I Promise Not To Quote That Old Annoying Dell PC Slogan

I’ve been buying Dell computers for decades, but not really because I loved them. Sure, my XPS laptop was awesome, but it burned out its motherboard and I never really touched the RMA replacement, having bought a MacBook Pro in the meantime. Enterprise buyers seem to have the same ambivalence about Dell. They buy it, but I’m not sure they really “buy” the company as an IT partner.

I’m sure you’ve heard the same comments as me: “Dell just assembles off-the-shelf components and sells them in volume” or “Dell’s a follower, not an innovator.” There seems to be a great deal of respect for Dell’s ability to produce competitive products and sell them at reasonable cost. Truly, most of their competitors would love to have this kind of reputation. But most of their competitors also have a reputation for partnership, innovation, and solution selling.

Dell Is Making An Effort

It seems clear that Dell would like to change this attitude, and they are investing serious resources to make it happen. While acquisitions like Compellent and Force10 raised eyebrows in storage and networking, it is the activity I see behind the scenes that paints the clearest picture. Dell isn’t just buying into new markets, they’re investing to change the company.

When Dell acquired EqualLogic in 2008, many assumed it was a tactical investment to increase margins over the (resold) EMC storage equipment the company was then pushing. Pundits were similarly dismissive of the acquisition of Perot Systems in 2009, calling it a “me too” effort after HP acquired rival EDS. Regardless of the motivations, however, Dell was becoming more of a serious challenger to HP and IBM every day.

After failing to acquire 3PAR in 2010, then picking up Compllent shortly after, accusations that Dell was “mini me” to HP were rampant. But HP stumbled mightily in 2011, and many in IT quickly lost confidence in that company’s management. All the while, Dell moved forward, increasing in-house IP and expanding enterprise offerings.

What Is The Result?

Today, one sees a very different landscape than just last year. Dell’s acquisitions focused on some of the ripest spots in storage and networking, and no one would disagree that the company has the ability strongly to push these products. Compellent and Force10 went from interesting startups to serious contenders overnight.

Dell really pulled out all the stops to tell us they are "Fluid by Design"

More importantly, Dell has retained much of the innovation these companies offered, from employees to support programs. Last week, I attended the Dell Storage Forum in London, an event initiated by Compellent prior to the acquisition. At the event, I talked to many Dell employees who came to the company through acquisition but had now been given power to challenge the status quo in their respective areas.

If Dell really intended only to push product, why retain marketing personnel? Why invest in the Dell Storage Forum? Why continue Compellent’s beloved Co-Pilot support program?

Then there are the products. Dell leveraged its investment in Ocarina Networks to create a deduplicating backup appliance, the new DR4000. They salvaged file system startup ExaNet and are beginning to bring scale out technology to market. The latest revision of the Compellent software finally brings it to parity in terms of VMware support. And Dell is really working to sell their DX Object Store.

This is the sort of activity one would expect from a contender, not a “box pusher”.

Stephen’s Stance

In the words of Malcolm Reynolds, my days of not taking Dell seriously are certainly coming to a middle. Dell is investing in product IP, innovative marketing and PR events, customer support, and personnel. This does not mean that Dell is instantly a player in the enterprise storage and networking markets, or that all this work will pay off. But I don’t laugh when I hear Dell boast that they intend to be a “top three” enterprise storage company in a few years. It could happen.

Disclaimer: Dell sponsored two Tech Field Day events in 2011, paid me as a speaker at two DX events, and paid for my trip to Dell Storage Forum in London. But no one can buy a post on this site, and I did similar business with IBM, HP, Cisco, and many other companies. This is my opinion.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2012. | Why Should Anyone Take Dell Seriously in Enterprise Storage?
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

In the previous post, I talked about how the Drobo uses metadata monitoring to solve the telephone game and make de-allocation possible. But that approach is challenging in complex enterprise environments. Instead, most enterprise arrays use a complex chain of semaphores to interpret signals from the connected hosts about the capacity that can be un-provisioned.

On the storage side, arrays can only use the information they have to de-allocate: The data that’s stored on them. They don’t know what application is using it, what file system it is. They don’t know anything at all.

But, somewhere along the line, someone had a big idea and said, “wait a second, what if we look for pages that are all zeros?” We’ll talk about pages a bit later, but for now, let’s talk about zeros. A zero is kind of a smoke signal coming up from over the hills that says, “there’s nothing valuable here.”

