the storage anarchist

2.026: what's in a name – ds8700

Back in April, Dave Graham had a little fun with V-Max and a couple of other products that share the same name. I got a good chuckle from his post at the time, so I thought I might recreate his idea in support (!) of today's DS8700 announcement by IBM.

In no particular order, here are several namesakes of IBM's latest enterprise-class storage wanna-bee:

DS-8700 High-speed lockstitch sewing machine

Dongsen's website description for the DS-8700 starts off with "A new generation model designed for a quiet and smooth performance," a statement that pretty much confirms that this isn't your typical storage product. And not surprisingly, there's also a knock-off version of the DS-8700 from DASU, marketed as the DS8700 (without the hyphen – how clever).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Same exact model number, with just enough visual differentiation to sidestep any legal concerns… 
 

2.025: r.i.p. ds8300

The pain and agony is finally over.

After nearly 3 years of denial, we now have proof-positive that the IBM DS8300 has been unceremoniously removed from life support. I've been told of numerous prospects whose IBM account teams vehemently denied the impending introduction of the DS8700 during the last quarter, even as EMC account teams asserted (with confidence) that the DS8300 was indeed on its deathbed.

True to my prediction back in February, the DS8700 intro is now inarguably imminent…see for yourself with this Google search. And the word is that many customers actually received quotes for the new DS8700 over the past several weeks.

Pity those who were suckered into buying a DS8300 this year (remember, I tried to warn you!)

This time I'll not play the role of truth-in-marketing (as I did for the XIV intro), so you'd better buckle your seat belts for another round of Meaningless Marketing coming from Big Blue as they try to convince you that the aging and decrepit Sharkitecture has been resuscitated with the magic face cream of P6 processors and the life-giving breath of flash drives.

i sincerely doubt that any of these will even come close to overcoming the inherent shortcomings of that architecture, though. Already I'm seeing outlandish claims that the DS8700 has ASTONISHING improvements for "distinct" workloads – which probably means they found some benchmark that looks good, even as the non-distinct workloads realize little or no new value.

Word is the DS8700 is part of next Tuesday's set of weekly IBM announcements, so it should be a fun couple of weeks in the blogosphere sifting through the FUD and marketing misrepresentations.

Cue TonyP!

 

technorati tags: IBM,XIV,DS8700,DS8300,Shark

2.022: free migrations

As the beginning of Fall approaches in North America, much of our wildlife prepares for their annual migratory trip south to warmer climes.

What better time to announce the No-Charge Symmetrix Migrator Package?

Effective this month, this new package provides both current and new V-Max and DMX customers with free licenses to three powerful storage migration utilities:

1. Open Migrator, for host-based migrations. Runs on most popular operating systems and server cluster software. OM can mount the new target LUN(s), copy data (on another array or from within the platform itself) in the background, and it will mirror writes to both old and new storage during the migration;
2. SRDF/DM (Data Mobility), Symmetrix-based replication frequently used to make a mirror of current Symmetrix volumes onto a new array before swapping the hosts over to the new storage. Used by customers for more than a decade to effect both Open Systems and Mainframe data migrations;
3. Open Replicator/LM (Live Migration), array-based "hot pull" migration for Open Systems hosts. Simply insert the new Symmetrix into the SAN in between the hosts and their current storage array(s). LUNs are copied off of the old storage in the background, while any host reads or writes are moved to the head of the queue for maximum efficiency. Works to migrate data into a Symmetrix from virtually any SAN-based storage platform, and it can even move a small existing LUN into a larger one in the process.

As with the recently announced FREE status for Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning, this new package comes with only one string: you have to own or purchase a Symmetrix DMX or V-Max. Other than that it is truly no-additional-charge. Customers can take advantage of these new tools immediately upon arrival of their system (or license keys), without concern for the amount of capacity they want to move (or Virtually Provision).

Yet another way that EMC is helping to reduce the TCO and expand the use cases of Symmetrix, the enterprise storage market share leader for nearly 20 years.

Enjoy!

 

technorati tags: EMC,Symmetrix,V-Max,DMX,Virtual Provisioning,Symmetrix Migrator Package,FREE,No-Charge,Open Replicator/LM,Open Migrator,SRDF/DM,data migration,tech refresh

2.021: richard egan, r.i.p.

I didn’t know the man personally, but I work every day in the shadow of his legacy.

As do most of you: Dick literally founded our industry.

I learned of Dick’s passing after having sat tearfully through several hours of poignant memorial for Senator Ted Kennedy on the television. Even though their politics surely have the two latest patrons of heaven's Irish pub seated at opposite ends of the bar, rest assured they’ve hoisted a pint in honor of each other’s contributions to the world they have left in our care.

To the both of them, a traditional Irish toast:

May your glass be ever full.
May the roof over your head be always strong.
And may you be in heaven
half an hour before the devil knows you're dead.

 

technorati tags: Richard Egan, EMC, Edward Kennedy

2.016: ds8000 finally gets thin provisioning -- for a fat price

So today IBM announces thin provisioning is finally going to be available on the DS8000 (at the end of August) more than 18 months after IBM begrudgingly admitted that thin was indeed a requirement for enterprise (wanna-bee) storage last year.

Both Beth Pariseau and I found it pretty funny back then that IBM was only just changing its tune from "nobody needs it" to "ours will be better" when they started talking about TP last year – in fact, I was ROTFLMAO if you recall.

