The ongoing battle for 3Par by HP & Dell tells us much more about the state of the IT Industry than just the desires of two companies to acquire some interesting storage tech. It signals an acceptance that storage is a key feature in the future direction of the IT industry – more important than networking and almost as important as the virtualisation platform itself.
Data ONTAP 8.0 – Part III
August 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I’ve twice posted now on Data ONTAP 8.0 shortcomings and this evening I did a little more research with the IBM version of Netapp’s hardware, the N-Series products. Fortunately, IBM are slightly more generous and informative in their documentation than Netapp and this document (freely available online) provides more background information on the “DOT8″ transition process. So, I’ve tried to produce a more in-depth objective view of the steps to move to “DOT8″. Firstly the following diagram provides a clue as to how Data ONTAP has migrated to the current release.
Four Pillars – Service: More On Chargeback
June 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Hardware Review: Drobo Elite – Part I
June 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The DroboElite is the most fully featured storage array in the Data Robotics range of devices. Regular readers will know I’ve posted frequently on these devices, from the first Drobo “Classic” to the DroboPro, both of which I own and have purchased myself. Data Robotics have kindly loaned me a DroboElite for this series of posts. As you will see, the top of the range model offers all the features the other models provide, plus the benefits of multi-user support.
Four Pillars – Service: Chargeback
May 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment
In any system, resources are finite. There is always a limitation to what is available. However there’s also a truism that states if resources are free then they will be consumed at an infinite rate. So it is with storage. Someone has to pay for the storage resources that are placed on the floor. If customers are not charged in some way for their consumption of storage, then they will continue to consume resources ad infinitum. The solution is to implement chargeback or, to be more precise, billing.
Violin Memory Inc Release New All-SSD Array
May 27, 2010 By 1 Comment
I’m not a fan of making press releases on behalf of other companies however once in a while, a news item catches my interest. So it is with the announcement of the Violin Memory Inc. 3200 series of all-memory storage arrays. Why are these interesting? Because I think they are moving and potentially blurring the boundaries between spinning drives and memory-based permanent data storage.
Four Pillars – Service: The Service Catalogue
May 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Four Pillars – Service
May 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment
IT has matured and we’ve mostly moved on to a service-orientated method for delivering computing (and in this case storage) resources. To effectively deliver storage resources within an organisation, it is essential to move to a service-based model where storage is provided as a service offering that is planned and managed, rather than simply on-demand.
Why Storage Federation Is What We Need
May 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment
You may have assumed from my previous post on VPLEX that I am negative towards the concept of storage federation. That couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, ever since I was involved in deploying ESX onto enterprise storage infrastructure (some 4 years ago), I’ve been waiting for the day true federation would arrive. Here’s why.
EMC VPLEX – A Dreary Storage Cluster?
May 14, 2010 By 4 Comments