the storage anarchist

2.013: a dr. who blast from the past

For those of you who remember Prime Computer, I'm proud to acknowledge that cut my teeth on high tech pre-sales support, performance engineering, and product marketing there in the late 70's and early 80's.

Back in those days the "Route 128 High-Tech Beltway" was the east-coast precursor of Silly-Con Valley, where the long-haired preppies hippies cut their hair, donned suits and ties, and collectively laid the foundation for the technology transition from the monolithic mainframe to the departmental computer and eventually to the desktop PC.

Back then I had as customers likes of Polaroid Corporation who used the Prime 300 RTOS to monitor the self-contained instant film packaging machines (Polaroid was the largest manufacturer of batteries at the time – go figure!). I also supported Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston of Software Arts, inventors of VisiCalc – inarguably the "tipping point" application to bring desktop computing out of the denizens of home hobbyists and word processors and onto the desktop of knowledge workers worldwide (few know that Dan and Bob used a Prime system to develop and maintain VisiCalc – Bob also introduced me to the first port of Emacs to the Prime platform).

I also helped bring to market the Prime 50 Series, complete with the first-in-the-industry green LED "power on" lamp. All the LEDs on most every minicomputer were red prior to that (mostly because red was the cheapest – or only – color). At my suggestion (which was based on my experience as a computer operator in Prime's IT department) beginning with the 50 Series, green LEDs came to mean "all good," red meant "serious problem" and yellow indicated "caution" (as in, remote access enabled). From then on operators could tell at a glance the state of their systems.

Those were the days, my friend.

This past week we have witnessed the passing of three great icons of the 80's: Michael, Farah and Ed McMahon, and these events caused me pause to reminisce about my life back then. Coincidentally, a fellow co-worker from Prime sent me this link to a series of Dr. Who television ads that Prime had developed for the Australian market, and this post was borne of that inspiration.

They just don't make 'em like that anymore.

If you're not a Dr. Who fan, getting Tom Baker to do adverts for your product back then was huge, as the show was insanely popular in the UK and Australia. Cult-like popular, even – the longest running science fiction television show in the world, according to Guinness World Records.

Thanks for the memories...

P.S.: I'm still looking for the videos of the Prime Australia "Keep Computers Confusing" campaign which featured a "robot" named Dr. Primestein. Leave a comment if you have a link.

 

technorati tags: Prime Computer,Dr. Who,1980's,Dan Bricklin,Bob Frankston,VisiCal,Software Arts

2.012: how to mind the future of a mission-critical world

A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of Hitachi's recent green eggs and HHAM announcement, HDS bloggers Claus Mikkelsen and Michael Hay teamed up to assert that I have nothing better to do with my time than to comment on their blogs. Michael even went so far as to comment:

Claus I agree with your approach here, and I do wonder if our Boy Wonder, Barry, is a full time blogger for EMC without anything else to do.

After that slap-in-the-face, both Claus and Michael have has chosen to censor my comments on their respective blogs his blog, and it appears that Christophe Bertrand will no longer publish my comments either. [UPDATE 21 June 2009: Although he obviously agreed with Claus’ decision to censor me, Michael now says he hasn’t received any of my comments on his blog- I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt – for now.]

Was it something I said? 

Fortunately, the storage anarchist does have a day job.

In fact, the latest issue of the EMC.now magazine includes an article about how the Symmetrix Product Group stays closely connected with the requirements and future vision of its customers and prospects, and provides some insight about what I really do here at EMC. If you're interested, the article is How to mind the future of a mission-critical world and it can be found on page 18 of the on-line version or on page 10 of the PDF version of the EMC.now magazine.

In fact, this close customer interaction that the Symmetrix management team maintains is the real reason why the words "from a unique perspective" is included in my blog's masthead. I get to see the future of storage technology through the eyes of customers dealing with the here and now.

