that used for creating software defined storage for various scenarios.

Scenarios include converged infrastructure (CI) disaggregated as well as aggregated hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) for Hyper-V among other workloads. Windows Server 2016 S2D nodes communicate (from a storage perspective) via a software storage bus. Data Protection and availability is enabled between S2D nodes via Storage Replica (SR) that can do software based synchronous and asynchronous replication.


Aggregated – Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) – Source Microsoft.com


Desegregated – Converged Infrastructure (CI) – Source Microsoft.com

The following is a Microsoft produced YouTube video providing a nice overview and insight into Windows Server 2016 and Microsoft Software Defined Storage aka S2D.




YouTube Video Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) via Microsoft.com

Server storage I/O performance

What About Performance?

A common question that comes up with servers, storage, I/O and software defined data infrastructure is what about performance?

Following are some various links to different workloads showing performance for Hyper-V, S2D and Windows Server. Note as with any benchmark, workload or simulation take them for what they are, something to compare that may or might not be applicable to your own workload and environments.

  • Large scale VM performance with Hyper-V and in-memory transaction processing (Via Technet)
  • Benchmarking Microsoft Hyper-V server, VMware ESXi and Xen Hypervisors (Via cisjournal PDF)
  • Server 2016 Impact on VDI User Experience (Via LoginVSI)
  • Storage IOPS update with Storage Spaces Direct (Via TechNet)
  • SQL Server workload (benchmark) Order Processing Benchmark using In-Memory OLTP (Via Github)
  • Setting up testing Windows Server 2016 and S2D using virtual machines (Via MSDN blogs)
  • Storage throughput with Storage Spaces Direct (S2D TP5 (Via TechNet)
  • Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I)

Where To Learn More

For those of you not as familiar with Microsoft Windows Server and related topics, or that simply need a refresh, here are several handy links as well as resources.

  • Introducing Windows Server 2016 (Free ebook from Microsoft Press)
  • What’s New in Windows Server 2016 (Via TechNet)
  • Microsoft S2D Software Storage Bus (Via TechNet)
  • Understanding Software Defined Storage with S2D in Windows Server 2016 (Via TechNet)
  • Microsoft Storage Replica (SR) (Via TechNet)
  • Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I)
  • Microsoft Windows S2D Software Defined Storage (Via TechNet)
  • Windows Server 2016 and Active Directory (Redmond Magazine Webinar)
  • Data Protection for Modern Microsoft Environments (Redmond Magazine Webinar)
  • Resilient File System aka ReFS (Via TechNet)
  • DISKSPD now on GitHub, and the mysterious VMFLEET released (Via TechNet)
  • Hyper-converged solution using Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016 (Via TechNet)
  • NVMe, SSD and HDD storage configurations in Storage Spaces Direct TP5 (Via TechNet)
  • General information about SSD at www.thessdplace.com and NVMe at www.thenvmeplace.com
  • How to run nested Hyper-V and Windows Server 2016 (Via Altaro and via MSDN)
  • How to run Nested Windows Server and Hyper-V on VMware vSphere ESXi (Via Nokitel)
  • Get the Windows Server 2016 evaluation bits here
  • Microsoft Azure Stack overview and related material via Microsoft
  • Introducing Windows Server 2016 (Via MicrosoftPress)
  • Various WIndows Server and S2D lab scripts (Via Github)
  • Storage Spaces Direct – Lab Environment Setup (Via Argon Systems)
  • Setting up S2D with a 4 node configuration (Via StarWind blog)
  • SQL Server workload (benchmark) Order Processing Benchmark using In-Memory OLTP (Via Github)
  • Setting up testing Windows Server 2016 and S2D here using virtual machines (Via MSDN blogs)
  • Hyper-V large-scale VM performance for in-memory transaction processing (Via Technet)
  • BrightTalk Webinar – Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDC) are in your Future (if not already here)
  • Microsoft TechNet: Understand the cache in Storage Spaces Direct
  • BrightTalk Weibniar – Software-Defined Data Infrastructures Enabling Software-Defined Data Centers
  • Happy 20th Birthday Windows Server, ready for Server 2016?
  • Server StorageIO resources including added links, tools, reports, events and more.