So the storage array watches for pages that are all zero and reclaims them. As protection against making a stupid mistake (what if you actually wanted to write all zeros?), anybody who asks for a page that has been reclaimed just gets all zeros back.

Most of the major vendors support this kind of zero page reclaim. This is good stuff. I don’t want to sound too critical of them because I appreciate them implementing at least this.

The problem is that there’s not a lot of ability to actually have those zeros be written. Almost no operating system writes zeros to deleted space. If they actually wrote pages of zeros, thin provisioning would work great.

So what do the storage vendors do? They come up with utilities that write zeros!

NetApp has SnapDrive, which zeros out empty space so that the Filer can go and recover that space. You run it whenever you want to run it. Eventually the storage array notices that you’ve zeroed out that space and it recovers it. Compellent and Symantec’s Veritas Storage Foundation have something like that, too. You can also force it using the SDelete command, and you can configure it using VMware ESX.

Zero page reclaim is pretty straightforward. It doesn’t take a lot of computing power – It’s not like you’re watching the file system for changes or anything. All you’re doing is occasionally going through and deleting pages full of zeros. So, you can post-process it, kind of like de-duplication.

There are quite a few issues with zero page reclaim, though:

• Things aren’t writing zeros
• Most of these implementations are page-based, which looks like a problem
• Theoretically, this drives more IO through the system, not less

This last is the biggest problem, really. In most cases IO performance is a bigger issue than capacity in enterprise storage. If I could give you all the capacity you could possibly want or all the performance you could possibly want, most people would pick performance. It used to be capacity, but now it’s all about performance. If infrastructure folks could get one for free and had to pay for the other, they would definitely pay for performance.

And zero page reclaim, the way that it’s implemented with SDelete or with eagerzeroedthick, is driving tons of IO. Basically, a delete is the same as a write because you have to write all these zeros over the bus. But there’s a way around that, too. And that’s the topic for the next piece in this series.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Zero Page Reclaim: Savior of Thin Provisioning?
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• My writing
  • I continued my series on Light Peak by musing about combining Light Peak and USB 3.0 and pondering, what if Light Peak was electrical rather than optical?
  • SolarWinds’ presentations at Networking Field Day and Tech Field Day 4 prompted me to look into Application Performance Monitoring
  • I also pointed out a great deal on the Cradlepoint PHS300 Portable 3G WiFi Router
  • Then there was my thoughts on the Dell acquisition of Compellent
• Enterprise IT news
  • Jennifer Huber talks about personal Wi-Fi hotspot devices vs. enterprise-deployed guest networks
• Other geeky finds
  • The Gawker breach hit me and many others. Read more in Discussing Gawker’s Breach With Founder Nick Denton.

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, December 17, 2010
This post was categorized as Everything, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Everyone has a target on their backs, but they all aim in different directions

One of the amusing aspects of being self-employed is watching all the giants battle it out. Every company is gunning for someone, but the amazing thing is that they rarely point their sights directly at each other: NetApp is gunning for EMC who’s more focused on HP who wants to knock off Oracle who’s fixated on IBM. It sounds very “high school romance” but this is deadly-serious business.

The Enterprise IT Ladder: Dell, HP, Oracle, and IBM

Dell -> HP

No question about it: Dell wants to beat HP. It was bad enough back when PCs were king, with Dell constantly undercutting HP on price and supply chain efficiency. Dell went to retail, elbowing HP aside on the shelves at Staples, and even introduced a line of printers. But the enterprise data center has taken things to a whole new level. Dell’s plays in blade servers and storage are drawn from the same playbook, only there’s more in-house IP and R&D involved this time. Dell arguably got the iSCSI prize in EqualLogic but couldn’t seal the deal for 3PAR, settling on Compellent instead. They’re working hard in the professional services market; Could networking be next?

HP -> Oracle

For the longest time, HP wanted to be IBM. Then Oracle stomped on their servers with Sun and started flaunting their software-heavy profit margins. Appointing Leo Apothiker as CEO sends an unambiguous signal: HP’s gunning for Oracle. The printers, PC’s, servers, storage and networking gear isn’t going anywhere (HP’s got fights picked in each area), but software and services are the only way to make shares of HPQ perk up. Watch for some startling acquisitions and more bizarre rear-guard antics from Ellison and company.

