the storage anarchist

2.015: challenge accepted -- free vp

No, Joe Biden isn't being set free – he's not even in jail as far as I know. Nor is this about VP wanna-bee Sarah Palin, who indeed will be free from her gubernatorial responsibilities at the end of July.

No, this post is about a different kind of VP altogether.

In his latest blog post (Set the Wide Stripes Free) Martin Glassborow (aka StorageBod) makes yet another passionate plea for enterprise storage vendors to make thin provisioning a standard feature of their products rather than a separately licensed, chargeable option. His request is in response to HDS's recent deluge of blog posts touting the benefits of their thin provisioning offering (Dynamic Provisioning), including the inherent performance benefits of wide-striping LUNs across a large number of spindles.

In his post, Martin insists that the current pricing strategies for thin provisioning from both HDS and EMC are a disincentive to the adoption of the otherwise compelling feature that makes enterprise arrays easier and more cost-effective to manage and deploy.

These very conversations have been going on within the walls of EMC, and it has been decided that Virtual Provisioning will in fact be included at no charge and with no capacity limitations for all Symmetrix V-Max and DMX 4 orders beginning this quarter.  As a result, all Symmetrix V-Max and DMX 4 customers will be able to leverage the speed and ease of storage provisioning, improved capacity utilization and the inherent benefits of wide striping afforded by Virtual Provisioning, all at no extra charge.

We'll see if others follow suit.

 

UPDATE 13 Jul 2009: Corporate has clarified that Virtual Provisioning will be free for ALL supported Symmetrix platforms, new and existing, beginning this quarter. That’s ALL V-Max arrays plus DMX3 & DMX4 arrays running Enginuity 5773.

Another exciting post from http://thestorageanarchist.com
[UPDATED to add DMX 4 at about 3:30pm on 10 July 09]

technorati tags: EMC,Symmetrix,V-Max,Virtual Provisioning,thin provisioning,Dynamic Provisioning,HDS,Hitachi,USP-V,wide striping,chunk,extent,free,no charge

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

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

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

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

Was it something I said? 

Fortunately, the storage anarchist does have a day job.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

This is another post from the storage anarchist.

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

2.010: pity the fool

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2.003: 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…
 

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?
 

1.056: 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.

1.052: over-hyping wide striping

When the capabilities you use to differentiate your product in the market are no longer unique, marketing tends to morph into hype.

That appears to be what’s happening to 3PAR.

Once the paragon of Thin Provisioning and Tiny Chunklets, today they struggle for relevance in a market where virtually every storage platform offers thin provisioning as just one among a long list of features.

What’s worse is that 3PAR, like XIV, is saddled with an architecture that makes it difficult (although surely not impossible) to integrate support for Enterprise Flash Drives. In fact, along with NTAP and XIV, 3PAR remains one of the few companies that have not yet figured out how to deliver the performance benefits of flash storage technology to their customers.

Marc Farley, who I respect immensely (and not just for his rappin’), stepped out this week in his blog to assert that while 3PAR is working on flash, they are “in no rush to be a me too player.”

(Out of respect, I’ll pass over that obvious softball.)

But I did find his suggestion that Wide Striping was 3PAR’s answer to EFDs rather funny. Almost as hilarious as IBM’s assertion that had me rotflmao! last year – the one where they said that their customers didn’t need flash drives, they needed TAPE!

Even more, um, dare I say ridiculous, was Marc’s assertion that EMC was using EFDs to avoid the efforts of re-architecting their products to deliver wide striping.

No offense intended, Marc, but you know I’m not one to let anyone get away with such misleading hype and outright false FUD.

Allow me to set the record straight…

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!
 

1.050: e for efficiency

It started out innocently, with the introduction of the CLARiiON CX4:

Chronicles of Innovation: Energy Efficiency

Then you might say things got a little whacky.

Extreme Efficiency: Project Outdoor Office

Then folks got back to the very real ways EMC can help you save money – today...

1.048: news flash! information is still growing!!!!

From the Business Section of the March 11, 2009 Financial Times comes this earth-shattering dilemma:

Storage: The bytes build up –
but where can we put them?

Seems that Mark Vargo, IBM’s own Chief Strategy Officer, and Hu Yoshida, Hitachi Data System’s Chief Technology Officer both agree that digital information is still growing.