Customer insight is also why I can ask EMC's competitors the tough questions so quickly and precisely whenever they make an announcement – I actually DO live and breathe customer requirements for storage, and it really IS part of my job to understand if, when and how competitors are addressing the customer requirements I learn about daily. So as irritating as my questions are, I know that the competitors are getting these same questions from their prospects. And their bloggers have come to know that  that I won't hesitate to call them out on a BS answer – especially when they make stuff up or misrepresent the facts.

And if that makes me persona non grata, so be it. Anarchy cannot be censored!

By the way, there are lots of other interesting articles in this issue of EMC.now. Whether you are an EMC customer, partner, prospect or competitor, I encourage you to give it a thorough read. And if you'd like to discuss any of the content, feel free to post your thoughts and questions here.

I promise you won't be censored, even if I might not be able to answer all of your questions.

 

This is another post from the storage anarchist.

technorati tags: EMC,strategic planning,Symmetrix,V-Max,EMC.now,voice of the customer,TCE,mission-critical,storage strategy,HDS censorship

2.011: i guess making sh*t up just comes natural for hds

Sad, but true.

Carrying over the theme from my last post, it seems that it isn't just HDS bloggers and competitive marketing teams who like to make stuff up. In fact, it seems to come straight from the top, as Beth Pariseau found when she dug into assertions being made by HDS's vice president of corporate marketing Eric-Jan Schmidt:

IDC: HDS market share numbers not accurate

Caught 'em red-handed.

The fundamental error in the whole discussion is that IDC does not report revenues by product or platform – their quarterly data only reports revenues by end-user vendor bucketed into several different price bands.

Mr. Schmidt apparently used the IDC buckets US$300,000 and above as the cut-off for "enterprise storage," but the reality is that there are indeed "enterprise" array sales below that mark as well as "mid-tier" sales above it. That shouldn't come as a shocker when the list price for an entry-level Symmetrix is around US$240,000, and CLARiiON systems can scale as large as 960 disk drives.

But then again, as I have been observing here for several years now, Misleading Marketing (and Hitachi Math) are hallmarks of HDS PR.

 

This is an original post from the storage anarchist.

technorati tags: Hitachi Math,IDC,storage market share,HDS,Hitachi,EMC,Symmetrix,CLARiiON,Beth Pariseau

2.010: pity the fool

V-Max sure has gotten under the skin of the HDS and their bloggers.

Not only has the pitiful HDS marketing machine rushed out yet another overhyped and underwhelming (green eggs and HAM) announcement, but every HDS blogger seems determined to take as many uninformed pot-shots of FUD at a product they clearly have not even yet begun to comprehend.

And it’s not just the bloggers who clearly don’t get it: a customer recently told me about some Hitachi marketing materials he has seen that attacked V-Max based entirely upon a Hitachi “suspicion” about the architectural utility of the Virtual Matrix. Seems based on that (mistaken) “suspicion” Hitachi’s conclusion is that V-Max simply cannot work. PERIOD.

When you don’t understand how something works, I guess all you CAN do is make sh*t up!

The latest blatantly uninformed attempt to discredit V-Max comes from HDS’ Christophe Bertrand as he delves deep into the FUD-bucket. In his latest post he tries to cast aspersions against V-Max while trying to deflect several of my very, shall-we-say, PESKY observations about the limitations of TSM – especially when it comes to relocating volumes that are being replicated.

Historically, Chris tends to mislead through incompletely reasoned logic and abject blind bias (I’ve suggested to him on more than one occasion that he is insulting the intelligence of his audience, but he still persists with his blissfully ignorant attacks). And he doesn’t fail to follow form with his latest…

In fact, it’s almost as if Christophe is Mr. T reincarnated (remember THOSE silly adverts?)!
 

2.009: claus censors the anarchist's ham inquiries

By his own admission, Claus Mikkelsen over at HDS has censored a list of questions that I had the AUDACITY to post on his HAM blog posts.

Seems Claus (and HDS) don't want to answer any tough questions about HAM.

What are they hiding?

 

2.008: all's fair . . .

This news surely isn't going to be appreciated by our pals over at NetApp:

EMC Proposes to Acquire Data Domain for $30.00 Per Share in Cash

A cool $1.8 billion in cash, immediate tender offer.

