Who will power the enterprise? The smart money is betting on a few superpowers taking over.

After years spent focusing on personal technology, businesses are increasingly turning back to the enterprise. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest one is the poor economy. Individuals simply have less free cash to spend on gadgets and software, and the meagre profits are increasingly going into the pockets of a single company: Apple.

The corporate IT market is much more dynamic and competitive, with a few very large “superpower” companies discovering their power to drive purchasing decisions. If a supplier can create an integrated “stack” of hardware and software, they can push product purchases that might otherwise be overlooked or postponed. This is the main reason that enterprise IT acquisitions work so well: Where a small company must fight to sell their product, a large one can hitch it to a much more strategic sale and have it pulled along.

The old IBM model is the prototype, with that company once selling everything from office equipment to datacenter gear as well as the consulting and integration services to make it all work.

HP has spent almost two decades bulking up to become the new IBM, buying their way into open systems laptops, desktops, and servers (Compaq), networking (3Com), services (EDS), and storage (Compaq, LeftHand, Ibrix, and perhaps 3Par). HP has been remarkably proficient at executing on this enterprise plan: In talking to enterprise IT folks, I often hear IBM-esque sentiments regarding the new HP. They tell me they’re willing to give HP the benefit of the doubt when it comes to new technologies and products, buying on basis of the company’s reputation and ability to make everything work. This bodes well for the company’s post-Hurd future, and HP has the most-complete “enterprise stack” in the business.

But HP has a target on its back, pinned there by Dell. The folks from Round Rock believe they can be more efficient (and thus profitable) than HP in the same markets, and have been making moves to fortify their enterprise offerings. Dell was always more of a manufacturing than R&D business, but they have shown a desire to broaden their focus. Intrigued by the high-margin mid-enterprise storage business built from their EqualLogic acquisition and their success selling EMC storage, Dell is moving into the enterprise. They matched HP/EDS by purchasing Perot and have made smaller buys in storage (Ocarina, Exanet) as well as the big move for 3Par.

The next big emerging stack player is Oracle. The acquisition of Sun gave Oracle a strong hardware base to complement their command of enterprise software, and many expect further acquisitions. But Oracle is playing a different game than HP and Dell, focusing on the high-margin enterprise space and ignoring more competitive outlying areas. Many suspect the company might make a play in the network space (Brocade, Juniper, and F5 have been mentioned) but storage is possible as well. CEO Larry Ellison is a major investor in Pillar Data Systems, so many expect a spin-in here. But Oracle has the appetite for something much bigger, even EMC or NetApp.

Then there is Cisco, who have attempted to parlay their data center networking strength into a broader position. But Cisco’s halting moves into storage (Fibre Channel switching and SAN extension) did not displace the market leaders, and their server products (UCS) have not made much of a dent on HP, IBM, and Dell either. A solid partnership with EMC has delayed further forays into the enterprise storage market, and Cisco seems puzzlingly interested in low-margin access businesses (Linksys, Flip) and their Cius tablet.

There are other players in the enterprise space as well. EMC has diversified under CEO Joe Tucci, taking a dominant position in server virtualization (VMware) and making a strong enterprise security acquisition (RSA). But the many faces of enterprise storage remains EMC’s strength, and they seem content to partner with Cisco for a stack sale. Hitachi, NEC, and Fujitsu also offer varying enterprise hardware and software stacks, but their comparatively small sales presence in the US market limits their ability to execute. In the final analysis, only IBM, HP, Dell, and perhaps Oracle can claim to be enterprise IT superpowers at this point.

Image credit: Steam Engine by Stuck in Customs

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Meet the Enterprise IT Superpowers
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.

Western Digital is first to market with "Advanced Format" 4K-sector drives, but when will vendors support them?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the new generation of hard disk drives that use 4K sectors rather than the historic 512 byte size. As I noted in that piece, although PC and Mac users with recent OS versions had nothing to fear from these, embedded devices like the TiVo and Drobo I use and love might not be compatible. I tried reaching out to these vendors, but only one has actually responded.

