StorageRap

Tiering is not for Chuck Norris

Separated at birth?

There have been some interesting discussions lately about storage tiering  And just because 3PAR beat most everybody else to the punch this week with our AO announcement, I think it's important to keep things in perspective - storage tiering does not solve everybody's problems. Here is my top 10 list of reasons some people don't want to embrace tiering: 

10. Chuck Norris does not need automation, automation needs Chuck Norris.

9.  The Chuck Norris of IT, Larry Ellison, says Exadata is the only tier you need.

8.  Chuck Norris & Larry Ellison will race to determine if tiering is good or evil.

7.  Heard it uses gerbils, which is unfair to guinea pigs.

6.  Chuck Norris got to Tom Georgens, he will get to you too.  

5.  Chuck Norris designed 3PAR's wide striping - who needs tiering?

4.  Chuck Norris already tunes my storage in his sleep.

3.  Larry Ellison is going to buy all the world's SSDs and corner the market.

2.  Waiting to hear if Chuck Norris will discuss tiering this week on InfoSmack. 

1.  Too busy celebrating Chuck Norris' 70th b-day today to care about tiering.

3PARvaTAR Episode #2: What will Mr. Oracle do for an encore?

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There are many things Larry Ellison can do.  If he wanted to run for public office, he certainly wouldn't have to worry about campaign funding.  I mean, if he can buy a bad NBA basketball team, he can certainly afford a series of popularity ads showing his over flowing empathy. But if he still wants to be the CEO of the largest software company in the world - it's not clear that getting into the hardware business will help him do it. Time will tell.

StorageRap videos now available for download on iTunes and Podbean

Blog readers have asked for podcast-ready versions of StorageRap videos that they can download and play on their iPods, iPhones, Blackberry's or other portable devices. So now there is a new StorageRap Podcast site on Podbean as well as a podcast feed for StorageRap on iTunes.

You'll notice a few differences:

• Videos are smaller, formatted for 320x 240 small screens
• Videos do not stream, they download completely and then play - so it takes longer to start playing
• The content does not mirror that on StorageRap
• Content on iTunes lags that on Podbean by a day or so 
• The video images in the podcast player are different than those on 3PARTV and this blog

If there is something on this blog that you want in a podcast version, contact me on Twitter (3ParFarley) or through a blog comment and I'll make a podcast for you.

The most recent podcast posted was the video from VMworld with Jason Lochhead from Terremark where he talks about their new VMWare-based vCloud Express service and their use of 3PAR storage for both vCloud Express and their Enterprise Cloud service.

Boy, the Gestalt IT Tech Field Day yesterday sure was fun

Talk about a room full of high energy tech lovers.  Both at 3PAR HQ yesterday afternoon, as well as at the Computer History Museum and later at the Doubletree, San Jose.  I haven't experienced that kind of mind melding for a long time. It was electric. 

Big thanks to all the Tech Field Day attendees for bringing it, to Stephen Foskett and the team helping him who pulled off this amazing concept and to all the folks at 3PAR and Symantec for working so hard on our part of the day yesterday.  It was a sterling effort.

Sunshine Mugrabi and I made a video in Stephen Foskett's honor last night.  I thought I'd post it here to further pay tribute to a truly good guy:

EMC, Cisco, vBlock and trust - how long will it last?

"I trust Joe with my life" 

 John Chambers spoke about trust at some length during the vBlock cloud computing announcement today. He is obviously trying to communicate something to his people.  FWIW, Joe Tucci didn't have as much to say about it, but he did echo those sentiments. 

The difficult part of what EMC and Cisco are trying to accomplish does not involve virtual technologies nearly as much as it involves the very real world of compensation.  EMC is a company that is driven by goals tied to compensation.  Their culture does not let anything get in the way of their goals. Whether you like it or not, it's what's made that company what it is today and it's a culture that was started by founder Dick Egan, long before Joe Tucci took the reigns, and it is ingrained at EMC.

Cisco is a different animal. Obviously they are aggressive too, but they do it differently. As Chambers said, 80% of what Cisco does is through partners - something very different from EMC.  When Chambers mentioned that partners will get most of the revenue from vBlock, Tucci was silent. I don't believe Tucci believes this for a minute. The sales engagement process for this will be very interesting to watch.  When the question was asked later about who will sell vBlock, Tucci's response was to say it will be figured out.  That's probably why they are forming a joint venture - Acadia - to deal with the sales problems.  But that doesn't mean the problems are resolved - they will simply be transferred elsewhere.  The accounting on this should be interesting to say the least, but unlike EMC and Cisco, Acadia will be a private company. 

Chambers also made the somewhat ironic comment, "Companies like to control their customers, that's wrong."  While many would agree with that, I'm wondering if he is familiar with the measures taken in the storage industry to maintain account control.  How far will EMC bend in maintaining account control to help their partner Cisco make sales of UCS servers?   Probably not very far.

