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.
Showing posts with label Cloud Computing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cloud Computing. Show all posts
Monday, September 27, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Cloud computing courses cropping up
February 5, 2010 -- UC Irvine has become the latest school to add cloud computing to its curriculum as the concept continues to gain steam in the IT industry. However, the momentum of the cloud seems to be vendor-driven as recent research shows end user customers are still hesitant or unwilling to turn storage over to the cloud.
This week, the University of California, Irvine Extension announced a new eight-week online course titled "Cloud Computing," beginning Monday, April 12. According to the school, "the course was created to arm participants with an advanced level of knowledge and hands-on experience in understanding, designing and implementing a cloud-based software system."
Specifically, the course will outline current industry techniques and practices, future challenges and survey applications deployed by Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The aim is to arm students with "an understanding of cloud computing models, techniques and architectures, and its application by providers in delivering common business functions such as data storage, computing resources and messaging online."
UC Irvine is not alone. There are a wealth of cloud computing resources and courses cropping up on the Web. UC Berkeley has the cloud on its radar and IT education companies like Stratos Learning and Plularsight also offer cloud-related courses. Not to mention the storage industry's efforts including the Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA) Cloud Storage Initiative.
It's no surprise that cloud technologies are finding their way into the realm of higher learning, but is the cloud phenomenon a result of industry hype or end user interest when it comes to cloud storage?
Editor-in-Chief Dave Simpson highlighted some interesting research from Forrester that points to the former. In his recent piece, "Survey: Users not very interested in cloud storage," Dave cites a Forrester survey that shows about 43% of the respondents said that they were categorically "not interested" in adopting pay-per-use hosted storage capacity. Another 43% said that they were interested but had no plans to implement cloud storage.
It's and interesting dichotomy. The storage pros aren't ready and have concerns about security, compliance and portability, but the vendors are all about the cloud.
There's too much invested in the cloud moniker to have it fall by the wayside in favor of some new flavor of the month, but the vendors may have to drag users into the cloud in the coming years, especially when it comes to entrusting their critical data to a hosted service. Regardless, having a cloud credential or two on the resume can't hurt.
For news and feature articles on cloud storage, visit InfoStor's cloud storage Topic Center.
This week, the University of California, Irvine Extension announced a new eight-week online course titled "Cloud Computing," beginning Monday, April 12. According to the school, "the course was created to arm participants with an advanced level of knowledge and hands-on experience in understanding, designing and implementing a cloud-based software system."
Specifically, the course will outline current industry techniques and practices, future challenges and survey applications deployed by Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The aim is to arm students with "an understanding of cloud computing models, techniques and architectures, and its application by providers in delivering common business functions such as data storage, computing resources and messaging online."
UC Irvine is not alone. There are a wealth of cloud computing resources and courses cropping up on the Web. UC Berkeley has the cloud on its radar and IT education companies like Stratos Learning and Plularsight also offer cloud-related courses. Not to mention the storage industry's efforts including the Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA) Cloud Storage Initiative.
It's no surprise that cloud technologies are finding their way into the realm of higher learning, but is the cloud phenomenon a result of industry hype or end user interest when it comes to cloud storage?
Editor-in-Chief Dave Simpson highlighted some interesting research from Forrester that points to the former. In his recent piece, "Survey: Users not very interested in cloud storage," Dave cites a Forrester survey that shows about 43% of the respondents said that they were categorically "not interested" in adopting pay-per-use hosted storage capacity. Another 43% said that they were interested but had no plans to implement cloud storage.
It's and interesting dichotomy. The storage pros aren't ready and have concerns about security, compliance and portability, but the vendors are all about the cloud.
There's too much invested in the cloud moniker to have it fall by the wayside in favor of some new flavor of the month, but the vendors may have to drag users into the cloud in the coming years, especially when it comes to entrusting their critical data to a hosted service. Regardless, having a cloud credential or two on the resume can't hurt.
For news and feature articles on cloud storage, visit InfoStor's cloud storage Topic Center.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
What are the market drivers for virtualization and cloud computing?
November 18, 2009 -- Everyone is on board the virtualization train and it seems IT vendors are slapping the "cloud" tag on every storage platform and service they come up with, but what drives the end user towards virtualization and cloud storage?
Recent research from IT automation specialist Shavlik Technologies outlines the market drivers behind virtualization and cloud computing initiatives. Shavlik conducted a survey of more than 290 IT pros and the results reveal that data, server and licensing consolidation and disaster recovery functionality are the leading drivers behind new investments in virtualization technology.
