StorageIOblog

Technology Tiering, Servers Storage and Snow Removal

February 8, 2010 – 6:17 am
Granted it is winter in the northern hemisphere and thus snow storms should not be a surprise. However between December 2009 and early 2010, there has been plenty of record activity from in the U.K. (or here), to the U.S. east coast including New York, Boston and Washington DC, across the midwest and out to California, it made for a white christmas and SANta fun along with snow fun in general in the new year. 2010 Snow Storm via www.star-telegram.com What does this have to do with Information Factories aka IT resources including public or private clouds, facilities, server, storage, networking along with data management let alone tiering? What does this have to do with tiered snow removal, or even snow fun? Simple, different tools are needed for addressing various types of snow from wet and heavy to light powdery or dustings to deep downfalls. Likewise, there are different types of servers, storage, ...

Posted in Cloud, Data and Information Management, Data protection, I/O Networking, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Infrastructure Resource Management, Storage Architecture and Access, Storage and Storage Management Tools, fun, metrics, server | Comments

Industry trends and perspectives thoughts on iPad for business

February 4, 2010 – 12:54 pm
In case you did not hear, Apple announced the iTouch on steroids aka iPad last week. Apple iPad via www.apple.com Is it a phone? No, its not an iPhone Is it a PC? Well, not in the context of the traditional PC or Mac book What is the iPad or more importantly, what is the possible business angle? First as to what is it, it might be easier to describe what it is not. As mentioned above, it is not an iPhone, granted you can get an iPad with 3G or WiFi for data access (similar to how iTouch has WiFi). Likewise, the iPad is not a PC in the context of running applications traditionally found on Windows PCs or Mac devices. Does that mean the iPad is simply an iTouch or iPod for entertainment on steroids? Well, Maybe! What is it? As far as ...

Posted in IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Personal Computing, server | Comments

California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE)

January 25, 2010 – 8:14 am
CCSE Facility and Seminar Series This past week I had the honor of delivering a keynote presentation in San Diego at the California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE) as part of their continuing education and community outreach and education, workshop and seminar series. The theme of the well attended event was Next Generation Data Center Solutions of which my talk centered around leveraging Green and Virtual Data Centers for enabling efficiencey and effectiveness. In addition to my keynote, included a panel discussion that I moderated with representatives of the events sponsor Compucom, along with their special guests APC, HP, Intel and VMware. The CCSE has a focus around Climate Change, Energy Efficienecey, Green Buildings, Renewable Energy, Transportation, Home and Business. Their services and focus includes awareness and outreach, education programs, library and tools, consultant and ...

Posted in Data and Information Management, Data archiving and preservation, Data footprint and proliferation reduction, Education, Green, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Infrastructure Resource Management, Performance and Capacity, Power and Cooling, Storage and Storage Management Tools, metrics, server | Comments

Infosmack Episode 34, VMware, Microsoft and More

January 18, 2010 – 9:43 am
Following on the heals of several guest appearances late in 2009 ( here, here, here and here) on the Storage Monkeys Infosmack weekly pod cast, I was recently asked to join them again for the inaugural 2010 show (Episode 34). Along with VMguru Rich Brambley and hosts Greg Knieriemen and Marc Farley we discussed several recent industry topics in this first show of the year which can be accessed here or on iTunes. Heres a link to the pod cast where you can listen to the discussion including VMware Go, VMware buying Zimbra, Vendor Alliances such as HP and Microsoft HyperV and EMC+Cisco+VMware, along with data protection for virtual servers issues options (or opportunities) among other topics. I have included the following links that pertain to some of the items we discussed during the show. What is the Future of Servers? Did HP respond to EMC ...

Posted in Cloud, Data security, I/O Networking, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Infrastructure Resource Management, Storage Architecture and Access, Storage and Storage Management Tools, server | Comments

2010 and 2011 Trends, Perspectives and Predictions: More of the same?

January 14, 2010 – 2:43 am
2011 is not a typo, I figured that since Im getting caught up on some things, why not get a jump as well. Since 2009 went by so fast, and that Im finally getting around to doing an obligatory 2010 predictions post, lets take a look at both 2010 and 2011. Actually Im getting around to doing a post here having already done interviews and articles for others soon to be released. Based on prior trends and looking at forecasts, a simple predictions is that some of the items for 2010 will apply for 2011 as well given some of this years items may have been predicted by some in 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 or, well ok, you get the picture. :) Image via: http://e-tarocchi.com Predictions are fun and funny in that for some, they are taken very seriously, while for others, at best they are ...

