NOTE: If you're not sure, VAAI is an important part of the VMware vStorage API enabling offloads to the storage hardware for certain functions. VAAI stands for vStorage API for Array Integration.)

Well and truly gone are the days where the most important announcements relating to product refreshes were hardware related such as new CPUs, increased internal bandwidths and (arguably) artificially inflated feeds and speeds etc.  In today's world, integration with services higher up the stack are where the bragging rights are, and VMware is probably King at the moment.

If your storage array doesn't tightly integrate with VMware, or your vendor doesn't appear to be part of the VMware inner circle, you may be justified in wondering how strategic your product is.

To storage customers, I recommend that when gathering and compiling your requirements that you use when choosing storage vendors and platforms, that you have requirements such as tight VMware integration right at the top of your list.

The same goes for storage vendors.  Those vendors who announced VAAI integration/support will no dcoubt have been sipping champagne and basking in the knowledge that their customers were feeling secure in their investments.  On the other hand, those vendors were conspicuously quiet, were left very much on the outside and stressing over whether or not their customers were re-evaluating their preferred storage vendor(s).

Of course there are other non-VMware features and APIs that are important too, it just seems VMware is where most of the buzz and growth is at the moment.

Finally, hardware upgrades and the likes are still important, just less so than integration with features such as those provided by VAAI.  Hardware improvements should be demonstrated to enable better support of features further up the stack (such as VAAI)

Thoughts welcome.

Nigel

While eating out recently with a group of top industry techies* in Tokyo Japan, we had a short light-hearted discussed of the above.  There was a definite difference of opinion; some of the people involved felt it made absolutely no difference at all, whereas others (including me)

think it may make a difference, albeit my be small….  May be we are all wrong and it makes a big diference!?

* Top industry techies included: Greg Knieriemen, Chris Evans, Michael Hay, Devang Panchigar, Robin Harris and the Rickatron himslef Mr. Rick Vanoever.  The Ghelfster was also there, and although she is top notch, strictly speaking Carli is not a techie.

While I do think it makes a difference, I’m not suggesting it makes a huge difference – its certainly nowhere near as important as it is with consumer goods – but I’m open to being wrong.  After all, I’m a techie and not in marketing.

Let me just throw together a quick list of some of the reasons I think it makes a difference -

1. It’s a conversation point for techies.  Having folks talk about your company and your kit is almost always a good thing.
2. It helps in marketing.  And we all know that effective marketing is often more important than technical merit or technical superiority.
3. Things that are aesthetically pleasing on the eye leave us with positive thoughts and feelings about the object. And that doesn’t just apply to good-looking girls!

While on the topic, I’m also one of those that thinks getting your product on poplar TV shows and films is a good idea.  An example that immediately comes to mind is the frequent and positive appearances of Cisco and Apple kit on the popular TV show 24.  In one episode, Chloe O’brien (renowned for being able to hack though any IT security system) makes a statement along the lines of “they have the new Cisco proprietary firewall system, its impossible to hack”.  Corny, I know, but its sewing information and impressions to people.

And then there’s the recent appearance of an EMC VMAX on the same show.  While some point out that one of the VMAX arrays had smoke coming out of it, the important thing was that it powered back up and still worked

WARNING: Don’t test burning your own VMAX in your own Data Center.  The above was performed by professionals with all required safety equipment at hand

And let’s face it, Apple, Cisco and EMC know how to market a product!

If names are important then surely…..

Also, there is no doubt that companies (including vendors of Data Center hardware) think product names are important.  So if something as seemingly unimportant as a product name (when compared to security or data availability etc) is important, then surely physical product aesthetics are also important?  Both are part of product image and branding.

TIP: Go hire an ex-Apple dude to design the front doors and front bezels to your Data Center kit.  It won’t break the bank or introduce bugs to your code, but it might have a positive impact on branding and and may be even sales.

Just my thoughts.  Please take a minute to register your opiion in the poll below -

Feel free to chime in with your own opinions, as well as images of the good the bad and the ugly of Data Center products.  Here’s quick image that I’ll leave you to make your own mind up on -

Nigel

Recently, I've even talked to industry experts as well as HDS folks about the fact that they only have two of the major three components that make up the increasingly popular vertical stack – with networking being the missing link.

NOTE: I define the three major components as Compute, network, and storage.  I know there’s more to it than that, but they suffice for this short article.

I don't know if it's just me, but the fact that Hitachi has its own networking kit – from Ethernet switches to MPLS – puts a whole different spin on their planned vertically integrated stack.