According to Shavlik, an overwhelming 93% of IT organizations are using virtual machine technology. Seventy-five percent of those organizations have more than half of their production servers as virtual machines.
Fifty-three percent of survey respondents say server and licensing consolidation is the driving force behind their virtualization deployments, while backup ranked as the second major driver, reported by 52% of those polled.
The principal lure of cloud computing seems to be TCO. The survey revealed that the reduced IT costs associated with cloud computing is the principal reason IT managers are turning to the cloud for the delivery of IT services.
Cloud computing is being examined for adoption by 58 percent of survey respondents, according to the Shavlik research.
Recent research from IT automation specialist Shavlik Technologies outlines the market drivers behind virtualization and cloud computing initiatives. Shavlik conducted a survey of more than 290 IT pros and the results reveal that data, server and licensing consolidation and disaster recovery functionality are the leading drivers behind new investments in virtualization technology.
According to Shavlik, an overwhelming 93% of IT organizations are using virtual machine technology. Seventy-five percent of those organizations have more than half of their production servers as virtual machines.
Fifty-three percent of survey respondents say server and licensing consolidation is the driving force behind their virtualization deployments, while backup ranked as the second major driver, reported by 52% of those polled.
The principal lure of cloud computing seems to be TCO. The survey revealed that the reduced IT costs associated with cloud computing is the principal reason IT managers are turning to the cloud for the delivery of IT services.
Cloud computing is being examined for adoption by 58 percent of survey respondents, according to the Shavlik research.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
EMC, Cisco, Vmware cause waves with cloud coalition
November 3, 2009 -- Competitors are already calling the EMC – Cisco – VMware Virtual Computing Environment coalition and its Vblock compute systems a veiled approach to vendor lock-in, but the trio begs to differ.
EMC, Cisco and VMware caused a commotion when the companies announced the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition and a new set of systems that operate as building blocks for virtualized cloud computing infrastructures.
The companies have been collaborating to create a virtualized, cloud infrastructure platform based on their respective technologies. The result is a series of integrated "Vblock Infrastructure" packages comprised of storage and networking systems and server and storage virtualization software.
We've been fielding comments from across the industry and it didn't take long for the competition to react.
EMC rival NetApp fired a shot at the VCE by classifying Vblocks as nothing more than a reference architecture rather than a full stack of server, network, storage, and virtualization technologies.
Jay Kidd, vice president Storage Solutions group and chief marketing officer, NetApp:
"We view today's announcement as a clever attempt by Cisco to sell UCS servers into EMC's install base. We also feel that this announcement further validates the trend that we're seeing as more and more enterprises move to a virtualized dynamic data center infrastructure. NetApp has been at the forefront in helping enterprises realize this shift through our close partnerships with Cisco and VMware. With VMware we have virtualized large data centers for customers like T-Systems, BT, and Sprint, and have expanded on these architectures with several integration partners to include Cisco UCS servers. Open partnerships, not closed coalitions, are what customers need and want to make the transformation to a virtualized data center."
More of Jay's thoughts on the VCE and Vblocks can be found in his latest blog post.
Dell – a huge EMC partner – calls the VCE/Vblock news an attempt to lock users into proprietary technologies.
Dell's vice president of enterprise storage and networking, Praveen Asthana, says, "The VMware, Cisco and EMC joint venture assumes that customers are looking for closed technology architectures that lock them into a restricted vendor stack. This proprietary implementation of industry standard architectures is a throwback to the 1990's and creates complete vendor lock-in. As the leading provider of Cloud infrastructure, Dell knows from its customers' insights that cloud compute workloads are best served by open, standards-based solutions – not by repackaging high-cost infrastructure as a cloud solution."
The coalition members beg to differ. They are in lock step with a message of openness.
VMware's president and CEO, Paul Maritz, says Cisco, EMC and VMware all remain committed to working in an "open way."
"We maintain our commitment to working in an open way with existing partners by making our technologies available to other parties who want to put together solutions," says Maritz. "There is no need or reason for our relationships to change. At the same time, we are adding to the options for our customers and not removing them."
EMC's CEO Joe Tucci claims the VCE and the Vblock systems offer customers more "choice."
"On the choice side, we know this is an open world and we are committed to openness," he says. "We are still offering an a la carte menu. For example, you can take EMC storage and choose another server. We are not removing choice."
