I Promise Not To Quote That Old Annoying Dell PC Slogan

I’ve been buying Dell computers for decades, but not really because I loved them. Sure, my XPS laptop was awesome, but it burned out its motherboard and I never really touched the RMA replacement, having bought a MacBook Pro in the meantime. Enterprise buyers seem to have the same ambivalence about Dell. They buy it, but I’m not sure they really “buy” the company as an IT partner.

I’m sure you’ve heard the same comments as me: “Dell just assembles off-the-shelf components and sells them in volume” or “Dell’s a follower, not an innovator.” There seems to be a great deal of respect for Dell’s ability to produce competitive products and sell them at reasonable cost. Truly, most of their competitors would love to have this kind of reputation. But most of their competitors also have a reputation for partnership, innovation, and solution selling.

Dell Is Making An Effort

It seems clear that Dell would like to change this attitude, and they are investing serious resources to make it happen. While acquisitions like Compellent and Force10 raised eyebrows in storage and networking, it is the activity I see behind the scenes that paints the clearest picture. Dell isn’t just buying into new markets, they’re investing to change the company.

When Dell acquired EqualLogic in 2008, many assumed it was a tactical investment to increase margins over the (resold) EMC storage equipment the company was then pushing. Pundits were similarly dismissive of the acquisition of Perot Systems in 2009, calling it a “me too” effort after HP acquired rival EDS. Regardless of the motivations, however, Dell was becoming more of a serious challenger to HP and IBM every day.

After failing to acquire 3PAR in 2010, then picking up Compllent shortly after, accusations that Dell was “mini me” to HP were rampant. But HP stumbled mightily in 2011, and many in IT quickly lost confidence in that company’s management. All the while, Dell moved forward, increasing in-house IP and expanding enterprise offerings.

What Is The Result?

Today, one sees a very different landscape than just last year. Dell’s acquisitions focused on some of the ripest spots in storage and networking, and no one would disagree that the company has the ability strongly to push these products. Compellent and Force10 went from interesting startups to serious contenders overnight.

Dell really pulled out all the stops to tell us they are "Fluid by Design"

More importantly, Dell has retained much of the innovation these companies offered, from employees to support programs. Last week, I attended the Dell Storage Forum in London, an event initiated by Compellent prior to the acquisition. At the event, I talked to many Dell employees who came to the company through acquisition but had now been given power to challenge the status quo in their respective areas.

If Dell really intended only to push product, why retain marketing personnel? Why invest in the Dell Storage Forum? Why continue Compellent’s beloved Co-Pilot support program?

Then there are the products. Dell leveraged its investment in Ocarina Networks to create a deduplicating backup appliance, the new DR4000. They salvaged file system startup ExaNet and are beginning to bring scale out technology to market. The latest revision of the Compellent software finally brings it to parity in terms of VMware support. And Dell is really working to sell their DX Object Store.

This is the sort of activity one would expect from a contender, not a “box pusher”.

Stephen’s Stance

In the words of Malcolm Reynolds, my days of not taking Dell seriously are certainly coming to a middle. Dell is investing in product IP, innovative marketing and PR events, customer support, and personnel. This does not mean that Dell is instantly a player in the enterprise storage and networking markets, or that all this work will pay off. But I don’t laugh when I hear Dell boast that they intend to be a “top three” enterprise storage company in a few years. It could happen.

Disclaimer: Dell sponsored two Tech Field Day events in 2011, paid me as a speaker at two DX events, and paid for my trip to Dell Storage Forum in London. But no one can buy a post on this site, and I did similar business with IBM, HP, Cisco, and many other companies. This is my opinion.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2012. | Why Should Anyone Take Dell Seriously in Enterprise Storage?
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.

It's not going to be this easy to bridge Fibre Channel and Ethernet!

Before the holidays, I posed a question on Google+ that generated quite a bit of interest and feedback. Now that it has settled down a bit I’d like to summarize the unresolved elements to make FCoE truly a world-class storage interconnect.

Setting the Stage

FCoE has been a controversial topic in both storage and networking, and for good reason. No one would deny that Ethernet is not an ideal transport mechanism for block storage I/O. “Porting” Fibre Channel to run on Ethernet networks has been a supreme technical challenge, and many companies and individuals have labored long and hard to make FCoE a reality.

