I’ve been seeing the scuttlebutt about Apple and Promise Technology and couldn’t help but add my two cents about how many Promise arrays I’ve seen pop up lately.

Last week, while installing our IBM N-series, I saw a couple of admins installing a multi-shelf Promise array. Peering through the cages in one of our colo areas, I’ve seen quite a few Promise and generic arrays installed. Walking the aisles in the areas I have access to, I’ve seen a rapid uptick in the installation of Off-Broadway-brand array vendors.

We own a small (5TB) Promise V-Track array we use for limited duty validation and testing (we bought it before the Storevault was released). I like it — it certainly fills the need and it does what it’s supposed to do. I can buy any brand and size SATA hard drive I want and the management tools come with the product at no additional charge. I was able to set it up in about 30 minutes and after the drive initialization (took close to 24! hours) I was all set and ready to go, all without a PhD. I even did the guy thing and didn’t read the instructions! I don’t know about you, but I can’t really ask for more, considering the price.

I’ve seen the folks at Apple accused of being stupid or lacking foresight in the past (Steve, I’m still upset about my Newton!!). In recent years, the accusers have usually been dining on crow, given the fact that Apple’s products consistently create trends. (Anyone up for an iDog?) I firmly believe they know something about the trend towards lower-cost generic arrays using generic disks in generic trays, otherwise (at least in my mind anyway), a company that prides itself on solidly locking you into their hardware when you use their software would have gone with a more mainstream storage vendor, or simply re-branded something and inserted a v-chip.

You’ve read me typing this for a couple of blog posts now, but I’ll type it again: Small to midsized SANs for under $50,000 with simple software and easy to use interfaces are going to be the market in the coming years. I’ll go a step further and say the days of proprietary drive trays and “enterprise-class ” drives are numbered too.

I seem to recall another big vendor that often gets maligned for lacking foresight snapping up a low-cost storage array vendor recently.

More importantly, Apple knows how to make difficult things easy and stylish. Not to mention that people who OEM for Apple (Foxconn , Acer et al.) are quite happy pumping out the iWhatever. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to see Promise doing the same.

If there was ever a company that could pull off making a product that does easy data migration … see where I’m going with this?

Couple Apple’s really-easy-to-use SAN software with low-cost generic arrays and you could have a quick rise to major player in the storage software market. . .for a company many thought would be out of business by now, bringing in another company that “real” storage vendors look down their nose at.

Fibre Channel vendors aren’t the only ones pushing the new Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard designed to help Fibre Channel devices take advantage of 10-gig Ethernet.  Intel is also getting into the game, with an FCoE Linux initiator.

Intel this week released an open source FCoE initiator that it will maintain on http://www.open-fcoe.org/. The FCoE initiator will work the way iSCSI initiators wok on current IP SANs. By going open source instead of developing the initiators for its own products, Intel hopes to accelerate the availability of FCoE by getting feedback from the Linux community. Intel storage planner and technologist Jordan Plawner said the goal is for Linux servers to ship FCoE-ready, just as they ship with iSCSI inititators today.  

“We believe 10-gig Ethernet provides an opportunity to converge SAN and LAN traffic,” Plawner said. “We’ll continue to support iSCSI, but FCoE makes it easier to connect Ethernet into Fibre Channel SANs.”

That’s the party line for Fibre Channel vendors, and one that iSCSI SAN proponents dispute. Like iSCSI vendors, Intel is looking at it from the Ethernet side - but Plawner said FCoE will be better suited than iSCSI to take advantage of the coming Enhanced Ethernet spec. Enhanced Ethernet is a new version in the works that boosts Ethernet’s performance to make it more suitable to run storage.

“It’s much easier to adopt FCoE for Enhanced Ethernet,” Plawner said. “iSCSI is Ethernet end to end, so you would need a completely new subnet because you need Enhanced Ethernet on every node. With FCoE, just the first server and first top-of-the-rack-switch needs Enhanced Ethernet.”

Intel is looking to put FCoE Linux initiators on adapter cards that will work with FCoE switches in 2008. Plawner says he expects FCoE-enabled switches from Brocade and Cisco in the second half of next year, and he thinks companies will deploy FCoE in their networks by the end of 2008.

