the storage anarchist

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…