In which I present my Halloween gripes...

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. We Americans take ourselves way too seriously, always getting upset over the implications of having fun. That’s why I look forward to October 31 every year, since it gives us all a chance to relax and have some fun. But even Halloween has been polluted by do-gooders and jerks. Therefore, I present to you my top ten Halloween pet peeves.

He’s so cute! Can I take a picture?

People who act like they’ve never seen a kid in a costume before just confuse me. I mean, it’s Halloween and your house is decorated with pumpkins and ghosts. There are eight hundred kids crawling the streets, and you are going to gush over every single one of them? Bonus peeve: There’s no way in the world that I will let some stranger take a picture of my kid (though apparently, I’ll let them give him some candy)!

I’ll be right there!

Trick-or-treat time only lasts about an hour and a half. If you are going to participate, why not just hang out by the door? Do my kids really have to ring your bell and hang around while you walk up from the basement? And what were you doing down there, anyway?

I’m collecting candy for my kid (who isn’t here)

If your kid isn’t here, he doesn’t get candy. It’s not like we’re giving out gold coins or something. If he can’t trick-or-treat because he’s sick or tired or somewhere else, does he really need a “fun size” chocolate bar? Or perhaps the next peeve applies, and you’re trying to be clever.

I’m collecting candy with my kid (who is right here)

At least you’re not lying about the sick, missing kid who’s supposed to be eating the candy you’re asking for. But trick-or-treat is for kids, not adults. If you really want some candy, too, just steal some of his when he gets home. Or wait for him to set aside the Bit-o-Honey and Dots and eat those.

Halloween is against my religion!

It’s amazing how often I hear this argument, and it annoys me no end. Seriously? You’re against a holiday where six-year-olds put on Power Rangers costumes, run around the neighborhood, and get candy? It’s not like anyone dresses as a devil anymore, and where’s the harm in it even if they do? Halloween is not a Satanic ritual, it’s a fun way to let off steam. Why not help the homeless, feed the hungry, and fight real evil instead of raining on the parade?

Trick or treat will be held on the 29th this year

Trick-or-treating is part of Halloween, and Halloween is October 31. I understand the motives of those who would change the day of trick-or-treating better to fit busy lives and sports schedules. But I wish they would leave the date alone. You wouldn’t reschedule New Year’s Day to make it more convenient, would you? Rescheduling trick-or-treating just makes it more confusing for everyone involved, and it opens the door to “candy hounds” who move from neighborhood to neighborhood, night to night.

It only comes once a year, folks...

Huh? What? Halloween?

Seriously, folks, this comes around every year. I’m happy to forgive my neighbors who have immigrated from other countries, but there’s no excuse for old-timers to overlook Halloween. I’m not advocating house-egging or off label uses of toilet paper, but how about grabbing a bag of candy and throwing it into a bowl? And if you’re really not going to participate, shut off your porch light. That’s kind of a universal symbol for party pooper.

I’m driving my kids to every house

If you live out in the country, I suppose it’s helpful for mom and dad to drive you to the neighbors house. But my neighborhood has sidewalks and street lights, and you could hit my neighbor’s house with a popcorn ball if you’re over eight. Why not let your little demon walk off some of that candy in between houses?

Out of my way! I’m driving here!

Do you really have to zoom through my neighborhood at 50 mph the one evening it’s crawling with little munchkins? Turn on your lights, slow down, and stick to the main streets!

My dog loves strangers!

Lock up your dog! Seriously! Trick-or-treating must be incredibly stressful for dogs, with hordes of disguised children roaming the neighborhood and ringing the doorbell. No matter how friendly you think your dog is, I guarantee someone is terrified of him. And it’s only a matter of time before he freaks out and bites someone. For everyone’s safety, lock him up during trick-or-treat time.

Come to my house! We've got great candy!

Bonus non-peeve: Bring your kids!

No problem! As I said before, my neighborhood is nice, safe, and well lit. And we hand out the good candy! If you live out in the country, or worry about your kids’ safety, I’ve got no problem with you ringing my bell. I’m glad to bring a little joy into your life. Just don’t bring your dog!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Ding Dong! It’s Halloween! Don’t Ruin It!
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.