How do you like THEM apples?

 

Here's a quick rundown of early discussions:

• Chuck Hollis has posted a thought provoking commentary on the counter offer.
• Stephen Foskett opines over at Gestalt IT.
• Steve Duplessie explores the ulterior motives on his blog.
• David Vellante draws parallels to the Steinbrenner wars over at Wikibon.

Like Chuck said – Never a Dull Moment!

 

technorati tags: EMC,Data Domain,NetApp,Joe Tucci

2.007: failure is not an option

 

Nick is not going to quit, nor are we. Everything we can imagine that could even possibly help him – we (as in the collective WE) will do. It’s in our DNA:

Failure is not an option.

And Nick undoubtedly appreciates our efforts:

Cancer survivor Steve Duplessie upped the ante today, and EMC is among the first to join in his pledge challenge. I know Steve – he has beat the odds once already, and now he’s putting his money where his mouth is to help Nick beat the odds.

I’d like to think that none of us need cash as a motivator, but if it sends even one more person to be registered as a donor, it will be money well spent.

Asian, Caucasian, Indian, African or not – please, PLEASE consider registering as a donor – time is running out – not just for Nick, but for the thousands of Leukemia patients waiting for a bone marrow donor.

Sign up now, and BE THE MATCH! The registry is woefully short on Asian/Caucasian donors – visit AADP.org if you can help improve the odds. And visit Mark Fredrickson’s blog to see how to short-circuit the system to get your samples to Nick as quickly as possible!

Thanks, everyone!

 

technorati tags: Nick Glasgow, EMC, Leukemia, bone marrow

2.006: help save nick glasgow campaign

The campaign to find a life-saving bone marrow match for Nick is accelerating, with broad support from customers and competitors alike.

In order to avoid this campaign taking on the characteristics of blog-o-spam, we EMC bloggers are collectively centralizing our communications about the progress of the campaign and the status of Nick's situation over on Mark Fredrickson's (new) blog: markfredrickson.wordpress.com.

Further, we are encouraging the use of the #helpnick tag on Twitter, and we are deploying the banner graphic above on our future posts, including those not specifically related to Nick.

All bloggers worldwide – EMC or not – are encouraged to use this banner and to link it back to Mark's blog. If you'd like to blog Nick's story, feel free, but we'd appreciate your linking to Mark's posts to ensure your/our respective readers know where to go for the latest status.

That said, I'd like to personally thank all the companies, partners, customers and competitors who have joined in the campaign. The broad support is truly appreciated by Nick and his family and friends, as you can see for yourself over at markfredrickson.wordpress.com.

Thanks!

 

technorati tags: Nick Glasgow,bone marrow,Luekemia

2.005: emc – 30 years young

In celebration of EMC's 30th anniversary this year, EMC's "house band" RunEMC created this little fun little video. No competitor-bashing, just a happy tune to celebrate the accomplishment.

Enjoy!

 

This post is from the storage anarchist.

 

technorati tags: EMC,30th Anniversary,RunEMC

2.004: A life we can all save if we try. Help save Nick!

Blogger version of a ReTweet:

A life we can all save if we try. Help save Nick!

 

And the actual ReTweet request:

A life we can all save if we try. Help save Nick! - http://bit.ly/duO6W - PLEASE RETWEET!!!

 

Please help spread the word – as far and as quickly as possible!

 

technorati tags: Nick Glasgow, Lukemia, bone marrow

2.003: sgt. friday and the ibm flash competency debate

It appears that both Tony Pearson and Barry Whyte are wont to try to diffuse the debate I started in my ibm really really doesn't get flash post with yet more innuendo, misinformation and unsubstantiated fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).

Which is all they can do, I guess, unless they are going to publicly explain in concrete terms why IBM is unable (or unwilling) to support the larger-capacity STEC ZeusIOPS drives in the DS8K that EMC has been shipping for Symmetrix since February 2009.

