I am looking forward to many happy beers in Frankfurt, Utrecht, and Amsterdam this week!

I never skip a chance to travel to Europe, and I’m really looking forward to my trip to Storage Networking World (SNW) in Frankfurt tomorrow. As always, the great folks over there are organizing a Storagebeers event, and it will be wonderful to see all my European friends once again. First thing Thursday morning I’ll be on a train to Amsterdam and Storage Expo NL.

Storage Networking World Europe: Powering the Cloud?

The theme for SNW Europe 2011 is “Powering the Cloud” and includes the related Datacenter Technologies and Virtualization World conferences. I think I’m going to have to bring my official Cloud Security Blanket if all this talk of virtualization and the cloud overcomes my emotions. Seriously, can we talk about infrastructure like the good old days?

I’ll only be on-site in Frankfurt for a short time, arriving just before noon and staying through the night. I’ve avoided making too many vendor briefing appointments, even though they tracked me down to set them up. I just won’t have much time for that sort of thing.

Storagebeers Frankfurt

I see that a transplanted Storagebeers London event is scheduled in Frankfurt, and I look forward to it. Hopefully we’ll be having dinner as well, since all beer all the time is likely to put me to sleep after a overnight flight!

While on-site in Frankfurt, I’ll spend most of my time with my good friend Ilja Coolen, who will be traveling with me to Utrecht on Thursday morning. Also joining me in Frankfurt is my wife, Shannon. I know she always looks forward to spending hours watching me geek out with my friends!

I also look forward to seeing other friends, including Chris Evans (see his post, too), Chris Mellor, Enrico Signoretti, Calvin Zito, Fred Monsone, Rose Ross, Rick Schlander, Nancy Hurley, and many others.

Storage Expo NL and More Beer

First thing Thursday morning, Ilja, Shannon and I will hop on a high-speed train to Utrecht in the Netherlands. I’ll have a few hours to compose myself before I go on stage with my “VMware as Oedipus” presentation at Storage Expo NL. Once again, it’s a whirlwind tour of the Expo Hall, and I look forward to seeing my Dutch friends once again.

Thursday night is another Storagebeers event. It looks like Ilja has scheduled this for the Café-Restaurant Olivier in Utrecht, which is a short walk from the Expo Trade Fair Halls. If you’d like to join us Thursday night, hop over to Facebook or LinkedIn and register.

After Thursday, I’ll take a couple of days off to visit Amsterdam. I’ve never been there before, and Shannon I really look forward to exploring a new city. See you in Europe!

I'm getting charged up and ready for Europe!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | European Trip: SNW Europe, Storage Expo NL, and Storagebeers
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

SNW still attracts a great audience

Oh yeah, Gina is on the ring!

If you are a “qualified end user” and would like to attend SNW for free, here’s a discount code courtesy of our friends over at Nekkid Tech!

Storage Networking World (SNW) is something of an insider show, but it still attracts a reasonably solid audience of end-users, analysts and press, and companies. My experience is certainly different from most others, since I spend much of my time in one-on-one conversations with enterprise storage companies and rarely attend the presentations, keynotes, or industry plug fests that inevitably occur. And it’s really too bad that I don’t have time for the awesome on-site training and certification that always has been a part of SNW.

Instead, I’ll be back to back with briefings and conversations with various companies. As always, I will publicly disclose who I’m talking to and invite your feedback and questions during my conversations. I will be on site from Monday afternoon through lunchtime Wednesday, and expect my calendar to fill up quickly. If you are a PR professional or corporate representative, now is the time to e-mail me!

Ask me for your very own FCoTR token pin!

Once again, my presentation on Fibre Channel over Token Ring (FCoTR) was rejected by the shortsighted and humorless conference organizers. How can they deny the awesomeness that is FCoTR twice in one year? I’m thinking I should hold a counter event in protest, handing out “tokens” at the door! Instead, find me on the show floor and I will be happy to give you a pin to show your support of this exciting new technology!

Monday and Tuesday night will no doubt find me at the JW Marriott hotel bar. This is where some of the most informative (not to mention amusing) interactions at SNW always occur. Any end-users wearing FCoTR buttons can have a drink on me, and any vendors similarly adorned have my permission to buy me a beer! Come to think of it, I’d be happy to take a beer from anyone at all!

Quick! Someone push Greg Knieriemen into the pool!

