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".
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
EMC breaks Q2 revenue record
July 21, 2010 -- Led by customer demand for its high-end Symmetrix portfolio, Avamar and Data Domain product families, and VMware, EMC has reported record financial results for the second time in as many quarters with consolidated revenue for Q2 hitting $4.02 billion, an increase of 24% compared with the year-ago quarter.
According to EMC (NYSE: EMC), GAAP net income attributable to EMC increased 108% year-over-year to $426 million; and GAAP diluted earnings per share were $0.20, up 100% year-over-year. Non-GAAP net income attributable to EMC for the second quarter was $596 million, an increase of 66% compared with the year-ago quarter, and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.28, an increase of 56% year-over-year.
During the quarter, EMC achieved all-time record year-to-date operating cash flow and free cash flow of $2.1 billion and $1.6 billion, which grew 44% and 47%, respectively, compared with the year-ago period.
The company completed the quarter with $10.3 billion in cash and investments.
EMC has reported growth in several areas. Here are the Q2 highlights:
• The high-end EMC Symmetrix storage product portfolio increased 32% compared with the year-ago quarter and the EMC mid-tier storage product portfolio grew revenue 33% year-over-year.
• The combined second-quarter revenue run rate for EMC Data Domain and Avamar backup solutions exceeded the billion-dollar revenue run rate the company reported in the first quarter of 2010.
• VMware (NYSE:VMW), which is majority-owned by EMC, contributed second-quarter revenue of $673 million, increasing 48% compared with the year-ago quarter.
• Additionally, EMC's RSA information security solutions grew revenue 18% year-over-year.
EMC consolidated second-quarter revenue from the United States reached $2.1 billion, an increase of 28% year-over-year, representing 53% of consolidated second-quarter revenue. Revenue from EMC's business operations outside of the United States reached $1.9 billion, an increase of 19% year-over-year, representing 47% of consolidated second-quarter revenue. Within this, revenue increased 18%, 20% and 22% year-over-year, respectively, in EMC's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ); and Latin America regions.
EMC's revised outlook
EMC also announced that it expects to exceed its previous outlook for 2010 revenue, consolidated GAAP EPS and consolidated non-GAAP EPS.
EMC's CFO David Goulden said:
"Moving forward, we remain confident that we have the right business and operating model to continue delivering annual double-digit revenue and earnings growth over the long term."
For 2010, EMC expects to exceed its previous outlook of $16.5 billion in revenue; $0.84 in consolidated GAAP diluted earnings per share, and $1.18 in consolidated non-GAAP diluted earnings per share, which excludes the impact of restructuring and acquisition-related charges, stock-based compensation expense, and intangible asset amortization.
More info can be found on EMC's website.
For the latest news on EMC:
EMC Doubles Performance of Midrange Data Domain Systems
Top Ten Revelations from EMC World
EMC Sees SSDs, Ethernet Taking Over Data Storage
Deduplication, Storage Tiering and VPlex Star at EMC World
EMC Mozy Speeds Up Online Backup, Adds Local Disk
EMC, NetApp Strike Storage Networking Deals
EMC Says Private Clouds Are the Future of Storage, Data Centers
EMC Keeps Storage Networks Up and Running
EMC Buyer's Guide: EMC Goes x86
According to EMC (NYSE: EMC), GAAP net income attributable to EMC increased 108% year-over-year to $426 million; and GAAP diluted earnings per share were $0.20, up 100% year-over-year. Non-GAAP net income attributable to EMC for the second quarter was $596 million, an increase of 66% compared with the year-ago quarter, and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.28, an increase of 56% year-over-year.
During the quarter, EMC achieved all-time record year-to-date operating cash flow and free cash flow of $2.1 billion and $1.6 billion, which grew 44% and 47%, respectively, compared with the year-ago period.
The company completed the quarter with $10.3 billion in cash and investments.
EMC has reported growth in several areas. Here are the Q2 highlights:
• The high-end EMC Symmetrix storage product portfolio increased 32% compared with the year-ago quarter and the EMC mid-tier storage product portfolio grew revenue 33% year-over-year.
• The combined second-quarter revenue run rate for EMC Data Domain and Avamar backup solutions exceeded the billion-dollar revenue run rate the company reported in the first quarter of 2010.
