Eight years ago, a friend and I were researching a book we would later call "Inescapable Data - Harnessing the Power of Convergence." We were after an understanding of what kinds of new information one could produce by blending data of different types and from different sources -- GPS data, combined with RFID, combined with data from a shipping manifest could be used to track shipments in real time for example.
In the process of doing our research, we interviewed many CEOs, CIOs, and others in leadership positions to see if they were aware of the new variety of data more
My wife works for our local school department as an IT support specialist assigned to the town's largest elementary school. Like many U.S. elementary schools, kids and teachers use a variety of personal computing devices, including PCs, notebooks, and now tablets. (Everyone wants to use these 'cause they're way cool.)
Keeping this veritable Noah's ark full of computing animals happy is more than a full-time job. There are more than 400 of them and they have quirks that give most of them unique personalities. If she comes home and tells me she had time for lunch, more
I attended GigaOM's Structure:Data 2012 conference in New York City last week. This is the second one I've attended and I'm now a confirmed advocate of this event. Om Malik brings together people who, in one way or another, represent much the creative thinking around so-called big data. I got the feeling that I could strike up a conversation with anyone there and learn something new.
I noticed at least two major differences between the Structure:Data event I attended last year and this year's version. Last year, most if not all of the exhibiting more
The current highest-capacity internal hard drive that you can buy offers 3TB of storage space, which is huge. Soon you'll be able to put even more data on one, thanks toSeagate's recent achievement in data density.
The hard-drive maker announced today that it has become the first company to achieve the milestone storage density of 1 terabit (1 trillion bits) per square inch, promising to double the current hard-drive's capacity before the end of this decade. The company says its new storage technology will also allow hard drives to reach 60TB capacity within the next decade.
It is often said that data center-level server virtualization projects created a renewed demand for networked storage, both NAS and SAN.
If that's true, then efforts to virtualize desktops--aka virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) projects--will create renewed demand for high-performance storage, both network-attached storage (NAS) and storage area network (SAN).
Storage performance is a major determinant in successful deployments of VDI. Why? VDI is a storage input/output-intensive environment.
When you lift the hood to find out what's going on inside a disk array that's supporting virtual desktops, you see the following:
There's always been tension between server and storage bigots.
Scott McNealy, former CEO of the former Sun Microsystems, once infamously opined that storage was a (mere) feature of the server. The problem was that at the time he made that comment, the storage industry was writing its declaration of independence. Fibre Channel-based SANs were consolidating and replacing direct attached storage (DAS) architectures in many of the world's large data centers. IP-based network attached storage (NAS) systems were consolidating and replacing print and file servers, much to the chagrin of both McNealy and Steve Ballmer.
Occasionally we see some learned organization counting the number of bytes of data that humans have produced to date. And I've been known to scoff at these projections.
Seriously folks, even if you think that the number is 789.332 yottabyes on some given day--let's say today--the number is bigger tomorrow. And it gets bigger the next day. Even the rate of growth of the world's collective data is meaningless. Who would ever try to collect it all in one place and do something with it?
Oops. Someone actually is trying to collect all the data in more
Spoiler alert: this is a blog post about world peace.
I've been spinning some cycles lately looking for free data. Why? Here's my thesis: As our use of the cloud evolves, we will come to understand that, to do powerful computational things, we not only don't need to own massive amounts of IT infrastructure, we don't even have to own the data. The cloud will offer us both. Think of it as big free data.
At the dawn of modern computing history, one needed millions of dollars to buy big iron to do serious computational things. more
Typically I write about storage. Now, as part of my research, I'm writing about data--data about you. The hottest commodity on the Web right now is data that describes who you are, what you like, what you do, who you know, where you've gone, where you might be, and what you are likely to do.
There are potentially tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of buyers, sellers, and collectors of data about you. For example, retailers of all stripes--from online to bricks and mortar--believe that they can sell more to you when they know more about
Last year, Oracle completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. At the time there was much speculation regarding the future of Sun's server and storage hardware business and I heard a number of well thought out opinions. But two seemed to stand out, both in opposition to one another:
1. Sun's hardware business doesn't return the same high net profit margin as Oracle's software business, therefore Oracle will wind it down, sell it off, or otherwise dispose of it over time because it will drag down overall profitability.
2. While the Sun hardware business doesn't offer the same profitability as software and applications, with work it could be brought in line with Oracle's other businesses. Therefore Oracle will keep it and find a way to make it profitable enough so as not to be a drag on overall profitability.
Last week, Oracle outlined its storage strategy and in doing so removed a lingering question mark that has been hanging over the acquisition since it was announced by making the following statement: "First and foremost, Oracle will deliver storage that helps Oracle platforms run faster. Oracle will continue to invest in storage hardware development, so long as that investment propels Oracle platform growth and market acceptance." Personally, it was not the statement I had expected, but I've learned to live with it.
Mark Hurd, former HP CEO and now Oracle's president, began the Oracle storage strategy session with the obligatory references to overwhelming data growth. I say "obligatory" because nearly every storage vendor pitch I see lately frames the discussion of why the market needs product x in terms of voluminous data growth and the opportunity that data growth presents to vendor x for managing it.
Storage is more--way more--than a mere peripheral. In Data-driven, John Webster probes into storage technologies, the vendors behind them, and how customers use them in the context of market drivers such as Web 2.0, cloud computing, and the need to get meaningful information from the data fire hose that is now part of our daily life.
John is a senior partner at Evaluator Group. He has served as principal IT adviser at Illuminata and has held analyst positions at IDC and Yankee Group Research. He also co-authored the book "Inescapable Data Harnessing the Power of Convergence." John is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.
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