Now that FCoE is specified in the standard and has been deployed in production environments, the question turns to its future. Will it take off and seize the mantle of dominance currently held by what I like retroactively to call “Fibre Channel over Fibre Channel?” Will they coexist for the next decade, with FCoE mainly deployed in “block” environments such as Cisco UCS? Or will FCoE ultimately fail to catch on, displaced by some other storage protocol like plain FC, iSCSI, NFS, or something entirely different?

The data center needs a flexible new protocol to meet the needs of virtual environments, and convergence of storage and data networking makes a great deal of sense in these environments. This was the root of my question, and I ask it in all earnestness.

My question: What elements remain unresolved to make FCoE truly world-class? What should the vendors be prioritizing? Here are the answers I received.

Technical Considerations

Link Aggregation on CNA’s

Converged network adapters (CNA’s) allow multiple protocols to access a single Ethernet connection, but some also include multiple ports that can be aggregated. In traditional Ethernet networks, link aggregation is a respectable approach for performance and availability. But storage networks have traditionally relied on host-based MPIO software, and these features are mutually exclusive. The zeitgeist seems to be a recommendation to avoid link aggregation on CNA’s that are used for storage networks.

How Do You Handle Virtual Machine Mobility?

As I described recently, virtual machine mobility is a major technical challenge for existing networks. The VMware proposal, the VXLAN, seems to be gaining traction right now. But this is only a solution for data networking. How will FCoE SANs handle virtual machine mobility? This remains unresolved as far as I can tell, though Ethernet switch vendors have come up with their own answers. Brocade demonstrated just such a solution at Networking Field Day 2, and I know that others have answers as well. But will there be an interoperable industry solution?

How Should FCoE Be Implemented Over Longer Distances?

Fibre Channel has traditionally relied on routers and other protocols (FCIP and iFCP) to span distances, but FCoE raises the possibility of native traversal. While it is certainly possible to span distances with FCoE, this is definitely not a recommended or supported idea. Without TCP/IP, or any routing mechanism, it’s just a bad idea. But I imagine that it won’t be long before vendors decide to give it a go anyway.

Implementation Considerations

Is TRILL Required for FCoE Networks?

This has been one of my own questions since the very beginning. Clearly, edge only FCoE works just fine without TRILL. But as networks become more complicated, and virtual machines move, it seems an awfully good idea to have some protocol to alleviate East-West routing concerns. I feel much better with TRILL (or some similar Ethernet fabric technology) in a complicated FCoE network.

Should All Switches Be Full FC Forwarders?

There are number of ways to implement FCoE on Ethernet network, and not all involve building a full Fibre Channel stack in each switch. While many (including myself) assumed that FCoE implied Fibre Channel forwarding in all switches, this is clearly not the direction taken by vendors, at least initially. Perhaps the current “Ethernet forwarding” approach is only a stepping stone, or perhaps it will emerge as the dominant FCoE standard.

How Will OpenFCoE and LoM Be Used?

OpenFCoE is a software solution allowing FCoE to be run without a CNA. If this became popular, it wouldn’t be long before data center architects began looking at LAN on Motherboard (LoM) and even 10GBASE-T as a potential SAN alternative. Will this be used in the long run? It could happen, but it’s certainly not something that’s here at the moment. But OpenFCoE is a real player, especially with Intel’s backing.

How Will Technologies like Zoning Interoperate?

Many networkers are just now beginning to see the true complexity of Fibre Channel SANs. Although interoperability of higher-level Fibre Channel functions between vendors has never been a priority in “FC over FC” SANs, Ethernet could change things. I would not be at all surprised to see a groundswell of customer support demanding greater levels of interoperability from FCoE than from FC, and zoning and VSAN is the likely first beachhead.

The Big Question: When Will We See the “Killer App” For FCoE

Just about everyone agreed that the real challenge for FCoE is market acceptance. Customers aren’t yet demanding FCoE, and vendors are finding it hard to articulate a compelling case to move from “tried-and-true” FC. Convergence, cost savings, and performance have all been put forth, but customers aren’t biting. Perhaps they just need a little time and a little more proof.

This post relies extensively on feedback from a number of people, including Ivan Pepelnjak, Tony Bourke, J Metz, Dmitri Kalintsev, Derick Winkworth, David Hardaker, Juan Lage, and Corey Hines.

Read Scott Lowe’s response: What Does FCoE Have To Do With VM Mobility?

