the storage anarchist

1.000: happy anniversary, baby!

Today marks the 1-year anniversary of this blog.

My my, where did the time go?

I guess I was a bit optimistic with my chosen numbering scheme, as I allotted 3 digits for the post number, but I managed to craft only 78 posts. Not sure if that's good or bad - surely there are several readers who would have preferred that I'd done a few less posts (or a few less posts about their products, perhaps ).

All in all, I think not a bad start.

Oh sure, I've left a few loose ends, and I've opened the door on a few topics that I never quite got into. Hopefully it has still been been interesting to you, and maybe you even had a good chuckle every once in a while. To be sure, your comments, criticisms and feedback has been much appreciated, and I hope that I can expand the conversations in the coming year.

In fact, I'd really like to hear from you about what topics you'd like me to explore. And I mean that, whether you are a customer, prospect, competitor, work colleague, industry analyst, peer, friend, journalist, or someone who just happens to find my blog interesting - I wanna know what you wanna know...

So please, write a comment to this post with your questions and/or topic proposals, and I'll see about working them into my agenda, and maybe I'll hit more than 100 posts in my second year.

Many thanks to all of you! You've made the first year of storage anarchy better than I could have imagined!

ttfn!

0.048: a "new deal" storage benchmark

Dr. Kartik has picked up on the challenge to define a real-world benchmark for storage arrays. This will be an inherently complex undertaking, probably rivaling the hornet's nest that was FDR's New Deal, but I'd like to be the first to put my support behind the effort.

More important than my participation, however, is YOURS.

And where the SPC benchmarks (and the TPC benchmarks before them) were designed by a membership-only club that worked in the privacy of their meetings, I encourage THIS attempt at defining a benchmark to be conducted entirely in the public, using the open & unrestricted platform of wikis, blogs and discussion forums to engage as many people around the globe as possible.

dotConnector has opened up the conversion in his blog, and his call to action needs your input and perspectives.                           dotConnector wants YOU!

Let's ALL join in!

0.044: not dead yet, I guess

I feel somewhat like the poor sot at the beginning of the classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, having tossed my poor plague-ridden uncle into the death-cart -- only to have him whimper "I'm not dead, yet!"

Seems I may have prematurely declared the demise of the DS8000 in my prior blognostications. Oh, the DS6000 has clearly succumbed to a myriad of afflictions, but there's been a growing rumble that there will be an update to the DS8000 Turbo announced on Tuesday, October 23^rd. I'd been hearing about this from my inside-EMC channels for a while now, but today I received what I will conclude is external confirmation in the form of this week's Peer Incite review over at Wikibon.

An excerpt:

On Tuesday October 23^rd the Wikibon community will be reviewing an announcement from one of the world's leading storage suppliers.

The Wikibon community will explore implications for customers, especially emphasizing near term procurement actions. [name redacted], a well known and highly regarded analyst for the storage industry will be the lead analyst on the call.

Each week, Wikibon hosts Peer Incite, a free, unbiased research and advisory call on important storage topics. Please join other practitioners, technologists and consultants as we explore critical storage industry issues.

Now honestly, I don't know how critical this could be in real life, especially given that [name redacted] isn't necessarily all that "unbiased." But if you want to see what all the fuss is about, you'll have to register to participate over at WikiBon.

 

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...

0.026: free speech, blogketing and mojo

Robin Harris has gotten around to reading some of my posts on blogketing (beware of blogketing and blogketing and revenue recognition) and my belief that it is the responsibility of corporate bloggers to comply with the same standards as for any other marketing collateral. Robin seems to have taken issue with my position, slinging the First Amendment back at me. In doing so, Robin has effectively twisted my position into one that bears little resemblance to what I said or meant.

And he has every right to do that, without question, and we all defend that right daily.

But the point I have tried to make is NOT that bloggers can't freely express their opinions in their blogs, whether they blog on a corporate-sponsor site or not. No, my point is that when you blog under the banner of your company's logo, your blog must then be held to a higher standard for factual representation of your company and its products (note the clear distinction between "opinion" and "product facts" here).

Apparently, most of you agree with me (so far, anyway).

I sat down this morning and wrote a response to Robin that was simply too long to post as a comment on his blog. So although I really don't intend for my own blog to erode into an ongoing debate on blog-etiquette, I did open this can of worms, so I guess I have no choice but to chew.

So my response to Robin becomes this morning's post...

0.020: do corporate blogs = marketing collateral?

Seems my investigative blogging was picked up by a couple of tech journalists this week, and suddenly I have a broader readership. Props to both Chris Mellor and Beth Pariseau for the traffic, if not necessarily for their perspectives .

I know that many of you won't believe this, but setting the record straight wasn't the primary objective of my articles on blogketing. My intent really was (and still is) to spotlight the notion of Corporate Blogging as a marketing tool, and whether or not it should be held up to the same credibility and liability standards as any other form of marketing or advertising. Over the past week, I've gotten feedback on both sides of that coin, both directly and even in a couple of other blogs.

My position is pretty clear - I think Corporate Blogs (the ones that show up on a company's web site under the company's logo) are just as much marketing collateral as everything else on those web sites, and thus are to be held to the same level of accuracy and professionalism. This despite any disclaimers that may appear on the blog - if the company is paying to promote the blog, they are by definition endorsing the views of the blogger.

The alternate position is best summed up by this bit of (edited) feedback that I received this week: "Everyone in the blogosphere knows, or at least should know, that a blog is just the un-edited voice of a single person, and many posts are made without spell-checking, fact-checking or grammar-checking. [...] Blog posts are not technology publications, magazine articles, press releases, or other collateral that follow a more rigorous editing process."

What do you think?

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