Fibre Channel

Microsoft: The A-Rod of Storage

March 10, 2008 by Stephen 2 Comments

Imagine there was someone many people loved to hate, but grudgingly loved just the same because of their incredible prowess. In Red Sox Nation, that would be Alex Rodriguez, who we follow year after year with a mix of admiration, envy, and anger as he seems to make all the right moves for the wrong […]

Which Storage Protocol For VMware?

March 7, 2008 by Stephen Leave a Comment

One of the hits from my TechTarget storage virtualization seminar this week was a discussion of the relative merits of different storage protocols. Sounds deadly, but this can be quite a religious issue for folks, and it generated lively debate. I’m firmly in the “do what works” camp – there is no always-right protocol, and […]

Apple Customers Vent Over Ex-Xserve RAID

February 20, 2008 by Stephen Leave a Comment

Apple’s business customers do not appear amused at the company’s exit from the enterprise storage space, but it was the quiet way that the company dumped the Xserve RAID product from their lineup that really irked. “XRAID” customers were left wondering whether they made the right choice, and if the company’s support for the defunct […]

Apple Revs Xsan and Kills Xserve RAID?

February 19, 2008 by Stephen 3 Comments

Apple has an odd relationship with enterprise computing. Their Xserve server products are strong, as is Leopard Server, and they have an excellent SAN file system, Xsan, that they just updated. Yet, Mac OS X is the last major operating system with no volume manager (thanks to the antiquated HFS+), and it looks like the […]

Toot toot: iSCSI and Fibre Channel Integration

November 13, 2007 by Stephen Leave a Comment

Another week, another excellent TechTarget tech tutorial by my buddy, Stephen Bigelow. This time it’s on iSCSI and Fibre Channel Integration, and once again that Stephen Foskett guy is quoted. What a smarty-pants! 😉

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GPS Time Rollover Failures Keep Happening (But They’re Almost Done)

This is week “1111111111” in the GPS system. Tomorrow morning it will roll over to week “0000000000”. How well will various systems handle this change? Not well, judging by what we’ve seen so far!

Ranting and Raving About the 2018 iPad Pro

I remain enthusiastic about the iPad Pro, despite getting a scratched screen and my concerns about durability. It’s a worthy successor to the original and offers enough improvements that I’d recommend the upgrade for just about anyone who uses their iPad for serious work. It’s still not yet a laptop replacement, but this is due more to a lack of desktop-class software for iOS than anything in Apple’s control.

What You See and What You Get When You Follow Me

May 28, 2019

Social media ought to be social, not just a broadcast platform. That’s my feeling at least. It’s been a while since I’ve ranted about “write-only” social media accounts, so I thought I might as well do it again. And at the same time, I thought I would update you on my promise to the people who read, follow, and interact with me online.

The Rack Endgame: A New Storage Architecture For the Data Center

September 3, 2014

Top-of-rack flash and bottom-of-rack disk makes a ton of sense in a world of virtualized, distributed storage. It fits with enterprise paradigms yet delivers real architectural change that could “move the needle” in a way that no centralized shared storage system ever will. SAN and NAS aren’t going away immediately, but this new storage architecture will be an attractive next-generation direction!

It’s Time To Move Beyond Passwords (Especially On Web Sites)

January 8, 2016

Sure, single sign-on puts all your eggs in one basket. But this is vastly preferable to trusting that hundreds of third-party baskets are secure, especially when they prove on a weekly basis that they aren’t! It’s time to put distributed passwords behind us and switch to systems like SAML, both for businesses and consumers.

Rocking Out With the Topping VX1 Desktop/Bookshelf Amplifier

October 6, 2015

A few months back, I asked folks on Twitter and LinkedIn for recommendations for a desktop amplifier for a pair of bookshelf speakers. I ended up with a Topping VX1, one of the many “Class-T” digital amps lauded by audiophiles for their excellent sound reproduction. Boy am I impressed! It’s rare that such an inexpensive gadget (around $100!) delivers so much performance!

Deduplication Coming to Primary Storage

September 16, 2008

Although deduplication of storage is nothing new, with Data Domain and other making hay with the technique for years, it has never been ready for prime time – reduction of active primary storage applications like email and databases. Instead, deduplication has been relegated to second- or third-tier status, deduplicating archives and backup data. But change is in the air, and deduplication vendors are starting to bustle towards the bright lights of primary storage.

Microsoft: Kill the Craptops Before They Destroy Windows!

January 7, 2013

Release after release, Microsoft pushes Windows forward. Yet the operating system is continually undermined by the “value-focused” low-end machines pushed by the majority of OEMs. This race to the bottom has tarnished Windows for a decade and now threatens to derail Windows 8. Microsoft must do something to stop the crap before it’s too late!

Frequent Flier Kung Fu for Novices

March 12, 2012

If you’re careful, even an infrequent flyer can rack up valuable points and maybe even elite status. But don’t do anything foolish, and don’t be fooled by the promises of first-class treatment. Even top-tier frequent flyers sit in coach most of the time!

Thinking About Storage In a New Way, From Cloud to Flash, with Dropbox and Fusion-io

July 23, 2013

I’ve been a storage revolutionary for quite a while, looking for new ways of data storage rather than technologies that perpetuate the same old approaches. That’s why I’m excited about the implications of two very different API access methods announced by Dropbox at DBX and by Fusion-io today at OSCON.