Latest News from ILM Consulting

The Definition of a Converged Infrastructure

Wed, 09 May 2012 11:00:00 EDT

There’s been a cacophony of hyperbole and at times marketing fluff from vendors and analysts with regards to Reference Architectures and Converged Infrastructures. As IBM launched PureSystems, NetApp & Cisco decided it was also a good time to reiterate their strong partnership with FlexPod. In the midst of this, EMC decided to release their new and rather salaciously titled VSPEX. From the remnants and ashes of all these new product names and fancy launch conferences, the resultant war blogs and Twitterati battles ensued. As I poignantly watched on from the trenches in an almost Siegfried Sassoon moment, it was quickly becoming evident that there was now an even more ambiguous understanding of what distinguishes a Converged Infrastructure from a Reference Architecture, what it’s relation was with the Private Cloud and more importantly whether you, the end user should even care.

Cloud IaaS: Converged Infrastructure vs Reference Architectures

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:00:00 EDT

This last fortnight there’s been a cacophony of hyperbole and at times marketing fluff from vendors and analysts with regards to Reference Architectures and Converged Infrastructures. As IBM launched PureSystems, NetApp & Cisco decided it was also a good time to reiterate their strong partnership with FlexPod. In the midst of this, EMC decided to release their new and rather salaciously titled VSPEX. From the remnants and ashes of all these new product names and fancy launch conferences, the resultant war blogs and Twitterati battles ensued. As I poignantly watched on from the trenches in an almost Siegfried Sassoon moment, it was quickly becoming evident that there was now an even more ambiguous understanding of what distinguishes a Converged Infrastructure from a Reference Architecture, what it’s relation was with the Private Cloud and more importantly whether you, the end user should even care.

The Cisco UCS: An Undisputed Computing Success

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 09:15:00 EDT

Back in March 2009, when Cisco announced the launch of their UCS platform and subsequent intention to enter the world of server hardware, eyebrows were raised including my own. There was never any disputing that the platform would be adopted by some customers, certainly after seeing how Cisco successfully gatecrashed the SAN market and initially knocked Brocade off their FC perch. We'd all witnessed how Cisco used its IP datacenter clout and ability to propose deals that packaged both SAN MDS and IP switches with a consequent single point of support to quickly take a lead in a new market. Indeed it was only after Brocade's 2007 acquisition of McData and when Cisco started to focus on FCoE that Brocade regained their lead in FC SAN switch sales. Where mine and others' doubts lay were whether the UCS was going to be good enough to compete with the already proven server platforms of HP, IBM and Dell. Well, roll on three years and the UCS now boasts 11,000 customers worldwide and an annual run rate of £822m making it the fastest growing product in Cisco's history. Amazingly Cisco is already third in worldwide blade server market share with 11%, closely behind HP and IBM. So now with this week's launch of the UCS' third generation and its integration of the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600, it's time to accept that all doubts have been swiftly erased.

vSphere 6.0 - What's Needed?

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:12:00 EST

vSphere 6.0 - What's Needed? - The new vSphere 5.0 storage features such as VAAI, Storage DRS, Site Recovery Manager 5 and VASA, highlight the fact that whether on a virtualized or non-virtualized platform, application performance is heavily affected by its underlying storage infrastructure. The silos that once existed between storage and VMware teams are now being challenged as vSphere 5 brings to the forefront the need for a common understanding and integration.So what is needed in the next version of vSphere to achieve the successful virtualization of Mission Critical Applications?

2012 Storage Predictions: Vblock FastPath, VI SAN Probe and Hadoop

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:44:41 EST

Yearly prediction blogs are so clichéd hence why I’ve always tried to avoid writing one. Despite this I’ve always made a mental note of technology, products or companies that I thought were going to really do well in the upcoming year. Back in 2008 I felt VMware were going to really take off after the release of 3.5. In 2009 I had a gut feeling DataDomain would explode just before they were bought by EMC. In 2010 I spoke to a friend about how 3PAR’s technology could no longer be ignored and in 2011 I still wasn’t convinced that FCoE would overtake FC in revenue despite all the analysts’ claims. But why believe me when I’d never put these thoughts on paper? So now at the beginning of 2012, I’ve decided to put my money where my mouth is, pull out my crystal ball and document my predictions.