However, open does not mean the ability to use just any technology to create a Vblock.
"We are not substituting on the Vblock side. If you want to use somebody else's storage you have to buy from the [a la carte] side of the menu, but you're not buying a Vblock," says Tucci. "That's the distinction. You give up certain things if you don't order from the fixed menu."
EMC, Cisco and VMware caused a commotion when the companies announced the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition and a new set of systems that operate as building blocks for virtualized cloud computing infrastructures.
The companies have been collaborating to create a virtualized, cloud infrastructure platform based on their respective technologies. The result is a series of integrated "Vblock Infrastructure" packages comprised of storage and networking systems and server and storage virtualization software.
We've been fielding comments from across the industry and it didn't take long for the competition to react.
EMC rival NetApp fired a shot at the VCE by classifying Vblocks as nothing more than a reference architecture rather than a full stack of server, network, storage, and virtualization technologies.
Jay Kidd, vice president Storage Solutions group and chief marketing officer, NetApp:
"We view today's announcement as a clever attempt by Cisco to sell UCS servers into EMC's install base. We also feel that this announcement further validates the trend that we're seeing as more and more enterprises move to a virtualized dynamic data center infrastructure. NetApp has been at the forefront in helping enterprises realize this shift through our close partnerships with Cisco and VMware. With VMware we have virtualized large data centers for customers like T-Systems, BT, and Sprint, and have expanded on these architectures with several integration partners to include Cisco UCS servers. Open partnerships, not closed coalitions, are what customers need and want to make the transformation to a virtualized data center."
More of Jay's thoughts on the VCE and Vblocks can be found in his latest blog post.
Dell – a huge EMC partner – calls the VCE/Vblock news an attempt to lock users into proprietary technologies.
Dell's vice president of enterprise storage and networking, Praveen Asthana, says, "The VMware, Cisco and EMC joint venture assumes that customers are looking for closed technology architectures that lock them into a restricted vendor stack. This proprietary implementation of industry standard architectures is a throwback to the 1990's and creates complete vendor lock-in. As the leading provider of Cloud infrastructure, Dell knows from its customers' insights that cloud compute workloads are best served by open, standards-based solutions – not by repackaging high-cost infrastructure as a cloud solution."
The coalition members beg to differ. They are in lock step with a message of openness.
VMware's president and CEO, Paul Maritz, says Cisco, EMC and VMware all remain committed to working in an "open way."
"We maintain our commitment to working in an open way with existing partners by making our technologies available to other parties who want to put together solutions," says Maritz. "There is no need or reason for our relationships to change. At the same time, we are adding to the options for our customers and not removing them."
EMC's CEO Joe Tucci claims the VCE and the Vblock systems offer customers more "choice."
"On the choice side, we know this is an open world and we are committed to openness," he says. "We are still offering an a la carte menu. For example, you can take EMC storage and choose another server. We are not removing choice."
However, open does not mean the ability to use just any technology to create a Vblock.
"We are not substituting on the Vblock side. If you want to use somebody else's storage you have to buy from the [a la carte] side of the menu, but you're not buying a Vblock," says Tucci. "That's the distinction. You give up certain things if you don't order from the fixed menu."
Friday, October 16, 2009
Brocade, Cisco eye mobile services market
October 16, 2009 -- Cisco jumped into the Fibre Channel market with the MDS family. Brocade jumped into the Ethernet market with the acquisition of Foundry Networks. Both companies are jockeying for position in the nascent converged networking (CEE and FCoE) market. And, it appears, the companies are escalating the fight in yet another area – wireless networking and mobile computing.
Brocade and Cisco each added to their respective mobile arsenals this week. Brocade took the partnership route, while Cisco opened up its wallet.
Cisco announced a deal to acquire Starent Networks, a supplier of IP-based mobile infrastructure solutions for mobile and converged carriers. Cisco paid roughly $2.9 billion for Starent and the acquisition is expected to close during the first half of calendar year 2010.
Starent's stock-in-trade is providing multimedia intelligence, core network functions and services to manage access from any 2.5G, 3G, and 4G radio network to a mobile operator's packet core network.
A quote from Cisco's official announcement:
"Cisco and Starent Networks share a common vision and bring complementary technologies designed to accelerate the transition to the Mobile Internet, where the network is the platform for Service Providers to launch, deliver and monetize the next generation of mobile multimedia applications and services," said Pankaj Patel, senior vice president/general manager for Cisco's Service Provider Business.
