StorageIOblog

Inaugural StorageIO Newsletter

February 25, 2010 – 5:18 pm
Welcome to the winter 2010 edition of the Server and StorageIO (StorageIO) news letter. This inaugural edition of the StorageIO news letter coincides with our 5th year in business along with recent web site and blog enhancements. In an age of social media including facebook, twitter, blogs and video, some might ask the question of why a news letter, after all, is that not old school or non social media? For those who are immersed into twitter, blogs, facebook, feeds and other Web 2.0 means of communication, a traditional newsletter might not be in vogue. Winter 2010 Newsletter (Inaugural Edition) However, realizing that there is still a large percentage of the population which also means a vast number of visitors and guest of StorageIO web sites ...

Posted in Education, IT Infrastructure Topics, Site related, fun | View Comments

Green IT, Green Gap, Tiered Energy and Green Myths

February 17, 2010 – 9:13 pm
There are many different aspects of Green IT along with several myths or misperceptions not to mention missed opportunities. There is a Green Gap or disconnect between environmentally aware, focused messaging and core IT data center issues. For example, when I ask IT professionals whether they have or are under direction to implement green IT initiatives, the number averages in the 10-15% range. However, when I ask the same audiences who has or sees power, cooling, floor space, supporting growth, or addressing environmental health and safety (EHS) related issues, the average is 75 to 90%. What this means is a disconnect between what is perceived as being green and opportunities for IT organizations to make improvements from an economic and efficiency standpoint including boosting productivity.   Some IT Data Center Green Myths Is “green IT” a convenient or inconvenient truth or a ...

Posted in Education, Green, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Infrastructure Resource Management, Power and Cooling, Storage Architecture and Access, Storage and Storage Management Tools, metrics, server | View Comments

Post Holiday IT Shopping Bargains, Dell Buying Exanet?

February 11, 2010 – 10:04 am
For consumers, the time leading up to the holiday Christmas season is usually busy including door busters as well as black Friday among other specials for purchasing gifts and other items. However savvy shoppers will wait for after Christmas or the holidays altogether perhaps well into the New Year when some good bargains can become available. IT customers are no different with budgets to use up before the end of the year thus a flurry of acquisitions that should become evident soon as we are entering earnings announcement season. However there are also bargains for IT organizations looking to take advantage of special vendor promotions trying to stimulate sales, not to mention for IT vendors to do some shopping of their own. Consequently, in addition to the flurry of merger and acquisition (M and A) activity from last summer through the ...

Posted in Cloud, Data and Information Management, IT Industry Activity, IT Infrastructure Topics, Performance and Capacity, Storage Architecture and Access, Storage and Storage Management Tools, server | View Comments

Does IBM Power7 processor announcement signal storage upgrades?

February 10, 2010 – 4:32 pm
IBM recently announced the Power7 as the latest generation of processors that the company uses in some of its mid range and high end compute servers including the iSeries and pSeries. IBM Power7 processor wafers (chips)   What is the Power7 processor? The Power7 is the latest generation of IBM processors (chips) that are used as the CPUs in IBM mid range and high end open systems (pSeries) for Unix (AIX) and Linux as well as for the iSeries (aka AS400 successor). Building on previous Power series processors, the Power7 increases the performance per core (CPU) along with the number of cores per socket (chip) footprint. For example, each Power7 chip that plugs into a socket on a processor card in a server can have up to 8 cores or CPUs. Note that sometimes cores are also known as micro ...

Posted in 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, server | View Comments

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 | View 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 | View 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 | View 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 | View 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 | View 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 | View Comments