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.
Friday, October 16, 2009
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.
Friday, October 2, 2009
SMB DR preparedness is not what it seems
October 2, 2009 -- Perception is not reality when it comes to disaster recovery preparedness in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) world.
In a former life, I stocked shelves and handled inventory for a large, upscale retail outfit. Being the geek that I am, I took notice of the IT setup in the store, including a small tape drive buried under boxes and irregular garments. It was painfully obvious that it was not being used properly. In fact, I doubted whether any of the staff knew what it was.
Eventually I asked a manager about it and was informed that yes, it was part of the store manager's job to perform daily tape backups of the store's transaction and sales information.
However, in my tenure as stock-boy extraordinaire that tape drive was never used. Not once. It boggled my mind. But it seems that some things never change.
According to the findings of Symantec's "2009 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey," reveal that SMBs are confident in their DR plans. Eighty-two percent of respondents say they are somewhat/very satisfied with their disaster plans, and 84% say they feel somewhat/very protected in case of a disaster.
The reality of the situation, despite how confident they feel, is grim. According to the survey, SMBs do not back up their computer systems as frequently as they should: Only 23% backup their computer systems daily and less than half back up weekly.
The average SMB has experienced three outages within the past 12 months, with the leading causes being virus or hacker attacks, power outages or natural disasters. The approximate impact on the bottom line per outage is $15,000 per day. That's real money for small businesses.
The large retail chain I worked for is still in business. They continue to thrive. I can't speak to whether they have experienced outages or whether downtime has cost them cash or customers.
Perhaps the perception-reality gap is more evidence that consolidating and centralizing the backup process makes sense. Having a tape drive at a remote location doesn't ensure your data will be protected when an outage hits.
Symantec makes several useful recommendations to SMB customers in its report, which can be found on the company's website.
Keep up on the latest DR and business continuity news in our DR topic center.
In a former life, I stocked shelves and handled inventory for a large, upscale retail outfit. Being the geek that I am, I took notice of the IT setup in the store, including a small tape drive buried under boxes and irregular garments. It was painfully obvious that it was not being used properly. In fact, I doubted whether any of the staff knew what it was.
Eventually I asked a manager about it and was informed that yes, it was part of the store manager's job to perform daily tape backups of the store's transaction and sales information.
However, in my tenure as stock-boy extraordinaire that tape drive was never used. Not once. It boggled my mind. But it seems that some things never change.
According to the findings of Symantec's "2009 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey," reveal that SMBs are confident in their DR plans. Eighty-two percent of respondents say they are somewhat/very satisfied with their disaster plans, and 84% say they feel somewhat/very protected in case of a disaster.
The reality of the situation, despite how confident they feel, is grim. According to the survey, SMBs do not back up their computer systems as frequently as they should: Only 23% backup their computer systems daily and less than half back up weekly.
The average SMB has experienced three outages within the past 12 months, with the leading causes being virus or hacker attacks, power outages or natural disasters. The approximate impact on the bottom line per outage is $15,000 per day. That's real money for small businesses.
The large retail chain I worked for is still in business. They continue to thrive. I can't speak to whether they have experienced outages or whether downtime has cost them cash or customers.
Perhaps the perception-reality gap is more evidence that consolidating and centralizing the backup process makes sense. Having a tape drive at a remote location doesn't ensure your data will be protected when an outage hits.
Symantec makes several useful recommendations to SMB customers in its report, which can be found on the company's website.
Keep up on the latest DR and business continuity news in our DR topic center.
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.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Come together? Not now...in IT
September 18, 2009 -- Apologies for the blog title, but the recent tsunami of Beatles media hype has Abbey Road rattling around in my head. All puns aside, TheInfoPro (TIP) just released some interesting research regarding the organizational dynamics in the data center. The most interesting bit may be that most users believe there is an upside to maintaining separate data and networking management groups.
It's interesting to me because experts have predicted that different management groups within IT will eventual merge as the lines between the server, storage and network domains blur. But, as technologies such as server virtualization and unified networking emerge, end users seem to be taking an opposing view.
