I was at Starbucks recently and heard some interesting conversation about syncing files between Drobo units. I am curious about this idea but have another idea. Sure syncing between two Drobo enclosures would be great, but wouldn’t a file replication application, either on the Drobo or on the desktop do the job just as well? Perhaps what Drobo should consider is some technology and a subscription service to replicate data stored on my Drobo with Amazon S3.
S3
Overcoming The Limits Of Thin Provisioning With Automatic Provisioning!
I’ve never been a fan of thin provisioning as a storage management tool. Don’t get me wrong, I love having thin provisioning in my toolkit to overcome the limitations of conventional filesystems. Thin provisioning just gets under my skin when folks try to use it to solve business problems like long deployment time and slow purchasing cycles. If you attended any of the thin provisioning sessions I’ve presented at Storage Decisions, Interop, E-Storm, or elsewhere then you’ve heard my wistful dreaming of real automatic provisioning without the hackery of thin provisioning systems. But perhaps I didn’t mention that actual automatic provisioning actually exists today! It’s one of the many things I love about API-driven cloud storage!
From CAS to Cloud: Revolutionary Storage
Change is not a word normally associated with storage, and revolution is practically unheard of. Today’s modern enterprise storage systems and networks employ massive resources to do one simple thing: Emulate the basic hard disk drives used over three decades ago. But cracks are appearing in our mausoleum of fake disks: Application developers are discovering the value of object storage, and storage systems are appearing to support this need.
Amazon Redefines Durability with Reduced Reliability Storage (RRS)
Before Google could even take to the stage to announce their new “Google Storage for Developers” cloud storage offering in their I/O conference keynote, Amazon hit back with a new low-cost “Reduced Redundancy Storage” option for S3. The titans are at war, and cloud storage is the new battle ground. But what was really announced? And should you care?
Symantec FileStore
Symantec today announced the availability of FileStore, a resilient clustered NAS platform that the company uses internally to deliver its Norton Online Backup and Symantec Hosted Services backup and archiving services. Although FileStore is not a cloud storage platform in its own right, it could serve as storage infrastructure supporting an enterprise or public cloud service.
We Don’t Need Cloud Standards (Yet)
Championing “open” and calling for standards has become the first stalling action by late-movers in technology spaces. They see opportunity passing by and try to hold back progress and FUD the market by yelling about proprietary solutions, vendor lock-in, and a lack of standards. Many well-intentioned IT folks follow along: After all, who doesn’t want openness, standardization, and interoperability?