The VMware Virtual CPU Dilemma

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:30:00 EST

2011 was a year where despite the economic constraints everything Big was seemingly good: Big Data, Big Clouds, Big VMs, etc. Caught in the industry's lust for this excess, 2011 was also the year I lost count of how many overprovisioned resources to ‘Big' Production VMs I witnessed. More often than not this was a typical reaction from System Admins trying to alleviate their fears of potential performance problems to important VMs. It was the year where I began to hear justifications such as "yes we are overprovisioning our production VMs..but apart from the cost savings, overallocating our available underlying resources to a VM isn't a bad thing, in fact it allows it to be scalable". Despite this 2011 was also the year where I lost count of the amount of times I had to point out that sometimes overprovisioning a VM does lead to performance problems - specifically when dealing with Virtual CPUs.

Exchange Completion Time – Redefining Application & Storage Performance

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:00:00 EST

Roll back several years and certain vendors had you believe that Fibre Channel was dead and that the future would be iSCSI. A few years later and certain vendors were then declaring that Fibre Channel was dead again and that the future was FCoE. So while this blog is not a iSCSI vs FC or FC vs FCoE comparison list (there’s plenty of good ones out there and both iSCSI or FCoE each have immense merit), the point being made here is that Fibre Channel unlike Elvis really is alive and well. Moreover Fibre Channel still remains the protocol of choice for most Mission Critical Applications despite the FUD that surrounds its cost, manageability and future existence. Most Storage folk who run Enterprise class infrastructures are advocates of Fibre Channel not only because of its high performance connectivity infrastructure but also due to its reliability, security and scalability. Incredibly this is all with the majority of Fibre Channel implementations being vastly under utilized, poorly managed (due to lack of visibility) and running at a far from optimized state due to the constant day to day operations of most SAN Storage administrators. Indeed if Storage folk were empowered with a metric that could enable them to gain a better insight and understanding of their SAN Storage’s performance and utilization the so called impending death of Fibre Channel may have to take an even further rain check. Well that metric does exist; cue what is termed the “Exchange Completion Time.”

Cloudy Concepts: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, MaaS, CaaS & XaaS

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:45:00 EDT

Hence no surprise that when the seemingly simple concept of Cloud Computing took off, so did the emergence of an abundance of acronyms and synonyms reaping a new breed of I.T. professionals who were the only ones that could correctly understand them i.e. ‘The Cloud Specialist’. Despite this, the beauty of the Cloud (or as most people are starting to realise the synonym for the Internet) is that it not only encompasses the I.T. industry and their business demands but also the average end user who’s only experience with I.T. is their iPhone and its App Store.

vSphere 5, VAAI and the Death of the Traditional Storage Array

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 11:00:00 EDT

The launch of vSphere 5 and its new storage related features will set the precedent for a complete rethink on how a new datacenter’s storage infrastructure should be designed and deployed. vSphere 5’s launch is not only an unabashed attempt at cornering every single aspect of the server market but is also a result for the growing need for methodical scalability that merges the I.T. silos and consequently combines the information of applications, servers, SANs and storage into a single comprehensive stack.

The Unspoken Challenge of Cloud Silos

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 10:00:00 EDT

Virtualization and the Cloud have brought unprecedented benefits but they’ve also brought challenges. One such challenge that is dangerously being overlooked is that of the silos that exist within most IT infrastructures. Indeed it’s the silos that have led to the new phenomenon that is coined as, ‘The Virtual Stall’. The Virtual Stall was never an issue several years ago as Virtualization was happily adopted by Application owners to consolidate many of their ‘Crapplications’ that meant little or nothing to them and certainly didn’t carry the burden of a SLA. Storage teams were none the wiser as VM admins requested large capacities of storage for their VMFS and despite the odd performance problem no one was too bothered as these VMs rarely hosted Tier 1 Apps. With the advent of VDI, large VM backups and critical applications such as Exchange and SQL being virtualized, the ordeal of maintaining performance took root, resulting in the inevitable ‘blame game’ between silos. Fast forward to today and despite all the talk of Private Clouds, the fear factor of potential performance degradation resulting in the virtualization of mission critical applications has led to the ‘Virtual Stall’.

