Storage Effect

Two petabyte storage consolidation and virtualization up and running

Byte and Switch covered Ford’s revamp of their corporate data storage strategy, including 2 petabytes of virtualized storage.  They used IBM’s SAN Volume Controller and DS4000 & DS8000 systems. 

Ford’s Vijay Santoran says that they’ve tested EMC gear as well, and are not relying on a single solution.

Consolidation is paying off already, but it’s not a silver bullet 

From the sounds of it, Ford has been able to deliver on the promises of virtualized storage, including fewer chasses, less power, delayed storage growth.  Despite this, I believe Ford will ultimately be able to support more, not less data with this enabling architecture.

I’m a firm believer that storage as a business enabler trumps storage as a cost savings tool every time.

What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

• Heroes Happen Here comic strip adventure
• Tom Brokaw’s speech on unsung heroes who “put their feet on the ground and their hands on the keyboard” to move us all forward.  Are we collectively tomorrow’s greatest generation?
• Steve Ballmer (mostly because of who and what he represents - his speech was mildly interesting)
• The Virtual Launch Event for those who couldn’t come to LA.
• The Windows Server 2008 feature set rocks! Taking IT automation to a new level.
• Refreshing mix of about 4,000 real IT folks and system builders!  I’m jaded from many events like this with a whole bunch of vendors hobnobbing amongst ourselves.
• LA sunshine and 70+ degrees in February (I live in Minnesota).

Update: photos from the event in Los Angeles:

I’m in Los Angeles at the Microsoft Server 2008 launch.  I’ve heard lots of positive buzz around Server 2008 from system builders playing with it, developing with it.  The product seems to be more mature than typical Microsoft releases at launch time - it even has SP1 included already.

I’m looking forward to hearing Steve Ballmer speak, partially because I’m kind of new to attending large Microsoft events and have yet to hear him in person.

More to follow…

Actual enterprise drive reliability meets expectations

One failure in a million hours?  It’s claims like these that seem extreme to some people when they look at enterprise disk drives.  Yet a study of 39,000 NetApp systems by a researcher have found that these drives fail at a 1% annual failure rate (AFR).  Robin Harris summarizes the study in his blog.

The translation from AFR to MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) is not exact, but this AFR number puts MTBF in the million-hour ballpark,  showing that disk drive specifications do indeed portray actual reliability performance.

It’s hard to test for a failure every 1.6 million hours

This is not an exact science, because to prove that any one drive will only fail on average every 1.6 million hours (the spec for the Seagate Savvio drive), you’d have to run a whole bunch of drives a whole bunch of years.  This study is a nice real-world validation!

Will Cloud Computing take EMC from storage maker to storage user?

EMC is mostly known as a company that makes storage.  That may change in the future, according to Data Center Knowledge.  EMC’s Cloud Computing offering could someday rank them with Google, MSN and others as one of the top users of storage. 

EMC’s recent acquisition of Pi, a personal information management startup is a step in that direction, according to Chuck Hollis, EMC’s VP of product alliances:

“Like a diamond being set into a ring by an expert jeweler, Pi is potentially the centerpiece of a very intriguing strategic play. And one that not too many people will initially appreciate, I believe. I think people are having a tough time putting EMC into a neat industry bucket.”

EMC clearly has a unique vertical business model opportunity as a storage provider and consumer.   

An innovative business model for enterprise data retention

So let me get this straight…you want me to download my enterprise archives into a box full of disk drives, then ship them to Iceland?

Exactly!  And it’s a compelling business proposition.  Data Islandia’s new business packs as much as a petabyte into an air-shippable container, sends it to Iceland, and plugs it into an enterprise-class data management facility. 

Leveraging Iceland’s natural strengths

The benefits are refreshingly business- and process-focused.  Some of the world’s cheapest energy, streamlined Customs processes, data encryption in transit, faster time-to-data than tape-based archives.  Their technology even adjusts for changes in pressure in flight. 

Plus, they’ve partnered with experienced enablers to their idea: Hitachi Data Systems and Telehouse Europe.

Old School ideas with a new twist can bring big business benefits

If you look past the seemingly old-fashioned idea of physical transport of data, this is a truly innovative concept.

To read Jon Toigo’s thoughts on the Data Scooter, go here.

Your customers need online backup or data recovery services.  Offer both. 

My friend Bret Rohloff at Microsoft calls the loss of computer data a “digital house fire”.  Well put.  There are lots of parallels, and the results are often the same: the permanent loss of precious, priceless keepsakes.

One big difference: unlike physical possessions, “priceless” digital possessions can be replicated and stored somewhere else to keep them safe.

Uberpulse’s Data Recovery Services tour

Uberpulse visited Seagate’s Recovery Services team.  Some interesting takeaways:

• Cost to store data locally: ~$200
• Cost to back it up online: ~$50/year
• Cost to recover lost data: at least $500, often thousands of dollars

I’ve been meaning to sign up for online backup…I’m motivated to get it done now!

Solution providers can offer these services  

Seagate has programs that allow solution providers to offer Seagate Recovery Services and Evault (Seagate’s online backup service) to their customers.

Xserve RAID is out at Apple: Promise Vtrak is in

StorageMojo reports on Apple’s decision to drop the Xserve RAID storage system.  Seems like its beauty was only skin deep.

Goes to show that being pretty is a great strategy for consumers, but not so much for business. A smart and pragmatic decision by Apple.

Replaced by Vtrak from Promise

Apple is offering the Promise Vtrak system in its place.  Comments on Robin’s blog suggest that Apple is making this move now to get it out before their update to Final Studio Cut software.  You can take a look at it on Promise’s site here. 

The A/V production space is huge. Apple is wise to do what it takes to maintain a strong position in this market. 

Content access time is the performance metric for Web 2.0 enterprise storage

A very cool entrant in the storage space: Atrato.  Think “black box” storage:  hundreds of 2.5″ drives, sealed in a 3-year maintenance-free containter that’s ”fail-in-place”  Does that mean it keeps working for 3 years despite losing a few drives along the way?  Let us know if you know.

Atrato is focused on instant access.  This is the high capacity content-serving equivalent of transactional performance for traditional enterprise applications.  Expect to see more solutions for Web 2.0 infrasctructure that are screaming fast, but in a new way.

Robin Harris has a nice analysis of their new idea and product here. 

By the way, Atrato is a river in Columbia that Atrato (the company) says is the fastest in the world.  Creative name choice!

Server SATA drives spice up desktop PCs without adding much cost 

Want your desktop PC to stand out in a crowd?  You probably wouldn’t think of using storage - at least not without adding a lot of cost.  

Think again. 

Good Gear Guide reviews the Seagate Barracuda ES, a 7200 RPM SATA drive with a difference.  It’s a server drive, but unlike 15K RPM and 10K RPM drives, it’s priced at a small premium to mainstream desktop drives.  Plus, it has the high capacity (up to a terabyte) desktops demand these days.

Seagate’s details on the Barracuda ES can be found here.

Seagate designed this drive for high capacity business applications, but as this review shows, it creates an opportunity for system builders and consumers to build a better desktop.