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2012. | Eight Unresolved Questions About FCoE
This post was categorized as 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.

Tech Field Day events are all about the people, so I’m really looking forward to getting together with so many great folks from the Wi-Fi arena. Once again, Jennifer Huber helped organize the event, and Marcus Burton, Andrew von Nagy, Tom Hollingsworth, Rocky Gregory, Sam Clements, and Chris Lyttle will return to the event. They’re joined by newcomers, Daniel Cybulskie and Blake Krone, and 3 more “players to be named later”.

Returning presenting sponsors include AeroHive Networks and MetaGeek, and they are joined by Aruba Networks, Ekahau, Meraki, and Ruckus Wireless. One more sponsor will be named shortly.

Watch this space for more information about Wireless Field Day 2!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Wireless Field Day 2 – Silicon Valley
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.

As was the case with our OpenFlow Symposium in October, the public will be invited to attend the Wi-Fi Mobility Symposium in January. Free tickets will be posted at EventBrite, and will be announced on this very page! The event will also be streamed live over the Internet if you are unable to attend in person.

This post is really something of a placeholder at this point, and I will be updating it with information as the event approaches.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Wi-Fi Mobility Symposium – San Jose, CA
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.

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.

Thursday, September 15

One of the highlights of VMworld with the debut of Nutanix. They received a lot of attention, as well as a “Best of VMworld” award, for their scale out “compute cluster”, which incorporates servers storage into a blade form factor. We’re very pleased to have the fine folks from Nutanix joining us at Tech Field Day as well! Tune in at 8:00 AM Pacific time on Thursday to learn more.

A company I’m very glad to see at Tech Field Day is Nasuni, which is much more than a cloud storage gateway. I’ve been working with Nasuni for almost a year now, and am very familiar with their offerings and technology. But I’m betting the delegates might not know what they’re up to. And I’m very pleased to let you know that Nasuni CEO Andres Rodriguez will be covering some excellent new information during their 10:30 AM Thursday session!

Symantec is perhaps the most-frequent Tech Field Day presenter, but this is a break from the past Backup Exec- and NetBackup-focused sessions. This time we’ve got the Symantec Storage folks (i.e. Veritas) and they’re spilling the beans on the long-awaited version 6.0 of Storage Foundation. I’m a big fan of this software, having used it for over a decade, and am looking forward to hearing what’s new at 1:30 PM.

While touring the show floor at the NAB show earlier this year, I ran into DataDirect Networks, probably the biggest and most successful storage company most people have never heard of! DDN sells tons of storage in the media and entertainment business (explaining their focus on the NAB show), but they have a lot of great products that are gaining attention in other markets as well. We are very pleased that DDN will give us all a peek at what they are working on at 4 PM Thursday!

Party With The ExecEvent

Every Tech Field Day event has featured a Thursday-evening party so the presenting companies and invited delegates can get to know each other better. In the past, we’ve visited venues as diverse as the Computer History Museum, The Museum of Flight, and Fenway Park, and have invited friends and locals to join us. This time we’re doing something different again.

We coordinated the date of Tech Field Day with our friends over at The ExecEvent so we could throw a joint Thursday evening bash. Joining our presenters and delegates will be the representatives of various companies who are meeting in Santa Clara for that event. This gives everyone involved another reason to attend the party, and will likely lead to many interesting industry discussions.

Friday, September 16

I’ve previously written about the all-flash enterprise arrays announced by Pure Storage at VMworld, where they got lots of attention. Now it’s time for the Tech Field Day delegates to take a closer look at their technology. Join in Friday morning at 8 AM Pacific to hear what they’ve got to say.

Arista Networks can be considered a “friend of the event” after presenting at Networking Field Day last year, and more so since they are allowing us to use their facility for the rest of the day Friday. We’ll start off with Arista themselves at 10:30 Pacifc. They’ll undoubtedly cover their high-performance Ethernet switches with a twist: VMware integration (another “Best of VMworld” winner) and the ability to run certain applications right in the chassis. Nifty stuff.

SolidFire is generating tremendous buzz in the industry with their all SSD storage solution. Targeted at storage service providers, the SolidFire storage appliances deliver massive performance and efficiency as well as automated management. We are thrilled that SolidFire will be able to demonstrate their product to the Tech Field Day delegates at 1:30 PM Friday.

