February 24, 2011 – IDC predicts that by 2014 the cloud storage market will exceed $7 billion per year. That compares to about $1.5 billion in 2009. Assuming IDC’s prediction comes true (which is debatable), it’s no wonder that so many vendors are crowding into the cloud storage space.
But every small cloud storage equipment/services provider has to come up with a business case that sets them apart from the 800-pound gorillas in the market, most notably Amazon and EMC.
All of the smaller players have value propositions versus the big boys, but Nirvanix has recently become one of the more vocal challengers. To back up their claims, Nirvanix officials cite customers such as NBC Universal and GE, both of which deployed Nirvanix’s cloud storage platform after evaluating Amazon S3, EMC Atmos and other alternatives.
I recently chatted with Geoff Tudor, vice president for strategy and business development at Nirvanix, and Steve Zivanic, Nirvanix’s new vice president of marketing.
Versus Amazon’s S3, Nirvanix claims a number of advantages. For example, unlike Amazon, Nirvanix allows customers -- including security auditors -- to inspect its data centers (of which there are seven worldwide). That might not be a big deal for many companies, but for those that still harbor concerns about certain aspects of the cloud – such as security – it might be important.
Nirvanix also allows customers to determine where their data will reside, and to provision their data, and guarantees Quality of Service (QoS) levels. And Nirvanix enables federation of public (remote) and private (local) clouds.
Versus EMC Atmos, Nirvanix claims scalability advantages (billions vs. millions of files), the ability to federate public and private clouds (vs. only private clouds), and independence from specific hardware and file systems. Nirvanix’s Web Services Layer can sit on top of virtually any file system, including those from NetApp, EMC (Isilon and Celerra) Exanet and Ibrix. In addition, Nirvanix users only pay for usable capacity (aka storage-as-a-service); there are no extra charges for data protection capacity (e.g., replication, RAID 6).
Nirvanix also differentiates its approach to cloud storage by offering different deployment options, which the company collectively refers to as “CloudComplete.” At the heart of each deployment option is the CloudNAS gateway.
From there, users can leverage Nirvanix’s Storage Delivery Network (SDN) public cloud platform, which provides a federated, tiered grid with a single namespace and unified view, or go with the company’s hNode software, which provides a cloud services layer for hybrid (public and/or private) cloud architectures.
More cloud storage articles:
Is cloud-enabled DR ready for prime time?
EMC debuts self-service platform for cloud storage
eSilo tackles cloud-based backup, DR
3X upgrades cloud storage appliances
Showing posts with label cloud storage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cloud storage. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Top Five Storage Technologies for 2011
January 10, 2011 – Any top technologies list is somewhat (totally?) arbitrary. Do you pick them based on how interesting the technologies are? How much end-user interest is behind them? The extent to which the technologies will benefit end users? How much revenue they’ll generate? Or all of the above? Let’s go with “all of the above.”
Here’s my list of some of the key storage technologies for this year (in no particular order), with links to related in-depth features and recent product news articles from InfoStor and our partner site Enterprise Storage Forum.
#1. Solid-state disk (SSD) drives
2011 will finally be The Year of SSDs. All of the major disk array vendors now offer SSDs (mostly from STEC, although competition will heat up significantly this year). Prices are declining rapidly as volumes increase and technology improves. Some vendors are positioning relatively inexpensive multi-level cell (MLC), as opposed to single-level cell (SLC), NAND flash for enterprise duty. SSD and controller vendors have solved most of the issues around reliability and endurance which, together with the price declines, eliminate the primary gating factors to end-user adoption of SSDs.
Market researcher IDC predicts that the total SSD market will grow at a 58% CAGR in unit shipments and a 44% CAGR in revenues over the next few years.
The fastest growing segment of the overall market is enterprise-class SSDs, where unit shipment are expected to surge at a CAGR of 74%, and revenues are expected to grow at a 54% clip, through 2014.
IDC expects the total SSD market to exceed $7 billion in 2014.
Related articles:
Why solid state drives won’t replace spinning disk (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Fixing SSD performance degradation, part 1 (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Fixing SSD performance degradation, part 2 (Enterprise Storage Forum)
SSDs hit mainstream stride
Intel ships miniature SSDs
SSD update: Toshiba, OCZ
Hitachi GST enters SSD market
STEC scores OEM win with IBM for MLC SSDs
LSI ships SSD-based accelerator card
#2. Data reduction (data deduplication and/or compression) for primary storage
Just like data deduplication for secondary storage swept the market and became mainstream over the last couple years, data reduction for primary storage will gain traction in end-user adoption over the next two years.
Interest in data reduction for primary storage picked up significantly last year due in large part to a number of factors, including NetApp’s evangelizing the technology, IBM’s acquisition of Storwize, Dell’s acquisition of Ocarina, and the entry of startups such as BridgeSTOR.
Related articles:
IBM to buy Storwize for real-time data compression (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Dell to acquire Ocarina for data deduplication
Startup BridgeSTOR enters data reduction market
Musings on the future of data dedupe (blog post)
Data deduplication: Permabit finds success with OEM model (blog post)
#3. Cloud storage
A few years after the term ‘cloud storage’ was introduced, vendors and users are still debating what it is. Let’s just call it storage-as-a-service, whether internal (private) or external (public, or hosted). There were probably more product/service announcements regarding cloud storage last year than any other technology. And there’s little doubt that will continue in 2011.
Related articles:
SNIA forms Cloud Backup and Recovery SIG
SNIA develops standards for cloud storage
SNIA completes cloud storage standard
Guidelines for implementing cloud storage
EMC debuts self-service platform for cloud storage
F5 ARX appliances integrate with cloud storage
#4. Data center convergence
Data center convergence can be viewed as the unification of storage, servers and networks, or, as the convergence of networks. In the context of the latter, we’ll see increased end-user interest in Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) in 2011, which was stalled over the last year due in part to the slump in IT spending. But as the IT world moves to 10GbE, the old FCoE-vs.-iSCSI debate will be renewed this year (with a lot of the debate centered on performance and cost issues).