What This All Means

While Microsoft Windows Server recently celebrated its 20th birthday (or anniversary), a lot has changed as well as evolved. This includes Windows Servers 2016 supporting new deployment and consumption models (e.g. lightweight Nano, full data center with desktop interface, on-premises, bare metal, virtualized (Hyper-V, VMware, etc) as well as cloud). Besides how consumed and configured, which can also be for CI and HCI modes, Windows Server 2016 along with Hyper-V extend the virtualization and container capabilities into non-Microsoft environments specifically around Linux and Docker. Not only are the support for those environments and platforms enhanced, so to are the management capabilities and interfaces from Powershell to Bash Linux shell being part of WIndows 10 and Server 2016.

What this all means is that if you have not looked at Windows Server in some time, its time you do, even if you are not a WIndows or Microsoft fan, you will want to know what it is that has been updated (perhaps even update your fud if that is the case) to stay current. Get your hands on the bits and try Windows Server 2016 on a bare metal server, or as a VM guest, or via cloud including Azure, or simply leverage the above resources to learn more and stay informed.

Ok, nuff said, for now…

Cheers
Gs

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

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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What does new EMC and Lenovo partnership mean?

EMC and EMCworld

The past several weeks have been busy with various merger, acquisitions and collaborating activity in the IT and data storage world. Summer time often brings new relationships and even summer marriages. The most recent is EMC and Lenovo announcing a new partnership that includes OEM sourcing of technology, market expansion and other initiatives. Hmm, does anybody remember who EMCs former desktop and server partner was, or who put Lenovo out for adoption several years ago?

Here is the press release from EMC and Lenovo that you can read yourself vs. me simply paraphrasing it:

Lenovo and EMC Team Up In Strategic Worldwide Partnership
A Solid Step in Lenovo’s Aspiration to Be a Player in Industry Standard Servers and Networked Storage with EMC’s Leading Technology; EMC Further Strengthens Ability to Serve Customers’ Storage Solutions Needs in China and Other Emerging Markets; Companies Agree to Form SMB-Focused Storage Joint Venture
BEIJING, China – August 1, 2012
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) and EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today announced a broad partnership that enhances Lenovo’s position in industry standard servers and networked storage solutions, while significantly expanding EMC’s reach in China and other key, high-growth markets. The new partnership is expected to spark innovation and additional R&D in the server and storage markets by maximizing the product development talents and resources at both companies, while driving scale and efficiency in the partners’ respective supply chains.
The partnership is a strong strategic fit, leveraging the two leading companies’ respective strengths, across three main areas:

  • First, Lenovo and EMC have formed a server technology development program that will accelerate and extend Lenovo’s capabilities in the x86 industry-standard server segment. These servers will be brought to market by Lenovo and embedded into selected EMC storage systems over time.
  • Second, the companies have forged an OEM and reseller relationship in which Lenovo will provide EMC’s industry-leading networked storage solutions to its customers, initially in China and expanding into other global markets in step with the ongoing development of its server business.
  • Finally, EMC and Lenovo plan to bring certain assets and resources from EMC’s Iomega business into a new joint venture which will provide Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems to small/medium businesses (SMB) and distributed enterprise sites.

“Today’s announcement with industry leader EMC is another solid step in our journey to build on our foundation in PCs and become a leader in the new PC-plus era,” said Yuanqing Yang, Lenovo chairman and CEO. “This partnership will help us fully deliver on our PC-plus strategy by giving us strong back-end capabilities and business foundation in servers and storage, in addition to our already strong position in devices. EMC is the perfect partner to help us fully realize the PC-plus opportunity in the long term.”
Joe Tucci, chairman and CEO of EMC, said, “The relationship with Lenovo represents a powerful opportunity for EMC to significantly expand our presence in China, a vibrant and very important market, and extend it to other parts of the world over time. Lenovo has clearly demonstrated its ability to apply its considerable resources and expertise not only to enter, but to lead major market segments. We’re excited to partner with Lenovo as we focus our combined energies serving a broader range of customers with industry-leading storage and server solutions.”
In the joint venture, Lenovo will contribute cash, while EMC will contribute certain assets and resources of Iomega. Upon closing, Lenovo will hold a majority interest in the new joint venture. During and after the transition from independent operations to the joint venture, customers will experience continuity of service, product delivery and warranty fulfillment. The joint venture is subject to customary closing procedures including regulatory approvals and is expected to close by the end of 2012.
The partnership described here is not considered material to either company’s current fiscal year earnings.
About Lenovo
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a $US30 billion personal technology company and the world’s second largest PC company, serving customers in more than 160 countries. Dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile internet devices, Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the Company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services. Its product lines include legendary Think-branded commercial PCs and Idea-branded consumer PCs, as well as servers, workstations, and a family of mobile internet devices, including tablets and smart phones. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information, see www.lenovo.com.
About EMC
EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

What is my take?

