The Storage Architect

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10/06/11--15:27: Is The Performance Of All Cloud Servers The Same? (chan 1696195)

One of the benefits of delivering Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) through the cloud is an abstraction from the underlying hardware delivering the service.  There’s no requirement to understand what technology is being used to deliver, for example, cloud servers.  The specification of a cloud-based server is based on a few simple metrics, CPU, memory [...]


10/10/11--06:59: New Podcast: Nekkid Tech (chan 1696195)

Last week I was invited on to Greg Knieriemen‘s new podcast called Nekkid Tech.  You may remember Greg (who doesn’t) as the host, until recently, of Infosmack.  You can find a link to the download here (Nekkid Tech #3 – Chasing Amazon).  As usual I haven’t listened to this [...]


10/12/11--07:53: More on Cloud Server Performance – Updated! (chan 1696195)

Following on from my previous post, I thought I would do a little more work on cloud server performance.  First, it’s worth looking at the underlying hardware serving virtual servers in the cloud.  As I’ve been using CentOS as the base O/S for my testing, it’s pretty simple to get a summary of [...]


10/14/11--01:43: SNW Europe 2011 – Powering the Cloud (chan 1696195)

I’ve a busy few weeks planned for the end of October and November.  One event I’ll be attending is SNW Europe 2011.

The event takes place in Frankfurt between 2-3 November 2011, with the strapline “Powering The Cloud” – you can find a link to the website here: http://poweringthecloud.com/home.  There are actually three [...]


10/15/11--03:16: Solid State Arrays: Pure Storage Inc (chan 1696195)

A clear focus of the recent Tech Field Day #8 event was the use of flash storage (or SSDs) for storage arrays or within hybrid solutions.  Pure Storage offers an all flash storage array, which they say can be delivered at the same cost or less than traditional solutions.  It’s a [...]


10/17/11--00:04: IP Expo – 19 & 20 October 2011 (chan 1696195)

This week I’ll be attending IP Expo, which has probably become the UK’s biggest IT event.  You can find more details out at the IP Expo Website, but if you’re quick, entry is free.

I’ll be there both days and I’m pretty busy with vendor briefings, but if you are going, drop me [...]


10/26/11--03:01: Solid State Arrays: SolidFire (chan 1696195)

One of the attendees at TFD#8 was SolidFire Inc, another startup company focusing on selling entirely solid-state disk arrays.  As you’d expect, they have their own niche and part of the market they are targeting with their all-flash drive product.  So how do they compare to the competition and what’s their [...]


10/31/11--02:51: EMC Releases All Flash VNX (chan 1696195)

As the vendor who introduced flash drives into traditional arrays some 2+ years ago, we shouldn’t be surprised that EMC has released an all-flash version of its mid-range array, the VNX.  The new device, codenamed VNX5500-F can support up to 250 200GB drives for a maximum all-flash capacity of 50TB.  EMC don’t say, [...]


11/04/11--03:11: Emulex – Evolution of the HBA (chan 1696195)

At SNW Europe this week I took some time to talk to Emulex about their OneCommand product.  It’s been upgraded to version 2.0, which will be the subject of a post for another day, once I’ve had a chance to install and review it.

I also discussed the core of Emulex’s business, namely HBAs (Host [...]


11/06/11--13:24: Drive Prices Increase – Who Will Suffer Most? (chan 1696195)

Storagezilla calls out hard disk availability in his recent post.  In fact, I discussed the subject of drive prices last week with James Carter of Touchdown PR on my way to SNW Europe.  James highlighted he was seeing prices on standard drives having doubled recently.

I went back and looked at [...]