I also expect a lot of controversy over the various approaches to converged (10GbE/FC/iSCSI) adapters, which are usually referred to as converged network adapters (CNAs). Expect a battle royale between vendors such as Emulex, QLogic, Intel, Broadcom and others.
Related articles:
Guidelines for FCoE deployment
FCoE I/O convergence and virtualization
Brocade moves FCoE beyond top-of-rack (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Broadcom claims 2 million+ IOPS on converged controller (blog post)
Intel’s card play in unified networking (10GbE+iSCSI+FCoE)
#5. Storage solutions for virtual servers and desktops
There has been a lot of innovation from storage vendors as well as virtual server platform vendors over the last few years in the area of optimizing storage for virtual server environments, particularly in disk arrays and backup/recovery software. But this year, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) deployments will take off, and just as virtual servers created a lot of storage challenges, so will VDI.
According to a Client Virtualization Straw Poll conducted by CDW, which surveyed 200 IT managers, 91% of the respondents plan to implement some form of client virtualization within the next 12 to 24 months. The primary drivers behind adoption of client virtualization are improved operational efficiency and reduced costs (expected savings were estimated at 20% of the IT budget, according to early adopters).
Related articles:
Storage considerations for VDI implementations
Seven steps to a successful VDI implementation
FalconStor adds VDI support to SAN Accelerator
Related blog post: The Top Ten storage acquisitions of 2010
Here’s my list of some of the key storage technologies for this year (in no particular order), with links to related in-depth features and recent product news articles from InfoStor and our partner site Enterprise Storage Forum.
#1. Solid-state disk (SSD) drives
2011 will finally be The Year of SSDs. All of the major disk array vendors now offer SSDs (mostly from STEC, although competition will heat up significantly this year). Prices are declining rapidly as volumes increase and technology improves. Some vendors are positioning relatively inexpensive multi-level cell (MLC), as opposed to single-level cell (SLC), NAND flash for enterprise duty. SSD and controller vendors have solved most of the issues around reliability and endurance which, together with the price declines, eliminate the primary gating factors to end-user adoption of SSDs.
Market researcher IDC predicts that the total SSD market will grow at a 58% CAGR in unit shipments and a 44% CAGR in revenues over the next few years.
The fastest growing segment of the overall market is enterprise-class SSDs, where unit shipment are expected to surge at a CAGR of 74%, and revenues are expected to grow at a 54% clip, through 2014.
IDC expects the total SSD market to exceed $7 billion in 2014.
Related articles:
Why solid state drives won’t replace spinning disk (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Fixing SSD performance degradation, part 1 (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Fixing SSD performance degradation, part 2 (Enterprise Storage Forum)
SSDs hit mainstream stride
Intel ships miniature SSDs
SSD update: Toshiba, OCZ
Hitachi GST enters SSD market
STEC scores OEM win with IBM for MLC SSDs
LSI ships SSD-based accelerator card
#2. Data reduction (data deduplication and/or compression) for primary storage
Just like data deduplication for secondary storage swept the market and became mainstream over the last couple years, data reduction for primary storage will gain traction in end-user adoption over the next two years.
Interest in data reduction for primary storage picked up significantly last year due in large part to a number of factors, including NetApp’s evangelizing the technology, IBM’s acquisition of Storwize, Dell’s acquisition of Ocarina, and the entry of startups such as BridgeSTOR.
Related articles:
IBM to buy Storwize for real-time data compression (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Dell to acquire Ocarina for data deduplication
Startup BridgeSTOR enters data reduction market
Musings on the future of data dedupe (blog post)
Data deduplication: Permabit finds success with OEM model (blog post)
#3. Cloud storage
A few years after the term ‘cloud storage’ was introduced, vendors and users are still debating what it is. Let’s just call it storage-as-a-service, whether internal (private) or external (public, or hosted). There were probably more product/service announcements regarding cloud storage last year than any other technology. And there’s little doubt that will continue in 2011.
Related articles:
SNIA forms Cloud Backup and Recovery SIG
SNIA develops standards for cloud storage
SNIA completes cloud storage standard
Guidelines for implementing cloud storage
EMC debuts self-service platform for cloud storage
F5 ARX appliances integrate with cloud storage
#4. Data center convergence
Data center convergence can be viewed as the unification of storage, servers and networks, or, as the convergence of networks. In the context of the latter, we’ll see increased end-user interest in Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) in 2011, which was stalled over the last year due in part to the slump in IT spending. But as the IT world moves to 10GbE, the old FCoE-vs.-iSCSI debate will be renewed this year (with a lot of the debate centered on performance and cost issues).
I also expect a lot of controversy over the various approaches to converged (10GbE/FC/iSCSI) adapters, which are usually referred to as converged network adapters (CNAs). Expect a battle royale between vendors such as Emulex, QLogic, Intel, Broadcom and others.
Related articles:
Guidelines for FCoE deployment
FCoE I/O convergence and virtualization
Brocade moves FCoE beyond top-of-rack (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Broadcom claims 2 million+ IOPS on converged controller (blog post)
Intel’s card play in unified networking (10GbE+iSCSI+FCoE)
#5. Storage solutions for virtual servers and desktops
There has been a lot of innovation from storage vendors as well as virtual server platform vendors over the last few years in the area of optimizing storage for virtual server environments, particularly in disk arrays and backup/recovery software. But this year, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) deployments will take off, and just as virtual servers created a lot of storage challenges, so will VDI.
According to a Client Virtualization Straw Poll conducted by CDW, which surveyed 200 IT managers, 91% of the respondents plan to implement some form of client virtualization within the next 12 to 24 months. The primary drivers behind adoption of client virtualization are improved operational efficiency and reduced costs (expected savings were estimated at 20% of the IT budget, according to early adopters).
Related articles:
Storage considerations for VDI implementations
Seven steps to a successful VDI implementation
FalconStor adds VDI support to SAN Accelerator
Related blog post: The Top Ten storage acquisitions of 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
EMC pulls the plug on Atmos Online
July 2, 2010 – EMC has shuttered its Atmos Online cloud storage service, at least as a commercial service for end users. The company is shifting the technology to its Atmos-based cloud storage service provider partners, which currently include AT&T, Hosted Solutions and Peer 1 Hosting.
