Tag: "Compression"

Flood Affects Storage Industry


There was a great post a couple of weeks ago, with Tom Coughlin as a contributing editor, on Forbes’ news site about the floods that hit Thailand and how it will affect the disk drive market.  The great thing about the article is it truly highlights that necessity is the mother of invention.  What do I mean by that?  Over the past few “storage efficiency” has been a big topic with vendors.  Helping customers “do more with less”, especially in these stringent economic times, is key to the vitality of a number of businesses.  Technologies such as storage virtualization and thin provisioning have helped customers to slow their storage spend and get better utilization out of their existing storage.  Once customers have moved their utilization rates from 35% to 65% or 70%, time comes when new storage needs to be acquired to keep up with the growth of data.  The issue comes when there are no more disk drives to be acquired.  Due to the floods in Thailand, analysts predict that the storage industry could be 50 to 60 million units shy of the demand this quarter.  This does two things:

1)      Drives the price of disk higher, at a time when the expectation is to spend less for disk

2)      Has IT getting more creative on how they use and deploy their storage

It is the later that I want to focus on as paying more for disk is not necessarily the best option.  It is important to note that data grows for one reason, business does not stop, it needs to keep going and it is what is driving the demand on the data.

In the Forbes piece Tom talks about “a surge in new technologies because of this disk shortage” but he doesn’t cover some of the most innovative technologies that are available to help customers.  I would agree with Tom that we “could” see a surge in SSD but that would be short lived do to both supply and cost as well as a surge in tape, but these aren’t really “new technologies”.

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Dec 01, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

Fixed Input vs. Variable Input Compression


As a number of you know, I have been blogging about the merits of Real-time Compression.  It may be of some interest to know that when Ed Walsh, CEO of Storwize, asked me to join and told me the company focused on "compression", I first thought he was joking.  I mean the industry has had compression available for years.  The reality is, there is no other technology like Real-time Compression available from any vendor, and it is today, even more clear, why IBM chose to own this technology.  In the next few blog pieces I plan to talk about a few of the concepts of the IP that make this technology so far advanced than any / all of its competition. Today’s piece is about fixed input versus variable input compression.  This is a very simple concept to understand really.  Traditional compression uses a process called 'fixed input' / 'variable output'.  If we refer to the diagrams below, we start off with the original file on the left and the compressed file on the right.  The way traditional compression works (and you can actually watch this on your home computer if you winzip a file) is the following: The compression algorithm will 'chunk up' the original file into 'manageable' sizes before it compresses the file.  The tradeoff here, and why this process happens, is like with anything in computer science, performance for optimization.  The first diagram shows the large file being 'chunked up', compressed and stuffed into the smaller file.

 

  

Figure 1

There are two significant issues with this. The first issue is that the compression dictionary is not shared across multiple ‘chunks’ when compression is taking place.  The example in Figure 2 shows that the letter “F” in ‘chunk’ 1 does not get compressed with the letter “F” in ‘chunk’ 4.  This means that the compression ratio is simply not optimized across the file.

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Nov 03, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

Marketing Gone Awry


Okay, so not many times will you see a blog post from me admitting that, perhaps the marketing and messaging aspect of what I set out to do, probably could have been better thought out.

What am I saying?  Well, after the Storwize acquisition into IBM, and IBM so graciously took the “Storwize” name and put it on another product,  we needed to come up with a name for our technology and hence the name “Real-time Compression” was born.

Here is the problem.  The name really doesn’t do the technology justice, in a nutshell, it is a bad name.  Not because “Real-time Compression” isn’t important for all of the reasons we have talked about in the past, but because compression is not really a part of the overall IP of the platform.  As I have blogged about before, Real-time Compression use industry standard LZ compression to compress the data.  There is nothing really innovative behind that.  The value in Real-time Compression is really to allow the compression to happen in “real-time”, and that is the true innovation.  Thirty-five patents go into making the half a century old zip technology, actually useful in an enterprise environment.  The ability to perform the 5 essential storage efficiency technologies in real-time is now table stakes for storage optimization.

The issue is, by calling the technology “Real-time Compression” is it leaves the too much to the interpretation of the user and with the name “compression” users tend to ignore the “real-time” part, the valuable part, and only talk about the act of “compression”.  The reason why this is unfortunate is because the market has already set a perceived value for the technology called “compression” at free.  EMC and NetApp talk about having “compression for free”.  Well, as my grandfather used to tell me, Steve, “You always get what you pay for.”  The reality is you can’t do compression in real time with either of their technologies, they cause a huge impact to storage performance, they do not seamlessly integrate with backup and cause more of a headache for backup then they are worth, thereby you don’t get the level of storage efficiency out of their “free compression” technology.