Oracle -> IBM

Although Oracle is clearly enjoying poking sharp sticks in HP’s direction, they’re focused forward. Larry Ellison has seen the future, and it looks an awful lot like IBM: Massive services revenue, a “we do it all” executive sales pitch, and “hate to love us” handcuffs on the C-level executives at the largest global corporations. It’s worked so far: ORCL shares have risen steadily since the end of the last recession.

IBM -> IBM

IBM has seemed aimless for a decade. Armonk has won every enterprise IT war it’s fought, leaving it nowhere to turn. Spinning out the printer and PC businesses sent a signal that IBM was a different kind of company, and Wall Street is singing the chorus. In many ways, the middle-aged IBM of the 1980′s is the enemy of the new, with the company dreaming of a return to the “Mad Men” Big Blue of yore. Although this is much exactly what HP and Oracle are aiming for as well, IBM is the aloof valedictorian who just needs to keep his grades up until graduation.

Tag Team: EMC and Cisco -> HP

Cisco is like a mini IBM: All of their historical rivals are dead and buried, forcing them to look outside their traditional market for growth. Cisco seems loathe to climb the HP/Oracle/IBM ladder, seeking instead to take enough of their market to maintain solid revenue growth and profitability. Their blade servers smacked HP, which responded with a challenge in the networking space. Realizing they needed help, Cisco looked around for an “enemy of my enemy” to mount a serious IT infrastructure challenge.

What happens when you combine the market leaders in enterprise IT verticals like SAN storage, encryption and authentication, server virtualization, backup, and records management? You get EMC Corporation, the biggest company most “regular people” have never heard of. Something about “information.” Wall Street seems to have a hard time making sense of this company, too.

EMC seems overly concerned about smaller competitors (NetApp, Symantec, cloud providers), but the combination of EMC and Cisco is formidable indeed. The two and their joint venture, known as VCE, have the sales muscle to go head-to-head with Dell, HP, and IBM in the enterprise data center, and their control of key components make them a hard team to ignore.

The Wolves: NetApp and Juniper

NetApp -> EMC

Back in the 1980′s, Honda decimated the American carmakers with just a few models; They sold millions of Accords and Civics while GM watch whole brands disappear. That’s NetApp in the enterprise storage space. They pull in top-tier revenue quarter after quarter with essentially a single product line, taking on dozens of storage devices from HP, HDS, IBM, and EMC. Especially EMC. Talk to NetApp insiders and you’ll hear those three letters frequently, with precious little attention paid to anyone else. Data Domain might have made them a broader play, but NTAP shares have risen steadily since losing that takeover battle with EMC. Now NetApp is stripped down and running hard to close the revenue gap, too.

Juniper -> Cisco

Cisco is vulnerable in their core networking markets, and Juniper is ready to take them on. Since their $4 Billion acquisition of NetScreen in 2004, Juniper has been cherry-picking up-and-coming technologies in every market Cisco dominates, from the WAN to wireless. Though JNPR shares have taken their lumps, this is every bit a “Dell” to Cisco’s “HP”. The various networking sub-markets include many agile competitors, but Juniper is like NetApp: Insiders have a single-minded focus on the market leader.

Stephen’s Stance

The enterprise IT game is getting serious. Emerging from their historical strongholds, Dell, HP, and Oracle are each undermining the other, and everyone is chipping away at IBM. They each realize that they must focus upward for real growth rather than fighting a rear-guard against smaller and newer competitors. The challenge for HP and Oracle will be to expand rapidly enough to keep Wall Street from noticing the erosion from below.

Meanwhile, Cisco and EMC have joined forces out of necessity to grown both revenue and share price, while their own bases are chipped away by Juniper and NetApp. The upstarts can flourish within the verticals of networking and storage, but the VCE team is seems tenuous and uncertain. The joint venture can challenge the full-line players on a customer-by-customer basis, but history shows that only an integrated vendor can rock the enterprise IT world.

Although the information economy is growing, it will not be enough for everyone to survive. These competitors are too cut-throat to allow a smaller challenger to live, and each faces a real threat himself. The largest have a strong base to draw on, while the wolves will always find something to eat. It is those in the middle that face the most serious threat.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Every Company Is Gunning For Someone Else
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This regular series features highlights from the week.

