On October 11, 2011, at Dell World, Dell announced a component to their DX6000G object based storage called an “SCN” or Storage Compression Node.  It is interesting that Dell would mention in their blog post that this is “Dell’s first Ocarina based solution…” What makes this interesting is the value proposition behind Ocarina was its ‘content aware’ deduplication, not necessarily compression.  That said, this blog post seems to be the ONLY information on Dell’s web site about the product and there is very little in the press about this product and the technology.

While it is nice to see that Dell, who has committed to their own storage technology, understanding that storage optimization is important, the reality is they are a little to late to the game.  I say this because the announcement that came from Dell around their 6000 is really bizarre.  First, the solution is an object based solution.  Didn't they learn anything from EMC?  The Centera is not gaining a lot of momentum these days, even if they had a lot of ISV partners.  In fact, it is loosing ground.  Object based storage was good before the whole 'Big Data' thing was the 'next big thing' but today, people need a big clustered file system, that is optimized, that can server not only unstructured based data, but also some structured data that allows you to find stuff quickly.  Also, the DX may be a good solution for data types that are of the media / entertainment only segment, but when it comes to running a business, it takes more than just this object based file structure to be successful.

To me, this solution is too little, too late.  Dell, in order to be a true competitor in the space that is highly scale-able, clustered file systems that are optimized, they need to advance their thinking.   This will be difficult for Dell.  First of all they are not known for technology advancement or integration.  Until they announced thier departure from EMC they didn't really have a major focus on storage and now with their acquisitions, the question is, what is their value prop.  Couple that with the fact that IBM has 1000's of patents in storage and Dell doesn't where does that leave the direction of Dell storage?

When you look at the fact that IBM has industry knowledge and studies that disk can't grow at the rate it did in the late 90's and keep costs low, you need optimization technology to help you maximize disk capacities.  Combine this with the fact that Dell doesn't invent anything but acquires it, and if we take a look at how long it took for Dell to deliver a "compression" product from their acquisition, it leads us to believe that there will be a long time before Dell is ready to be a formidable player in the storage business when it comes to delivering products or technology that move customers past the commodity infrastructure plays to the advanced solutions that deliver capacity at the right price.  If it took over a year for Dell to get the Ocarina stuff to the market in a technology that is really "old school" technology, what are we expecting for the future of Dell storage?

My opinion is Dell will always be the low cost supplier of commodity hardware to risk adverse small businesses.  Integrating next generation technology will not be their forte.

Some interesting data came out of this panel.  There were probably over 150 people in the audience.  It was a well-attended session.  Also, Dave is VERY good about asking the audience questions.  Let me start by making sure we all know where everyone sits at the “storage efficiency table” that was on the panel.

• Larry Freeman is from NetApp – they claim, and I believe them, that they have 10 storage efficiency technologies that are embedded into WAFL
• Craig Nunes main focus on the panel was ‘zero reclamation’ to optimize storage
• I have a Real-time Compression drum I am beating
• Jarred Floyed focuses on data deduplication

Here are some questions and answers Dave got when speaking to the audience:

One last comment too that Larry Freeman stated was that NetApp has 10 storage optimization / efficiency technologies embedded into WAFL.  The interesting thing is that NetApp gets a report from 150,000 systems that "report in" over the weekend and they have collected statistics that users only use 3.2 out of these 10 efficiency technologies on average.

When the question was posed "why" is it that you have technology, that is “free” (more on that later) that can help you better optimize your storage, why they don’t turn it on?  To which the end user response was that they didn't want any change in the infrastructure that could require a change in their processes.  (This means that transparency is another thing that an appliance has to ensure it has.)

I also want to publicly commend Larry for a good deal of his comments and his honesty.  See Larry and I are technologists and sometimes we see the marketing arms of our companies sometimes stretch the truth to get what they want in the market by way of some FUD.  My example is this.  The RtC technology does provide high compression, for the life of the file without performance degradation.  Well, as you can see, this is what customers want give the response from the audience.  However, our friends at NetApp will say “yes, but our compression is free” (like that is supposed to be better).  Anyway, Larry addressed this in the same way I do.  He said that “you don’t get anything for free and there are tradeoffs, specifically in this case around performance”.  Now, I am not saying this to say “see, I told you so” I am saying it because we, as technologists, want to give the user the best answer.  I also admitted that an embedded strategy for technology is the right way to go, IF you can accomplish what the end users’ needs are, performance in this case.