In its first "Organizational Dynamics Study," TIP looked at the structural issues facing IT organizations. According to the firm, "the study gives insight into the impact that technology and financial considerations will have on the evolution of storage organizations and shows ranges and optimal cost levels of support staffing."
Some snapshots of the research reveal:
• 54%of study respondents see a significant or major impact on addressing storage needs because of server virtualization.
• 78% of respondents said they do not expect storage and networking teams to combine.
• 77% said they do not have a separate virtualization group.
• 60% of respondents said their organization sees major operational benefit in having a separate data management group.
Myron Kerstetter, TheInfoPro's Managing Director of Organizational Studies says: "Looking toward the future, we found that important shifts in the organizational structure will occur in the next three to five years, particularly in the larger storage groups. But despite the hype, many organizations did not expect the creation of formal virtualization teams or the merging of storage and networking groups."
We'd love to hear your take on the topic. Shoot us an e-mail with your opinions.
More information on TIP's latest research can be found on their website.
It's interesting to me because experts have predicted that different management groups within IT will eventual merge as the lines between the server, storage and network domains blur. But, as technologies such as server virtualization and unified networking emerge, end users seem to be taking an opposing view.
In its first "Organizational Dynamics Study," TIP looked at the structural issues facing IT organizations. According to the firm, "the study gives insight into the impact that technology and financial considerations will have on the evolution of storage organizations and shows ranges and optimal cost levels of support staffing."
Some snapshots of the research reveal:
• 54%of study respondents see a significant or major impact on addressing storage needs because of server virtualization.
• 78% of respondents said they do not expect storage and networking teams to combine.
• 77% said they do not have a separate virtualization group.
• 60% of respondents said their organization sees major operational benefit in having a separate data management group.
Myron Kerstetter, TheInfoPro's Managing Director of Organizational Studies says: "Looking toward the future, we found that important shifts in the organizational structure will occur in the next three to five years, particularly in the larger storage groups. But despite the hype, many organizations did not expect the creation of formal virtualization teams or the merging of storage and networking groups."
We'd love to hear your take on the topic. Shoot us an e-mail with your opinions.
More information on TIP's latest research can be found on their website.
Friday, September 11, 2009
IDC: Sweet spots appearing in storage software, hardware markets
September 11, 2009 -- Growth in the storage software market is still on the decline, as are factory revenues for the worldwide external disk storage systems market, but there are some bright spots in both sectors, according to the latest research from International Data Corp. (IDC).
IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker shows another year-over-year growth in the second quarter of 2009 (2Q09) with revenues of $2.8 billion, representing –9.8% growth over the same quarter one year ago. But Michael Margossian, research analyst for Storage Software at IDC, says the storage software market is showing signs of recovery with positive growth over the first quarter of this year.
In addition, the replication market grew 5% compared to 1Q09 led by NetApp, which has been refocusing its efforts and grew 20% from the previous quarter, according to Margossian.
IDC puts EMC atop the overall market with 22.4% revenue share in 2Q09, followed by Symantec, IBM, NetApp and CA.
On the hardware front, things are revenues continue to slip with worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posting a year-over-year decline of 18.3% in the 2Q09, totaling $4.1 billion, according to the IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker.
In a statement from IDC, Liz Conner, research analyst for Storage Systems, said, "The enterprise storage systems market continued to feel the impact of current economic conditions, posting its third straight year-over-year decline. However, certain sweet spots in the market continue to thrive. iSCSI SAN and FC SAN both showed strong year-over-year growth of 57.2% and 66.8%, respectively, in the entry level price bands as customers continue to demand enterprise level network storage at a more economically friendly price point. Similarly, midrange NAS enjoyed solid year-over-year growth of 20.7% as file-level data generation continues to be a hot topic for many customers."
IDC's data shows that EMC claimed the number one spot in the external disk storage systems market with 21.5% revenue share in the second quarter, followed by IBM and HP with Dell and NetApp in a statistical dead heat for the number four position.
