the storage anarchist

1.016: emc lifeline 1.1 - new and improved!

Back in January, I covered EMC's announcement of the EMC LifeLine storage software for SOHO storage platforms (see gotta getta life (line)). Back then, I described the 1.0 version of LifeLine as it was deployed on the Intel Entry Storage System SS4200-E and I compared how the LifeLine features stacked up against my home storage requirements.

Shortly thereafter, I did acquire an SS4200-E for my home use, and it has pretty much lived up to my expectations. Mine has 4ea. 1TB SATA drives in it which I have it configured as a 3+1 RAID5 group, netting just over 2.7TB usable (the "1TB drives" are actually closer to 900GB raw). Over the past several months, the SS4200 has truly become the "lifeline" of my digital footprint, acting as the primary repository for all of my digital music and video files, as well as the backup target for all of my home computers and laptops and for my photographs (primary photo storage is on 250GB USB drives for portability).

Aside from a nagging glitch that prevents the included Retrospect HD from being able to completely back up my primary Vista Ultimate (64-bit) laptop (can't get access to a few non-critical files for some reason), I've been totally happy with the system.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that the LifeLine 1.1 upgrade was available (since July 3, 2008, apparently).

A quick login to my "SS" admin console, click over to Setup/Upgrades, and the process was underway - fully automated upgrade. When the box rebooted, the admin console next explained that I needed to upgrade the admin software itself (and the included Retrospect client). After a couple more clicks, I was up and running the new software - short, simple and painless.

Wanna know what's new in LifeLine 1.1? Read on...

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...
 

0.066: 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

0.058: gotta getta life (line)

Despite the obvious relevance of this post's title to the recently waged still raging debate mental gymnastics over whether or not IBM's new XIV Nextra is really a DS8000 replacement Web 2.0-worthy, this post isn't about that.

By the way, Chuck Hollis has an thoughtful perspective over on his blog today where he explains that It's Not About Web 2.0 Storage anyway. See if you can figure out which "IT" he's talking about .

But being as my paychecks have a different 3 letters on them, I figure I should probably stop helping IBM figure out exactly what it is that they bought, and move along. I'm sure TonyP will appreciate that (providing that I stick to my word, that is) - I've obviously ensured I won't be on his Christmas list again in 2008.

Therefore, in keeping with the Monty Python sub-theme:

And now for something completely different... just over 6 months ago, I responded to a post by He Hu Shall Not Be Named (because he refuses to engage in blog dialogue of any sort, on any topic), anyway, I responded to HHSNBN's suggestion that there was no need for home-based storage because fat pipes to the home and (what we're now beginning to call SaaS) storage services would obviate the need. In my response, entitled a terabyte isn't enough for my home, I tallied the then 3.3-plus terabytes of storage that was then spinning in my home on a regular basis, and I explored the reasons why I would never let most of that live outside my house.

I then described the characteristics of the appliance I so desperately need to protect my family's digital assets.

I was pleasantly surprised that it was my own employer who tossed me the lifeline.

EMC Lifeline, that is. Announced earlier this week.
 

0.012: a terabyte isn't enough for my home

Just read Hu Yoshida's brief blurb about how he thinks enterprise-class storage obviates the need for storage in the home.

NOT!

As I noted in my introductory post to this blog, I have multiple terabytes of storage in my home. Today. Let's see - a quick run-down:

HD TiVo Series 3	750GB
TiVo Series 2	600GB
TiVo Series 2	250GB
MP3 File Server	500GB
Laptop 1	500GB
Laptop 2	40GB
Desktop	360GB
Portable USB Drive	300GB

That's 3.3 TERABYTES of storage! And that's just what's spinning at my home on a regular basis. On top of that there's an old Linux PC I boot up from time to time (to upgrade hard drives in my TiVos), a 40GB Creative Nomad 3 portable MP3 player, my 8GB iPod Nano, and the 2+GB of CompactFlash drives for my Canon Digital SLR. And not to forget my "remote replicas" - the 300GB MP3 file server and 250GB TiVo Series 2 that live at the beach house I share with my cousins.

While this is some serious storage, I'm sure my list isn't the largest among my readership (I know one guy who has a whole SGI file server in his basement). So for anyone to suggest that enterprise-class storage on the other end of some magical unlimited-bandwidth data link is going to obviate the need for storage in the house?

I seriously think not.

Let me explain why...