| Storage Services news |
SSD training and education
guide
Editor:- July 19, 2010 - StorageSearch.com today
published a new article and directory on the subject of -
SSD training and
education.
If you make a bad choice of a
notebook SSD
- the worst that can happen is that you throw it away - restore your
backups and start again
with your old notebook or another new one. The main loss is your time and
convenience.
But if you make an unfortunate choice of server
accelerator SSD in an enterprise environment - then
you might lose your job
and your business too. So it pays to be careful.
There are
people out there who say they can help you. But
choosing an SSD
training supplier could be as tricky as finding a new SSD. ...read the article
New fitness service for tape librarians
Editor:-
July 12, 2010 - Crossroads
Systems today
announced
a new service for users of tape
libraries.
The library
overview analysis service provides comprehensive analytics on the health,
performance and utilization of tape libraries and helps users identify the
any sources of inefficiencies which can otherwise lead to backups
exceeding allocated time windows.
"Rather than tossing out
perfectly good media, storage administrators can avoid unnecessary costs and
headaches by viewing the precise status and health of their environment,"
said Elaine Pleshek, senior product manager at Crossroads Systems. "It's a
service that pays for itself. By gaining a reliable tool that continually
diagnoses operational backup errors, organizations can experience impressive
performance improvements."
See also:- Storage
Services
Nirvanix launches Petabyte scalable cloud in a box
Editor:-
June 29, 2010 - Nirvanix
today launched
hNode
- a hybrid cloud storage
service which
includes all the networking hardware, software and storage needed to provide an
on-premise cloud storage solution contained in a minimum 200TB configuration,
expandable to petabytes.
The customer provides data center space,
power and cooling and Nirvanix staff monitor, manage and maintain the solution.
why the
ASAP hockey stick is
flat...
(the problem
with) Selling revolutionary SSDs to technology laggards
Editor:-
May 28, 2010 - in a
new blog
today - I share my analysis of why one part of the market has been slow to
get off the ground - and why OCZ
being added to Intel
on Adaptec's
MaxIQ SSD compatibility list -
announced
yesterday - will not make them rich quick. ...read the
article
Nimbus nixes STEC SAS SSD costs in new iSCSI rackmount
Editor:-
April 26, 2010 - Nimbus
Data Systems today
launched
its S-class
storage system - a 2U 10GbE rackmount SSD with 24 hot swappable
internal 6Gbps SAS
flash SSD blades in an 80W power footprint offering 5TB protected capacity for
$39,995.
Powered by Nimbus' HALO storage OS the systems support
iSCSI, NFS, and CIFS
protocols and provide inline
deduplication
(typically 10 to 1), continuous local and remote replication capability
in-the-box at no additional cost. Data protection inside the box ensures that no
data is lost even with 2 simultaneous blade faults.
Editor's
comments:- there has been a lack of market leadership in the
NAS compatible
rackmount SSD
market. This new product from Nimbus shows what can be achieved with a true
bottom up enterprise design - in the same way that for
FC SAN connected
applications you'd look at systems from
Texas Memory Systems
and in the PCIe
connected rackmount SSD market you'd look at
NextIO or at
Violin Memory.
I spoke at length to Nimbus's CEO, Thomas Isakovich - about the new
systems. He's been a network storage OS pioneer for 10 years (prior to Nimbus
he founded
TrueSAN)
so I joked that - unlike many new SSD companies - at least this product wouldn't
be surprised by applications doing the wrong type of R/W IOPS (different to those
encountered in benchmark suites).
The 1st question I asked was
about the storage blades. I had already guessed (and he confirmed) the interface
was SAS. But the
surprise came when I asked whose
SSDs was he using?
Isakovich
said Nimbus makes its own SSDs - and that while the company was talking to many
SSD controller
suppliers - it planned from the outset to change these suppliers for other best
of breed alternatives as the market evolved. In this respect - Nimbus is
different to most others in the NAS SSD space - because the company supplies the
whole software stack from the choice of silicon up through the OS and into the
network. (Editor's note:- in contrast competitor
WhipTail Technologies'
product is a complex integrated bundle which uses 3rd party COTS
2.5" SSDs,
licenses the flash write attenuation software from
EasyCo and licenses
dedupe technology from Exar.)