But once again, IBM is late to the party, and as usual they've shown up without the requisite invitation.

The starting asking price for IBM's Thin Provisioning on the DS8000?

SIXTY NINE THOUSAND CLAMS!

Jeez, Louise – what are they thinking?

I thought marketing was supposed to lipstick the pig, not INFLATE it!

For that kind of money, you could just put an SVC IO group in front of your DS8000 and get VP for FREE (see BarryW, I do pay attention)!

In fact, TonyP asserts in his blog that most people wanting Virtual Provisioning have ALREADY put SVC in front of their DS8000's. So this new product is only for the late comers (and those who figured out that adding the price of SVCs to their DS8Ks isn't really "cost effective.")

With a reported 5050+ SVC installations worldwide, I hardly think that "many" DS8K users are also using SVC nor that “few” are not. But Tony has never been much of a stickler for the facts a lengthy track record of exaggerating things a bit.

News Flash: Virtual Provisioning is a standard, basic feature that customers expect on all of their storage platforms. And unlike IBM and Hitachi (and 3PAR) who seem to think that a technology that saves customers money should cost extra, EMC is now providing Virtual Provisioning to all Symmetrix DMX3, DMX4 and V-Max customers at no additional charge!

That's right – Symmetrix VP is Free!

But we can excuse IBM I guess. As David Vaughn, IBM's information infrastructure platform manager, explained to David Raffo of SearchStorage in Mr. Raffo’s coverage of the IBM announcement, the only people left buying DS8000's these days are those customers who were unfortunate enough to have standardized on the platform before they realized IBM wasn't investing in it any more. Oh, and those who run mainframes and have no other IBM-branded solution available. Because according to Mr. Vaughn, all the new open systems business is now going to XIV. [UPDATED to correct attribution]

With IDC documenting a rapid decline in XIV revenues (down from ~$80M ~$52M in Q4'08 to just over $50M $18M in Q1'09), I guess that means that the majority of the enterprise storage business isn't going to IBM at all – a fact that is surely to be accelerated with this whacko pricing strategy for Thin Inflated Provisioning on the DS8K. [UPDATED to correct XIV revenues]

Hey, IBM – we're in a recession here!!!

This is another insightful post from the storage anarchist!

technorati tags: EMC,Symmetrix,V-Max,Virtual Provisioning,Thin Provisioning,Free,DS8000,IBM,DS8K,thin provisioning,expensive,overpriced,inflation,inflated provisioning,overweight provisioning,lipstick the pig,johnny-come-lately

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

2.004: 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

2.001: 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…
 

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!

1.051: skate to where the puck is going

I'm not an ice hockey fan, but I do know that skating to the puck is usually ineffective (and often embarrassing). As the great Wayne Gretzky explained, the winning strategy is to "Skate where the puck is going!"

Skating to where the puck is going is also a good business strategy.

As I've discussed over the past couple of weeks, when it comes to Enterprise Flash Drives and the storage array industry, EMC's competition is still chasing the puck.

Oh, sure, there are lots of visions of future capabilities being cast about by the competition. Promises of flash-as-cache, tighter application integration (often via proprietary lock-ins rather than open standards) and more efficient approaches to tiering – everyone seems hell-bent to publicly declare grand promises for tomorrow even as they belatedly (and begrudgingly) add support for 73GB and 146GB EFDs to their product lines today.

Well, guess what – they've missed the puck. Again.

With today's announcement of 200GB and 400GB Enterprise Flash Drives for the Symmetrix DMX4, EMC has once again netted a breakaway score (that's hockey talk). Through even tighter integration with the array hardware and software, these new 4Gb/s Fibre Channel EFDs are far more cost-effective on a $/GB basis than the significantly smaller drives that EMC's competitors are just now getting into the market.

And the fun thing is, I don't think anyone saw this coming this time, either!
 

1.041: Seagate drops SSD patent lawsuit against STEC

I don't usually do this, but the news is particularly relevant given my most recent two blog posts.

ComputerWorld: Seagate drops SSD patent lawsuit against STEC

STEC Announces That Seagate Has Dropped All Claims Alleging IP Misappropriation and Dismisses Lawsuit

 

technorati tags: enterprise flash drives,EFDs,SSDs,solid state storage,SLC,MLC,EMC,STEC,ZeusIOPS,Seagate,Symmetrix,CLARiiON,lawsuit

1.036: emc information calendar for 2009

It’s that time of year again when everyone needs an updated calendar. And so, for your enjoyment and pleasure, I present the 2009 EMC Information Calendar widget, chronicling important milestones in the history of Information Storage.

 

If you don't see a calendar page above, click here

EMC has actually been distributing the paper-based version of this calendar for the last 3 or 4 years. The original form factor was designed for use on those archaic wooden and metal desks that once were the entire extent of personalized information storage. Now those of us whose desktops sprawl across one or more video displays and for whom “personal information storage” is measured in Terabytes instead of pages can have one of these fancy calendars too.

And without killing any trees (well, not directly, anyways)!

Pay close attention to this calendar, though. 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of EMC as a corporation, and rumor has it that there are some special messages embedded within this year’s Information Calendar. But since you can’t scroll forward in the electronic version, you’ll just have to wait to find out what they are! (Feel free to scroll backwards to see what you’ve missed already).

Happy New Year!
 

technorati tags: EMC, Information Calendar, Where Information Lives.

1.035: enterprise flash drives get wired!