This is the second entry in my Top-Ten in Storage series.

Not every innovative product can succeed in the market, and no matter how good some ideas seem, they can fail to make much of an impact. The truth is, people buy solutions, not technologies.

This list includes products so cool, so ahead of their time, that they just couldn’t fail. But they did.

1988 EMC Orion/Allegro

EMC’s RAM-based storage array predated and presaged its Symmetrix, offering lightning-quick I/O for very small workloads. But the Orion had a few serious drawbacks: It was astonishingly expensive, offered tiny capacity, and was never available for open systems. EMC’s initial offerings in the open systems market, Centriplex and Harmonix, also deserve mention though the company proved its worth with its “best” Symmetrix a few years later.

1985 3COM 3Server

I’ve written about the 3Server before, but let’s sum up: Before RAID, SAN, and NAS, and even before NetWare and NFS became entrenched, 3COM introduced a flexible multi-disk network storage and print server called the 3Server. It was an innovative combination of hardware and software, but it lost out to NetWare on open PC hardware in the market. Although the 3Server lasted just a few years, it made a lasting contribution to the field: Its 3+Share software became 3+Open, then LAN Manager, and was finally absorbed by Microsoft to become SMB/CIFS.

HP AutoRAID (High Availability Disk Array Model 12)

The first post-RAID virtual sprang fully-formed from the big brains at HP to challenge the industry-leading modular offerings from Data General’s CLARiiON and DEC/Compaq’s StorageWorks. It one-upped everyone with automatic relocation of LUNs between different RAID levels based on workload about a decade before Compellent, EqualLogic, and 3PAR had anything of the sort. But the AutoRAID had two key drawbacks: Like mama bear, it wasn’t big enough for big companies but was too big and expensive for little ones, and it was SCSI-only (though a Fibre Channel bridge was a common accessory). Some of the concepts lived on in the HP EVA line, but AutoRAID didn’t last long.

Microsoft Object File System (OFS)/Relational File System (RFS)/WinFS

Microsoft shoulda-coulda-woulda revolutionized file storage with nearly every major operating system release. It looks the same every time: A database/filesystem hybrid that would add structure to the vast unstructured file world. Despite the hype, we haven’t seen it yet. 

MangoSoft Medley

Consider the typical LAN: Lots of clients with lots of hard drive space connected to a server with yet more disk capacity. Wouldn’t it be nice if the space on these clients could be used as a virtual network server? Well that’s just what MangoSoft announced in 1997, gaining much attention in the PC press. Sadly, the idea never really caught on, although MangoSoft continued. But distributed network storage has become the industry’s Brigadoon, trotted out as a new idea year after year.

StorageNetworks

This is my flop – I worked for StorageNetworks from 1999 through 2001.

StorageNetworks was launched in 1998 to provide off-premise storage and backup as an on-demand service for enterprise customers. They sought to take advantage of the emergence of high-speed Fibre Channel connectivity over metro distances to commoditize storage capacity. But only Houston (where I worked) had an acceptable infrastructure for the service, so the company changed focus to hosting centers. Then off-site backup. Then software. Nothing worked apart from vendor-independent services, and the (now public) company was shy to base its revenues on that. StorageNetworks was gone in 2003, but does the service remind anyone of Amazon S3 or Nirvanix? Maybe it was just ahead of its time.

Compaq VersaStor

Announced in 1999, VersaStor would have been a revolution in Fibre Channel SANs, a full out of band virtualization solution leveraging specialized HBAs directing traffic. It was continually pushed back, finally being “merged” (after Compaq) with HP’s StorageApps in-band SANLink to become CASA. But then EMC sued HP over virtualization patents, derailing CASA, and the whole mess was permanently shelved at the end of 2003.

