Chuck's Blog

A Bit More On Avamar ...

... but not from me today.

As a result of a certain vendor (Data Domain) making certain -- well -- interesting claims, a few of our EMC brethren felt the need to explain a bit more about how the technology works.  If nothing else, it's pretty interesting if you like to understand more than just what the marketing literature says.

Bottom line -- if you're doing dedupe for backup, you're going to have to decide whether you want to reduce data before you hit the network, or afterwards. 

I'm not saying which is best -- as I can imagine scenarios where one or the other would be ideal, but understanding the difference is helpful as you wade through the various backup dedupe claims.

Props to Mark at StorageZilla and Scott at The Backup Blog for shining a bit more light on the topic.

Do-It-Yourself Storage

I've always been amazed at the different ways you can slice the storage market: by access method (DAS, SAN, NAS, CAS, etc.), by architecture (single controller, dual controller, multi-controller, RAIN, scale-out, clusters, etc.), even by consumption model (e.g. traditional vs. storage-as-a-service).

To this growing list of taxonomies, I think we're going to have to add another: pre-integrated storage vs. do-it-yourself.

And, strangely, I think that there will be certain places where this is going to be popular.  But most organizations will probably never consider it seriously.

Here's why ...

Single Vs. Multiple Vendor Approaches

A while back, I commented on the growing disparity I was seeing to these different approaches to storage in larger customer environments.

Not surprisingly, I was taken to task by many over my observations.  "Of course", they'd offer, "what else would you expect a large vendor to say?"

Well, I'm signing up for another round of punishment.

Why?  It's getting even clearer to me with each passing week.

Common Criteria Isn't So Common

This post was triggered by yet another innocuous EMC press release, this one announcing that many of our platform products have been certified under the Common Criteria Information Technology Security Evaluation.

Don't know about the Common Criteria?  Wikipedia has a decent write-up on the basics, but only goes so far.

No, this is not just a federal government thing -- it's got wider applicability than you might think.

And, once again, the real story is what goes on behind the scenes ...

Data Loss Prevention -- New Thinking

I've had another "aha" moment -- actually, a whole series of them -- recently.

The first hint that something big was going on came as part of a flurry of announcements at RSA World, including this hidden gem around DLP.

It turns out that I only had a half-baked notion of what all the fuss might be about, until late last week.  I was privileged to spend some quality time with the RSA team who went through the concepts and demo'd the product.

When they were done, my head was spinning.  Not so much around the product capabilities (which were very cool, to be sure), mostly it was the new way they were approaching the problem that got me so excited.

I probably won't be able to fit in all into a reasonable-sized post, so consider this the first installment exploring a topic that I'm sure we'll all be interested in -- sooner or later.

The Other Side Of Bricks

Lots of interest in Xiotech's ISE announcement last week.

Many of the industry pundits found their approach, well, interesting to say the least.  One industry curmudgeon (I loathe to call him an "analyst") was almost falling over himself to praise Xiotech for what they're doing.

Now, I don't know much about their product (other than what I've read), and -- of course -- nobody can actually buy one yet to see what it's all about, but I found myself explaining the pros and cons of such an approach.

Of course, it really doesn't matter what I think, does it?  Eventually, the marketplace decides these things ...

FCoE Gets Buzz At SNW

So, if you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I've had my eye on FCoE for a while.

For me, this has the potential of being a winner for everyone who uses FC extensively today -- and you know who you are.

Even though I didn't go to SNW (I'm not a big fan of industry shows), I did enjoy watching the ritual and how different people reacted.

Storage Encryption -- New Capabilities

Somewhere in the blizzard of EMC-related news this week, the pieces of an interesting story started to come together, e.g. some new thinking and capabilities around storage encryption. 

The story came out kind of piecemeal (see here and here), and I thought it'd be useful to re-assemble some of the pieces. 

Many of you are doing some form of storage or tape encryption today, or are thinking about doing it.

I think there's now a better way to do this sort of thing than there was before.