And I’m sure there will be many more now that partners won’t have to compete directly with EMC.
On its Atmos Online site, EMC directed customers to its Atmos cloud service provider partners.
Going forward, Atmos Online will be available strictly as a development environment, rather than a paid subscription service.
In my POV, Atmos Online was always a POC anyway.
It was a proof-of-concept designed to lure services providers at a time when the cloud storage concept was still a bit sketchy (although some would argue that it’s still sketchy). Atmos Online was launched a little more than a year ago.
The losers in this announcement are existing customers of Atmos Online (although it’s unclear how many of those there actually were), who will have to shift to one of EMC’s partner’s services or migrate to a non-Atmos cloud storage service.
The winners, of course, are EMC’s Atmos cloud storage partners, which no longer have to compete with EMC. Likewise, EMC no longer has to compete with those partners. It’s a win-win on that front. In fact, on its Atmos web site, EMC is “strongly encouraging” its existing Atmos customers to migrate to one of its partners.
Atmos Online as a commercial service for end users apparently never gained enough ground for EMC to justify the costs associated with hosted services. There’s more money in selling the technology and equipment to third-party providers that, at least in the case of AT&T, are better equipped to handle -- and make money from -- public cloud storage services. (One of EMC’s other partners – Hosted Solutions – launched its Atmos-based Stratus Cloud Storage service last month, which is based on TwinStrata’s CloudArray technology.)
Besides, Atmos Online wasn’t EMC’s only cloud storage play for consumers; the company still has Mozy and online storage services provider Iomega.
The shuttering of Atmos Online should be seen not as a failure on the part of EMC but, rather, as another prescient and tactical move by the company.
And I’m sure there will be many more now that partners won’t have to compete directly with EMC.
On its Atmos Online site, EMC directed customers to its Atmos cloud service provider partners.
Going forward, Atmos Online will be available strictly as a development environment, rather than a paid subscription service.
In my POV, Atmos Online was always a POC anyway.
It was a proof-of-concept designed to lure services providers at a time when the cloud storage concept was still a bit sketchy (although some would argue that it’s still sketchy). Atmos Online was launched a little more than a year ago.
The losers in this announcement are existing customers of Atmos Online (although it’s unclear how many of those there actually were), who will have to shift to one of EMC’s partner’s services or migrate to a non-Atmos cloud storage service.
The winners, of course, are EMC’s Atmos cloud storage partners, which no longer have to compete with EMC. Likewise, EMC no longer has to compete with those partners. It’s a win-win on that front. In fact, on its Atmos web site, EMC is “strongly encouraging” its existing Atmos customers to migrate to one of its partners.
Atmos Online as a commercial service for end users apparently never gained enough ground for EMC to justify the costs associated with hosted services. There’s more money in selling the technology and equipment to third-party providers that, at least in the case of AT&T, are better equipped to handle -- and make money from -- public cloud storage services. (One of EMC’s other partners – Hosted Solutions – launched its Atmos-based Stratus Cloud Storage service last month, which is based on TwinStrata’s CloudArray technology.)
Besides, Atmos Online wasn’t EMC’s only cloud storage play for consumers; the company still has Mozy and online storage services provider Iomega.
The shuttering of Atmos Online should be seen not as a failure on the part of EMC but, rather, as another prescient and tactical move by the company.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Cloud storage and unified computing: Beware vendor lock-in
June 4, 2010 – Vendor lock-in is always a bad thing, but in the case of cloud computing, cloud storage and so-called unified computing, it could be much worse.
Vendor lock-in with, for example, RAID arrays or backup software is a mild form of lock-in. You’re not exactly shackled and chained in an iron-clad tank underwater. Although it might be painful, time-consuming and costly, IT shops migrate data from Vendor A’s disk array to Vendor B’s disk array all the time.
Migrating from one cloud provider (whether they’re providing cloud computing or cloud storage services) to another may be much more difficult. There are options, however. Some vendors offer tools for migrating from one cloud provider to another. Nasuni is one example, and here’s the Nasuni team’s (not exactly commercial-free) blog on this subject: “The Cloud’s Little Secret: Vendor Lock-In.”
And the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is working on standards that promise portability between cloud storage providers (see “SNIA develops standards for cloud storage.”) However, it’s unclear whether SNIA’s standards will succeed and whether the cloud market share leaders will support those standards.
But these potential solutions to cloud storage lock-in beg the question: Why would you want to move from one cloud storage provider to another?
Nobody’s rushing to put their production data in a public cloud; rather, they’re contemplating putting their backup/secondary/archive data in the cloud. And if cloud storage providers meet their SLAs (and that’s a good bet with the large providers because those SLAs are relatively non-demanding) and they keep their prices in the pennies-per-GB range (which they will due to intense competition in this space), then it would be an extremely rare case where you would have any need to switch providers.
So the whole issue of migrating between cloud storage providers (which apparently has become a hot topic in the cloud community) seems to be a moot point, at least until companies start putting production data in the cloud.
Now, vendor lock-in in the context of unified computing is a different matter. If unified computing takes off, lock-in will not just be something to avoid; it will be a way of life in IT land.
But I think it’s quite possible that unified computing may backfire on the vendors that are pushing it. In an age of unified computing lock-in, IT shops may be more inclined toward non-unified-computing vendors. That means the “other” vendors in the market share pie charts.
The potential for vendor lock-in in unified computing may drive IT away from their existing vendors. Instead of cementing the market leaders’ positions, unified computing could finally be the trend that works against the big guys.
Maybe I should have titled this post “Lock, stack and barrel.”
Anyway, here’s some more info on unified computing and the potential of vendor lock-in: “Weighing the pros and cons of unified computing.”
Vendor lock-in with, for example, RAID arrays or backup software is a mild form of lock-in. You’re not exactly shackled and chained in an iron-clad tank underwater. Although it might be painful, time-consuming and costly, IT shops migrate data from Vendor A’s disk array to Vendor B’s disk array all the time.
