-
Latest Post
Re-introducing Spectrum Virtualize 8.4
Some of you may have noticed that we haven’t really posted about the new features and functions that have been introduced… [Read More]
Previous Posts
-
The partnership includes sharing maths…
ORIGINALLY POSTED 9th October 2007 11,690 views on developerworks The SPC contacted SUN regarding violations of the SPC ‘fair-use’ terms. To that end, John and Valdis have retracted both the newsletter comments and blog posts that claimed ‘faster than SVC’ therefore the links in this post no longer show their original content. I have left this post in place for archive purposes and have disabled further comments. 2nd November 2007 We all know that SUN and HP re-badge the Hitachi storage products and call them their own, but it would seem they are also sharing ‘Hitachi math’ too. In particular… [Read More]
-
Storage Virtualization – Part 5 – Upgrades
ORIGINALLY POSTED 7th October 2007 6,043 views on developerworks I’ve been meaning to post this entry in my Storage Virtualization part work for some time now. Day to day work, testing some new functions and customer commitments have left little, if any, time to dump my thoughts. This weekend has proved to be a good respite, and allowed me not only time to catch up on whats being talked about out there, but also to spend some time with the family. Balancing time between work and play is always a struggle. Before I got married it wasn’t so difficult, if… [Read More]
-
Why did you do it like that?
ORIGINALLY POSTED 6th October 2007 11,046 views on developerworks This morning one of my colleagues in my office bay started a discussion about the fine line between divulging useful technical information on this blog-o-sphere while maintaining the confidentiality of technical information, product plans and general intellectual property of IBM. I explained to him that I think of this as I would a customer forum. That is, when I wonder if I should be talking about something I consider if I’d discuss it freely when visiting, or with visiting customers who are not under NDA. If the answer is yes, then… [Read More]
-
SVC Certified with VMware ESX 3.0.2
ORIGINALLY POSTED 5th October 2007 10,153 views on developerworls There has been much said about the VMware certification process, why isn’t SVC fully supported etc; particularly in comments on my blog. Today IBM and VMware jointly announced full certification of SVC 4.2.0 with VMWare ESX 3.0.2. Read the full press release here. As I had previously commented, we were in the process of a joint certification test, the results of which have now been reviewed and approved by VMware. Until now all customers wishing to use SVC with VMWare ESX3 had to submit an SVC RPQ. No longer, as long… [Read More]
-
So I guess that only leaves EMC…
ORIGINALLY POSTED 3rd October 2007 11,120 views on developerworks I’d like to at least take my hat off to HDS for once. I have been laying into them with apparently car salesman like maths, but then it had to be said. So why this sudden note of appreciation. For stepping up to the mark and submitting their USP-V to the Storage Performance Council, SPC-1 benchmark, even if this does displace the IBM DS8300 from the top of the pile of enterprise storage controllers. I’m sure many will be quick to point out that they did use twice the number of… [Read More]
-
SSDs are becoming a Reality
ORIGINALLY POSTED 19th September 2007 11,146 views on developerworks I’ve been following the Solid State Disk (SSD) evolution over the last year or two with a selfish eye. Running one of the largest test stands we have in the Hursley SVC lab (from a number of spindles point of view) I too suffer the pain of drive fall-out. Its more of just an annoyance to me though, as it means the last performance run I have just done is invalid, as the arrays were degraded – and even using RAID-10 this can make a noticeable difference. Just one degraded array… [Read More]
-
More Throughput
ORIGINALLY POSTED 15th September 2007 6,751 views on developerworks Following on from Chris’ comments in “Pause for Thoughtput” I had a look around and there are some interesting posts being made. Being one of those close to the “Virtualmania” scene I had a look through the second paper Gear6 have written, “Provisioning for Predictable Performance”. Jumping to the section discussing why storage is lagging behind and needs super-scalable caches to catch up. Reading this seems to imply that nothing other than caching is available today – and seems to miss a very big point. Caching is not the only solution… [Read More]
-
OFF TOPIC: There’s Always Two Sides – FIA F1
ORIGINALLY POSTED 14th September 2007 7,877 views on developerworks I must admit that one of the things I have looked forward to this year has been the Saturday qualifying and Sunday race days in the Formula 1 calendar. It’s been a great F1 season so far, not just because I’m a Brit (well Scotsman abroad – Coulhtard was always British when he won… ) Nobody, least alone Alonso expected rookie Hamilton to make such an impact to the sport. I firmly believe, as do most people no doubt that Alonso expected to be #1 in his new team. It does… [Read More]
-
Incredulous Attachment Claims
ORIGINALLY POSTED 11th September 2007 10,475 views on developerworks I spotted Hu has made a long post about the new mid-range USP, and various articles out there are discussing it. However, it seems my replies to both Hu and Claus fell on deaf ears – yet again they are quoting those incredulous attachment figures. So yet again lets look at the numbers Claus and Hu are banding around : (I already discussed the numbers over at ‘zilla’s place) The USP VM can also virtualize up to 96 Pbytes of heterogeneous external storage compared to the USP V’s 247 Pbytes, he… [Read More]
Barry Whyte and Andrew Martin : IBM Storage 