I'll be returning to San Jose for another Tech Field Day event this week

This is an exceptionally busy but rewarding week. I’m traveling to the San Jose, CA area for two events I’ve organized: The OpenFlow Symposium and the second Networking-focused Tech Field Day. I’ll be surrounded by some of the smartest and most interesting folks in networking all week, which is both daunting and exciting for a storage guy like me. I invite my readers to follow along on Twitter, in blogs, and through live streaming video.

The OpenFlow Symposium

OpenFlow is a huge challenge for datacenter networking. OpenFlow is a type of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) in which a controller directs the actions of switches using a standard protocol. It’s really in its infancy, having burst onto the scene after promising deployments at Stanford, Google, Yahoo, and similar massive scale data centers. Now the enterprise networking folks are starting to get interested.

Greg Ferro of Packet Pushers and Etherealmind has been a partner on Tech Field Day planning since the very beginning, and he helped put together the OpenFlow Symposium concept. It’s a simple event, with two long panel discussions planned for Wednesday. But actually pulling it off was quite a challenge!

Our OpenFlow panel includes experts from key companies in the space: BigSwitch Networks, Brocade, Cisco, Juniper, and NEC. We’ll also welcome end-user experts from Google and Yahoo, and the whole thing will be moderated by the Packet Pushers crew.

I expect a very lively discussion on the technology involved as well as the basic concept. Ivan Pepelnjak of IOSHints has been very critical of the need for OpenFlow in general, so it’s great to have him involved as a Devil’s Advocate!

Networking Field Day

The Tech Field Day concept has really grown beyond my wildest expectations. Beginning with a one-off “Gestalt IT” event in 2009, we’ve now blossomed to include a number of focused events including this week’s datacenter-networking themed Field Day.

Networking Tech Field Day 2 (“Net Field Day”) has become the go-to event for the best independent networking folks, and we’re pleased to be bringing back many folks from our 2010 event as well as some newcomers.

Presentation-wise, we’ve got some solid returning companies like Juniper, Force10 (now part of Dell), and Cisco. But we’re also glad to welcome Brocade, Gigamon, NEC, and networking startup Embrane.

Stephen’s Stance

I’m thrilled just to be part of the great group of companies and thought leaders who are gathering in San Jose this week. To be the “ringleader” and orchestrator is more than I thought possible! Watch live at TechFieldDay.com Wednesday through Friday, and join us on Twitter. If you’re in the area, drop me a line – maybe you can join us at the Symposium or our Thursday night party!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Networking Field Day and OpenFlow Symposium
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Gestalt IT, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

W. Curtis Preston launched his own series of Backup Central Live! seminars for 2011

Last week, after the Exec Event in Palo Alto, I joined my friend W. Curtis Preston for his first Backup Central Live! event. Curtis has spent years educating IT pros about data protection, this was the first week of a new series of self-produced events. And let me tell you, although I’ve seen him present dozens of times, Curtis was really in his element here. He held the packed room enthralled, and the vendor sponsors I talked to were very pleased about the event!

Introducing Backup Central Live!

The Backup Central Live! series are day-long seminars across the USA in 2011. Each event includes over 3 hours of content from “Mr. Backup”, W. Curtis Preston, as well as presentations from Jacob Farmer and the sponsoring vendors. The seminars are free for qualified end-users, which includes most of the readers of this blog!

Curtis and company will cover the challenges of backing up and recovering data in a variety of settings:

• Virtualized servers (e.g. VMware, Hyper-V, Xen)
• Very large servers and data centers
• Remote offices and laptops
• Data retained for multiple years

The session also includes technical detail about key products and technologies:

• Cloud Backup Services
• Deduplication
• Continuous data protection (CDP) and near-CDP
• Archive software
• Tape and its proper role

Attendees even get free breakfast and lunch, which was of a good hotel caterer quality in my opinion.

Stephen’s Stance

The Backup Central Live! crew does a great job putting together a professional event

I knew Curtis could put together quality backup content, but the crew deserves credit for such a professional and successful event. They attracted some great sponsors, too, including AppAsure, Aptare, FalconStor, NEC, Quantum, Spectra Logic, and Cirtas. And Jacob Farmer’s involvement was a pleasant surprise, too: I’ve always enjoyed the deep technical conversations I’ve had with him!

