IBM Stakes its Cloud Storage Claim

There are several industry organizations and vendors hard at work developing cloud storage standards and the race is on to determine how data will be moved and secured in the cloud. The most recent race entrant in this race is a little company called IBM.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today launched a joint research initiative of 15 European partners to develop a so-called “smart cloud storage architecture.” The effort centers on delivering storage services within and across cloud boundaries through a better understanding what’s inside the data.

The EU-funded initiative, called VISION Cloud – Virtualized Storage Services for the Future Internet, has been formed to develop a new approach to cloud storage, where data is represented by smart objects that include information describing the content of the data and how the object should be handled, replicated, or preserved. The end game is to improve delivery of data and storage services across boundaries of countries and vendors (See Alan Earls’ recent piece for Enterprise Storage Forum, “Could Borders Bring the Cloud Down to Earth?” for more on that subject).

The VISION Cloud storage cloud architecture concept combines (a) a rich object data model, (b) execution of computations close to the stored content, (c) content-centric access, and (d) full data interoperability.

The VISION Cloud initiative will be spearheaded by scientists at IBM Research in Haifa, Israel, and supported by partners, including SAP AG, Siemens Corporate Technology, Engineering and ITRicity, Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo, Orange Labs and Telenor, RAI and Deutche Welle, the SNIA Europe standards organization. The National Technical University of Athens, Umea University, Swedish Institute of Computer Science and University of Messin, will also contribute to the effort.

A noble effort, to be sure, but Big Blue has some big vendors trying to make their architectures and delivery methods the de facto storage standards in the cloud.

Oracle staked its own claim to the cloud in recent weeks when the computer giant proposed the Oracle Cloud Elemental Resource Model API, which covers the common elements of a cloud implementation by specifying the relevant machines, storage volumes and networks. Specifically, the spec submitted to the DMTF describes how a machine can be provisioned from an image; how a volume can be attached to a machine; and how a machine can connect to a network (see “Oracle Proposes Cloud Management Standard”).

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) said the goal of its proposal is to encourage open standards, noting the Oracle Cloud API follows the Representational State Transfer (REST) architecture style and uses HTTP methods to interact with the resources to achieve provisioning, associating, modifying, and retiring of entities.

Meanwhile, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has been quietly putting in work via the SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative (CSI). The CSI recently completed work on its first cloud standard, the CDMI (Cloud Data Management Interface). The CDMI provides standards for the data path to clouds, includes the ability to manage service levels that data receives when it is stored in the cloud, and includes a common interoperable data exchange format for securely moving data and its associated data requirements between clouds.

The CDMI is based on a RESTful HTTP protocol, and requires providers to implement stringent access controls and encryption of data for security purposes. The standard enables developers to mark cloud storage containers and data objects with Data System Metadata to enforce service-level requirements for the data (see “SNIA Advances Cloud, Green Storage Standards”).

It will be interesting to see how the co-opetition plays out. Is a common management method for the cloud on the horizon? Or, are we doomed to proprietary clouds with proprietary data formats?

EMC Breaks Q3 Revenue Record

EMC has reported record revenue for the third consecutive quarter as rumors swirl around the company’s potential $2 billion acquisition of Isilon Systems.

EMC (NYSE: EMC) today announced all-time record Q3 revenue, 58 percent profit growth, record year-to-date operating and free cash flow, and substantial margin expansion. As a result, EMC increased its earnings expectations for 2010 as it now expects consolidated revenues of $16.9 billion.

All in all, EMC met analyst estimates. For the third quarter, consolidated revenue was $4.21 billion, an increase of 20 percent compared with the year-ago quarter. Non-GAAP net income attributable to EMC for Q3 was $649.4 million, an increase of 35 percent a year ago and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.30, a 30 percent increase year over year.

EMC’s execs point to the cloud as the main driver of its growth. In a statement, David Goulden, EMC’s executive vice president and CFO, said, “For the third consecutive quarter EMC achieved our ‘triple play’ – we gained market share, invested aggressively to capitalize on the shift to cloud computing, and increased profitability. Cloud computing is driving a fundamental change in the way IT is designed and managed, represents a massive opportunity, and is happening now in various phases across the globe.”

