I think this sentiment is just as valid today as when I posted it in 2008!

Although many discussions in the storage industry focus on the relative merits of one protocol or another, the conversation occasionally turns to the core issue at hand: We continue to patch together a system based on outdated concepts. Most storage protocols continue to mimic direct attached storage, and most of our so-called networks act as point to point channels. An ultra-modern virtualized storage infrastructure with all the latest bells and whistles still holds the concepts of block and file at its core. Whenever the storage industry has tried to bring about real storage management they have been stymied by a lack of context for data.

No amount of virtualization, and no new protocol, will fix this. Put simply, we need a storage revolution.

Channels, Blocks, and Files

Most innovation in the 1980s and early 1990s focused on moving storage out of the server. SCSI allowed disk to exist in a separate cabinet, RAID allowed multiple physical disks to become a single virtual one, and these were mixed to become the prototype storage array. Although SCSI allowed one-to-many connectivity, it was never a true peer-to-peer network, even once it was mixed with network concepts in the form of Fibre Channel.

Even today, SAN storage is focused on providing faster, more flexible, and feature-packed direct-attached storage. A modern virtual SAN hides a complex arrangement of caching, data protection, tiered storage, replication, and deduplication, masquerading the lot as a simple, lowly disk drive. It is sad but true that all of our work as an industry has been dedicated to recreating what we started with.

Networked file-based storage is no better. Although NAS devices have all the advanced features of their SAN cousins, they must present a simple file tree to the host to retain compatibility. File virtualization merely presents a larger homogenous tree.

Inside the server, too, features and complexity are hidden to retain a familiar file system format. Volume managers can do anything a virtualization device can, but must present their output as a simple (though virtual) disk drive. File systems, too, have added features but still present a familiar tree of mount points, inodes, and files. Even ZFS, possibly the most advanced combination of volume management and file system technology yet, must present a simple tree of storage to applications.

The Metadata Roadblock

This outdated paradigm, of disks and file trees, is ill-suited to today’s storage challenges. Data must be categorized so actions can be taken to preserve or destroy it based on policies. Data must be searchable so users and applications can find what they want. Data must be flexible so it can be used in new ways. Our antiquated notions are not capable of meeting these challenges.

One simple problem is that we lack context for our data. Most file systems merely assign to a file a name, location, owner, and security attributes. The most advanced can contain extended metadata, but this is rarely seen in practice since many applications cannot agree on how to use this data. Microsoft’s Office suite can store and share extended file attributes, for example, but these live inside the file rather than in the file system. The promise of expanded Office attributes is only realized in conjunction with a content management system like SharePoint which lies above the lowly file system.

What if the storage system could keep this data instead? What if it could logically group files according to project or client, mining keywords and authors, and maintaining revisions? These concepts are not new, having been implemented in content management systems for years, and certain elements appeared in file systems, like Apple’s HFS and VMS’ Files-11, for decades.

Cut Down the Tree

File metadata would allow advanced features, but truly taking advantage of them requires a more fundamental shift in the way applications access files. Rather than sticking to a traditional hierarchy of directories in a tree (which was, after all, simply a primitive metadata system), we should remove the tree altogether. Allow files to become data objects, identified by arbitrary attributes and managed according to an overarching policy.

This future vision is decidedly different from our current notion of storage, but is not so far off. Many organizations now rely on central data warehouses based on SQL-language relational databases. As many storage managers have grumbled, databases tend to ignore storage management concepts entirely, managing their own content independently.

But not all applications need a database back-end, so another initiative seeks to provide generic object storage for wider use. Called content-addressable storage or CAS, these devices have traditionally been used only for archival purposes, since that was their first market application. As vendors break free of proprietary interfaces in favor of open ones like XAM, CAS could transform storage itself by eliminating both file and block storage at once.

Similar concepts are already at work in the so-called Web 2.0 world. Non-traditional databases like Google BigTable, Amazon S3, and Hadoop allow massive scalability for object storage. API-sharing initiatives with many Web 2.0 companies can be seen as similar prototypical object storage frameworks. Any of these could be leveraged to provide a new world of data storage, and many are gaining traction even now.