Shocking!

Oddly, it was almost 2 years ago to the day the Mark was quoted by the very same Financial Times on the very same topic, except back then, he seemed to have an answer:

Surely we can squeeze a bit more in somewhere

I don’t know which is sadder, the fact that the Financial Times reruns topics, or that IBM and HDS are taking ipso-facto credit for the EMC-sponsored IDC research on the Expanding Digital Universe that is behind the observations of these two. (That some of their quotes are lifted directly from the research papers is, well, no longer astonishing).

OK – I’ll make it unanimous: EMC’s Chief Strategy Officer for Symmetrix also asserts that indeed, we will collectively have more digital information to store tomorrow than we did yesterday.

Who knew?

 

There, that said, I’ll return to working on The Perfect Storage Array, per Martin’s specifications.

 

technorati tags: digital universe, digital information, EMC, IDC, research, Financial Times, information explosion, data growth, IBM, HDS

1.044: ibm's amazing splash dance

Leave it to the folks over at Big Blue to throw cold water on the whole flash storage revolution.

On the same day that both IDC and Gartner confirmed that IBM is losing share in the external storage market while EMC is gaining, the following Tweet from "ibmstorage" floated across my TweetDeck:

IBM's approach to new storage technology
"Solid state disks for enterprise storage" http://tinyurl.com/acom2s (pdf)
ibmstorage , Fri 06 Mar 10:32 via web

The links gets you this white paper: Solid state disks for enterprise storage - IBM’s approach to new storage technology.

UPDATE: Just in case IBM moves or withdraws the referenced white paper, I have saved a copy of it here on my blog site.

With a title like that, I figured this paper would be the long-waited IBM response to my previous Flashdance post, even though it was probably at least in draft weeks before I started my post.

I wasn't to be disappointed.
 

1.039: don't miss the amazing vendor flash dance

UPDATED: 17 Feb 2009 - changes in green

Flash dancing was a form of tap dance evolved in 1920s-1930s which combined tap with acrobatics.

That description pretty much sums up what Sun, HP, Hitachi, IBM and NetApp have been doing (and saying) about Flash Storage over the past couple of weeks. Some are tap dancing around their continual delays in getting product to market, while others have resorted to high-wire theatrics to cover up the fact that they’re still nowhere near ready to integrate flash tech.

And almost all of them have finally realized that EMC was right over a year ago – the first place we’re going to see benefits from flash technology is indeed as a new tier in high performance storage arrays. That’s right, after a year of excuses and a cacophony of claims that EMC’s introduction of Enterprise Flash Drives (EFDs) wasn’t innovative, today we find virtually every storage vendor (with one major exception) having announced that they, too, will soon be shipping EFDs in their arrays.

And every one of them has chosen the very supplier (STEC) and the same drive (ZeusIOPS) that EMC introduced to the world over a year ago.

To be honest, I’ve expected all along that this is where we’d be at this point in time, but I surely didn’t think it would take them this long to admit figure out that array-based EFDs is where they should start.

Where we are today is remarkable, and no one can argue that we’d be here were it not for EMC’s vision and investment in bringing the game-changing NAND technology to market ahead of all expectations.

But though the road we’ve travelled to get where we are today is relatively short, it has been littered with some remarkable Flash Dancing (and FUD) from the competition.

Let’s take a look at each of these vendors journeys on this Road to Flash, shall we?

WARNING: this one’s long – probably the longest ever. My apologies…I had lots to say

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

1.034: i've been working on the (redacted)

As the end of the year draws near, I realize I've not offered any explanation for my recent rather lengthy spells of silence here on my blog.

The thing is, I've been busy, working on several rather exciting projects that quite honestly have been consuming nearly all my waking hours. Some really neat, game-changing stuff – even more interesting perhaps than the stuff I was working on last year at this time!

Not only have these projects kept me away from the keyboard, but I've been living in abject fear that I'd somehow slip up here on my blog and reveal some corporate secret or another in what surely would have been a very poorly timed CLM.

But you know me – anarchy means there are no rules. So I sucked it up and went ahead and wrote a post anyway.

But with my last sliver of common sense, I paused just before hitting the "Publish" button, and sent my draft out for a peer review.

Follows is what came back from my wizened peers and advisors…(and thanks to all of you for saving my butt!)