• VMware (NYSE:VMW), which is majority-owned by EMC, contributed second-quarter revenue of $673 million, increasing 48% compared with the year-ago quarter.
• Additionally, EMC's RSA information security solutions grew revenue 18% year-over-year.
EMC consolidated second-quarter revenue from the United States reached $2.1 billion, an increase of 28% year-over-year, representing 53% of consolidated second-quarter revenue. Revenue from EMC's business operations outside of the United States reached $1.9 billion, an increase of 19% year-over-year, representing 47% of consolidated second-quarter revenue. Within this, revenue increased 18%, 20% and 22% year-over-year, respectively, in EMC's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ); and Latin America regions.
EMC's revised outlook
EMC also announced that it expects to exceed its previous outlook for 2010 revenue, consolidated GAAP EPS and consolidated non-GAAP EPS.
EMC's CFO David Goulden said:
"Moving forward, we remain confident that we have the right business and operating model to continue delivering annual double-digit revenue and earnings growth over the long term."
For 2010, EMC expects to exceed its previous outlook of $16.5 billion in revenue; $0.84 in consolidated GAAP diluted earnings per share, and $1.18 in consolidated non-GAAP diluted earnings per share, which excludes the impact of restructuring and acquisition-related charges, stock-based compensation expense, and intangible asset amortization.
More info can be found on EMC's website.
For the latest news on EMC:
EMC Doubles Performance of Midrange Data Domain Systems
Top Ten Revelations from EMC World
EMC Sees SSDs, Ethernet Taking Over Data Storage
Deduplication, Storage Tiering and VPlex Star at EMC World
EMC Mozy Speeds Up Online Backup, Adds Local Disk
EMC, NetApp Strike Storage Networking Deals
EMC Says Private Clouds Are the Future of Storage, Data Centers
EMC Keeps Storage Networks Up and Running
EMC Buyer's Guide: EMC Goes x86
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Open season on open-source ZFS?
July 8, 2010 -- A one-page legal letter from NetApp has sparked a debate over the use of open-source ZFS technology and put at least one storage startup in a bit of a bind.
Earlier this week, Coraid informed its customers that it has suspended sales of its recently announced EtherDrive Z-Series NAS appliances, which are based on ZFS. The decision was made after Coraid received a "legal threat letter" suggesting that the open-source ZFS file system planned for inclusion with the EtherDrive Z-Series infringes NetApp patents (see "NetApp threatens Coraid over sales of open-source ZFS technology").
So why single out Coraid? The Z-Series NAS solution is based on Nexenta's software, but, according to Nexenta, the company "has not at this time received communications yet from NetApp."
Enterprise Strategy Group senior analyst Terri McClure wonders why NetApp didn't hit Nexenta with the same letter since Nexenta supplies its ZFS software to multiple storage vendors.
"If NetApp did it would make sense – stop a number of vendors instead of just one. It certainly makes you wonder why they would single out Coraid, people could read into this that NetApp sees Coraid as a threat. Coraid's NAS product is pretty new but the underlying platform has been on the market a while and is solid, at a really aggressive price point," said McClure.
"[NetApp] just spent a couple of hundred dollars in lawyer's fees and took a competitor out of the market. Quick and easy, but a little disappointing, too. At the end of the day, ZFS is open source, and while there is no way to predict how the settlement talks between Oracle and NetApp will turn out, you can't really un-open source ZFS," she said.
There's still no word from NetApp on the matter.
Nexenta CEO Evan Powell supplied Enterprise Storage Forum with the following statement:
"I am not a patent law expert and cannot comment specifically on NetApp and Oracle's legal battle. However, I find NetApp's behavior consistent with what typically transpires when established legacy technology companies are confronted with innovation that threatens their price structure and profit margins. They first protest that the technology is unproven and unstable, then it lacks enterprise features, then adequate support and services and finally, when all else has failed, that it is violating their intellectual property. This is the path that NetApp has taken in the last two years with the ZFS file system.
"Based on the explosive and sustained growth in adoption of Nexenta's Open Storage software based on the ZFS file system, it is clear that our partners and customers are confident that this case will reach a settlement that follows the trajectory of almost every technology market in the last 15 years-- low cost, high innovation and open solutions that provide a clear and competitive alternative to closed, proprietary and expensive technologies."
