Automated Storage Tiering for Celerra

	Automated Storage Tiering for Celerra We’ll call this one Automated Storage Tiering as it isn’t block based. Since I’m waiting for a massive synchronisation of the house’s music library to complete this should prove quick and easy. So what are we going to do? We’re…
We’ll call this one Automated Storage Tiering as it isn’t block based. Since I’m waiting for a massive synchronisation of the house’s music library to complete this should prove quick and easy. So what are we going to do? We’re going to automate the placement of files on Celerra storage tiers, some native volumes some deduplicated and compressed volumes, using Rainfinity policies and the Celerra FileMover API all while offering transparent recall during file access. And what’ll that achieve? Due to the reduced capacity it should deliver a smaller physical footprint, reduce energy consumption and do all nice things for your TCO over a number of years. And how will it do that? The same way you always do nice things for your TCO, drive efficiencies out of what you already have. You’ll need: -1x Rainfinity FMA. Physical or Virtual Appliance. Your choice. -One or more tiers of secondary storage on your Celerra. -A Web browser, a mouse and a keyboard. -My dashing good looks and excellent personal taste. Okay so that’s a unrealistic for you and not an actual requirement but I just thought I’d give you something to strive for after you’ve implemented this. How does it work? Lets say we have three tiers of storage Tier 0 (Enterprise Flash Drives), Tier 1 (FC), Tier 2 (SATA). We create a filesystem, if one hasn’t been created already, on Tier 2 and enable Celerra Deduplication. We then create Archival policies for the Tier 0 and Tier 1 filesystems on the Rainfinity FMA and set them to run automatically. These policies can be as basic as move anything which hasn’t been accessed in a few weeks or months to something with a much more specific set of criteria. Rainfinity FMA communicates with the Celerra FileMover API which migrates files between tiers and creates a stub file in the source tier to allow for transparent access. Note that the Tier 2 destination can be on the same or a different Celerra. And there you go, quick and easy Automated Storage Tiering for Celerra. But my giant music sync still isn’t finished so now I’m going to have to think of something else to write about.
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Release: Karesansui 1.0

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The Karesansui project has released version 1.0 of its open source virtualization management application.

While version 1.0 only supports the Xen hypervisor, the developers plan to support KVM and other virtualization systems in the future.  Administrators can install a virtual guest OS, boot VMs, shutdown VMs, and reach the virtual console directly through a Web browser interface.

The application is licensed under the GPL and LGPL and uses open source components such as: Python, libvirt, webpy, flup, lighttpd, psycopg2, tightvncviewer, jquery, jquery.form.  The web interface also has a RESTful architecture allowing for other applications to interact with it over HTTP.

Karesansui is available to download and you can also find an installation tutorial as well.  If you are looking for screenshots, you can find them here.

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Virtualizationdotcom/~3/hbujGLPgFnU/

Symmetrix V-Max: Watching The Reaction

	Symmetrix V-Max: Watching The Reaction Well, it’s the day after the big announcement. Plenty more to discuss on technologies, architectures, pros and cons, impacts, etc. — and that will inevitably happen over the next few weeks and months. But when you announce something this big,…
Well, it’s the day after the big announcement.  Plenty more to discuss on technologies, architectures, pros and cons, impacts, etc.  — and that will inevitably happen over the next few weeks and months. But when you announce something this big, it’s always to see how different audiences react.  And, yes, I do have some gentle suggestions for some of EMC’s competitors in this regard.

The Quick Breakdown

Most of the reaction from industry analysts was in the range from “very positive” to “uncharacteristically enthusiastic”.  Most of them forgot to do their usual pointing out of concerns, limitations, caveats, etc. as they do with any product or technology announcement.

From my perspective, they either didn’t see any real caveats, or got swept up in the general enthusiasm for what EMC announced.  Probably a combination of the above.

The industry-savvy press (those that specifically follow this stuff) had a similar reaction as well.   The general coverage from Chris Mellor, Dave Raffo, Beth et. al. was pretty good.

The independent storage bloggers — people like Steve Foskett and Chris Evans — were generally enthusiastic.  As were end users like Martin G, who took time from his holiday to watch the launch and offer up his thoughts on his blog.  Thanks, Martin!