 

1.031: meet the symmerator

Ever wonder what happens to old Symmetrix arrays?

Frequently customers will "cascade" them as they age: as new Symms are purchased for production deployment, the older arrays that they replace often become the BC/DR "target" at the other end of the SRDF link.

And the old SRDF target? Well, some simply get returned at the end of the lease term, while others get traded in for credit towards a shiny new Symmetrix.

Some old Symms, of course, meet with a somewhat less fortunate demise:

How sad....

But at least one old Symmetrix 8000-series array has found happiness in a totally new retirement career...
 

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?
 

1.026: development strategies for solid state storage

There have been some good discussion started on last week's flash wars post. This week, Marc Farley has extended the conversation a bit to include the perspective of NAND-vs.-SDRAM for I/O caching and raises some of the challenges of using solid-state storage merely as a disk drive. I've commented on his post with some added perspective, and I encourage others to weigh in with their own points of view, both here and over on Marc's blog.

Another battle front in these so-called flash wars is whether or not application re-architecture and custom development will be required to leverage the value of NAND flash.

Clearly, integrating NAND as a cache buffer in front of spinning disks might require some hefty integration work - or perhaps not, as has been suggested by the ZFS folks. On the other hand, using a flash SSD in place of a bunch of 15K rpm disk drives requires little more than segmenting the application I/O workload onto the faster media - database administrators and applications developers already do this today when they segment tables and indexes between 15K rpm and 10K rpm drives (for example).

My own opinion is that while solid-state storage will enable application architects as programmers some new opportunities, the fact is that most applications today are able to gain incredible acceleration from DRAM-based solid-state storage and from intelligent cached disk arrays with little or no programming required. In one test case I've seen, simply moving the LUNs off of the 8 heaviest utilized drives from a workload that spans 192 15K rpm 146GB disk drives onto 8 146GB enterprise flash drives resulted in reducing average response times across all the drives by more than 60%. That's a huge improvement that can drive significant ROI without the inherent overhead or complexity of the development/test/change control process.

Not to be outdone by Marc's near-daily vidblog posts, I was recently interviewed on the subject of developing for flash technology by the EMC Developer's Network. If you are an applications developer interested in what it takes to leverage the performance benefit of flash, you might enjoy the interview.

And if you develop applications or tools for use with (or on) EMC products who isn't really interested in developing for flash storage, you might still want to do some social networking with other developers at the new EMC Developer Network - it's the essential community for the EMC developer.

 

technorati tags: enterprise flash drives,EFDs,EMC,Symmetrix,NAND flash,EMC Developer Network,storage cache,application acceleration,database acceleration,SSDs,solid-state storage

1.015: stranger danger

If you have children, hopefully you've taught them about Stranger Danger at a very young age - prevention and awareness are the most powerful weapons we have to protect our families and friends.

And if Symmetrix DMX could talk, it surely would be yelling at the top of it's blower fans:

NO! I don't know you! You are not my Dad!

Let it hereby be known that Moshe Yanai is not the father of Symmetrix DMX.

No, despite the public assertions of IBM to the contrary, Moshe had virtually nothing to do with the creation of Symmetrix DMX. And on behalf of the hard-working, dedicated engineers, developers and patent-holders who did in fact design and deliver DMX to the market in February of 2003, it is high time to set the record straight.

Moshe's responsibilities for Symmetrix development ended in 2001, long before DMX production even began. And Symmetrix DMX was a radical change in virtually every dimension from the 5 generations of Symmetrix that preceded it under Moshe's watch.

I'm pretty sure Moshe didn't like anything very much about Symmetrix DMX.

And I will point out that Moshe left EMC in 2002 (for whatever reason), which was well before DMX was even introduced to beta sites or discussed under NDA with analysts and prospects.

I was the marketing lead for the launch of Symmetrix DMX, so I know first-hand that he wasn't involved.

So, as you can imagine, I find it curious that IBM is attempting to mislead everyone who will listen that the success of DMX is a feather in Moshe's cap - evidence of his storage prowess and foresight.

On behalf of DMX I say: thanks for the recognition as the market leader. But he still ain't my dad!
 