Cloud Economics – Amazon, Microsoft, Google Compared

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:00:00 EST

Any new technology adoption happens because of one of the three reasons: Capability: It allows us to do something which was not feasible earlier Convenience: It simplifies Cost: It significantly reduces cost of doing something What is our expectation from cloud computing? As I had stated earlier, it is all about cost saving … (1) through elastic capacity and [...]

Virtual Instruments: “One of the Best Kept Secrets in the IT World”

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:33:00 EDT

VP of Operations concludes, “I get it! We’ve been investing in hardware worth more than a million pounds to bring the performance latency of our Datawarehouse down by 10 milliseconds when all the time I just needed to replace a cable!” In this last week of customer visits I was astounded to have the above sentence said to me on two separate occasions by two separate companies. What really took me aback was that this is exactly how I felt prior to joining Virtual Instruments as a Solutions Consultant six months ago. It’s a bold claim but one I will certainly stand by and challenge to prove to anyone (feel free to send me a PM on LinkedIn).

Fibre Channel SAN: Are You Making the Most of It?

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:15:00 EDT

There is a common myth that FC SAN is expensive, difficult to manage and troubleshoot. Coupled with this there are heavily marketed agendas to move customers away from FC SAN to new and allegedly more cost effective solutions. But what if there was a way to... Reduce the amount of physical adapters, FC cables, SAN ports and Storage ports while concurrently improving your application response time, availability and SLAs? Simplify server FC I/O provision, enabling a more agile,scalable and dynamic deployment model? Gain the insight that on average most FC SAN and Storage ports are greatly underutilized averaging 5-10%, with only a minority of them needing their full bandwidth and therefore enabling you to drive higher levels of resource utilization and performance out of an already deployed solution?

Interview with VI CEO: Managing Data Storage Virtually or Otherwise

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:07:46 EST

Interview with TechEye

Why Your Storage Isn't Always to Blame

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:21:21 EST

Storage is often automatically pinpointed as the source of all problems. From System Admins, DBAs, Network guys to Application owners, all are quickly ready to point the figure at SAN Storage given the slightest hint of any performance degradation. Not really surprising though, considering it’s the common denominator amongst all silos. On the receiving end of this barrage of accusation is the SAN Storage team, who are then subjected to hours of troubleshooting only to prove that their Storage wasn’t responsible. On this circle goes until there reaches a point when the Storage team are faced with a problem that they can’t absolve themselves of blame, even though they know the Storage is working completely fine. With array-based management tools still severely lacking in their ability to pinpoint and solve storage network related problems and with server based tools doing exactly that i.e. looking at the server, there really is little if not nothing available to prove that the cause of latency is a slow draining device such as a flapping HBA, damaged cable or failing SFP. Herein lies the biggest paradox in that 99% of the time when unidentifiable SAN performance problems do occur, they are usually linked to trivial issues such as a failing SFP. In a 10,000 port environment, the million dollar question is ‘where do you begin to look for such a miniscule needle in such a gargantuan haystack?’

Solving the SAN Storage / VMware Performance Puzzle

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:32:00 EST

It’s falsely assumed that VMware is the source of many performance problems since it is relatively new in the datacenter. Others will claim it’s not VMware but the underlying storage. To break this cycle there are now many new acronyms being introduced to the SAN Storage / VMware environment such as VAAI, NPIV, SIOC, SATP and PSP - but what do they all mean and how do they benefit the IT organization?

The Top Ten Secrets to Avoiding San Performance Problems

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:08:00 EST

It's common for Storage Administrators to be blamed from the offset when any performance problems occur. They are then forced into spending hours trying to disprove the false accusations only to be left with a mysterious 10% of the puzzle, namely the SAN fabric.Being told that flopping HBAs, old cables, traffic congestion and zoning conflicts are problems doesn't really help when you haven't got the insight to proactively discover such issues. The need for gaining an insight into the SAN is now predominantly recognized within the industry as Fabric management tools alone fail to address the problem.