If you enjoyed my own backup, archiving, and storage seminars in the past, I know you’ll love this event. The next Backup Central Live! cities are as follows. If you’ll be around, you really ought to attend!

• Orlando, FL Feb 1 Register here
• Houston, TX Feb 8 Register here
• Chicago, IL Feb 22 Register here

My only suggestion for the crew is that they get a bigger room next time!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | See W. Curtis Preston’s Backup Central Live!
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

LaCie has released a free driver that supports every current USB 3.0 host controller but will only talk to LaCie USB devices

Steve Jobs isn’t too keen on USB 3.0, apparently, but other vendors are stepping in to fill the void. CalDigit was first with a USB 3.o driver, but it was tied to the pricey PCI Express and ExpressCards they sell. Now LaCie is out with a free driver for just about any USB 3.0 card, but it’s locked to LaCie’s storage products. Let’s hope we get an unlocked driver soon!

Now You LaCie It

LaCie seems awfully proud to be bringing USB 3.0 to the Mac, and they expound about the virtues of this new bus. They claim on their USB 3.0 page that their 2big USB 3.0 drive could hit 220 MB/s in “burst transfer” using their cards and driver.

I’ve been testing USB 3.0 for the past week using a Seagate GoFlex drive and Keydex USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter. But I could only work with the combo in Windows, since Mac OS X lacked a driver for it. Pleased that LaCie released their driver to the world, I was anxious to try it out for myself.

I downloaded the tiny driver package and installed the “MacOS106″ package it included. I noted that the installer specifically claims that “this driver may work on USB 3.0 Host controllers base (sic) on the NEC 720200 chipset.” This is great news, since every current USB 3.0 host controller is based on this chipset!

There it is! USB 3.0 on Mac OS X!

I popped in my cheapie Keydex USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter and sure enough, an entry for “USB Super-Speed Bus” appeared in System Profiler. Now we’re cooking!

Now You Don’t

My next step was plugging in the Seagate GoFlex drive with its USB 3.0 cable. Although the ExpressCard slot lacks full USB 3.0 power, and I was using a 7200 rpm “GoFlex Pro” drive, mine had plenty of juice. The drive spun up, the lights came on, but nothing else happened.

After refreshing System Profiler and Disk Utility a few times, I jumped over to the Terminal to see if there were any error messages. Then I spotted the error message: “Super Speed device other than LaCie is not supported – Vendor ID[bc2]”

Dmesg tells the tale: LaCie's driver won't work with a Seagate drive

That’s right: This free driver wouldn’t allow me to connect a device from Vendor “bc2″. This is Seagate’s USB Vendor ID, so the driver is presumably locked to LaCie’s ID (which I believe is “59f” for whatever that’s worth). Although it supports any USB 3.0 adapter card, it will only allow LaCie storage devices to be connected.

LaCie includes an uninstaller and instructions on how completely to remove their driver. Almost like they knew we wouldn't want to keep it installed...

I looked through the driver and plist files and couldn’t see any obvious way to change the driver to work with non-LaCie storage. So I’ll uninstall it and wait for someone else to release a real open driver.

Note: The LaCie driver doesn’t interfere with the ability of Mac OS X to access USB 2.0 devices through the NEC chip’s backwards-compatibility. But this works fine without the driver installed, too!

Stephen’s Stance

I can’t really be mad at LaCie. They built this driver for their own products, not so folks (like me) with other companies’ hardware can use it. They have every right to lock it down, but the way they did it is foolish.

See, LaCie sells USB 3.0 controller cards, too. And these controllers will presumably only work with LaCie USB 3.0 storage as well! They’re likely to have some seriously angry customers on their hands once the promise of device interoperability is broken. Sooner or later they’ll have to open the driver up for other devices.

