the storage anarchist

1.028: benchmarketing. badly.

OK, so my regular readers know where I stand on so-called "standardized" storage benchmarks: they are bad for our industry, and they lead customers (and vendors) to do dumb things.

For context, newcomers are encouraged to revisit my earlier post on the subject: 0.021 the case against standardized (performance) testing. 

As if  to underscore my point, there have recently been three separate applications of what I'll call Bad Benchmarketing that have caught my attention:

1. IBM's Quicksilver science experiment to attain 1M IOPS using jury-rigged unreleased kit
2. Texas Memory Systems' inevitable response to Quicksilver using equally jury rigged kit
3. IBM's "enterprise" benchmark of the new DS5000, commissioned to ESG

IMHO, as I'll explain below, this sort of benchmarketing isn't helping consumers to make informed decisions. In fact, if anything, these are nothing more than carefully architected marketing ploys masked as "scientifically representative tests" intended to influence the relative naïveté of the masses who truly have no real understanding of how to measure or compare performance.

Benchmarketing personified.

UPDATED Oct 31, 2008 with corrections provided by BarryW (IBM) and Woody Hutsell (RamSAN).

1.027: unprotected: no thanks, michael...

What's up with this? Protected: No Thanks Chuck...

UPDATED Oct. 17, 2008: Access to the referenced post was originally blocked.  Michael reports it was just a glitch - there's no conspiracy here (even though it's not the first time it's happened). Bummer...that sorta spoils the fun now, doesn't it?

I think I'll leave this post up anyway, even though it won't make as much sense now that we all can read what he had to say...but now that I've read the post, I have to wonder if there's any Hitachi technology in Michael's blogging software?

Honestly, I was just discussing yesterday how SURPRISING it was to have Hu Yoshida actually respond to Chuck's post on the new AMS2000. I was so surprised, in fact, that my first reaction was that Hu had a ghost writer. Or perhaps someone had been coaching the Hitachi bloggers on the values of actually engaging out here in the blogosphere.

Turns out nothing has changed with Hu's blog - he still doesn't approve comments in a timely manner, nor does he ever actually engage in communications with other bloggers. Michael's comment on my blog this morning is the first I've ever seen from a Hitachi blogger - on ANY non-Hitachi blog.

Apparently Michael wanted to respond to Chuck also, just not necessarily to everyone (including Chuck - I asked, Mike didn't email Chuck the password).

Makes you wonder, doesn't it. Does Michael have something to say that only Hitachi lovers would understand? Or is his post riddled with harassment and abuse? Or maybe he realizes what he wrote really isn't all that important to anyone (use the DELETE key next time, Mikey).

And how did he distribute the password to those he DID want to read his super-special post?

By email, maybe? How Web 1.0.

Things just aren't the same over there at HDS since Jeremiah left.

Thankfully, Jeremiah is actively helping a lot of other corporates and bloggers to become more effective in this Web 2.x world we are transitioning through.

Web 3.0, here we come!

Oh. And Michael - some free advice: You might want to try engaging your readers instead of blocking them out...

 

P.S. - I've been rather swamped lately, so please accept my apologies for the lack of posts. Lots of things to talk about, just none that I can dash off as quickly as this one. I'll be back on a regular schedule soon, I promise!