1.012: flash drives in enterprise storage

Yesterday I presented a webcast on Enterprise Flash Drives to EMC's investment community, as part of Investor Relations' ongoing Tech Talk series. If you'd like to see it, the slides and replay are available on EMC.com here: Tech Talk for Investors: Flash Drives in Enterprise Storage, but only until July 25, 2008.

Chris Mellor has also reported about this presentation over on Blocks and Files in his "EMC on enterprise flash drives" analysis piece. (Thanks for noticing, Chris - glad you were able to participate).

On a related topic, Network World's Jon Brodkin takes a look into the growing market demand for Flash technology in his article titled Flash storage gets enterprise attention as prices decline. The article provides a fairly comprehensive look at what's going on in the realm of enterprise flash across both storage and server vendors, and it is definitely worth the read.

But I have to admit I was kinda surprised by this quote that Jon included from Michael Workman, president and CEO of Pillar Data Systems:

"The best use of solid-state disk is direct-attached, not in a shared network array. The reason for that is the latencies for solid-state disk are so low that putting it on a network to get at it actually makes the latency of the solid-state disk much worse than it could be."

IMHO, that's a pretty uninformed position to take, especially by the chief executive of an external storage vendor.
 

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!

 

0.074: 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)

0.068: 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

0.061: 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.

0.060: blinded by the light

For those of you who were so breath-taken by EMC's unexpected "viper on steroids" lightning strike with Enterprise Flash SSDs, here's my perspective on the rest of Monday's Symmetrix announcements:

They were pretty neat, too, although clearly not as
revolutionary
as the enterprise-class flash drives will be.

And so, before I dig into the rest of the neat that was announced, you gotta admit - it is truly exhilarating to be totally surprised with the announcement of a disruptive technology that could very well supercede the performance, power (and hopefully the cost) limitations of spinning disk drives!

Of course, the competition has responded with the expected aplomb. Hitachi has gone on record with the assertion that this is all an uninteresting niche play limited to the needs of the Fortune 50 . Meanwhile, IBM's designated storage blogger is gleefully cheering from the sidelines that EMC is retreating to its roots in solid-state storage.

Methinks perhaps they've been blinded by the flash (if not outright  blind-sided).

From my perspective, the roots of the so-called EMC Specialty Shop aren't in solid-state storage at all, but rather they are entwined with a proven track record of out-innovating competitors in the storage space for nearly 3 decades. You need only look at EMC's Innovation Timeline to see the legacy of being the first to deliver solutions to very real and broad-based customer problems over that timeframe - from RAID to ICDA to SRDF to DMX and now flash drives.

Even IBM's recent XIV acquisition is an admission of that fact, coming months after Joe Tucci let the world know that EMC had set its sights on the cloud storage market with the impending Hulk & Maui products. And given that it is likely to be at least a year before the IBM Blue logo goes on the Nextra box and it gets into the bags of IBM's mainstream sales machine, I suspect that Hulk/Maui will technically beat IBM into that market as well.

That said, rest assured that neither IBM nor Hitachi are internally treating enterprise-ready flash drives as another Al Capone's vault. Inside they all (now) know that enterprise flash drives are very real, that they serve a very real and current customer problem, that they will inevitably change the way we think about storage in the future, and that they need scramble to catch up to the lead that EMC has established. They're not really stoopid - they'll be trying to get into the game as quickly as they can.

And while today's enterprise-flash drive benefits may primarily be their incredibly fast response times and energy-efficient IOPS/watt, we all know that customer demand and cost erosion will rapidly expand the market. The future of flash-based storage is inarguably ahead of us.

As to why TonyP would try (in his blog) to compare the 73GB & 146GB enterprise flash drives that EMC just announced to the new "larger" 31.5GB (and 10x slower) consumer-grade flash drives that IBM just announced this week for their blade servers (the drives that come with only a one-year, limited warranty) ?

I honestly haven't a clue.

 
OK - enough of that fun. On with the new Symmetrix stuff...as usual, there's lots to talk about! 
 

0.059: bold, fast and green

No, I'm not talking about Kermit the Frog or a souped-up Kawasaki.

Nope, I'm talking about EMC's introduction today of Flash Solid-State Drives for Symmetrix DMX-4 - the first-and-only enterprise-class application of Flash technology.