Despite this setback, I consider it a good sign that there are now two USB 3.0 driver sets available for Mac OS X. No matter what Steve Jobs thinks of USB 3.0, it is coming to the Mac and soon. CalDigit and LaCie didn’t write these drivers, they’re just repackaging them. I imagine other companies (Belkin? Iomega?) will soon introduce Mac OS X drivers of their own and someone, sometime will leave them unlocked. Then we’ll all be able to enjoy “super speed” on our Macs!

Disclosure: Seagate provided the GoFlex drive and USB 3.0 interface for testing at no charge. I purchased everything else mentioned.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | LaCie Releases USB 3.0 Driver For Mac OS X (But It Only Works With LaCie Drives)
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.

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.

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.

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.

EMC is Mercedes-Benz

It’s big. It’s expensive. It’s powerful. Lots of folks say it’s the best, but some think the emperor isn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. Either way, you know you want one. But what’s up with all the weird models and brands? Even the low-end models cost twice as much as their competitors, and it’s awfully hard to justify the price when there are so many competitors running around… Some thought the purchase of a low-end, mass-market company** would drag the brand down, but it led to weird synergies that we’re just starting to see, let alone figure out.

HDS is Toyota/Lexus

The top models are pricy, but not as bad as the big guy. The low-end ones are killer, but not the super value they once were. They’re efficient, powerful, and luxurious, offering everything you might want and lots that no one else has. But they just don’t have the same cachet. No matter how great it is or how much it cost, everyone has a sneaking suspicion that you cheaped-out or just picked up the first thing you took for a test drive.

IBM is General Motors

They once ruled the whole market and were the standard of the world. They invented or popularized pretty much everything in the industry, had massive market share, and commanded huge margins. After some stumbles, they’re back with solid offerings and a touch of real innovation. But folks just don’t seem to give them any credit anymore. Even though they still sell like crazy, the glamour is gone. Now it’s time for rebuilding, and no one can tell what will happen: Will they rule again or fail completely?

HP is Ford

That other company thinks they invented everything, but insiders know that this one actually did. Sure they don’t rule the market right now, but they’ve been there a few times before. Some of their best technology is borrowed from acquisitions, but who’s to say that’s bad? Put it all together and you have a real force in the market, one that’s rapidly gaining while everyone else isn’t looking.

Sun is Chrysler

No one has fanboys like these guys. Sure they never really ruled the world, but they brought out wave after wave of killer products for decades. Everyone counted them out, but they always came back with something interesting. Then the realities of the business world hit. Will they have yet another act or is this really the end?**

Dell is Hyundai

They have a wide range of offerings, ranging from good economical models to near luxury, but people often overlook or ignore them. Maybe that’s because so much of their business is done with the kind of folks who just aren’t fanatical about this stuff, or maybe it’s because they weren’t even in this market until (relatively) recently. But watch out: Their new stuff is on the rise, and they might put forth a real challenge to the market leaders soon!

NetApp is Honda

They’re not as cheap as they used to be, but they’ve shown that you can do a lot without over-extending yourself. They steadfastly refuse to match what everyone else is doing, sticking to what they know best and adding enhancements until it becomes real competition, even for the biggest guys. In fact, if you asked them privately, everyone else would point to this little company as their biggest threat!

3PAR is BMW

Ask anyone who owns one and they’ll wax poetic about how great it is. Sure it’s expensive, but it’s just as good as the market leaders, if not better! But they’re still a little company trying to make the most of just a few core components. Everyone is amazed they’ve remained independent this long, and analysts keep predicting they’ll sell out very soon!

BlueArc is Jaguar

They’ve only got a few models and they offer killer performance at a premium price. A certain kind of customer would never buy anything else, but the rest of the world just scratches their heads and wonders who’s going to buy them and when.

Compellent is Mazda

They did some strange things way back when but the model has proved itself. They may not be right for everyone, but they’re perfect for a certain price point. Even though their market share is small, they continue to get an inordinate amount of press due to innovative features and high performance. But can this little player survive alone?

Pillar is Tesla

Awesome! That’s all anyone seems to say, since they’re doing crazy innovative things. But it’s awfully hard to find anyone who owns one, and folks seem to pay more attention to the investors than the product.