Disclosures
I have been buying and using Lenovo desktop and laptop products for over a decade and currently typing this post from my X1 ThinkPad equipped with a Samsung SSD. Likewise I bought an Iomega IX4 NAS a couple of years ago (so I am a customer), am a Retrospect customer (EMC bought and then sold them off), used to be a Mozy user (now a former customer) and EMC has been a client of StorageIO in the past.

Lenovo Thinkpad
Some of my Lenovo(s) and EMC Iomega IX4

Let us take a step back for a moment, Lenovo was the spinout and sale from IBM who has a US base in Raleigh North Carolina. While IBM still partners with Lenovo for desktops, IBM over the past years or decade(s) has been more strategically focused on big enterprise environments, software and services. Note that IBM has continued enhancing its own Intel based servers (e.g. xSeries), propriety Power processor series, storage and technology solutions (here, here, here and here among others). However, for the most part, IBM has moved away from catering to the Consumer, SOHO and SMB server, storage, desktop and related technology environments.

EMC on the other hand started out in the data center growing up to challenge IBMs dominance of data storage in big environments to now being the industry maker storage player for big and little data, from enterprise to cloud to desktop to server, consumer to data center. EMC also was partnered with Dell who competes directly with Lenovo until that relationship ended a few years ago. EMC for its part has been on a growth and expansion strategy adding technologies, companies, DNA and ability along with staff in the desktop, server and other spaces from a data, information and storage perspective not to mention VMware (virtualization and cloud), RSA (security) among others such as Mozy for cloud backup. EMC is also using more servers in its solutions ranging from Iomega based NAS to VNX unified storage systems, Greenplum big data to Centera archiving, ATMOS and various data protection solutions among other products.

StorageIO industry trends and perspectives

Note that this is an industry wide trend of leveraging Intel Architecture (IA) along with AMD, Broadcom, and IBM Power among other general-purpose processors and servers as platforms for running storage and data applications or appliances.

Overall, I think that this is a good move for both EMC and Lenovo to expand their reach into different adjacent markets leveraging and complimenting each other strengths.

Ok, lets see who is involved in the next IT summer relationship, 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)

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Whats your take on open virtualization alliance and VMware?

Have you heard about the open virtualization alliance (OVA), their kernel based virtual machine (KVM) and their diverse membership list?

If not, here is a link to the OVA FAQ, also take a moment and read this here that talks about OVA along with some perspectives commentary from others as well as myself.

Virtual Servers and Virtual Machines

Figure 1: Generic representation of virtual machines (VMs) and virtualized environment

In a nutshell, OVA can be seen by the faithful as a move or ploy to catch up and buck the success trend of VMware. To those who are not on the VMware bandwagon, this could be seen as a move to level the playing field for virtual machines, kernels and servers.

Yet to others, this can be seen as DejaVu to past attempts at operating systems or other technology alliances to bring parity to the ranks of those not at the top of the technology list of a particular topic, product or theme. For example, a decade or two ago, there were the various Unix groups (remember SCO etc?) that were attempted involving the late Ray Norda of Novell fame in a quest to battle Microsoft among others.

The industry road side is littered with alliances that either still exist yet collecting dust or that faltered. For storage people does anybody remember Aperi and how those in the IBM lead storage management alliance were all singing Kumbaya around a virtual campfire and later partnering with SNIA (Storage Networking Industry Association)? Speaking of SNIA, anybody remember the various supported solutions forums (SSFs) popular back in the early 2000s as a means to demonstrate and stimulate interoperability between different vendors technologies?

Alliances are not bad, however generally to be successful, they have to exist for the right reasons in addition to being well funded, have strong leadership that also means having clear objectives to minimize chances of compromise by committee. While we are talking about alliances, have you heard about the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA)? The ODCA alliance of which StorageIO is a member is a bit different than many IT related groups in that it is customer or non vendor focused. ODCA has good potential for doing some interesting things as long as they do not get bogged down in bureaucracy as is to often the case with industry driven trade groups, associations or alliances.

Open Data Center Alliance Member

Lets see how these and other alliances move forward or what becomes of them, not to mention the expanding awareness around virtualization, life beyond consolidation (and here).

Whats your take on OVA and other alliances?

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)

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

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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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