This year, SNW returns to Orlando Florida, though not to the beautiful Rosen Shingle Creek hotel. Instead, we will be at the equally grand JW Marriott Grande Lakes, just down the street. As always, I’ll be staying elsewhere to avoid the “conference tax” levied by these giant hotels! Without a corporate expense account, I just can’t justify spending twice as much then a “just fine” hotel right down the road.

It’s always fun to attend SNW, and I look forward to seeing new faces and old friends at the JW Marriott. Again, if you would like to arrange a briefing or conversation (or maybe lunch or dinner), now is a good time to drop me an e-mail!

It's always awesome reconnecting with old friends at SNW!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Storage Networking World (SNW), Orlando
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Huawei Symantec recently introduced their SAN, NAS, and security offerings for the United States market

Surprise! Huawei Symantec has arrived in the United States, ready to take on the midrange storage and network security market with a line of devices that have proven their worth in the international market for three years. I sat down with the company’s management at Storage Networking World and quizzed them on their plans and aspirations for growth.

Introducing Huawei Symantec

It’s important to get one thing straight right off the bat: Huawei Symantec Technologies Co., Ltd (Huawei Symantec) is neither Chinese telecom giant, Huawei, nor American storage and security powerhouse, Symantec. It is an entity unto itself, formed in 2008 as a joint venture of the two but managed independently. And Huawei Symantec USA (HS USA) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of this China-based operation rather than a simple sales or marketing engine. Huawei Symantec USA is akin to NEC’s American operations rather than a global subsidiary like HDS or an integrator/reseller.

Huawei Symantec was created to commercialize the enterprise storage and server hardware of Huawei and the enterprise software offerings of Symantec, but blessed with its own independent 4,000-strong engineering, marketing, and sales force.

This independence is sometimes evident, though perhaps not in HS USA’s initial product offerings. They will enter the market with three products in two lines:

• “Oceanspace” storage:
  • S2600 “Low-End” Fibre Channel/iSCSI SAN array (see this technical whitepaper for more)
  • N8300 unified SAN/NAS array
• “Secospace” security:
  • Secospace USG2000BSR/HSR router/security appliance

Huawei Symantec has a much-broader product range, however, including VTL and PACS storage, cloud storage solutions, SSD drives, and SAN arrays on the storage side (all part of the Oceanspace line); UTM, Anti-DDoS, VPN, and IDS systems for security (referred to as Secospace); as well as servers. The HS USA team confirmed to me that they intend to broaden their product portfolio in America by bringing additional products to market in the near future.

Although these initial products are based on Symantec software, this is not the case for the entire product line. The Oceanstore VTL appears to use FalconStor software, for example, and Huawei Symantec has created hardware and software components that are distinct from both of its famous parents.

What’s In A Name?

I imagine that the famous names attached to this organization might prove to be both a blessing and a curse. The Symantec name carries cachet in the enterprise IT space, much of it inherited from Veritas along with proven products like Storage Foundation, NetBackup, and Enterprise Vault. Although less familiar to Americans, Huawei is a giant in the data centers of the Far East, with thousands of engineers and customers worldwide. But many will undoubtedly draw conclusions about these parents’ motives and strategies and apply these to their child, Huawei Symantec.

I discussed the entry of HS USA with Symantec staff as well, and they stressed that the new company is not driven by (or coordinated with) their management in Mountain View. Their reaction to the new products appeared to reflect the curiosity and interest they might direct towards any new storage or security company that leveraged their products. In short, Symantec appears supportive but disconnected from HS USA. Although they share a name, Huawei Symantec is not an attempt by Symantec itself to enter the enterprise storage array and security appliance market.

The Huawei name and roots in China may prove somewhat perilous, however. Members of the United States Senate and NSA recently moved to block Sprint Nextel and AT&T from using Huawei telecommunications gear, and some of the IT managers I spoke to at Storage Networking World were similarly worried. They expressed skepticism about the build quality and engineering of Chinese products in general and wondered aloud if Huawei Symantec would meet enterprise standards in terms of localization and customer support. And every end user I spoke to was confused about the company’s relationship with Symantec in particular.

Stephen’s Stance

I have been watching Huawei Symantec’s growth for the last few years, and the company’s entry into the United States market has great potential. Huawei Symantec has proven itself on the international stage and brings tremendous engineering and financial resources to the midrange storage and security market. It leverages the contributions of its famous-name parents but enjoys autonomy to go beyond this base.