In the interest of those who really don't want to sift through the cruft to get to the reality behind the discussion, I outline for you here the simple facts of the debate:

1. EMC is shipping today the two largest-capacity enterprise-class flash drives available in the market – the STEC ZeusIOPS 4Gb/s Fibre Channel SLC-based drives in 200GB and 400GB capacities.
2. EMC refers to these drives as "Enterprise Flash Drives" (EFD) in recognition of their specific designs to support the availability and data integrity requirements of enterprise storage, and as opposed to the more common drives targeted at the server or laptop markets.
3. IBM reports to be shipping today the STEC ZeusIOPS 4Gb/s Fibre Channel SLC-based drives in 73GB and 146GB capacities only.
4. IBM calls its flash drives simply Solid State Drives (SSDs).
5. EMC's 200GB EFD and IBM's 146GB SSD are the same physical STEC ZeusIOPS drive, with 256GB of internal SLC NAND flash – the only difference between the two is that the EMC version provides more usable capacity from the same amount of flash.
6. EMC alone ships STEC's newest and largest ZeusIOPS 4GB/s FC drive with 512GB of SLC NAND, formatted for 400GB usable capacity.
7. EMC's 400GB EFD further reduces customer cost per usable GB, enabling customers to get more than twice the usable capacity from the same number of drives as IBM's largest SSD, or to use fewer 400GB EFDs to meet their capacity targets and thereby enjoy not only lower acquisition costs vs. the IBM DS8K, but reduced power, cooling and space requirements as well.
8. EMC asserts that the 200GB and 400GB formatting does not significantly reduce the practical life of either drive in any workload when used in EMC arrays, including pathological/artificial write-intensive workloads.
9. EMC stands behind this assertion with the same replacement and service warranty as is offered for both Fibre Channel and SATA-based hard disk drives in EMC storage arrays.
10. IBM has not yet explained publicly why it can not (or will not) offer similar capacities and the corollary cost savings on the DS8K.

Just the facts , ma'am.

This post is from the storage anarchist.

technorati tags: EMC,enterprise flash drive,EFD,SSD,solid state storage,STEC,ZeusIOPS,Symmetrix,DMX-4,V-Max,Tony Pearson,Barry Whyte,IBM,DS8000

2.002: meh – ibm really, really doesn't get flash

Someone sent me this today:

And I have been trying so hard not to be The Storage Antagonist ;-}

Word to the wise, though – if you don't understand something, don't blog about it as if you do.

I've tried to get IBM's Tony Pearson to understand this repeatedly over the years, and he just keeps making the same mistakes. Probably has him despising me as much as that other blogger with the same first name, because every time he slips up, I'm usually there to correct him before his misinformation gets any traction.

This week TonyP is trying to wax intelligent on Flash Drives for the DS8K, but in his attempts to discredit my previous post, he removes any lingering doubt that IBM doesn't "get" flash.

Be sure to take the time to read the comments, and you'll see that TonyP clearly didn't take the time to understand the STEC ZeusIOPS drive or its wear-leveling algorithms. As a result, he pretty much embarrasses himself and his employer (not to mention the IBM Distinguished Engineers he throws under the bus) in the process.

At least he didn't try to drag Master Scientist BarryW down with him!

So, knowing that TonyP wouldn't dare to actually do the math for his readers, I will…
 

2.001: ibm's amazing splash dance, part deux

A couple of month's ago, I posted a review of how the various storage vendors were embracing flash drives (or weren't, as the case may be). I then followed that up with a post lamenting the lame (and factually incorrect) white paper describing IBM's approach to enterprise flash drives.

I complained then that IBM was throwing cold water on a very key new technology; the fact that the errors in that white paper STILL haven't been corrected after nearly TWO MONTHS underscores my observation that IBM is totally out of touch with reality, and no longer the "trusted advisor" they once were.

(What happened, BarryW – I know you were working on getting those errors corrected!)

But today's news takes the cake: instead of doing it themselves (today IS IBM-Announcement-Tuesday, after all), IBM let STEC be the one to announce IBM's support for flash SSDs.