Drobo Compatibility Is Coming

You can discover all sorts of things in firmware release notes if you look hard enough. The latest firmware for the Data Robotics DroboElite and Drobo S (versions 1.0.1 and 2.0.1, respectively) now include 4K drive support. The former was released at the end of December, though I didn’t get around to blogging about it then. So users of the third-generation Drobo products are set as far as 4K “Advanced Format” drives go.

I sat down with Drobo’s new CEO, Tom Buiocchi, at the Business Development Event in Palo Alto today and asked about this issue. The company assures me that the still-current second-generation devices, the Drobo and Drobo Pro, will also get 4K disk drive support in their next firmware update. They recommend updating the firmware of any Drobo device before installing a 4K drive, since the drive will have to be reformatted and rebuilt otherwise. I appreciate their responsiveness.

Update: Drobo Pro (firmware 1.1.5) and the base Drobo (firmware 1.3.6) got 4k drive support in early February!

If Not Now, When?

Since these new drives remain scarce, I agree that this support alone is not cause for a firmware rev. But the fact that online retailers are shipping them with little notice or warning about incompatibility does raise flags. Here’s hoping everyone supports them before they become common!

I remain concerned that no other maker of embedded hard disk-based devices has responded. This is not a priority for those that don’t support end users swapping out hard disk drives, but there are many devices that remain questionable. I’d love to hear from Netgear, Iomega, Linksys, Synology and others regarding their level of support.

Update: Synology released updated firmware to support the Western Digital EARS 4K Advanced Format family of drives at the exact moment I posted this!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Drobo Adding 4K Drive Support – What About Everyone Else?
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Zip drives like this 1996 parallel-port example made Iomega famous, but EMC is giving the company a second act

Pity poor old Iomega. The company responsible for hot products like the Zip drive and coulda-beens like the Clik drive was stumbling in the early part of this decade, unable to distinguish itself from all of the other providers of commodity external storage devices for consumers. Although the company had built the Zip into a viable floppy drive successor, USB “thumb drives” took that market by storm, replacing removable disks with flash memory.

The company was working to break into the small business market in the middle of this decade, offering Rev disk-based backup, small desktop and rack-mount NAS servers, and internet storage in addition to well-regarded software add-ins. But by that time, Maxtor, Seagate, and Western Digital had come to dominate the external USB drive market, and Lexar, PNY, and the like had taken over the removable world.

Then EMC stepped in with their March, 2008, $178 million buyout offer. Iomega rebuffed the offer at first, since it was in the process of being merged with China’s Excelstor. But after some apparently tough back and forth between the companies, Iomega finally accepted a $213 million offer in early April, completing the acquisition in June. Although it made sense for EMC to move down-market, as Cisco did with their similar Linksys acquisition, many wondered how this would work out, especially when one considers the contentious buyout process.

We needn’t have worried – ever since the EMC buyout, Iomega has rocketed forward, introducing intriguing new products, finding synergies within EMC, and gaining mindshare. Although they still peddle commodity storage, Iomega’s new line of EMC-powered NAS systems is getting the real attention (VMware geeks especially should take a hard look at the StorCenter ix2!) But the company ought to make a few marketing changes if it is to really succeed.

EMC Throws a Lifeline

Without a doubt, it was EMC’s LifeLine software that injected the most adrenalin into Iomega. Although it predated the acquisition, LifeLine is a perfect fit for Iomega: It’s a Linux-based NAS operating system with RAID, Retrospect backup, integrated media services (compatible with iTunes, Xbox, Wii, and UPnP), print services, and unusual features like Picture Transfer Protocol, Bluetooth, and Axis surveillance storage.

It’s a great combination of home features, and Iomega quickly launched a product including this software: the StorCenter ix2. Although Iomega had used the StorCenter brand name for years on a variety of NAS devices, the ix2 was the first to use EMC’s LifeLine software. The combination of Iomega, LifeLine, and Retrospect makes for a compelling home product, and many a “terabyte home” is switching to the platform. But the product’s inherited industrial design is plain (one blogger suggested it had a Wife Acceptance Factor issue), and the naming is confusing. A casual shopper would have no way of differentiating the various StorCenter products – indeed, it is difficult for me to figure out the various product lines from Iomega’s sales-oriented web site!