Despite the fact that the Right Honorable Martin Glassborow (aka Storagebod) doesn't think EMC's first-to-market enterprise-ready flash drives are all that innovative, the folks over at Wired Magazine have included flash storage as one of their Top Technology Breakthroughs of 2008.
 

Coming in at a respectable #7 (and ahead of Flexible Displays, Edible Chips and Michael Phelp's Speedo LZR), Wired shares my optimism that most data centers will begin deploying enterprise-class flash storage for their most performance-demanding tiered storage applications in the coming year. Especially now that all the nay-sayers back in 1H08 now admit that they'll be shipping the same drives "soon" – including the previously vocal opponents over at Hitachi, HP, Pillar and 3PAR. (Sadly, IBM demonstrates its continued inability to even play catch-up in the storage technology space…let's not forget that IBM's official response to flash was to promote the increased use of TAPE!).

No, all the storage vendors who want to survive to see 2010 will be shipping and supporting flash drives in 2009, mark my words. And as Martin underscores in his post, the secret ingredient for both the Memristor and the flash drive will be the that leverages them .

Like many others, though, I question how the Apple App Store won out on Wired's Technology list…or even why the top 2 positions were awarded to personal communication device-related products. Personally, I'd say Mozy will have a bigger impact on the world than either the AppStore or the Android.

But then, I promised myself not to do one of those prediction posts this year.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention: Robin Harris apparently made no such promise – he ranks EFDs #3 in his 2008 Top Storage Products (like Martin, he picks Atmos in the top position).

Well, anyway, that's probably all I have for the remainder of the year. So…

Have a Happy New Year!

 

technorati tags: enterprise flash drives,EMC,Symmetrix,DMX,memristor,Wired Magazine,Mozy,Decho,Apple,Android,iTunes App Store

1.029: atmos. with, and without, the sphere

I'm just back from vacation cruising several Italian, French and Spanish ports aboard the Wind Star on the Mediterranean with my wife. It was a relaxing, multi-cultural Adventures Afloat trip arranged by her employer (Elderhostel), a not-for-profit who specialize in educational travel and learning opportunities. With a foundational belief that learning is an integral part of a healthy and fulfilling life, the organization offers its unique Adventures in Lifelong Learning to anyone who is interested - at an exceptional value! So, if you're looking for a travel programme with more than just the usual tourist trap visits, I encourage you to visit their web site and/or order their free catalog.

Oh, and don't let the name fool you: participation is quite diverse, and you'd better be in good shape or you might just get left behind.

Anyway, being on such a trip with my wife, I wisely avoided all things work for the duration.

Preserving the atmosphere, you might say.

But so much has gone on in the past couple of weeks, I thought I'd take a stab at connecting some of the key sights from my cruise with a few of the more interesting events of the past week or so.

So let's have a little fun. Shall we?
 

1.023: it's just a flash-y science experiment

And now, my oft-requested take on the 1 Meellyun IOPS flash technology science experiment that IBM is promoting so heavily:

Way Cool.

That's right - Barry Whyte and IBM's Almaden Lab team are to be congratulated for their accomplishment, as I actually did in the first comment to BarryW's boastful blog post on the event. This is indeed an important milestone on the road to wide-scale commercialization of solid-state persistent storage, even if it isn't an actual product announcement (IBM admits you can't buy their experimental configuration for at least 9-12 months).

Commendations all around...

But surely you don't think that's all I have to say now, do you...

1.022: are you ready for IBM's frankenstorage announcement?

I'm not going to Montpelier next week for the Big Launch. For some reason, IBM seems to have forgotten to send me  an invitation. Apparently as much as the storage press corps and the blogosphere have come to expect me to do IBM's marketing for them over the past few weeks, I've not yet earned the early access privileges offered to the "real" press.

Oh well...I'll cope!

I gotta believe this is going to be one weird announcement, though, with lots of positioning and posturing to get all out in one event. I'm predicting the announcement will include:

• the new XIV, which is supposedly going to obsolete every single storage platform on the planet (except any that IBM sells, of course),
• a raft of ho-hum catch-up enhancements to now elderly ancient DS8000
• the new mid-tier DS5000
• the SVC-with-flash Science Experiment

Not to mention the expected release of the first IBM-branded Diligent-based VTL and probably some backup de-duplication capabilities for Tivoli Storage Manager.

That sure is one helluva smorgasbord of unrelated (if not self-competitive) stuff to include in a single announcement.

One thing's for sure, though, the attendees are going to be armed with lots of questions, if coverage and readership of my posts on the stealth launch of XIV and its absolute lack of Green-ness are any indication. Not to mention Chuck Hollis' outing of the DS5000.

Should be an interesting couple of days in the foothills of France...

 

1.021: bass-ackwards marketing

A coworker sent me this link a while back with a suggestion that I might want to use it in my blog. At the time, I really had no idea what to do with it, but now I think I do.

First, the link. Go ahead - click it, then come back.

That's a prime example of bass-ackwards marketing, if you'll excuse the pun. I mean really, who'd ever market anything as a "Real P.O.S." - even if it actually IS a POS?