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Oct 06, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

The Storage Alchemist in Lubianijana, Slovenia and Umag, Croatia


Okay, so I rounded out my trip after leaving Prague to Slovenia and Croatia.  In both locations there was an IBM Storage Forum conference.  In Slovenia, IBM has just moved into a new building this year called Crystal Palace.  It was very beautiful.  The highlights of the Form were Cloud, Big Data and Real-time Compression.  At the IBM Slovenia Form I discussed Real-time Compression.  There were approximately 80 customers and partners at the conference.  They were very enthusiastic about learning about Real-time Compression.  They had all heard about the technology but they wanted to know more.  We talked about how the Real-time Compression technologies core functionality comes from it real-time platform.  The real-time platform is how compression is done in real-time vs. the competition that cannot perform compression in real-time.  The customers and partners saw this as a distinct competitive advantage.One of the most interesting events that I was able to witness this week was kind of reality show for a job.  IBM Slovenia, Ministry of Labour, family and social affairs and Slovenian employment institute got together to host a contest. The contest was to take 15 Slovenian unemployed workers, and give them a challenge.  IBM has just moved into the new premises - Crystal Palace and in June they opened IBM Innovation Center Ljubljana. Candidates competed for are open position of Assistant (to marketing) in IBM Innovation Center (IIC) Ljubljana.The contest was to identify ways to promote and market IIC Ljubljana in the region of southeast Europe.  The contestants came to the IBM office and heard about IBM’s values and to tour the new facility as well as meet some of the employees. The contestants were then given 48 hours to come up with a power point presentation that shows off IBM’s values, the Innovation center inside the new complex and IBM’s commitment to growth in the region.  It was a great contest and they got a number of great presentations.  The winner was Mateja Gorše. I thought this was a great concept and we welcome the new employee to IBM with open arms.

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Sep 21, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

The Storage Alchemist in Prague


Alright, landed safe in Prague and was picked up by one of my colleagues and whisked away to the IBM office.  There we did an interview with Czech writer Martin Noska from Computerworld for IDG in Czech Republic.  The first Noska informed me was that IBM is the number one in storage sales in Czech Republic (just like Poland!).  He also had some very good questions and he with “What are IBM’s biggest challenges in the storage business”?  I had thought about this for a while and I would have to say it is really about marketing our storage “solutions” to the customer base.  IBM is a double edge sword.  IBM is so big and has so many products it becomes difficult to market or message all of our products without inundating all of our customers and confusing them.  If you think about it, IBM has hundreds of thousands of customers and business partners, if not more.  This is one of our strengths.  When customers have needs or requirements we have very good input into our product portfolio, perhaps the best in the business.  Combine this with the fact that IBM has not only storage solutions but technology across the entire stack from servers to networking.  So when it comes to developing the right technology, that solves real customer problems, I would argue that IBM’s portfolio is the best in the business.  IBM takes an extreme amount of care when developing a solution to ensure that it matches the customer requirements based on the changing needs of IT.  Having an integrated portfolio that works well with our ISV partners, VMware for example, allows us to help customers speed their time to ROI and be very competitive in the market place.  The challenge is, how do we properly message our new solutions to our customers, in a timely manner so that they are well aware of new products without giving them too much information such that it just becomes noise?  It is difficult to say the least.

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Sep 12, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

The Storage Alchemist in Sterdyn (Poland)


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?

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Sep 09, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

The Storage Alchemist in Moscow


 

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 34th floor of my hotel having dinner.  It was a great view of Moscow.  I hope to come back.

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Sep 08, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

5 Most Interesting Things at VMworld 2011


Two solid days at VMworld 2011 and I got to do and see a lot.  Here is a breakdown of the top 5 things I saw at VMworld.

#1 The SiliconAngle / Wikibon Cube

You couldn’t miss it.  You walk into the show floor and there they were, larger than life.  The SiliconAngle / Wikibon Cube broadcasting live from VMworld2011.  Guests that were on the cube included, Tom Georgens (NTAP), Pat Gelsinger (EMC), David Scott (HP), Rick Jackson (VMware) as well as many more.  The Cube also had 12 Industry Spotlights.  The most interesting spotlight had to do with Storage Optimization, especially for VMware.

Oh the times they are a changing.  Now that you can deliver HD TV live over the internet, the Cube has broadcast from a number industry shows and user conferences.  The great part about this, it is like the ability to watch a sporting event being covered by ESPN but for tech.  The Cube brings all of the highlights of these events right into your computer screen.  Now if you can’t make an event, no problem, you can catch all the most important messages from the Cube.  The Cube is now the new mechanism for delivering content to users in the way they want to receive the content, TV.  For more, check out www.siliconangle.tv

#2 Storage Optimization – Industry Spotlight

In the Storage Optimization industry spotlight, the first 15 minutes Dave Vellante and his co-host John Furrier tee up the concept.  They discussed storage optimization, where it has come and were it is going, especially in VMware environments.  We are hearing more and more about storage efficiency technologies.  During the next 15 minutes Dave and I discussed the 5 essential storage efficiency technologies including:

  • Tiering
  • Thin Provisioning
  • Virtualization
  • Compression
  • Deduplication

We also discussed the fact that the IBM Real-time Compression technology is not only the most efficient and effective compression technology in the industry; we also learned that IBM really acquired not just a real-time “compression” technology but a platform that can do a number of things in real time.  In fact, the 5 IBM storage efficiency technologies all operate in real time which is the most effective for customers.

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Sep 06, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

Storage in Eastern Europe


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

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Sep 04, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

Top 10 Reasons to Use IBM for VM Deployments


 

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.

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Aug 30, 2011 | 0 comments View Post
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