Make no mistake: Although this is not just another storage startup, its success is not a foregone conclusion. Localization of products, support, and sales is perilous, and every market is littered with examples of failure. Huawei Symantec must act quickly to build strong relationships with resellers, who have traditionally been the gatekeepers of the midrange storage and security market. They must also move aggressively to localize product marketing and develop collateral and strategies to support their new American customers. And they must reach out to educate the market about their relationship with Huawei and Symantec and their engineering credentials.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Huawei Symantec Enters The United States Storage and Security Market
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.

The Human Element

People used to read trade magazines and scour conference halls to uncover product and technology gems, but this kind of research is better done online today. The other day, a friend-of-a-friend tweeted a request to suggest “NAS storage in the $3k to $5k range.” Knowing I would have some suggestions, my friend retweeted the request and I fired back a list of suggestions. Since we were on Twitter, my reply included links to the companies that made the products in question. Back in the old days, this product search might have lasted weeks or months, but I bet jjx had her research done in hours.

EMC World airport bus interview: Karl Lewis of UofM from Stephen Foskett on Vimeo.

So why go to a trade show if not to discover products? It’s all about the people. Increasingly, trade events like EMC World and Storage Networking World are becoming venues to meet people who were previously mere online avatars. They are for building friendships, business development, and cementing real connection and community. A look at my recent trade-show videos on Vimeo will reveal that most of my own interaction is personal, and the relationships built there could never be forged online.

David Scammell talks SNW and SpiceWorks from Stephen Foskett on Vimeo.

The new people I have met, like Karl Lewis and David Scammell, will become part of my own community, and I will become part of theirs. We would have never met without the Internet (Karl recognized me from my blog, and David spotted me on Twitter), but we would never have become friends without real human interaction.

Devolving the Conference

Tech Field Day Overview (Short) from Stephen Foskett on Vimeo.

The same can be said of the Gestalt IT community. We were friendly before we met, but our interactions at Tech Field Day cemented a surprisingly strong bond, especially between the delegates and presenting vendor staff. We are much more a community now than before these events. This is the main reason we will continue the Field Day event series: It brings a new kind of community to life! This kind of interaction might have happened at old-school conferences, but the specific (some might say peculiar) nature of the Field Day (invite-only, independent, and blogger-centric) makes it unique.

Another event I really look forward to is Greg and VaNessa Duplessie’s BD Event. It’s like the Field Day in that it distills a single element from the old trade show days to its purest form. In this case it is the business-to-business back-channel discussion that gets the focus. The BD Event is all about business development, and every part of it is designed to foster the sharing of ideas and opportunities between business people. I love the concept, and I hope I will see a tremendous crowd at the Boston event next month!

Watch live video from The Cube LIVE from EMC World 2010 on Justin.tv

Even traditional conferences are changing. EMC World had a tremendous blogger lounge set up, including an amazing live video setup. SiliconAngle brought us “The Cube“, a live webcast that brought the social elements of the blogger lounge to a massive online audience. My hat is off to NiceFishFilms for their technical expertise, yet it was the human element, getting such diverse people together in the same place, that made it all work.

Stephen’s Stance

The Internet will certainly change many elements of the traditional trade show, but it will never kill the need for real interaction. I look forward to the next clever twist on the conference, complementing Gestalt IT’s Field Day, the BD Event, and The Cube, but do not worry that we will all some day remain in our secluded caves. We are social people, and nothing beats meeting someone face to face.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Nothing Beats Meeting In Person
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.

Do you know me?

Visitors to the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) booth at Storage Networking World in Orlando were greeted by a strange symbol (pictured above). It was included in the FCIA  Fibre Channel roadmap presentation as well. The group even made identifying the symbol a requirement to enter their door prize drawing.

But what is the symbol exactly? I was amused to get some puzzled looks (and no correct answers) when I polled a number of industry insiders. One even asked about the symbol when I included it in a blog post about Microsoft’s lack of FCoE support.

I guess everything needs a symbol nowadays, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is no exception. Yes, this is the FCIA’s new FCoE symbol.

Fibre Channel plus Ethernet equals FCoE

Breaking it down, we might recognize the unofficial but widespread symbol of Ethernet (glance at the back of your PC or the box your switch or router came in) in the background with a double-ended single-bladed arrow superimposed. That arrow is apparently the new symbol for non-Ethernet Fibre Channel (FC).
Aren’t you glad you asked?

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

Back in the old days, vendors used to give away Harley Davidson motorcycles and Mercedes-Benz cars (no kidding!), but even in these days of waning investment, conferences still have some expensive goodies. I decided to take a walk around the show floor at the April 2010 Storage Networking World (SNW) in Orlando, checking out the loot.