Plawner’s time frame is even more optimistic than that of some Fibre Channel storage vendors backing FCoE. Brocade execs says they don’t expect adoption until 2009, and they don’t think widescale adoption will arrive before 2010. But Brocade pledges to support FCoE in the DCX backbone director it will launch next year. Cisco’s FCoE switches are expected from Nuova Systems, which is 80 percent owned by Cisco. Nuova has yet to give product details, but industry sources say it will likely have FCoE switches or cards that plug into Cisco MDS switches early next year.

Here is a more detailed explanation of how Fibre Channel and Ethernet can converge.

Up until now you (corporate IT) have not had to worry about video surveillance. That job was up to the security guys, those guys that wore uniforms and pretty much kept to themselves. But be prepared. If you are not already deeply involved in video surveillance equipment RFP creation, acquisition, installation and management, you will be very soon.

The world of video surveillance is changing so rapidly that the user and the traditional supplier are both in a state of frenzy. It is within this transformation that the role of IT is becoming increasingly critical. The reasons for the increase in video surveillance are pretty easy to understand. Post 9/11, enterprises as well as governments are all adding or increasing video surveillance to the security equation. Of course, casinos and banks have always been the leading users of video surveillance, but now everyone is in the game. On a typical day, a person living in a city may be videotaped five or more places, as he drives to work (and passes through specific traffic lights), parks his car in the company parking lot, enters the building, makes a trip to the bank at lunch, grabs a couple of items at the local K-mart and heads home. There are all kinds of privacy issues that can be debated, but I am staying away from that. At least for now. Right now, I am more interested in the technology and IT’s increasing role in video surveillance.

Traditional video surveillance equipment was not designed to deal with this onslaught and is gasping for air. It is being replaced almost completely with IP-based equipment.  That’s where you come in. Until now, most video surveillance equipment was based on CCTV (closed circuit TV), which basically meant the cameras, which recorded analog video, were hooked up via coaxial cable to the central point, where the video was taped on VCRs. Later, DVRs converted the analog signal to digital at the central location before storing it. But, these technologies cannot deal with the onslaught of data from more and more cameras and the fact that cameras are increasingly adding higher resolutions.

The latest crop of cameras records video in a digital format, and compresses it using MJPEG or MPEG before transmitting it over standard IP network to a central location that stores the data on scalable disk arrays. Once in the realm of IP, all the goodies we are used to in IT become available to an industry that still thinks of guards manning physical structures. Centralized management become feasible, data can be accessed asymmetrically, from multiple locations, replicated when appropriate. Another level of sophistication is being added at the end points. Now cameras can be activated when they detect motion or switch into a higher resolution if certain criteria are met. Video analytics allow software to recognize facial characteristics. Searches can be conducted for specific objects or people. You get the idea. It is like James Bond gadgetry becoming available to regular folks. But, that is reflective of the world we live in.

I think you (IT) need to be prepared to play a major role in this transformation that is occurring. You are the resident experts in storage and, at this point, pretty well up on IP technologies as well. Video surveillance simply becomes another application you have to support. So, if you are not already deeply involved in the selection and day to day management of the video surveillance equipment, it is only a matter of time. Security people who used to make decisions on such purchases without any consultation, will now insist on your involvement. You should gladly offer to help.

Another important thing to realize is that the type of storage you end up selecting for these applications will very likely be different than storage for other applications. For video surveillance the attributes that matter for storage include cost effectiveness (dirt cheap), highly scalable across both capacity and performance (cannot afford to create islands of storage), low entry price point, cost effective availability (mirroring may be too expensive), protection from disk drive or nodal failure and, most importantly, it needs to IP-based. Everything else in this environment is IP based, so making storage IP-based makes it easier to understand and manage. FC storage would bring in a level of complexity that is unnecessary here. Also, legacy architectures that have grafted an IP (iSCSI) interface would not cut it here, because they would not meet the other requirements above. Storage players that I believe merit consideration include Pivot3, Intransa, LeftHand Networks and to a lesser degree, EqualLogic (their price point may be too high for this application). There are other inexpensive storage offerings, such as from Nexsan or Xyratex but if an architecture does not allow clustering and presentation of a single system image, as it scales, it misses a criterion that I consider absolutely necessary for this application. However, you may want them in the initial mix as you start the evaluation process. I am sure you have enough on your plate without adding yet another storage-hungry application. But the way the winds are blowing, you either pro-actively plan on this or you will get pulled in pushing and screaming.