We already know they do storage, they recently announced that they will soon start shipping their BladeSymphony server platform (which has been around for a while in ASIA/Japan) to the rest of the world as part of their Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP). But Hitachi built networking was notably missing from the announcement.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  I am in no way suggesting Hitachi have any plans of pushing this networking kit out with their Unified Computing Platform (UCP) solution when it finally ships. In fact as far as Im aware, they have no intention of doing this (yet).  This post is merely pointing out to others that Hitachi does have its own networking kit and there are some obvious synergies for the future….

Anyway, the whole thing came to light today while attending the Hitachi uValue convention in Tokyo Japan.  First up, Chris Evans pointed the following poster out to me -

Then we walked around the corner only to be presented with a boatload of the actual kit on display.  Feast your eyes on these -

Note: The booth guys (Japanese) tell me that Alaxala is a joint venture between Hitachi and NEC. Seems to be true from a quick search on Google.

Granted…… In true Hitachi style, they are not the prettiest things in the data centre – no doubt the old "form over function" thing – but appearance is far from the most important thing when choosing a product.

Other than the above, I literally know nothing about the kit – the booth guys spoke very little English, and in true British style I speak about 0.8 words of Japanese.  So all I know is that the Ethernet switches that do 1Gbps and 10Gbps.  There is nor Fibre Channel. But when I asked the booth guys (the ulitmate source of all truth and knowledge) about competing with other vertical stacks such as VCE/vBlock, I got the impression they were suggesting they might be working on FC.  Of course these are just booth guys and we understood a grand total of about 25 words between us

Although they apparently sell a fair amount in Japan (and potentially ASIA but Im not sure about the last part sue to language barriers), I know full well that you don’t just break in to the networking space.  However, apparently the switching technology in the back of the Hitachi BladeSymphony kit is Alaxala.  So that’s a potential toe in the door of the Data Centre (assuming HDS manage to make a good go of selling Hitachi BladeSymphony blade servers and their Unified Computing Platform, UCP).

Just thought Id let people know that in the background Hitachi does actually have in-house networking skills and kit.

Courteous comments welcome.

Nigel

DISCLAIMER: Hitachi picked up the bill for this trip to the Hitachi uValue convention in Tokyo (flights, food and hotel). For the record I will have an airport parking charge of ~£75GBP to pick up myself when I land tomorrow.

In his article Eli talks about the need for HDS to do a better job of selling itself. 

In his article, Eli makes several references to “Chad’s Army”.  For those of you who don’t know, Chad Sakac is a big chief VMware geezer at EMC, and his so called Virtual Dream Team is comprised of some of the very top VMware and virtualisation talent on the planet.  Not only are these guys (and I know several of them) top technical talent, they are also hugely influential.  These guys are vExperts and write via books, websites, blogs, as well as being Twitter warriors.  While I know Twitter and the likes are not everybody’s cup of tea, however, they are powerful mediums…. if you just as much as mention you have a question or issue with VMware and the wider VCE piece, you can guarantee that at least one of these guys will be all over you with all the help and info you could ever want.  Cisco have been similar in their evangelising of FCoE.

In respect to Chad’s Army, I agree with Eli’s observation that HDS could benefit hugely from something similar.  It’s a brave new world and the likes of EMC Cisco and VMware are leading the way.

Anyway, in light of Eli’s article I thought I’d throw in one or two other things that I think would benefit HDS  -

1. Unleash and encourage your in-house technical talent.  Have them, and reward them for, participating in the following -
   • Online user forums
   • Twitter
   • Podcasts
   • Blogs
2. Take a leaf out of Cisco book (literally).  Cisco have written great books (the traditional paper kind that get posted out to you from the likes of Amazon) on UCS, FCoE and Converged Networking.  Search Amazon and you’ll find them. 
   • Want to know about FCoE?  Chances are you will end up reading something written by somebody on the Cisco payroll. 
   • Want to learn about the architecture behind UCS?  There’s a book for that too. 
   • On the other hand, want to find good info on HDS technology? ……… ???…..??? In fact it was so hard to find good HDS technical information, that a while back I felt the need to write a technical USP V User guide myself!
3. Invest in creating and nurturing a real online community.  One that opens up the top talent at HDS and makes them more accessible to customers.  A good starting point would be improved support forums (check out VMware or even HP support forums).  forums.hds.com looked like it could have been something good 4 or 5 years ago when Jeremiah Owyang first started it up.  But I dare say it hasn’t changed at all since then.  If anything, it’s been left to gather dust and frustrate customers rather than help them. 
4. Institute MVP style awards.  Microsoft MVP and VMware vExpert type awards seem to be seen as valuable today.  I dare say they also help create communities, giving people something to aim for and a feeling of belonging – that their participation in and contributions to the community are valued….
5. Host a HDS World event.  Along the lines of the likes of EMC World and VM World.  These are awesome events and don’t need me to extol their merits

UPDATE: How about bringing back Mr. T for some more YouTube commercials?  Cast your vote below –

Check out this previous HDS and Mr. T combo!