So we’ve got some solid prizes here, with a definite Apple bias. The score:

1. Amazon Kindle x4
2. Apple iPad x3
3. Apple iPod Touch x3
4. Cisco Flip x3
5. HP Mini netbook x2
6. Dell Mini 10
7. Beats Headphones
8. Flo TV
9. Apple iPod Nano
10. Spy Robot (!)

Folks were most excited about the iPad giveaways, and there were at least five other iPads given away off the show floor. But NetApp wins my award for creativity: The “spy robot” was a clever choice amid a sea of book readers, cameras, and music players!

Prizes like these really did draw a crowd. The smartest companies had second- and third-prize drawings as well, and some had simple tests on the form to judge knowledge of their products. I still don’t like chotchkies, but these prize drawings pass my sniff test.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Conference Loot: SNW Orlando 2010 Edition
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

It’s that time again, when everyone who thinks they’re a pundit (that would be everyone with a blog or Twitter account) has to make predictions for the coming year. But predictions are perilous: Get it right and you look like a mere trend-watcher; get it wrong and you look like a fool. It’s such a hassle! So I’m doing something different this year: I’m going to make predictions for 2009 now that it’s over, and reflect on just how smart I am (not) to have made them. Or something.

What I Would Have Gotten Right

I definitely could have predicted a lot of what happened in 2009. I mean, these were slam dunks!

1. Twitter rocks the world – I wasn’t early to Twitter, but I spent the early part of 2009 evangelizing its benefits to companies and co-workers alike. Considering how common Twitter is today, it’s hard to believe how roundly criticized and misunderstood it was this time last year. Yet here we are, on the verge of 2010, and Twitter has seeped onto our business cards, presentation templates, and web sites. I might not have predicted how stable (!) Twitter got by the end of the year, though.
2. Apple’s Macs and iPhones rule – I switched to the iPhone and the Mac in 2007 and 2008, respectively, but it looks like I wasn’t much of an iconoclast after all: By November, half of the Tech Field Day delegates were using MacBooks, and the Windows and Blackberry holdouts have started vocally defending their operating system choice. Pretty much like Mac folks used to do way back in 2008.
3. The recession is a serious pain – Companies put the brakes on spending and hiring, many even shifting both into reverse in 2009. This came as no surprise to humans capable of thought. The impact on enterprise IT companies was similarly predictable: Although most were able to survive, the impact of 2009 will continue to be felt for years. I might have predicted it would be worse, though I’m glad to say I would have been wrong.
4. EMC, NetApp, HDS, HP, and IBM continue to quibble – Surprise: Big company bloggers spend way too much time criticizing the products and actions of each other and way to little time talking about the true value of their own products.

Non-IT slam-dunk predictions: Obama was reviled by the right; the war in Afghanistan continues; people do stupid stuff in the name of reality shows.

What I Probably Could Have Predicted

Although some details would likely have been missed, I think I would have seen these coming.

1. Cloud compute and storage hits the enterprise – I was a believer in the cloud this time last year, and I bet my future on it by taking a position at enterprise cloud storage provider, Nirvanix, in March. I would have predicted that enterprise buyers would be putting serious thought to buying cloud products, but the scope has surprised me. We’re talking enough petabytes that the non-cloud players felt compelled to strike back with the private cloud pitch. Awesome!
2. Sun and Data Domain were acquired – My money would have been on Dell, IBM, or HP as buyers for this pair, but EMC wouldn’t have been outside my guesses. Still, Oracle buying Sun and vocally committing to keep it going, SPARC and all, would never have come to mind. But I wouldn’t have guessed against it either, so I’ll give myself a point here!
3. Cisco and EMC buddy up – I’ve long thought an outright merger of these two was in the cards, but even the recession couldn’t make the financials work. A partnership would have been on the list, and Acadia came as no surprise to anyone.
4. Cloud outages and data loss – I definitely could have predicted that high-profile cloud services would fall over throughout the year, and that some would lose data. Not all are enterprise-grade, after all. But the outages at Google, Rackspace, and Amazon, and Microsoft’s Danger data loss, surprised me. Don’t those guys have their acts together?
5. IT conferences falter – I spoke at Interop in 2009, but it lacked the 20,000-strong crowd it once had. Storage Decisions and Storage Networking World managed to fill their halls, but the old-school IT conference has lost its luster. Although VMworld remains strong, attendance was definitely off.
6. FCoE and SSD are still starting – I’ve been lukewarm on Fibre Channel over Ethernet and Solid State Drives, but I’m a bit surprised that storage vendors didn’t push them harder in 2009. I might have guessed there would have been more customer uptake to match the buzz.
7. SMB storage is hot – There’s a hole in the storage market between $1,000 and $20,000, and companies like Drobo and Iomega are rushing in to fill it. Now that ESX has solid iSCSI support, I expect a world of innovation here. (Oops, that sounds kind of like a 2010 prediction!)

