What Happened to Storage Spaces Direct?

Can this article on The Register be true?  Has Microsoft removed Storage Spaces Direct from the latest Windows Server build? To be honest I’d initially not given this article much thought until I decided to have a look at the latest Windows Server build myself.  I was interested to find that I can’t actually download… Read more »

Block is Not the Solution for Persistent Container Storage

It appears we’re reaching a consensus that persistent storage is needed for containers.  Despite early resistance, with an assumption that containers and their data should be transient, the logic of data persistence is starting to take hold.  To be honest it simply makes sense. Yes, I could keep my data in sync between multiple nodes… Read more »

Can Violin Systems Successfully Rise from the Ashes of Violin Memory?

I recently met up with the CEO of Violin Systems, Ebrahim Abbasi, for a chat about the industry and the future of the company.  Those who knew Violin Memory will be familiar with this company as it is essentially the assets and IP of the failed Violin, acquired by the Soros Group and relaunched as… Read more »

That 100TB Drive Is Closer Than You Think

Another day goes by and we have another story about hard drive technology.  Yesterday, Western Digital held a media event (I wasn’t invited) to announce MAMR, the latest technology for improving hard drive density.  MAMR stands for Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording and is a process to increase the stability of recording with very small grain… Read more »

Fixing the Problem of I/O With Parallel Computing – DataCore MaxParallel

The idea of improving the performance of applications through the use of parallel computing isn’t a new concept.  Look back 50 years and we can see that Amdahl’s Law shows how to predict the performance improvement that can be achieved by using multiple processors.  You can find details of Amdahl’s Law on Wikipedia, but essentially… Read more »

It’s Time for Hard Drives to Join Tape In The Archive Tier

This week we’ve seen the announcement of 14TB 3.5” hard drives from one vendor and 12TB from another. It’s hard to imagine the concept of 14TB in a single hard drive when ten years ago we were looking at only 1TB devices. However, these devices have a problem. The throughput and latency has remained relatively… Read more »

Azure Enterprise NFS by NetApp – Initial Thoughts

One of the big announcements coming out of NetApp Insight in Las Vegas is the release of Microsoft Azure Enterprise NFS Service using Data ONTAP technology.  The idea that a cloud hyperscaler could use a mainstream technology for storage instead of building their own is unique enough, but the more interesting scenario is the ability… Read more »

Scale Computing Debuts HC3 in Google Cloud Platform

Hyper-converged infrastructure is a great technology for running a range of mixed workloads.  With HCI how do you manage DR?  Typically the standard solution might be to run up another cluster in a separate data centre and run both 50% active/active or have one purely for standby.  What about running in the public cloud?  With… Read more »

Qumulo Releases QF2 – A Cross-Cloud Scale-Out File System

Over the last few weeks, I’ve talked a lot about data mobility and exactly how we should get data into the public cloud from on-premises locations.  You can find links to the posts at the end of this blog entry.  Much of what I’ve talked about revolves around moving data in a relatively static way,… Read more »

Measuring the Size of the Storage Market

Last week I posted a small comment on the latest IDC Storage Tracker figures.  The data shows ODM Direct as the largest category and the one with the most growth (73% year on year).  For some time I’ve wondered if the reporting of hardware really represents the state of the industry.  After all, it’s a… Read more »

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Latest

  • Is it time for VMware to Open Source The ESX Hypervisor?

    VMware’s business may well be at an interesting inflection point.  On the latest earnings call, the company indicated that earnings from core products like vSphere was down, while increased business was coming from VSAN, NSX and apparently vCloud Air.  2016 will apparently be a year of transition as the company moves back to growth in… Read more »

  • Working With Containers #1: Getting Started with Docker

    It’s been some 18 months since I looked at Docker and put out a preliminary post on getting started with the container platform.  Since then, Docker has moved on leaps and bounds to become an entire ecosystem.  In this series of posts I’m going to go back to basics and look at the steps needed… Read more »

  • Tech Field Day 10 Preview: Platform 9

    This is one of a series of brief posts discussing the presenters at Tech Field Day 10, occurring 3rd – 5th February 2016 in Austin, Texas, at which I am an attending delegate.  See links at the end of this post to other presenting vendors.  Details of the event can be found on the Tech… Read more »

  • Tech Field Day 10 Preview: Caringo

    This is one of a series of brief posts discussing the presenters at Tech Field Day 10, occurring 3rd – 5th February 2016 in Austin, Texas, at which I am an attending delegate.  See links at the end of this post to other presenting vendors.  Details of the event can be found on the Tech… Read more »

  • Tech Field Day 10 Preview: SolarWinds

    This is one of a series of posts discussing the presenters at Tech Field Day 10, occurring 3rd – 5th February 2016 in Austin, Texas, at which I am an attending delegate.  See links at the end of this post to other presenting vendors.  Details of the event can be found on the Tech Field… Read more »

  • Tech Field Day 10 Preview: Dell

    This is one of a series of posts discussing the presenters at Tech Field Day 10, occurring 3rd – 5th February 2016 in Austin, Texas, at which I am an attending delegate.  See links at the end of this post to other presenting vendors.  Details of the event can be found on the Tech Field… Read more »

  • Tech Field Day 10 Preview: Rubrik

    This is one of a series of posts discussing the presenters at Tech Field Day 10, occurring 3rd – 5th February 2016 in Austin, Texas, at which I am an attending delegate.  See links at the end of this post to other presenting vendors.  Details of the event can be found on the Tech Field… Read more »

  • Tech Field Day 10 Preview: VMTurbo

    This is one of a series of posts discussing the presenters at Tech Field Day 10, occurring 3rd – 5th February 2016 in Austin, Texas, at which I am an attending delegate.  See links at the end of this post to other presenting vendors.  Details of the event can be found on the Tech Field… Read more »

  • Tech Field Day 10 Preview: Diablo Technologies

    This is one of a series of posts discussing the presenters at Tech Field Day 10, occurring 3rd – 5th February 2016 in Austin, Texas, at which I am an attending delegate.  See links at the end of this post to other presenting vendors.  Details of the event can be found on the Tech Field… Read more »