Now, if you've already read Chuck's blog post (The Enterprise Strikes Back) and Mark's early-morning coverage (Enterprise Flash for DMX-4), you should have a pretty good understanding of who needs these things and why, and on the technology itself. No need for me to rehash that ground. And even Stephen-the-Packrat has noticed that What's Old is New Again, reinforcing the significant differences from these enterprise-flash drives and the stuff that Apple slaps into its iProducts. Oh, and here's the obligatory link to the original WSJ "scoop" on today's news.

Since I have had a front-row seat to the accelerated evolution of this technology into what today is a truly enterprise-ready solid-state storage solution, I thought I'd share a little about the journey that has brought us to this point.

Sorry for the delayed posting. I've been technical reference support for the SSD part of today's launch, which kept me pretty busy all day. Judging by the nature of the questions and the early coverage, this Flash thing seems pretty hot (pardon the pun). I'll cover the rest of today's Symmetrix announcements in a separate post.

Oh, and if you haven't stopped by The New EMC.com, you definitely should - it's a whole new experience. Today's announcement landing page is an excellent example of how the new technologies behind EMC.com provide a more rich and engaging approach to the company's web presence.

0.055: obligatory "ibm buys xiv" post

Well, I thought I'd wait a day and let the dust settle on this before I made any comments.

Turns out I saved myself a lot of redundant typing. Chuck Hollis covered much of what I would have said (albeit a bit more elegantly). I share his notion that IBM may be using a Web 2.0 smoke-screen to hide their real intent to use Nextra as either A): a response to DELL+EqualLogic and/or 3PAR; or B): as a replacement for the woefully under-funded (and near-dead) DS8000.

I also think there's a potential C): merge Nextra with SVC to solve SVC's emerging Rube-Goldberg scalability problems and get FlashCopy/Global Mirror compatibility onto a truly scalable platform. I guess that the lack of end-to-end data integrity protection is starting to tarnish the SVC image, with wholesale replacements and exorcisms being held on both sides of the pond (or so I've been told). But that's just me being me, I guess (and perhaps in a manner that's a bit more argumentative than Chuck would have written - I'm sure I'll be hearing from BarryW soon on that one).

Steve Duplessie and Mark Peters over at ESG did an good job of explaining what the Nextra is all about, and lends some credibility that this really might be all about Web 2.0 after all, given IBM's need to find a viable replacement for the now aging and somewhat archaic DR500 (tape is dead, haven't you guys heard yet?). But I don't think you really know what Nextra can really do until you actually hear what the current customers are doing with it, and it seems that all of them have lost their tongues for some odd reason. And for the record, I also think Steve's comments that this is probably at least as much about Moshe as it is about Nextra are right on.

At the very least, on his reputation alone Moshe will probably get IBM an audience with a few of those Wall Street IT shops that have banished Big Blue storage from their data centers because of all the incompatible product churn they've incurred since the days of RAMAC, Iceberg, Sharks and now the dead-end can-you-say-downtime DS8000's.

Not to be outdone, Fellow Blogger Tony Pearson took his own shot at explaining what he thinks is the revolutionary neat new technology in Nextra. Unfortunately, he doesn't have much understanding of the Centera architecture, so he mistakenly thinks is this all new. But heck, even though back before Christmas he was joining forces with TwoEgos in a premature wake for Centera, I'll give him a pass on the fact that Centera's been doing this exact type of blob striping and protection since day one (back at the beginning of 2002).

I'm feeling oddly benevolent to start this New Year for some reason...

0.036: data integrity and virtualized storage

Is your data really safe?

In what many think is a modern-day impression of Chicken Little, Robin Harris has been asking this question over on StorageMojo for quite a while. In his most recent blog post, he refuels his concerns using "evidence" presented in a Data Integrity research paper done by the folks at CERN.

I highly recommend you at least skim that document, as there are some interesting observations in it that could have far reaching ramifications in your own storage environment.

According to this paper, more than 3 of the MP3's or TiVo videos I have in my Terabyte Home are probably corrupted -and I might never know it!

Now Robin takes the 50,000 foot view of this, and comes to the conclusion that the world just may collapse soon if this data integrity issue isn't resolved. He even suggests that HEY! Shouldn't we be doing something NOW to avoid all this?

</sarcasm> (I leave it to the reader to figure where the opening tag belongs )

Good news, Robin: some of us have already been solving this problem. Been doing so for years, in fact...  
 

0.035: hitachi drops another shoe (it sounded like a slipper!)

