Chuck's Blog

A Clear Discussion On Clouds

Wanted to share with you this interview I did with Gary Orenstein regarding cloud dynamics in the markeplace.

We ended up talking about a whole bunch of interesting things.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to talk about Atmos and Decho at the time, but I did manage to drop a few clues.

BTW, I'll be away from the keyboard for the next few weeks -- a week of vacation, followed by a week of heavy travel, so -- you've got a break from my blogging, for the time being.

See you soon!

The Speculation Game -- IBM Buys Transitive

Those of us the industry enjoy speculating what certain moves might mean -- especially acquisitions.

One hot topic is the significance of IBM's recent acquisition of Transitive.  A lot of the eye-candy used the word "virtualization" (at least they didn't use "cloud"!) to position the technology.

No, I think that's a misdirection -- whether intentional or not. 

The End Of Snaps?

EMC today announced a whole slew of updates to our backup, recovery and archiving (BuRA) portfolio.  Thanks to 'Zilla and Scott for covering different aspects -- since there's a LOT to cover here.

Among all the goodies, I noticed that RecoverPoint had a slew of interesting new features.  And, thinking about it a bit more, I guessed that maybe a few people weren't aware of just how cool this replication technology could be.

You can get all the product detail from the web site, if you're interested.  Instead, I'm going to spend my time highlighting a handful of concepts that I find intriguing.

Decho ... (Decho) ... (Decho)

It's short for "digital echo", hence the feeble attempt at wordplay in the title of this post.

It's also the name of the new EMC company that's going to be focusing on the information services for consumers.

Ostensibly formed through the combination of Mozy and Pi, this is the part of EMC that'll be focused on an entirely new market segment.

But, as always, there's a bit more to the thinking than shows up in the press release.

Do Tough Economic Times Accelerate Change?

I have to brace myself these days when I read the Wall Street Journal in the morning.  For the last few months, it's been nothing but grim economic news on a historically unprecedented scale.

Way back when, I did an economics degree, and I had to do a bit of macroeconomic modelling.  I laugh now about that whole exercise -- a total waste of time as we've appeared to have lost complete track of what the global economy has morphed into.

It looks like we don't have a clear understanding anymore regarding how the different pieces are structured and interrelate -- making "fixing" the problem essentially a guessing game with trillions of dollars at stake.

But there is hope -- challenging times have this unique way of accelerating structural changes.  Yes, it's very painful stuff for everyone involved, but you eventually get to the other side of it all, and it isn't business as before when you're all done.

One consensus example you hear frequently is the last dot-bomb bust -- the bones of which (cheap fibre and web technology) laid the groundwork for much of what we see today in the web 2.0 world.

So, what structural changes might we see this time around?

PowerGard For Storage?

Late last night - dozing with the TV still on - a rather strange ad came over the cable.

Maybe you've seen it?

They were advertising "PowerGard" with a devilishly simply pitch: just plug it in to the wall, and save 10% on your power bill.

That's just too damn easy, I thought.

So I went poking around this morning.

Back To Flash (Again)

Yesterday was Atmos and COS (cloud optimized storage) -- essentially storage at internet scale.

Today I'd like to delve back into the flash discussion -- storage at near-memory speed.

I think it's interesting because many of the industry people looking at this issue are travelling down the exact same discussion path that EMC did way back when, long before Jan 2008 when we announced EFDs (enterprise flash drives) for the DMX.

Like any journey, we asked ourselves many of the same questions that are just now coming up in the broader discussion.  At that time, we arrived at a consensus view, and continued our journey.

It's now been almost a year since we've had these products available for customers.  Not to point out the obvious, but (as of today), the only mainstream arrays that support enterprise flash drives are the DMX and CX series from EMC. 

I'm guessing we'll be seeing the very first flash-based offerings from other vendors next year -- which will lead to the inevitable shifting of the discussion from "good idea or bad idea" to "which vendor is doing it better?"

That's how markets evolve.

EMC Atmos (Maui) Is Here

Today ends most of the speculation around the often-speculated-but-seldom-seen "Maui" product, now offcially known as Atmos.

Before we get to the usual skepticism that accompanies any unique or novel technology, let's take a look at what EMC has brought to market, what problems it tries to solve, and some of the underlying technology concepts.

Ready? Let's go!

Really Long Wires

Today, t's very overcast here in New England. 

Time to write about clouds, I guess.

These days, I often end up talking with a variety of audiences about cloud concepts, or -- at least -- EMC's interpretation of them.  Talking about something a lot, with a lot of different people, helps you get better at explaining concepts over time.

And sometimes in the process, you come up with some interesting analogies to help explain nuanced concepts.

More "Raiding The Roadmap"

A while back, I wrote a rather snarky post on how some vendors in this business -- when faced with challenging market conditions -- "raid the roadmap" and pre-announce all sorts of features that customers won't be able to actually buy -- let alone implement -- for a considerable amount of time.

Leaving aside for the moment the rather sensitive issues associated with revenue recognition and corporate accounting standards, one has to wonder what this new style of "pre-announcement" means for the industry -- and, more importantly, what this means for customers.