Storage Nation

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

One of the thoughts being promoted by one of our competitors last week was "snaps are all you need for data protection".  Some folks at EMC asked me to comment, so I thought I'd share here. Let me know what you think? Yes, But … Here's where I would agree with the thought

Yes, I'm still talking with customers about private cloud models, day in and day out.  The funny part is that now they're asking me, rather than me bringing it up.  That's progress, I guess. Just to refresh your memory, in my simple world clouds have three major attributes: * they're built differently — dynamic pools of virtualized resources * they're operated differently — zero-touch or low-touch aggregated models * they're consumed differently — they're convenient to consume I seemed to have spent the first part of 2009 discussing the technology.  Fortunately, many people now generally accept that fully virtualized environments can be better than their physical counterparts in many situations. And, as I think about it, I spent a great deal of time during the second part of the year on operational models: the need for self-service, the importance of flexibility, how traditional roles and responsibilities change, and attacking the people / process / politics part of the problem

For those of you who have been following what’s going on – there are large investments being made in EMC and Cisco personnel to support our VMware-focused go-to-market (if they strike you as large, they are DWARFED by investments on the engineering side).   Note that this doesn’t mean we don’t have a go-to-market around Hyper-V (see my post on that here ), and that you won’t see activity with other partners (e.g. Dell for EMC, other storage and management vendors with Cisco)  but rather that there is overwhelming customer demand for more “VMware/Cisco”, “VMware/EMC”, and “VMware/Cisco/EMC” (VCE) resources. The way this works is that at EMC we have a team we call “vSpecialists” that focus exclusively on VMware/EMC.   People colloquially call the vSpecialist team other things: “Chad’s vArmy” (I’m not a super-fan of this one – not because I don’t support the military, but rather because the analogy is a bit off: one is recruited or is conscripted into an army – whereas on our team one volunteers; the military thrives on hierarchical structures – whereas on our team there are leaders, not managers) “vGeek Squad” (more my cup o’ tea as I’m a geek These operate at a theatre level, but are tightly aligned with our divisional resources.  They support engagements with customer that center around VMware/EMC – working to make sure our technologies come together to help the customer, and outside/before any “paid professional services” (there are literally more than a thousand VCP certified at EMC now if you include delivery).   They get to play/use all the latest technologies, in fact, are mandated to be using those that are 6-12 months ahead of GA. The goal by the end of 2010 is that there are roughly 304 of these vSpecialist folks around the globe

I read with empathy recent posts on Wikibon regarding the general perception that storage management tools could be a whole lot better. One excellent post spoke of managing storage performance .  Another speaks to large warehousing workloads meandering through the fabric, and the havoc that caused.  Good reading. It'd be easy enough to say, " yes, darn it, we need better tools! ".  And plenty of storage admins would agree with me wholeheartedly. My argument, however, is that tools in isolation can only get you so far.  At some point, the model needs to change.  And that's a more difficult proposition

You're midway through a sequence of posts describing the concept of building an "information utility" for the non-mission-critical information that's drowning every enterprise. I did my best to lay out an initial conceptual framework here .  Much of what I say here will make far more sense if you have the chance to read this first. In this post, I want to drill down on the enabling technologies and automated operational models that have the potential of dramatically transforming the efficiency of how we store, protect, manage and leverage our enterprise information

I know, I flout one of the "conventional wisdom" rules of blogging: link to other people's stuff as much as possible.  I have no excuse, other than perhaps I'm lazy. Over the last few days, though, I've seen some excellent postings from the people I follow.  I don't know whether it's the season, or people just getting more proficient — but I'm really starting to enjoy some of these posts. See how many of these you've seen. Dear Father Christmas Perhaps the most poignant series of posts came from Storagebod, who wrote a series of letters to different vendors.  There's six in the series, starting here .  He tells all of us vendors what we need to hear, and does it in a gentle and funny manner.  I think Martin has emerged as one of the most insightful and reasonable voices in the storage blogging world, and we all follow him closely here at EMC

In my previous post , I attempted to present some of the basic impacts of FAST — fully automated storage tiering, and how they were reflective of a Big Theme I want call the continuing virtualization of storage. This theme plays out in two primary ways — one of which is storage's continuing alignment with fully virtualized servers and networks.  And the other is how — once we fully abstract logical from physical — many more things are possible in the storage domain than we might previously have assumed. This second post digs in deep on the second idea — what new things are now possible once we fully embrace "virtualized storage"?  And one of those "new things" is an entirely new take on storage tiering.

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

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