I guess I should be ashamed. Embarrassed at least.

Yesterday, someone asked me why I hadn't yet commented here about Hitachi's baby USP-VM announcement made earlier this week, and I responded "what announcement?"

Yep. I missed it. Completely.

Not that I wasn't aware it was coming...Mr. T doesn't make the rounds on Wall Street on the arms of HDS PR folks for nothing, nor do you wake poor old Claus from his year-long blogging hiatus unless something really important is about to happen.

As I had prior blognosticated, there were (and still are) gaping holes in the initial USPV announcement - clearly the team back in Japan had much more in mind than had been announced back in May. And at least a few rumors indicated that many of these would make it through the QA gauntlet before the end of Q3'07.

Guess this stuff really is hard for everyone.

So I guess because I'd expected so much more, the actual announcement of the USPV "mini-me" slipped right under my radar. I probably shouldn't have taken Nigel's advice and stopped stalking HHSNBN (although it has been therapeutic not to read about yet another world calamity that UVM can solve for a couple of weeks, mind you).

But now that mini-me has been brought to my attention, you just know I have to comment. Interestingly though, this time I'm not alone in correcting the typical misleading marketing that the Hitachi Data Systems Santa Clara marketing miscreants have become known for.

It seems I have some new friends in my quest to keep things honest.
 

0.031: inside tiered storage - part 2 (options)

Part 2 of a planned 4-part series exploring the concepts and implementation of tiered storage. If you missed it, you should probably read part 1 (definitions) first.

Several weeks ago I was invited to sit-in on a "Peer Incite" conference call with the folks behind Wikibon.org. The topic had been advertised as a peer review of EMC's 7/07 announcements, but the topic leader (Peter Burris - or was it David Vellante?) chose instead to focus the discussion around the implications of EMC's announcement that the Symmetrix DMX-4 would be the first high-end storage array to offer native support for SATA-II disk drives, and specifically the 750GB devices. (You can read the collective results of that conference call here.)

One interesting aspect of this discussion was the clarity offered around the differing approaches for implementing tiered storage. I personally thought this one of the more valuable parts of the discussion, but it seemingly was not included in the posted summary. In fact, it was that omission that initiated the idea for this series in the first place (admittedly, I had initially thought I'd be able to cover the topic in a single post, but I couldn't manage to pull that off).

So in this chapter I'll explore the four different options for implementing tiered storage, as was discussed in that original call.

Of course, I'll add a little of my own color along the way.

And maybe even a surprise ending...

0.027: inside tiered storage - part 1 (definitions)

There has been a lot of talk of late related to tiered storage, mostly surrounding the applicability of using SATA devices in enterprise-class storage arrays. After posting a few comments and follow-ups on fellow blogger sites, I thought perhaps I might invest in making a more in-depth look at the whole topic from an enterprise IT perspective.

The way I see it, this whole notion of tiered storage is pretty broad, so I've outlined my approach to the topic into a couple of related posts that I plan to deliver over the coming days/weeks. Roughly, I think I'll tackle the discussion like this:

part 1: definitions

In the first installment (this one), we'll explore the definition of "tiered storage" - I say "we" because I'd like to collect your feedback on the subject.
 

part 2: options

Next I'll explore the various approaches to implementing tiered storage, using different companies and their products as examples.
 

part 3: challenges

Then I'll discuss some of the challenges of implementing tiered storage, both related to each individual option and across the entire spectrum (I'll give a little preview: there isn't yet a good solution that solves everything for everyone).
 

part 4: predictions

Finally, I'll take a look at what I think will likely be coming down the pike to help improve the overall situation.

Now, I probably won't get through all this back-to-back, so expect me to intermix this series with other topics over the coming days or weeks.

One important caveat - this series is about Tiered Storage, and NOT Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). As SNIA has defined, ILM is about the entire operational ecostructure (people, process, practice, tools & technology) employed to effectively align the business value of information with the IT infrastructure throughout its' lifecycle. This series of posts will explore perhaps the most important of the infrastructure tools - tiered storage - that can be employed in support of ILM, and the various means this tool can be deployed.

So let's get started...

0.024: green envy and twisted truths

You usually can tell that you're on to something big when the competition starts trying to reshape the facts.