For the full earnings recap, “EMC Continues Record Revenue Streak” at Enterprise Storage Forum.

Big Blue to buy BLADE Network Technologies

IBM announced plans to acquire privately-held networking vendor BLADE Network Technologies for an undisclosed sum as it continues to build out its end-to-end cloud computing portfolio.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) expects to close the deal in the fourth quarter of 2010, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and applicable regulatory reviews. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

BLADE provides blade server and top-of-rack switches as well as software to virtualize and manage cloud computing and other workloads. It boasts a customer roster that includes more than half of the Fortune 500 and, along with IBM, counts HP, NEC and SGI among its OEM partners.

IBM and BLADE have worked together since 2002 and have thousands of joint clients. More than 50 percent of IBM System x BladeCenters currently attach to or use BLADE products, according to Big Blue.

In a statement, Brian Truskowski, general manager for IBM System Storage and Networking, said "BLADE will help IBM better integrate networks with its systems, optimizing them for workloads that require high-speed and low-latency performance such as cloud computing and business analytics. For example, faster data transport enables faster decisions important for analytics workloads. He continued, "BLADE will increase IBM's System Networking development, sales, support, skills and awareness and help IBM build smarter systems that are optimized for client requirements."

BLADE provides software that helps address the virtualization requirements of cloud computing environments. BLADE software allows servers to more closely integrate with the network so that clients can deploy thousands of virtual machines (VM) to run large application workloads in the cloud.

BLADE recently began shipping VMready 3.0 with Virtual Vision, a technology for automating, provisioning and securing data center networks in virtual environments. The Virtual Vision technology “sees” virtual machines (VM) as they migrate from server to server and protects them as they move throughout the data center. The software automatically synchronizes network policies and configurations across both physical and virtual networks.

VMready 3.0 equips a single switch or a stack of switches for live VM migration, and now with Virtual Vision, can unify physical and virtual networks across an entire data center and even between geographically dispersed data centers, according to the company.

VMready works with BLADE’s RackSwitch Ethernet switches or BLADE switches for IBM BladeCenter, HP BladeSystem or NEC SIGMABLADE.

BLADE’s switch-resident VMready 3.0 with Virtual Vision is available for BLADE’s RackSwitch and embedded blade server switches for the IBM BladeCenter, HP BladeSystem and NEC SIGMABLADE.

VMworld and the Storage Industry's Perfect Storm

Server virtualization and cloud computing have created a perfect storm for storage vendors with VMworld at the eye of that storm as we now look to the show to predict which way the IT industry will turn.

As Drew Robb pointed out in his "Top 10 Takeaways" from his trip to VMworld in San Francisco this week, the flood of storage news that came out of VMworld equaled the volume of storage announcements that used to coincide with the once-mighty Storage Networking World (SNW) conference.

The show featured a collection of new applications for virtual environments, a heightening of the buzz around the cloud, a couple of acquisition announcements from VMware (NYSE: VMW), and a litany of storage vendors trying to hone in on the action.

EMC (NYSE:EMC) was first out of the gate, announcing a beta program for EMC Ionix Unified Infrastructure Manager (UIM) 2.0, which promises unified management of the networking, computing and storage layers of the Vblock cloud platform.

The storage giant also unveiled a set of reference architectures and best practices for using new EMC storage technologies to reduce the per client cost of virtual desktops in VMware View 4.5 environments.

Scale Computing’s big news was about a small node. The company is taking its unified SAN/NAS storage cluster downstream with a new, entry-level system aimed at SMBs in need of shared storage for virtualization deployments.

Referred to by the company as a “JBOD killer for the SMB,” the Scale Computing N05 Starter Cluster is made up of three 500GB N05 storage nodes. A minimum configuration of a Scale Starter Cluster includes 1.5TB of usable storage capacity at a price of $7,500 and includes the same software set as the company’s larger S-Series product line.

Cloud storage service provider Zetta added data protection to its repertoire with the debut of the Zetta Data Protect solution, which the company bills as a low-cost replacement for traditional backups. Zetta Data Protect brings the company’s storage service into the backup space through use of a technology called the ZettaMirror agent, which protects data by securely replicating disparate enterprise data sources to the Zetta Storage Service, creating an online, available, and verified copy of the data.