You can read more from Nexenta's Powell in his latest blog post.
Related articles:
Coraid Combines ZFS With Ethernet SAN Technology
Coraid Delivers EtherDrive Storage Arrays, HBAs
Nexenta Leverages OpenSolaris and ZFS for Enterprise Storage
Compellent Offers Open-Source ZFS-based NAS
Nexenta Adds Data Dedupe to NexentaStor 3.0 with ZFS
10 Reasons Why ZFS Rocks
Earlier this week, Coraid informed its customers that it has suspended sales of its recently announced EtherDrive Z-Series NAS appliances, which are based on ZFS. The decision was made after Coraid received a "legal threat letter" suggesting that the open-source ZFS file system planned for inclusion with the EtherDrive Z-Series infringes NetApp patents (see "NetApp threatens Coraid over sales of open-source ZFS technology").
So why single out Coraid? The Z-Series NAS solution is based on Nexenta's software, but, according to Nexenta, the company "has not at this time received communications yet from NetApp."
Enterprise Strategy Group senior analyst Terri McClure wonders why NetApp didn't hit Nexenta with the same letter since Nexenta supplies its ZFS software to multiple storage vendors.
"If NetApp did it would make sense – stop a number of vendors instead of just one. It certainly makes you wonder why they would single out Coraid, people could read into this that NetApp sees Coraid as a threat. Coraid's NAS product is pretty new but the underlying platform has been on the market a while and is solid, at a really aggressive price point," said McClure.
"[NetApp] just spent a couple of hundred dollars in lawyer's fees and took a competitor out of the market. Quick and easy, but a little disappointing, too. At the end of the day, ZFS is open source, and while there is no way to predict how the settlement talks between Oracle and NetApp will turn out, you can't really un-open source ZFS," she said.
There's still no word from NetApp on the matter.
Nexenta CEO Evan Powell supplied Enterprise Storage Forum with the following statement:
"I am not a patent law expert and cannot comment specifically on NetApp and Oracle's legal battle. However, I find NetApp's behavior consistent with what typically transpires when established legacy technology companies are confronted with innovation that threatens their price structure and profit margins. They first protest that the technology is unproven and unstable, then it lacks enterprise features, then adequate support and services and finally, when all else has failed, that it is violating their intellectual property. This is the path that NetApp has taken in the last two years with the ZFS file system.
"Based on the explosive and sustained growth in adoption of Nexenta's Open Storage software based on the ZFS file system, it is clear that our partners and customers are confident that this case will reach a settlement that follows the trajectory of almost every technology market in the last 15 years-- low cost, high innovation and open solutions that provide a clear and competitive alternative to closed, proprietary and expensive technologies."
You can read more from Nexenta's Powell in his latest blog post.
Related articles:
Coraid Combines ZFS With Ethernet SAN Technology
Coraid Delivers EtherDrive Storage Arrays, HBAs
Nexenta Leverages OpenSolaris and ZFS for Enterprise Storage
Compellent Offers Open-Source ZFS-based NAS
Nexenta Adds Data Dedupe to NexentaStor 3.0 with ZFS
10 Reasons Why ZFS Rocks
Friday, June 18, 2010
Storage lessons learned from the dot-com era
June 18, 2010 -- We're 10 years removed from the dot-com era and the storage landscape barely resembles that of a decade ago. At this week's BD Event here in Boston, Peter Bell, a General Partner at Highland Capital Partners, gave advice to storage startups and recounted some of the lessons learned from his time at the helm of StorageNetworks, the first–and–last of the true storage service providers (SSPs).
Bell was the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of StorageNetworks, were he guided the SSP from concept to a huge IPO in June of 2000, raising more than $700 million in funding along the way.
But, in 2003, the way-before-its-time SSP model (can you say cloud?) failed. StorageNetworks closed its doors and its competitors shifted to a software model or vanished into the ether (from the way-back machine, see: "The last–and first–SSP calls it quits").
In his current role, he represents Highland on the boards of Desktone, ExaGrid Systems, Gigamon, InXpo, Ocarina Networks, SCVNGR, Virtual Computer, VMTurbo, and is actively involved with a number of Highland's other investments.
Bell said the funding for storage startups just is not the same today.