Posted in Cloud, Data and Information Management, Data archiving and preservation, Data footprint and proliferation reduction, Data protection, Data security, Green, I/O Networking, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Infrastructure Resource Management, Performance and Capacity, Power and Cooling, Storage Architecture and Access, Storage and Storage Management Tools, metrics, server | Comments

EPA Server and Storage Workshop Feb 2, 2010

January 13, 2010 – 8:05 pm
Following up on a recent previous post pertaining to US EPA Energy Star(r) for Servers, Data Center Storage and Data Centers, there will be a workshop held Tuesday February 2, 2010 in San Jose, CA. Here is the note (Italics added by me for clarity) from the folks at EPA with information about the event and how to participate.   Dear ENERGY STAR® Servers and Storage Stakeholders: Representatives from the US EPA will be in attendance at The Green Grid Technical Forum in San Jose, CA in early February, and will be hosting information sessions to provide updates on recent ENERGY STAR servers and storage specification development activities.  Given the timing of this event with respect to ongoing data collection and comment periods for both product categories, EPA intends for these meetings to be informal and informational in nature.  EPA will share details of recent progress, identify key issues ...

Posted in Green, I/O Networking, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Performance and Capacity, Power and Cooling, Storage Architecture and Access, Travel, metrics, server | Comments

RAID Relevance Revisited

January 13, 2010 – 5:34 pm
Following up from some previous posts on the topic, a continued discussion point in the data storage industry is the relevance (or lack there) of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks). These discussions tend to evolve around how RAID is dead due to its lack of real or perceived ability to continue scaling in terms of performance, availability, capacity, economies or energy capabilities needed or when compared to those of newer techniques, technologies or products. While there are many new and evolving approaches to protecting data in addition to maintaining availability or accessibility to information, RAID despite the fan fare is far from being dead at least on the technology front. Sure, there are issues or challenges that require continued investing in RAID as has been the case over the past 20 years; however those will also be addressed on ...

Posted in Data and Information Management, Data footprint and proliferation reduction, Data protection, Education, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Infrastructure Resource Management, Performance and Capacity, Poll, Storage and Storage Management Tools, metrics | Comments

Poll: Networking Convergence, Ethernet, InfiniBand or both?

January 13, 2010 – 12:16 am
I just received an email in my inbox from Voltaire along with a pile of other advertisements, advisories, alerts and announcements from other folks. What caught my eye on the email was that it is announcing a new survey results that you can read here as well as below. The question that this survey announcements prompts for me and hence why I am posting it here is how dominant will InfiniBand be on a go forward basis, the answer I think is it depends... It depends on the target market or audience, what their applications and technology preferences are along with other service requirements. I think that there is and will remain a place for Infiniband, the question is where and for what types of environments as well as why have both InfiniBand and Ethernet including Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) in support of unified or converged I/O ...

Posted in Cloud, I/O Networking, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Poll, Storage Architecture and Access, server | Comments

Upcoming Events and Activities Update V2010.1

January 8, 2010 – 10:49 pm
The end of year christmas and new years holiday season has come and gone which means of course that 2009 is a wrap along with the travel from being out and about. In addition to getting some time to relax a bit (playing Wii resort, snow plowing, cooking etc.), I have also been catching up on developing some new content including articles, blogs (some yet to be post), tips as well as podcasts along with some custom research advisory projects. Check out some recent tips, articles, videos and podcasts here along with perspecitives and comments on indusitry news here. 2009 events and activities saw visits to cities including San Jose, Tucson, Cancun Mexico, Dallas, Tampa, Miami, Los Angles, San Jose, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Atlanta, St. Louis, Birmingham, Cincinnati, Santa Ana, Minneapolis, Boston, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Parsipanny, Raleigh, Providence, Kansas City, Denver, Chicago, Orlando, Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, Richmond, Columbus, Princeton, ...

Posted in Data and Information Management, Education, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Infrastructure Resource Management, Travel, fun | Comments

StorageIO in the News Update V2010.1

January 8, 2010 – 10:48 pm
StorageIO is regularly quoted and interviewed in various industry and vertical market venues and publications both on-line and in print on a global basis. The following are some coverage, perspectives and commentary by StorageIO on IT industry trends including servers, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, services, virtualization, cloud, cluster, grid, SSD, data protection, Green IT and more since the last update. Realizing that some prefer blogs to webs to twitter to other venues, here are some recent links among others to media coverage and comments by me on a different topics that are among others found at www.storageio.com/news.html: SearchSMBStorage: Comments on EMC Iomega v.Clone for PC data syncronization - Jan 2010 Computerworld: Comments on leveraging cloud or online backup - Jan 2010 ...

Posted in Data and Information Management, Data archiving and preservation, Data footprint and proliferation reduction, Data protection, Data security, Education, Green, I/O Networking, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Infrastructure Resource Management, Performance and Capacity, Power and Cooling, Site related, Storage Architecture and Access, Storage and Storage Management Tools, metrics, server | Comments