Tag: "IBM Real-time Compression"

Data Protection, Retention and Archive Starts with Data Value


It feels good to open up the blogging again to new topics, especially ones I am intimately familiar with.  (But have no fear, there will be references to primary storage optimization / compression.)

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?

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May 09, 2011 | 1 comment View Post

Polycom Saves Big with IBM Real-time Compression


Amit Bar-On, Manager of IT at Polycom in Israel shares his story with us about not only does IBM Real-time Compression save him storage space, that space can actually  now be used for people instead of equipment.  As Polycom continues it success in the telepresence business, they have grown in the last five years to having over 120 developers in Israel.  Office space anywhere is expensive, in Tel-Aviv it is VERY expensive.  Polycom is taking data storage and data management to a whole new level.

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Jan 12, 2011 | 1 comment View Post

Storage Alchemist Video Update


Hey, as most of you know, IBM purchased Storwize and changed the name.  I have updated all of my previous videos that talked about the technology from saying "Storwize" to "Real-time Compression" - and added some more technical details.  Also, with the help of Media Boss, I have updated the intro - pretty cool stuff!  Have a look and tell me what you think!

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Jan 03, 2011 | 0 comments View Post

runningDATA Goes Live


I have been following Wikibon and Dave Vellante (founder) for a long time.  It has always been a goal to produce something like TechTV or ITTV (like HGTV).  Live TV for the IT folks.  Last week it happened.  I am very proud of what Dave has done.  Check it out!


Watch live video from #theCube from SiliconANGLE.tv on Justin.tv

In addition, the great thing about Justin.TV is the ability to grab snippets from the episodes and use them to complement your posts about specific topics. For example, here is a snippet from the above stream talking about IBM's recent acquisition of Storwize and the new product IBM Real-time Compression.


Watch live video from skenniston on Justin.tv

Stay tuned for more live TV from runningDATA!

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Oct 16, 2010 | 2 comments View Post

Storwize – What is in a Name, Really?


Today IBM is making one of the most significant storage announcements in the last 10 years.  (Steve Duplessie is quoted as saying “…last 20 years.” but announcing that they were basically getting out of the storage business in 2000 by selling their Mylex division was pretty significant.)

Today IBM has made it abundantly clear that they are back in the storage business.  It makes a lot of sense actually.  Servers have been commoditized to about 3% margins and services is a body business (to make more money you need more bodies).  Storage is the only place these days to add significant ‘value’ to the infrastructure eco-system.

Storage software – or as I like to refer to them, storage services allow vendors to add more value to commodity hardware by providing very useful capabilities such as thin provisioning, virtualization, snapshots, replication, and optimization solutions such as real-time compression.

However this story is as much about the naming of the product as it is the product itself.

Let’s rewind a bit.  It is September 1st in Tel-Aviv.  IBM has just completed the Storwize acquisition and we are having our leadership meetings discussing the integration when the new management team informs us that: “You know, we really like the Storwize name a lot.”  “We like the name so much that we decided we want to use it for a totally separate and new product.”

As new employees we two choices:

  1. Complain and argue about how this will confuse the market
  2. Salute the flag and move on

Having branded products and technology before, I didn’t really see this as an issue.  Sales of course didn’t care for it.  My feeling was, that even though the new Storwize V7000 doesn’t support the new IBM Real-time Compression (which now you have it, our new name – not flashy but does describe exactly what we do), it is the most modular storage architecture designed today and I am quite sure, that because the value in this ‘platform’ is really about storage services (software), IBM Real-time Compression could eventually make it on to this platform.  That being said, the amount of noise IBM is going to make regarding the new Storwize will drive the old Storwize sales team to a number of new opportunities.  Sure, we will have to work harder to vet them as the new V7000 is a block device and IBM Real-time Compression is an appliance for NAS today but that is okay.  We will now have exposure to a great deal of customers to tell our story.

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Oct 07, 2010 | 0 comments View Post

Disk Elasticity and Storage Efficiency


Storage is elastic.  How do I know you ask?  Yesterday I visited a customer who is using the Storwize product to do Real-time Compression on their primary storage.  The customer is Allianz and has been using the product for over a year.  They see 75% compression on their users home directory data.  To give you an idea, Allianz is an insurance company and generates TONS of spreadsheets, 14TB worth of spreadsheets (okay, not all 14TB is spreadsheets but you get the picture).

Prior to Allianz purchasing the Storwize technology, Allianz didn’t have great data management practices.  Users store data in their home directories and there is really no discipline around deleting or cleaning up files so data just grows.  Additionally, storage isn’t really budgeted for.  Overall IT is but at a storage level, they just purchase some when the need some.

Again, prior to the Storwize technology, Allianz had their primary storage and a backup to tape at their local site.  They then replicated the data to their remote site and also performed a backup to tape.

Allianz has an overall IT mission to reduce spend by 10% per year.  The thing to think about is that this 10% could come from a lot of places including data management.

Once the Storwize technology was installed the first things they saw were:

  • 75% capacity optimization
  • Better data management capabilities through Storwize reporting
  • The ability to keep more data on line and available for faster recoveries
  • No change in any of their existing storage processes
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Oct 05, 2010 | 2 comments View Post
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