Look, there is a reason why startups exist and why appliances exist.  Storwize didn’t invent compression; they invented a real-time platform that allowed compression to happen in real time.  We do “compression off load”.  We take the work off the array and put it on the appliance – how could that not be faster.  And yes, one day it will be embedded and there will be some other new great optimization technology that will start as an appliance and slowly find its way into the array.  It is the evolution of technology.

At the end of the day, here is what I have to say.  Every end user buys their storage for a reason.  It may be performance; it may be capacity who knows.  What I ask each user to do is to consider their BUSINESS needs for their storage and apply the RIGHT storage optimization technologies for their given environments.  There is not a “one size fits all” approach (this is why NetApp customers don’t choose to turn on all 10 optimization / efficiency technologies) but there are a handful that can help you get the most out of your storage.

After landing in Warsaw, I got into a car with the local sales leader for Poland and we drove to the event location.  It was a 2 hour drive.  First, the roads and the land in Poland reminded me very much of my home time in Maine.  Very scenic and rural but beautiful and peaceful.  We talked storage for 2 hours and I am always festinated at the thirst for knowledge there is when I travel.  It was a great ride followed up by a customer reception and some local Polish brew.

Thursday I spent the day in Sterdyn, Poland for IBM Storage University.  There were 30 customers at the event and it went very very well.  The event was at Palac Ossolinski, today used as an event center but has a very rich history, in fact at one point it was used as a medical facility in WWII.  The photo is of the building where we had the event.  The topics we covered were:

• Storage Efficiency
• EasyTier
• ProtecTIER
• XIV
• Real-time Compression
• V7000

The customers were very interactive and provided a lot of insight to their environments.  Interestingly enough I learned during our customer reception that IBM storage is #1 in Poland with HP second and EMC third.  This is a true testament to the IBM sellers and the customers who use the IBM products every day to drive their business.  I also learned that the data break down in Poland is 90% block, 10% file which I found interesting and would be interested to check back 12 months from today to see how it will be different.

I did learn something very interesting in Poland.  The question was asked “Why XIV”?  What is so special about XIV.  The answer was awesome.  The answer started with 2 questions:

1)      How old is RAID?

2)      How old is your iPhone?

The reality is data growth is out pacing what traditional RAID can handle and data profiles are changing as well.  These combined have driven new technologies like Cleversafe, Cloud Computing, Hadoop and XIV.  Just like the iPhone is a new approach to the smart phone based on new things we know about how these smart phones are being used, we know more about how data and storage is being used.  New ways to deliver capacity and performance are needed in order to keep up with the changing times.  I thought it was a very good answer in terms that make customers think.

Thursday evening I traveled back to Warsaw where I got in a bit late and just went to a local pub, Sketch.  Grabbed a small bite and some local mead and then headed back to the hotel.  I did get to see the local Palace of Culture and Science in the middle of Warsaw, very impressive, built as a gift from Russia to Poland.

I have an early flight to Prague.  I am very excited about this part of the journey as I have always wanted to travel to Prague.  Press meeting right when I land.  Stay tuned.

The first city on my Eastern European trip was Moscow.  I think the traffic here is worse than the 101 in Silicon Valley during the dot com era.  That said, it was a great visit.  I spoke at the Information Infrastructure Conference at the Swissotel convention center in Moscow.  It was the first time I spoke to a group of people with an interpreter.  It was like being at the UN.  The two main topics were Storage Efficiency and Real-time Compression.

I spoke with a few customers and the press and in dealing with the data growth challenges they wanted to know, “When it comes to big data, what is next, is it ‘huge data’”?  Data growth clearly a concern.  Interesting enough though most of the questions, came around my title of “Evangelist”.  One report told me, “if an Evangelist is ‘preaching the word of storage’ then why not just call yourself an Apostle”?  How do you think that would look on an IBM business card: Global Storage Efficiency Apostle?