Over the last several weeks, we've been witness to what could just be the biggest bass-ackwards marketing move ever. Who would have thought that IBM would stealth launch the GA of exciting new products like the first IBM-branded XIV Storage System, the brand-new DS5000 Storage System and a whole suite of DS8000 enhancements? And then, amidst the ruckus that Chuck and I seem to have started filling the void created by IBM's marketing department, IBM puts on a full-court press push to promote a science experiment using NAND flash behind an unsupported configuration of SVC nodes - a configuration that they publicly admit won't be available to customers for at least 9-12 months. Complete with IBM blogger air cover from BarryW and from TonyP. Meanwhile both  remain deathly silent about everything else.

Promote the stuff you can't buy yet, and say nothing about the new stuff that you CAN buy.

Seems so...Alice-in-Wonderlandish, doesn't it?

Now, if I'm reading the tea-leaves (and TonyP's intentional hint) correctly, the press is supposed to take the Blue Pill and show up at the System and Storage Networking Technical Symposium on September 8-10 in Montpelier, France to get the scoop on all this, and more. And the press seems to have calmed down once they received their invitations (mine must have gotten lost in the mail).

Curiouser and curiouser, IBM's marketing team has even co-opted "Information Infrastructure" - a term near-synonymous with EMC - for the title of their Symposium, calling it the "New Enterprise Forum: Information Infrastructure."

Thanks for the plug!

UPDATE 4:45pm EDT Sept 3, 2008: Changed above link to search for the possessive complete string "EMC Information Infrastructure" - returns about 25,200 Google hits, while "IBM Information Infrastructure" returns merely 7,120-ish hits.

technorati tags: IBM, XIV, DS8000, DS5000, EMC Information Infrastructure, bass ackwards

1.019: (halfway) around the world in (a hundred and) 80 days

Well, it seems that the IBM branded version of the XIV Storage System has arrived - in EMEA, at least:

• IBM Europe Hardware Announcement ZG08-0581
  August 12, 2008
• IBM Europe Software Announcement ZP08-0415
  August 12, 2008 

IBM typically does EMEA announcements first - I'm sure these will appear in the US sites later this afternoon. In fact, TonyP is probably getting his blog post approved by IBM Legal as we speak .

Seriously, it will be interesting to see how the world responds to the pertinent facts about the XIV product, now that it is no longer being shielded from public scrutiny by the cloak of IBM Confidential.

UPDATED Aug 12, 2008 - 6:00PM EDT

Weird. Nothing from IBM other than the announcement letters posted to IBM.com world-wide. Not even a press release. No customer stories. No insightful spotlight from Tony Pearson. No claims of coming SVC world domination from BarryW.

Just crickets.

In fact the only mention of the announcement anywhere else but here and IBM.com is Chris Mellor's coverage of my scoop over on Blocks & Files.

Maybe this whole XIV thing wasn't really all that big a deal after all!

I think I know why...

1.018: fun with headlines

As I watch the press, analyst and blogger coverage of EMC's Q2'08 earnings surprise roll out, I had to chuckle at the headlines.

Now, this was not the Tony Pearson spit-my-coffee-on-my-screen-in surprise chuckle, mind you. It was more like chuckle that The Joker gives The Dark Night as he tells him "you complete me!" (sorry for the spoiler, 'Zilla).

if you bought NYSE:EMC stock yesterday, you are probably smiling today, too. I'm locked out until tomorrow AM, so I had to get my entertainment from a different source today.

I know many of my readers follow the same news and blogs that I do, but I've collected a few of the headlines that made me smile today:

Disclaimer: This list is intended for entertainment purposes only. inclusion in this list
does not constitute an endorsement by either party, nor does it imply a confirmation
of any of the opinions or speculations expressed within.

• EMC Surges After Topping Analysts’ Estimates, Defying Slowdown
  (Melita Marie Garza, Bloomberg)
• Enough to make strong men weep
  (Chris Mellor, Blocks & Files)
• EMC 'sitting on Fort Knox' sparks acquisition talk
  (Beth Pariseau, SearchStorage.com)

I'll add more as they come along - send me your favorites!

 

technorati tags: NYSE:EMC,EMC,earnings report

1.010: sun adds critical mass to flash

Please join me in welcoming the latest member of the "we too will be delivering flash technology someday soon" consortium - the farm club for the "we are ALREADY shipping enterprise flash technology" league (of which EMC is the only current member).

Not to be outflanked by IBM, nor pigeon-holed by Hitachi's slow uptake of the technology, Sun Microsystems this week jumped aboard the NAND flash bandwagon with guns a-blazin'. They say they're going to put flash everywhere - in the server, in the storage, as primary storage, as intermediate cache, using both SLC and MLC dependent upon use case - you name it, they're going to do it.

And what's more, according to Sun:

"By the Christmas holidays, anyone with an I/O performance intensive application is going to be trying to find a way to get [SSDs] into their systems."

(And to think, just last week, people were quoting Gartner and challenging both Joe Tucci and Dave Donatelli for being too optimistic at EMC World about the uptake of flash.)

OK. Clearly, we've entered the hype phase of enterprise flash storage. And it is inevitable that we live through this hype - necessary, even...every new technology has to navigate the curve, cross the trough of disillusionment, and leap across the chasm before it can reach mass adoption. And with flash storage in the enterprise space, we're just getting started, so you know that there will be plenty more exuberant hyperbole to come.

Rather than deride it, we should welcome the hype of the newcomers with open arms, because every new supporter reinforces the viability of the technology and accelerates us further down the adoption curve.

I just wish the newcomers would bring a little more specificity to the picture.

Don't you?
 