"No startup is immune to what's going on in the market. The venture capital dollars going into software and networking startups in 2000 were about $35 billion. In 2009 they were $4 billion," he said. "The lessons learned from StorageNetworks are still relevant today. We raised $700 million in 21 months, but I don't think you can do that today."
Taking a startup public is a much longer process these days. Bell said it takes about 10 years, double the average length of time it took to go public during the dot-com boom. "It takes a lot longer and [a startup] needs to be bigger and raise more capital to reach an IPO."
Bell bets there are storage vendors out there that have filed S1s, but are waiting for the economic climate to improve before they take the plunge. There is an added bonus for the lucky few who reach an IPO. Bell said valuations are higher to the tune of about 25%.
Most startups, he said, look to acquisition as the most likely path to growth/exit strategy.
It's not all doom and gloom. Bell is still bullish on the storage market. "In 2008, it was virtually impossible for a tech startup. 2010 has been a little better, but it's still tough," he said. "But people are addicted to storage and it's legal. There aren't that many businesses out there like that."
Bell points to companies who have been acquired or are experiencing growth like Acopia, Compellent, Diligent, Data Domain, EqualLogic, Isilon, Onaro, and XIV, as recent "winners" in the storage market.
Storage startups looking for an angle should consider a few hot technologies as their foot in the door. Bell believes solid-state storage, automated tiering, open-source storage, video storage and, of course, cloud storage/virtualization, are the next big things.
Bell emphasized the importance of the management team and business model as the keys to raising venture capital.
"It's the company you keep. Pick your partners and executives very, very carefully. The business model is as important as your team, but it's often not given enough thought," said Bell. "Long, unpredictable sales cycles lead to very short CEO tenures."
Related articles:
F5 to buy Acopia for file virtualization
Compellent adds ZFS-based NAS
IBM acquires Diligent for de-duplication
NetApp bows out, EMC to acquire Data Domain
Dell to acquire EqualLogic for $1.4 billion
Isilon adds enterprise features to scale-out NAS
NetApp expands SAN strategy with Onaro acquisition
IBM buys XIV for fixed digital content
Bell was the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of StorageNetworks, were he guided the SSP from concept to a huge IPO in June of 2000, raising more than $700 million in funding along the way.
But, in 2003, the way-before-its-time SSP model (can you say cloud?) failed. StorageNetworks closed its doors and its competitors shifted to a software model or vanished into the ether (from the way-back machine, see: "The last–and first–SSP calls it quits").
In his current role, he represents Highland on the boards of Desktone, ExaGrid Systems, Gigamon, InXpo, Ocarina Networks, SCVNGR, Virtual Computer, VMTurbo, and is actively involved with a number of Highland's other investments.
Bell said the funding for storage startups just is not the same today.
"No startup is immune to what's going on in the market. The venture capital dollars going into software and networking startups in 2000 were about $35 billion. In 2009 they were $4 billion," he said. "The lessons learned from StorageNetworks are still relevant today. We raised $700 million in 21 months, but I don't think you can do that today."
Taking a startup public is a much longer process these days. Bell said it takes about 10 years, double the average length of time it took to go public during the dot-com boom. "It takes a lot longer and [a startup] needs to be bigger and raise more capital to reach an IPO."
Bell bets there are storage vendors out there that have filed S1s, but are waiting for the economic climate to improve before they take the plunge. There is an added bonus for the lucky few who reach an IPO. Bell said valuations are higher to the tune of about 25%.
Most startups, he said, look to acquisition as the most likely path to growth/exit strategy.
It's not all doom and gloom. Bell is still bullish on the storage market. "In 2008, it was virtually impossible for a tech startup. 2010 has been a little better, but it's still tough," he said. "But people are addicted to storage and it's legal. There aren't that many businesses out there like that."
Bell points to companies who have been acquired or are experiencing growth like Acopia, Compellent, Diligent, Data Domain, EqualLogic, Isilon, Onaro, and XIV, as recent "winners" in the storage market.
Storage startups looking for an angle should consider a few hot technologies as their foot in the door. Bell believes solid-state storage, automated tiering, open-source storage, video storage and, of course, cloud storage/virtualization, are the next big things.
Bell emphasized the importance of the management team and business model as the keys to raising venture capital.