The next day I did a day of “sales enablement” in the Moscow office.  We discussed mostly how to sell and position Real-time Compression and what is next for the technology.  I was very impressed with the team.  They were very technical and knew quite a bit about Real-time Compression and really wanted to know in more detail how the technology was invented.  This means they are really talking about the technology and the customers are drilling down into the next level of detail.  There are a lot of good opportunities for the technology in Moscow and I look forward to hearing more about the success of Real-time Compression there.

I didn’t have a lot of time to sight see but I did make it to Red Square.  You can actually buy a beer outside in Red Square and walk around.  So I did.  I took a few photos and then as the US was getting going, I had some work calls to attend to.  That evening I spent on the 34^th floor of my hotel having dinner.  It was a great view of Moscow.  I hope to come back.

Next stop, Warsaw Poland.  Stay tuned.

Today I begin a 12 day trip to Easter Europe to talk about IBM Storage.

The trip will take me to:

• Moscow, Russia
• Warsaw, Poland
• Prague, Czech Republic
• Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Umag, Croatia

In Russia, on September 6, I will be at the Information Infrastructure Conference and the following day meeting with customers to discuss storage and storage efficiency.

In Poland on September 8, I will be presenting IBM’s Real-time Compression at Storage University.

In Prague I will be meeting with the press as well as speaking with customers.  Additionally, I will be spending the weekend in Prague, a city I have always wanted to visit.

In Slovenia on September 14, I will be presenting at IBM’s Innovation Center at an IBM Solutions Event.

Finally in Croatia on September 15, I will be at the IBM Forum, the largest IBM even in Croatia.

In each location, I will be speaking with partners and customer on IBM’s innovation in storage, storage efficiency and Real-time Compression.  I am looking forward to learning what the largest storage challenges are across Eastern Europe and users go about solving their challenges.  Additionally, I will be doing some local enablement for our partners and sellers.

I will blog from each location.  I will talk about the professional part of my travels as well as, hopefully, one personal event.  I have tried to make sure that in each city I have time to do one interesting thing.  I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll be back to these cities and these are some places I have always hoped to go.  Too often we travel and its all business.

Also stay tuned, when I land I will have an update from my trip to VMworld.  It was fantastic.  Truly the best end user show around.  I learned a great deal and can’t wait to share some of what I saw.  As always – comments are always welcome.

IBM @ VMworld 2011

After a full first day at VMworld, I started to think more about IBM and their technology solutions that help customers in a VMware environment.  Here is a top ten list of things to consider when looking at a VMware implementation and how IBM can help.

#1 Integration

VMware is playing Switzerland and ensuring all vendors are on a level playing field, so when other vendors state that they have “better” or “closer” technology integration than other vendors its probably not true.  Some vendors may not choose to integrate with certain things, but rest assured, all of   VMware’s APIs are open to all vendors.  Take a look and see how IBM is providing plug-ins for vSphere, SRM, and VAAI in XIV as well as other storage platforms.

#2 Ease of Use

IBM has seen, firsthand, a number of our customers switch from different competitive platforms to XIV because of the simplicity of the XIV solution.  A large manufacturer is one example of a customer who is provisioning new VMware instances in less than five minutes with XIV. 

Another XIV customer, who is a very experienced storage administrator, saw the XIV GUI and quoted "I don't get it (XIV GUI).  It can't be that easy.  Either I'm missing something or they are not showing me everything."  Well, the reality is, it is that easy and that interface is prolific throughout the IBM storage portfolio including the Storwize V7000 and SVC.

#3 Storage Efficiency

Probably one of the most important topics this year is Storage Efficiency and IBM is a leader in this department.  The N-Series with the Real-time Compression appliance can reduce the VMware storage footprint up to 75%.  Users tell us that by implementing VMware, their storage footprint has grown by as much as 4x.  Therefore their overall IT budgets didn’t get better, the dollars just shifted from servers to storage.  IBM’s Real-time Compression users can save up to 75% without any performance impact.  Additionally, Real-time Compression is the only compression technology that works in conjunction with deduplication, compressing the data before it is dedplicated, giving an added benefit to the technology.

Now users have the opportunity to get their overall IT budget back under control.