Also in the predictable category: Goldman Sachs and Bank of America thrived while others fell; Ford is the strongest of the remaining US automakers; Boeing finally got the 787 off the ground.

What I Never Would Have Guessed

I’m not perfect, even in retrospect. Some of the Tech news from 2009 was just completely off the wall.

1. Microsoft Bing: This time for sure! – Seriously, Microsoft should stick to in-house thinking instead of trying to copy its rivals. Yet somehow, miraculously, Bing appeared and did not suck. In fact, I’m hearing regular (non-techie) folks around town talking about using the search engine. I’ve even used it! Could they actually have a winner?
2. Windows 7 rocks – Really? Seriously? Could Microsoft have come up with a solid replacement for Windows XP?
3. Ship it! – It’s not even 2010, and enterprise storage buyers can go out and purchase NetApp’s OnTap 8, EMC’s FAST, EMC Atmos Compute, and unicorn tears. Well, maybe not unicorn tears.
4. Still no GDrive – Seemingly every company has a cloud storage platform, from Amazon to Rackspace, Nirvanix to EMC, so why not Google? Could GDrive join Duke Nukem Forever as the most famous vaporware of the decade?
5. The executive shuffle – Dave Donatelli was supposed to lead EMC, not HP. Alan Atkinson was supposed to launch another startup, not take over Xiotech. At least NetApp was gentle.
6. Mac OS X (still) lacks iSCSI and ZFS – Come on, Cupertino, what’s wrong with you guys? I’ve been hyping ZFS for years, and iSCSI is commonplace. Yet Snow Leopard is stingy with both. Makes me want to hiss like one of those blue folks in Avatar.
7. Gestalt IT is a success – On a personal note, Gestalt IT didn’t even exist this time last year, and now we have a successful IT infrastructure blog and social media event. Amazing!

Other total shockers: Everyone loves Michael Jackson again; digital Beatles tunes are available everywhere but iTunes; Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize arrives 10 years early.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | My 2009 IT Industry Predictions
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, 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.

I will be wearing two hats at the show as usual:

1. I’ll be attending as press, representing this blog and Gestalt IT and learning about all of the new storage technology being launched. I’ve got some questions for quite a few companies, too, and look forward to covering their products here in the future.
2. I’ll also be introducing my new Nirvanix Consulting practice, and probably fielding lots of questions about what exactly that means.

I’ve got a full roster of meetings, both informal and scheduled, over the next three days. Along with many, many marketing reps, I’m looking forward to meeting tons of storage bloggers, some old friends and some for the first time: George Crump, Steve Duplessie, Carter George, Howard Marks, Beth Pariseau, Dave Simpson, Jerome Wendt, Hu Yoshida, IDC, ESG, and The Wikibonners, I hope I didn’t miss anyone, but I’m sure I did. Greg? Mark? Marc?

Traveler's unicorn: A 3 oz tube of toothpaste! Why did it take so long for a TSA-approved tube?

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Spring Storage Networking World 2009, Here I Come!
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The pistol shot heard this week was the starting gun for FCoE, not the execution of iSCSI

To hear this week’s storage industry news reports, one might think that Wagner’s fat lady came to Storage Networking World (SNW), singing her song as the iSCSI world collapses. Storagebod wonders what iSCSI’s death will look like. Chris Mellor at The Register says “Game Over” as NetApp, QLogic, Emulex and VMware join EMC and Cisco in singing the praises of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). Mellor suggests that the protocol will devalue Dell’s EqualLogic investment, as if HP’s acquisition of LeftHand wasn’t enough, even as fellow Register-ite, Bryan Betts disagrees.

But The Register didn’t invent the “FCoE kills iSCSI” meme – it’s just natural to imagine that these two protocols would be in a fight to the death. And if it’s a duel, then this year’s SNW conference would seem to be the first volley, as EMC introduced a FCoE Connectrix switch (based on Cisco), NetApp announced the first native FCoE array, and everyone qualified Emulex and QLogic adapters. However, despite these announcements, it’s way too early to bury iSCSI!