Xiotech is Nissan

Even folks who own them aren’t generally all that excited, but everyone tells you they’re solid and affordable. But they’re working on some things that are totally off the wall and might have a second wind yet!

Nexsan is Kia

They’re cheap and solid and just keep raking in the dough. But the press and analysts always ignore them…

NEC is Mitsubishi

Did you forget they made this stuff? Seriously, they’re selling well and some folks just love them. Really! You should take a look! Hey, wait, where are you going?

Texas Memory Systems is Lotus

You’re more likely to encounter them working with another vendor, but they offer totally killer performance if you’ve got the money. But how long can a tiny niche vendor like this last?

Violin is Spyker

Who? Ask the man who owns one…

* This is all in fun – let’s not get our panties in a bunch!

**Yes, we’re ignoring obvious mismatches in ownership

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | If Storage Vendors Were Automakers…
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.

Overall, I was impressed with many of these products this last year, but certainly CommVault, HDS, ProStor, Xsigo, and Akorri (winners all) stood out with important products. I too was surprised to see the absence of some heavyweights: Symantec’s strength in archiving and backup didn’t net them an award, and both Emulex and QLogic were skipped for the 8 Gb FC market. EMC was overlooked, too, but I’m certain that will be remedied for 2008 after the flurry of excellent new products announced these last few months.

Backup Software

• Winners: CommVault’s Simpana 7.0 – an impressive product that brings a very wide range of data protection features in an integrated package. They’d be in my top three! Next was the intriguing RecoverGuard from Continuity Software, a product which intrigues me. Finally, Yosemite’s amazingly priced FileKeeper Professional took bronze – I definitely would have put this up there, too!
• Strong contenders: EVault’s solution would have been my pick since it effectively tackles a real need – mobile and SMB data protection! Also, Symantec’s strong NetBackup 6.5 upgrade deserved more attention.

Backup Hardware

• Winners: NEC’s HydraStor HS8 isn’t a platform I’m familiar with – I’ll have to take the judges at their word! But I can’t argue with silver and bronze winners, Copan and ProStor’s cool RDX – both are truly revolutionary products and deserve the spotlight.
• Strong contenders: I would definitely have added Gresham’s Clareti VTL to the list – it’s much more than “just a VTL” and I hope it gets some more attention!

Disk and Disk Subsystems

• Winners: Seagate’s Momentus 5400 FDE.2 deserves considerable attention, bringing built-in hardware encryption to the mobile data market – every mobile disk should have this technology! NetApp’s FAS2000 (silver) is nice enough, but I was much more impressed with the bronze-winning USP V from HDS this year.
• Strong contenders: I would have given the USP V the top prize for 2007, but I can’t argue with the little Seagate disk. The AMCC 3ware 9600 RAID adapter deserves some attention, too.

Storage Management Software

• Winners: Akorri’s BalancePoint (gold) impresses me much like bronze-winning Onaro’s Application Insight does. Both make the big leap from “storage” to “application data”, and both are worthy winners. I’ve never used the silver-winning Finisar NetWisdom product, but it looks like others are impressed with it.
• Strong contenders: This was a crowded field, and Symantec, WysDM, Quantum StorNext, and the rest probably came close. I agree with the Akorri placing, but would have picked one of these instead of the potentially mis-categorized Finisar product.

Networking Equipment

• Winners: Xsigo took the top honors with their InfiniBand-based VP780 platform. This is truly a next-generation product, and it is getting serious attention and traction, and deserved a spot on the list! Riverbed’s excellent Optimization System (silver) also deserved its ranking, but I’m not familiar enough with the Storwize product to know if it’s truly bronze-worthy.
• Strong contenders: I would have tipped either QLogic or Emulex‘s 8 Gb offerings for a spot. Despite my jokes, 8 Gb FC is an important element of the modern SAN and both companies have carved out a compelling product, but apparently neither shipped in volume until this month…

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Reacting to TechTarget’s Storage Products of the Year
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Don’t expect to see this tech widely used, though. It’s way too complex for mainstream application.

Once again, in the words of Mystery Science Theater 3000, “Trumpy, you can do stupid things!”

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Water-Cooled Hard Drives
This post was categorized as 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.