Thoughtput

Podcast: Trends/Forecasts with Jon Toigo

We caught up with Jon Toigo of Toigo Partners International to get his take on 2007 trends and 2008 forecasts in our latest podcast.

Never shy about sharing his opinions, Jon begins by walking us through the non-recognition of Fibre Channel's 10 year anniversary, and reasons why there may not have been much celebration. He also notes the uptick in iSCSI activity and the incredible rate of disk capacity increases.

For 2008, Jon sees this capacity race leading to the invalidation of RAID 5 and a need to rethink the architecture of disk arrays.

Further, he points us to a simple framework called "C4" of major themes driving IT purchases today
    > Cost Containment
    > Compliance
    > Continuity
    > Carbon Footprint

Finally, Jon outlines the increase in software and services interest among customers, and in particular, the ability to add services into the network. He advocates strategies that avoid rip and replace tactics, and instead encourages changing from proprietary architectures to ones that deliver more flexibility through network-based services.

This is one episode you won't want to miss! Check out the full podcast here.

Also, check out Jon's blog, www.drunkendata.com.

Caching Strategies from Processor magazine

Processor recently published an article on Caching Strategies: Leveraging Caching To Improve Data Center Performance. A few highlights:

"Caching has always been a tried and true technique for enhancing the performance of systems and applications. The ever-growing demands on modern data centers, however, are driving the development of memory-based caching appliances that can improve data center performance in the face of increased loads.

And, it’s also important to note that caching appliances can help a business maximize the performance of its existing assets. Tony Asaro, senior analyst with ESG (the Enterprise Strategy Group), says if a business requires high-performance NAS and current solutions do not sufficiently provide that need, then a shared cache appliance can solve a major performance/business problem without the need for a huge capital investment."

You can check out the full article here.

Podcast: Trends/Forecasts with Greg Schulz, The StorageIO Group

Our next trends and forecasts podcast features Greg Schulz of The StorageIO Group.

Greg's reflections on 2007:

-Green storage in terms of power, cooling, environmental awareness
    +Learning how to be green
    +Looking beyond basic power-avoidance
    +Looking at performance (more IOPS/watt, more transactions per watt, more Exchange sessions per watt)
    +How driving up utilization will inevitably through something else out of balance
    +Balance Performance, Availability, Capacity, and Energy
-Small Medium Business as an increasingly important market
-and Data Protection

and for 2008
-Green continuation - people will become aware of issues as opposed to the current disconnect
-Vendors are going to message more towards real IT issues
-It will be about energy effectiveness, not just energy savings
-Following the current consolidation wave, we are likely to see a race to increase performance

Click here for the full podcast or see all of the Gear6 / Thoughtput podcasts in iTunes.

Podcast: Trends/Forecasts with Dave Raffo, SearchStorage

The next episode of our trends and forecasts series is with Dave Raffo, News Director at SearchStorage.

Dave's 2007 hot topics include compression and the impact of virtualization on storage. In 2008, he predicts that the bandwidth increases will affect the storage landscape by bolstering iSCSI, and that both file and block virtualization will continue as prominent trends.

Check out the full podcast here! Or subscribe in iTunes.

Podcast: Trends/Forecasts Kickoff with Marc Staimer

We're kicking off a podcast series on 2007 trends and 2008 forecasts with Marc Staimer of Dragon Slayer Consulting.

Marc shares several interesting observations in the podcast including the following highlights:

2007 Breakouts

• Managed Service Providers (with a focus on backup and business continuity)
  • plus what has changed that's led to a resurgence of this business model.
• iSCSI
  • plus what is the real effect VMware has had on this market

2008 Forecasts

• More users are looking beyond the big four storage vendors
  • Find out what areas are driving customers to look for more compelling solutions

Be sure to check out all the details in this 10 minute episode. Click here for the full podcast.

Gear6 and Thoughtput Podcasts now available in iTunes.

Defining Virtual I/O Acceleration + Podcast

Greg Schulz at The StorageIO Group wrote an insightful article recently about the up and coming terms of Virtual I/O Acceleration and I/O Virtualization.

What may seem like simple wordplay actually separates two distinct, and often complimentary solutions.

As Greg reminds us in the podcast, a well known computer industry quote is, "The best I/O is an I/O that you don't have to do." Virtual I/O Acceleration fits that goal. Using Greg's definition as a launchpad, we'll start with the following:

Virtual I/O Acceleration: Solutions that minimize I/O impact to applications, reduce latency, increase IOPS, and deliver "Virtual I/Os" instantly for improved application performance.

The other term, I/O Virtualization, is more about addressing the connectivity between servers (real and virtual), networks, and storage devices.

I/O Virtualization: Solutions that creating logical I/O paths from a single physical connection. As multiple virtual machines end up on a single physical server, the need to aggregate logical Fibre Channel, Ethernet, and other interfaces into one  single physical network interface becomes the only way to effectively manage the cabling.

Gear6 focuses on the Virtual I/O Acceleration side of the market. And our scalable caching appliances are a great fit for applications suffering from performance issues. A recent research paper written in conjunction with TheInfoPro outlines The Growing Need for I/O Performance due to server virtualization and new application roll out.

Click here for the full podcast with Greg Schulz discussing Virtual I/O Acceleration and I/O Virtualization.

Gear6 and Thoughtput Podcasts are also available via iTunes.

Gear6 and Thoughtput Podcasts Now in iTunes

Gear6 and Thoughtput podcasts are now in iTunes! We plan to launch a few more podcast episodes this year, so we've hopefully made listening to them a bit easier.

Stay tuned.