Stephen’s Stance

Although traditional block storage is here to stay for disk drives, and tree-type file systems are likely to remain the foundation of operating system storage, new object-based concepts could change the world in fundamental ways. As applications become “web aware”, they also become object aware, increasing the likelihood of such a storage revolution. For the majority of applications, this new world would be a welcome one indeed.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | We Need a Storage Revolution
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Servers, storage, and networks may be interconnected, but most large IT organizations keep the administrative teams from mixing. But the next-generation virtual data center might change that!

Lots of my IT infrastructure management clients are talking about how the advent of Ethernet/IP and virtualization is changing the roles of storage, server, and network administrators. The evolution of the storage role in particular in enterprise IT organizations has been a topic of particular interest to me for a while: I definitely remember thinking about this as iSCSI and Cisco came on the scene a few years back, but the question of integration of storage, server, network, and application management areas is as old as IT.

Back in 2005, I wrote a column in Storage magazine, asking Who Watches the SAN? Although there were (and still are) reasons one might consider handing SAN management over to the network team, such as the use of iSCSI, Cisco FC, or (soon) FCoE, I concluded that many network teams just aren’t ready to take on SAN management. Storage is different – extremely sensitive to latency and outages and burdened with interconnect concepts that are similar, but not identical, to their network cousins. So most people are better off leaving SAN management in the hands of storage people, regardless of whether their SAN is made up of FC or iSCSI.

The Virtual Data Center

Things are changing, however. The modern data center is evolving to virtualize all three major IT infrastructure components: Servers, storage, and networks. Over the last year or so, we’ve seen the first fully-virtual infrastructure built, with all three areas combined in a single box, soup-to-nuts. Consider a VMware ESX server with virtual servers talking over virtual networks to a virtual storage array from FalconStor or LeftHand – it’s an entire data center in a box!

Server admins are normally tasked with everything “in the box”, including VMFS and virtual network connectivity, just as they always had to manage volume managers and path management software back in the “physical server” world. I doubt this will change. So we could see not just storage but network folks excluded entirely from the next-generation virtual datacenter!

This doesn’t have to be how things end up, though. I strongly believe that network and storage pros have critical insight into their areas, and cutting them out would be a tragic loss akin to what happened when open systems folks decided not to pay attention to the lessons of the mainframe generation. We would effectively repeat a decade of experience and learning that could, with minor modifications, be brought right into the modern world.

There are three things to do:

1. Re-combine the stovepipe IT infrastructure organizations (server, storage, network) into a single management organization with specialists in these areas and others like virtualization and cloud computing.
2. Spend the time and money to cross-train everyone to re-apply their experience and skills in this new world. Storage folks, for example, must know a good bit about server virtualization or their skills will have much less value!
3. Bring the mainframe, security, and records management folks to the party, too! They all have essential insights, and a failure to give them a seat at the table would be a critical loss.

Database and Applications

Then there are the DBAs and IT application folks. These teams have always been held at arms-length in the open systems world, and much closer on the mainframe side (especially the database people!) I think there has been a feeling that there were enough interests at the IT infrastructure planning meetings already without mixing them in as well! The current response is a service-based approach, where IT infrastructure adds an analyst role to develop SLAs and standard service offerings and act as a liaison between ITI and IT Apps.

This is probably enough for a conventional system, but there are changes here as well. Virtual appliances can step right into the apps arena, and the database/storage hybrid devices from Oracle/HP, Netezza, and the rest tromp right through the DBA world. Then there are the “webby dubby” (Web 2.0) storage services/devices like Amazon S3, Nirvanix, and EMC Atmos to consider.

Stephen’s Stance

I think we’re seeing another serious change to the status quo: Right after the data center is virtualized and IT infrastructure is recombined, applications themselves will fundamentally transform, demanding a merger of the current IT infrastructure and IT applications groups. This could all come within five years, or it could be delayed or diverted by organizational infighting and intransigence. It will be very interesting to see how it plays out!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Changes in Technology Drive Changes in IT Organizations and Roles
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

How granular is your storage? This question is just as relevant today as when I first published this article in 2008!