1.008: emc world 2008 - the follow up begins

Most of us have managed to find our way home from Sin City, and now we deal with the rapid decompression as we reenter the atmosphere of EMC World, the Work Edition.

Thankfully, those of us who are US-based had the extra 24-hours afforded by the Memorial Day holiday.

Lots was learned at EMC World, both by our customers and by the EMC developers that ran nearly 100% of the sessions. For customers, future IT strategies will be tuned to better leverage the current and future technologies; and for development, a better understanding of customer requirements and use cases will serve to refine the future products and implementations. Enabling and leveraging this symbiotic relationship between supplier and consumer is the foundation of what EMC World is all about.

If this was your first EMC World, I'm sure you were overwhelmed by both the breadth of topics and the unfettered access to the people who create these products.

And if you've never been to an EMC World (aka Wizards, aka Tech Summit), then you're probably wondering what all the hype has been about.

I'll use the words of a customer to explain...

 

1.007: the most amazing thing I saw at emc world 2008

As things wind down on the last day of EMC World 2008, I thought I'd take a break to reflect on what I thought was the highlight of the show.

For me, it wasn't any of the "scheduled" events.

Don't get me wrong, the Goo Goo Dolls were great - especially if you're a fan.

Billy Crystal? Hilarious - as long as you don't mind being called a nerd, or being told that your job of managing the world's most important information assets is "bleeping boring." (Most of us already knew that anyway.)

The technical sessions (close to 500 in total, counting those run twice) - well, judging by the packed rooms and the absolutely exhilarating buzz in the halls between sessions and in the Solutions Pavilion, I'd say that the overwhelming majority of attendees will agree that they got their money's worth - and then some.

For me, though, the most amazing thing I saw was a 3-foot high stack of pool balls, part of two-time U.S. Trick Shot Champion of Pool Chef Anton's show in the EMC Select booth. The OSG insists that nothing beats booth babes in bright-colored T-shirts - well, this guy did yoeman's duty pulling the customers into the booth every 1/2 hour for a 15-20 minute show of magic and trick pool shots wrapped around the requisite banter hawking the importance of buying partner products directly from EMC.

As you can see in the second photo, Chef Anton has stacked pool balls 14 "stories" high - including a second story sporting ball-stacked-on-ball. What he does next is nothing short of amazing, and I was able to capture it all on film...
 

1.006: enterprise flash: when speed is what you need

I wish I had come up with that title for the presentation I'm about to give here at EMC World, but I didn't. Instead my session has the awe-inspiring title of "Performance Best Practices: Symmetrix Flash Drives."

Network World gets the credit for the title of this post. It is actually the headline for the podcast interview that I did with them on the differentiation and benefits of the new Enterprise Flash Drives that EMC has been shipping for the Symmetrix DMX-4 since Q1'2008.

Gotta admit the timing of this podcast is interesting, though. Not only am I presenting a superset of this discussion at EMC World today, but this morning Hitachi did a 180 on their prior nonchalance over flash technology That's right, despite HHSNBN's repeated public denials that there is any reason for anyone to need flash drives, Hitachi today announced that they indeed did intend to announce something about adding some kind of flash drives from one or more unspecified vendors in an unknown capacity point  (or points) with undefined performance and reliability to their storage lineup sometime late in Q4 (whether calendar or fiscal Q4 was apparently not mentioned).

Gotta love the specificity!

I hope to post more on both topics later this week (both my EMC World flash presentation and Hitachi's latest attempt-to-catch-up-and-stop-the-bleeding announcement)

For now, here's the link my enterprise flash interview on  Network World Panorama.

Enjoy!

 

technorati tags: enterprise flash drives,EMC,Symmetrix DMX-4,Network World Panorama,SSDs,flash SSDs,HHSNBN

1.004: are you wasting money on your mainframe dr solution?

You are if you've invested in IBM's Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex (GDPS®).

It is widely understood that IBM derives a significant percentage of its profits off of its installed base of "Z" mainframe customers. When there are really no other options for either the hardware or the system software, it is a given that customers will be paying more than if there were real competition.

If you're an IBM mainframe customer, you are - by definition - IBM's profit stream. And there are enough of you that it adds up to some pretty darn interesting numbers.

That IBM has nearly perfected the art of vendor lock-in is inarguable - Mr. Pennybags himself (TonyP) took two whole blog posts to reiterate the ways IBM can legally take away any hope of choice so as to maximize your contributions to their bottom line (see: The Pot and the Kettle and More exploration into Vendor Lock-in - combined they are a comprehensive tutorial on the subject, from an obvious expert).

So, if you need a mainframe to run your business, today you really have no choice but to buy that mainframe (and the operating software) from IBM. For a fair -if not competitive - price, I'm sure (NOT!).

And if you need comprehensive multi-site disaster recovery? Lucky you - IBM will happily sell you a comprehensive GDPS engagement to automate your DR fail-over (and hopefully fail-back). Imagine, months, if not years, of IBM GS folks on-site, tinkering in your environment, crafting and testing proprietary DR automation scripts for you - right before your very eyes. And for no more than couple of million smackers to start (depending upon how much you need to fail over, in both MIPS and GBs), plus ongoing maintenance and consulting fees for upgrades.

Such a Deal!

And you'd better enjoy it, because you really don't have any choice in the matter.

Until now, that is...
 

0.078: lions and tigers and bears!

Driving in to work today, I heard a news report about the Hollywood Grizzly Bear that killed his trainer yesterday.

