Understanding the accumulation of data
HP stumbled mightily in 2011, and it had nothing to do with product or people. Even sales remained strong, though the PC business is changing. HP’s mighty stumble was a crisis of confidence due to a chain of shenanigans at the very top. This culminated with the short reign of Léo Apotheker, leaving HP to reassure the market of its strategy.
VMware is adding storage integration features to their flagship vSphere server virtualization product line at a rapid pace. From backup to enterprise array offload, VMware is staking their claim. But information about one new storage feature in vSphere 5 has been scarce: The true nature of the Storage API for Storage Awareness (VASA) is only just beginning to be revealed.
VMware doesn’t want to hurt its parent, EMC, any more than Oedipus desired his own parents’ fate. Indeed, VMware spends an incredible amount of time and effort innovating both internal and external integration features for storage. They do this to meet their own I/O demands, not out of bloodlust or hubris. But like the tragic hero in a Greek play, VMware is destined to anonymize and homogenized enterprise storage, and this will drastically affect the future of EMC and other pure storage vendors.
If VMware aims to transform storage presentation, and is working with major storage vendors to make it happen, HDS ought to be part of it. Their history, technology, and market position earn them a spot in the “VAAI Cabal” and their omission was a bombshell to industry-watchers like me.
Iomega surprised exactly no one by announcing an updated 12-drive rack mount storage array today. Featuring “Cloud Edition” software introduced earlier this year, the px12-350r also sports mildly updated hardware specs, though still relies on Intel’s “Core2 Duo” CPUs and Gigabit Ethernet. The new device slots in between the desktop px4/px6 line and parent EMC’s new VNXe storage devices.
I’ve witnessed quite a few publicity stunts from IT industry companies, many of which include over-the-top videos. But it’s rare to find one that’s actually amusing and informative. That’s why I was so pleased to discover a new video from Symantec on YouTube: It’s silly and fun, well produced, and actually tells us something about data de-duplication! Take a look yourself, and let me know what you think.
During the WWDC “Stevenote” we got a rare glimpse into the mysterious Apple North Carolina data center. Two shots have been seen online so far: One showing swoopy Teradata racks and another open, exposing HP rack servers and what looks like a NetApp array. Since Apple spent billions building out this datacenter, and has kept their product choices very quiet, it’s amusing to try to suss out what they are using from their own promo video.
I am often questioned during my Storage for Virtual Environments seminar presentations about VMware’s Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA). This system is fairly straightforward and concept: VMware provides native multipathing support for a variety of storage arrays, and allows third parties to substitute their own plug-ins at various points in the stack. But the profusion of acronyms and third-party options makes it difficult for end-users to figure out what is going on.
It’s never been a better time to be in the market for enterprise storage products, with many excellent options available at affordable prices. But the market can be confusing for the uninitiated, with a variety of network options and capabilities. Even those of us “in the know” about enterprise storage are sometimes surprised by the offerings and companies in this space! So when Jerome Wendt from DCIG approached me to collect data for a market overview and buyer’s guide, I was excited. It was my big chance to really get to know these products!
I love April Fools day. Like Halloween, it gives us all a chance to take ourselves a little less seriously and just have some fun. And the best April Fools pranks are those that point out real limitations in our thinking and mindset. That’s always been my April 1 goal: Why not combine Wi-Fi and PoE? And doesn’t the “giant iPod Touch” sound like a hoax?
This week, two blog readers let me know what Google Chrome was warning them of malware on my blog. I dived in and discovered that, indeed, a nasty, obfuscated JavaScript attack had made its way into my site. Although I was disappointed by the lack of clarity about how to fix it, I believe I was able to remove it last night.
Although Clear clearly wants buyers to sign up for monthly service, they also have “secret” on-demand 2-hour, daily, and weekly plans. Here’s how to get online cheap!
HP stumbled mightily in 2011, and it had nothing to do with product or people. Even sales remained strong, though the PC business is changing. HP’s mighty stumble was a crisis of confidence due to a chain of shenanigans at the very top. This culminated with the short reign of Léo Apotheker, leaving HP to reassure the market of its strategy.
For a massive IT company, Dell sure doesn’t get the kind of respect given their competitors. Time and again, I’ll hear the sneers about Dell being little more than a “box shifter” who doesn’t “get” real enterprise IT needs. After a series of acquisitions in storage and networking, Dell is trying to stake a claim as a serious competitor to HP, IBM, Oracle, and the like. But why should anyone take Dell seriously, especially in enterprise storage?
Any time OS X corrects your spelling or (more likely) inserts appropriate accent marks, Dictate loses its mind and can no longer correctly enter some random letter. There are two ways to fix this problem (apart from just restarting Dictate all the time).
Moving cold virtual machine images from system to system, or even across great distances, is one of the main selling points of server virtualization. But it becomes much more difficult to manage movement of virtual machines that are still running, especially outside cluster or across WAN links. When talking about virtual machine mobility, it is important to consider what is being moved, the state it is in, and where it is going.
The difference between American and European mobile phone providers are vast, and the modern traveler is likely to run afoul if they are unprepared, running up a surprisingly large bill! Here’s a rundown of my standard techniques to prepare my American mobile phone for travel abroad.
The CompactFlash Association announced a new media card format last month, and now Sony and Nikon have introduced the first media and digital cameras, respectively. But what exactly is an XQD memory card? Read on for the details.
What elements remain unresolved to make FCoE truly world-class? What should the vendors be prioritizing?
Although they are ridiculously inefficient, incandescent lightbulbs seem to have a huge number of fans. Despite the romance of the glowing filament, many governments are moving to ban the use of incandescent light bulbs in many applications. Here in the United States, the federal government intends to encourage the use of more efficient light bulbs but there is no outright ban.