Storage Nation

Last night, IDC released their storage market share analysis for what happened in Q2.  Some things remained the same, other parts seem to be changing. And if you watch this market as closely as I do, it's worth reviewing some of the more interesting bits. What You Need To Know For many years, IDC has published the most authoritative numbers on storage hardware and software sales.  While no methodology is perfect, I've come to view IDC's numbers as absolutely essential to anyone in the storage business. EMC doesn't give IDC access to any privileged information, they have to figure things out from published reports.  Generally speaking, IDC's estimates of EMC's business are usually within a few points (plus or minus) of our own.

As I sit back and contemplate the last few weeks, I keep coming to the same conclusion.  The market has clearly expressed its strong interest in all things cloud-like, and just about every technology vendor on the planet — large and small — is frantically repositioning themselves just as quickly as possible. Whatever "tipping point" we all were waiting for, it's clearly happened.  Game on. And I think this rapid shift has caught many in the IT industry by surprise: technology vendors, system integrators, consultants — few people are really interested in IT as usual.  Everyone wants to talk about the cloud.

In my discussions with customers, I often ask the "V" question: how are you doing with virtualization? Occasionally I get an interesting response: they're entrenched IBM customer, and they point to the use of virtualization on their mainframe, and perhaps their big AIX boxen, and say they're largely virtualized.  Asked and answered. I need to ask them a better question: how are you doing with pooling of resources? The Bigger The Better Any time you pool resources, you're angling for a better outcome.  Lower cost-to-serve through scale efficiencies.  The ability to load-level across multiple, shifting demands.  Being able to react quickly to new and unforseen demands.  Efficient processes that manage resources in the aggregate, rather than individually

Just wanted to share the most recent (and the funniest!) EMC 20% Guarantee video, this one starring Oggie — The Prince of Dataness.

Two bits of news, oddly correlated. First, there's EMC's recent SPEC benchmark posting, where a single Intel-based Celerra data mover absolutely *smokes* every other NAS device out there.

A while back, I wrote a rather skeptical post reacting to a press article about Pfizer's use of Amazon.   There are some lessons to be learned from this experience:   #1 — Don't always believe what you read online from an industry reporter, and   #2 — Before being critical, do your homework.   I made both mistakes.  But, wonderfully, I recently had a chance to talk to the principal behind the story — Mike Miller — and found the reality to be far more fascinating

I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak on a panel here at the "Everything Channel" event in Dallas. Ostensibly, we were supposed to be talking about 2011 storage opportunities for resellers and solution providers.  But, somehow, we got into a number of far more interesting areas, including the strategic importance of the above topic. We ran out of time, but the thought keeps rattling around in my head … The Basic Premise As the IT industry goes through yet another dramatic consolidation and transition, newer skills will command a premium, and traditional skills less so.  Generating new skills requires non-trivial investment: either hiring, training or usually both.

This morning's M+A news was equally as interesting as the news from a week ago: HP submitted a bid to top Dell's offer for 3PAR.  And, if 3PAR trading prices are any indication, there's investor confidence that the price will go higher still. When I wrote about Dell's bid last Monday , my central premise was "it's all about competing with HP, folks". Turns out I was closer to the truth than I thought.

My last post was a set of links to articles on the proposed acquisition of 3PAR by Dell.  The problem with that list was that is was woefully incomplete and neglected some of my favorite bloggers and writers.  Oy Vay!  I mean, how could I have left these posts off?   Much grovelling.  So here is a new list – a shorter list that people interested in this should read, including a newcomer named Brad from the "valley of the nerds".  David Vellante, Founder of Wikibon Joerg Hallbauer, storage blogger Andrew Reichman, blogger from Forrester  Chris Evans, AKA The StorageArchitect Martin Glassborrow, AKA Storagebod   Chris Mellor, writer from The Register   Tom Trainer, storage analyst   Mark Peters, analyst from ESG   Twilight in the Valley of the Nerds    

This is an older video I shot from late last year with Chakri Avala from Symantec and and Karl Swarz for 3PAR demoing how thin reclamation for Symantec Storage Foundation works.