Which NGDC Do You Want?

The acronym stands for "next generation data center", and -- once again -- this discussion is very much in vogue across the industry. 

So many pieces are coming together, that there's a new hunger for a conversation around "what does it all look like in a few years".

I think there's actually two distinct NGDC models emerging, and -- the real question is what kind of business do you see yourself in?

I'm Starting To Really Like These Guys ...

We all read lots of different things from different sources. 

But, I've got to tell you, I'm starting to read the Xconomy guys more and more -- great, insightful thinking that goes far beyond the usual coverage that's either shallow, incorrect or both.

As an example, you'll probably appreciate this take on some key aspects of EMC's acquisition strategy.

Interesting reading!

Data DeDupe -- Product or Feature?

Ah, you've got to love this bloggy world we're living in.

Today's post was driven by industry speculation that EMC and Quantum might be doing something.

Which, of course, lead to a broader discussion on data deduplication.

And, inevitably, I felt I might weigh in and try and attempt a tiny bit of clarification here.

The Future of IT (Professionals)

So, I'm occasionally having an interesting experience these days.

Very often, I'm asked to share EMC's views on what's broadly called "the future of IT".

And, in the act of doing so, we usually end up in a discussion around "the future of IT professionals".

I think this is a discussion we'll be having more often in the future.

Building The NextGen Management Brain

I fear I may have been neglectful in my blogging duties. 

I've fallen behind in a couple of areas, specifically regading a few recent developments in EMC's resource management strategy. 

Go ahead and blame me, but there's a lot to cover around EMC, and I still have my day job(s) to get done ...

So, with apologies out of the way, let's dig into a fascinating portion of EMC's portfolio -- resource management.

Storage Protocols, VMware and Religion

Funny, isn't it?  How most technology questions break into religious camps?

I've noticed that there's a fair amount of religion around which storage protocol is "better" for VMware: FC, NAS, iSCSI?

And, like most things, a fair amount of agnosticism might be appropriate.

Please, Not The "S" Word!

Ours is an industry that tends to overuse and abuse words more than most.

We use them too frequently, and too imprecisely to the point where they lose their ability to convey significant meaning.

And, on the list of maligned IT words, I hold a special place for the word "solution".

In our industry, it's applied to so many things, it has come to mean almost nothing.

I've come to call it the "S" word -- to let people know I consider it impolite and inappropriate to use in public unless you're willing to take the time to convey what you might mean by it.

RecoverPoint Redux

As you might know, I like to dig into parts of EMC's portfolio that I think are especially cool, and share with you what I really like about the different pieces.

Somewhere in all the activity last week, there was a major announcement around RecoverPoint, our next-gen replication platform.

Not only is RecoverPoint cool technology, but it's a cool story as well.

FCoE Gathers Steam

When I first started discussing this emerging storage networking standard, it brought out vigorous debate, not only from others in the industry, but also within EMC.

I've been quietly tracking FCoE, and -- not surprisingly -- it appears to be on its way to achieving critical mass.

And, it's not just me who's noticed the same thing.

EMC To Acquire Pi Corporation

In a world of corporate acquisitions in information technology, there are those that eventually matter, and those that are just part of the landscape.

Everyone is free to come to their own conclusions regarding this particular acquisition by EMC, but I for one see this as signaling yet another shift in the technology landscape – one whose impact probably won’t be blatantly obvious for some time.

Let me share with you why I think this isn’t your everyday acquisition …

Skiing And Storage

OK, this is going to be an off-beat post.  I'm on vacation this week (sort of), skiing in New Hampshire. 

So, what can possibly be the connection between skiing and storage?

It'll be a little strained, but I'll get there ... just be patient.

How The EMC Disk Library Came To Be

EMC offered up a press release today reflecting on the market success we've enjoyed with the EMC Disk Library (EDL).

I felt a special bit of satisfaction when I saw this.  The EDL was one of my special projects way back when.

Some people think that new product development is largely an autonomous, faceless process.

