Once Upon A Time... Once upon a time, a happy little storage protocol was born. She was loved by her father, Microsoft, and he asked her to work throughout their small kingdom, delivering packages from the castle to clients all around. Sometimes she would be given other odd jobs, like authenticating a visitor, but mostly she delivered files in the kingdom of LAN. Then one … [Read more...] about A Fairy Tale of Two Storage Protocols
Amazon S3
Despite Appearances, SpectraLogic’s BlackPearl Isn’t An Amazon Glacier Clone
This week, SpectraLogic announced DS3 and "BlackPearl", an innovative product for tape storage using a cloud API. Although BlackPearl sounds like an Amazon Glacier clone, it's really nothing of the sort. BlackPearl extends the S3 API for tape storage but this "DS3" API requires well-behaved clients and disciplined access. BlackPearl is exciting, it's novel, and it's useful. But … [Read more...] about Despite Appearances, SpectraLogic’s BlackPearl Isn’t An Amazon Glacier Clone
Scaling Storage Is Hard To Do
Data storage isn't as easy as it sounds, especially at enterprise or cloud scale. It's simple enough to read and write a bit of data, but much harder to build a system that scales to store petabytes. That's why I'm keenly focused on a new wave of storage systems built from the ground up for scaling! No More Monoliths Traditional storage arrays are integrated monoliths: A … [Read more...] about Scaling Storage Is Hard To Do
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 … [Read more...] about Qumulo: An Enterprise Storage Startup Focused on Scale, Simplicity, and Efficiency
Is SolidFire out in Left Field, or Are They Playing a Whole New Ballgame?
When I say “cloud storage”, you probably think of Amazon S3: Big, slow, cheap, and distributed. That's probably why the people I talk to about SolidFire usually start shaking their heads and denouncing the company. After all, who would be crazy enough to create an all flash storage array for cloud storage applications? But maybe it's not so crazy; maybe SolidFire is simply … [Read more...] about Is SolidFire out in Left Field, or Are They Playing a Whole New Ballgame?