• Things I wrote:
  • What is Application Performance Monitoring?
  • Thoughts On A Dell Acquisition Of Compellent
  • My Light Peak series
    • Is Everyone Wrong About Light Peak?
    • Light Peak + USB 3.0 = Awesome!
    • What If Light Peak Was Electrical Rather Than Optical?
  • My HP AirPrint series
    • Which AirPrint Printer Is Best?
    • AirPrint-Compatible: HP Photosmart e-All-in-One Line
    • AirPrint-Compatible: HP’s Sexy Envy 100 and Photosmart eStation Printers
  • Is The iPad Compatible With SDXC and ExFAT Cards?
• Other Enterprise IT links:
  • Wireless Field Day is getting me to know lots of great wireless techies:
    • Twitter for the WLAN Professional
    • Gestalt IT Wireless Field Day March 17-18 2011 SJC
    • Wi-Fi Frequencies: An Overview
    • Wireless Field Day
    • NFC Smartphones Could Mean Greater Customer Influence
  • Microsoft’s cloud plays, in English
  • SSP Failure to Cloud Storage Success – What a Difference a Decade Makes
  • The different QoS capabilities of the VMware vSwitch’s
  • Is a whitebox or branded box better for a VMware lab?
  • Devops: The Re-emergance of Systems Engineering as a Discipline
  • Virtualizing the PCIe bus with Aprius
  • Unimpressed by Zettar
  • Virtualization and High Bandwidth Datacenter–How the Datacenter Landscape Is Changing
• Geeky techie links:
  • The Next Thing I Loved Today – Dell’s Social Media Command Center
  • The problems with digital audio archives
  • Taking a WikiLeak
  • Full Body Scanners: What’s Next?

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, December 10, 2010
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Everything, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• My writing
  • Cloud storage gateway eases transition to cloud storage services
  • Eleven Tech Trends To Watch In 2011
  • How To Write To Windows NTFS Drives In Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard”
  • Introducing “Raising the Floor”, Our Datacenter Podcast
• Enterprise tech
  • NetApp Snapshot: News On NetApp – Ep 4
  • December #SANchat – 11 Trends for 2011
  • Fujitsu Teams up with NetApp to Design a Storage Blade
  • The Scaling Limitations of Etherchannel -Or- Why 1+1 Does Not Equal 2
• Other geeky stuff:
  • The Curse of Beta Hardware
  • Full Body Scanners: What’s Next?
  • Useful applications for the PC-to-iPad convert
  • CradlePoint CTR-500 Review

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, December 3, 2010
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The players are lining up for the biggest acquisition game enterprise IT has witnessed in a while

Today is the (a?) day of reckoning in the 3Par saga, with Dell widely expected to make a counter-offer higher than HP’s bid. But this mega deal, like the Data Domain war before it, sends a strong signal to the enterprise IT world: It’s open season on data storage companies! But the rising superpowers are also likely looking at networking as an area of expansion. The game is afoot!

The Competitors

The simple fact is, enterprise IT prefers to buy from large, established names like HP and IBM rather than smaller and less-familiar companies with names like Ocarina, EqualLogic, or even 3Par. The acceleration of sales by enterprise providers is what makes these big acquisitions so successful and why others involving less-powerful players often fail to deliver the same results.

Full-line “superpowers” like IBM, HP and now Dell and the new Oracle can influence purchasing decisions across a broad spectrum of hardware and software. Many large organizations are tightly coupled to one of these vendors, and will give their products stronger consideration even when they are new or unfamiliar. HP is already flexing their muscle selling their broadened network lineup, and Dell found that it could do this in data storage.

Software vendors like Microsoft, Citrix, and Oracle adamantly maintained a neutral stance toward hardware, but Ellison and company seem serious about changing this. Oracle’s success in selling Sun hardware will likely dictate further software acquisitions for Dell and HP, though IBM already has strength there. Then there is Intel, the wild card who just got wilder with their acquisition of McAfee.

Companies with narrower focus like Cisco, EMC, NetApp, Juniper, and Brocade have the same power within their sphere of influence but cannot pull in wholly-distinct products. Cisco is in the midst of this fight with their technically-excellent UCS blade servers: Although they were certainly a strategic CIO-level vendor in the largest organizations, “blades from a networking company” isn’t the as easy a decision as “networking gear from a full-line company.”

The Game

Then one must consider the market in contention. The enterprise IT space is not expanding, especially in the United States. This is very close to a zero-sum game, with Oracle’s or Dell’s wins being HP’s or IBM’s losses and vice-versa. There is massive money in play, and flexibility enough for it to swing between the competitors, but growth is not unlimited.