It's not.  Sure, there's plenty of process and data.  But, in most cases, there are a few people who really believe in a new product, and are willing to go to great lengths to see it happen.

And I was one of those people for the EDL.

Can You Trust Your Cloud?

The industry is all abuzz with conversations about things cloud-like these days.

Sure, EMC has added our views to the discussion in terms of technology, architecture, requirements, use cases, etc.

But there's a certain element that's going to be required for this stuff to really take off.

And that's trust.

SAP and EMC?

Saw this little gem come across the wire today, speculating on a tie-up between SAP and EMC on "web hosting services".

And, while it's very true that EMC brings a lot of value to an SAP environment, I'm not going to comment on the specifics of this article -- sorry, folks, that's beyond my pay grade ;-)

But the author did a great job tying together a number of concepts and trends into an interesting story, and I thought it'd be worthwhile to spend a bit of time and share some of the behind-the-scenes thinking here.

Information Infrastructure for DW and BI

Well, it turns out we're finding ourselves in more and more conversations with customers about what they're doing with data warehousing and business intelligence.

From wherever it started, they're now coming to the realization that this is now an important part of their landscape. 

Whether there are a few warehouses that became business critical, or the darn things are proliferating everywhere, we're now getting asked to help out on a more frequent basis.

So I thought I'd use this post to share what we're seeing, and what we're doing to help.

Building A Really, Really Fast NAS Platform

One of the things I enjoy doing on this blog is taking some not-widely-known part of EMC's portfolio, and explaining a bit on how it came to be, but more importantly, to highlight how we combine and integrate our portfolio to come up with some interesting approaches to customer problems.

EMC does so much that sometimes very compelling offerings simply get lost in the noise.

Today's behind-the-scenes journey is about MPFS.  The acronym stands for Multi Path File System. 

Probably named by an engineer ;-)

Think of it as really, really fast NAS.  Now, I'm not going to argue that it's the fastest, or the best, or that the other guys aren't so good, etc. because that's not the point here. 

But many of us think MPFS is a pretty cool story, and a pretty cool product.

Information Infrastructure for SOA

I'm called on frequently to speak about a variety of topics, and -- recently -- there's been a renewed interest in infrastructure associated with SOA.

You probably know about SOA -- service-oriented architectures.  It's a (relatively) new way of thinking about how applications are designed, developed and deployed.  .

But, like anything else, anything big and hairy (like SOA) has serious infrastructure implications. 

And SOA -- at scale -- is no exception.

EMC Does SaaS -- Reading Between The Lines

A relatively big announcement from EMC today, not so much on what we're doing specifically, but how we see the IT marketplace is evolving in very important ways.

The press release looks innocuous enough, doesn't it?  EMC announcing an enterprise version of Mozy-based backup.  Sure, that makes sense, sort of.

But I think there's a much more interesting story here ...

Enterprise Flash Drives and DMX -- The Aftermath

Every now and then, I get a ringside seat on a textbook example of human behavior in this industry.

And, I have to share with you, the reaction to EMC's recent announcement of enterprise flash drives for the DMX was very interesting, less about the factual content of what was said, but the different positions everyone took, and why.

And, going back over past experiences, I'm realizing that the last few days is a template of how a fiercely competitive, vibrant industry (e.g. storage) reacts to something truly new.

Enterprise Storage Strikes Back!

In the industry press, there's a certain group of people who disdain the enterprise approach to storage, thinking the world's important information will be entirely stored on commodity boxes running open source software.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. 

High-end storage arrays such as the DMX reflect the very latest in storage technology.  And there are a lot of very serious IT people out there who won't run their business on anything else.

Today, EMC announced some fascinating upgrades to the DMX -- including one that I'm sure will absolutely intrigue most storage techies like myself -- enterprise flash drives.

But, as with most things that EMC announces, there's two stories here: not only what we did, but how we did it.