When I got to the office, I listened to Joe field questions during EMC's earnings call (19 consecutive quarters of double-digit year-over-year revenue growth). Several of the participating financial analysts inquired about the potential impact that the newly-delivered virtual provisioning for Symmetrix might have on future capacity demands. From the tone of the questions, you could easily imagine a pride of lions circling their prey.

And sure enough, by noon Beth Pariseau had her coverage posted on SearchStorage, under the headline EMC's Tucci: Thin provisioning mandatory but overrated.

Shortly after the earnings call, a colleague forwarded me the link to a Byte and Switch article by Mary Jander entitled Your Storage Arrays May Be Dangerous. In this article, Mary decries that people need to "rethink the environmental impact of storage gear," because the EPA has reported that electricity use for storage is growing faster than the energy used for the data center overall. Not surprisingly, the EPA called for "storage virtualization, data deduplication, storage tiering, and movement of archival data to storage devices that can be powered down when not in use" as strategies for avoiding environmental damage if not disaster.

Oh my!

In fulfilling my promise to get back to blogging about technology, I thought I'd invest today's post to provide a slightly less sensationalist perspective on thin provisioning, storage capacity and energy efficiency.

And all I have to say about the bear is: remember, these are wild animals, and they're driven by instinct and not logic or trust.

Any resemblance between wild animals and industry experts is purely coincidental!

 

0.076: oops!... i(bm) did it again!

I know that many of you are getting tired of me pointing out the frequent faux-pas made by competitor's executives. To you, I apologize in advance for today's post, and I'll understand completely if you skip this entry or unsubscribe from my feed in protest.

Especially those of you from IBM, on both sides of the pond. I seem to get more hits from the ibm.com domain on these articles than from anywhere else!

I am sincerely trying to stop, honest I am. But just I can't. At least not until these guys stop feeding me material.
 

Before I continue, though...a note about today's theme.

About a year ago, when I was first thinking of starting up this blog, Chuck Hollis told me one of his super-secret tricks for attracting hits to his blog. He said he would include "Britney Spears" as one of the keywords for every one of his posts, and that he'd get a sizable percentage of hits from search engines like Google and Yahoo! as a result. Not that I need the hits, but the song title fits my topic, so I figured I might try it to see what happens.

So, if you're a Britney fan who accidentally got lured here by this little ploy, my apologies to you as well. This probably isn't what you were looking for.

But if you're both a storage geek and a Britney fan - Welcome! You'll probably recognize the subtitles below...

 

0.075: iomega joins emc storage division

There should little surprise in today's after-market-close announcement that EMC has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Iomega Corporation (IOM). From the moment of the initial (SEC-mandated) disclosure of EMC's unsolicited offer last month, most people probably assumed it was only a matter of time (and price).

Still, several questioned the logic of such a deal over the past several weeks.

Even with the expanded product portfolio, spanning storage, content management, security, virtualization, SaaS and personal information management, EMC hard-good sales is still firmly rooted in addressing the information storage needs of enterprises, large and small, primarily through direct sales and value-added resellers.

And it doesn't take much of a visit to the Iomega web site to understand that they couldn't possibly be more different than EMC - they serve primarily the home and small business consumer markets, primarily through distribution and retail routes to market.

The two could not be further apart.

Which is precisely why this makes sense...
 

0.074: emc world 2008

EMC World 2008 is just about a month and a half away, and the preparation  activity around the office is really picking up. Presentation content is being reviewed and critiqued, the kinks are getting worked out of the hands-on workshops and show-floor challenges, the chatchkies and prizes are starting to come in, and everyone's travel arrangements are being buttoned up.

And now that Q1 is complete (and 5773 is shipping), the excitement will really start building, hopefully to crescendo May 19-22 in Las Vegas.

A couple of weeks ago, I recorded a "teaser" for my session on Flash Drive performance and best practices. Mostly, the teaser is just the marketing side of the story. In my session I'll actually be diving into details on the performance customers can expect to attain for different workloads, as well as discussing the various tools that can be used to identify applications (or parts of applications) that could benefit most from sub-millisecond response times that Enterprise Flash Drives deliver on Symmetrix.

(Check out the video after the page break)

0.073: 5773 > c

In case you've been wondering, the previously announced Q1'08 Symmetrix enhancements, including Enginuity 5773, the 73GB and 146GB enterprise flash drives, the 1 TB SATA-II drive and the new GigE I/O director all shipped on schedule last week. As usual, there's quite a bit to talk about, because in addition to what has been announced already, there are several additional features in this code release that revenue recognition rules prohibited EMC from disclosing until everyone was confident that they would actually make the GA release in Q1.

But discussion of perhaps the most significant new feature in 5773 was held back for another reason: to get all the patent applications filed before it was disclosed. This one new feature could well prove to be the foundation of a whole new era in remote replication - potentially changing the nature of distance replication more than flash drives will change the storage media end of the equation.

But it'll take a little explaining (hint: it has something to do with the title of this post), so before I get into the details, a little background...
 

0.069: i work with smart people

Lots of them, actually.

In fact, pretty much everyone I work with is smart. By definition. That's why they are at EMC in the first place - the company seeks out smart people, and smart people like to work with other smart people.

As a result, there are an amazing number of smart people at EMC.

But you know, with so many smart people around you, it is all too easy to overlook just how smart they really are.