One crowd that wasn’t particularly enthusiastic was many of EMC’s competitors.  I would be shocked if they weren’t extremely critical of something this big.  As a matter of fact, we were all looking forward to their responses post-launch.

We were kind of disappointed in that regard.  We were looking for good, intelligent discussion around the pros and cons of EMC’s architectural thinking.  We didn’t get any of that.

As a matter of fact, the quality of the responses were so poor, I’d like to offer up some friendly coaching to some of my industry compatriots.

#1 — You Shouldn’t Criticize What You Don’t Understand

Many of the competitive responses showed that the responder had no clear idea of what the new V-Max was, how it worked, key technical characteristics, etc.  Between the official launch and all the blogging support, there was a ton of detail to go shoot at if you wanted to.

Instead, we saw a number of responses that were incoherent, rambling and sounded like they were reacting to something entirely different.  It wasn’t pretty.

[note: if you're still really confused, Dave Graham has put up this very handy guide here.]

In the future, my advice would be to take more time to really understand what you’re reacting to.  I think you didn’t do you or your company any favors by random shooting.

#2 — Use Your Own Bloggers

A few of our competitors have taken to using “competitive blogging consultants” (you know who you are) in an effort to participate in the discussion.  Not only is it kind of sad that you have to do this, but your hired guns aren’t that good either.

My advice would be to develop your own voices and talent in this regard — since blogging is supposed to be authentic and personal. 

Or get better hired guns.

#3 — Ridicule Is Cute — For Kids

Some people like Marc Farley are clever with ridicule and sarcasm.  Most competitive bloggers aren’t.  They had great fun poking fun at the internal code name of the product and other aspects of EMC and the product launch. 

While I’m quite sure there some people out there that are somewhat entertained by all of this, I can’t help but think that your customers were looking for an intelligent, mature response to an intelligent, mature product launch from EMC. 

And if you’re going for a character assassination (a few employees of competitors went this route), the least you could do is reveal your real name and affiliation.  You ARE proud of your work, aren’t you?

Marc — great work on your video — now remind me, which company do you work for again?

#4 — Claiming “We Were First” Can Be Pathetic

In any complex and sophisticated technology launch, you’ll inevitably find a few ideas and concepts that might have been expressed earlier in other vendors’ product lines. 

Most of us would generally consider this a good thing.

As an example plenty of EMC’s thinking ends up in other vendors’ product lines — it’s how the IT industry works. 

Claiming to be first is fine for bragging rights, but little else. 

One could argue that the first popular desktop operating system was CP/M from Digital Research.  Or the first popular web browser was Netscape.   Heck, the first popular LAN I used was twisted-pair RS-422. 

None of it really matters, except to historians.

#5 — We’re Already Doing That, You’re Catching Up To Us, Etc.

None of this really sort of hooting and hollering really stands up to real scrutiny. 

Please consider this we’re not complete idiots here at EMC.  If something had already been done — and done well — why would we invest a bazillion dollars in R+D to do it again? 

The fact that we spent the time and money to build something means that we believe that what we have is significantly better and differentiated that what’s already out there.  That’s the way we work.

My advice would be to join the discussion and to helping people understand the pros and cons of the new architectural approach — which is truly is “new”.

#6 — If You Don’t Have Anything To Say, Don’t Say Anything

A few of EMC’s storage competitors — like IBM — just pretended that the whole thing didn’t happen.

Given that their current situation — and the fact that they had nothing useful to say — that’s probably the best approach.  A few others might want to follow their example in the future.

Going Forward

I hope my industry colleagues accept this coaching in the spirit in which it was intended — I’m trying to help you improve your collective game out there.

We at EMC love a good, competitive rumble.  It makes us and our products better, and generally improves the industry.  And, gauging from the reaction from our customers and yours — everyone is very interested in what we’re doing with Symmetrix V-Max as well as the rest of the EMC portfolio.

So — all of you — I’d encourage you to take the time to understand what V-Max is all about, how it works — and offer up your best intellectual thoughts as to the pros and cons. 

We’re really looking forward to the discussion.

Thanks!

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