In my book, when you trivialize the importance of ANY technology to the point of having your supplier announce GA and availability rather than doing it yourself, it means something. And when IBM's sales force is to this day telling prospects that flash SSDs are "unproven technology" and "not ready for the enterprise," I can only conclude that IBM is embarrassed to admit some huge limitation or inadequacy of their products when used with Flash.

So, I asked myself…
 

2.000: storage anarchy two-dot-oh

Wow – has another year gone by already?

Time sure flies when you're having fun.

I've been all kinds of busy lately, what with all the global customer interest in Symmetrix V-Max and FAST. It is truly refreshing to take a step back from the blog wars and share perspectives and insights with customers and prospects. And because the V-Max addresses so many of the efficiency, cost and ease-of-use concerns facing IT today, while setting a unique and differentiated path for the future, I'll tell you that the conversations are truly exciting.

I won't do a retrospective of the past year, but if you want to take a walk down memory lane, start here with my one-dot-oh post. Looking back, a lot of the things I discussed a year ago are still true today, which should be sorta obvious, since V-Max is the most significant new technology in the storage industry since EMC introduced Flash Drives at the beginning of 2008.

Not much else has changed (insert token competitor-backhand slap here :-).

But anyway, here's to another year in the world of the storage blog-o-sphere, and to the growing social network of customers and competitors that will undoubtedly continue to underscore the conversations of our industry. With all the new Twitter, FaceBook, FriendFeed, BackType and LinkedIn stuff intermingled, we've created a pretty broad spectrum of interconnected people. And it's kinda fun hearing from my non-techie friends that they find my blog entertaining, even though they have nothing to do with the storage industry.

So to all my readers: thanks for your continued support-slash-debate (as the case may be).

TTFN!

 

technorati tags: the storage anarchist,EMC,Symmetrix V-Max

1.064: hitachi exits storage market

CAUTION! Satirical parody ahead!

After a week that saw its flagship product superseded by EMC’s Symmetrix V-Max, its sole product differentiation obsoleted by VMware’s vSphere, and the remains of it’s second-largest reseller literally swept out from under their feet, Hitachi Data Systems has decided to call it quits in the information storage market.

In the midst of the global economy rattled by recession, parent company Hitachi Ltd. (Japan) was apparently no longer able (or willing) to support the foolish acquisitions and free-falling margins delivered by its Santa Clara-based Hitachi Data Systems subsidiary as they struggled to challenge 18-year market leader EMC and its VMware virtualization juggernaut division.

Not surprisingly, and even though the myriad of misguided marketing campaigns over the past several years have clearly been an embarrassment to the mother ship, the latest instantiation of the HDS marketing machine is going out with one last hurrah.

Launched yesterday with fanfare not seen since Circuit City’s going out of business close-out scam, the HDS “Switch IT Off!" Liquidation Sale leverages the Earth Day platform as it aims to unload the massive inventories of unsold USP-V enterprise-class-wanna-bee storage arrays on unsuspecting consumers world-wide.

Although companies in the IT space come and go all the time, the demise of HDS is unique, if only in its timeline. Riding high just a week ago when they announced version 2.0 of their VMware SRM adapter, HDS executives had no reason to suspect that things would get so bad so fast.

But on the very day of their SRM announcement, they found themselves caught in the beginnings of what can only be called a “perfect storm”: the undeniable superiority of Symmetrix V-Max, being locked out of the vSphere virtual data center of the future by VMware, and Oracle's unexpected total eclipse of the Sun. Despite the valiant efforts of the HDS bloggers (and bloggers-for-hire) to mislead and misdirect, the aftermath of these events has apparently left HDS leadership with no choice but to cut their losses and refocus on construction equipment consumer electronics set-top cable boxes whatever's next.

Neither HDS nor Hitachi Ltd. officials were available for comment on this story.

 

I know, it isn't April Fool's Day. But I missed it this year, and I just couldn't resist! 

 

technorati tags: EMC,Symmetrix,V-Max,VMware,vSphere,Hitachi Ltd.,HDS,Hitachi Data Systems,Liquidation Sale,Switch IT On!,Switch IT Off!,virtualization,virtual data center of the future,Inspire the Next

1.063: vmware vsphere 4 to the power of v-max

Last month, Cisco UCS. Last week, EMC Symmetrix V-Max. This week VMware vSphere 4.

