Storage Nation

Yesterday, I posted on how clouds need to be better than the traditional physical environments they replace.  I made a long list of areas where that was either the case today, or would be relatively soon.

You say something often enough, it becomes a personal meme.  If enough people agree with you, and start saying the same thing, it might become an industry meme. In that spirit, let me share with you a meme that shows every sign of making that transition. Why?  Because I think people are ready to accept this particular thought as conventional wisdom. An Oversimplified History Of Cloud Thinking The first round of people talking about cloud were the technologists.  The message?

A report published today by OFGEM , the UK’s energy regulator makes bleak reading for the future of electricity supply in this country.  The BBC discusses it here . The report highlights £200bn of under-investment and the risk of power cuts over the next decade.  It’s a damning statement on the deregulation of the power industry but should be ringing alarm bells for anyone concerned with managing their data centre.  The affects could be: Price Rises – consumer prices could double, therefore commercial rates will be affected too

While Cloud computing is touted as a new way to mask the complexity of the IT infrastructure and provide IT services as “a pay as you grow” service, these concepts  were introduced over 10 years ago with the service providers of the late 1990’s. These concepts were so appealing that they helped to fuel the dot com boom,  but disappeared in the dot com crash of 2001/2002. What has changed to make us think that a shared services model like cloud computing and cloud storage will be successful this time around? Key to the success of cloud storage providers, as with the dot com storage services providers (SSP) of earlier days, will be the ability to leverage their resources and be more efficient in managing the growth of storage compared to their end users.

Yes, I know…It’s not Christmas (yet)…but, I did just get this really cool FlipHD video camera and wanted to give it a shot.

I got a reader comment so perfect that it calls out to be shared: I'm not the most technical tool in the shed, but I read a lot, and I have been reading a lot about cloud computing – and the lyrics of a song keep playing in my head: "I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all" Cloud Computing – how does it affect me, the person on the receiving end (security issues, reliability)? The definition of Cloud – Webster's dictionary: ·          Something that darkens or fills with gloom. ·          A dark region or blemish – something that obscures.

As the economy starts to revive, and IT spending starts to pick up a bit, I've noticed some optimism return to our industry. Yes, it's great to see some positive earnings reports in the press.  Nothing wrong with that

If you follow me on Twitter at all, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of Qlogic .  I appreciate the functional simplicity of what Qlogic designs encompass as well as the “ get business done ” attitude that they bring to their switches , HBAs , NICs , and CNAs.  Imagine my happiness, then, when I got ahold of one of their latest “edge” fibre channel switches, the SANbox 5802V.  The SANbox 5802V follows the typical edge-switch formula: 20 SFP ports for either 4Gb/s SFPs or 8Gb/s SFP+, 4 stacking ports that default at 10Gb/s Fibre Channel connection and can be upgraded to 20Gb/s FC when additional bandwidth is needed, a serial and IP -based management port setup, and dual redundant power supplies (the 5802V ships with 2 PSUs ; the 5800V model ships with only 1).

Just got back from 2 weeks in Europe with customers of every shape and size.  One thing that was clear to me was that we need to be more clear about our cloud storage strategy – as many of them were struggling with issues and didn’t know what we could do to help them.   Then again, I’m not sure that I will help make things more clear with this post – one thing I’m never is “talking point concise” So – what is our cloud storage strategy?  First of all, it’s very important that cloud doesn’t imply “internet and public” by definition.   It does imply these things: usage models (large aggregate pools, oversubscribed – not “hard provisioned/thick”) consumption and economic models (pay-as-you go) management models (zero-touch from a user perspective, with very “cross silo” tools from an administrative perspective).   These core ideas and principles apply all infrastructure services (IaaS) models – including both compute and storage.   They also imply whether those services are constructed and maintained by an enterprise in within/across its walls as a purely internal service (presumably higher SLAs and security than public cloud), or by a service provide (presumably higher degrees of scale and oversubscription and therefore more efficient). If this sounds “future speak” – it’s NOT.    EVERY customer I talked to was trying to build compute and storage self-service internal IT services.   They may call them different things, but when you describe it like the above and ask: “ are you trying to do something like this?” the answer was always “YES!”.

Occasionally, I get pinged by a journalist to answer industry-level questions for specific publications.