Predictably, Iomega is expanding their LifeLine-powered lineup both down- and up-market. The company recently introduced a smaller single-drive LifeLine-powered home NAS device, and we are hearing rumors of larger office-oriented versions. But the little guy also uses hand-me-down clothes, and is tagged with a mouthful of a name that is at once inconsistent and forgettable: Home Media Network Hard Drive. The average consumer would have no way of knowing what lurks under the skin of this home NAS, since it looks exactly like the basic USB-connected Prestige line! Why can’t the company that gave us the pretty eGo drive design something a little more attractive – check out what the competition is offering!

Moving On Up

Although their home-oriented offerings are compelling, VMware geeks should keep their eye on the upscale uses of the LifeLine platform! It hasn’t been officially announced, but EMC folks are saying that iSCSI will be added to LifeLine in short order. And the platform is already VMware certified!

Interested in building your own VMware lab? Pick up an ix2 and use NFS until the iSCSI software is added. It’s on the HCL, and makes an excellent platform for playing around with ESX! Plus, you can stream iTunes and store webcam video of your door at the same time!

Although the rest of the StorCenter line isn’t currently LifeLine powered, I’m sure it’ll be upgraded in short order. It might not be powerful enough for real enterprise computing, but a small office or lab would be well served by EMC’s kid-brother systems.

Although Iomega’s latest offerings are compelling, the company really needs to do something about its marketing. Ditch the bland and confusing names and cases and come up with something really compelling. Let buyers know which systems are LifeLine-powered and transform the web site from an online store into a site that draws attention to the unique features of these systems. Although EMC’s products might sell themselves, the consumer / prosumer / small business market is a tough one, as Iomega must already know.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | EMC Makes Iomega Relevant Again
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, 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.

Homes now need data storage as well as closets...

This is part of an ongoing series of longer articles I will be posting every Sunday as part of an experiment in offering more in-depth content.

Along with my professional focus on enterprise storage systems, I’m enamored of home networking, and recently passed the three terabyte mark at home! This got me thinking about where home storage is heading.

As you can see in the photo, my office closet is overflowing with computer equipment (and one sweet guitar), but my data storage is much better organized. I have a hacked Linksys NSLU2 with 500 GB as a file server, a 500 GB PC backup disk, a 160 GB Time Machine disk, 1 TB of TiVo storage, and the rest. But wouldn’t it be nice if this could all be combined into some kind of super home server?

Past Failures: Home Servers

Home storage appliances and servers have come and gone over the year, with none seeming to make much of a mark. The market remains littered with UPNP media servers and home NAS boxes dashed on the shoals of an unappreciative public. Nearly every home network device company has produced one or two home storage servers, none of which have succeeded. Although I use a Linksys NSLU2 at home, I had to hack its Linux software and completely replace Linksys’ features to create a useful device! The un-hacked NAS devices of Buffalo, Western Digital, Netgear, and the rest have generally failed to find buyers as well. So far, consumers seem content with simple USB and FireWire external drives.

The most adventurous home storage servers came from Zetera and Ximeta, both of whom relied on proprietary IP SAN protocols. Note that these were SAN products, sharing block storage over Ethernet, rather than conventional NAS solutions. Both required drivers, limiting client support. The one Zetera buyer I know was pleased by the performance but never used the device as anything but a large hard drive for one PC.

Then there is Microsoft. Recall that the latest Windows Home Server is only their latest attempt to enter this market, and yet I know of no one who has adopted the device. The same can be said of the various media center servers from Microsoft and others. At this point, it seems likely that the future of home storage servers will not come from Microsoft, though their two XBox generations have great potential as clients.

Even EMC has entered the market with their nifty (but largely unnoticed) LifeLine product and Iomega acquisition. Supporting file services and backup for computers as well as audio and video for media players, EMC positions LifeLine much like their Retrospect backup product, but goes further in offering a complete software solution for hardware OEMs wanting to offer a non-Windows home server. Although an impressive offering, it is too early to tell if EMC will have much success with this product.