Cisco says service providers have been actively investing in the market as global mobile data traffic is expected to more than double every year through 2013, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index.
Brocade has noticed the market potential as well. The company inked an OEM deal with the Enterprise Mobility Solutions business unit of Motorola this week to collaborate on wireless LAN (WLAN), voice-over-WLAN, mobile unified communications/fixed mobile convergence (FMC), cloud computing and wireless broadband technologies.
The companies established an OEM reseller agreement, through which, Brocade will rebrand and resell a number of Motorola's enterprise wireless LAN solutions and resell Motorola wireless security products as an extension of its own IP/Ethernet product portfolio.
According to the companies, "this collaboration also lays the foundation for a new category of wireless and mobility services delivered by service providers using cloud enabled infrastructure solutions from Motorola and Brocade."
The companies plan to use cloud computing architectures and enable voice, video and data applications to work over 3G, 4G or WiFi networks.
Brocade and Cisco each added to their respective mobile arsenals this week. Brocade took the partnership route, while Cisco opened up its wallet.
Cisco announced a deal to acquire Starent Networks, a supplier of IP-based mobile infrastructure solutions for mobile and converged carriers. Cisco paid roughly $2.9 billion for Starent and the acquisition is expected to close during the first half of calendar year 2010.
Starent's stock-in-trade is providing multimedia intelligence, core network functions and services to manage access from any 2.5G, 3G, and 4G radio network to a mobile operator's packet core network.
A quote from Cisco's official announcement:
"Cisco and Starent Networks share a common vision and bring complementary technologies designed to accelerate the transition to the Mobile Internet, where the network is the platform for Service Providers to launch, deliver and monetize the next generation of mobile multimedia applications and services," said Pankaj Patel, senior vice president/general manager for Cisco's Service Provider Business.
Cisco says service providers have been actively investing in the market as global mobile data traffic is expected to more than double every year through 2013, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index.
Brocade has noticed the market potential as well. The company inked an OEM deal with the Enterprise Mobility Solutions business unit of Motorola this week to collaborate on wireless LAN (WLAN), voice-over-WLAN, mobile unified communications/fixed mobile convergence (FMC), cloud computing and wireless broadband technologies.
The companies established an OEM reseller agreement, through which, Brocade will rebrand and resell a number of Motorola's enterprise wireless LAN solutions and resell Motorola wireless security products as an extension of its own IP/Ethernet product portfolio.
According to the companies, "this collaboration also lays the foundation for a new category of wireless and mobility services delivered by service providers using cloud enabled infrastructure solutions from Motorola and Brocade."
The companies plan to use cloud computing architectures and enable voice, video and data applications to work over 3G, 4G or WiFi networks.
Friday, October 9, 2009
The future of storage is cloudy
October 9, 2009 -- Cloud computing and cloud storage are here to stay. The number of vendors with cloud offerings continues to multiply and I don't envy the end user trying to evaluate vendors and services.
Just this week we have seen a big push in the cloud storage market. IBM officially announced its cloud storage intentions with a declaration that it will enter the storage cloud space with the launch of the IBM Smart Business Storage solution, IBM Information Archive and new consulting services.
The IBM Smart Business Storage Cloud is a private cloud based on low-cost components with support for multiple petabytes of capacity, billions of files and scale-out performance. Big Blue's storage cloud is based on technologies including the IBM General Parallel File System have and storage and server technologies like XIV and BladeCenter.
Earlier in the week, Symantec released Veritas FileStore, a new clustered file system aimed at enterprise customers looking to build public or private storage clouds. FileStore is comprised of software-based appliances that run on commodity x86 server nodes and talk to clients using CIFS, FTP, HTTP or NFS. On the back-end, the FileStore nodes aggregate existing Fibre Channel and iSCSI SANs and JBODs as a shared storage pool. A FileStore system can scale up to 16 nodes and 2PB of total capacity.
Seagate also chimed in. Seagate's storage software arm, i365, announced a cloud storage-based replication service for medium-sized businesses as part of its push into the cloud storage space.
Terry Cunningham, i365's senior vice president and general manager, told me i365 is changing the way it approaches the cloud.
"Our offerings have been rip-and-replace in the past, and that is an unreasonable request for customers. Now we're agnostic and work with legacy backup packages," he said. "We can now get to the cloud without gutting the infrastructure."
All of these storage clouds are here or on the horizon and there are a few questions customers should be asking themselves as they try to pick a vendor. What types of metadata is required to ensure portability, compliance and security in the cloud? Can data be provided back to users in a format that can be ingested by a new service provider?
