NetApp Deduplication An In-depth Look

There has been a lot of discussion lately about the NetApp deduplication technology, especially on twitter. We had a lot of misinformation and FUD flying around, so I thought that a blog entry that takes a close look at the technology was in order.

EMC FAST and NetApp FlashCache a Comparison

This article is intended to provide the reader with an introduction to two technologies, EMC FAST and NetApp FlashCache. Both of these technologies are intended to improve the performance of storage arrays, while also helping to bend the cost curve of storage downward.

Flash Storage and Automated Storage Tiering

In recent years, a move toward automated storage tiering has begun in the data center. This move has been inspired by the desire to continue to drive down the cost of storage, as well as the introduction of faster, but more expensive storage in the form of Flash memory in the storage array marketplace.

Thoughts On A Dell Acquisition Of Compellent

The news came out this morning that Dell is in exclusive talks to acquire network storage specialist Compellent for just under $900 million. I will leave it to the real reporters to track the ups and downs of the story; what piques my interest is the value Dell gets from Compellent’s technology and the challenge it poses to the data storage industry.

NetApp: Live From Tech Field Day San Jose

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Tech Field Day in San Jose began at the NetApp briefing center. We streamed the event live, as well as recording it for future use. For the first time, we are able to present the raw video from the Field Day immediately!

Manage Data Not Storage

With Automated Tiering solutions now rapidly becoming de rigeur, well in announcement form anyway; perhaps it’s time for us to consider again what is going to go wrong and how much trouble the whole thing is going to cause some people.

3 Questions For Field Day Sponsor, Compellent

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As Compellent, a sponsor for Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day Seattle, interviewed me for a post on their blog, I thought it would be fun to turn the tables and interview them right back! You will notice some similarity in the questions and answers – this was entirely coincidental, since we did not see each other’s answers prior to submitting them! Following are three questions answered by Compellent Director of Corporate Communications, Liem Nguyen. Read my answers over at Compellent’s Around the Block blog!

Four Pillars – Service: The Service Catalogue

As discussed previously, the Service Catalogue is a key component of delivering storage as a service. In this post, I’ll explore some thoughts on developing a Service Catalogue and how its abstraction from technology allows the delivery of a more efficient operation.

“Storage tiering is dying.” But purple unicorns exist.

NetApp CEO Tom Georgens is quoted as dismissive of multi-level tiering, saying: “The simple fact of the matter is, tiering is a way to manage migration of data between Fibre Channel-based systems and serial ATA based systems.”

Autonomic for the People

Autonomic computing as coined by IBM in 2001 was arguably the frame-work for Cloud Computing today. And now 3Par have taken the term Autonomic and applied it to storage tiering.