Enterprise storage and data center and campus networking are two areas where smaller companies retain enviably-large slices of the pie, explaining the interest in these spaces among the superpowers. These verticals still have room for sales to grow without displacing a fierce full-line foe, and the superpowers have lately been weak here. Storage and networking are enticing opportunities, but each slice is similarly dominated by “vertical superpowers” and partners EMC and Cisco.

So this is the game: Four full-line enterprise superpowers battling each other for datacenter dominance and coveting the extra profits of a few verticals. HP clearly believes they can chip away at EMC and Cisco in storage and networking; Dell and IBM have so far focused mainly on storage; and Oracle hasn’t made a move in either direction, instead challenging the other three in the core server and software space.

Pawns or Knights?

So where does this leave the smaller players? Are they merely pawns in the game, waiting to be sacrificed, or are they knights who can wield power across the field? The largest (Cisco and EMC especially) appear to have ambitions of their own as well as the financial and technical strength to shake up the game. They are unlikely to be acquired by the superpowers. Brocade, too, has broad strength in storage and networking but maintains relationships across the board that make an acquisition difficult.

Strong vertical players like Juniper, NetApp, Riverbed, and Compellent are ripe for acquisition, as were Foundry, 3Com, Data Domain, and 3Par. IBM, Dell, and Oracle are all likely buyers of the networking players, though HP may consider filling in where 3Com was found lacking. All four will likely take a strong look at the remaining storage players as well, with the loser in the battle for 3Par likely to be hungry indeed.

One should also consider the potential impact of smaller acquisitions. Although they would not immediately “move the needle” for a massive superpower, there are many excellent technology companies that could be bought low and pushed strongly. The enterprise-class technology at Sepaton, Pillar Data, Xiotech, BlueArc, Extreme Networks, Force10, Blue Coat, Isilon, CommVault, FalconStor, and many others should not be overlooked. If a superpower can drive a larger acquisition to succeed, imagine what they can do with strong but inexpensive technology from one of these!

Stephen’s Stance

This game is nowhere near finished. The 3Par acquisition will not only generate revenue, it will shake up the ranking of data storage array dominance. This is very likely to kick off additional acquisition in the data storage space, spurring either Dell or HP to pick up additional technology and perhaps causing IBM or Oracle to engage as well. With no easy alternatives to 3Par, I expect Compellent, Xiotech, and Pillar to get closer looks, but Sepaton and BlueArc are just as ripe. NetApp may be too expensive at this point, but would be a nice match for Oracle’s strategy.

HP’s acquisition of 3Com could also signal a race to integrate datacenter and campus networking technology into the stack. Many are suggesting a Brocade acquisition, and it would be much cheaper than Juniper, but OEM ties make it a difficult purchase for any of the superpowers. Extreme and Force10 would be excellent and less-expensive alternatives.

We should also keep our eyes outside the superpower space. Intel showed that they can make big moves, and Microsoft might consider a diversification into hardware as well. One should also look to the East, where Huawei could try to enter the Western market with a merger or joint-venture to cast off the China stigma. Although I would love to see a rebel alliance rise (imagine Juniper, NetApp, and Symantec joining forces!) this is not a likely scenario.

Image credit: Chess Board by mosdave

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | The Enterprise IT Acquisition Game
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

I’ve long wished for a new enterprise storage superpower. Competition is good for everyone, and the enterprise storage space has always been highly competitive. Traditional SAN storage powers (EMC, HDS, HP, and IBM) have been under continual attack from tech-heavy upstarts like EqualLogic, LeftHand, Compellent, Xiotech, and 3Par. The smaller (revenue-wise) NAS market has been more serial, with NetApp knocking off Auspex, then challenged by EMC. Yet innovators have been thick there as well, from Exanet to Ibrix, Isilon to Onstor.

Through it all, one thing has been clear: The major companies, though perhaps lagging in technology, were usually able to withstand the attack of the upstarts through sheer strength of salesforce. Storage is a strategic investment, and selection of a storage platform is much more far-reaching than many IT product decisions. The inertia of an installed storage environment makes it a real challenge to switch vendors, giving the established players massive leverage.