The virtual data center becomes real.

And if I may be so humble, more important to customers than the announcements themselves is the Day 1 integration between and across the products and companies.

Case in point: EMC has so many integration points with vSphere 4 that it takes two press releases to include everything:

• EMC Integrates with VMware vSphere 4 for Next-Generation Virtualized Data Centers
  Aligns Products, Solutions and Services with VMware vSphere 4 for Next-Gen Levels of IT Choice, Control and Flexibility
• EMC Delivers High Availability Path Management for VMware Vsphere 4 Data Centers
  New EMC PowerPath/VE Enables Customers to Improve Performance, and Simplify, Standardize and Automate Path Management Across Physical and Virtual Environments

Many of the V-Max ease-of-use features announced last week are targeted specifically for massive-scale vSphere environments, while things like the EMC Storage Viewer vCenter Plugin,   EMC's adapters for Site Recovery Manager, and now the new EMC PowerPath/VE work equally well with all of EMC's arrays, including both DMX and V-Max.

Chad Sakac, EMC's resident VMware evangelist-extraordinaire provides his take on today's announcements over on his Virtual Geek blog – I imagine he'll have more to say (he's the only storage blogger that writes longer articles than me, BTW – you were warned!).
 

1.062: symmetrix v-max virtual launch videos

This is the eighth in a series of posts covering EMC's Overtake the future launch on 14 April 2009.

For those of you who weren't able to participate in this week's Symmetrix V-Max virtual launch, here are most of the video's used in the event:

emc's vision for the virtual data center

Joe Tucci, EMC Chairman and CEO

 

1.061: the voice of the customer

Listening to the voice of the customer is good advice for us all…(be sure to read the comments):

techmute.com: Response to Tony’s V-Max Questions

 

Thanks, Matt – There's clearly room for improvement on EMC's communications to some audiences, but I think you received almost 100% of the intended message.

In answer to Matt's lingering uncertainty in questions 9 & 10 at the end of his 1st comment response to TonyA:

9. Being purpose-built for the its current (and future) functionality, rest assured that the performance of Symmetrix V-Max wide-striping and SRDF are not restricted by the Virtual Matrix Architecture…in fact, most customers will realize improvements to both relative to DMX4.
10. Best practices for Symmetrix V-Max were made available simultaneously with General Availability of the system. Although not radically different from DMX4 for existing features, best practices for new capabilities were developed and validated with the assistance of Beta Sites and in-house CSE expertise.

technorati tags: EMC,Symmetrix V-Max,Virtual Matrix Architecture,blogger-for-hire,Tony Asaro

1.060: the rest of the v-max launch

This is the seventh in a series of posts covering EMC's Overtake the future launch on 14 April 2009.

But wait – there's more!

OK, not really more than has already been announced, but there were several parts of yesterday's announcements that I didn't personally cover here on my own blog.

So I thought I should highlight a few of them so that readers and visitors get a complete picture (for a complete link page of relevant launch articles, visit my first Overtake the future post):

• Auto-Provisioning – a key new feature that streamlines and accelerates the process of storage allocation to clustered servers, as in VMware ESX clusters. Both Steve Todd (Information Playground) and Mark Twomey (Storagezilla) provide in-depth coverage (Mark even links the demo video).
• Symmetrix Management Console (SMC) Templates & Wizards – new features that automate a wide variety of common storage management functions to make them more easily repeatable and delegable. Steve included insights into these in the post linked above as well.
• VMware integration – beyond Auto Provisioning and the continued Symmetrix integration with VMware's Site Recovery Manager, there is also new EMC Storage Viewer plugin for VMware's vCenter. This plugin visually bridges the gap between VMware admins and storage admins. Chad-the-Virtual-Geek-Sakac answers perhaps the most frequently-asked question in the press yesterday: "So, just how *IS* V-Max integrated with VMware?"
• New SRDF/EDP (Extended Distance Protection) – essentially, zero-data-loss multi-hop Asynchronous long-distance replication, without the need for a full copy of the data volumes in the middle site – reducing the cost of extended distance business continuity. 'Zillaman does the honors on this new SRDF option as well…
• V-Max Quality – a common concern about any new product is how complete and stable the product is at initial release. Given the significance of switching to Intel processors and changing the underlying architecture required to deliver Symmetrix V-Max (not to mention the incredible scale of the new system), the focus on delivering Quality on Day One has never been higher. Although not a V-Max developer himself, Steve Todd went behind the scenes to explore some of the innovative strategies for quality taken by the V-Max development organization.