Undressing Victoria – Taking a Peek at the New HDS VSP / HP P9500

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 10:54:58 EST

Back in 2004 HDS launched the USP, which was then followed by the great but not so radically different USP-V in 2007. Within that same time frame, HDS’ main rival in the Enterprise Storage market EMC, busily went about launching the Symmetrix DMX-3, then the DMX-4 and most recently the VMAX. Launching so-called revolutionary features such as FAST, (which HDS had been doing previously for years i.e. Tiered Storage Manager) EMC’s marketing machine quickly created an atmosphere wherein the Storage World became obsessed with all things ‘V’ namely VSphere, VMAX and VPLEX. With marketing so powerful that it extended to international airport posters advertising EMC’s ability to ‘take you to the Private Cloud’, you could easily forgive Hitachi for possibly becoming complacent and content with being a company renowned by the masses for just making great vacuum cleaners. Well thank goodness, after three years in the making, a codename of Victoria, a semi-decent marketing campaign and a ‘V’ to its final name, HDS have at last launched the new VSP Enterprise array…and yes it’s been worth the wait.

Increasing Throughput Doesn’t Always Increase Performance

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 09:19:50 EDT

A wise man once told me that if there were a major car crash further up the highway, having a faster car would only get me to the accident quicker. Obvious right? Not so it seems when the wisdom of these words is applied to the analogy of the growing number of SAN infrastructures currently upgrading from 4Gbps to 8Gps. ‘Faster means quicker, means better’ is the commonly heard sales pitch used to seduce vulnerable IT Directors who dream of ‘a guaranteed performance improvement that would solve the headache of their ever slowing applications’. Sadly though for many of those that bit the 8Gbps apple, the significant improvement never came and like a culprit with no shame the same voices returned claiming that this was the fault of the outdated servers, HBAs and storage systems which also now needed to be upgraded. So down the 8Gbps road they went which now extended from the fabric all the way to the server platform, but still no significant improvement and if so certainly not one that could justify such a heavy investment. Like any infrastructure, being unaware of the SAN inevitably means that any unseen problems caused by error statistics such as CRC errors, physical link errors, protocol errors, code violations, class 3 discards etc. (i.e. the car crash) would remain, regardless of whether you get there at 4Gbps or 8Gbps. So how could such a simple concept be lost amongst the numerous 4Gbps to 8Gbps upgrades that are now taking place across the SAN stratosphere?

Cloud Wars: The 3PAR Strikes Back

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:20:00 EDT

A long time ago (November 2009 to be precise), in a Cloud far far away, the Rebel Alliance of EMC, Cisco and VMware joined forces to form what are now dubbed Acadia and the VCE coalition. Soon after came the launches of VBlocks 0, 1 and 2 each respectively incorporating the EMC Celerra, Clariion or VMax with a stack of Cisco blades and switches and a layer of VMware virtualization to suit. Marketed as ‘best of breed’ and ‘ready configured to client specifications’ it was an immediate launch pad for any customer looking to deploy a private cloud with a single pane of management. Whether it was an already mature virtualization infrastructure looking to quickly expand or an organization wanting to enter the virtualization stratosphere with minimum fuss, in house training etc. the VBlock was quickly carving itself a significant market share. Hence no surprise that EMC’s VP of Global Marketing and CTO Chuck Hollis can hardly hide his glee in interviews at the current lack of direct competition to the VCE’s destiny to rule the Cloud’s Galactic Empire. But one should never underestimate the power of the HP side, now counterstriking in their salaciously exciting sweeping aside of Dell and consequent takeover of the brilliant storage platforms of 3PAR. The Cloud Wars begun they have.

Monitoring the SAN shine with Virtual Instruments

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:53:52 EDT

It’s rare to find a solution or product in the storage and virtualization market that can truly be regarded as unique. More often than not most new developments fall victim to what I term the ‘six month catch up’ syndrome in which a vendor brings out a new feature only for its main competitor to initially bash it and then subsequently release a rebranded and supposedly better version six months later. The original proponents of thin provisioning, automated tiered storage, deduplication, SSD flash drives etc. can all pay testament to this. It is hence why I have taken great interest in a company that currently occupies a niche in the SAN monitoring market and as yet doesn’t seem to have worthy competitor, namely Virtual Instruments.

Virtual Instruments' Wisdom Provides Essential SAN Insight

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:52:37 EDT

In the same way that server virtualisation exposed the under utilization of physical server CPU and Memory, the VirtualWisdom solution is doing the same for the SAN. While vendors are more than pleased to further sell more upgraded modules packed with ports for their enterprise directors, it is becoming increasingly apparent that most SAN fabrics are significantly over-provisioned with utilization rates often being less than 10%. While many SAN fabric architects seem to overlook fan in ratios and oversubscription rates in a rush to finish deployments within specified project deadlines, underutilized SAN ports are now an ever-increasing reality that in turn bring with them the additional costs of switch and storage ports, SFPs and cables.