We’ll wrap up with a backup industry veteran, Arkeia Software. Although perhaps not the most well-known name, Arkeia is staking a claim on distributed data protection leveraging a special twist on data deduplication and even offering a credible solution for cloud servers. Tune in at 4 PM Friday to learn more!

Stephen’s Stance

Tech Field Day 8 really is the most diverse and startup-laden event we’ve ever hosted. I am personally very excited to see every presentation, and invite you to join in live on Thursday and Friday between 8 and 6 Pacific. Live streaming video will be at TechFieldDay.com!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Tech Field Day 8 Presenter Lineup
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Sharing the Work

Matt Simmons and I are working together to plan future Tech Field Day events

I have been very, very busy lately. This is a good thing, considering that “I work for no man” but it sure does cause stress! That’s why I’m glad to announce that Matt Simmons has joined me full-time, taking on much of the workload of planning and executing Tech Field Day events.

The great thing about Matt is that he can basically do everything I can do: He’s a systems administrator and can handle all of the techie IT stuff that goes on behind the scenes, and he has experience working with hotels and travel people in planning events. Assuming all goes well with the next few events, Matt and I may even be able to add additional “staff” to meet the demands of an expanding event series!

Of course, the input of current and past delegates and the sponsors themselves helps out a lot too. There’s no way we could make this happen without the delegates help selecting and voting on their peers’ qualifications and helping out with making everything run smoothly on the ground. They’re also a huge help in suggesting new presenters and making introductions.

There’s nothing like an “thought leader” referral, except perhaps the enthusiastic endorsement of previous presenters! And we have had no shortage of enthusiasm, as witnessed by the hearty handshakes (and hugs!) from our friends at Zerto, Embotics, SolarWinds, Drobo, Symantec, Dell, Veeam, and so many other companies. And that was just at VMworld!

Something Old, Something New

Tech Field Day is all about lively technical discussion. We're going to try to capture and share some of that at TFD8!

We are always trying to keep the Tech Field Day events lively and fresh, and we continue to evolve the “formula”. We have some new ideas for Tech Field Day 8, and a great batch of new delegates and companies as well.

We always try to pick new and interesting voices for these events, and Tech Field Day 8 is no exception. We are also trying to go out on a limb a little more, bringing in up-and-coming delegates that we feel will be the next superstars of the industry. Take a look at our delegate list, and I think you’ll agree that we have a great group!

We are also experimenting with a new roundtable discussion format, something we began with Tech Field Day 7 in Austin. Rather than directly discussing the presenters, we are going to reserve some time in the schedule to discuss pertinent topics and trends in IT. With the help of our friends at Truth in IT, we will produce a series of videos of these conversations. These will be released in the month after the event.

In Austin, we decided to post recordings of the presentations immediately after the event. We will do that again in Tech Field Day 8, and hope this becomes a valuable resource for folks looking to learn about these companies. We got great feedback at VMworld about the streaming and the recordings, with many people commenting that they went back and viewed the presentations once the event was finished.

We are still tinkering with the schedule and trying to decide how many companies we can fit in with our new roundtable concept, but I hope this gives you an idea of the sort of things you learn from Tech Field Day. We expect to announce a few more companies shortly, including some big names who are just going through the process of contracts and legal legwork. Watch this space, and tune into the live streaming of these presentations at TechFieldDay.com!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Tech Field Day 8, Silicon Valley
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Features, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The Clear PXU1900 WiMAX modem is acceptable, but the service isn't

As I discussed previously, my search for a mobile broadband solution for Tech Field Day led me to the nascent 4G networks springing up around the world. Here in the United States, two next-generation networks offered compelling performance: Clearwire’s WiMAX service (sold by Clear and Sprint) and Verizon Wireless’ LTE network. I purchased a modem on each network and tested performance and usability while traveling before deciding that the Verizon LTE network is the superior choice.

You should also read 4G Connectivity Options Proliferate and 4G: Is It Really A Standard If No One Cares? for more background, and Hands-On Review: Verizon 4G LTE (and the Novatel MiFi 4510l) to learn what I prefer over this device!

Note that T-Mobile USA also offers “4G” service in the USA. Although some rightly criticize the company for using this nomenclature on a 3G-derived HSPA+ network, it’s hard to argue with performance that meets or exceeds competing technologies. But AT&T’s pending purchase of T-Mobile USA throws the future of their network in doubt, since their spectrum will likely be repurposed as another LTE network in the coming year.