"It's the company you keep. Pick your partners and executives very, very carefully. The business model is as important as your team, but it's often not given enough thought," said Bell. "Long, unpredictable sales cycles lead to very short CEO tenures."
Related articles:
F5 to buy Acopia for file virtualization
Compellent adds ZFS-based NAS
IBM acquires Diligent for de-duplication
NetApp bows out, EMC to acquire Data Domain
Dell to acquire EqualLogic for $1.4 billion
Isilon adds enterprise features to scale-out NAS
NetApp expands SAN strategy with Onaro acquisition
IBM buys XIV for fixed digital content
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Brocade tries to One up Cisco in virtual data centers
June 10, 2010 -- Brocade answered many lingering questions in the past 24 hours about the integration of its Foundry platforms, its plans for converged network fabrics, its take on virtual machine (VM) mobility, and whether it had an answer for the Cisco-led Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition's Vblock strategy.
The company has introduced Brocade One, an architecture that brings together its operating system and management tools. The bottom line: put more smarts in the network to manage VMs in virtualized data centers.
"Brocade One represents one, unified company with one OS and one set of management tools under one architecture," said Bob Braham, vice president of product marketing at Brocade.
As part of Brocade One, the company introduced Brocade Virtual Cluster Switching, a software technology that collapses the access and aggregation layers of the network to create a masterless and distributed control plane.
Brocade VCS continuously synchronizes state, status and configuration information between nodes to enable converged fabrics to be self-forming, auto-healing and self-configuring – think VM metadata, network and storage policies.
Braham says VCS can be used to create true converged data center fabrics that are inherently multi-pathing and resilient, effectively eliminating the need for Spanning Tree Protocol (STP).
Also new is the Brocade Virtual Access Layer, a logical layer between Brocade converged fabric and server virtualization hypervisors. The Virtual Access Layer makes sure a consistent interface and set of services for VMs connected to the network. Brocade VAL will support all major hypervisors through industry-standard technologies, including the Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator (VEPA) and Virtual Ethernet Bridging (VEB) standards.
There was a lot of high-level speak about Brocade One, but there was one clear message – they plan to take on the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition's Vblock initiative directly. Brocade and its partners are prepping what the company calls Brocade Open Virtual Compute Blocks – tested and verified data center blueprints for VM deployments on converged fabrics.
The switching component of the Compute Blocks will be based on the Brocade 8000 Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Switch and blade (for the Brocade DCX Backbone), the Brocade NetIron MLX Series and Brocade Converged Network Adapters (CNAs).
Braham says the Brocade-based stacks will be available by year's end.
Brocade's been busy. Here's a taste of InfoStor's recent related news coverage:
Brocade, EMC lay groundwork for private clouds
Brocade increases density, throughput of DCX Backbone
Brocade CNAs qualified by EMC, HDS, IBM, NetApp
EMC expands converged networking deals with Brocade, Cisco
Dell taps Brocade for FCoE, CEE gear
Weighing the pros and cons of unified computing
The company has introduced Brocade One, an architecture that brings together its operating system and management tools. The bottom line: put more smarts in the network to manage VMs in virtualized data centers.
"Brocade One represents one, unified company with one OS and one set of management tools under one architecture," said Bob Braham, vice president of product marketing at Brocade.
As part of Brocade One, the company introduced Brocade Virtual Cluster Switching, a software technology that collapses the access and aggregation layers of the network to create a masterless and distributed control plane.
Brocade VCS continuously synchronizes state, status and configuration information between nodes to enable converged fabrics to be self-forming, auto-healing and self-configuring – think VM metadata, network and storage policies.
Braham says VCS can be used to create true converged data center fabrics that are inherently multi-pathing and resilient, effectively eliminating the need for Spanning Tree Protocol (STP).
Also new is the Brocade Virtual Access Layer, a logical layer between Brocade converged fabric and server virtualization hypervisors. The Virtual Access Layer makes sure a consistent interface and set of services for VMs connected to the network. Brocade VAL will support all major hypervisors through industry-standard technologies, including the Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator (VEPA) and Virtual Ethernet Bridging (VEB) standards.