It became clear to me and many others that the best way for upstart companies (and, by extension, technologies) was to be part of an established vendor’s sales process. OEM relationships were a big part of this (witness the success of BlueArc and even NetApp and HDS) but acquisition was a much stronger proposition. If customers were warmer to OEM products than independent sales, they are much hotter when it comes to acquired technology. HP, Dell, IBM, and EMC have all demonstrated the power that comes when an established company buys a startup and puts the power of their sales force behind these new products.

This explains Dell’s fantastic success with EqualLogic. They took a product that was emerging as dominant in its niche (midrange iSCSI SAN) and blasted it into the market, while at the same time optimizing manufacturing and deployment. EMC did the same with Clariion and DataDomain, and HP is showing strong signs of health with LeftHand and Ibrix. Then there is IBM, who took XIV out of Israel and made it a source of irritation to the rest of the industry.

Many industry watchers have long wondered what would happen if the smaller guys got together, forming a new superpower of their own. Would 3Par, BlueArc, and Sepaton be a real challenger? What about Xiotech or Compellent and Isilon or FalconStor? Is mixing and matching some smaller companies a recipe for success? The answer was often a counter-question: What if someone like Dell, who knows how to manufacture and sell, picked them up instead? This seemed much more like a sure-thing, since the established management and financials stave off potential integration issues.

It appears that this is the future. Established players will pick up smaller companies, fortifying their offerings and accelerating sales in a way the little guys weren’t capable of. Dell’s billion-dollar acquisition of 3Par reportedly headed off a similar offer from HP, and will likely spark another acquisition. I imagine the management teams at Compellent and Xiotech just got a lot busier…

Clearly, Dell and HP are playing this game. IBM and EMC are in it, too. But what about Cisco and Oracle? Could they be planning storage acquisitions of their own, to the detriment of partners like EMC and Hitachi? What about the strong contingent from Japan, NEC and Hitachi? And who gets picked up next? We shall see!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Dell + EqualLogic, Exanet, Ocarina, 3Par = What?
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Might Token Ring networks make a comeback or will pigs fly? Industry pundits believe they just might!

Industry veterans fondly remember the LAN wars of the early 1990′s, when a diverse set of excellent data link protocols competed for dominance. Although the victory seemed to have gone to Ethernet, industry insiders are looking for a resurgence of better alternatives. One technology, Token Ring, is undeniably superior for transporting modern protocols, especially Fibre Channel for storage. Let’s take a look!

Meeting Modern Needs

Ethernet is poorly-suited for modern datacenter needs. It lacks the reliability and guaranteed delivery needed by storage protocols, the packets are too small, traffic cannot be prioritized, and thick coaxial cables barrel connectors have proven unreliable. We have heard rumors of so-called “data center” enhancements, but analysts are unimpressed. “Ethernet doesn’t belong in the data center,” says Steve Duplicity of the Universal Strategy Federation. “Data center bridging extensions are as useless as the snow tires my Ferrari dealer sells. No one would ever use them in anger.”

Token Ring, in contrast, comes prepared for data center use right out of the box. Token Priority, previously used only to avoid collisions, can also be used to prioritize storage traffic over all other payloads. “Collisions are as common on Ethernet networks as on High School parking lots,” continues Duplicity, “and avoidance algorithms work as well as the American drivers’ education system.” Prioritization of Ethernet packets has been similarly problematic. “Guaranteed bandwidth is key,” claims Packet Pusher Ethan Banks. “Storage, like school kids, wants to be transported on a bus, and Token Ring can arbitrate that access.”

Token Ring’s 20% payload size advantage makes the network more efficient than Ethernet. Although a typical Fibre Channel frame of over 2 KB would still need to be split in two, Token Ring advocates insist that two of their frames will be “much better” than two Ethernet frames. This makes Fibre Channel over Token Ring (FCoTR) “a sure thing” according to insiders like W. Curtis Preston.

Industry Support

The entire industry is lining up to support Fibre Channel over Token Ring. “We’re looking at it,” admitted Liem Nguyen of Compellent at Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day. “The more we hear about FCoTR, the more people are talking about it.” Nguyen admitted that Compellent was giving FCoTR the consideration it deserved.

Support for the Fibre Channel over Token Ring user group and blog has jumped rapidly in recent days (see Too good to be true). Storage startup Nimble Storage admitted at Tech Field Day that they were watching FCoTR “with great interest” and could, in theory, support the protocol alongside iSCSI. NetApp will respond to “customer demand” for FCoTR, agrees Alex McDonald.

