Although I’m not a programmer, the need has occasionally arisen for me to write some code. These essential tools from my technical toolbox are included here.
Understanding the accumulation of data
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New England Takes On Seattle To Determine Who’s Number 2 … In Tech!
Although New England ought to win that big football game, they’re losing when it comes to innovation and technology. Seattle and Austin are gaining rapidly, and Massachusetts has itself to blame thanks to oppressive non-compete clauses and the threat of litigation. As for Tech Field Day, look for us to return to Silicon Valley for seven of our nine full events in 2015. At least now you know why!
NexGen Storage is Back!
The re-birth of NexGen Storage is surprising to be sure, but it’s a positive move for the industry. Competition is good, especially when it comes from folks who know how to “do” storage. And the world of midrange storage just got a strong new competitor!
Why Big Disk Drives Require Data Integrity Checking
Hard disk drives keep getting bigger, meaning capacity just keeps getting cheaper. But storage capacity is like money: The more you have, the more you use. And this growth in capacity means that data is at risk from a very old nemesis: Unrecoverable Read Errors (URE). Let’s get one thing out of the way from the start: The only […]
The Prime Directive of Storage: Do Not Lose Data
People call on storage devices and systems to do lots of things, from accelerating I/O to copying and sharing data. But at the heart of it all, storage arrays really have just one job: Do not lose data!
EMC XtremIO Upgrade is Non-Disruptive to Customers
EMC’s XtremIO is crapping on the badge; it’s an immature ball of destruction that shows how much architecture matters. Or so my favorite storage bloggers say. But customers and resellers seem to have a different take on the destructive XtremIO 3.0 update: They don’t care. Not at all.
A Fairy Tale of Two Storage Protocols
It’s clear how this fairy tale ends. So many companies are using “S3 plus” as their standard interface, and even inside their solutions, that it’s safe to say it’s won the cloud storage API battle. But S3 isn’t a finalized spec – the industry will extend and improve it over the coming years. Soon we’ll have a cloud storage standard based on S3, just like we have a LAN file services standard based on CIFS.
The Rack Endgame: Converged Infrastructure and Disaggregation
As I’ve written about what I’m calling the “Rack Endgame”, the specter of converged infrastructure hasn’t been far from my thoughts. As others have pointed out, disaggregation of servers, networks, and storage doesn’t require a rack-sized stack; it can exist in a rack-mountable chassis and is already on sale!
Selling Fashion: My Thoughts on the Apple Watch, Part 4
This is the fourth in my series on the Apple Watch. Read the rest: Transformative Success – My Thoughts on the Apple Watch Hodgepodge: My Thoughts on the Apple Watch, Part 2 The Fashion Function: My Thoughts on the Apple Watch, Part 3 The Apple Watch we saw this week is not a transformative product. […]
The Rack Endgame: Open Compute Project
On reading my thoughts about the evolution of enterprise storage, many pointed out that this looks an awful lot like the Facebook-led Open Compute Project (OCP). This is entirely intentional. But OCP is simply one expression of this new architecture, and perhaps not the best one for the enterprise.
The Fashion Function: My Thoughts on the Apple Watch, Part 3
Apple previewed their 2015 Apple Watch this week, and I’m not entirely convinced that they have a hit on their hands. Rather than a transformative punch, Apple showed an unfocused product that can’t figure out just what it’s supposed to be. The software side can improve dramatically before launch, but what about the physical design?