Tag: "NTAP"

A Blog with no Comments?


Today I read a very well written blog by The SANMan.  The only issue is, you can’t comment on his blog.  This is the first technology blog I have seen like this.  So, I will have to post my thought here.

In his post “NetApp Takes the “Primary” Lead for Data Reduction” – which seems more like theory and a commercial for NTAP than reality (see comments @ The Register) the SANMan states:

“Yes, Ocarina and Storwize have appliances that compress and uncompress data as it’s alternatively stored and read but what performance overhead do such technologies have when hundreds of end users concurrently access the same email attachment? As for Oracle’s Solaris ZFS file system sub level deduplication which is yet to see the light of day one wonders how much hot water it will get Oracle into should it turn out to be a direct rip off of the NetApp model.”

I have two comments:

1) You are right – you CAN’T do deduplicaiton on primary if you affect performance.  All indications for customers are that they cannot use NTAP deduplicaiton or even compression ‘in-line’ as the performance is just too terrible so all processes must be done post-process.

2) I direct your attention to the Wikibon Blog on CORE - “Dedupe Rates Matter…Just Not as Much as You Think” – Storwize can do in-line data optimization without any performance degradation.  So the question is – if customers can ‘Optimize without Compromise’ – why wouldn’t they?

Updated 6/7/2010 – Oh, quick question – how does the SANMan get away with the graphics he uses?  I would think that Walt Disney & Pixar would get a bit upset with the use of the character Carl Fredricksen, no?

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Jun 04, 2010 | 0 comments View Post

Storage Tiers – Take 3


I find myself in a true quandary.  First, I have true admiration for my good friend and fellow blogger 3Par Farley and never feel comfortable being on the other side of the coin from him.  Second, I find myself agreeing, to a degree, with Jon Toigo (who still uses crazy permalinks and considers Novell a serious storage player.  What is up with that?).

I’m sure by now most of you all have read the fury lately over Tom Georgens’ comments about the future of storage tiering.  A number of folks who have ‘tiering’ technology reacted with disdain (see a list on Storagerap).  Some wondered how a storage visionary like Tom could turn his back on technology that helps people save money in storage.  Some even suggested that this is just marketing to overcome deficiency in the NetApp product line.  However, one applauded Tom for understanding how the real world deploys storage.  All good points, but I have my own theory on storage teiring…

I want to come right out and say I think that storage tiering is an incredibly smart concept.  (Now that that is off the table…) I would also say that much like the prediction that tape is ‘dead’ (I guess Data Domain didn’t get that memo), storage tiering, while it can’t be dead, because in reality, it never actually was, nor do I think it will be for a very long time.  Let’s look at the facts:

First, HSM never really went anywhere.  There is not mass adoption of HSM technology.  Second, tiering is not a technology issue.  Humans are lazy.  What do I mean?  HSM / Tiering or whatever you want to call it depends on policy.  IT can’t get any two groups in a company to decide on anything other than storage is too expensive.  When I speak to well respected people in IT the ‘real world’ (my dad), they tell me it is too difficult to get organizations to agree on when data can be archived in order to save money (and that is what this is all about really).  Finally, IT processes get in the way of a good tiering strategy.  Getting data to go one way is easy – move data to cheaper and cheaper tiers of storage until it vanishes.  Try getting it back.  That takes a lot of management tools and integration and costs just as much as doing nothing.

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Mar 07, 2010 | 15 comments View Post

Who Killed the Electric Car?


Okay, so the dust it taking more time to settle on the whole EMC / DDUP / NTAP saga, so given this may go on for a while, let’s try to shed some light on ‘why’ EMC would

want this technology.

It’s simple really, and it’s analogues to the auto industry and hence the reference to the title of this piece.  Rather than drone on about what ‘Who killed the electric car?’ I’ll just tell you.  GM, Chrysler, and Ford killed the electric car and by doing so drove themselves into bankruptcy and Toyota into the spot of number one car dealer in the world.  The big difference?  Toyota listened to its customers and developed and delivered products that consumers wanted.  Consumers wanted safe, fuel efficient automobiles.  Toyota delivered the Prius.  GM built the Hummer, Chrysler built muscle cars and Ford continued to build on their truck reputation with more pickups.  The American auto manufacturers killed the electric car.  Had they listened to the consumer, they would have built more fuel efficient cars, consumers would have purchased them, and perhaps our dependence on foreign oil would be less significant, our world would be safer, and GM, Chrysler and Ford would still be in business and our economy would be a bit stronger.  (Now, I am no politician and I can’t say for sure that our world would be safer or that GM, Chrysler and Ford would definitely be in business, but I think you get the point.)  The point is that vendors didn’t listen to the consumer and now the vendors are wishing they had listened.

This is no different in the world of technology vendors.  When I was an analyst for the Enterprise Storage Group, I saw a number of incumbent technology vendors discuss how they were building technology that complemented their existing product suite but didn’t necessarily fit the important needs of their customers.  After a short period of time (as with most things in the technology space) their technology would be replaced with a startup’s technology ; the startup had listened to the customer’s needs and developed and delivered on it.  I also worked with a number of startup CEOs who believed they were building technology that no one could live without because it’s what they themselves wanted, not what the consumer wanted.  These companies usually went out of business pretty quickly.

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Jun 06, 2009 | 0 comments View Post