Today's case in point: EMC's recent DMX-4 launch and specifically the focus on the DMX-4's power efficiency advantage.

In the launch, EMC made three claims about the DMX's so-called "green" advantage over the competition:

1. The current DMX-3 requires less power than the competitor's high-end storage products
    
2. The DMX-4 and Enginuity 5772 delivers even more performance without requiring more power than the DMX-3
    
3. The DMX-4 will support the new 750GB SATA-II drives, for an even greater power savings (lower $/GB and Watts/GB/year)

Pretty simple and straightforward.

But obviously also a very uncomfortable set of claims for both the competition. And apparently for the EMC nay-sayers who apparently can't accept the notion that EMC could actually be better on anything, much less such a fundamental matter as power & cooling.

He Hu Shall Not Be Named (Nor Linked) attempts his usual blogketing misdirection by focusing on the math he couldn't decipher (because it's not that mythical Hitachi Math, I guess). Of course he also asserts that virtualization is the answer to everything, now including Green IT (is World Hunger next?). On the other coast, IBM Brand Manager (and Fellow Blogger) Tony Pearson tries to redirect the conversation to focus on the power-efficiency of Linux mainframes vs. Intel servers, even as IBM remains the major reseller of EMC's VMware virtualization platform for Intel servers. Neither disavows EMC's claims, or even mentions the power utilization of their respective high-end storage products (much less defends their power-hungry designs).

Then there's the self-anointed Anti-EMC community, made up of certain other Fellow Bloggers, Industry Analysts, 2-ego-centric industry pundits (he hates to be included in the 'Industry Analyst' category), and the occasional blog comment/message board/discussion forum "contributor." These folks have chimed in from virtually every corner of the world to challenge the claims of DMX-3 and DMX-4 power advantage. And almost to the person, they mistakenly assert that the DMX-4's power advantage is only dues to the SATA drives, making it a hollow claim. From that simple misrepresentation of the truth, the discussion devolves into challenges about the performance, applicability or viability of low-cost storage in an enterprise array.

Allow me to set the record straight -

Both the DMX-4 and the DMX-3 require less power (& cooling) to support the identical drive, port and memory configurations as the competition.

0.019: dmx-4 and oh so much more

As you probably already have seen, EMC had a pretty major platforms update announcement on Monday, with updates to virtually every storage platform product we offer.

Given the size of the company and the scope of our product portfolio, gone are the days when we have the luxury of launching only on a single product at a time -- there just aren't enough weeks in the year (and it does take weeks, with all the pre-briefings, scheduling, invitations, etc.). So we pretty much have to do these so-called "roll-up" announcements, and this one was pretty significant.

In fact, there were so many, many things announced across Symmetrix, CLARiiON, Celerra and Centera that it's near impossible to summarize them all in one place. For the next several weeks, if you want to learn about specific updates, I invite you to visit www.EMC.com directly. You can select the key product line areas from the rotating landing page banner, or you can follow the link to the Executive Summary presented by Barbara Robidoux, the Storage Platforms Marketing VP (but be forewarned, she has a LOT to summarize!).

I'll throw in a special recognition of EMC's marketing folks who created this launch - they've done a bang-up job of announcing a boatload of stuff without the overwhelming use of superlatives and hyperbole. In fact, it's obvious that there was a focused effort to communicate this announcement in terms of realizable customer benefits, instead of mind-numbing speeds-and-feeds. It certainly makes everybody's job easier when we don't have to answer questions like "so what?"

But if you really want to know the inside scoop about the launch, you've come to the right place. Well, so far as the Symmetrix side of the launch is concerned that is. My pal Storagezilla has adeptly covered the CLARiiON, Celerra, Centera, and RainFinity announcements over at his blog.

So, want to know more about DMX-4? Read on, Gunga Din!

0.013: customers say the darnedest things

Well, it's the last week of the quarter, and things around work are much like they probably are at virtually every product company on the planet - everybody is on-call to do whatever it takes to close business and get the products shipped in order to recognize the revenue this quarter. Even many of us in engineering will be called in to help close deals - we even have a slogan for this practice: "Everyone Makes Closing Calls" (that's the EMC "squared" version).

Down the road in Franklin and Apex and over the pond in Cork, at this time of the quarter EMC stands for "Empty Manufacturing's Closets," the goal being that everything is in the trucks (or lorries) and well down the road by midnight Saturday, with the manufacturing floors as barren as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboards.