It's Not About Web 2.0 Storage

If you're surfing our little corner of the blogosphere, you might have noticed that a spontaneous debate has broken out about the idea of "web 2.0 storage": what it is, what it isn't, and so on.

One catalyst seems to be the availability of all sorts of free (or low cost) over-the-network storage schemes from Google, Amazon and others.  Another catalyst was IBM trying to position their recent acquisition of XiV to revive their storage business.

I'm sure there's more that's been written around this, but here's the point: I think this "web 2.0 storage" discussion, as currently framed, is a big head-fake. 

And, while I have no problem with competitors running off on a wild goose chase, I think there's an important cadre of IT thinkers that will want to focus on what's going to be important here.

The New (VMware) House

To many industry watchers and IT consumers, VMware looks like just another technology to add to the list of operating environments they have to support.  The mindset might be that there are some places where it'll work, some places it might not work so well -- really, it's just part of the landscape.

But the more I talk to some customers, they've changed their perspective.

It's not just part of the landscape, it's THE new landscape.

And it's interesting to watch how people's thinking shifts over time.

Looking Ahead: The 2008 Predictions

I had the unprecedented luxury of almost completely shutting down over the holiday season.  OK, I peeked at my CrackBerry a few times, but -- mentally -- it was a total shutdown.  That's a good thing to do every so often, I think.

One of things I did think a lot about was this post -- what's going to happen in 2008?

Hopefully, I can keep my accuracy at something close to last year's levels ...

Looks Like A Jackalope To Me

Don't know if you've ever taken a car trip through the Rocky Mountains (Colorado, Wyoming, et. al.) but if you stop in a friendly diner, you're likely to see a picture of a "jackalope" -- a monstrous cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope.

The locals will tell you with a straight face how the nearby ranchers prefer them to horses since they run much faster and eat less.  Of course, no such thing exists, but it's good fun.

For some reason, there are those in the industry trying to make a connection between an extremely hot topic (server/desktop virtualization) and less-popular topics (storage virtualization, dedupe, thin provisioning, etc.).

Just like the infamous jackalope, the possibility is plausible to tourists, but somewhat of an inside joke to the locals.

Storage Virtualization and Invista 2.0

You might have seen EMC's announcement of Invista 2.0.  I thought this topic deserved a bit of context.

Storage virtualization has turned out to be one of those long-simmering topics in this industry.  And it's still going to simmer for a while, I'd predict.  This game isn't anywhere near from being over yet.

Best as I can recollect, although the industry was talking about at the end of the 1990s, the discussion got very hot at EMC in the 2002-2003 timeframe.

We knew that this was going to be an important storage technology, but we had some hard choices to make.

If anything, one of the things I like about working for EMC is that we study the problem, and are willing to make the hard choices -- and stick with them -- to get to where we want to be with our customers.

And with the recent announcement of Invista 2.0, I think it's a good time to reflect on the journey, where EMC and the industry has ended up, and maybe a bit of what happens from here.

The Changing Face(s) of IT

If anything, I write about a lot of different topics.  Maybe not particularly well, but people tell me there's no shortage of breadth ;-)

Someone suggested that maybe I bump it up a level, and try to summarize and integrate some of the key trends that are making us all think really hard these days.  You know, tie together the big threads and create a short, comprehensive picture.

So, I'm going to give it a try -- let me know how I do?

Storage Protocols and VMware

What'll it be with your VMware environment -- FC, iSCSI or NAS?

Now, given that hot debates rage on storage protocols across the industry, and -- of course -- within EMC, juxtaposing something like VMware on top of it raises another whole round of debates.

And, in the spirit of lively conversation, I thought I'd offer my view of how I'm seeing this play out in the industry and with EMC's customers.

Like all storage protocol discussions, I'm sure I'm going to get my fair share of commentary ...

More on Metadata

Just a quick follow-up to my post on The Metadata Conundrum ...

Just stumbled across this excellent video (again) that make a great case for re-thinking about how we organize information. 

Fun, thought-provoking and inspirational.