All in all, there is a TON of information here – I know I personally wrote over 10,000 words about the new products and architecture in support of the launch.

And note - I wrote these posts over the course of about 10 days, so don't feel bad if you can't read it all in one sitting.

 

technorati tags: EMC,Symmetrix V-Max,Virtual Matrix Architecture,Auto provisioning,SRDF,SRDF/EDP,VMware Integration,SMC,Storage Management Console,ESX Clusters,VMware,vCenter

1.059: fully automated storage tiering (fast)

This is the sixth in a series of posts on EMC's Overtake the future launch on 14 April 2009.

Today's announcement is chock-full with exciting news.

First, there is the breakthrough Virtual Matrix Architecture, combining the best of Scale Up and Scale Out to revolutionize enterprise storage.

And then, the Symmetrix V-Max itself, integrating the proven power and functionality of the Enginuity storage OS on a new industry standard platform to deliver cost-effective flexibility and a new definition for ease-of-use in enterprise storage.

Next up? Perhaps the most exciting (and unexpected) announcement of all.:

Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST)

As Chief Strategy Officer for the Symmetrix Product Group, my role in today's global Virtual Launch is to describe and answer questions about FAST in one of the half-dozen or so "break out" sessions available to all participants. Given the high level of interest in the topic, I thought I'd take a few moments and discuss FAST here as well.

So, what exactly is FAST?
 

1.058: v-max does what hi-star can't?

This is the fifth in a series of posts on EMC's Overtake the future launch on 14 April 2009.

Taking a pause here from the launch to present an observation.

Remember how Hu Yoshida spent the first half of 2008 telling everyone who would listen that customers didn't need or want flash drives (if you missed it, I wrote about it here and there)? Hu was later silenced once Hitachi Japan announced that they actually would be selling the very same EFDs that EMC had been shipping since the beginning of 2008. (FWIW: Hitachi was supposed to ship the first of those drives in Q1'09, but I haven't been able to verify anyone receiving them).

Well, with the introduction of Symmetrix V-Max and the Virtual Matrix Architecture, it seems that EMC has once again done precisely what Hitachi's technical experts have been telling the world cannot be done. This time, however, I don't think Hitachi is going to be able to play follow the leader, since they're so mired in their backplane-limited Hitachi Universal Star Network crossbar switch architecture (formerly known simply as "Hi-Star").

Moreover, given their ever-increasing dependence on custom (expensive) ASICs, FPGAs and off-load engines, I predict it will be years before Hitachi's engineers can re-tool to leverage the price/performance curve of industry-standard components.

In support of these opinions, I offer the perspectives of none other than Hu Yoshida himself and fellow Hitachi blogger Michael Hay, in two separate and otherwise unrelated stories.

1.057: symmetrix v-max - scale up, scale out, scale away!

This is the fourth in a series of posts on EMC's Overtake the future launch on 14 April 2009.

Introducing the new Symmetrix V-Max^tm – the first enterprise storage platform to integrate the performance and efficiency of Scale-Up with the cost-effective flexibility of Scale-Out.

• Simple: Redefines enterprise storage architecture, ease-of-use and automation
• Scalable: start small, grow incrementally, supporting multiple tiers in a single array
• Cost-effective: more IOPS and more usable capacity per dollar (euro)
• Efficient: more IOPS and more usable GB per kilowatt
• Autonomic: Optimized for Fully Automated Storage Tiering across Flash, Fibre and SATA
• Compatible: Common management and SRDF interoperability with Symmetrix DMX
• Ready: Purpose-built for the Virtual Data Center

When you can list all those attributes for a single storage platform, you’ve made a statement.

