Around The Block Blog
by Liem Nguyen, (former) Director of Communications and Social Media, Dell Storage — February 14, 2011
Thanks to all who joined us on Feb. 2 for #SANchat on IT Resolutions for 2011. And of course, many thanks to our guest moderator Howard Marks (@deepstoragenet), who shared his observations based on some of the real-world testing and consulting he’s done.
We provided a general overview of topics discussed and some highlights below for your reading pleasure.
The Technology and Some Highlights
Network Convergence: Howard jumped right in to discuss network convergence. In his opinion, FCoE is not ready, but many disagreed. We had some fun exchanges on where FCoE technology is headed in 2011. I knew going into this that FCoE would generate some strong opinions and the SANchatters didn’t disappoint:
- @DeepStorageNet: Much as I love the idea of converged networking I think for 2011 FCoE is still hot air
- @stu: @DeepStorageNet all due respect, your FCoE message is old. embedded in Cisco, HP, IBM solutions. Baked Inside so nobody cares
- @rootwyrm: @DeepStorageNet Do you think we're going to see more top-of-rack FC-FC Edge/Core in heavy FC environments, esp. w/FC16 coming soon?
- @DeepStorageNet: I see a lot of features coming in DC Ethernet (DCB, Per VM security, TRILL) and don't want to upgrade my core w/o them.
- @iSCSIKing: @DeepStorageNet Do you see DCB being adopted faster than FCoE, since FCoE requires DCB? #sanchat
- @DeepStorageNet: @iSCSIKing We are seeing DCB switches from vendors that don't have FCoE now and customers buying them
Data Deduplication: After a long discussion on FCoE, we jumped to data deduplication. Howard felt strongly that data deduplication is only useful if it’s deployed cost effectively, and others agreed.
- @DeepStorageNet: Data Reduction can have a huge impact on costs but you have to really think through where and how to put it to use
- @DeepStorageNet: Truth is the biggest impact of dedupe is frequently not the local backup but that it shrinks the data enough to replicate
- @rootwyrm: @DeepStorageNet So what about folks using Tivoli Storage Manager, who don't do full weeklies and typ. see poor dedupe performance there?
Solid State Drives: After dedupe, we moved to SSDs and Howard felt solid state storage and automation go together very well (and apparently chicken and waffles is tasty…). Howard also encourages folks to undergo some spring cleaning and throw out your outdated IT wares.
- @DeepStorageNet: Now for what's hot: NFS for VMs, More Solid State Storage and automation
- @DeepStorageNet: NFS is a bit easier. iSCSI has practical limits on number of VMs/datastore and datastore size that NFS doesn’t.
- @DeepStorageNet: The solid state storage and automation go together like chicken and waffles
- @DeepStorageNet: Making solid state work: Tough question as it requires matching workloads to solutions. Low hanging fruit is the small dataset
Howard said that NFS is easier to use than iSCSI for VMs, but there is another point to consider. While there are minor scaling issues with VMFS, more and more storage vendors are supporting VAAI for hardware-assisted locking. (Compellent is hard at work on our VAAI.) We feel this implementation will level the playing field, meaning NFS will cease to have scaling advantages. Coupled with the fact that the vSphere Client Plug-in can automatically configure iSCSI, iSCSI can be considered just as easy (if not easier) than NFS. There’s going to be some different viewpoints depending on the vendor or protocol camp you’re in. As always, end users should triple check the math on vendor claims and weigh the benefits of multi-protocol functionality.
The Tweeps
Here is a list of some technology friends that participated in our chat, feel free to give them a follow:
We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, March 2 for our next #SANchat. Have ideas for what our next chat should focus on? Feel free to share them with @LiemNguyen or @DellCompellent.
by Liem Nguyen, (former) Director of Communications and Social Media, Dell Storage — February 02, 2011
It’s that time again for our monthly #SANchat! We trust everyone had a happy and safe New Year and have set some realistic IT resolutions for 2011. Please join us today, Feb. 2, from 3-4:30 pm CT to chat with our guest moderator Howard Marks. Howard, @DeepStorageNet, has written about the storage industry since 1987, has tested dozens of storage and networking products over the years and knows a thing or two about technology trends that get hot only to become nothing more than hot air. Howard also blogs for InformationWeek and Network Computing and runs the IT site DeepStorage.net.
In December, you may have followed along with Stephen Foskett’s “11 Trends for 2011” chat and this month we want to discuss these trends further. Howard will offer his opinions on where IT departments will see the greatest opportunities to reduce costs and increase efficiencies as the year rolls along. We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts and what you plan to do in the coming year! What tech products are you going to be most excited about this year? As budgets rebound, what issues do you think you’ll need to work through to implement your next IT project? What storage pains will you be facing this year and what will you do about it?
To join in #SANchat, we recommend using the TweetChat platform; you can also get additional information on the SANchat series by visiting wthashtag.com/sanchat or our previous blog post on the topic. We look forward to having you join the conversation about the 2011 Trends!
by Liem Nguyen, (former) Director of Communications and Social Media, Dell Storage — December 09, 2010
Thanks to all who joined us for the December #SANchat – the topic “11 Trends for 2011” brought some new folks to the board to discuss a variety of theories. If you missed the discussion you can catch up below on some of the topics and links, read the transcript, and find some new faces to follow on Twitter. Thanks again to our guest moderator Stephen Foskett for leading the conversation.
The Highlights
You can’t have a trends discussion without talking about the trendiest topic in the IT industry: yes, the cloud. Interestingly enough, one of the hot topics was actually cloud fatigue – the notion that the term ‘cloud’ will fall by the wayside as adoption continues:
@sfoskett: As @SamJ said the first time I met him, we'll know that cloud computing is successful when it's just called "computing"
The conversation also turned to the death of RAID – Stephen pointed out that RAID isn't dead as a general concept but the implementation has to change entirely. Also @virtual_bill pointed out that SSDs might improve the performance of RAID as far as device failures are concerned.
We also had a fun exchange on smartphones and tablets in the datacenter – what role will they play in the future?
@virtual_bill: Both have a place in datacenter assuming interfaces exist for proper display. Tablets better now as they may run fuller OS.
@sfoskett: I love some of the cool enterprise applications I'm seeing for the iPad: @OmniGraffle, iSSH and vnc http://bit.ly/5llsTV
Wrapping up on FCoE, the group generally agreed that network convergence is imminent, though Stephen says 2011 will see lots of chatter about FCoE, but it won't have real customer traction until 2014 or later:
@sfoskett: @stu I think you kinda need functioning product and customer adoption to end the protocol wars. Wake me in 2014...
The Links
During the conversation the participants shared a variety of links worth taking a look at; here a list of some of the best:
The Tweeps
We had mix of some regulars and new faces this month; here is a list of some new technology friends to follow:
@sfoskett
@Niketown588
@virtual_bill
@webjunkie
@stu
@nkampwerth
@SomeClown
@johnobeto
@nigelpoulton
@jonisick
We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, January 5 for our next #SANchat, until then have a safe and happy holiday, whichever one you celebrate!