IBM Ice Cube/Collective Intelligent Bricks Hardware

IBM rocked the storage press in 2003 with their announcement of Almaden Research’s Ice Cube concept. Instantly dubbed “Lego brick storage” (trademarks be damned!), the storage units could be stacked in two dimensions, scaling without limit. Coolest of all (literally), the bricks were chilled with water! Although the concept progressed, we still haven’t seen it. But this didn’t stop Seagate from developing a similar concept, ISE, which is now Xiotech’s main offering. IBM’s Storage Tank and VSS could have been nominated, too, but I’m not a sadist.

Revivio CDP

Revivio was the pioneer of continuous data protection (CDP), with great technology and people. But no one (other than Symantec, eventually) bought it.

Pirus

Little Pirus was working on a small but scalable virtualized target when it was acquired by Sun in September of 2002. Their technology was launched as the StorEdge 6920, a mini alternative to the HDS USP in 2004, but (according to insiders) it didn’t exactly light the world on fire. Sun finally pulled the plug on the 6920 in early 2007, with HDS taking over continuing support for anyone who bought the moribund product.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Top Ten Coolest Enterprise Storage Flops
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

On the contrary, I suggest that the enterprise storage world we know was shaped by singular innovative products of the past. Without these, the IT world might look very different.

While you’re at it, check out my list of the coolest enterprise storage flops!

So let’s take a walk through history, identifying the ten most innovative and important enterprise storage hardware products. But let me note first that this list could be 100 items long, and we all have our favorites. Lots of the storage blogging world contributed their ideas, too!  So I’m setting some arbitrary rules to keep myself on track:

1. The products have to be reflected in the shape of modern enterprise storage for open systems. If their day came and went, they’re not listed here.
2. Hardware only – I’m working on another list for software!
3. Listed products have to have been successful in the market (or they’d probably fail rule number 1 anyway), so I’ll put together a list of cool flops later.
4. For product families, I tried to pick the most influential and innovative 2member.
5. This is an enterprise storage list – items have to be used in big companies, not little PCs.
6. Only one product per company (sorry, IBM and EMC!)

So without further ado, on with the list!

1964 IBM 2311

Let’s get one thing straight: IBM is responsible for much of modern enterprise computing, so it’s no surprise that when it comes to storage, they developed just about everything, including disk drives, floppies, tapes, arrays, and libraries. So why pick this particular piece of kit? Prior to 1964, computer components were developed as a set (the 350 storage system went with the 305 RAMAC, for example), but the 2311 changed that. It was a generic storage device, plug-compatible with a range of computers. If you claimed that the 2311 was the common ancestor of all modern enterprise storage, I would certainly agree with you!

Other notable IBM products worth mentioning:

• The original 1956 RAMAC 350 disk drive unit
• The 1961 301, which used a separate arm and head for each platter (like every disk drive produced since)
• 9-track tape, which dominated from 1964 until the 1/2-inch tape revolution in the 1990s
• The 1970 3330, which added error correction and remained in production for 13 years
• The 1971 introduction of the 23FD floppy disk drive
• The 1973 3430, whose “30/30″ code name caused people to refer to hard drives as “Winchesters”
• 1974′s 3830 “MSS” tape library
• The 1980 3380, which introduced film-head technology
• 2003′s SAN Volume Controller, the first successful SAN virtualization product (after many others failed!)

1976 Shugart SA-400 minifloppy

Alan Shugart’s floppy drive was a massive hit in the home computing market, but why include it in a list of enterprise storage technologies? Because its storage interface set the standard for plug- and protocol-compatible storage in the nascent microcomputer world.

Designing a general product for use in a multitude of systems was truly innovative, and many later computers were literally designed around both the concept and physical form factor of Shugart’s drive. Simply put, this fat floppy drive inspired computer designers to create computers that could accept standard peripherals, the very definition of open systems. The definition of “peripheral” would soon grow to include standard I/O devices like storage, terminals, printers, communications gear, and everything else we know today.

1980 Seagate ST-506

Shugart left his company in 1979, founding Seagate Technology. That company’s first product was the ST-506, a 5 MB hard disk drive that shared its physical shape with the SA-400 and used a similar interface.