I’m sure there are more, but those are the ones that came to mind when reading Eli’s article.

The claim to be the industry’s best kept secret is wearing a a little thin these days.  Time to step up to the mark and take off the gloves – or alternatively do nothing and remain in obscurity.

On a side note, I find it interesting that HDS are pushing the “open” aspects of their UCP (unified computing platform/vertical stack offering).  While I think this could be an important differentiator, it’s kind of hard to see this being a reality coming from a company that has a history and a reputation of being ultra closed.

Opportunity is knocking, will HDS answer?

Just my opinions of course

Nigel

PS.  I’m thinking it’s probably about time “Chad’s Army” got it’s own Wikipedia article

This was a landmark even for HDS PR and social media, and hopefully marks significant improvement in the way that HDS engage with the community and their customers. 

While at the event I had the privilege of joining with Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) and Devang Panchigar (@storagenerve) interviewing Hu Yoshida – Chief Technology Officer at HDS – on the latest episode of the legendary Infosmack Podcast.

On the podcast we talk to Hu about his career, HDS vision on unified compute (vertical stacks) and storage architectures.  It is well worth a listen, even if I do say so myself, as Hu is an industry legend.

I also highly recommend the Infosmack podcast (even the episodes that don’t feature me) for all the latest industry gossip and tech roundup.

Listen to the podcast here

In the near future I’ll be posting on what I learned while at the event.

Nobody ever seems to talk about IBM storage, its just boring right?

The above comment was arguably true, until IBM acquired the XIV Nextra product just over two years ago.  This acquisition seems to have propelled the IBM storage portfolio back in to the mainstream. People are actually talking about an IBM storage product!

In fact its probably fair to say that XIV is one of the most intruiging, most misunderstood and most talked about storage platforms on the market.  There's certainly not shortage of claims being made from both sides of the fence – from IBM, and from the competition.  As a result its hard to know who to believe.

In order to try and shed some light, I pulled together some of the most respected independent voices I could find, and got us all together on a call to openly discuss the pro’s and con’s of XIV.  The result is 50 minutes of XIV technical talk – definitely one for your MP3 player.

People joining me on this edition of the show -

NOTE: Apologies up front for the poor sound quality when Alan speaks – he was a late addition to the show and didnt have a good skype headset.  But his experience and contribution is hopefully worth it.

Enjoy the show – thoughts and comments welcome!

On the topic of I/O Virtualisation, we look into a product that takes I/O adapters (NIC and HBA) out of physical servers and places them into a Top of Rack switch and extends PCIe out of the server chassis to the ToR switch.  The notion of extending PCIe out of the server and plumbing a rack with PCIe is very interesting.

• Dennis Martin (@demartek)
• Dave Graham (@davegraham)
• Stu Miniman (@stu)

For an hour solid, we talked FCoE and the realities of deploying the technology.

As well the the recording of the call, which I recommend listening to, there will be several short resultant articles posted on Wikibon covering topics such as -

• CIO Considerations
• CTO considerations
• Operation and organisational considerations
• Getting Rid of Stuff – what can FCoE help me throw out.

This was the first ever Peer Incite call to hit the 200 maximum participants limit.  Proof that FCoE and network convergence are hot topics in the Data Center.

If you’re considering deploying FCoE, then I recommend you and take a listen.

I can be contacted via the Contact Me page or on Twitter at (@nigelpoulton)

Nigel

In this inaugural episode of the Technical Deep Dive Podcast I'm joined by Greg Ferro from Etherealmind.com and Camden Ford from Xsigo Systems.  Cam talks to us about Xsigo Systems and the technologies and solutions they offer.

This is available as a two-parter due to length.  Part 1 is about 30 minutes long and Part 2 is about 40.  What can I say, you cant dive deep in 20 minutes!

Comments welcome!

To help with this I spoke with Roberto Basilio at HDS.  Roberto heads up Product Management for Platforms and knows a thing or two about how HDS fits into the larger Hitachi organisation.  Oh and he knows plenty about the HDS product line-up too!

Urgh? HDS and Hitachi are the same company right?

Actually, they’re not!