The Sleek, Shiny Elephant in the Living Room

Of course, there is one company that sells media players and servers by the bushel, complete with sleek, shiny interfaces. Apple’s tremendous success with the iPod has led to their iTunes software becoming the dominant media organization platform, complete with its own proprietary discovery and sharing protocol. Now, with the Apple TV and video iPods, the company is broadening into more media categories. Surely their dominance here puts them in a special position when it comes to setting the stage for a home server or storage revolution.

They also have a strong position in the world of dedicated home storage. Their Airport products are among the only routers to be widely implemented with shared storage. Although many other companies offer similar products, low customer understanding means that these functions are not widely used. And the new Time Capsule device is surely already the most widely-used home NAS product.

But Apple has not yet shown any home server strategy. Administering multiple iTunes servers can be frustrating for users, with no inter-iTunes synchronization or centralization capability. Although the Mac Mini, Apple TV, or Time Capsule could certainly be seen as a home server, the company does not position them as such in the market. Indeed, some iTunes users like myself rely on compatible third party media servers like Firefly and TwonkyVision rather than using iTunes itself. Still, rumors of an Apple home server persist.

One issue for Apple is their reliance on proprietary protocols. Although the Bonjour discovery protocol is certainly simpler than UPnP in practice, Apple stands alone in relying on it. They also steadfastly stick to AFP for NAS and DAAP for remote media streaming. This limits the number of third-party clients and servers that can be used with their hardware and software.

The Future is Friendly

Although Apple has not yet tipped a home storage strategy beyond Time Capsule and Airport Extreme, they are best positioned to deliver a real home storage solution. A simple step would be to create an iTunes media server integrated with Time Capsule and add client/server media synchronization. The company already has OS X backup and file services integrated, and this move would further centralize the digital home around Apple products. But the company’s reliance on closed protocols like DAAP is worrisome, since it locks consumers into nearly all-Apple solutions.

Microsoft’s Media Center and Home Server combination, based around UPnP, shows great promise, with many compatible third-party clients and servers already available. But my own experience with the solution has not been at all positive (I still can’t get my Roku SoundBridge, Vista Ultimate laptop, and Media Center PC to see each other!), leading me to question the viability of this option.

Although Apple or Microsoft could come to dominate, I suspect the future of home storage is out of both companies hands. A number of others are working on improved home server experiences, including EMC’s LifeLine and the expanding use of Debian Linux and open source tools. But all could be sidelined by improved Internet-based services. Google, Microsoft, and Apple continue to expand their online consumer suites with greater storage, synchronization, multimedia integration, and all have the potential to reduce or eliminate the need for in-home storage.

Although I cannot yet tell which service will win, one thing is certain: Consumers demand friendly, flexible solutions. They don’t want to fuss with their media, and they don’t want simple shared storage. They want integration with multiple devices and flexibility to access their content on any device. The first company to offer a simple, flexible storage server for the home will surely be on the right track!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | The Future of Home Storage
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Although both of my TiVos can browse and play mp3 files, they require the television to be on and a special server running on a PC (or so I thought, more on that later). It was critical that any digital music solution be directly browsable and searchable using a remote control, since the kids perk up whenever they hear the big tube on our Sony TV burp to life.

Although there are a good many home music players available, two immediately rose above the rest: the Slim Devices Squeezebox, and the Roku SoundBridge M1001. Both are somewhat similar in that they are designed to connect to a home network and browse and play digital music in a variety of formats to an audio receiver. I rejected out of hand all those devices that lacked their own display, sadly including Apple’s intriguing AirPort Express with Air Tunes.

My research quickly revealed that the Squeezebox was the audiophile-preferred solution with its fancy Burr-Brown digital audio converters, while the SoundBridge was the hackers choice with its open interfaces and wider server compatibility. It was widely claimed that only the Squeezebox supported lossless codecs, but I found that this was not the case – although FLAC must be transcoded, the SoundBridge does support ALAC and even WAV for high quality audio. The difference in DACs made no difference to me, since I would be using a digital (S/PDIF) connection to bypass the SoundBridge’s DAC in favor of the one in my Denon receiver.