Several years in development, today the new Symmetrix V-Max takes its place atop the world of external storage – right above the reigning #1 enterprise storage platform (according to IDC), the Symmetrix DMX4.

With its revolutionary scale-out Virtual Matrix Architecture, the Symmetrix V-Max literally redefines not only enterprise-class storage, but the entire storage landscape – because when an enterprise array offers the simplicity, performance, TCO, scale and flexibility previously found only in midrange offerings, you know you’ll change the world.

(By the way, BOTH Symmetrix DMX4 and Symmetrix V-Max are newer than either of IBM's and Hitachi's flagship enterprise arrays. It's like they're asleep at the wheel!)

And watch-out, you enterprise wanna-bees; V-Max has just raised the bar.

So, let’s take a look at the new king of the storage hill… 
 

1.056: inside the virtual matrix architecture

This is the third in a series of posts on EMC's Overtake the future launch on 14 April 2009.

The cornerstone of today’s Overtake the future launch is of course the new EMC Virtual Matrix Architecture, the foundation upon which the virtual data center will scale and thrive henceforth.

Combining the market-proven functionality that has made Symmetrix the World’s Most Trusted storage platform with the latest in industry standard compute and I/O technologies, the Virtual Matrix Architecture liberates the power of Symmetrix from the physical barriers of backplane-based monolithic storage arrays and redefines ease-of-use for storage in today’s increasingly virtualized data centers.

But while this new architecture is inarguably revolutionary in the world of storage, the Virtual Matrix is in fact borne of a Darwin-esque evolution of the same Symmetrix architecture that launched the external storage market over 18 years ago. The result is the first storage architecture that integrates the performance and efficiency of traditional scale-up architectures with the cost-effective flexibility of scale-out, blurring the distinction between modular vs. monolithic while redefining the scope of scalable enterprise storage.

In this post I will explain the path that has led EMC to The Virtual Matrix, and along the way I’ll highlight several of the key features of this revolutionary new architecture.

1.055: symmetrix v-max - a revolutionary evolution

This is the second in a series of posts on EMC's Overtake the future launch on 14 April 2009.

but first, a bit of nostalgia

For over 18 years, Symmetrix has been the very definition of enterprise storage - even as that definition itself has changed over time.

The first Symmetrix array was built as an alternative to expensive IBM mainframe storage at a time when data centers were largely still centralized and mainframe-based. In the mid-1990's, EMC added Open Systems support to Symmetrix, allowing a single array to support multiple different servers and bringing the cost-benefits of storage consolidation to a broader market.

Read on…

1.054: overtake the future - with symmetrix v-max!

This is the first in a series of posts covering EMC's Overtake the future launch on 14 April 2009.Updated on 16 April 2009 at 9:45 PM EDT 

1.053: an inspiration to working mothers everywhere

As a healthy reminder to us all that it really isn't all about how we store our digital information, the ongoing competitive smash-ups or even dismembering farm animals, today I'd like to direct my readers' attention to an inspirational new book written by several dozen of EMC's working mothers.

It is The Working Mother Experience.

And I'm not even going to try to explain it to you, pointing you instead to the blogs of the two working mothers who inspired the book in the first place: Polly Pearson and Natalie Corridan-Gregg.

Polly is EMC's VP of Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement, and Natalie is A Principle Product Manager for EMC's Symmetrix management products, six-time EMC Women's Leadership Forum president, and now the latest EMC employee who blogs.

More importantly, both are working mothers who felt compelled to collect and share their stories in hopes of inspiring other mothers to balance the challenges and joys of raising children while also pursuing a career. 

Visit both their blogs for insights into the book, and for links to purchase and/or download a (free) copy.

Hint to my fellow working fathers – get a copy, read it, and then give it to your wife. Or better yet, read it with her – we're talking MAJOR bonus points here, something us geeks always need!