Migrating from one cloud provider (whether they’re providing cloud computing or cloud storage services) to another may be much more difficult. There are options, however. Some vendors offer tools for migrating from one cloud provider to another. Nasuni is one example, and here’s the Nasuni team’s (not exactly commercial-free) blog on this subject: “The Cloud’s Little Secret: Vendor Lock-In.”
And the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is working on standards that promise portability between cloud storage providers (see “SNIA develops standards for cloud storage.”) However, it’s unclear whether SNIA’s standards will succeed and whether the cloud market share leaders will support those standards.
But these potential solutions to cloud storage lock-in beg the question: Why would you want to move from one cloud storage provider to another?
Nobody’s rushing to put their production data in a public cloud; rather, they’re contemplating putting their backup/secondary/archive data in the cloud. And if cloud storage providers meet their SLAs (and that’s a good bet with the large providers because those SLAs are relatively non-demanding) and they keep their prices in the pennies-per-GB range (which they will due to intense competition in this space), then it would be an extremely rare case where you would have any need to switch providers.
So the whole issue of migrating between cloud storage providers (which apparently has become a hot topic in the cloud community) seems to be a moot point, at least until companies start putting production data in the cloud.
Now, vendor lock-in in the context of unified computing is a different matter. If unified computing takes off, lock-in will not just be something to avoid; it will be a way of life in IT land.
But I think it’s quite possible that unified computing may backfire on the vendors that are pushing it. In an age of unified computing lock-in, IT shops may be more inclined toward non-unified-computing vendors. That means the “other” vendors in the market share pie charts.
The potential for vendor lock-in in unified computing may drive IT away from their existing vendors. Instead of cementing the market leaders’ positions, unified computing could finally be the trend that works against the big guys.
Maybe I should have titled this post “Lock, stack and barrel.”
Anyway, here’s some more info on unified computing and the potential of vendor lock-in: “Weighing the pros and cons of unified computing.”
Friday, May 21, 2010
Cloud storage is due for a shakeout
May 21, 2010 – I realize that it may seem ludicrous to predict a shakeout in a market that hasn’t even taken off, but I’m afraid that’s what’s in storage for the cloud storage market.
From where I sit (an editor’s desk, or the receiving end of the PR Gatling guns) there seems to be a startup getting into cloud storage every week. And since this has been going on for well over a year, those dozens of cloud storage providers from last year have probably blossomed into hundreds by now.
IDC predicts that cloud storage will grow from 9% of the overall IT cloud services market in 2009 to 14% in 2013. In dollar terms, that means revenues from cloud storage of $1.57 billion in 2009 to $6.2 billion in 2013.
There would appear to be more than enough room for dozens (hundreds?) of players in a market of that size, right? Wrong. There’s only room for a handful of profitable RAID vendors, just to take one example, and the RAID array market is way bigger than the cloud storage market.
What are these legions of cloud storage startups smoking? Or shooting? How can they possibly expect to turn a profit? There are a number of problems:
If I was going to start a storage company (pity the fool), I’d rather be a RAID vendor than a cloud storage provider. In RAID, at least you can undercut EMC and the boys on price. Maybe even technology. You’re not going to be able to that with cloud storage.
Cloud storage vendors already provide storage at pennies (ok, nickels in some cases) per GB per month. What are you going to do – Provide it for drachmas per GB? Not much profit in that business model. A better bet would be to start a disk drive manufacturing business!
There are a number of other obvious impediments for small cloud storage providers (small providers, not clouds).
Look who’s already in the cloud storage business.
Amazon didn’t invent the term ‘cloud storage,’ buy they’re almost synonymous with it.
And earlier this week, Google appeared to put its toes into cloud storage (see “Google Launches Online Data Storage Service for Developers” on Enterprise Storage Forum). After some free initial capacity, pricing appears to be 17 cents/GB/month, plus 10 cents/GB for uploading and 15 cents/GB for downloading.
Sure, Google’s cloud storage service is just for developers now, but if cloud storage truly is a billion dollar market you know that Google will chase Amazon.
And some people think that Microsoft will get into this space (google “windows azure”). Again, mostly for developers, but why stop there?
And then there’s EMC (Mozy, Atmos), the storage vendor that every storage vendor just loves competing with.
And cloud storage consumer kings such as Carbonite, who are moving up the food chain into SMB land.
The list of impediments to succeeding in the cloud storage market goes on and on, just like the list of vendors entering the space.
Don’t get me wrong: Cloud storage is a great thing (no matter how you define it, which can be like trying to nail a blob of mercury to a ceiling of Jell-o), but there just won’t be room for all the vendors clamoring for a piece of the pie.
So, if you’re a cloud storage startup and you still have some capital left . . . Wanna start a RAID company?
Cloud storage news:
ParaScale builds clouds for machine-generated data
InMage targets cloud providers
OpSource launches Cloud Files backup and archive service
Brocade, EMC lay groundwork for private clouds
CTERA offers cloud storage platform for MSPs
From where I sit (an editor’s desk, or the receiving end of the PR Gatling guns) there seems to be a startup getting into cloud storage every week. And since this has been going on for well over a year, those dozens of cloud storage providers from last year have probably blossomed into hundreds by now.
IDC predicts that cloud storage will grow from 9% of the overall IT cloud services market in 2009 to 14% in 2013. In dollar terms, that means revenues from cloud storage of $1.57 billion in 2009 to $6.2 billion in 2013.
There would appear to be more than enough room for dozens (hundreds?) of players in a market of that size, right? Wrong. There’s only room for a handful of profitable RAID vendors, just to take one example, and the RAID array market is way bigger than the cloud storage market.
What are these legions of cloud storage startups smoking? Or shooting? How can they possibly expect to turn a profit? There are a number of problems:
If I was going to start a storage company (pity the fool), I’d rather be a RAID vendor than a cloud storage provider. In RAID, at least you can undercut EMC and the boys on price. Maybe even technology. You’re not going to be able to that with cloud storage.
Cloud storage vendors already provide storage at pennies (ok, nickels in some cases) per GB per month. What are you going to do – Provide it for drachmas per GB? Not much profit in that business model. A better bet would be to start a disk drive manufacturing business!
There are a number of other obvious impediments for small cloud storage providers (small providers, not clouds).