In the end, the flexible SoundBridge won me over with its wide range of interfaces. It can browse and stream an iTunes library directly, since Roku licensed Apple’s DAAP API. There are a variety of other DAAP servers that can use, too, including Slim Devices Slimserver! But I settled on the open source Firefly (nee mt-daapd) server, since it was full featured, and lightweight enough to run on an embedded NAS server like the Linksys NSLU2, which I intended to add in short order. The SoundBridge also has an open API and telnet interface!

Making my choice even sweeter, at $127, the SoundBridge was half the price of the Squeezebox, too! I placed my order, and thenerds.net delivered it the very next day, even though I chose ground shipping!

The SoundBridge is amazing! It does exactly what I wanted, letting me listen to the tunes stored on my wife’s and my laptop as well as my home PC server without any configuration required. Once I discovered that you can quickly move from letter to letter with the right and left buttons, locating the right song from our 7800-tune collection could not be easier either.

The one major letdown that I had is that Apple will not allow any other hardware, even under license, to play the protected m4p files purchased from iTunes. Although most of my music is ripped from CD, I have got a few dozen iTunes purchased songs. There is a way to crack that DRM protection on these files, but it galls me to have to hack them open just to listen to them!

All in all, I’m very pleased with my new digital music solution at home. I’m seriously considering buying Roku’s SoundBridge Radio, which would let me wirelessly browse and play music anywhere within range of my access point. And I did add that home server – more on this next time.

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Making the Switch to Digital Music at Home
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Notice that all of my PC’s run windows, while all of my servers run Linux! This got me wondering what role Linux plays in enterprise storage. Sure, Linux has a huge role to play on the computing side of the equation. But which enterprise storage devices are based on a Linux kernel?

Xiotech made a big splash a few years ago by announcing that they would switch from a proprietary operating system to Linux. I remember seeing Open-E’s Linux based iSCSI software somewhere, and hearing that Snap Appliance (now part Adaptec) of was using it as well. I consulted LinuxDevices.com and found out about Infrant (now part of NetGear), MaXXan (nee CipherMax), and Raidtec.

There have got to be more! So tell me, who is using Linux as their embedded kernel and why? Was it for convenience, hardware support, or perhaps a financial decision?

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Where is Linux in Storage?
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Networked:

1. Dell XPS M1210 laptop (killer!) with 120GB internal and 500 GB Western Digital My Book backup drive
2. TiVo Series 3 with 250 GB (yeah yeah not yet upgraded)
3. TiVo Series 2 with 140 GB
4. Homebrew Celeron 4 desktop with 320 GB
5. Wife’s Compaq laptop with 100 GB
6. Sa-weet HP Photosmart all-in-one with no storage (but it’s networked!)
7. Linksys 54G running Tomato (16 MB flasher!!)
8. 2 3Com Audreys (16 MB flash bay-bee!)
9. Old junker laptop with 10 GB
10. Virgin Webplayer Internet appliance with 64 MB disk-on-chip
11. Toshiba Portege booting from a 4 GB CompactFlash disk
12. Homebrew AMD K6 system with 20 GB

So my network has up to 11 devices on it… Interesting!

Now for the rest of the machines:

1. 40 GB iPod
2. Nomad Jukebox with 20 GB
3. Atari MegaSTE with 40 MB
4. Atari 1040STFM with a floppy
5. Atari 800XL with a floppy
6. Oldest junkiest Dell 382SX-20 laptop with 20 MB
7. AT&T PC6300 with 20 MB (my first PC)
8. Broken Mac SE

There’s at least a terabyte and a half right there… Plus my collection of odd hard disks – just today I was marveling at the fact that I have 50 MB, 500 MB, 5 GB, 50 GB, and 500 GB hard disks!

Yeah, we’re nuts.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | These computers are not junk!
This post was categorized as Computer History, Everything, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.