#4 Data Protection

The reality here is that many enterprises are waiting for the war to be fought out between the vendors in this space, or looking to embedded snapshots and disk based technologies with mirroring to cut out all of the host based challenges with data protection. 

A report by Taneja Group, sponsored by multiple clients, suggests that the biggest issue in virtual environment is data protection as many enterprise do not know what they need to do and they are looking at their current vendors to provide solutions.  So work closely with the IBM team and leverage all of the work that IBM has done with Tivoli and VMware to help solve your data protection challenges. 

A lot of folks like to talk about deduplication when it comes to VMware, just make sure it is implemented properly and at the right place.  ProtecTIER has great deduplication ratios and great  performance. 

#5 Flexibility

I am not sure how you get more flexible then working with IBM.  From hardware to software to services to partners, IBM offers solutions across a wide spectrum.  Whether it be hardware solutions that can meet a range of performance requirements and application types, to software that can help users analyze their data more effectively.  IBM can also deliver all of these solutions through our relationships with or ISVs as well as partners offering superior flexibility. 

#6 Availability

When it comes to high availability in storage, it is hard to beat the new V7000 or the XIV product.  Innovatively designed specifically around high availability, users can move to a virtualized storage platform such as XIV and users can see the real-world of availability and reliability that does not sacrifice performance in any of their applications. 

#7 Scalability

With IBM XIV, you can simple scale as you need to and automatically and take advantage of new capacity and linear performance improvements as well as managing the entire enterprise from a single, easy to use GUI.

Also, with Real-time Compression, you now have the added benefit of putting more capacity in your existing footprint to do even more analytics while saving on footprint, power and cooling – all in real-time.

#8 Services / Solutions

IBM is the worldwide leader in providing services.  IBM is the largest OEM of VMware solutions on the planet and provides support and services in 170 countries around the globe.   IBM’s Global Services team has architected and installed hundreds, if not thousands of VMware implementations, helping customers go from a non-virtualized to a virtualized world.  IBM, as well as its partners, can help migrate customers to a virtualized environment without a long outage and maintain application and customer production.

#9 TCO / ROI

IBM offers great solutions that reduce the risk, cost, and complexity of the virtualized world.  IBM focuses on the real-world customer challenges.  Customers have been hit hard these last few years when it comes to budgets in order to manage their IT environments.  We keep helping our customers do more with less by enabling a more efficient storage platform than any other vendor.  IBM XIV, V7000, N-Series, SVC and ProtecTIER solutions are great fit for solving difficult VMware challenges and we have real-world references to prove it.

#10 100 Years of Innovation

The bottom line: there is always more to do, IT changes at a rapid pace and it is the vendors job to keep up with the needs of its customers.  IBM has been doing this for 100 years and we will continue to do so.  

For more on IBM and Storage Efficiency at VMworld, see us on SiliconAngle.tv live this week at 3:30 PT.

This weekend I had an interesting conversation with my Dad.  We were discussing backup.  My dad basically runs IT for the State of Maine.  The State of Maine uses CommVault backup software.  So I posed the question to him, “What would it take for you to rip out CommVault and replace it with another solution.  He thought about it for a moment and replied “I wouldn’t”.  His answer came down to a couple of reasons.

First was the expense.  It’s not just about buying the new software, it would be training people to run the new software and it would be about throwing away the massive investment they have in their existing product as well as converting all the years of backup takes created with one software to the new software.  This is one of the biggest things vendors forget when trying to sell a customer on their backup software.

Second was the fact that, feature for feature, the top 5 traditional backup software products are not really that different from one another.  Sure, I do agree that some products have features that others don’t, and others products have features that work better than others, but in reality, the delta is so small and the workarounds are so simple it doesn’t really matter.  Unless your replacing traditional backup software with an evolutionary source based data deduplication software (which is only applicable for some environments) there is no advantage to switching software.

The challenge is if Data Protection is still one of the biggest and most expensive pain points within IT, how do the problems get resolved if replacing the software controlling it all is too costly to change?

It’s time to start asking new questions about how to solve the problem.  In the backup ecosystem there are a few things IT has to juggle in order to maintain equilibrium.  First there is data growth.  As data continues to grow, it gets more challenging to complete backups in the time available.  Second is availability, this is where the terms RPO and RTO (recovery time, recovery point objectives) come into play.  How quickly can I get my data back, and how old is it (how much data have I lost) when I do get it back.  Third is corporate governance.  Keeping the business out of jail, or from losing a law suit, is a key role of data protection and when done properly can actually help with backup.