Many storage challenges focus on correlating high-level uses of data (such as applications) with the nuts and bolts of storage infrastructure. These discussions often revolve around the conflict between data management, which demands an ever-smaller unit of management, and storage management, which benefits most from consolidation. Developing data management capability that is both granular enough for applications and scalable enough for storage is one key to the future of storage.

Storage Management: Scaling Up

As I discussed in a previous Sunday Series piece, Turning the Page on RAID, the data storage industry has traditionally focused on reducing granularity. Disk capacity has expanded, and RAID technology has multiplied this by combining multiple physical drive mechanisms into a single virtual one. Storage virtualization technologies, from the SAN to the server, have also often been touted primarily as a mechanism to reduce heterogeneity. From a technical perspective, therefore, granularity has been an obstacle to overcome.

The core organizational best practice for storage management is the reduction of complexity and the enforcement of standardization. Consolidation of storage arrays and file servers is a common goal, as IT seeks to benefit from economies of scale. The goal of both initiatives is the creation of a storage utility or managed storage service. This mirrors efforts on the server and network sides to consolidate and virtualize hardware.

Although both technological and organizational factors have traditionally driven granularity out of storage, this does not have to be the case. Virtual pools of storage are ideal for providing storage on demand, as disk-focused RAID groups give way to more flexible sub-disk storage arrangements. And an operational focus on standardized storage service offerings has the potential to enable scalable management of these smaller units.

Filing Service

File-based protocols would seem to have more potential for granular storage management, but they have been undermined by the hierarchical nature of modern file storage. Whether the connection to a file server uses NFS, CIFS, or AFP, the key unit of management is actually the shared directory, not the file. All files in the share \\firefly\backups would be located on the same server and would be managed as a unit.

NAS virtualization can change this somewhat, as can more specialized NAS servers. Although Microsoft DFS enables consolidation and virtualization of NAS shares, it does not allow subdivision of shares below the directory level – all files in a directory must be placed on the same server. Tricks like stubbing and links allow for some movement, but these do not solve the core issue. Specialized virtual NAS devices from F5 (the ARX, nee Acopia), NetApp, BlueArc, Symantec, and others have the ability to move files individually, providing as much a virtualized storage environment as any block-focused enterprise array. Avere is also beginning to talk about granular file management.

But even an ideal virtualized file server lacks the kind of granularity demanded by users. They care about data, not files, and most applications consolidate their data storage into a few files. Consider a database, for example, where users want each record treated uniquely but storage devices see just a few much larger files. We need a storage revolution, where someone creates an ideal storage platform in which each individual record or object includes custom metadata and is managed independently. This would truly be a massive change, however, and it is not clear that all applications will follow the object storage model of Google and Amazon.

Small is Beautiful

Barring a revolution in data management, our best hope is to allow greater granularity in storage management. As mentioned above, virtualization technology has the potential to enable management and protection of any unit of storage, right down to the individual block or record. But the reality of storage virtualization has not matched its promise.

What is needed is greater integration. Each layer of virtualization (file system, volume manager, hypervisor, network, array, and RAID) also hides necessary details from lower layers. Consider the case of a virtual server snapshot: The application and filesystem must be in a quiesced state to allow a snapshot to be taken at the storage level, but the storage array has no intrinsic information about how its capacity is used. A given LUN might contain dozens of servers on a shared VMFS volume, so all must be snapped together.

Integration can be enabled by sharing more information through APIs. VMware leverages Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) integration for shared storage so a VMFS snapshot can call the operating system and even applications (Windows Server 2003 only, for now) to prepare the data. Similarly, VSS can communicate directly with supported iSCSI and Fibre Channel arrays, calling a snapshot at the right moment. And Microsoft is, no doubt, enhancing VSS as we speak.

As virtualization technology matures, expect this type of integration to improve. We hope to see more APIs exposed by VMware and Microsoft, allowing communication up and down the stack to break through the information barrier. Imagine a future where a standard API like VSS can pass a message through VMware, Xen, and Hyper-V to the underlying storage array to initiate a snap. I predict that this kind of integration-enabled granularity is not too far off.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Granularity: The Hidden Challenge of Storage Management
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The podcast is now available on iTunes!