Look who’s already in the cloud storage business.
Amazon didn’t invent the term ‘cloud storage,’ buy they’re almost synonymous with it.
And earlier this week, Google appeared to put its toes into cloud storage (see “Google Launches Online Data Storage Service for Developers” on Enterprise Storage Forum). After some free initial capacity, pricing appears to be 17 cents/GB/month, plus 10 cents/GB for uploading and 15 cents/GB for downloading.
Sure, Google’s cloud storage service is just for developers now, but if cloud storage truly is a billion dollar market you know that Google will chase Amazon.
And some people think that Microsoft will get into this space (google “windows azure”). Again, mostly for developers, but why stop there?
And then there’s EMC (Mozy, Atmos), the storage vendor that every storage vendor just loves competing with.
And cloud storage consumer kings such as Carbonite, who are moving up the food chain into SMB land.
The list of impediments to succeeding in the cloud storage market goes on and on, just like the list of vendors entering the space.
Don’t get me wrong: Cloud storage is a great thing (no matter how you define it, which can be like trying to nail a blob of mercury to a ceiling of Jell-o), but there just won’t be room for all the vendors clamoring for a piece of the pie.
So, if you’re a cloud storage startup and you still have some capital left . . . Wanna start a RAID company?
Cloud storage news:
ParaScale builds clouds for machine-generated data
InMage targets cloud providers
OpSource launches Cloud Files backup and archive service
Brocade, EMC lay groundwork for private clouds
CTERA offers cloud storage platform for MSPs
Monday, December 7, 2009
Cloud storage predictions for 2010
December 7, 2009 – As much as we might rail against the terminology itself, and despite the rampant hype around the technology, cloud storage is here to stay. And at least for a while, the seemingly hundreds of cloud storage providers can survive (pending the inevitable shakeout), jockeying and jousting for position and differentiation.
As cloud storage garners the attention of both large and small IT organizations, technological advances will come rapidly next year.
I recently spoke to Sajai Krishnan, ParaScale’s CEO (and fellow skiing enthusiast) about what to look for in cloud storage in 2010. Here are his predictions and comments.
Virtualization will drive adoption of private clouds in the enterprise. Virtualization has driven huge efficiencies in organizations but the weak link today is the storage infrastructure behind virtualized servers. The need to eliminate the SAN bottleneck and automate provisioning, configuration, management and recovery across the compute and storage tiers will drive enterprises to begin to adopt cloud storage.
“The SAN performance issue is the controller,” says Krishnan. “VMware has a best practices for storage page that starts by saying you need to figure out what the I/O requirements are for each of your applications. Any storage administrator would love to have that information, but admins often don’t have a clue about the I/O requirements of their VMized applications.”
“You have controller bottlenecks. How many disks are you going to stack up behind the controller as you scale out? It’s much more manageable when you can buy cheap servers like popcorn and just keep scaling out [in a cloud architecture].”
Service providers will start to unify cloud computing and cloud storage. In 2009 service providers began expanding cloud storage offerings. The cost and management efficiencies provided a much-needed storage alternative for consumers, SMBs and enterprises. To further drive efficiencies, cost savings and management ease of use, service providers will begin executing VMs directly on cloud storage platforms. Unifying cloud compute and storage infrastructure will also provide a platform for service providers to build new value-added services.
“With large cloud storage implementations you discover that 90% of the data is cold, and you have a lot of CPUs idle,” Krishnan explains. “Some people are looking at running hypervisors and VMs on the storage nodes.”
The middle tier emerges. The strategic importance of a low-cost, self-managing tier that provides a platform for analysis and integrated applications will emerge in organizations with large stores of file data. This middle tier will provide opportunity for administrators to automate storage management and optimize for performance and cost; support large-scale analysis, while eliminating related data migration and administrative tasks; and enable “cloud bursting,” the seamless ability for service providers to offer spillover capacity and compute to enterprises.
“The middle tier will expand significantly next year,” says Krishnan. “Traditionally, you have the processing tier and the archive tier. But now you’ll need a smart middle tier that’s going to keep the 90% of data. The archive tier is ok, but it’s very inflexible and could be proprietary. The middle tier is priced like the archive tier, it’s persistent, and it’s ‘burstable.’”
Krishnan says that ‘cloud bursting’ refers to the ability to burst into the public cloud for certain periods of time, but not use the public cloud as the repository where you keep data on a permanent basis (although if you Google the term you’ll wind up with altogether different discussions and clips from The Men Who Stare at Goats film.)
Commodity hardware displaces proprietary storage. “Just as Linux displaced expensive server gear with its attractive commodity footprint, Linux-based cloud storage will displace expensive legacy storage for the same reason: it gives the user choice and it’s inexpensive, highly scalable and easy to manage,” says Krishnan.
Opex, not capex, will emerge as the most important criteria driving storage purchases. “Management and operating costs will figure much more prominently in storage decisions in 2010. Maintenance costs on existing gear will be under heavy review with the emergence of commodity-based hardware storage options. Customers will look for a storage platform that is self-managed – including the ability to monitor, configure, manage and heal itself,” according to Krishnan.
Cloud becomes an action verb. “We’ve already seen ‘cloud’ taken to new heights as an overused adjective and noun. In 2010, marketers will outdo themselves by clouding the landscape with more product names and descriptions. Admittedly, this prediction is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but unfortunately fairly close to the mark,” says Krishnan.
(ParaScale is a cloud storage software provider that recently released the 2.0 version of its software. See “ParaScale beefs up cloud storage platform.” )
As cloud storage garners the attention of both large and small IT organizations, technological advances will come rapidly next year.
I recently spoke to Sajai Krishnan, ParaScale’s CEO (and fellow skiing enthusiast) about what to look for in cloud storage in 2010. Here are his predictions and comments.
Virtualization will drive adoption of private clouds in the enterprise. Virtualization has driven huge efficiencies in organizations but the weak link today is the storage infrastructure behind virtualized servers. The need to eliminate the SAN bottleneck and automate provisioning, configuration, management and recovery across the compute and storage tiers will drive enterprises to begin to adopt cloud storage.