The storage industry is aware of some of the cloud confusion out there. It's a concern from both a perception and a technical standpoint.
"Cloud storage is not a fad like the one we may have witnessed with xSPs and storage service providers back in the year 2000 timeframe," says SNIA chairman Wayne Adams. "Cloud storage is here to stay and we need to develop common terminology and standards for building cloud infrastructures."
Stay tuned for more information about what the SNIA has in store for the cloud in our Cloud Storage topic center. The cloud news is sure to be fast and furious from next week's Storage Networking World conference.
Just this week we have seen a big push in the cloud storage market. IBM officially announced its cloud storage intentions with a declaration that it will enter the storage cloud space with the launch of the IBM Smart Business Storage solution, IBM Information Archive and new consulting services.
The IBM Smart Business Storage Cloud is a private cloud based on low-cost components with support for multiple petabytes of capacity, billions of files and scale-out performance. Big Blue's storage cloud is based on technologies including the IBM General Parallel File System have and storage and server technologies like XIV and BladeCenter.
Earlier in the week, Symantec released Veritas FileStore, a new clustered file system aimed at enterprise customers looking to build public or private storage clouds. FileStore is comprised of software-based appliances that run on commodity x86 server nodes and talk to clients using CIFS, FTP, HTTP or NFS. On the back-end, the FileStore nodes aggregate existing Fibre Channel and iSCSI SANs and JBODs as a shared storage pool. A FileStore system can scale up to 16 nodes and 2PB of total capacity.
Seagate also chimed in. Seagate's storage software arm, i365, announced a cloud storage-based replication service for medium-sized businesses as part of its push into the cloud storage space.
Terry Cunningham, i365's senior vice president and general manager, told me i365 is changing the way it approaches the cloud.
"Our offerings have been rip-and-replace in the past, and that is an unreasonable request for customers. Now we're agnostic and work with legacy backup packages," he said. "We can now get to the cloud without gutting the infrastructure."
All of these storage clouds are here or on the horizon and there are a few questions customers should be asking themselves as they try to pick a vendor. What types of metadata is required to ensure portability, compliance and security in the cloud? Can data be provided back to users in a format that can be ingested by a new service provider?
The storage industry is aware of some of the cloud confusion out there. It's a concern from both a perception and a technical standpoint.
"Cloud storage is not a fad like the one we may have witnessed with xSPs and storage service providers back in the year 2000 timeframe," says SNIA chairman Wayne Adams. "Cloud storage is here to stay and we need to develop common terminology and standards for building cloud infrastructures."
Stay tuned for more information about what the SNIA has in store for the cloud in our Cloud Storage topic center. The cloud news is sure to be fast and furious from next week's Storage Networking World conference.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Survey: SMBs keeping data in-house
September 24, 2009 -- Some interesting tidbits from the small and medium-sized business (SMB) world. It would make sense that SMBs are a prime target for cloud computing services – storage included. But a new survey reveals that while SMBs are using the cloud in some way, most plan to keep their data in-house.
Spiceworks, a company that targets SMB users with free, ad-supported network monitoring and management software, recently released a market research report on current technology purchasing, usage and staffing trends among SMBs across the globe.
The company polled 1,130 SMB IT managers found that while 57% use one or more cloud computing service, 75% plan to store data on premise.
In fact, most SMBs are turning to the cloud for security and e-mail services. Among the aforementioned 57%, the three most popular cloud computing services in use or on the purchase list include anti-spam (43%), hosted email (25%), and online backup (20%), according to the report.
On the storage front, 25% of respondents are planning backup and recovery purchases within the next six months. Of these, 75% plan to store data on premise and 25% plan to utilize cloud-based storage solutions. In addition, 4% of SMB data will be stored on NAS or SAN devices, with 38% in DAS, 7% offsite and 13% on tape or other media.
The full Spiceworks report can be downloaded from the company's website.
Keep track of the latest cloud storage news in InfoStor's Cloud Storage Topic Center. There you will find a new analysis piece by Evaluator Group managing partner Russ Fellows, in which he outlines the technology hurdles that need to be resolved before cloud computing and cloud storage become a common part of the IT landscape.
Spiceworks, a company that targets SMB users with free, ad-supported network monitoring and management software, recently released a market research report on current technology purchasing, usage and staffing trends among SMBs across the globe.