Clearwire WiMAX: Clear, Sprint, etc

After researching the 4G options, Clearwire’s WiMAX network emerged as an enticing option. The company has massive radio spectrum across the United States and has rolled out coverage in many major cities. And I appreciated the variety of devices and plans offered by Clear and Sprint, both of which use this network.

Clearwire was formed as a “super merger” of a diverse set of WiMAX supporters in the USA, and it inherited both their spectrum and infrastructure. This made Clearwire the global standard-bearer for WiMAX, which is why their recent announcement of an LTE network gave me pause. Is Clearwire really going to support both 4G network technologies long-term, or is WiMAX on the way out?

But Clearwire’s WiMAX coverage across the USA beats Verizon’s LTE, so I decided to give it a try. Since I am a long-time Cradlepoint user, I decided to purchase a USB “dongle” modem. But local resellers would not allow me to purchase one without a 2-year contract, and I was too skeptical about the long-term viability of their network to sign up for that. Instead, I turned to eBay, clicking “buy it now” on a brand new Clear-branded dongle for just $34 shipped.

Clear PXU1900

Apparently you can add two antennas to your Clear modem, but these holes give it an unfinished look

I selected a combination 3G/4G dongle, thinking that it would offer the best possible coverage with Sprint’s CDMA network acting as a backup if WiMAX was unavailable. But opening the package revealed a 4G-only PXU1900 USB stick. The eBay seller no longer offered the combo device and offered a refund or 50% rebate if I kept the alternative they had sent. I decided on the latter, since it’s hard to beat $19!

The PXU1900 is light and compact, with a bulbous appearance. It does not feel particularly sturdy, and the two exposed antenna connectors on the back gave me pause. The USB jack folds into the body but is more difficult to flip out than I would like, and the red/orange/green connection status LED is overly bright and distracting beside a laptop keyboard.

See also Building a Combination 3G/4G/Wired Wi-Fi Network

The box contained an odd-shaped USB drive with (outdated) drivers and software. I much prefer it when USB devices include these internally. Luckily, Clear offers downloadable beta drivers for 64-bit Mac OS X “Lion”, and Cradlepoint supports this modem with their 4G driver firmware for my MBR1200 and new CBR400. But 4G is too much for my trusty old first-generation PHS300: I would have to upgrade to the second-generation PHS300 to use it.

Clear Pricing and Service Options

The basic Clear plans are fairly simple. Clear obviously wants to sign customers up for 2-year contracts, but the company offers more options if you are persistent.  If you purchase your own hardware, you can sign up for month-to-month service at the same price, though a $35 activation fee applies and local resellers refused to sell me this option. This is an attractive option since WiMAX hardware is widely available and the future of the network is not at all secure.

I was surprised to learn of a third service option once I launched the Clear connection manager in Denver. If you own your own hardware, Clear offers a $10 “day pass” with no activation or cancellation fees. This is not available through Clear’s web site or by phone, though it is apparently possible to set up a day pass account in certain Clear stores. This is by far the best option for me, especially since Clear hasn’t bothered to turn the service off or re-bill me!

The easiest way to get a “day pass” is to simply launch the Clear Connection Manager and sign up through your browser. The modem will connect to a captive portal if service is available and you have no contract. From there, select “Click here to view your message” then select the 24 Hour Pass for $10.00. You will need to create an account with a credit card, and you’re set.

I was prepared to sign up month-to-month, but felt that the day pass was a better option for my needs. Since I don’t live in a WiMAX area, I would only use the device while traveling. And since I also purchased the Verizon LTE modem, I wouldn’t need Clear service except perhaps during Tech Field Day. As I mentioned, the Day Pass has remained active for almost a month anyway!

Real-World WiMAX Experience

The Cradlepoint CBR400 just loves the Clear modem (as long as there's coverage!)

I’ve now used the Clear service in Denver, Austin, Atlanta (airport), and Cleveland and feel I can pass judgement. And my decision isn’t positive: I rate the Clear service as questionable at best, and recommend looking for an alternative 4G option if possible.

What’s wrong with Clear’s WiMAX?