EMC also led the way in market share in the total network disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open / iSCSI SAN) with 26%. The network disk storage market declined 15.3% year over year in the second quarter to more than $3.2 billion in revenues.
In the total worldwide disk storage systems market, IBM and HP finished the second quarter in a statistical tie with 17.3% each followed by EMC with 15.7% market share.
IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker shows another year-over-year growth in the second quarter of 2009 (2Q09) with revenues of $2.8 billion, representing –9.8% growth over the same quarter one year ago. But Michael Margossian, research analyst for Storage Software at IDC, says the storage software market is showing signs of recovery with positive growth over the first quarter of this year.
In addition, the replication market grew 5% compared to 1Q09 led by NetApp, which has been refocusing its efforts and grew 20% from the previous quarter, according to Margossian.
IDC puts EMC atop the overall market with 22.4% revenue share in 2Q09, followed by Symantec, IBM, NetApp and CA.
On the hardware front, things are revenues continue to slip with worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posting a year-over-year decline of 18.3% in the 2Q09, totaling $4.1 billion, according to the IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker.
In a statement from IDC, Liz Conner, research analyst for Storage Systems, said, "The enterprise storage systems market continued to feel the impact of current economic conditions, posting its third straight year-over-year decline. However, certain sweet spots in the market continue to thrive. iSCSI SAN and FC SAN both showed strong year-over-year growth of 57.2% and 66.8%, respectively, in the entry level price bands as customers continue to demand enterprise level network storage at a more economically friendly price point. Similarly, midrange NAS enjoyed solid year-over-year growth of 20.7% as file-level data generation continues to be a hot topic for many customers."
IDC's data shows that EMC claimed the number one spot in the external disk storage systems market with 21.5% revenue share in the second quarter, followed by IBM and HP with Dell and NetApp in a statistical dead heat for the number four position.
EMC also led the way in market share in the total network disk storage market (NAS Combined with Open / iSCSI SAN) with 26%. The network disk storage market declined 15.3% year over year in the second quarter to more than $3.2 billion in revenues.
In the total worldwide disk storage systems market, IBM and HP finished the second quarter in a statistical tie with 17.3% each followed by EMC with 15.7% market share.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
EMC scoops up FastScale Technology, Kazeon
September 1, 2009 -- The EMC acquisition machine has been busy this week. The company has inked two acquisition deals in as many days, snapping up FastScale Technology and Kazeon Systems.
Today EMC announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held eDiscovery software Kazeon. EMC plans to integrate Kazeon's technology into the EMC SourceOne product family. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2009.
The full Kazeon announcement can be found here.
The Kazeon deal came fresh on the heels of yesterday's acquisition of FastScale Technology. EMC's press release states:
"Designed from the ground up to accelerate the journey from physical to virtual to private cloud, with the addition of FastScale, the EMC Ionix portfolio will simplify end-to-end management and maximize the performance, density and efficiency of applications and software deployed on unified infrastructures."
EMC also beefed up the Ionix software portfolio via an extended partnership with VMware. EMC and VMware announced a new reseller agreement whereby EMC is now reselling VMware's vCenter AppSpeed as part of the EMC Ionix portfolio.
Today EMC announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held eDiscovery software Kazeon. EMC plans to integrate Kazeon's technology into the EMC SourceOne product family. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2009.
The full Kazeon announcement can be found here.
The Kazeon deal came fresh on the heels of yesterday's acquisition of FastScale Technology. EMC's press release states:
"Designed from the ground up to accelerate the journey from physical to virtual to private cloud, with the addition of FastScale, the EMC Ionix portfolio will simplify end-to-end management and maximize the performance, density and efficiency of applications and software deployed on unified infrastructures."
EMC also beefed up the Ionix software portfolio via an extended partnership with VMware. EMC and VMware announced a new reseller agreement whereby EMC is now reselling VMware's vCenter AppSpeed as part of the EMC Ionix portfolio.
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