The computer industry loves buzzwords. “Greenfield” is a popular way to describe all-new infrastructure built with no regard for legacy compatibility. But what’s the opposite? Lately, I’ve been hearing companies use the term, “brownfield” to describe a solution that is compatible with existing hardware or software. But a quick look at the dictionary reveals what an absolutely terrible term that is!
Enterprise storage
Dell World 2012: A Retrospective
Dell invited me to attend their Dell World conference in Austin, Texas last week, and it was an enlightening experience.
Samba 4.0 is Released with Full Active Directory and Updated SMB Support
Samba is becoming more and more important. Windows servers will increasingly use SMB 3.0 as their networked storage protocol in Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V 3. And EMC’s purchase of Likewise means the rest of the storage industry is looking for an SMB stack. But I’m most interested to see what Active Directory support means for future home and business devices.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Software-Defined Future
The Software-Defined Datacenter is a great concept, but it just won’t work. The big enterprise companies will never allow VMware (and daddy EMC) to commoditize them out of existence, so useful implementations will be rarer than ruby slippers. The best we can hope for is point enhancements to enable greater virtual machine mobility through SDN and improved storage integration.
Qumulo: An Enterprise Storage Startup Focused on Scale, Simplicity, and Efficiency
Enterprise storage is perhaps the most innovative area of IT these days, with exciting startups springing up right and left. Today, that scene welcomes Qumulo, who are building a new storage platform focused on scalability, efficiency, and simplicity. Qumulo catches my eye for two reasons: The team is heavy with Isilon experience, and CTO Aaron Passey really impressed me with his work at Clustrix.