1. Unless you’re in a solid coverage area today, don’t sign a long-term contract. Although coverage is fairly good today for major cities, Clearwire and Sprint are adopting LTE, and this calls the long-term future of their WiMAX network into question. Clearwire will likely continue to maintain existing WiMAX sites and service for quite a while, but I doubt they will aggressively expand the network.
2. Clearwire has massive spectrum across the USA, but it’s in the 2.5-2.6 GHz “IMT-E” range, which is ample but doesn’t penetrate buildings well and is a total mess licensing-wise. My own experience shows throughput cut in half or more by moving inside a concrete-block building. Note that Sprint or AT&T LTE at 2.5/2.6 GHz will face the same limitations. Verizon’s 700 MHz “upper SMH band C” licenses include less spectrum but better coverage in my experience.
3. 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi causes interference with 4G at 2.5 GHz, forcing users to separate modems from Wi-Fi antennas or just use Wi-Fi channels 1 or 2, increasing contention in an already-crowded range.
4. The Clear Day Pass (and most Clear hardware) is 4G-only, so if you’re out of range you’re out of luck. All of Verizon’s LTE equipment and plans support both EVDO and LTE.
5. Clear appears to severely throttle upload speed in many areas. I was able to get over 10 Mbps in Cleveland, but all other locations were limited to 300 Kbps even as real-world download speed was competitive with LTE at 5 Mbps and above!
6. My USB modem is very sensitive to orientation, explaining the curious inclusion of a fancy USB angle adapter in the package. This isn’t as much of a problem with a fixed installation, but mobile users will see fluctuating speed and even dropped connections from moving the modem a tiny bit.

Stephen’s Stance

I know lots of folks who are happy with Clear or Sprint WiMAX service, and I applaud them for their no-contract Day Pass option. In fact, I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest that others go the same route I did: Buy a Clear modem on eBay and pay $10 per day whenever you need connectivity. But I strongly discourage readers from signing up for a long-term contract with Clear. Sprint subscribers will likely be upgraded to LTE eventually, but the future of Clear is very, very cloudy.

And Verizon’s LTE service is so good, there’s no reason to go for WiMAX at all. But that’s a story for another day!

Next, read Hands-On Review: Verizon 4G LTE (and the Novatel MiFi 4510l) for my preferred device!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Hands-On Review: Clear WiMAX Service (and PXU1900 USB Modem)
This post was categorized as Everything, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Next Sunday, I’m headed back to Las Vegas (for my fifth time this year!) for another enterprise IT event. But this is a special event: VMworld always includes an amazing group of attendees and companies! And for the first time, I’m participating in the event, presenting to vExperts on Sunday. I hope I see you there!

My VMworld Schedule

I’ll be arriving in Las Vegas on Sunday morning (here’s hoping Uninental/Continited decides to upgrade me to first class again!) and heading straight to the Hilton to drop off my bags. Then it’s time to head to the Sands Convention Center for lunch and registration.

I’ll spend Sunday afternoon at the vExpert Sunday Event organized by John Troyer. Although this event is only for vExperts, I bet it’ll be well-attended and I’ll see lots of familiar faces!

After dinner Sunday night is VMunderground. Always a highlight of VMworld, VMunderground is a great social event run by some awesome folks, including Tech Field Day delegates, Theron Conrey and Sean Clark. Tickets are required, and I believe they’re all taken. So I hope you got some while they lasted!

I’ve got some open time Monday (hear that, vendors?) but I’m sure that’ll fill up soon. Anyone want to meet up for breakfast or lunch? I’ll definitely be roving the Solutions Exchange from 5:00 to 7:30 with my buddies.

Tuesday kicks off with breakfast with Mark Thiele and others. I’m trying to arrange another visit to SuperNAP, the world’s largest datacenter, right after. Then it’s meeting after meeting with vendors, with trips to the Solutions Exchange mixed in. I’d love to set up a dinner, too. Who’s in?

Wednesday is meeting after meeting, too. And although most folks will be enjoying The Killers Wednesday night, I have to head back home that afternoon. I have to see my family sometimes, you know?

