Podcast #3 – Chris & Matt review the SFD18 presenters

Here’s a little extra podcast Matt Leib and I recorded this afternoon in preparation for Storage Field Day 18.  You can tell this wasn’t recorded in a studio, but actually Matt’s hotel room!  Matt preps coffee in his mini-Nespresso device while we discuss each of the presenting vendors. The discussion is ad-hoc, off the cuff… Read more »

Thoughts from Hitachi NEXT 2018

Earlier this year I was invited to Hitachi NEXT in lovely San Diego.  As part of my trip, I took the time to learn a little more about some of the technology Hitachi has been working on and bringing to market either directly through Hitachi Ltd or Hitachi Vantara.  You may remember that Hitachi Vantara… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – exploiting the cloud

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – exploiting the cloud” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. No modern data platform would be complete if we didn’t talk about the use of public cloud. Public cloud can play a very… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – Out on the edge

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – Out on the edge” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. In this series so far we have concentrated on the data under our control in our datacentres and managed clouds and protected… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – Prevention (Office365)

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – Prevention (Office365)” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. In this series so far, we have looked at getting our initial foundations right and ensuring we have insight and control of our data… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – Control

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – Control” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. In the first parts (here and here) of this series we have looked at ensuring the building blocks of our platform are right… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – Availability

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – Availability” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. In part one we discussed the importance of getting our storage platform right, in part two we look at availability. The idea that availability is a crucial… Read more »

Building a modern data platform – The Storage

This is a guest post by Paul Stringfellow from Gardner Systems and was originally posted at “Building a modern data platform – The Storage” where you can also find Paul’s “Tech Interviews” podcast. It probably isn’t a surprise to anyone who has read my blogs previously to find out that when it comes to the… Read more »

IDC 1Q2018 Data Shows a Rebound for Storage Hardware Sales

The latest IDC Storage Tracker numbers are out and in the spirit of recent analysis, I’ve put the numbers into my tracking spreadsheet.  The figures represent data for Q1, which now has 12 years’ worth of coverage.  With around 42% growth in the general storage hardware figures and 20% in external storage sales, the numbers… Read more »

Cloud Field Day 3 Preview: Riverbed

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/. If someone asked me what business Riverbed was in, I’d have said WAN acceleration.  In past lives, I’ve… Read more »

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Latest

  • Storage Field Day 14 Preview: E8 Storage

    I initially held off reviewing E8 Storage as we had a podcast scheduled with CEO Zivan Ori, which went live last Friday.  Rather than make assumptions about the technology, I wanted to ensure I was giving some credit to the architecture.  I’m glad I did wait because there were one or two fundamentals I hadn’t… Read more »

  • Storage Field Day 14 Preview: EMC

    Update: Looks like we’ll be seeing XtremIO again!  (link) It’s over a year since I did a full Tech Field Day event.  Where does the time go?  Next week I’m attending Storage Field Day 14, based in the Silicon Valley area.  Compared to most events, this one looks (at first glance) relatively quiet, with only… Read more »

  • Windows Server, Release Cycles and HCI

    The discussion on Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) seems to have generated a lot of interest and a lot of defensive posts. These posts seem to think that what has been written is either wrong or misinformation.  Actually, the issue is poor communication on Microsoft’s part.  However, what’s subsequently been said has left more questions than… 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 »

  • DigitalOcean Introduces Spaces Object Storage Service

    This week DigitalOcean introduced their own object storage platform called Spaces.  Initially the service will only be available in the NYC3 data centre but is expected to be expanded to other locations over time. Build Your Own With so many object storage platforms already out there, do we need another?  Well according to this blog… Read more »

  • Flash Diversity: High Capacity Drives from Nimbus and Micron

    The desire to provide cheaper and greater capacity storage devices knows no bounds and has been a focus of the industry for the last 60 years.  Following on from Seagate’s 60TB “concept” flash drive, we now have two vendors selling 50TB OEM flash drives from Nimbus Data.  Let’s put that into context – the largest… Read more »

  • Scale Computing Moves Deeper Into the Enterprise With All-Flash HCI Nodes

    Sometimes a technology captures your imagination and shows real promise for developing into something of real value for the customer.  Scale Computing is one such company that has continued to demonstrate technical innovation and a continuning evolution in their platform.  The most recent announcements bring to the market higher performance and capacity appliances, including an… Read more »

  • Recent Cyber Attacks Show a Massive Misunderstanding About Technology

    The cyber attack affecting a large part of the UK NHS (and also more globally) has been widely reported over the weekend.  As usual, I find myself screaming at the TV, due to the misdirection being put forward by the media as to the causes and solution to the problem.  This morning I read an… Read more »

  • SNIA has high hopes for Swordfish

    Probably the most annoying and frustrating part of being a storage manager in the 1990s was the lack of decent management and automation tools.  Each storage vendor had some good and some bad software for managing their arrays.  EMC’s Symmetrix/DMX/VMAX range, for example, had a great and well thought out CLI management tool; Solutions Enabler…. Read more »