Although the topic is an open roundtable, I thought I might give my readers a peek into the areas I plan to bring up:

• Why storage is so critical to VMware admins: It’s all about the IOPS!
• EMC’s new Symmetrix V-Max and why it’s important to VMware shops
• The great FCoE/CNA debate and Cisco’s UCS home run
• Super low-end storage for the small business or lab

Of course, what will actually get discussed is anyone’s guess, but it’s good to go in with a list of topics to avoid dead air!

So dial in or listen online, and let the discussion start!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Interested in VMware and Storage? Tune In to the VMware Communities Podcast!
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Personal, 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.

Sure, prices remain high, but they’re falling fast and many folks are already implementing 10 GbE in their data centers. Intel CNAs have dropped to around $900, Cisco Nexus switches are running around $1,500 per 10 GbE port and Arista has hit $400, and 10 GbE iSCSI storage arrays are available. Intel has declared that 2009 is the year of iSCSI, and server vendors are moving to make that happen, embedding 10 GbE ports on motherboards. If you’re looking to go cheap, check out D-Link’s 10 GbE iSCSI xStack array, which sells for under $13,000 and can be populated with 15 of your favorite drives.

So is 10 GbE worth the upgrade? Absolutely! Microsoft reported wire speed iSCSI to a NetApp array at WinHEC (see my writeup on wire-speed 10 GbE iSCSI on Gestalt IT). How would you like to push over a gigabyte per second with non-crazy-or-high-end hardware? iSCSI over 10 GbE works great, and Microsoft and NetApp, at least, have demonstrated that they can make use of all that bandwidth.

Then there is Fibre Channel over Ethernet. Cisco has been pushing that technology hard as a unification of datacenter interconnectivity, and Microsoft announced that they are putting together a logo test for Fibre Channel over Ethernet FCoE hardware. Storage array makers are hopping onboard, too, and angling for position in this new market. It’s not just the year of 10 GbE; 10-gig is the future of connectivity, and the future is here.

I’m moving lots of my enterprise storage and networking content to Gestalt IT so I can focus on lower-end topics here. If you want to catch my latest work on those topics, it’s worth subscribing!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | 10 GbE, iSCSI, FCoE, Microsoft, and the Future
This post was categorized as 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.

Iomega's StorCenter Pro ix4-100 is VMware certified, hot swappable, and not bad to look at!

As I expected, EMC’s Iomega subsidiary today rolled out the StorCenter Pro ix4-100 a big brother to the popular but plain StorCenter ix2 NAS device. This new model add hot-swappable drives (there are four now), RAID-5, and a longer warranty to make it suitable for small office use. It uses a blacked-out version of the chassis from the non-LifeLine StorCenter Pro 150d.

Like the ix2, the Pro ix4 is certified for VMware ESX using NFS. iSCSI is still absent, though EMC folks have talked about adding this in short order.

This is the third member of the LifeLine-powered NAS family from Iomega: The confusingly-named single-drive Home Media Network Hard Disk Drive, the dual-drive StorCenter ix2, and this four-drive StorCenter Pro ix4-100. The “-100″ nomenclature suggests that more 4-drive models might be on the way, perhaps a “-200″ model sharing its rackmount chassis with the existing non-LifeLine StorCenterPro 200rl.

With NetApp exiting the small-business market by ending their StoreVault line, who would have thought big old EMC would be the one to step up? At $799 or $1,299 for the 2 and 4 TB versions, the ix4 is about the same price as a Drobo, which is $749 or $999 plus $199 for the DroboShare NAS.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | EMC LifeLine Spreads To The Iomega StorCenter Pro ix4-100
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.