Given this quarterly ritual, and next week's impending US Independence holiday, I expect the blog traffic to be relatively lighter this week than others. So I thought I'd have a little fun between briefings and con-calls and explore a few of the odder things I've heard from customers and prospects over the years.

Regarding the title of today's entry, many of you probably remember the similarly-titled children's show hosted by Bill Cosby back in the 90's. Many of you will also remember that it was Art Linkletter who first ran the concept as a segment on his CBS radio show back in the 1940's and later on his TV show (from 1952 through 1970). Fewer of you will actually remember the name of that show: it was "Art Linkletter's House Party."

There - the genealogy is documented. Now I don't want to see any folderol out in blog-land about who actually invented the darnedest things nor who stole them from Art. Especially not from a certain inebriated mis-information peddler. OK?

0.008: world's largest appliance

Amidst all the hubbub and blogging about Hitachi's new USP-V, several people (including yours truly) noted that it seemed odd that Hitachi would double the processor speed inside their array, yet didn't add support for more drives or larger drives than the original (30 month old) USP supports.

And when I noted that only the DMX-3 supports more than 1152 drives (up to 2400, in fact), I was promptly slapped with the "FUD-slinger" label. I was even challenged to defend myself with evidence of ANY customer using 2400 drives, and my assertion that there are several installed DMX-3s with more than 1152 drives (the current USP/USPV maximum) was seemingly dismissed as insufficient evidence of demand.

On Monday, at EMC World 2007 in Orlando, EMC Introduced The World's Largest Open Systems Virtual Tape Library, built upon configurations of the Symmetrix DMX-3 with up to 2400 500GB low-cost Fibre Channel drives. (This is apparently what the Backup Wizard was hinting about so cryptically last week).

Although we may not have sold or installed one yet (the DL6000's won't be GA until June), I feel somewhat vindicated. The exploding customer demand for cost-effective VTL (and backup to disk) solutions are precisely the sort of applications that motivates EMC to build, qualify and support modular arrays that can scale to huge proportions within a single platform.

And now we've taken the World's Largest Storage Array, and made it also the World's Largest Virtual Tape Appliance.

Go Figure!

0.005: self tuning storage - today & tomorrow

Over in the land of Dullness, Chris Evans drops an interesting challenge - self-tuning storage.

For now, I'll overlook his jabs about the "whose array is better" tete-a-tete and focus instead on the admittedly more interesting story (although I will note that Hu's pretty much been playing solitaire in the "mine's better" game until the Anarchist came along ;*).

Self-Tuning Storage: that's what we've been working on with Symmetrix for about 16 years.

Now, I was going to write about this from an entirely different angle, exploring how no matter how much you improve on the interface for managing performance, customers will want more. I'll (eventually) get to that, but first things first.

Fact is, Symmetrix was the first self-tuning storage array, and remains essentially the only array that actively optimizes itself, in real time, dynamically under changing workloads, with little or no need for human intervention.

It's not yet perfected or complete. But Enginuity 5772 takes this to a new level.

0.004: get ready for tagma-too!

Word's out - there's soon to be a new USP from our pals at Hitachi/HP/Sun. And I'm sure you didn't hear about it first from me.

It's about time.

Hitachi had been on a pretty set schedule of bringing new high-end platforms to market just about exactly every 24 months. And in fact, it seems many customers were specifically told in early 2006 to expect the next-gen "Tagma" in the September 2006 (ish) time frame, almost exactly 2 years after the original USP12000/9990v was announced.

That would make next week's (rumored expected) announcement just about 8 months late. Makes one wonder what when wrong - what happened in 2006 to cause such a delay? A delay so long that Hitachi's Wall Street Minions were out in force late last summer, admitting to anyone who'd listen that the company would likely suffer significant loss of market share through calendar Q4'06 and Q1'07.

Although the numbers aren't all in yet for Q1'07, the predicted loss of storage market share the last couple of quarters looks very likely to have been correct. In fact, estimates I've seen indicate that IBM's DS8000 surpassed Hitachi's USP+NSC sales in the high-end for the first time back in Q4'06.

After such a long wait, I'm pretty sure what the folks over at Hitachi are thinking right about now...

...Welcome to the machine!