So when trying to balance all of this, where does one start?  It starts with one key concept, What is the value of the data to the business at any given point in time? Based on this, IT can begin to develop a very effective data protection strategy while keeping the cost of doing so in check.

There are two things that must happen in the development of this strategy.  First IT needs to answer the data value question.  This can ONLY be done by having conversations with lines of business managers to understand a few key metrics.  Metrics such as:

1)      How much does it cost the business to be down?

2)      How much does it cost when data is lost?

3)      Does the company need to adhere to any regulatory requirements?

There are many other questions, that need to be answered but these are a few of what IT needs to be thinking about.  Next, IT needs to establish some goals.  These goals need to be realistic given the budget and they need to align to the value of the data.  In other words, apply the right technology to the right data based on its value to achieve balance.  These goals should take into consideration:

1)      How do I ensure the fastest recoverability reasonable for a given data set?

2)      How do I move as little data as possible (moving data is expensive)?

3)      How do I recover as little data as necessary (smaller amounts of data being recovered = faster recoveries)?

4)      How do I ensure I store data on the lowest cost medium practical to meet my SLAs?

5)      How do I delete data at the right time?

These are very lofty goals.  Keep in mind, unless your company is in the business of providing data protection services, your company doesn’t make any money backing data up.  Backup is an insurance policy.  The trick is to balance the costs of protecting that information with the value of the information.

Where does IT start?  Start with the goals.  If RPOs/RTOs are the challenge, try leveraging space efficient snapshots to have data local and more point in time copies for faster, “newer” recoverable data.  If backups need to be faster to help close the backup window, backup to disk, then copy that data to tape.  If that disk is too expensive, deduplicate the data.  To move as little data as possible and recover as little data as possible, leverage real-time compression on your primary storage.  By compressing data as much as 5x, AND ensuring that the compression solution works with existing data protection processes, there will be a significant reduction in the amount of data that needs to be moved and stored in the backups giving back a great deal of time in the backup window.  Next, think about archiving technologies.  Most data retention practices have a schema similar to 14 dailies, 4 weeklies, 11 monthlies and depending on the yearly retention practice X number of yearly’s.   A proper archiving technology can take the multiple copies of data being stored in the “yearly” data set and reduce it significantly.  By taking that data out of the backup flow, again, the costs of disk and tape storage go down and moving less data gives back time in the backup window.  Also, setting the proper archiving policies will identify when to delete data which saves on storage costs, both the medium and the footprint (tapes at an offsite facility).

At the end of the day, there are a number of solutions available to customers that can have a profound impact on your business without having to rip out your existing backup software that don’t cost a lot of money and won’t impact the existing investment.  I encourage data protection professionals to work with vendors who take a more consultative approach in helping to solve the data protection problem.  Work with a vendor that has a very large install base who has implemented a number of data protection solutions and can draw on a wealth of use cases and best practices collected over time.  Solving the data protection challenge is not easy, to solve it properly, you need to properly align the value of your data to the technology used to protect it and most of all it takes a good deal of experience reach out to the pros.

See how data deduplication and IBM Real-time Compression work hand in hand.

]]> http://www.thestoragealchemist.com/storage-alchemist-video-update-2/feed/ 0 http://www.thestoragealchemist.com/a-blueprint-for-primary-storage-optimization/ http://www.thestoragealchemist.com/a-blueprint-for-primary-storage-optimization/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 21:21:27 +0000 Steve Kenniston http://www.thestoragealchemist.com/?p=891

During the past three to four months the storage industry has seen a spike in the number of reports, white papers and news articles surrounding the evolution of primary storage technology, capacity optimization (it is 2010’s Hottest Storage Technology).

The reason this technology is getting a lot of ‘air play’ these days is due to the fact that this technology is so critical to help control the growth and costs of storage.  In 2010 the EMC sponsored IDC Report “The Digital Universe Decade - Are You Ready?” was release and stated that:

• In 2009, amid the “Great Recession,” the amount of digital information grew 62% over 2008 to 800 billion gigabytes (0.8 Zettabytes).
• The amount of digital information created annually will grow by a factor of 44 from 2009 to 2020…

The folks at Wikibon also released an info graph that exposes the true explosion of data.