The good news is that this is no longer a technical problem: Modern virtualized and networked servers ought to have decent utilization of storage capacity, and technology is improving all the time. Consider the compounded impact of modern technology on storage capacity utilization:

• Shared storage (SAN and NAS) allows different servers to share a common pool of storage, reducing the likelihood that excess capacity will be stranded in isolated “puddles”. Pervasive use of NAS technology, and the rise of simple and inexpensive iSCSI SANs, means that every system in the modern data center can use shared storage.
• Organizational and architectural optimization allows storage to be provisioned from a common pool rather than building “stovepipe systems” with their own resources. Quicker provisioning also helps reduce over-provisioning.
• Network connectivity allows servers to share resources, including storage, on a peer-to-peer or client-server basis, ultimately resulting in things like cloud computing.
• Managed and utility services reduce the impact of low utilization, potentially focusing on efficiency or perhaps passing the buck to a service provider.
• Thin provisioning might help certain systems to keep less storage in reserve.

So why don’t things get better? It’s hard to be sure why people don’t use these pervasive tools to improve storage utilization, but I do have some ideas…

• Storage utilization might not be a priority. Utilization isn’t often in the critical path of performance or availability, so overtaxed IT departments aren’t going to focus on it.
• Incentives can be lacking. With the cost of storage constantly falling, the effort required to improve the efficiency of already-allocated storage can be just as easily spent migrating to a newer, cheaper storage platform.
• Virtualization has perversely harmed the efficiency of allocation. One might think that the ease and flexibility of virtual disks would improve things, but it hasn’t. Server and storage virtualization just adds another place to hide unused storage.
• Metrics remain a problem, since everyone gets all balled up trying even to talk about capacity utilization.

I think this last point is something we in the industry really ought to do something about. We say “utilization” but what do we mean? Chris Evans has proposed a set of metrics for the “storage waterfall“, and I mentioned back in October that this all boils down to three key metrics: Raw, usable, and used. The key question is where to apply them!

Way back before the 2001 bubble-burst, I managed professional services for a company called StorageNetworks. At that time, I was quite aggressive in pushing this same idea, even co-writing a whitepaper on the topic titled Measuring and Improving Storage Utilization. My co-author (Jonathan Lunt) and I recently reminisced about that paper, and we both agreed that everything in it still stands today, apart from the high dollar cost per gigabyte.

Each ratio in the storage waterfall can be diagnosed and improved

I suggest that the following key storage utilization ratios (taken directly from this paper) make just as much sense today as they did then:

• Array Overhead is the percentage of installed storage capacity that is not usable. Dividing Array Usable by Array Raw and subtracting that number from 100% yields the percent of overhead. Overhead here is usually due to the desired level of data protection (e.g. RAID, mirroring) rather than to poor management.
• Array Utilization is the percentage of usable array capacity that is allocated to hosts. It indicates the efficiency of storage deployment operations.
• Allocation Efficiency reflects the ratio of storage presented or allocated to hosts to the amount actually seen by them. In many mature environments this ratio is near 100% (i.e. all the storage allocated is being seen), but this ratio can be extremely difficult to determine. It relies on accurate measurements of both Array Used storage and Host Raw.
• Host Overhead reflects the amount of storage configured for use versus the amount the host can see. Since the Host Raw metric is a function of the storage administration team and the Host Usable a function of the systems administration team, this metric is a useful measurement of how well the two functions are cooperating. Data for this classification is collected from the host.
• File System Utilization is the amount of available file system space that actually contains data. File system utilization is familiar to most systems administrators. This metric is often shown in simple system commands like “df” on UNIX or “dir” on Windows. Data for this classification is collected from the host.
• Total Storage Utilization summarizes how well a company manages its storage assets across the entire business. This ratio is the default storage utilization metric used in publications and reflects the actual value an enterprise is deriving from its storage asset. Care is required in calculating this ratio to ensure that it accurately indicates utilization of the storage environment. Since the result of this ratio is often used in business cases and receives wide attention, it must be both logical and defendable.

To these, I would add another intermediate and optional set of virtualization metrics and ratios for environments with storage or server virtualization. One could also presumably add a higher-level set of application efficiency ratios as well.