VDI – A Vulnerably Dangerous Investment or A Virtual Dream Inclusion?

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:04:24 EDT

PCs are part of everyday life in just about every organization. First there’s the purchase of the hardware and the necessary software followed by an inventory recorded and maintained by the IT department. Then normal procedure would dictate that the same IT department would then install all required applications before delivering them physically to the end user. Then over a period of time the laptop/PC would be maintained by the IT department with software updates, patches, troubleshooting etc. to ensure full utilization of employees. Once the PC/laptop becomes outdated, the IT department is then tasked with the monotonous task of removing the hardware, deleting sensitive data and removing any installed applications to free up licenses. All of this is done to enable the whole cycle to be repeated all over again. So in this vicious circle, there are obvious opportunities to better manage resources and save unnecessary OPEX & CAPEX costs, one such solution being virtual desktops.

Should Your Desktop Be Virtual?

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:00:00 EDT

Having witnessed the financial rewards of server virtualization, enterprises are now taking note of the benefits and usage of virtualization to support their desktop workloads. Consolidation, centralization are now no longer buzz words which were once used for marketing spin but are instead tangible realities for IT managers who initially took that unknown plunge into what was then the deep mystical waters of virtualization. Now they’re also realizing that by enabling thin clients the cost of their endpoint hardware is also significantly driven down by the consequent lifespan extension of existing PCs. Indeed the future of endpoint devices is one that could revolutionize their existent IT offices – a future of PC/laptop-less office desks replaced by thin client compatible portable iPads? Anything is now possible.

XenDesktop or VMview - Is It Time for Your Desktop to Be Virtual?

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:33:58 EDT

PCs are part of everyday life in just about every organization. First there's the purchase of the hardware and the necessary software followed by an inventory recorded and maintained by the IT department. Then normal procedure would dictate that the same IT department would then install all required applications before delivering them physically to the end user. Then over a period of time the laptop/PC would be maintained by the IT department with software updates, patches, troubleshooting etc. to ensure full utilization of employees. Once the PC/laptop becomes outdated, the IT department is then tasked with the monotonous task of removing the hardware, deleting sensitive data and removing any installed applications to free up licenses. All of this is done to enable the whole cycle to be repeated all over again. So in this vicious circle, there are obvious opportunities to better manage resources and save unnecessary OPEX & CAPEX costs, one such solution being virtual desktops.

Microsoft Continues to Hyper V-entilate at the VMware Proposition

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:00:20 EDT

When faced with a tirade of client consultations and disaster recovery proposals/assessments, you can't help but be inundated with opportunities to showcase the benefits of server virtualization and more specifically VMware's Site Recovery Manager. It's a given that if an environment has a significant amount of applications running on X86 platforms, then virtualization is the way to go not just for all the consolidation and TCO savings but for the ease in which high availability, redundancy and business continuity can be deployed. Add to that the benefit of a virtualized disaster recovery solution that can easily be tested, failed over or failed back. With what was once a complex procedure, testing can now be done via a simple GUI based recovery plan. Thus one should consequently see the eradication of trepidation that often existed in testing out how full proof an existent DR procedure actually was. Long gone should be the days of the archaic approach of the 1000 page Doomsday Book-like disaster recovery plans which the network, server and storage guys had to rummage through during a recovery situation, often becoming a disaster within itself. Hence then there really is little argument to not go with a virtualized DR site and more specifically VMware's Site Recovery Manager, but not so it seems if you've been cornered and inculcated by the Microsoft Hyper V Sales team.