As a journalist, it’s been interesting to see what went on in the HBA market today. Yesterday, Emulex was briefing press about its announcement of 8 Gbps Fibre Channel components scheduled for today. This morning when I checked the wires, however, there was a very similar announcement from QLogic, by whom I had not been briefed.

Turns out they beat Emulex to getting the press release on the wires by a couple of hours. Today Emulex officials are trying to figure out how they got “scooped” on the announcement; it’s a common occurrence among competitors in my line of work but relatively unusual for IT companies.

In the long run it’s not a big deal, and it’s probably not going to substantially affect either company, except probably to tweak Emulex a little and give some QLogic execs a chuckle today.

Bottom line is, the release of these components is at this juncture a fairly moot point for end users, since 8 Gbps FC HBAs are only really going to come into play when there are 8 Gbps FC SAN switches, which isn’t slated to happen until next year. Both of these components in turn also would need 8 Gbps FC SAN storage systems for 8 Gbps performance, and that’s also at least another six months away, and probably longer.

Emulex is releasing these products in test quantities to system vendors for testing. The HBAs are also available directly to end users who want to be extra, ultra-prepared for the advent of 8 Gbps FC, since they are backward-compatible with 4 Gbps and 2 Gbps FC systems. Emulex also pointed out that users’ technology refreshes don’t always jibe with vendors’ product cycles, so if the vagaries of budgeting dictate outfitting your servers with 8 Gbps HBAs now, now you can go for it.

Linux is currently used in about 20% of the medium to large sized data centers, and according to some reports, it will be in some 33% of data centers before the end of the year. By 2011, it is expected that most data centers will have at least half of their environment running some flavor of the Linux OS. As this platform really begins to settle in, it is important to consider the ramifications that it will have on storage, data protection and disaster recovery.

When I look at how a supplier handles coverage of a platform, I compare it to the games checkers and chess. When a supplier has “checker coverage”, that means they have just enough support of the platform to be able to get a check mark. When I say they have “chess coverage”, that means they have deep coverage, including specific databases that are popular on the platform.

Looking at the foundation of data protection, backup software is a good place to start. Most of the major suppliers certainly have “checkers” type coverage of the Linux environment. Most have Red Hat and maybe Suse variants covered, but some still only support Linux as a client, meaning that the Linux servers cannot have locally attached tape. As your Linux environment grows, this can be a real problem. A handful of the backup software suppliers have also ported over their Oracle hot backup modules, and while Oracle on Linux is significant and growing, the MySQL install base seems to be growing faster. And, while in the past the size of the MySQL data set was not nearly as large as the Oracle data set, it seems to be catching up there as well. A little farther behind is PostgreSQL, but it still has a significant install base and it too seems to be growing. So, it is important that your backup application supports more than just Oracle and can do more than just hot database backup, being granular to the table space level to help with faster backups and recoveries for example.

There are backup applications that support Linux completely, and there is no longer a need to sacrifice. This may mean supporting two backup applications in the enterprise: one for Windows and one for Linux. But, as I have said in past articles while not ideal, that is not unacceptable, especially if it means you significantly improve your level of data protection on the second platform. You may find that your new product provides as good as or even better support than your original one.

When looking at core storage the situation is equally interesting. For block-based storage or SAN storage, basic support or “checker coverage” seems to be there across the board. Most of the SAN vendors support fibre attaching Linux servers to their SAN storage and their growing support for iSCSI connections. There is not much support beyond this basic connectivity though. There is limited support for boot from SAN.

Interestingly, when it comes to SAN-based storage the manufacturers have created modules for specific applications that allows their SAN arrays to better interact with them. For example, they might have a module for Exchange that will quiesce the Exchange environment, take a clean snapshot and then mount that snapshot to a backup server for off-host back up. Despite the increased growth of the Linux install base, and especially the growth of MySQL and PostgreSQL in that environment, we have not seen many specific tools to protect these increasingly critical applications. You can write scripts to accomplish the above, and in many cases now you have to. But, it would be better to have this integrated into the storage solution, so you can avoid all the issues that surround homegrown scripts.

