November 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The sudden news of Dell putting on the table $1.4 billion in cash to purchase EqualLogic must have caught not only me but also many storage pundits by surprise.
May be that's why so many commentaries seem to focus mainly on two easy to spot technologies that EqualLogic brings to the merge, iSCSI and virtualization.
Are these the only two jewels that motivated Dell to engage in the most expensive purchase in its history? I beg to disagree. However important, iSCSI and virtualization are not the main motivation for Dell, and here is why.
Dell is not new to iSCSI. In fact, Dell already has well established iSCSI products in its portfolio, including the recently announced PowerVault MD3000i and the AX150i.
Moreover, unified storage products such as the NX1950 can be configured also as iSCSI targets in addition to working as file servers.
Still thinking that Dell needs more iSCSI solutions? I don't think so.
To those who wave the "virtualization" flag I respectfully ask to explain what they mean.
That word has a very precise significance in the servers world, perhaps thanks to companies such as VMware, but in storage the term virtualization without further qualifications means nothing, zero, squat.
I don't think that Dell is going to bet all that money on an empty term, so what attracts the company toward EqualLogic must be something else.
Try, clustered storage? Resilience beyond RAID? Scalability without many restrictions? Near-linear performance increase? Yes, yes, yes and again yes.
Those are the same tangible characteristics of EqualLogic products that have intrigued our reviewers since 2003.
Perhaps nobody said it better than Paul Venezia, in his fairly recent review:
There are many ways to build and scale an iSCSI SAN, but the general rule is that as you add capacity, you also add bandwidth. With EqualLogic, this is part and parcel of the overall solution: You can’t add capacity without adding bandwidth.
This is what makes EqualLogic products not just another iSCSI solution. This is what will give Dell, if the deal goes through, one of the most comprehensive and diversified portfolio of storage solutions to date. I can't wait to see what new products will come out of this merge.
Posted by Mario Apicella on November 6, 2007 12:31 PM
October 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Exclusive preview: Xyratex goes modular
Xyratex goes modular
If many new storage arrays look surprisingly similar to you, don’t jump to the hasty conclusion that vendors are copying from each other.
Quite possibly the reason is that many new units are based on SBB (Storage Bridge Bay), a new standard that sees many vendors cooperating to create a compatible form factor and a modular architecture for components such as backplanes, power supplies and controllers.
For more info on this new standard, now reaching version 2.0, and to read the full list of participating vendors please explore the Storage Bridge Bay Working Group site.
Xyratex, a supplier of tier 1 storage vendors and one of the voting members of the group will announce next week, and will show at the upcoming Storage Networking World in Dallas, OneStor ESP (Extensible Storage Platform, a new family of product based on SBB 2.0.
The first model of this new platform, which is also Xyratex first SBB -based device, is the ESP SP1424s, a massive box that takes 4 rack units and can host up to 24 3.5" SAS or SATA drives in an impressive lineup of six rows.
One of the benefits of using the SBB standard is the ability to create different configurations on the same chassis by simply swapping modules. In fact, the SP1424s can be packaged into a final product with up to 4 energy efficient power supplies, and can mount, for example, two FC (fibre channel) controllers, or two iSCSI adapters or one of each.
It's no surprise that vendors such as Xyratex are quick to acknowledge the benefits of SBB solution: Exploiting its modularity they are able to offer their customers what is essentially the same basic box but can be quickly adjusted to satisfy different requirements that go beyond flexible connectivity to different SAN (storage area network) protocols.
For example adding a processor module makes the SP1424s capable of double duties as a storage and as an application server, hence suitable for NAS (network attached storage) deployments. By installing an application such as Windows Storage Server and taking advantage of 1GB SATA drives customers can easily push their file serving capacity to a respectable 24 TB in a single 4U box.
By contrast, if resilience is the main objective, installing two similar controllers customers can easily build high availability solutions capable of surviving a controller failure or a path failure.
No vendor was ready yet for a show and tell session with a OneStor based product before the announcement, so I haven’t actually tried to lift a fully configured box, but after checking the specs, I wouldn’t attempt this without help.
If the trend of building more dense storage arrays continues (incidentally, this was one of the new features driven in SBB 2.0) we’ll have to use motorized pallet trucks, or wear a power suit, to lift these babies.
Xyratex is not revealing at this time which vendors have shown interest or are developing new products based on the 4U24 but given its unique form factor, those new products should be easy to spot when they come to market.
One characteristic I am curious to explore in final products is the ability, built in the design of the unit according to Xyratex, to selectively power off individual drives when not accessed, which should make products based on the SP1424s sensibly more energy friendly.