NetApp Takes the Primary Lead for Data Reduction

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 10:05:00 EDT

The pendulum has shifted. We are in an era in which Storage Managers are in the ascendancy while vendors must shape up to meet customer demands in order to survive the current economic plight. Long gone are the days of disk happy vendors who could easily shift expensive boxes of FC disks or Account Managers who boasted their huge margins at the selling of skyscraper storage systems to clients who faced an uphill struggle to meet their constantly growing storage demands. With responses such as thin/dynamic/virtual provisioning arrays and automated storage tiering, vendors have taken a step towards giving customers solutions that will enable them to use more of what they already have as well as utilise cheaper disks. Another such feature now starting to really prick the conscience of vendors as customers become more savvy is that of primary deduplication or the more aptly termed ‘data reduction’. So as this cost saving surge continues some vendors have cheekily tried to counteract it with sales pitches for exorbitantly priced Flash SSDs (which promise 10 times performance yet shamelessly sit on the back end of Storage systems dependent on the latency of their BEDs and RAID controllers) as a means to keep margins up. But not the WAFL kings NetApp….

Extreme Storage - EMC’s VPLEX and DDN Takeover Plan

Fri, 28 May 2010 10:31:56 EDT

Talk to the average Storage Engineer who manages the growth of your datacenter’s modular system about Petaflops, Exabytes, Petabytes of Archives or 1TB of sustained bandwidth and you’ll probably find them scratching their heads in disbelief. This is the reality that does exist in the world of super computing and what is sometimes referred to as Extreme Storage. While some Storage Managers would feel they are suffering with their exponential data growth and decreasing budgets, their problems can’t be classified as ‘Extreme’ unless they’re dealing with ExaBytes (1018 bytes) of storage with trillions of data transactions per second, trillions of files and a data transfer rate from storage to application that exceeds a TB per second. Couple that with the conundrum that it’s for relatively few users and requires the data to be secure, both for short-term and long-term retention and then you have a real case for Extreme Storage……. well at least for now.

The War of Vendors Diversifies with Unified Storage

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:15:00 EDT

In the past week HDS finally revealed their response to the VMware-Cisco-EMC alliance with the launch of a unified computing platform including integrated storage, server, and networking technology. With the aid of Microsoft, HDS have stated that their centralized storage, server and networking platform will be launched early next year. In the tradition of my enemy’s enemy is my friend, HDS have also signed an OEM deal with Microsoft under which Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be tightly integrated with Hyper-V. Added to this is HDS Dynamic Provisioning and the HDS Storage Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V. Moreover despite the secrecy, the networking brains behind the platform are most probably Brocade, the grandfathers of SAN who also now have a sound grip on IP networking since their acquisition of Foundry back in 2008.

There’s No Duping the Reign of Data Domain

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:00:00 EDT

Last year EMC’s somewhat controversial acquisition of Data Domain right under the noses of NetApp raised several eyebrows to say the least. Considering the reported amount of $2.1 billion and their already deduplication packed portfolio which consisted of the source based Avamar, the file-level deduplication/compression of its Celerra filer and their Quantum dedupe integrated VTLs, some heads were left scratching as to what actually was the big deal with the target based deduplication solution of Data Domain. Almost a year on and with Data Domain’s DD880 being adopted by an ever growing customer base, the heads have stopped scratching and are paying close attention as to what is probably the most significant advancement in backup technology of the last decade.

The Essential Cloud Considerations

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:00:00 EST

Thinking about jumping on the cloud? True, I’ve had no qualms in showing my skepticism towards the marketing of ‘cloud computing’ and it being the mere repackaging of solutions which have existed for years, but the fact is it still addresses a concept and reality that exists and one which holds numerous benefits. Indeed abandoning an existing on site IT infrastructure for a cloud provider that most often or not can’t offer the same level of security, control or performance is not an easy decision but one which CIOs and IT executives are seriously considering when weighing up the economic benefits. As with any change though, a move towards the cloud necessitates a sound and comprehensive assessment to avoid the trap of a short term benefit turning into a long term nightmare.

Will the SUN Set on the Hitachi Data Systems OEM Relationship?

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:30:00 EST

On January 26th just prior to the official announcement of Oracle’s takeover of SUN Microsystems, I confidently predicted in my article 'SUN’s Oracle Merger' with regards to SUN’s storage portfolio that “One certainty is that the OEM partnership with HDS’ enterprise arrays will continue.” Perhaps it’s time to eat some humble pie. If current indications are anything to go by, it’s more than likely that the SUN agreement of reselling HDS Enterprise Storage may be coming to an abrupt end.

Is Veeam the Best Back Up Solution for vSphere 4?