Network manufacturers are excited to bring Token Ring back as well. “Madge Networks is ready to support demand,” notes USF’s Duplicity. “And I hear Proteon is making a comeback as well. IBM, of course, never stopped supporting Token Ring and has thousands of loyal customers.” Intel is reportedly working on a Micro Channel to PCI Express bridge to ease the transition.

Cisco is predictably sour on the product. “You have got to be kidding me,” said a company spokesperson who asked not to be identified. “Token Ring? Seriously? Are you calling on a Motorola StarTAC?”

Network experts were cautiously optimistic. “Trill uses isis, which was largely ripped off from DECnet,” notes potato fan Russell Heilling. “Is storage over DECnet just around the corner?” Jeff Darcy and Greg “Ethereal Mind” Ferro were excited at this prospect. “Whoa, the storage folks would LOVE THAT,” says Ferro of FCoDECnet.

Ferro sums up the appeal of FCoTR. “Anyone stupid enough to believe in Fibre Channel is absolutely stupid enough to be convinced that FCoTR is a good idea.”

Image source: Redgrittybrick/Wikimedia

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Fibre Channel over Token Ring: In-Depth Analysis
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Tech Field Day 101

Tech Field Day is a series of events organized by me, put on by professionals, but catalyzed by a group of loosely-affiliated volunteers. We bring a dozen or so hand-picked “delegates” to a city to meet with a half-dozen interesting IT technology companies. The last Field Day was in Boston, and we were in San Jose before that. We’ll be returning to San Jose for two more events in 2010: A networking-focused Field Day in September and another “gestalt” Field Day event in November.

One critical aspect is the selection of the delegates who get to attend, all expenses paid. It’s like setting up a dinner party: We have to get the right mix of focus areas, geographies, and personalities to make it work out. There are three most-desirable attributes for a delegate: Independence and an open mind, technical knowledge, and community leadership. Everyone we’ve brought in so far has certainly excelled in these areas!

The whole event is run as a cooperative endeavor rather than a corporate event. We’re trying to keep things a bit loose and fun, though we have to run a tight ship when it comes to the business of travel and logistics. The presenting sponsors have really grasped this concept, too, bringing their best and brightest for some rip-roaring discussions.

What’s In Store: Seattle

The Seattle event will center on the Microsoft campus, with 2/3 of the sessions held in their Partner Developer Center in Redmond. It’s here that we’ll hear from Compellent and Veeam, as well as a brand new company launching at the event on Thursday. We will also travel to the Seattle-area offices of F5 and NEC America.

One concern voiced by many was that companies were hiring up all the good independents. I’m glad to report that this is not the case. In fact, we’ve never had such a diverse mix of delegates, most of whom are new to the Field Day experience! There’s networking expert Ethan Banks, virtualization gurus Jason Boche, “Rodos” Haywood, and Craig Stewart, and familiar storage faces Ilja Coolen and Howard Marks. We’ve also got Kevin “Blades Made Simple” Houston, W. Curtis “Mr. Backup” Preston, and Bob “The Lone Sysadmin” Plankers. Making repeat Redmond pilgrimages are John “Absolutely Windows” Obeto and fellow storage MVP, Derek Schauland. Every one of these folks is respected for his technical knowledge, opinionated yet open-minded, and renouned for his support of the IT community.

The delegate group will be gathering Wednesday night to get to know one another before diving into two packed days of briefings, feedback, and roundtable discussions. As is our Field Day tradition, delegates, sponsors, and friends will come together Thursday night for an informal evening party. The signature local spot this time around is the Red Barn that served as the first manufacturing site for aircraft giant, Boeing. We also have some informal activities planned in the Seattle area before and after the event.

Follow Along

I encourage you to follow the action this week. We’ll be tweeting using the #TechFieldDay hashtag, or you can follow the entire delegate roster and presenting sponsors using our Twitter lists. Video is an important component, and we will be uploading to both Vimeo and YouTube as well as experimenting with live videocasting on Justin.tv. Blog posts and other long content will be noted in our Seattle Field Day Links page as well as on Posterous, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Look for Field Day photos on Flickr, too, and subscribe to our Roundtable Podcast on iTunes. Whew!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Live This Week: Gestalt IT Tech Field Day Seattle
This post was categorized as Everything. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.