Like the floppy, Shugart’s hard drive set the standard for microcomputers, eventually finding its way into enterprise systems, and catapulting Seagate to its current position of disk drive leadership. Higher-capacity derivatives of the ST-506 were fitted with interfaces using Larry Boucher of Adaptec’s SCSI protocol, which continues in use even today. Although the ST-506 wasn’t a “smart” drive, the ecosystem that developed around it was critical.

1984 DEC TK50

Digital Equipment’s introduction of the MicroVAX II in 1985 was accompanied by a new half-inch backup tape drive and cartridge called the TK50. Open-reel tapes had dominated non-disk storage before this, but cartridges quickly replaced reels, leading to the development of tape robotics and (more) reliable off-site storage.

If you picked up a TK50 tape today, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a modern SDLT or LTO, because these use a similar cartridge and drive form factor, the same linear tape technology, and the same half-inch tape size. The TK50, DLT, and SDLT were the mainstays of open backup for decades.

1987 Auspex

This terrible photo is an actual Auspex press image!

What was the first open systems enterprise storage array? Leveraging Sun’s NFS protocol, and hiding a Sun workstation inside, Wizard of Oz style, the Auspex set the standard for everything we think of as “enterprise” in the open systems world. The company’s storage systems were truly ahead of their time, with ranks of redundant disks years before RAID became common.

Auspex was founded by Larry Boucher, father of SCSI and founder of Adaptec, and raked in sales while others struggled to figure out how to sell in the enterprise.  But their refusal to produce a smaller device would be their undoing. Today’s monolithic arrays owe as much to Auspex as they do to IBM, but the companies producing them could learn a lesson from the company’s demise.

1987 StorageTek 9310 PowderHorn

StorageTeks versatile and scalable 9310 PowderHorn defined backup

StorageTek was instrumental in many enterprise storage developments (see McData, for example), but one product literally transformed the datacenter: the 9310 “PowderHorn”. Consider the “glass house” datacenter tours that the largest companies would use to impress visitors: They would show off their mainframe, their Cray, or their PowderHorn.

This versatile system would accommodate every major tape cartridge format and system type and could scale to truly massive proportions. When disks were expressed in megabytes, PowderHorns held terabytes. 

1995 EMC Symmetrix 3000

EMC's Symmetrix 3000 family brought mainframe block storage technology to open systems

The 1990 introduction of the Symmetrix was the key turning point for the (now) giant of Hopkinton, but the first two generations were mainframe-only. In 1994, the company delivered data replication capability in the form of SRDF, moving key enterprise functionality to the storage array.

But it was the 1995 introduction of the third-generation Symmetrix 3000 that really changed the storage world. For the first time, open systems could connect to mainframe-class storage over the standard SCSI protocol and leverage features like SRDF and (in 1997′s Symm 4) TimeFinder.

One key ingredient often overlooked in the Symmetrix was in-box virtualization the likes of which hadn’t been seen before. It also featured RAID-like sub-disk data protection, though the Symmetrix line never did implement true RAID.

The Symmetrix was redesigned entirely in 2003 to become the DMX. Although it was as different from its predecessor as the New Beetle was from Volkswagen’s original, the DMX line continued many of the philosophical underpinnings set in 1990.

EMC also deserves credit for their original Celerra enterprise NAS system, which picked up where Auspex left off. The company followed these in 2002 with the Centera CAS system, which abandoned many traditional concepts of enterprise storage, like blocks- and filesystem-access and modular and monolithic architecture. The Centera is certainly innovative, but we have yet to see the impact it will have.

1994 Data General CLARiiON

Data General paired the CLARiiON (left) with their AViiON server

It’s easy to forget the world before RAID. But Data General was one of the first to market with a cached RAID system with their 1991 introduction of the HADA. Although this early system was tied to DG’s servers, it donated much of its architecture to a system that became more valuable than the rest of the company: CLARiiON.