FCoE and iSCSI are similar in concept:

• Both rely on Ethernet physical connectivity
• Both transmit SCSI packets
• Both are aimed at date center users

But there are major differences as well:

• iSCSI is routable in an IP network
• iSCSI can use IP services like IPsec
• Software initiators can give iSCSI connectivity to any server, regardless of hardware
• FCoE will require converged network adapters (CNAs), while iSCSI can run on any Ethernet adapter
• FCoE will start at 10 Gb, while iSCSI can operate at just about any speed

Looking at this list, one might realize that FCoE is really a competitor for faster-than-4 Gb Fibre Channel. It’s not just a data center product, it’s an enterprise (read high-end and expensive) product, and that’s exactly where it will flourish. I have no doubt that Cisco and Brocade will successfully transition their Fibre Channel product lines to FCoE, and that QLogic and Emulex will sell a gazillion CNAs. But what about the rest of the market?

VMware’s adoption has shown that there is a taste for shared, networked storage outside the rarified budgets of the enterprise world. So far, no storage protocol has won the midrange and virtual server market, with Fibre Channel, iSCSI, and NFS duking it out along side internal SAS and SATA and the odd InfiniBand and external SAS solution. Although CNAs and FCoE ought to work fine in the virtual data center, not everyone will have a taste for them. There will always be plenty of folks who just want inexpensive external networked storage arrays, and iSCSI is the best thing they’re likely to see any time soon!

And iSCSI isn’t done evolving. Folks like Mellor, Chuck Hollis, and Storagebod are lauding FCoE at 10 gigabit speeds, but seem to forget that iSCSI can run at that speed, too. It can also run on the same CNAs and enterprise switches. And although wide(r)-area SANs aren’t common, I’m beginning to see some interest in leveraging the routability and other advanced features of IP in the storage world. iSCSI still has some cards to play! And the non-enterprise space isn’t nearly as awful as some make it sound – it is and will remain a bigger, more diverse market than the high end, and there are some serious buyers that will never get into FCoE.

Right now, the SAN world is expanding like it hasn’t done for years. iSCSI deployments are accelerating, growing the whole market. Sure, FCoE will probably completely replace old-school Fibre Channel over the next five years. But it will have to share the market with the now well-established iSCSI. It looks to me like Dell and HP made smart investments.

Update: More coverage on the topic:

• Doug Rainbolt from Alacritech is skeptical of the drivers for FCoE
• David Dale from NetApp feels that FCoE is unlikely to intrude on the iSCSI “sweet spot”

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

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Is the FCoE Starting Pistol Aimed at iSCSI?
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.

Let’s take a second to review: EMC became the first modern storage vendor to include NAND flash-based solid state drives as a standard tier of storage in an enterprise storage product when they announced flash in the Symmetrix DMX in January. Although every other vendor has made “me too” comments since then, enterprise flash remains pretty rare. Could Compellent really be the second major vendor to actually do something, coming along 10 months later?

More than a year ago, I rhetorically asked where the enterprise solid state drives were. In that post, and others that followed, I suggested that SSD wouldn’t really “work” as a mainstream tier unless a storage array was smart enough to dynamically allocate content to this “tier-0″ in a granular fashion. In other words, adding a big lump of flash to a static storage array and trying to manually allocate it on a LUN-by-LUN basis to hot applications is not likely to meet anyone’s cost/benefit sniff test!

But if a post-RAID storage system was smart, it could really make use of the technology, and that’s what makes Compellent’s announcement so interesting. They dynamically move blocks (rather than the much-bigger LUNs) around, and could thus make a smaller amount of flash go a lot further. Add a few flash drives and let the system tune itself! This is a big differentiator, folks!

Of course, this is not just Compellent’s advantage. Any fully-virtualized system could do the same, and we’ve heard such talk from folks as diverse as HP (I’d love to see it in both EVA and LeftHand), IBM (for real in SVC, not the science experiment), Sun (combined with ZFS), Dell/EqualLogic, and I’d love to hear it from 3PAR. Bring it on, folks! Listen to Greg!  Let’s get this technology integrated, tested, released, and in the field!

Update: Compellent probably won’t ship their SSDs in volume ’till Q1. But Chris Evans seems to agree with me 100%, and Dell is talking SSD (but no promises yet).

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Compellent Does Enterprise SSD Right
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.