Storage Nation

  A couple weeks ago, one of the major storage vendors had two major problems to resolve after one of their arrays suffered a firmware bug-induced failure at one of their cloud (email) service provider customers. They had to: Help the customer get back to normal service levels after they had become unacceptable. Confront a public relations problem after it was exposed by a leading storage publisher.

At the end of 2008 when we introduced the Atmos storage platform , we realized we needed a new term to describe what was essentially a new category — COS — or cloud-optimized storage — storage platforms and services that are designed expressly for cloud applications. With today's announcement, the uniqueness of the category becomes more apparent.  We're now in a better position to make the case that — for some use cases — cloud-optimized storage solutions can be better than their traditional counterparts. What Was Announced If you're not familiar with Atmos, you're not alone.  It doesn't fit neatly into the SAN/NAS/DAS categories that we're all familiar with.  Competitors, in particular, don't really know what to make of it. Mutliple Atmos units work together to create a storage cloud.  All information is stored in objects with integrated rich metadata.  Storage policy (how many copies, protection method, physical location of data, spin down, compression, etc.) is expressed in terms of service level desired — gold, sliver, bronze, etc.  Atmos interprets the policy intentions and seamless orchestrates all the data logistics in the background.  A single management console monitors service delivery.  It takes a while to fully comprehend what Atmos really does, but — regardless of your vendor affiliations — there's no denying that Atmos is a unique solution to a unique problem — overcoming, and then ultimately exploiting — distance

My latest column for the Dutch publication, Storage Magazine: The Insulting Thing about Clouds “Cloud computing,” and its conceptual progeny, “cloud storage,” are great ideas. However, these concepts haven’t translated into meaningful technology so far as I can tell.

So, today's the big day — I finally get to talk about something I've been working on for some time: the bringing together of three industry leaders to accelerate the transition to fully virtualized environments and private clouds. Thankfully, I can stop being coy, and start to speak publicly about this important industry development: what it means for customers, and what it means for the industry

Someone sent me this video with an excellent rant on how we (collectively) react to new technology. Yesterday's radical innovation becomes tomorrow's table-stakes expectation before we know it. Poignant viewing for all of us that deliver new technology for a living! Find it on YouTube here .

With so many vendors claiming new efficiencies on their various technologies, will we actually end up spending less money on these technologies, or perhaps end up spending more? In the spirit of eyes-wide-open IT discussions, we have to be prepared for the likely scenario that cost reductions in IT may — paradoxically — result in organizations spending more on IT, and not less. And, in most cases, we'll be better off as a result

As the industry starts to move to fully-virtualized models, and cloud-like environments, I'm encountering a specific debate around IT philosophy. The question revolves which is better for IT: purpose-built appliances, or pools of generic resources that are dynamically used?

To start, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I want the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) to succeed. We all (users, vendors and everyone in between) need a group like this to work. It’s in our collective best interests

Well, there certainly are many who think so. On the vendor side, I'd put 3Par, IBM, NetApp and doubtless a few others I forgot to mention

I spoke about it here while I was working to understand what the vendors were on about. Here are the results. About nine years ago, I wrote a book about ASPs (Application Service Providers) that also included Storage Service Providers.  In some respects, I was amazed by how little had actually changed with the modern “storage