The I/O virtualization vendors were active as well. Xsigo Systems unveiled an Ethernet version of its line of virtual I/O directors. Xsigo positions the virtual I/O directors as an alternative to Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) approaches to converged networks and cloud computing architectures. Unlike FCoE, Xsigo’s I/O directors do not require adapters to be installed in the attached servers.

Meantime, Xsigo competitor Virtensys launched a dedicated appliance that consolidates and virtualizes network connectivity and provides up to 80Gbps of sustained Ethernet bandwidth per server.

The new Virtensys VIO-4004 converts servers to high-performance and stateless compute nodes that can be interconnected by pooling, consolidating and abstracting servers’ I/O resources and state.

If I listed all of the announcements here it would make for the longest blog in InfoStor’s history. Here’s a brief rundown of the rest of the storage news.

There was a wave of cloud, scale-out storage and iSCSI announcements from the likes of BlueArc, Emulex, Infortrend, Isilon and HP.

See “VMworld storage product highlights: Round 1”

Arkeia, FalconStor, NetApp, Neverfail, QuoromLabs, Sysncsort and Veeam led launched a range of data protection, backup and recovery, business continuity and disaster recovery products.

See “VMworld storage product highlights: Round 2”

Our coverage of news from Aberdeen LLC, ATTO Technology, BLADE Network Technologies, Compellent, Coraid, SolarWinds and Zmanda included new support for vSphere 4.1, a promotional campaign that offers a free petabyte of storage and a free tool for bouncing VMs from your desktop.

See “VMworld Storage Product Highlights: Round 3”

After a week of covering VMworld and HP’s 3PAR acquisition, I’m ready for a long labor-less Labor Day weekend. But first, I have to deal with a storm of my own. It’s time to execute my BC (Backyard Continuity) plan by migrating my patio furniture to a safe location until Earl skips up into Canada.

Good luck, Dennis, MA!

HP’s bid for 3PAR not its first

After a bit of tap dancing, HP revealed that today’s $1.6 billion blockbuster bid for 3PAR was not its first.

HP published its offer letter today in which executive vice president, chief strategy and technology officer Shane Robinson wrote:

“We propose to increase our offer to acquire all of 3PAR outstanding common stock to $24.00 per share in cash. This offer represents a 33.3% premium to Dell’s offer price and is a “Superior Proposal” as defined in your merger agreement with Dell.”

In a conference call with media and analysts, Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager of HP’s Enterprise Server, Networking and Storage Business, said HP had “done due diligence on this deal prior to anything you’ve seen announced publicly” and “had multiple meetings with [3PAR’s] senior management.”

Finally, when asked whether HP had an outstanding offer on the table when Dell made its move for 3PAR, HP’s Steve Fieler, vice president, investor relations, admitted that there was “another offer on the table.”

Donatelli also said he expects HP’s relationship with Hitachi would continue. “There is always going to be overlap in storage solutions. That’s been happening for the past 20 years and I don’t have any concerns about it. I actually view that as a positive because it makes sure you have a seamless offering and that you don’t have any competitive gaps.”

He also said HP “looks forward to the response” from Dell.

Dell declined to comment on HP’s counteroffer.

For the full story on the HP-3PAR-Dell triangle, see “HP, Dell in Bidding War for 3PAR.”

You can hear a replay of the conference call/webcast on HP’s website.

Like Cisco, Brocade Falls Short

Cisco’s Q4 sales fell short last week and Brocade followed suit with its Q3 earnings, missing analyst forecasts and lowering its revenue expectations for its fiscal year. But why?

Some industry insiders think customers are biding their time as they watch how the whole converged networking/unified fabric push plays out.

In a statement regarding Brocade’s (NASDAQ: BRCD) earnings, CEO Michael Klayko said, “Q3 was another solid quarter for Brocade in which we achieved better-than-expected results from our storage area networking business and continued to make progress in our Ethernet go-to-market initiatives. As we look to Q4, we expect a strong finish to our fiscal 2010. Despite operating in a challenging global economy with variable IT spending patterns, we are confident that our sales and marketing strategies as well as our product portfolio are aligned well with customer imperatives.”

