Industry veterans fondly remember the LAN wars of the early 1990's, when a diverse set of excellent data link protocols competed for dominance. Although the victory seemed to have gone to Ethernet, industry insiders are looking for a resurgence of better alternatives. One technology, Token Ring, is undeniably superior for transporting modern protocols, especially Fibre Channel … [Read more...] about Fibre Channel over Token Ring: In-Depth Analysis
Alex McDonald
The Difference Between “Integration” and “Frankenstein”
When is a solution integrated and when is it a Frankenstein-like mashup of tangled tech? Apparently, that line is crossed when it's your competitor's offering... In my time in the storage industry, I've seen enough franken-storage come and go to make me skeptical whenever a new "integrated" solution is announced. But a lot of this stuff works just fine, so I also know that … [Read more...] about The Difference Between “Integration” and “Frankenstein”
Of Emulated Fibre Channel, Virtualization, And The Right Tool For The Job
EMC's Chuck Hollis is one smart guy, and a very verbose blogger. As usual, he sparked a bit of a storm recently when comparing unified storage on EMC's Celerra NX4 to NetApp's multiprotocol FAS2020 filer. But it was one phrase in particular that got the attention of Alex McDonald and Kostadis Russos of NetApp, Martin/Storagebod, and Tony Asaro: "just because a vendor says … [Read more...] about Of Emulated Fibre Channel, Virtualization, And The Right Tool For The Job