I asked Isakovich does Nimbus use SLC or MLC? - he said the internal
flash is Micron's
"enterprise
grade MLC" - which has 6x the
endurance of
standard MLC.
He explained that Nimbus is aiming to offer a
competitively priced product (2.5TB model costs $24,995) but unlike other
vendors they decided not to offer separate
MLC or SLC
versions. The argument being that once you sold a system to a customer - let's
say a low cost MLC SSD for video streaming - you couldn't be sure that the
customer might not redeploy that same system into a different application
accelerating their database (which needs higher endurance). His thinking seems
to be that once the SSD rack is out in the wild of the enterprise environment -
it has to be tough enough to handle ALL enterprise applications.
The
flash systems include 28%
over-provisioning
and write attenuation.
I asked about the size of the RAM cache -
Isakovich said it's 48GB which puts it in the
fat flash SSD
class. Users do have options on how they can deploy this to tweak performance.
Unlike SSD ASAPs -
which are designed to accelerate
hard disk arrays - the
name of the game with the new Nimbus product line is to make it attractive for
users to place all their critical
IOPS
intensive data into SSD.
And with this new product Nimbus is saying -
they like the flexibility and features of
SAS SSDs - but that
doesn't mean to say the market has to pay
STEC or
Pliant prices.
Front Porch Digital Bucks Broadcast Equipment Trends
Editor:-
March 1, 2010 - Front
Porch Digital today announced that the company's 2009 sales bookings
were the best in its 11-year history, representing a gain of more than 30%
over 2008.
Front Porch Digital's success is more striking, according to
Mike Knaisch, the company's president and CEO, because a recent
industry research study indicates some 97% of
broadcast
vendors experienced declining sales in 2009.
Expect 16GFC by 2011 - says FCIA
Editor:- October
20, 2009 - the Fibre
Channel Industry Association announced its has completed the technical
work on
16Gb/s
Fibre Channel (16GFC) - which provides a natural value migration from 8GFC.
Product
roll-outs are anticipated in 2011 according to FCIA Chairman - Skip Jones.
Editor's
comments:- I first published a directory of Fibre-channel adapters way back
in 1994. The first FC connected storage array product listed in that
was the
SPARCstorageArray
from
Sun Microsystems.
It's reassuring that users in the FC market can anticipate another
level of performance evolution - but FC is no longer a growth market. So this
could be the last post for FC - just as
15K RPM
was the end of the road for hard disks.
For dispersed systems
ethernet based storage (NAS)
long ago became the dominant network storage connect - while for local use and
higher performance InfiniBand
and PCIe have taken
hold in distinct functional pockets. | |
| . |
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|
| this way to the Petabyte
SSD |
In 2016 there will be
just 3 types of
SSD in the datacenter.
One
of them doesn't exist yet - the bulk storage SSD.
It will replace the
last remaining strongholds of
hard drives in the
datacenter due to its unique combination of characteristics, low running costs
and operational advantages. |
 |
... |
The new model of the
datacenter - how we get from here to there - and the technical problems which
will need to be solved - are just some of the ideas explored in this
visionary article. | | | |
| . |
- Press Release
Errors I see every day - as an editor - I have to disregard zillions
of press releases, which vendors have paid good money to their agencies to
write and distribute. Here's why.
- Market research & storage
analysts - This directory includes every market research company
cited by a storage company on StorageSearch.com. Some are better than others. I
classify them privately into Storage Clairvoyants (predict the future),
Terabyte Talliers (tell you what's just happened) and SoothSayers (make your
press release sound more credible)...
- Venture Capital Funds in
Storage - If you're starting a new storage company where can you go to
get money? - I was asked that question so many times that in 2000 I started a
list of which VCs were giving how much to whom. It lists the failures too. It's
important to have a good story for your prospective VC if your business idea
sounds similar to an earlier one that tanked.
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