“The SAN performance issue is the controller,” says Krishnan. “VMware has a best practices for storage page that starts by saying you need to figure out what the I/O requirements are for each of your applications. Any storage administrator would love to have that information, but admins often don’t have a clue about the I/O requirements of their VMized applications.”
“You have controller bottlenecks. How many disks are you going to stack up behind the controller as you scale out? It’s much more manageable when you can buy cheap servers like popcorn and just keep scaling out [in a cloud architecture].”
Service providers will start to unify cloud computing and cloud storage. In 2009 service providers began expanding cloud storage offerings. The cost and management efficiencies provided a much-needed storage alternative for consumers, SMBs and enterprises. To further drive efficiencies, cost savings and management ease of use, service providers will begin executing VMs directly on cloud storage platforms. Unifying cloud compute and storage infrastructure will also provide a platform for service providers to build new value-added services.
“With large cloud storage implementations you discover that 90% of the data is cold, and you have a lot of CPUs idle,” Krishnan explains. “Some people are looking at running hypervisors and VMs on the storage nodes.”
The middle tier emerges. The strategic importance of a low-cost, self-managing tier that provides a platform for analysis and integrated applications will emerge in organizations with large stores of file data. This middle tier will provide opportunity for administrators to automate storage management and optimize for performance and cost; support large-scale analysis, while eliminating related data migration and administrative tasks; and enable “cloud bursting,” the seamless ability for service providers to offer spillover capacity and compute to enterprises.
“The middle tier will expand significantly next year,” says Krishnan. “Traditionally, you have the processing tier and the archive tier. But now you’ll need a smart middle tier that’s going to keep the 90% of data. The archive tier is ok, but it’s very inflexible and could be proprietary. The middle tier is priced like the archive tier, it’s persistent, and it’s ‘burstable.’”
Krishnan says that ‘cloud bursting’ refers to the ability to burst into the public cloud for certain periods of time, but not use the public cloud as the repository where you keep data on a permanent basis (although if you Google the term you’ll wind up with altogether different discussions and clips from The Men Who Stare at Goats film.)
Commodity hardware displaces proprietary storage. “Just as Linux displaced expensive server gear with its attractive commodity footprint, Linux-based cloud storage will displace expensive legacy storage for the same reason: it gives the user choice and it’s inexpensive, highly scalable and easy to manage,” says Krishnan.
Opex, not capex, will emerge as the most important criteria driving storage purchases. “Management and operating costs will figure much more prominently in storage decisions in 2010. Maintenance costs on existing gear will be under heavy review with the emergence of commodity-based hardware storage options. Customers will look for a storage platform that is self-managed – including the ability to monitor, configure, manage and heal itself,” according to Krishnan.
Cloud becomes an action verb. “We’ve already seen ‘cloud’ taken to new heights as an overused adjective and noun. In 2010, marketers will outdo themselves by clouding the landscape with more product names and descriptions. Admittedly, this prediction is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but unfortunately fairly close to the mark,” says Krishnan.
(ParaScale is a cloud storage software provider that recently released the 2.0 version of its software. See “ParaScale beefs up cloud storage platform.” )
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Flexibility is a prerequisite to avoiding storage cloud lock-in
December 2, 2009 - Note: This post is a guest blog from Jerome Wendt, president and lead analyst with DCIG Inc. and a former IT professional. DCIG provides analysis for hardware and software companies in the data storage and electronically stored information (ESI) industries.
Flexibility is a prerequisite to avoiding storage cloud lock-in
By Jerome M. Wendt
Google searches for "cloud storage" started to take off in late 2007 according to a Google trends report and have only increased since. But as organizations move from searching for and reading about cloud storage to actually selecting cloud storage solutions, they need to ensure that those solutions offers flexibility in order to avoid public storage cloud lock-in.
Cloud storage is breaking down into two distinct camps: private and public storage clouds. Private storage clouds were discussed in a previous DCIG blog in terms of the attributes that they possess and what is motivating organizations to adopt them.
Public storage clouds are a different animal. They align more closely with the common definition of "cloud storage," but are developing their own set of characteristics that should influence which public storage cloud offering an organization selects. One such feature that an organization may not initially consider in the evaluation process is the flexibility of the public storage cloud solution.
Understanding a public storage cloud's flexibility is not as intuitive as it may sound. Most organizations assume they will fall into the category of being either a public storage cloud consumer or a provider. A public storage cloud consumer obtains storage on demand from a public storage cloud provider. Conversely, a public cloud storage provider may only offer cloud-based storage services to subscribing clients.
A few organizations may fall into a third category that both subscribes to and provides a public storage cloud. This category is primarily reserved for those few enterprise organizations, such as telcos, that may have the infrastructure, IT staff and business model to support offering a public storage cloud that serves both internal and external clients.
However, a fourth category also exists that organizations may fall into sooner rather than later. For example, an organization starts out as public cloud storage consumer but eventually decides to become a public storage cloud provider driven by data inaccessibility, increasing costs or inadequate capacity (network or storage) from its current public storage cloud provider. Once this scenario exists, suddenly an organization has a very real desire to go it alone only to find out that they are locked-in because the technology their provider uses is not available for them to purchase.
Already this issue is surfacing among organizations that have subscribed to online backup offerings -- the forerunners of the current public storage cloud trend. The challenge that early consumers of online backup services are encountering is that as they store more data with a provider, their costs inevitably go up.
So while using an online backup service is initially more economical than doing backup themselves, as they store more backup data with an online backup provider, eventually it reaches the point where the annual cost of the monthly service now exceeds what it would cost for them to provide the service themselves. However, they find themselves in a position where they can do nothing or minimally their options are extremely limited since they cannot purchase the online backup software. It is for this reason that some online backup providers are making their software available for purchase -- not just to service providers but to enterprises as well so organizations have the option to host online backup services themselves.
Organizations should expect to eventually face a similar decision when storing their data with a public storage cloud provider. While they may initially want to store data with a public storage cloud provider for ease of startup, if data availability, increased monthly storage costs, or inadequate performance becomes an issue, having the option to bring their public storage cloud in-house can start to look very appealing. However, that may only be a possibility if the underlying public cloud storage solution that the provider uses is available for purchase by the organization.