With Linux and NAS based storage, you have to be equally careful. The Linux file system is Unix, so that means working with a Windows Storage Server based NAS can often be problematic. In all fairness, a Linux based NAS often has problems with Windows clients. There are two options here. You could focus on the Tier 1 NAS providers that have the Unix and Windows files system differences mostly resolved. This has challenges in cost, but provides comfort and reliability. Another option is to use a virtualized network file management tool. With a network file management product you can have both a Windows NAS and a Linux NAS and have data directed to the appropriate NAS based on data type, allowing for a seamless support of both file systems. Of course, a network file management product delivers far more than this. For example, it can enable a migration of data as it ages to a disk-based archive or it can help with migration to a new NAS platform all together.

Disaster recovery is another point of consideration. If you are replicating at the SAN level, then the SAN storage controller itself can cover most of this. But if all of your Linux data is not on a SAN then you may have issues with replication of disaster recovery data. With the available replication software applications, you have some very Linux focused applications but not many that can cover the enterprise. Replication is an area where you don’t want to have too many different tools to monitor and manage. Focus on finding a solid multi-platform tool than can replicate Linux, Unix and Windows data.

Linux is going to be increasingly important in enterprises of all sizes and it seems that the traditional market leaders in storage are going to ignore the platform or give it just “checker” type of coverage. The new players on the market are taking advantage of this and are moving quickly to fill the void. It is interesting to note that most of the manufacturers that have a strong Linux solution also have an equally strong Windows and Unix solution. So, in only providing the very basic of support for Linux the market leaders may end up ceding the entire enterprise.

For more information please email me at georgeacrump@mac.com or visit the Storage Switzerland Web site at: http://web.mac.com/georgeacrump.

Following EMC Corp.’s storage announcements last week, which included the introduction of a new Symmetrix array, the industry has been buzzing with the claims and counterclaims of EMC and high-end disk array rival Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), as well as debates over the merits of each company’s products.

In the past week, two storage consultants in the UK have dug into the technical specs of Hitachi’s USP and the new Symmetrix DMX-4. Nigel Poulton over at Ruptured Monkey takes a close look at the pros and cons of Hitachi’s external virtualization vs. EMC’s internal tiered storage. Meanwhile, storage consultant Chris M. Evans discusses the “green” claims being made by both vendors in their recent array announcements.

Nigel concludes that there are pros and cons to both the HDS and EMC approaches, depending on a user’s particular environment, which leads him to ask a very pertinent question:

There is certainly a demand for both [approaches to tiered storage]…When compared to something like Thin Provisioning, which both vendors are working on, implementing the above features would be a comparative walk in the park.

So if it’s not that hard to implement, and by doing so you potentially hang on to your customers, why not pinch your nose and take the plunge?

Too much Kool-Aid might be the answer.

As for Evans, his conclusion is that ”neither vendor can really claim their product to be ‘green’.” HDS’s USP, he concludes, still has a higher power cost per-drive than EMC’s Symmetrix. However, he doesn’t gloss over the weakness of using higher-capacity drives (to which every systems vendor has the same access) to make a “green” claim, saying, “customers choosing to put some SATA drives into an array…[will] see only modest incremental power savings.”

Evans is not the first to bring up the need for big vendors to step up their efforts further around power consumption, particularly when mushrooming data retention and compliance archiving requirements mean data management strategies for reducing storage growth are losing their effectiveness. Users at this year’s Storage Networking World conference in San Diego also called on storage vendors to invest in better silicon rather than pushing the issue back onto users and, in essence, blaming them for their storage management practices. Elsewhere, server and PC makers have already begun moving to more efficient power designs within systems, and users, like Evans, are looking for a similar committment from storage manufacturers to built-in reductions in power consumption–rather than lip service about the latest SATA drives.

As expected, Overland Storage has been forced to make some drastic cuts in the wake of losing two major OEM customers: HP and Dell. The company announced it has laid off 54 employees, or 14% of its workforce, in the second round of job cuts. Here’s a story that includes a response from the CEO on how the company hopes to pick up the pieces.