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?

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.

IBM to Acquire Storwize

Sometimes the rumor mill gets it right. IBM made another move in the storage optimization space with the acquisition of Storwize, adding real-time compression to Big Blue’s arsenal.

The announcement, first reported by WikiBon’s Dave Vellante and followed shortly thereafter by an IBM press release, came amid a solid month of rumors about the potential deal and speculation spiked when Dell announced plans to buy Ocarina Networks last week.

Financial terms of the IBM-Storwize deal were not disclosed, but there are some numbers being bandied about.

Read more at Enterprise Storage Forum, "IBM to Buy Storwize for Real-Time Data Compression".

EMC, IBM, NetApp – Storage growth across the board

April 22, 2010 -- All signs are pointing to recovery in the data storage market as EMC, IBM and NetApp are all reporting big – in some cases record breaking – earning and sales.

EMC this week reported all-time record Q1 revenue, 92% profit growth, record quarterly free cash flow and an increase to its full-year 2010 business outlook.

EMC CEO Joe Tucci called the past few months "the best first quarter in company history" and credited the double-digit growth to EMC's "private cloud strategy and focus on four multi-billion dollar markets."

For the full details of EMC's Q1 results see "EMC breaks first quarter sales records."

IBM is also feeling the storage love. Big Blue announced its earnings this week, including an 11% jump in revenue growth for its System Storage hardware business for 1Q 2010.

Rewind seven weeks and NetApp topped expectations with Q3 GAAP revenues of $1.01 billion compared to $746 million in the same period last year (see "NetApp hit$ a home run").

The big boys are pulling in big bucks. The data storage market isn't recession-proof, but data doesn't stop growing and there's always a need for storage capacity despite advances in data reduction technologies and consolidation efforts.

So what's behind the record-breaking numbers? Are we in the midst of a hardware refresh cycle? Has the storage market really rebounded? On the other hand, is it just a proverbial case of "nobody gets fired for buying IBM" (or any other tier 1 vendor)?

IBM, FujiFilm demo 35TB tape cartridge

January 22, 2010 -- As the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Program announces licensing details for the next generation of 3TB LTO 5 tapes, IBM and FujiFilm are unveiling new technology that makes it possible to hold up to 35TB of uncompressed data on a single tape cartridge.

The world record breakthrough was made possible by an improvement in the precision of controlling the position of the read-write heads, according to IBM. The pinpoint control yields better than a 25-fold increase in the number of tracks that can be squeezed onto the half-inch-wide tape.

The scientists have also developed new detection methods to increase the accuracy of reading the tiny magnetic bits, an advance that increases the linear recording density by more than 50%.

The tape also uses a new, low-friction read-write head developed by IBM Research.

IBM claims the demonstration (view the IBM Research video) was performed at product-level tape speeds (2 meters per second) and achieved error rates that are correctable using standard error-correction techniques to meet IBM's performance specification for its LTO Generation 4 products.

Tape still has the advantage over hard disk drives (HDDs) when it comes to cost. IBM claims today's tape systems cost one-fifth to one-tenth the price of disk-based storage systems, not to mention the power savings associated with magnetic storage.

The concept of storing that much data on a single tape may stave off the "tape is dead" argument for another decade – at least that what IBM is hoping.