Massively successful, and mighty impressive (PC Magazine called the first CLARiiON “amazing”), this modular block storage array set the template for over a decade. There were dozens of copycat arrays on the market within a few years of the introduction of the HADA. The CLARiiON gained Fibre Channel support, was sold to EMC, and remains a mainstay of corporate data centers, albeit with updates to every component. I have administered every generation of CLARiiON array, and can attest to their capability (when properly configured!)

1996 NetApp Multiprotocol Filer

NetApp's F330 Multiprotocol Filer was a huge hit in mid-size businesses and a major upgrade

NetApp (nee Network Appliance) was formed by a group of ex-Auspex engineers who wanted to create a more modular NAS server based on industry-standard hardware. They released their first product, the NFS-only FASServer, in 1995, but it was their August, 1996 introduction of the Windows-compatible Multiprotocol Filer software that really put them on the map.

Combined with their solid F220, F330, and F540 hardware, NetApp now had a serious challenger to Auspex, and their NAS systems blew away dedicated server-based solutions in terms of flexibility and manageability. NetApp’s unified NFS, CIFS/SMB, and HTTP access to content on their unique WAFL file system was impressive at the time, as was the quick setup and administration and the ease of adding drives to their RAID-4 sets. Plus, they brought a new level of friendliness to the data center with their bright colors and silly “toaster” nomenclature.

1999 McData Fibre Channel Director

McData has an interesting history, beginning with Storage Technology (StorageTek), intersecting with IBM, bought and spun off by EMC, and lately acquired by Brocade. Although the company spent a decade developing various peripherals for IBM mainframe systems, their late-1994 introduction of a switching director for ESCON traffic would change the storage world. We take large-scale SANs and LANs for granted today, but McData’s director was astonishing when it was introduced: There were no words to describe it or its function at the time, and period press articles are puzzling!

EMC scooped the company up a year later, but McData was spun out in 1997, adding Fibre Channel support that same year. In the ensuing years, McData became the enterprise SAN “arms dealer”, supplying IBM and EMC with the ED-5000 and ED-6064 directors. I recall commenting at the time that Fibre Channel connectivity built around the McData director was the first Storage Area Network worthy of the name. McData went IPO in 2000 and was purchased by rival Brocade in 2006. McData’s director architecture survives and thrives today against fierce competition from Brocade, Cisco, and others.

Others To Consider

What would you have included in this list? Here are some honorable mentions that I wish I had room for:

1. StorageTek “Aegis” L700 library
2. Brocade “LOOM” 2xxx switches
3. Adaptec SCSI HBAs
4. Copan MAID
5. EqualLogic iSCSI arrays
6. EMC Centera
7. HP EVA
8. HDS USP
9. Compellent Storage Center

Responses

Here’s a list of responses that others have posted:

• Marc Farley’s Top 10 List
• Alex MacDonald’s Bottom 10 List

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

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Top Ten Innovative Enterprise Storage Hardware Products
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

So I’m doing what any good obsessive-compulsive would do – making a list!

Over the next few weeks, I plan to post a few “top ten in storage” lists. Here are the topics I’m focusing on right now:

1. Most Important Storage Technologies – True technological and conceptual innovations like RAID, external storage, NAS, snapshots, and indeed the hard disk drive itself!
2. Most Innovative Storage Hardware Products – Which pieces of storage gear shook and shaped our world? How about EMC’s Symmetrix, DG’s CLARiiON, IBM’s RAMAC storage, DLT tape, the Auspex array, NetApp’s Filers, and Seagate’s ST-506?
3. Most Innovative Storage Software Products – What made the biggest impact on the software side? I’d name NetWare, LAN Manager, Legato NetWorker, Microsoft’s iSCSI initiator, VMFS, and PowerPath.
4. Coolest Storage Flops – All of this got me thinking about the things that should have been, like 3COM’s 3Server, WinFS, Storage Tank and IceCube, and Revivio’s CDP.

I’d like you to participate! Please use the comment section below to nominate your favorites in these categories. Or if you’d like to help out more, drop me an email. I’d even be willing to make you a co-author so you can help me put together the lists directly!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Real Innovation
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.