There was a lot of high-level speak about Brocade One, but there was one clear message – they plan to take on the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition's Vblock initiative directly. Brocade and its partners are prepping what the company calls Brocade Open Virtual Compute Blocks – tested and verified data center blueprints for VM deployments on converged fabrics.
The switching component of the Compute Blocks will be based on the Brocade 8000 Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Switch and blade (for the Brocade DCX Backbone), the Brocade NetIron MLX Series and Brocade Converged Network Adapters (CNAs).
Braham says the Brocade-based stacks will be available by year's end.
Brocade's been busy. Here's a taste of InfoStor's recent related news coverage:
Brocade, EMC lay groundwork for private clouds
Brocade increases density, throughput of DCX Backbone
Brocade CNAs qualified by EMC, HDS, IBM, NetApp
EMC expands converged networking deals with Brocade, Cisco
Dell taps Brocade for FCoE, CEE gear
Weighing the pros and cons of unified computing
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
HP cuts 9,000 jobs in data center consolidation effort
June 1, 2010 -- HP is cutting 9,000 jobs and taking a charge of $1 billion as it begins refitting its data centers on the HP Converged Infrastructure Architecture.
Described by HP as an "initiative is designed to enhance the client experience and better position Enterprise Services for growth," the company announced plans to consolidate its Enterprise Services' commercial data centers, management platforms, networks, tools and applications to "create a more scalable, modernized and automated IT infrastructure that will better serve its clients' needs (see "HP strikes back with Converged Infrastructure Architecture")."
The unfortunate side effect will be the elimination of approximately 9,000 positions over the next few years.
Tom Iannotti, senior vice president and general manager for HP Enterprise Services, said "Over the past 20 months, we focused on integrating EDS and improving profitability. Now that the integration is largely complete, we have identified significant opportunities to grow and scale the business. These next-generation services will enable our clients to benefit from the combined technology and services leadership that only HP offers."
HP bought EDS for $13.9 billion in 2008 and rebranded it HP Enterprise Services in September of last year.
To fund the consolidation HP will take a charge of approximately $1 billion over a multiyear period that will be included in its GAAP financial results. HP expects that, once completed, the transformation will generate annualized gross savings of approximately $1 billion and net savings after reinvestment in a range between $500 million and $700 million.
HP's most recent earnings report was strong, as it posted net earnings of $2.2 billion for fiscal Q2 (up 28% from the prior year) with $4.5 billion in revenue in the Enterprise Storage and Server segment. However, software was down 1% from '09 and services only grew 2% to $8.7 billion. See Dave Simpson's blog: "Solid storage growth in HP's Q2 report."
HP will reportedly create a few thousand new positions in support of the consolidation effort.
There may be a silver lining for any storage pros facing unemployment. Sister site Enterprise Storage Forum reports that the job market for storage networking pros is on the grow. Brocade, CommVault, EMC, NetApp, Oracle and VMware all appear to be hiring (see "NetApp Leads Rebound in Storage Networking Jobs").
Described by HP as an "initiative is designed to enhance the client experience and better position Enterprise Services for growth," the company announced plans to consolidate its Enterprise Services' commercial data centers, management platforms, networks, tools and applications to "create a more scalable, modernized and automated IT infrastructure that will better serve its clients' needs (see "HP strikes back with Converged Infrastructure Architecture")."
The unfortunate side effect will be the elimination of approximately 9,000 positions over the next few years.
Tom Iannotti, senior vice president and general manager for HP Enterprise Services, said "Over the past 20 months, we focused on integrating EDS and improving profitability. Now that the integration is largely complete, we have identified significant opportunities to grow and scale the business. These next-generation services will enable our clients to benefit from the combined technology and services leadership that only HP offers."
HP bought EDS for $13.9 billion in 2008 and rebranded it HP Enterprise Services in September of last year.
To fund the consolidation HP will take a charge of approximately $1 billion over a multiyear period that will be included in its GAAP financial results. HP expects that, once completed, the transformation will generate annualized gross savings of approximately $1 billion and net savings after reinvestment in a range between $500 million and $700 million.
HP's most recent earnings report was strong, as it posted net earnings of $2.2 billion for fiscal Q2 (up 28% from the prior year) with $4.5 billion in revenue in the Enterprise Storage and Server segment. However, software was down 1% from '09 and services only grew 2% to $8.7 billion. See Dave Simpson's blog: "Solid storage growth in HP's Q2 report."
