Rick Vanover

Where Are They Now? A Tech Field Day Delegate Retrospective

July 31, 2012 by Stephen 3 Comments

Yesterday, I posted about the numerous companies that have been acquired after presenting at Tech Field Day. An obvious follow on question relates to the number of delegates to have “graduated” to go work for a vendor in their field. So I put together this follow-up, saluting these Field Day alumni.

Microsoft Adds Data Deduplication to NTFS in Windows 8

January 3, 2012 by Stephen 16 Comments

The next version of Microsoft Windows Server includes integrated data deduplication technology. Microsoft is positioning this as a boon for server virtualization and claims it has very little performance impact. But how exactly does Microsoft’s de-duplication technology work?

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.

It’s Fine To Mount Hard Drives On Their Side Or Even Upside-Down

August 13, 2016

Have you ever wondered if mounting a hard disk drive on its side or even upside-down affects its lifespan or reliability? According to every drive manufacturer, it’s perfectly acceptable to mount a hard disk drive in any orientation as long as it’s not tilted and has sufficient cooling.

We Live in the Future: Robotic Cat Litter Boxes!

May 8, 2010

This post is a bit of a break from my usual gadget-fest, but the object in question isn’t that far off: It requires electricity, costs more than average humans can justify, and simplifies a task we’ve all been doing fine up until now. That’s right: An overly-expensive electric cat litter box. Predictably, I love it.

From Kipling’s Dirigibles to the Jet Age

May 13, 2012

I don’t get much chance to read for pleasure, but two things I’ve been reading recently spurred my imagination. After reliving the advent of modern transportation in the solid non-fiction Jet Age by Sam Howe Verhovek, I stumbled upon two pieces of speculative fiction from an unlikely source that predated everything presented there.

Cisco’s Trojan Horse

September 15, 2014

Industry watchers like me have long wondered when Cisco will transform itself into a full-line IT infrastructure vendor. This strategy was tipped in 2009 as Cisco barged into the server market with UCS. But one leg of the stool is still missing: Storage remains the province of Cisco partners like EMC and NetApp.

ZFS Is the Best Filesystem (For Now…)

July 10, 2017

ZFS should have been great, but I kind of hate it: ZFS seems to be trapped in the past, before it was sidelined it as the cool storage project of choice; it’s inflexible; it lacks modern flash integration; and it’s not directly supported by most operating systems. But I put all my valuable data on ZFS because it simply offers the best level of data protection in a small office/home office (SOHO) environment. Here’s why.

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.

The Rack Endgame: Open Compute Project

September 17, 2014

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.

What’s the Deal with Containers?

October 21, 2016

Lately, it seems like everyone just can’t stop talking about containers. But I’m sensing a distinct lack of real understanding of the technology from many people, not to mention lots of confusion about what containers really mean for today’s datacenter folks. So I set about learning more and figuring out for myself what the deal is with containers. Here’s where I’m at.