Beyond Document Collaboration

I may have mentioned already that one of my more fun projects is figuring out how to get EMC more proficient at this whole social media thing.

And it's made me realize that value-creating IT environments will be evolving here very, very quickly around this new paradigm.

When I'm in front of customers, sometimes I make the mistake of sharing that I'm working on this.  And, more than once, we've found ourselves spending all of our time on this topic, rather than the technology stuff I was supposed to be talking about.

A Tale Of Market Adoption -- Storage Vs. File Virtualization

Storage virtualization has been a lively topic of discussion for many years in this industry.

File virtualization is a relative newcomer, but it seems to be finding its way from data sheet to deployment much, much faster than storage virtualization.

And, thankfully, we're not having the bombastic discussions with file virtualization, which is a welcome relief .. ;-)

Podcast: Virtualization and Security

Hmmm -- the podcasters over at RSA found me recently, and asked me to talk a bit about what I was seeing from customers around the confluence of two really big themes in IT today: security and virtualization.

Now, I'd like to say it's a complete exposition, but -- to be honest -- it's a fresh discussion we're just now starting to get engaged in.

Maybe interesting, maybe not.  Find it here.

Products vs. Features

I missed the EMC earnings call the other day.  Too bad, I heard it was pretty well received ;-)

I did read the transcript, and I noticed that Joe Tucci made an important point that I think reflects the evolution of the storage business, and -- more broadly -- all sorts of technology innovation.

And it's been a useful way to frame the discussion, both internally and externally.

Tomorrow's Thinfrastructure

Occasionally, I trip across a clever word to describe a relatively complex concept.

This one comes from Kartik, one of our field CTO types.

And I think it's a handy way to describe many aspects of tomorrow's IT infrastructure.

Securing The Next Platform

I don't know about you, but I'm doing an awfully large amount of work from my mobile device these days.

Yes, I know we call it a "phone".  But I don't make many voice calls with it.  Do you?

I do email.  And lately, I've gotten pretty addicted to the browser.

For me -- it's my next platform -- the one I want. 

But how to secure it?

FCoE Made Simple

Well, one of the familiar things that popped up again at SNW was various vendors talking about FCoE -- Fibre Channel over Ethernet.

I really don't understand what the "controversy" might be about. 

Must be a slow news day for some people ;-)

Integration -- The New Killer App?

So, many of us have been asked the same question about a bazillion times ...

"So, EMC has acquired all this technology .. what are you doing to integrate it?"

And the answer is -- a lot -- but it comes out in ways that are not always obvious, but I would argue are certainly useful and attractive.

And today's example is a rather obscure product announcement that illustrates a broader theme.

Of Scalable File Systems and HPC ...

One of the more interesting new discussions in our industry is around HPC (high performance computing) environments, and the inevitable discussion of how will you get to your information?

Lots of vendors piling in.  It's getting pretty noisy.  I wrote a bit earlier on NAS evolution, but this is a more focused discussion.

What most people don't know is that EMC is pretty active in this space, and we've got more than few showcase examples of how our thinking (and our products) apply.

When Cool Technologies Collide ...

... sometimes the result is an overdose of coolness.

Saw a promo go out for an upcoming EMC LIVE event about using Application Discovery Manager in VMware environments.

If VMware is my #1 favorite cool technology, then Smarts ADM is right behind it.  And an event showing how these two things work together has got to be one of the better tech webinars from EMC.

I Take It Personally

We're becoming an information society -- much too fast to have the normal time to adapt to the wrenching societal and cultural changes that such paradigm shifts usually cause.

And the more I look, the more I see a gap between How We Used To Do Things and How We're Gonna Have To Do Things.

And this post has to do with identify theft.

Smarts Gets Smarter (Again!)

You probably know by now I'm a big fan of Smarts -- not simply because it's another EMC product -- but because it embodies game-changing thinking.

A few obscure press releases slipped out in the last few days, but there's a wealth of thinking behind it, and I'd like to take a moment and share some of it with you.