HP will reportedly create a few thousand new positions in support of the consolidation effort.
There may be a silver lining for any storage pros facing unemployment. Sister site Enterprise Storage Forum reports that the job market for storage networking pros is on the grow. Brocade, CommVault, EMC, NetApp, Oracle and VMware all appear to be hiring (see "NetApp Leads Rebound in Storage Networking Jobs").
Friday, May 14, 2010
EMC World Redux
May 14, 2010 -- Just when you think you're out, I'm going to pull you back in. Here's a roundup of all of our EMC World coverage, including articles and lab reviews on VPLEX, Unisphere, Data Domain and a couple of Ionix and Atmos announcements that flew under the radar.
There's a clearinghouse of links with all of our articles and lab reviews related to the 10th annual EMC World conference below, but let's tackle the news we haven't covered. While sequestered in the hotel adjacent to the show, a couple of things went right by me.
First up, EMC built out its partner ecosystem for the EMC Atmos cloud storage platform with a new crop of service providers and ISVs.
The service providers – including AT&T, CBICI, Hosted Solutions, Peer1 and Unisys – are using Atmos technology to deliver cloud services to their customers, while the ISVs now pledging support for Atmos include Acuo Technologies, Atempo, Aspera, Cloudera, CommVault, Gladinet, Emulex, EnterpriseDB, Informatica, lifeIMAGE, Metalogix, MedCommons, Nasuni, RainStor, Riverbed Technology, Seven10 Storage, Signiant, StorSimple and TwinStrata.
EMC is also making a new edition of Atmos available in its efforts to entice more partners in the form of the EMC Atmos Virtual Edition.
EMC claims the Virtual Edition "extends the ability to deliver web-accessible, elastic cloud storage qualities to customers using EMC Symmetrix enterprise storage and EMC Celerra unified storage platforms. Running in a virtual environment, Symmetrix and Celerra customers can extend their platforms to address new workloads such as content-rich web applications, storage-as-a-service, cloud archiving and access to external Atmos-powered cloud services."
Secondly, EMC announced version 2.0 of the EMC Ionix Storage Configuration Advisor. The new software automates the validation of storage configuration best-practices in physical and virtual environments, utilizes agentless discovery to simplify storage deployment and management, and provides detailed reports and trend analysis that improve storage change and configuration management processes, according to EMC.
Ionix Storage Configuration Advisor 2.0 offers coverage of the storage infrastructure from the virtual guest, to the VMware vSphere host, and down through the storage array and detects infrastructure vulnerabilities.
It also provides an audit trail of SAN changes and rule violations, flagging potential service-affecting events as they occur.
Now for the recap.
EMC kicked off the show with the launch of VPLEX, a new appliance with a scale-out architecture that can "teleport" applications from one data center to another.
EMC unveils VPLEX appliance for global storage networks
EMC World: EMC takes the wraps off VPLEX
And here's a VPLEX/VMotion lab review from Enterprise Strategy Group…
EMC VPLEX Metro and VMware ESX: Enabling 100 km VMotion with New Distributed Storage Federation
After VPLEX, EMC made some moves in the unified fabric market with a pair of newly expanded partnerships with Brocade and Cisco:
EMC expands converged networking deals with Brocade, Cisco
Also of note was the introduction of Emulex's first hardware-based encryption HBAs, as well as its first design win for the adapters with EMC.
Emulex secures EMC design win for encryption HBAs
In the midrange, the rumors were right on. EMC unified the management of its Clariion and Celerra storage platforms and upgraded its FAST technology.
EMC debuts Unisphere, FAST for Clariion, Celerra
In disk-based backup/deduplication, EMC integrated its Data Domain products with NetWorker.
EMC boosts Data Domain deduplication
Finally, EMC added some SharePoint capabilities to its SourceOne family:
EMC launches SourceOne for SharePoint
Our sister site, Enterprise Storage Forum, also covered the news of the week. Check out their articles from the show:
EMC unveils VPLEX appliance for global storage networks
EMC boosts Data Domain deduplication
EMC World: Tucci focuses on clouds, virtualization
Deduplication, Storage Tiering and VPlex Star at EMC World
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)