Conflating Data Protection and Data Mobility

Sitting on the sidelines, I’ve been watching some of the traffic and communications coming from VeeamON this week.  Chris Mellor just posted a quick article summing up the ambitions of Veeam as a company.  It struck me that we continue to conflate the idea of data protection and data mobility.  To me, these are two… Read more »

NetApp Extends Cloud Volumes to GCP

Following their introduction on Microsoft Azure last year, native NetApp Cloud Volumes are to be made available through Google Cloud Platform.  NetApp now offers Cloud Volumes in some form on the three major (Western) cloud providers, AWS, Azure and GCP.  How should we view this, especially in respect of how cloud services are evolving? Maturity… Read more »

PowerMax, VMAX, XtremIO – the Agony of Choice

Last week Dell EMC announced the next generation of the long-running Symmetrix platform with the release of PowerMax.  This all-NVMe array apparently isn’t a replacement for VMAX (or XtremIO).  However it is yet another decision point in customer choice for all-flash from Dell EMC.  Does the company need another all-flash array or is this just… Read more »

Are We Suffering Logo Addiction Syndrome?

Remember when converged infrastructure came in?  We were told that packaging was the next best thing and doing things in separate towers of skills was bad.  Now it appears we’ve developed Logo Addiction and should be looking to build things from scratch again. The basis of this thesis is a presentation at Interop ITX by… Read more »

Validating HYCU Deployment By The Numbers

Vendors like to claim that their software is “1-click” or installable within 30 seconds.  In general these claims are pretty fatuous unless you’re either frequently deploying or looking to automate.  I’ve been spending a bit of time looking at a range of storage solutions that are fully software-defined and seeing how easy that deployment process… Read more »

Dell EMC to Offer Isilon on Google Cloud Platform

It’s Dell Technologies World this week in Las Vegas and the first announcement of interest is the future offering of the Isilon NAS platform on Google Cloud Platform.  The details of Isilon Cloud on GCP are scant, to say the least.  All I’ve found so far is this community post (link).  With little to go… Read more »

What are TBW and DWPD?

TBW is an acronym for  Terabytes Written and DWPD is an acronym for Device Writes Per Day.  Both are measures of the endurance of flash storage. Conflating Reliability and Endurance in SSDs What is the Technology Behind Samsung Z-NAND? Flash storage has a limit on the number of write (or specifically program/erase) cycles that can… Read more »

The Burden of Technical Debt

As the issues at TSB continue to unfold, I look on at an IT problem that will likely never be fully explained and eventually disappear into the archives as yet another “computer glitch”.  Why does it keep happening, what’s wrong with the industry and how can we do better next time? Experience Who am I… Read more »

NetApp embraces cloud for future business growth

Technology is a fickle business and surviving more than a few short years is hard to achieve.  The industry changes very quickly, as the next greatest thing consigns solutions and products to being legacy, even if they are still running many organisations’ core business.  Storage has evolved to be a major part of any IT… Read more »

Why HCI Data Protection is Different

When so many businesses are totally dependent on their digital information, data protection becomes a key requirement for every IT organisation.  The way in which we implement technology changes almost daily and this affects the choices on how we protect it.  Where 20 years ago the standard model for deployment was based on physical servers,… Read more »

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  • Cloud Field Day 3 Preview: Delphix

    This post is one of a series of previews of companies presenting at Cloud Field Day 3, an invitation-only event in Silicon Valley, taking place 4-6 April 2018.  For more information, see the dedicated CFD3 events page https://blog.architecting.it/events/cloud-field-day-3/. There’s a very interesting theme to the presenters at CFD3 and that highlights one of the challenges of… Read more »

  • Cloud Field Day 3 Preview: Veritas

    This post is one of a series of previews of companies presenting at Cloud Field Day 3, an invitation-only event in Silicon Valley, taking place 4-6 April 2018.  For more information, see the dedicated CFD3 events page https://blog.architecting.it/events/cloud-field-day-3/. The name Veritas is synonymous with storage, both in the area of file systems and data protection.  Anyone… Read more »

  • Cloud Field Day 3 Preview: Druva

    This post is one of a series of previews of companies presenting at Cloud Field Day 3, an invitation-only event in Silicon Valley, taking place 4-6 April 2018.  For more information, see the dedicated CFD3 events page https://blog.architecting.it/events/cloud-field-day-3/. We all love backup, right?  OK, it may not be top of everyone’s wish list, but data protection… Read more »

  • Cloudian Acquires Infinity Storage

    Cloudian Inc, a vendor of object storage solutions has recently announced the acquisition of Infinity Storage, a Milan-based developer of file systems and file storage technology.  In December 2017, Cloudian announced the availability of HyperFile, a NAS controller addition to HyperStore, which we now know was based on Infinity Storage IP.  Clearly, Cloudian saw a… Read more »

  • Cloud Field Day 3 Preview: Morpheus Data

    This post is one of a series of previews of companies presenting at Cloud Field Day 3, an invitation-only event in Silicon Valley, taking place 4-6 April 2018.  For more information, see the dedicated CFD3 events page https://blog.architecting.it/events/cloud-field-day-3/. When processes get too complex and time-consuming, there’s a temptation to stick in another layer of abstraction and… Read more »

  • Cloud Field Day 3 Preview: Oracle

    This post is one of a series of previews of companies presenting at Cloud Field Day 3, an invitation-only event in Silicon Valley, taking place 4-6 April 2018.  For more information, see the dedicated CFD3 events page https://blog.architecting.it/events/cloud-field-day-3/. There are few people in the IT world who haven’t heard of Oracle.  The company has dominated the… Read more »

  • Dude, Here’s Your 100TB Flash Drive!

    It’s been only a month since I wrote about Samsung’s 30TB solid state disk and already the bar has been set higher.  This week Nimbus Data announced a 100TB 3.5″ SSD (the DC100) that blows past the proof of concept 60TB drive demonstrated by Seagate only a few years ago.  How real is 100TB in… Read more »

  • Cloud Field Day 3 Preview: Rubrik

    This post is one of a series of previews of companies presenting at Cloud Field Day 3, an invitation-only event in Silicon Valley, taking place 4-6 April 2018.  For more information, see the dedicated CFD3 events page https://blog.architecting.it/events/cloud-field-day-3/. Over my career, data protection has never been one of the most exciting areas for which I’ve been… Read more »

  • Cloud Field Day 3 Preview: NetApp

    This post is one of a series of previews of companies presenting at Cloud Field Day 3, an invitation-only event in Silicon Valley, taking place 4-6 April 2018.  For more information, see the dedicated CFD3 events page https://blog.architecting.it/events/cloud-field-day-3/. NetApp has been an interesting company of late, with an evolving portfolio of cloud-related products.  Historically, NetApp was… Read more »