This is already happening to some degree. For example, Symantec is designing its new FileStore product so either enterprises or service providers that wish to offer cloud storage services can procure it and do so. This gives organizations the flexibility to first use public cloud storage from a provider, with FileStor as the underlying technology, while giving organizations the option to purchase the FileStore solution directly from Symantec and implement it in-house should they ever decide to do so. (Note: FileStore in its first release is intended for use only as a private storage cloud though Symantec plans to offer a public storage cloud option for FileStore in the future.)
Public storage clouds provide organizations with some exciting new options for lowering their upfront storage costs while also meeting immediate storage needs. However, public storage cloud technology is not a panacea and organizations should carefully weigh their options as they seek a provider for this service. As part of the decision, organizations need to determine if the flexibility to purchase the underlying technology that powers their provider's public cloud storage offering will eventually become a requirement. Based on what we have already seen in the online backup space, having this flexibility is an absolute necessity.
Jerome Wendt is the president and lead analyst with DCIG Inc.
Flexibility is a prerequisite to avoiding storage cloud lock-in
By Jerome M. Wendt
Google searches for "cloud storage" started to take off in late 2007 according to a Google trends report and have only increased since. But as organizations move from searching for and reading about cloud storage to actually selecting cloud storage solutions, they need to ensure that those solutions offers flexibility in order to avoid public storage cloud lock-in.
Cloud storage is breaking down into two distinct camps: private and public storage clouds. Private storage clouds were discussed in a previous DCIG blog in terms of the attributes that they possess and what is motivating organizations to adopt them.
Public storage clouds are a different animal. They align more closely with the common definition of "cloud storage," but are developing their own set of characteristics that should influence which public storage cloud offering an organization selects. One such feature that an organization may not initially consider in the evaluation process is the flexibility of the public storage cloud solution.
Understanding a public storage cloud's flexibility is not as intuitive as it may sound. Most organizations assume they will fall into the category of being either a public storage cloud consumer or a provider. A public storage cloud consumer obtains storage on demand from a public storage cloud provider. Conversely, a public cloud storage provider may only offer cloud-based storage services to subscribing clients.
A few organizations may fall into a third category that both subscribes to and provides a public storage cloud. This category is primarily reserved for those few enterprise organizations, such as telcos, that may have the infrastructure, IT staff and business model to support offering a public storage cloud that serves both internal and external clients.
However, a fourth category also exists that organizations may fall into sooner rather than later. For example, an organization starts out as public cloud storage consumer but eventually decides to become a public storage cloud provider driven by data inaccessibility, increasing costs or inadequate capacity (network or storage) from its current public storage cloud provider. Once this scenario exists, suddenly an organization has a very real desire to go it alone only to find out that they are locked-in because the technology their provider uses is not available for them to purchase.
Already this issue is surfacing among organizations that have subscribed to online backup offerings -- the forerunners of the current public storage cloud trend. The challenge that early consumers of online backup services are encountering is that as they store more data with a provider, their costs inevitably go up.
So while using an online backup service is initially more economical than doing backup themselves, as they store more backup data with an online backup provider, eventually it reaches the point where the annual cost of the monthly service now exceeds what it would cost for them to provide the service themselves. However, they find themselves in a position where they can do nothing or minimally their options are extremely limited since they cannot purchase the online backup software. It is for this reason that some online backup providers are making their software available for purchase -- not just to service providers but to enterprises as well so organizations have the option to host online backup services themselves.
Organizations should expect to eventually face a similar decision when storing their data with a public storage cloud provider. While they may initially want to store data with a public storage cloud provider for ease of startup, if data availability, increased monthly storage costs, or inadequate performance becomes an issue, having the option to bring their public storage cloud in-house can start to look very appealing. However, that may only be a possibility if the underlying public cloud storage solution that the provider uses is available for purchase by the organization.
This is already happening to some degree. For example, Symantec is designing its new FileStore product so either enterprises or service providers that wish to offer cloud storage services can procure it and do so. This gives organizations the flexibility to first use public cloud storage from a provider, with FileStor as the underlying technology, while giving organizations the option to purchase the FileStore solution directly from Symantec and implement it in-house should they ever decide to do so. (Note: FileStore in its first release is intended for use only as a private storage cloud though Symantec plans to offer a public storage cloud option for FileStore in the future.)
Public storage clouds provide organizations with some exciting new options for lowering their upfront storage costs while also meeting immediate storage needs. However, public storage cloud technology is not a panacea and organizations should carefully weigh their options as they seek a provider for this service. As part of the decision, organizations need to determine if the flexibility to purchase the underlying technology that powers their provider's public cloud storage offering will eventually become a requirement. Based on what we have already seen in the online backup space, having this flexibility is an absolute necessity.
Jerome Wendt is the president and lead analyst with DCIG Inc.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Cloud computing and the US Open
September 16, 2009 – I logged plenty of TV hours watching U.S. Open tennis (not to mention NFL season openers) over the last few weeks, all in attempt to gain some respite from the IT world. However, I was subjected to IBM’s cloud computing ad for what seemed like dozens of times during the Open. (Big Blue seems to be sparing football fans from the same torture.)
A guy comes on the screen and asks, “What is cloud computing?,” piquing my interest, albeit to a very minor degree.
So, with a huge international TV audience at its disposal, IBM’s response is: “A cloud is a workload-optimized service management platform enabling new consumption and delivery models.”
Just as I’m about to say “What?” a young girl comes on the screen and says, “It’s what?”
The remainder of the ad doesn’t de-obfuscate cloud computing any further. (In fact, it makes it cloudier.)
To the degree that tennis fans were in the mood for a good definition of cloud computing, they’re just as confused about it now as they were with the Serena Williams foot-fault call and ensuing diatribe.
I have no idea what the TV networks get for 30-second spots during the U.S. Open, but that didn’t seem to be money well spent.
But it could have been worse: I could have been subjected to TV spots about cloud storage. (Yeh, right, like cloud storage providers have that kind of cash sitting around.)