The company polled 1,130 SMB IT managers found that while 57% use one or more cloud computing service, 75% plan to store data on premise.
In fact, most SMBs are turning to the cloud for security and e-mail services. Among the aforementioned 57%, the three most popular cloud computing services in use or on the purchase list include anti-spam (43%), hosted email (25%), and online backup (20%), according to the report.
On the storage front, 25% of respondents are planning backup and recovery purchases within the next six months. Of these, 75% plan to store data on premise and 25% plan to utilize cloud-based storage solutions. In addition, 4% of SMB data will be stored on NAS or SAN devices, with 38% in DAS, 7% offsite and 13% on tape or other media.
The full Spiceworks report can be downloaded from the company's website.
Keep track of the latest cloud storage news in InfoStor's Cloud Storage Topic Center. There you will find a new analysis piece by Evaluator Group managing partner Russ Fellows, in which he outlines the technology hurdles that need to be resolved before cloud computing and cloud storage become a common part of the IT landscape.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
VMware's vSphere of influence
April 21, 2009 -- Today's release of VMware's vSphere 4 operating system – a new OS for building internal clouds – has brought with it a tsunami of support from dozens of storage vendors.
The vSphere 4 OS aggregates and manages large pools of infrastructure resources – processors, storage and networking – as a dynamic operating environment. VMware claims vSphere 4 will "bring the power of cloud computing to the datacenter, slashing IT costs while dramatically increasing IT responsiveness." VMware also touts vSphere as a path to delivering cloud services that are compatible with customers' internal cloud infrastructures. VMware plans to build in support for dynamic federation between internal and external clouds, enabling "private" cloud environments that span multiple datacenters and/or cloud providers.
Big, bad virtual machines
Using the vSphere OS, users can build bigger, faster virtual computing environments. According to VMware's published specs, the platform can pool together up to:
32 physical servers with up to 2048 processor cores
1,280 virtual machines
32TB of RAM
16PB of storage
8,000 network ports
It also creates bigger, faster virtual machines (VMs) with up to:
2x the number of virtual processors per virtual machine (from 4 to 8)
2.5x more virtual NICs per virtual machine (from 4 to 10)
4x more memory per virtual machine (from 64 GB to 255GB)
3x increase in network throughput (from 9 Gbps to 30Gbps)
3x increase in the maximum recorded I/O operations per second (to over 300,000)
New maximum recorded number of transactions per second - 8,900
Data protection and migration
VMware also claims vSphere offers zero downtime and zero data loss protection against hardware failures with VMware Fault Tolerance and minimized planned downtime due to storage maintenance and migrations with VMware Storage VMotion, which provides live migration of virtual machine disk files across heterogeneous networked storage types.
vSphere 4 also features integrated disk-based backup and recovery for all applications via VMware Data Recovery and VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning, which keeps capacity-hungry VMs in check.
Storage vendors on board
The announcements are coming fast and furious from the storage community as, so far, 3PAR, Akorri, CA, Compellent Technologies, CommVault, Dell, Double-Take Software, EMC, Emulex, FalconStor Software, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, IBM, LSI, NetApp, Nexenta, StoneFly, Sun Microsystems, Symantec and Vizioncore have all pledged support for vSphere 4.
Read on for the details we have so far…
3PAR
3PAR's InServ Storage Servers are on the VMware Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) for VMware vSphere 4. In addition, 3PAR and VMware are investing in joint engineering projects. For example, the 3PAR already supports the VMware vStorage initiative and the recently released adaptive queuing technology that became available in VMware Infrastructure 3.5 and is included in VMware vSphere 4.
Akorri
Akorri's BalancePoint software will support VMware vSphere by the end of 2009. BalancePoint is available on a VMware certified virtual appliance and assists in cross-domain virtualized data center management, managing virtual and physical server and storage infrastructure from a single console.
Compellent Technologies
Compellent Technologies announced that its Storage Center SAN supports VMware vSphere. Compellent's Storage Center has completed the VMware Hardware Certification Program testing criteria and is now listed on the VMware HCL for use with vSphere.
EMC
EMC announced new high-availability advancements for next-generation virtual data centers with the new EMC PowerPath/VE software. The PowerPath/VE software provides path management, load balancing and fail-over capabilities for VMware vSphere 4.