Now, before I go any further, it is important to note EMC is intensely focused on inspiring, nurturing and acknowledging the contributions of its people. In fact, the most recent edition of EMC.Now (a quarterly magazine for EMC employees worldwide) included a review of several of the newer ways that EMC is cultivating inspiration across the company. I thought the article might be of interest my readers, so I requested and received permission to reprint it here:

EMC.now: Inspiration cultivation
Copyright 2008, EMC Corp. Reprinted With Permission.

After reading that article, you'll understand that inside EMC we frequently get the opportunity to celebrate the innovative contributions that our fellow employees around the globe make to the continuing success of EMC - it's part of our culture.

But when one of your peers gets external recognition, and it's the kind that puts him in the  company of the most notable software engineers in the history of computing, it really makes you sit up and take notice. I mean, to be recognized alongside the inventors of UNIX, TCP/IP, the remote procedure call, the World-Wide Web, Mosaic, java, TeX & PostScript, SMALLTALK and VisiCalc (to name a few), well...that puts you in a whole different class of "smart" in my book.

So please indulge me this post to say "Congratulations" to Amnon Naamad for his recent ACM Software Systems Award...

 

0.068: rotflmao!

And I almost couldn't get back up...

Regular readers know that I've been predicting the market exit of the DS8000 for most of my tenure in the blogsophere. As can be expected, this has attracted the ire of IBM bloggers, who routinely dismiss my observations as misinformed FUD. I've even been called "silly" by members of the IBM blogging corps.

So perhaps you'll understand why I was laughing hysterically after reading comments made by Charlie Andrews, IBM's marketing director of storage systems, in Beth Pariseau's recent SearchStorage article (see IBM: Thin provisioning on the way for DS8000).

According to Charlie, the DS8000 is indeed still being updated, although apparently only to support IBM's newest mainframe monopoly models. Some neat stuff - like larger volumes and granular fail-over (welcome to the 21st century, zSeries!).

But when I read Charlie's responses to Beth's inquiries about the increasingly long list of features missing from the DS8000, I literally fell out of my chair laughing.

Not almost - I actually hit the floor. LMAO

Read on to learn why...

[UPDATED 7AM EST February 29, 2008 - see below]
 

0.067: revenge of the mainframe

Hot on the heels of the raging debate between Chuck and TonyP over who's really leading the Open Systems Disk Library market, EMC this week announced its newest EMC Disk Library for Mainframe. Now, in my mind, the press release is improperly titled, in that it positioned the EDLm (as we affectionately call it) as a "Virtual Tape Library" - but unlike traditional VTLs, the EDLm is tapeless!

That's right - it is 100% made up of SATA disk storage, transparently managed behind zSeries-compatible FICON- or ESCON-attached tape emulation engines, with the performance and bandwidth to support backup/restore, batch "tapeless" processing, and/or nearline storage - all in a single, integrated package. Already there are several pilot/beta sites, and general availability will begin in March 2008.

Marketing used this week's SHARE Conference down in Orlando as the venue for this announcement, and they even crafted this video-mercial for the event (and no, it's not Bob & Joe this time):

 
Revenge of the Mainframe

For those interested in learning more about the EMC Disk Library for Mainframe, as well as EMC's other mainframe storage solutions, stop by the Ready2Rule landing page on emc.com.

And there's now a whole EMC channel on YouTube, where you can find a lot of "video white papers" on EMC solutions (in addition to more funny videos - check out the Celerra NS20 Installation SMACKDOWN for one of the better ones).

And for the record, if you are in the market for cost-effective SATA storage for your zSeries, whether for bulk storage, near-line, compliance retention or even on-line applications, EMC is ready, willing and able to help you fulfill those needs...today!

 

technorati tags: EMC,disk library,disk libraries,EDLm,virtual tape library,VDL,mainframe storage,SATA storage,tapeless,EMC disk library for mainframe,IBM,mainframe,mainframe sata,mainframe nearline storage

0.066: when is 3.14159265 > 14?

Today, EMC announced the acquisition of a small start-up called Pi Corporation.

Chuck Hollis has already taken the time off from his ski vacation to explain the relevance of this acquisition. I really have nothing more to add to that, except to note that the importance of protecting and automating our personal information in a "cloud storage" world cannot be underestimated. It is something that none of us can afford to neglect, and once again my employer is moving before others have even thought about the problem and my employer is moving decisively to deliver valuable end-user services in this arena.

Huzzah!

With every acquisition, especially the small ones, the most important part is not the technology, or even the vision - it's the people. And with this acquisition comes one of the most visionary and respected executives I've had the pleasure to meet - Paul Maritz.

While we're technically not friends or even acquaintances, our paths crossed several years back while he was at Microsoft, thanks to an invitation to Seattle from Jim Allchin, who was once my boss at Banyan Systems.

Paul's contributions to Microsoft and to charity speak for themselves. And getting the attention of Forbes is almost always a good thing.

And if you've been clicking on the links, you'll understand why I'm pretty sure that Pi is far more significant and important to our world of storage than XIV will ever be.

It's not just because Moshe Yanai doesn't even have his own page on Wikipedia!

Welcome to EMC, Paul!

 

technorati tags: Pi Corporation,Pi,XIV,XIV Storage,IBM,Nextra,Paul Maritz,Moshe Yanai,EMC,personal information management,Pi Corp,www.picorp.com,cloud storage,cloud infrastructure,cloud services,mozy,Fortress,SaaS

0.065: for whom the bell tolls

IBM today announced the addition of NTAP's top-of-the-line FAS6000 storage platforms to the Big Blue Product Portfolio, rebranded as the N7000 series, and positioned specifically in enterprise storage market segment.