Cisco’s (NASDAQ: CSCO) CEO John Chambers also cited uncertainty in the economy as well asmixed signals in the market and customer expectations as the reason for Cisco’s Q4 sales miss. However, Chambers said he’s confident that Cisco will succeed by continuing to “aggressively move into new areas where the network is becoming the platform.”

Brocade’s Numbers:

- Q3 revenue was $504 million, increasing approximately 1% sequentially and 2% year-over-year.

- Q3 GAAP EPS (diluted) was $0.05, sequentially level, and increasing from a loss in Q3 2009.

- Q3 non-GAAP EPS (diluted) was $0.13, sequentially level, and increasing 8% year-over-year.

- Q3 non-GAAP operating margin was 17.3% versus 20.5% in Q2 2010 and 20.3% in Q3 2009.

- Q3 effective GAAP tax rate was (220)%; non-GAAP effective tax rate was 0.2%.

- Q3 Adj. EBITDA was $102 million, down from $116 million in Q2 2010 and $119 million in Q3 2009.

- Q3 total Storage Area Networking (SAN) port shipments were approximately 1.0 million.

For the full Q3 financial results, including prepared comments from Brocade executives, go to http://www.brcd.com.

For more earnings news, check out Dave Simpson’s blog on NetApp’s Q1 bonanza.

The Battle for OpenSolaris

All's been quiet on the OpenSolaris front since Oracle's acquisition of Sun, but there's a reason for that. The company has been focused on getting Solaris 11 out the door, according to John Fowler, Oracle's executive vice president of systems.

Fowler led a webcast earlier this week in which he outlined Oracle's Systems Strategy roadmap, including its plans for tape, ZFS, and the continued evolution of the Exadata database machine. It was nothing we haven't heard before. What was interesting, however, was the live chat session that ran alongside Oracle's webcast.

Tweet-chants like "Oracle needs to communicate with the OpenSolaris community!" came fast and furious as Fowler detailed Oracle's roadmap, including next year's release of Solaris 11, which is said to include a number of technologies developed by the OpenSolaris community.

Fowler admitted to sister site InternetNews.com that Oracle has "been a little quiet on the open source front. It's not that we're not investing in Solaris, we're just investing to make sure that we have all the major components for the new release."

Fearing the worst for OpenSolaris, a new open source community has formed to provide alternatives to the closed components of OpenSolaris. The community, dubbed the Illumos Project and spearheaded by Nexenta Systems' new senior director of engineering Garret D'Amore, a former Sun engineer and a leading contributor to the OpenSolaris operating system for the past five years, claims that the core concern of the OpenSolaris community is that critical components of the platform aren't open at all.

However, D'Amore maintained Illumos is not an Oracle competitor. "We would love to have Oracle and its employees as peers. They can't own it, but they can participate. We want the technology to be usable by Oracle and taken back upstream," he said. "We want to create the insurance that the industry desperately needs in case the tap gets shut off."

There's a subplot to this drama. The underpinnings of Nexenta Systems' NexentaStor software are based on the OpenSolaris ZFS file system, which is at the center of a years-long legal battle between Oracle-Sun and NetApp.

NetApp fired another salvo recently by threatening to take legal action against Coraid, a storage startup that was about to begin selling NAS products based on Nexenta's technology. The NetApp legal threat stopped Coraid in its tracks.

Illumos has its own plans for ZFS. "At the moment, the code is identical. In the future, there may be additional enhancements and innovations in Illumos beyond what Oracle has. We have some concrete ideas we are exploring, but we're not quite ready to provide concrete details yet," D'Amore said. "We want to be a self-hosting Solaris derivative without any corporate dependencies. In my ideal world, anybody could use this code for whatever they want."

It seems to me that the concerns of the Illumos folks may be valid. In recent months, Oracle has forced Lustre users to buy Oracle hardware if they want to continue to be supported, as well as shut down servers Sun Microsystems was contributing to the build farm for PostgreSQL, the open source database software.