There is a lot of risk with vBlock for both EMC and Cisco. Certainly, its an opportunity for Cisco and EMC to expand their markets, but sharing is hard for companies with voracious appetites and flattening revenue streams.  

 

Coming Soon: Gestalt IT's Tech Field Day!

This is going to be good.  I can't wait.  And I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of people I never have before.  Thanks Stephen Foskett for putting this all together!

dw'Ville: I never met Nick Glasgow

I never met Nick Glasgow.

dw'Ville breaking news: Larry Have no fear, Pillar storage is here!

Here's a link to an actual news article on the topic.

Dweeberville #4: In case you missed VMworld

 

Dweeberville #3: It hurts so good

VMware has obviously had an enormous impact on the IT industry.  For starters, it provides us dweebs with a hot event - when most other trade shows were slowing down.  So, Thanks VMware for all the excitement and we look forward to seeing what's next around the bend. (click to see a magnified version)

Storage bloggers showcasing their talents!

OK, the talent show of the decade is on!  The League of Suspicious Avatars (LOSA) has been working behind the scenes to bring you the very best of the storage blogosphere, complete with an astounding panel of judges.  Remember to submit your comments about who you think shows the most talent!

Robin Harris virtually kills Blu-Ray. Amen!

Blogger Robin Harris stirred the pot again yesterday with his post on how the Phoenix of consumer technology: HD-DVD (China Blue) is going to eventually win the battle with Blu-Ray.  

For me, I could probably care less except that I really, really want a cheap low cost, high-capacity sneaker net media for the videos that I make.  YouTube, Vimeo Blip and the rest of the online video services are just OK for sharing videos, but they leave a lot to be desired in terms of video quality, network requirements and privacy.  Regular DVDs are too small.  

If China Blue were available today as cheap drive for my PCs I would definitely want it and encourage everybody to get it.  I think its ridiculous to let Hollywoood dictate a format based mostly on piracy concerns - what about everybody else who wants to make their own videos - are we supposed to subsidize Sony for that? 

FWIW, I use Sony Vegas, Sony Acid and Sony Sound Forge to make my videos and audios and I love those products and I recommend them to anybody who asks my opinion.  I wish there was a better way for me to share the end results of these products than what there is today. 

Poll Envy

The last time I checked I was in 16th place in the Storage Monkeys vendor blogger's poll.  This is crushing.  So I lashed out at Dave Hitz who is leading the poll and said he hadn't posted anything this year.  That was wrong - he actually has posted this year.  Not much, but he has.  Nothing for May and June when he and Manny Ramirez were both on the sidelines.

Who cares about Data Domain's customers?

Introducing Handlebar Cam - in honor of the TDF.

Chris Fricke commented here, wondering what's in store for existing DDUP customers.  Good question Chris, who gives a rip about you?  Would it matter if you had EMC gear already, as opposed to being a card carrying EqualLogic customer?  If you have anything to say about what happens to customers, let fly!

What Google's Chrome OS means for the storage industry

Google's announcement this week about their intention to create a web-based operating system  from its Chrome technology has huge implications for storage, as well as the whole IT industry.  Inexpensive, lightweight and always-ready is the big winner in client technology.

Whether Google eventually succeeds with its Chrome strategy is immaterial now that the cat is out of the bag - everybody now understands that a user operating system doesn't have to carry legacy desktop system baggage anymore.  The cost of supporting obsolete equipment and software can be dropped and those functions replaced by utility (cloud) services. Among the obsolete stuff that can be left out are lots of storage drivers.

So what happens to data storage when user operating systems are completely web-based?  To begin with most user data will be stored for clients by the cloud applications running as SaaS web services. The question of whether those are private or public cloud services depends on a number variables including privacy concerns, single sign-on integration and application service levels.  Public service providers can leverage their resources across a larger install base, which will give them an economic advantage, but they need to be able to handle the challenges of multi-tenancy with technologies such as virtual management domains.

Service providers will build infrastructures with the most flexible, scalable products available. In an environment when almost anything can be accomplished in an Internet instant, neither clients or service providers can afford much time for initial setup and service level changes. For storage administrators, this amounts to having autonomic storage that readies all the resources before they are needed to be provisioned.

The concept of reservationless storage is important. If storage resources are connected to an array, why should it be necessary to think about which pools or meta-structures to assign them to first?  A storage admin in a web-connected world probably doesn't have the time to plan, re-plan and change logical storage structures when they are in the middle of a services demand surge. When management wants to know why service levels are causing customer problems, the last thing they want to hear is that storage had to be re-distributed because previous plans had to be changed. Thin provisioning and wide striping implementations that require pre-work and re-work won't deliver the goods.

Best practices will move from being a human-managed effort to setting thresholds and warnings for an autonomic, self balancing system.  This vision is what is pushing development efforts at 3PAR, much of it is already available in 3PAR InServ arrays today.