Regardless, simply combining an application server and a storage array in the same box could bring some noticeable power saving, Xyratex explains, suggesting that the SP1424s is a more efficient alternative to a typical combination of an application server plus the equivalent storage capacity.
Like a double Mac to a glutton, the SP1424s is an attempt to satisfy our insatiable appetite with a larger serving of storage. If the promises of being a more environmentally friendly solution proves to be true and if final products are priced right, customers should be willing to byte.
Posted by Mario Apicella on October 1, 2007 03:00 AM
January 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)
DNF blends SFF drives and a large cache
Would you be interested in a drive that delivers 20 times the I/O performance of the fastest disk drives you can buy, using only a fraction of the power?
If you are, don't miss a new line of products that Dynamic Network Factory is announcing today. Hyper Solid State Disk Technology is a mouthful, but the idea behind these new drives is rather simple.
HSS drives combine a 2.5" disk drive, 2GB of high speed memory and, to ensure that cached data won't disappear during a blackout, a battery backup inside a container that fits any 3.5" SATA bay.
According to DNF tests, an HSS drive can sustain I/Os at a much faster pace than a speedy 15K RPM enterprise drive. Moreover, the new drive maintains the moderate power demand of the SFF (small form factor) architecture and costs much less than a full solid state drive, according to DNF
The first model starts shipping today and mounts a 120GB 2.5" drive. A 200GB unit should become available later this year.
DNF estimates that the smaller number of drives needed to achieve the same level of performance, and the significant savings in power consumption make for a sensibly lower TCO when using HSS instead of conventional enterprise drives.
Posted by Mario Apicella on January 30, 2007 02:00 AM
January 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Prostor Systems opens to perpendicular recording drives
If you're sold on the idea of backing up to a removable disk drive your target media have just become larger, 160GB to be accurate.
Prostor Systems is announcing today a new capacity increase for its RDX technology that offers now drives in 40GB, 80GB, 120GB and 160GB capacity.
RDX solutions combine a docking station, mounted internally or externally, and a cartridge built around a 2.5 disk drives. Differently from tape drives, an RDX docking station can read and write cartridges of any capacity.
The new 160GB model is the first cartridge to adopt drives with perpendicular recording, which opens the way to even larger future media. Currently, the RDX road map indicates a capacity growth up to 500GB per cartridge.
Price and availability of the 160GB RDX drives should be announced shortly by technology licensees Imation and Tandberg Data, according to Prostor.
Posted by Mario Apicella on January 15, 2007 09:20 AM
September 25, 2006 | Comments: (0)
Storage Bridge Bay rounds up specs 1.0
Why should you be interested to know that today the SBB (Storage Bridge Bay) Working Group has quietly published version 1.0 of its specs?
I'll give you two reasons: reduced cost and improved flexibility of storage enclosures.
As you may remember, we first heard about SBB last Spring when founding members Dell, EMC, Intel and LSI announced their plans to create a set of commons specs to simplify the manufacturing of entry level and mid tier storage devices.
About six months later SBB counts more than 30 members, sorry, too many to list them all, while IBM, NetApp and Xyratex have also joined the Board. Why so much interest surrounding SBB?
Because, as many analysts indicate, SMBs is a yet unexploited market segment and bears the promise of increasing revenues for years to come.
However, competition in that space will be more focused on price/ performance ratio than on offering unique, hard to mimic features as it happens instead for the top tier.
Obviously, cutting production cost by adopting standard components as the SBB charter suggests, means being better aligned with other vendors' price list, hence more competitive or not less competitive.
Another interesting aspect of that market is that SMB customers are more inclined to choose from a variety of technologies, rather than pick from just a few as larger customers do. Therefore, storage devices with a modular structure, where for example it's easy to add a RAID controller or a power supply canister respond better to those requirements.
The first version of the SBB specs addresses topics such as the physical dimension of a controller board, and form factor and electrical characteristics to connect a controller to the enclosure backplane.
Boring topics? Perhaps, but you will probably change your mind if SBB specs bestow the ability of custom-configuring your storage enclosures with a variety of options.
Now that the specs are out other products and other vendors will follow, but for examples of SBB 1.0 compliant devices look at the Dell PowerVault MD1000 or at the IBM System Storage EXP3000 .
This first version of the specs is just a beginning, because SBB members have already begun working on a second version expected to complete next year, that will incorporate some recent technological innovations such as 6Gbps SAS, 4Gbps FC and 5Gbps PCIe components.
Perhaps the most convincing proof of the importance of SBB is that member vendors with licensed technologies are granting other vendors no fee licensing to develop compliant products if the other party returns a similar favor with its own licenses. How is this for collaboration?
Posted by Mario Apicella on September 25, 2006 10:36 AM
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