Emulex
Emulex's LightPulse host bus adapters (HBAs) and converged network adapters (CNAs) are fully supported with VMware in-box drivers as part of VMware vSphere 4. The LightPulse 8Gbps Fibre Channel HBAs and 10Gbps Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) CNAs deliver more than double the IOPS performance in VMware vSphere 4 environments over the previous release, according to Emulex.
FalconStor Software
FalconStor Software's NSS-S12 storage array supports vSphere and on the vSphere HCL. FalconStor's Network Storage Server (NSS) technology integrates storage virtualization and provisioning across multiple disk arrays and connection protocols to create a scalable iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN.
HP
Hewlett-Packard announced the integration of vSphere 4 into its HP Adaptive Infrastructure (AI) portfolio. The interoperability of VMware vSphere 4 with HP's portfolio includes hardware compatibility for a range of HP ProLiant and BladeSystem servers and StorageWorks systems and software integration of HP's Insight software with vSphere 4.
NetApp
NetApp also announced the integration and certification of its storage platforms with vSphere 4. NetApp storage platforms and software products such as SANscreen VM Insight and MultiStore are certified for vSphere 4 and available now. The NetApp Virtualization Guarantee Program for vSphere is also available immediately.
StoneFly
IP SAN maker StoneFly announced completion of VMware vSphere certification across its entire SAN product line. StoneFly IP SANs supporting VMware vSphere, including the StoneFly Voyager, Integrated Storage Concentrator and OptiSAN product lines, are now available.
The vSphere 4 OS aggregates and manages large pools of infrastructure resources – processors, storage and networking – as a dynamic operating environment. VMware claims vSphere 4 will "bring the power of cloud computing to the datacenter, slashing IT costs while dramatically increasing IT responsiveness." VMware also touts vSphere as a path to delivering cloud services that are compatible with customers' internal cloud infrastructures. VMware plans to build in support for dynamic federation between internal and external clouds, enabling "private" cloud environments that span multiple datacenters and/or cloud providers.
Big, bad virtual machines
Using the vSphere OS, users can build bigger, faster virtual computing environments. According to VMware's published specs, the platform can pool together up to:
32 physical servers with up to 2048 processor cores
1,280 virtual machines
32TB of RAM
16PB of storage
8,000 network ports
It also creates bigger, faster virtual machines (VMs) with up to:
2x the number of virtual processors per virtual machine (from 4 to 8)
2.5x more virtual NICs per virtual machine (from 4 to 10)
4x more memory per virtual machine (from 64 GB to 255GB)
3x increase in network throughput (from 9 Gbps to 30Gbps)
3x increase in the maximum recorded I/O operations per second (to over 300,000)
New maximum recorded number of transactions per second - 8,900
Data protection and migration
VMware also claims vSphere offers zero downtime and zero data loss protection against hardware failures with VMware Fault Tolerance and minimized planned downtime due to storage maintenance and migrations with VMware Storage VMotion, which provides live migration of virtual machine disk files across heterogeneous networked storage types.
vSphere 4 also features integrated disk-based backup and recovery for all applications via VMware Data Recovery and VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning, which keeps capacity-hungry VMs in check.
Storage vendors on board
The announcements are coming fast and furious from the storage community as, so far, 3PAR, Akorri, CA, Compellent Technologies, CommVault, Dell, Double-Take Software, EMC, Emulex, FalconStor Software, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, IBM, LSI, NetApp, Nexenta, StoneFly, Sun Microsystems, Symantec and Vizioncore have all pledged support for vSphere 4.
Read on for the details we have so far…
3PAR
3PAR's InServ Storage Servers are on the VMware Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) for VMware vSphere 4. In addition, 3PAR and VMware are investing in joint engineering projects. For example, the 3PAR already supports the VMware vStorage initiative and the recently released adaptive queuing technology that became available in VMware Infrastructure 3.5 and is included in VMware vSphere 4.
Akorri
Akorri's BalancePoint software will support VMware vSphere by the end of 2009. BalancePoint is available on a VMware certified virtual appliance and assists in cross-domain virtualized data center management, managing virtual and physical server and storage infrastructure from a single console.
Compellent Technologies
Compellent Technologies announced that its Storage Center SAN supports VMware vSphere. Compellent's Storage Center has completed the VMware Hardware Certification Program testing criteria and is now listed on the VMware HCL for use with vSphere.
EMC
EMC announced new high-availability advancements for next-generation virtual data centers with the new EMC PowerPath/VE software. The PowerPath/VE software provides path management, load balancing and fail-over capabilities for VMware vSphere 4.