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:15:00 EST

When VMware first introduced VCB as part of the ESX package, it never did seem more than a temporary / complimentary solution for customers who had a small environment of 100 VMs or less. With the launch of VSphere4 and the subsequent introduction of APIs which allowed external applications and scripts to communicate directly to the ESX, it was apparent that VMware was beginning the gradual move to offload the backup solution to the Backup experts. Now having run with VSphere4 for more than six months, it seems a good time to assess and evaluate who has taken advantage and the lead with incorporating all the latest features of ESX4.

Voltaire Powers China's Top High-Performance Computers

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:54:31 EST

Voltaire Ltd. (NASDAQ: VOLT), a leading provider of scale-out data center fabrics, announced that its InfiniBand switches are powering 24 of China’s TOP100 High Performance Computers, including the top three — at the Tianjin Supercomputing Center, the Shanghai Supercomputer Center and the Computer Network Information Center at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The switches are being used in 65 percent of the total InfiniBand deployments noted on the list, more than any other InfiniBand systems vendor.

Mellanox Announces Multiprotocol Remote Boot Technology for Enhanced Data Center Flexibility

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:33:52 EST

Mellanox® Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX) (TASE:MLNX), a leading supplier of high-performance, end-to-end connectivity solutions for data center servers and storage systems, today announced the availability of FlexBoot, a multiprotocol remote boot technology that allows IT administrators to provision servers in the data center using ConnectX® adapters either over InfiniBand with Boot over InfiniBand (BoIB) or Ethernet with Boot over Ethernet (BoE).

Does IBM Power7 Processor Announcement Signal Storage Upgrades?

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:30:00 EST

The Power7 is the latest generation of IBM processors (chips) that are used as the CPUs in IBM mid range and high end open systems (pSeries) for Unix (AIX) and Linux as well as for the iSeries (aka AS400 successor). Building on previous Power series processors, the Power7 increases the performance per core (CPU) along with the number of cores per socket (chip) footprint. For example, each Power7 chip that plugs into a socket on a processor card in a server can have up to 8 cores or CPUs. Note that sometimes cores are also known as micro CPUs as well as virtual CPUs not to be confused with their presented via Hypervisor abstraction. Sometimes you may also here the term or phrase 2 way, 4 way (not to be confused with a Cincinnati style 4 way chili) or 8 way among others that refers to the number of cores on a chip. Hence, a dual 2 way would be a pair of processor chips each with 2 cores while a quad 8 way would be 4 processors chips each with 8 cores and so on.

Rackspace Puts Microsoft SharePoint in the Cloud

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:00:00 EST

Rackspace Hosting on Thursday announced the launch of hosted Microsoft SharePoint, the collaboration and file sharing platform, backed by Rackspace’s 24x7x365 Fanatical Support. With the addition of hosted Microsoft SharePoint, Rackspace's suite of cloud applications now includes business-class collaboration, email and storage solutions.

Infiniband Incorporates Ethernet to Maintain Its Future

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:12:02 EST

As with most architectures the devices in Infiniband communicate by means of messages. That communication is transmitted in full duplex via an InfiniBand switch which forwards the data packets to the receiver. Also like Fibre Channel, InfiniBand uses 8b/10b encoding enabling it to package together four or twelve links to produce a high transmission rate in both directions. Using Host Channel Adapters (HCAs) and Target Channel Adapters (TCAs) as the end points, the HCAs act as the bridge between the InfiniBand network and the system bus while the TCAs make the connection between InfiniBand networks and the peripheral devices that are connected via SCSI, Fibre Channel or Ethernet. In other words for SAN and NAS folk that basically means HCAs are the equivalent to PCI bridge chips while the TCAs are in the same vein as HBAs or NICs.

Garmin-Asus Lets You Navigate Work and Life With nüvifone M10

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:02:40 EST

Garmin-Asus, a co-branded alliance between Garmin^® Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), and ASUSTeK^® Computer Inc. (TAIEX: 2357), today announced the Garmin-Asus M10, a full-touch, all-in-one smartphone powered by the latest version of Windows Mobile^® from Microsoft Corp. The M10 keeps professionals connected with business and personal contacts, email, calendar and IM, in addition to featuring preloaded mobile navigation from Garmin. The M10 is expected to be available through carrier and retail channels in Asia and Europe in the first half of 2010. The M10 will be on display at the Garmin-Asus exhibit (Hall 8, #8B127) at Mobile World Congress, February 15-18, 2010.