With that move, IBM now resells a directly competing product for 100% of their Systems Storage disk portfolio. From the lowly DS3000, to the DS4000, through the DS6000 and the DS8000 families, there is now also an N series product designed (by NTAP) to compete head-to-head with IBM's product lineup.

And even the vaunted SVC now has a direct challenger from the N series, in the N7000 "gateway", IBM's rebranded version of NetApp's V-Series (V-is-for-virtualization, don't you know).

That's gotta get confusing if you're an IBM sales rep or channel partner.

Not to mention if you're a potential customer.

Cue Flight of the Valkyries ...

0.062: r.i.p. dear ds6000 - forgotten, but not alone

On January 11th 2008, with no fanfare, comment or replacement,  IBM's ill-fated "enterprise-class storage in a small, scalable package" slipped silently into the Big Blue Storage Graveyard, with the final removal of all extended service agreements from the pricebook.

I guess this one slipped unnoticed out of Ringmaster TonyP's circus tent (to join the missing elephant, I'm sure). At least, he seems not to be shedding any tears.

When introduced (along with the DS8000) back in 2004, the DS6000 was touted as living proof of the flexibility and agility of the software that attempted to turn an RS6000 cluster into enterprise-class storage. Just over 3 years later and half of that announcement has already been end-of-lifed.

Go figure.

"These are the most significant storage announcements we have made in more than a decade. IBM is focused on being the storage innovator and clear technology leader," said Dan Colby, General Manager, IBM Storage Systems. "Today, we are delivering new economics and choice by leveraging common components, breakthrough technologies from mainframes and supercomputers, and unmatched virtualization and management capabilities."

IBM Press Release: IBM Delivers New Storage Economics and Choice
October 12, 2004

By all accounts of the day, the DS6000 was clearly intended to be a DMX-800 killer - a lofty ambition that seems not to have been able to meet the demands of the market (meanwhile, the DMX-4 950 thrives on).

 

0.061: swinging from the sidelines

He Hu Shall Not Be Named has returned from his vacation in Aloha-land to learn that EMC has announced something of which he knows nothing about. Predictably, he has wasted no time demonstrating his total lack of knowledge about enterprise flash drives in his latest blog post.

Makes me wonder what the "CTO of Hitachi Data Systems" really does, since he obviously isn't following emerging new storage technologies all that closely.

Nor did he even take the time to do any research before posting, choosing instead to throw wildly uninformed punches at the technology in an attempt to defend Hitachi being caught flat-footed.

Not surprisingly, HHSNBN even manages to drag virtualization into the discussion. Now, is it just me, or does it seems like he can't write a post without using the V-word? I'm beginning to think he must use a customized version of the Ergonomic Keyboard for Pirates that has been making the rounds of late (pictured at right). On his version, though, the "Avast" key types "Virtualization."

<Shift>VIRTUALIZATION<Space>RRRR<shift>!!!<Enter>

Swinging from the sidelines

Clearly lacking a relevant clue about the the technology (and unable to buy a vowel), HHSNBN alleges that anything NAND can do, DRAM can do better and faster. Which is true, I guess, if you include consuming your IT budget in that comparison. Because as expensive as SLC NAND flash is today, it's already an order of magnitude or two cheaper than high-performance DDR2 SDRAM. Must be that Hitachi Math thing again.

So I'll just tack that one on the bulletin board right alongside "Intermixing, slower, less reliable SATA or FATA disks in tier 1 storage systems will impact that system’s performance and availability", which was HHSNBN's excuse for not supporting SATA in the USP. Right up until Hitachi Japan added SATA support to the USP-V at the end of last year, that is.

Some words of advice seem appropriate here:

It is far better to remain silent and be thought a fool
than to speak out and remove all doubt.

(the debate rages over who actually said this first)

the truth about enterprise flash drives

For the record, the enterprise flash drives that EMC announced last week are not the same as the consumer flash drives that is going into Airbooks, laptops and IBM blade servers. And they won't silently lose data (they'd be pretty useless if they did) - like disk drives they remap suspected bad blocks before they cause a problem. They'll probably outlive the practical life of the storage array before they wear out - the nominal operating life of SLC NAND flash typically far exceeds the rated minimal 100,000 writes per cell, and when you add in wear leveling across nearly 2x extra capacity within the drive, they will outlive all but the pathological 100% write forever use case.

Yes, enterprise flash drives use SDRAM buffers to accelerate writes, with both internal and Symmetrix-supplied backup power to protect that memory against unexpected loss of power, be it momentary or an extended outage. They are shielded from electrical and mechanical interference in a disk-drive form factor. And they do indeed provide extensive status reporting (basically the Fibre Channel & SCSI equivalent of S.M.A.R.T.), affording the array the ability to be proactive in protecting customer data.

And you don't have to take my word on that.

Thankfully, the folks over at Wikibon have taken a much more thoughtful approach at evaluating last week's Symmetrix announcements. After what was obviously a lot of actual research, they today presented a comprehensive review of enterprise-class flash drives, the customer benefits they can deliver and the practical implications that they will likely have on the entire storage industry over the coming years. I encourage you to read and comment on their review.

Oh - it's aptly titled EMC Lands a Haymaker.