Via: Wikibon

When you combine storage capacity (and the foot print it takes up) along with the power it takes to run it and cool it as well as the human resource it takes to manage it, you soon realize we cannot keep ‘just adding more cheap disk’ in an effort to manage the storage demands.  High Tech companies with high tech labs are also telling IT that ‘they are out of tricks’ when it comes to the ability to continue deliver disk drive that double capacity every 18 months.  It is for these reasons that primary storage optimization technologies have stepped into the ‘lime light’ as it serves as a means to help control the growth of primary storage including the foot print, power, cooling and man power required to manage it.

However, as we all know in IT, no two environments are the same and what may be good for one may not be good for another.  When looking at primary storage optimization there seem to be a number of available technologies and ways to deploy these technologies and the key question is what is right for ‘my’ environment.

The first things to consider are:

1)      What is the primary objective of the storage system(s) in my environment (it may be different for different systems)?

2)      What are the primary characteristics I look at when I purchase a storage system?

3)      What are my current business objectives surrounding my storage?

It is important to remember why you acquired your storage in the first place, and leverage all of the decision making processes that surrounded the acquisition of that storage.  For example, if performance was a key characteristic for acquiring a particular storage system, then it should stand to reason this is something that can’t be sacrificed when looking to add capacity optimization into the mix.

There are also a number of ways to optimize storage capacity.  The two technologies are compression and data deduplication.  The methodologies in which they can be deployed are inline or post-process.

Compression technologies can reduce storage footprint anywhere from 50% to 90% depending upon the data type.  Compression technologies have been around for decades and are trusted technologies.  Compression can be deployed as a post-process (think of WinZip – zipping a file once it has been stored), or it can be deployed as a real-time application that does compression on the fly – this is the Storwize model.

Data deduplication technologies can reduce storage footprint anywhere from 10% to 50% on primary storage except its dependency is really on data usage not type.  In environments where there isn't a lot of repetitive data the deduplication ratio will be low.  In environments where there is a lot of repetitive data, the optimization ratio will be high.  Today’s data deduplication solutions for primary storage all happen post process.  (This is primarily due to the performance limitations when trying to deduplicate data in real-time on primary storage.)  There have been announcements in the past few weeks that have mentioned data deduplication technologies becoming embedded into storage systems (which is where this technology should be) and this will significantly help with performance.

Now that there is a basic foundation for what these technologies can do, the real question is how do these fit into the overall requirements for specific storage needs.  It is important to take a look at the storage within your environment and what the impact of each of these technologies and their deployment has on that environment.  For example, if you don’t have any system resources left over in a day to perform a post process operation, then a real-time deployment (as long as it does not degrade performance) is the logical solution.  If you have a great deal of repetitive data (VMware .vmdk files – without the data stored in the file) then a deduplication solution is the best fit.  If transparency within your environment is important (not having to rearchitect applications, networks or storage) then a solution that allows you to optimize your capacity without having to change anything of these the right solution.  Conversely if you have plenty of time to compress data once it is written, and no need to worry about human resources to compress or decompress the data (like WinZip) then this is a perfectly viable solution as well.  I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

The other key variable is cost.  As my grandfather once told me “You get what you pay for in life” and “Nothing is free”.  Each of the different technologies outlined above come at different prices.  One thing to keep in mind is that the value of the solution is directly proportional to the cost.  Some solutions may say they are ‘free’ however, when you consider it takes horse power to run these solutions, they aren’t free and if it takes developing a bigger system to handle the optimization work load or reconfiguring your system to enable optimization to work properly or changing a recently acquired backup technology in order to make primary storage optimization be effective throughout the entire process, then the solution really isn’t free.  These are all things to consider when looking at an optimization technology.

Remember, just like data deduplication for backup 5 years ago, it sounded too good to be true and now if you don’t use it for backups your missing out.  Don’t let the same thing happen to you in your primary storage solution.  Get ahead of the curve and if you have any questions – please ask away.