Emulex
Emulex's LightPulse host bus adapters (HBAs) and converged network adapters (CNAs) are fully supported with VMware in-box drivers as part of VMware vSphere 4. The LightPulse 8Gbps Fibre Channel HBAs and 10Gbps Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) CNAs deliver more than double the IOPS performance in VMware vSphere 4 environments over the previous release, according to Emulex.
FalconStor Software
FalconStor Software's NSS-S12 storage array supports vSphere and on the vSphere HCL. FalconStor's Network Storage Server (NSS) technology integrates storage virtualization and provisioning across multiple disk arrays and connection protocols to create a scalable iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN.
HP
Hewlett-Packard announced the integration of vSphere 4 into its HP Adaptive Infrastructure (AI) portfolio. The interoperability of VMware vSphere 4 with HP's portfolio includes hardware compatibility for a range of HP ProLiant and BladeSystem servers and StorageWorks systems and software integration of HP's Insight software with vSphere 4.
NetApp
NetApp also announced the integration and certification of its storage platforms with vSphere 4. NetApp storage platforms and software products such as SANscreen VM Insight and MultiStore are certified for vSphere 4 and available now. The NetApp Virtualization Guarantee Program for vSphere is also available immediately.
StoneFly
IP SAN maker StoneFly announced completion of VMware vSphere certification across its entire SAN product line. StoneFly IP SANs supporting VMware vSphere, including the StoneFly Voyager, Integrated Storage Concentrator and OptiSAN product lines, are now available.
Friday, November 21, 2008
The clouds are forming
There’s a perfect storm of cheap hardware, massively scalable architectures and automated data management developing. Cloud-based storage is here.
Actually, cloud platforms have been around for a while (see Amazon’s S3 service and products from companies such as Bycast, Nirvanix and ParaScale as examples), but now EMC has stepped into the fray with its Atmos platform. A move that has, in the minds of many, simultaneously given credibility to the technology and officially established the market.
Even some of the unflappable experts in the industry have been taken aback by the amount of buzz drummed up by the Atmos launch earlier this month. Personally, I have been inundated with media pitches and interview requests from every vendor that can in some way tie the term cloud computing to their technology. They’re coming out of the woodwork.
It begs the question: Are cloud infrastructures and resulting cloud-based storage services all hype or are we truly entering a new era?
Jeff Boles, a senior analyst and director of validation services at the Taneja Group research and consulting firm and an InfoStor contributor, is convinced that cloud storage will change IT strategies in many ways.
In a recent series of articles on the topic, he makes three pretty bold predictions about the impact cloud-based storage will have on the industry. He writes:
1.) Users will expect cheaper storage, as user self-service makes storage in the cloud less expensive to deliver.
2.) Users will expect more responsive and scalable storage, because hosted providers can respond and scale on demand.
3.) Users will expect to access and manage their data in ways that were not possible before.
It’s looking like 2009 is set up to be the year that the technology will begin to change user expectations and it’s a safe bet that we’ll be tracking this segment of the storage market. It will be interesting to find out how many end users actually have their heads in the clouds.
Actually, cloud platforms have been around for a while (see Amazon’s S3 service and products from companies such as Bycast, Nirvanix and ParaScale as examples), but now EMC has stepped into the fray with its Atmos platform. A move that has, in the minds of many, simultaneously given credibility to the technology and officially established the market.
Even some of the unflappable experts in the industry have been taken aback by the amount of buzz drummed up by the Atmos launch earlier this month. Personally, I have been inundated with media pitches and interview requests from every vendor that can in some way tie the term cloud computing to their technology. They’re coming out of the woodwork.
It begs the question: Are cloud infrastructures and resulting cloud-based storage services all hype or are we truly entering a new era?
Jeff Boles, a senior analyst and director of validation services at the Taneja Group research and consulting firm and an InfoStor contributor, is convinced that cloud storage will change IT strategies in many ways.
In a recent series of articles on the topic, he makes three pretty bold predictions about the impact cloud-based storage will have on the industry. He writes:
1.) Users will expect cheaper storage, as user self-service makes storage in the cloud less expensive to deliver.
2.) Users will expect more responsive and scalable storage, because hosted providers can respond and scale on demand.
3.) Users will expect to access and manage their data in ways that were not possible before.
It’s looking like 2009 is set up to be the year that the technology will begin to change user expectations and it’s a safe bet that we’ll be tracking this segment of the storage market. It will be interesting to find out how many end users actually have their heads in the clouds.
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