PowerPath To The Virtual People
Posted by Stephen in Computer history, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage on 22. Apr, 2009 | View Comments
Hiding in the shadow of the huge VMware vSphere 4 announcement was a very interesting introduction by EMC: PowerPath/VE. As I mentioned in my post on storage changes in vSphere 4, PowerPath/VE plugs into the new pluggable storage architecture (PSA) found in vSphere 4 versions of ESX and takes over the decision-making and heavy-lifting tasks related to communicating with storage systems.D
The Difference Between “Integration” and “Frankenstein”
Posted by Stephen in Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT on 05. Feb, 2009 | View Comments
When is a solution integrated and when is it a Frankenstein-like mashup of tangled tech? Apparently, that line is crossed when it’s your competitor’s offering…
In my time in the storage industry, I’ve seen enough franken-storage come and go to make me skeptical whenever a new “integrated” solution is announced. But a lot of this stuff [...]
Of Emulated Fibre Channel, Virtualization, And The Right Tool For The Job
Posted by Stephen in Computer history, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage on 12. Dec, 2008 | View Comments
EMC’s Chuck Hollis is one smart guy, and a very verbose blogger. As usual, he sparked a bit of a storm recently when comparing unified storage on EMC’s Celerra NX4 to NetApp’s multiprotocol FAS2020 filer. But it was one phrase in particular that got the attention of Alex McDonald and Kostadis Russos of NetApp, Martin/Storagebod, and Tony [...]
Top Ten Innovative Enterprise Storage Hardware Products
Posted by Stephen in Computer history, Enterprise storage on 15. Nov, 2008 | View Comments
Looking around at the enterprise storage landscape, it is plain that certain archetypes rule: Monolithic enterprise arrays, dual-controller modular arrays, standard-sized hard disk units, NAS servers, tape libraries. Are these really the optimal designs for storage in our modern open systems world?
On the contrary, I suggest that the enterprise storage world we know was shaped [...]
Is Flash A Disk Or A Cache?
Posted by Stephen in Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage on 22. Oct, 2008 | View Comments
There is a battle shaping up in the enterprise storage industry. On one side are those who see flash storage as an upgrade for the disk drive, and on the other are those who see it as a cache between the CPU and the drive. It’s a fundamental difference of opinion – flash chips can [...]
