Data centers

Shared storage in a 'shared nothing' environment

The computing industry is seeing dramatic growth in the use of "shared nothing" database architectures where each node functions independently of one another and is self-sufficient (Hadoop Distributed File System for example). For the sake of performance, contention among nodes for shared disk resources (SAN and NAS) is one of the things these architectures avoid by dedicating storage resources to each node, i.e. no shared disk.

While these computing architectures are best-known in the context of Web-based applications and development activities, they are no longer confined to the Web. EMC Greenplum, IBM Netezza, and ParAccel are all … Read more

Which 'big data' are you talking about?

Late last year I posted a blog item about big data and if/when it would present opportunities for storage vendors. I concluded by saying that, while it was a bit early for next-year prognostications, I expected to see the number of storage devices aimed at analytics applications blossom in 2011 with more storage vendors pursuing the opportunity.

It's now 2011 and I stand by that prediction. However, at least three definitions of big data have blossomed since that posting:

Big-data storage: systems that store really big (as in humongous) amounts of data Big-data analytics: systems that use new … Read more

Capellas-led coalition making strides by the Vblock

What's in a Vblock? It's a cloudy mix onto which a very experienced CEO is shedding more light.

Michael Capellas, the former chief executive of Compaq, MCI, and First Data, and current CEO of Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) Coalition, updated industry analysts with VCE progress as of early December 2010, slightly more than a year after Cisco Systems and EMC announced the VCE joint venture, which integrates servers and networking gear from Cisco, storage and management software from EMC, and the VSphere virtual operating system of VMware into Vblocks.

While the VCE Coalition is a privately held entity … Read more

How evolution begat the cloud revolution

Asking why cloud computing is happening today is something of a tautology. That's because an inclusive definition of cloud computing essentially equates it with a broad swath of the major advances happening in how IT is operated and delivered today.

Pervasive virtualization, fast application and service provisioning, elastic response to load changes, low-touch management, network-centric access, and the ability to move workloads from one location to another are all hallmarks of cloud computing. In other words, cloud computing is more of a shorthand for the "interesting stuff going on in IT" than it is a specific technology … Read more

Does 'big data' equal big opportunity for storage vendors?

Earlier this year, EMC surprised the storage community with its acquisition of Greenplum, a small producer of sophisticated software that can be used to both scale-out and accelerate data warehousing and business analytics applications. Its core technology is based on a convergence of Google's MapReduce process, and SQL. The result is a business analytics engine that is now being used to process very large data sets from a variety of online and traditional database sources. EMC created a new Data Computing Division around Greenplum and has recently released a Data Computing Appliance to compete with a number of accelerated … Read more

Cloud security is dependent on the law

I am a true believer in the disruptive value of cloud computing, especially the long term drive towards so-called "public cloud" services. As I've noted frequently of late, the economics are just too compelling, and the issues around security and the law will eventually be addressed.

However, lately there has been some interesting claims of the superiority of public clouds over privately managed forms of IT, including private cloud environments. The latest is a statement from Gartner analyst Andrew Walls, pointing out that enterprises simply assume self-managed computing environments are more secure than shared public services:

"… Read more

Cloud-computing predictions for 2011

2011 will be the Year of the X. Next year, Technology Y will kill Technology Z. Something will "die."

These sorts of predictions are commonplace as we approach the end of the year. They have a satisfying finality to them. They're dramatic. They're also, with few exceptions, rarely correct--certainly not in any literal sense.

That's because IT rarely advances in a way that invokes mass extinctions and spontaneous generation. Rather it's a more evolutionary process. There's lots of change but even when rapid the new stuff often doesn't displace the old--and overnight replacements are rare indeed. For example, proclamations about the death of Bluetooth were wildly premature even though that technology didn't live up to early promises.

This is especially true of cloud computing, given that it refers as much to the way the industry is moving to implement IT as the technology it uses to do so. Will those changes lead to broad shifts in where and how computing is done? Certainly, that's what makes cloud computing of so much interest after all. But we're mostly talking about transitions rather than sharp inflection points.

Within that context though, cloud computing is a rapidly developing set of trends that's generating lots of interest and discussion. And those discussions suggest to me some things that are going to be qualitatively different next year compared to this past one and some that will remain elusive.

Less focus on definitions (and dare we say hype?). If we were to do a survey of presentations, articles, and analyst research reports throughout this past year, we'd find that many of them spent a lot of time defining and categorizing cloud computing. I myself wrote a Cloud 101 white paper earlier this year. This sort of content may be old hat to the analysts and vendors who have been writing about or implementing cloud strategies over the past few years. But, as I've discovered to only partial surprise, themes that some of us consider well-worn are still fresh to many mainstream audiences. That said, in 2011, we can collectively start to move on from talking about the big picture while remembering that the future doesn't happen everywhere at the same time.… Read more

Are IT vendors missing the point of cloud?

There were two conferences in the San Francisco Bay Area last week with content targeted at cloud-computing consumers. These two conferences, Cloud Expo and QCon, helped me to articulate a trend I've been noticing for some time; the cloud market may be sending very different messages to IT operations audiences than it is to software developers.

I attended Cloud Expo (while I simply tracked QCon through Twitter), and I agree with Jay Fry that this conference has gotten significantly better than its early days. It is important to note, however, that the content was most often geared to IT … Read more

Is it unified or un-unified storage?

For years, storage vendors have been offering two types of disk storage: block and file. Block-based storage is commonly associated with SANs (storage area networks) while-file based storage is commonly referred to a NAS (network attached storage) and attached to Ethernet networks.

Lately, the vendors of either flavor have developed an interest in selling storage arrays that swing both ways--a storage system that provides both block and file access simultaneously. The moniker for these converged SAN/NAS systems is "unified storage."

With unified storage arrays, block access is accomplished through use of an interface to the array such … Read more