In the paper, Jon and I also proposed three best practices to improve storage utilization:

1. Drive Array Utilization (Array Usable to Array Used) to greater than 90% (a storage administration responsibility)
2. Drive Allocation Efficiency: Bring Host Usable to be as close to Array Used as possible (a joint responsibility)
3. Drive Filesystem Utilization (“Host Usable to Host Used”) above 80% (a systems administration responsibility)

Go read the paper and let me know what you think. Are we still stuck in 2001?

This post can also be found on Gestalt IT: Storage Utilization Remains at 2001 Levels: Low!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Storage Utilization Remains at 2001 Levels: Low!
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.

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.

Today, Brocade announced that it has completed its acquisition of Foundry Networks.  This is just the latest move in the strategic game to control the next generation of Ethernet, and possibly all local connectivity, including storage. Although 1 Gb Ethernet, 4 and 8 Gb Fibre Channel, and InfiniBand are all still going strong, the attention of the industry, the pundits, and the prognosticators (myself included) is firmly fixed on enhanced 10 Gb Ethernet. So Brocade’s move seems especially relevant to the core question of which companies will thrive and which will fail in a 10 Gb world.

Cisco is, as always, the big player everyone is gunning for. They created a subsidiary, Nuova, to develop a next-generation architecture, then absorbed the company in April. The result of Nuova’s work is Cisco’s Nexus line of data center switching products as well as much contribution to enhancements to Ethernet, known as Data Center Bridging (DCB) to the IEEE, Data Center Ethernet (DCE) to Cisco, and Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) to others. The whole Nuova episode worked out quite well for Cisco, and they are well-positioned in the next-generation Ethernet game.

Although the fight to control the next generation of datacenter I/O can sometimes seem like a two-way battle between Cisco and Brocade, there are many players involved:

• Woven Systems launched its second-generation product in October. Aimed squarely at the largest data centers, the Woven line sells at bargain prices and expands incrementally, maintaining performance, according to the company.
• Force10 has also found success selling a complete line of 10 Gb Ethernet products, from the core data center to the edge.
• HP’s ProCurve line is mostly focused on smaller businesses, but the number-two supplier of networking hardware shouldn’t be discounted in this horse race!
• Arista Networks is another dark horse. With ex-Cisco “Data Center 3.0 commander” Jayshree Ullal and ex-Sun Andy Bechtolsheim, Arista has so far played its 10 Gb song to a cloud computing refrain. But the company reportedly has strong technology, and could be a contender in the converged I/O space as well.

This playing field is wide open. I expect Brocade and Cisco to be major players over the next few years, and that HP will acquire one of the other players at some point to add to their ProCurve line. But no matter who wins, the dominance of 10 Gb Ethernet is a safe bet.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Who Will Capture the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Crown?
This post was categorized as 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.

But when will 10 Gb and FCoE arrive? Dave Raffo and I discussed the topic after Storage Decisions, and he just wrote an article on the topic, 10GigE still seeking killer app. Here are some points that came up in our discussion:

• Shipping and supported 10 Gb HBAs and CNAs are the key requirement, and it looks like the schedules of Microsoft, VMware, Sun, and Linus Torvalds will determine when the floodgates open
• iSCSI people are talking 10 Gb, too, and they might end up adopting it first with software initiators
• Interest in FCoE is focused at the largest enterprise shops, and I’m seeing a distinct line between “iSCSI shops” and “(future) FCoE shops” with very little overlap (as I previously noted, iSCSI and FCoE aren’t mortal enemies, and FCoE will rule in the largest environments)
• No one is talking about 8 Gb Fibre Channel – they have all decided that 10 Gb FCoE or iSCSI is the next step for block storage
• InfiniBand has its believers (and they are rabid fans!), but the users I talk to are, as a rule, heading toward FCoE rather than IB for their future connectivity
• There is a tiny bit of user interest in moving back to SAS-enabled DAS for virtual server environments
• Everyone I talk to is shocked there isn’t a 10 Gb iSCSI array on the market yet, and we all expect to see this before FCoE
• Although some vendors have announced FCoE products, they’re not here yet – and it will be another year still before we see production deployment

See my posts on Gestalt IT for similar enterprise IT infrastructure commentary

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Storage Folks Are Talking 10-Gig and FCoE
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