Stephen’s Stance

I’d love to meet up with you at VMworld! If you’re a product vendor and would like to brief me on what you’re doing, please try to get it into my open Monday, ok? Or let’s do it over a meal – there are some amazing restaurants in Vegas! And if you’re a fellow geek wanting to meet up, drop me a line too. I’ll be out “gallivanting” (as my mom would say) every evening. Join me!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | VMworld 2011, Las Vegas
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Drobo is like Wonka's Chocolate Factory for storage geeks

Data Robotics spent the last year transforming itself from a maker of expensive consumer storage devices to a player in the nascent small enterprise storage array market. That process took another step this week, as Data Robotics officially renamed itself Drobo. It is ironic that the company would shed a longer, corporate sounding name for the familiar consumer product designation, but there is no denying the power of the Drobo brand.

Drobo’s Transformation

Data Robotics was founded by storage industry pioneer Geoff Barrall, who wanted to transform the storage industry with flexibility and ease-of-use as central components. The Data Robotics team developed a simple four bay home storage device and gave it the name, Drobo. This was a basic and low performance device but found many takers in the prosumer market thanks to its innovative “BeyondRAID” technology.

BeyondRAID gave the little Drobo amazing powers: Thin provisioning meant that the device would flexibly accommodate nearly any combination of hard disk drives without requiring the user to delete and migrate data, and the unit could be expanded simply by swapping out smaller drives for larger ones. But the four slot unit was slow and expensive compared to feature packed but less friendly alternatives. By 2008, it seems that Data Robotics had expended all it could.

This changed in April of 2009 with the introduction of the eight bay DroboPro. Although still fairly limited, the DroboPro indicated that data robotics was serious about expanding into new markets, especially small business datacenters. The real innovation appeared later that year with the introduction of the high-performance Drobo S and iSCSI DroboElite, a sneak preview of which was a highlight of the Tech Field Day event I put together that November.

Big Changes

Unbeknownst to me, bigger things were afoot behind the scenes at Data Robotics in 2009. Entrepreneurial founder Barrall, whom I remain close to, was replaced as CEO less than a month later by storage industry veteran, Tom Buiocchi. The board decided to accelerate the development of business focused storage devices like the DroboElite, and development was underway on an entire new product line.

DroboFS, introduced in April at the second Tech Field Day event, brought an integrated file system interface to the same five-day form factor of the Drobo S. This was a much better solution than the existing DroboShare add-on device, though I was less enthusiastic about the prospect of running third-party software on the device.

Drobo continued moving in the direction of small business datacenters needs, and their introduction in early 2011 of a business focused line of storage devices came as no surprise to industry insiders. The new family of products, once again previewed at Tech Field Day, included eight bay and 12 bay devices with iSCSI or NAS capability, automated tiered storage, and VMware and Microsoft certification.

Although the B1200i, B800i, and B800fs still lack many of the enterprise features found in higher-end storage devices, they have proved themselves in the market. I have found these devices in many small business datacenters, all of whom praised them for their simplicity and flexibility.

Drobo. Just Drobo.

The Drobo marketing team hinted to me earlier this year that the Data Robotics name was on the way out. They felt that the positive connotations of “Drobo” outweighed its familiar association with consumer products, and I must agree. I know very few people, other than industry insiders, who ever even heard of the Data Robotics brand, yet many photographers, IT geeks, and consumer electronics enthusiasts have brought up Drobo in conversation.

Going with the Drobo name seems logical for the company, though they will have to overcome the stigma of starting out as a consumer electronics company. Small businesses seem to have no trouble at all having a Drobo in their data center, but what about larger organizations? Will an enterprise be willing to accept a Drobo branded product even for small office or remote office use? Or will they rejected out of hand, assuming it is the same old consumer electronics device they may have heard of?

I remain impressed by the Drobo technology, and the evolution of BeyondRAID is heading in the right direction. Drobo remains the only device that really nails thin provisioning on the storage array, and this gives it a real leg up when developing advanced features. Although Drobo storage devices are expensive, they are worth it if you value the kind of ease-of-use and flexibility they offer. I personally bought a four bay Drobo unit for my day-to-day storage needs, and am in the process of upgrading to a second-generation Drobo S. I look forward to seeing more progress from the company now known as Drobo in the days ahead.

Disclaimer: I was a Drobo buyer before I got anything from the company, but have developed close relationships since then. They have sponsored three of the Tech Field Day events I organize, have provided me and my friends with review units, and are always available to take my calls. That being said, Drobo did not encourage or sponsor this or any other article I have written about the company, and did not alert me to this name change announcement ahead of time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | The Transformation from Data Robotics to Drobo
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Enterprise storage, 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.