Starting from the beginning…… Any press release or official company announcement from HDS is tagged with the following “Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd (NYSE: HIT) and the only provider of…”.  So, that’s that, clear as….. mud!  Well, that’s probably unfair, but with all of the FUD and underhand comments that get spouted from the competition, one could be forgiven for thinking that HDS is some b@$tard child that Hitachi, Ltd is ashamed to own.  Others would have you believe that HDS as a mere sales division with absolutely zero influence on product development and futures.  While none of which are true, they do a pretty good job of confusing some people.

Subsidiary Family

One of the first impressions I got from speaking with Roberto was that he is not a fan of the term subsidiary.  He feels that HDS are an integral part of the larger worldwide Hitachi IT products group – a valued member of the larger tightly-knit Hitachi family.

A couple of examples of the closeness and intimacy of the relationship include the following -

1.  Minoru Kosuge, current Chairman of the Board of HDS, has previously served as division president of RSD (RAID Storage Division at Hitachi, Ltd) where he headed the development of the Universal Storage Platform (USP).

2.  Yoshinori Okami, current Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at HDS, has previously served as President of the Disk Array Systems division of Hitachi, Ltd.

According to Roberto, senior management folks moving around within the greater Hitachi IT products divisions is commonplace.

Personally I’d be willing to bet that HP, as tight as HP’s relationship is with Hitachi, Ltd is, are not as tight as with Hitachi Ltd as that.  HDS are family!

I should point out that Roberto was quick to acknowledge the value of the Hitachi and HP relationship and was in no way derogatory toward HP.  He even pointed out that Hitachi, Ltd also resell some HP products….

We’ve got more than you!

In the HP and Hitachi article, I quoted James R. Wilson, HP StorageWorks XP Disk Array PRoduct Manager “Hitachi has 6-8 engineers on site in California to work with HP's engineering teams on a continual basis…”.  On that topic, Roberto was able to confirm what I already knew – the number of Hitachi Ltd engineering type staff on site at HDS corporate offices far exceeds the 6-8 at HP! 

Roberto also confirmed that HDS staff are regularly over in Japan and that he himself had recently been over in Japan.

We designed that

Something that some of the competition would like to believe is that HDS have no involvement in product development and futures.  They would have you believe that the reason HDS don’t talk futures is because they don’t know futures.  They would have you believe that the first HDS knows of a new product is when it arrives in a large box from Japan with a note on the side saying “Unpack carefully, take photos, upload to web, start selling tomorrow”.  From what Roberto tells me, this is a long loooong way from the truth.

Taking the USP family as an example…. While it is true that the hardware development is done in Japan, HDS have been directly responsible for the design of some of the most important and well known USP features including the following -

• Hitachi Universal Volume Manager – Controller-based external array virtualization
• Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning – Thin Provisioning, wide striping…..
• Hitachi High Availability Manager – USP V Clustering

To be clear, while the above were developed by RSD in Japan, the design and requirements were lead by HDS in the US.  According to Roberto, USP V clustering was 100% driven by HDS.

Other examples of products under the remit of HDS in the US are -

• Hitachi Storage Command Suite (oh how I wish they would stop renaming things every other week)
• HCP (formerly HCAP). 

HCP is 100% owned and developed by HDS.

Speaking with Roberto I quickly got the picture that there is a lot of collaboration, knowledge and staff sharing between the two.  It certainly doesn’t seem like HDS are a mere sales division or disowned child!

SANRISE Universal Storage Platform

One final point.  While it is true that HDS do not sell in Japan, HDS are now responsible for worldwide marketing of the USP and AMS family of products.  What this means is that while Hitachi Ltd sell in Japan, due to cultural reasons (fair enough), they now sell disk arrays under the same marketing names as HDS.  So whether you buy your DKC610I from Hitachi in Japan or HDS anywhere else in the world, it will be called the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V.

Previously Hitachi Ltd had marketed the RAID400, RAID500… family of arrays SANRISE 9900 etc while HDS had marketed them under the names Lightning 9900, Universal Storage Platform etc.  While there is very little in a name, the competition occasionally touted this as an example of the two companies apparently not speaking with each other   I guess we can put that one to bed now!

As well as worldwide product marketing, HDS are also responsible for worldwide product management and product requirements.  That’s a fair amount of trust and responsibility in my book.

When I asked Roberto if there were ever collaboration meetings between Hitachi Ltd, HDS AND HP…. he hesitated, laughed and left me feeling that indirectly there might be

Thoughts and comments welcome!

Nigel

DISCLAIMER: At the time of writing, I am not employed by Hitachi, HDS or HP.