Garmin-Asus nüvifone™ A50: An Android™ Smartphone with More Location Technology Than Any Other Smartphone

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:00:54 EST

Garmin-Asus, a co-branded alliance between Garmin^® Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), and ASUSTeK^® Computer Inc. (TAIEX: 2357), today announced the Garmin-Asus nüvifone A50, a touchscreen Android-powered smartphone with multiple location technologies and apps. The A50 benefits from the personalization and enhanced features offered by the Android platform, and also includes Garmin navigation with turn-by-turn, voice prompted directions for use in a car or while walking. Location features are designed into virtually every function including email, text messaging, and photos. The A50 will be on display at the Garmin-Asus booth (Hall 8, #8B127) at Mobile World Congress, February 15-18, 2010.

CommunicAsia2010 Set for Growth as Global ICT Industry Continues Focus on Asia

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:26:44 EST

CommunicAsia2010, the most established infocomm technology (ICT) event in Asia, has seen more than 80 per cent of its exhibition show floor taken up with over four months to go to the event. The predominant global business networking platform for the industry in the region will be held at the Singapore Expo from 15 - 18 June 2010.

Bull confirme sa résilience et conforte sa nouvelle dimension avec l’acquisition d’Amesys

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:00:30 EST

Regulatory News:

Emulex Grows Faster than Industry and Captures Four Points of Fibre Channel HBA Revenue Market Share, According to Dell’Oro Group

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:48:53 EST

Emulex Corporation (NYSE: ELX) today announced that it captured over four percentage points of total Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter (HBA) revenue market share from its nearest competitor over the last quarter, according to the Dell’Oro Group. This represents a significant shift in preference towards Emulex, which was reflected in Emulex’s revenue growth last quarter that exceeded analyst expectations. Year over year, Emulex gained over four percentage points in total 8Gb/s Fibre Channel HBA revenue market share against its nearest competitor. Emulex’s current Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter (HBA) revenue market share is the highest it has been since 2007. In addition, Emulex has shown strong sequential growth in the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Converged Network Adapter (CNA) market.

Electrovaya Partners on Approx. $7.5 Million Utility Energy Storage Demonstration

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:46:24 EST

Electrovaya Inc. (TSX: EFL) today announced that it is the energy storage partner for a utility demonstration project led by CEATI International Inc., headquartered in Montreal. Other partners include major utilities and universities.

IBM Launches Academic Cloud

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:15:00 EST

IBM has announced it will make key parts of its software portfolio available in a cloud computing environment to more easily allow professors around the world to incorporate technology into their curricula. IBM brought together more than 200 academic and industry leaders at the conference to explore how best to integrate technology into all aspects of a college education so the next generation of global entrepreneurs will be differentiated by an education that applies technology to areas such as information management and business analytics, digitized patient records, and clean technologies.

Day Delivers 65% License Growth for 2H 2009

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:05:33 EST

Day Software Holding AG (SIX: DAYN, OTCQX: DYIHY), a leading provider of content management and content infrastructure software, today announced financial results for the second half and year ended December 31, 2009. The year saw Day Software win major new customers, expand into new regional markets, and build a stronger distribution channel through new partnerships with leading interactive agencies and global systems integrators. Capitalizing on growing investment in the Web channel for customer engagement, acquisition, and retention, Day Software built new momentum with its award-winning CQ5 platform and delivered strong growth and operating results.

Gennum Reports Fourth Quarter and Year End Results

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:39:56 EST

17% Sequential Revenue Growth in Q4 and Positive Q1 Outlook

Ram Wins 2010 MotorWeek Drivers' Choice Award

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:30:10 EST

-Named Best Pickup Truck

DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. Reports 2009 Results

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:30:09 EST

Revenues Up 15.3% Year Over Year

Snap-on Incorporated Declares Quarterly Dividend

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:21:21 EST

The Snap-on Incorporated (NYSE: SNA) board of directors declared today a quarterly common stock dividend of $0.30 per share payable March 10, 2010 to shareholders of record on February 25, 2010. Snap-on has paid consecutive quarterly cash dividends, without interruption or reduction, since 1939.