In any case, if you are interested in cloud storage, check out the recently-posted “Cloud storage opportunities and challenges” by Margalla Communications analyst Saqib Jang. Saqib delves into end-user and cloud-provider requirements in the areas of scalability, privacy, data protection, manageability and security.
You can also find some fresh videos, blogs and articles on cloud computing and cloud storage at Glasshouse Technologies’ Web site.
A guy comes on the screen and asks, “What is cloud computing?,” piquing my interest, albeit to a very minor degree.
So, with a huge international TV audience at its disposal, IBM’s response is: “A cloud is a workload-optimized service management platform enabling new consumption and delivery models.”
Just as I’m about to say “What?” a young girl comes on the screen and says, “It’s what?”
The remainder of the ad doesn’t de-obfuscate cloud computing any further. (In fact, it makes it cloudier.)
To the degree that tennis fans were in the mood for a good definition of cloud computing, they’re just as confused about it now as they were with the Serena Williams foot-fault call and ensuing diatribe.
I have no idea what the TV networks get for 30-second spots during the U.S. Open, but that didn’t seem to be money well spent.
But it could have been worse: I could have been subjected to TV spots about cloud storage. (Yeh, right, like cloud storage providers have that kind of cash sitting around.)
In any case, if you are interested in cloud storage, check out the recently-posted “Cloud storage opportunities and challenges” by Margalla Communications analyst Saqib Jang. Saqib delves into end-user and cloud-provider requirements in the areas of scalability, privacy, data protection, manageability and security.
You can also find some fresh videos, blogs and articles on cloud computing and cloud storage at Glasshouse Technologies’ Web site.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Nirvanix brings storage from the moon to the cloud
July 3, 2009 – I’ve read a few interesting case studies about cloud storage (and a lot more non-interesting ones) but, for your July 4th reading pleasure, this one from Nirvanix gets my vote as the most interesting application of cloud storage. And you gotta love Nirvanix president and CEO Jim Zierick’s quote.
Here’s the press release:
NIRVANIX BRINGS STORAGE FROM THE MOON TO THE CLOUD WITH SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH OF LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER
Comprehensive imagery data from onboard cameras providing deeper understanding of the moon and its environment to be copied to CloudNAS-based solution
SAN DIEGO – June 29, 2009 – An Atlas V 401 rocket carrying two lunar satellites launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 5:32 p.m. EDT on June 18th in what is being described as America’s first step to the lasting return to the moon. One of the satellites, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), will begin to provide high-definition imagery of the moon once in orbit with a copy of all data stored on the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network™ via CloudNAS®, a software based gateway to secure enterprise cloud storage.
After a four-day trip, the LRO will begin orbiting the moon, spending at least a year in a low polar orbit collecting detailed information about the lunar environment that will help in future robotic and human missions to the moon. Images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera will be transmitted from the satellite to a project team at Arizona State University for systematic processing, replicated to secondary high-performance storage in a separate building at ASU and then replicated to the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network (SDN™). Nirvanix provides a method for storing a tertiary copy of the data offsite by installing CloudNAS and writing a copy directly from the data-receiving servers. ASU and NASA have already transferred multiple TBs of original Apollo mission imagery to the Nirvanix CloudNAS-based solution.
“While this project may be one small step for NASA’s program to extend human presence in the solar system, it definitely represents a giant leap in cloud storage’s ability to provide a reliable, scalable and accessible alternative to tape for long-term retention of enterprise-class data,” said Jim Zierick, President and CEO of Nirvanix. “The tertiary copy of images from the LRO Camera stored on the Nirvanix CloudNAS is online and accessible within seconds and the project managers at ASU do not need to worry about managing offsite storage, allowing them to focus on the more important mission at hand. We are pleased to be part of such a historic project and value our contribution to finding a deeper understanding of the moon and its environment.”
Nirvanix CloudNAS is a fast, secure and easy way to gain access to the benefits of Cloud Storage. As the world's first software-only NAS solution accessible via CIFS or NFS, CloudNAS offers enhanced secure data transfers to any of Nirvanix's globally distributed storage nodes using integrated AES 256-bit encryption and SSL options. Through the Nirvanix CloudNAS, organizations have access to unlimited storage via the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network with the ability to turn any server on their network into a gateway to the cloud accessible by many existing applications and processes.
For more news and in-depth features on cloud-based storage, see InfoStor’s cloud storage Topic Center.
Here’s the press release:
NIRVANIX BRINGS STORAGE FROM THE MOON TO THE CLOUD WITH SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH OF LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER
Comprehensive imagery data from onboard cameras providing deeper understanding of the moon and its environment to be copied to CloudNAS-based solution
SAN DIEGO – June 29, 2009 – An Atlas V 401 rocket carrying two lunar satellites launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 5:32 p.m. EDT on June 18th in what is being described as America’s first step to the lasting return to the moon. One of the satellites, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), will begin to provide high-definition imagery of the moon once in orbit with a copy of all data stored on the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network™ via CloudNAS®, a software based gateway to secure enterprise cloud storage.
After a four-day trip, the LRO will begin orbiting the moon, spending at least a year in a low polar orbit collecting detailed information about the lunar environment that will help in future robotic and human missions to the moon. Images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera will be transmitted from the satellite to a project team at Arizona State University for systematic processing, replicated to secondary high-performance storage in a separate building at ASU and then replicated to the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network (SDN™). Nirvanix provides a method for storing a tertiary copy of the data offsite by installing CloudNAS and writing a copy directly from the data-receiving servers. ASU and NASA have already transferred multiple TBs of original Apollo mission imagery to the Nirvanix CloudNAS-based solution.
“While this project may be one small step for NASA’s program to extend human presence in the solar system, it definitely represents a giant leap in cloud storage’s ability to provide a reliable, scalable and accessible alternative to tape for long-term retention of enterprise-class data,” said Jim Zierick, President and CEO of Nirvanix. “The tertiary copy of images from the LRO Camera stored on the Nirvanix CloudNAS is online and accessible within seconds and the project managers at ASU do not need to worry about managing offsite storage, allowing them to focus on the more important mission at hand. We are pleased to be part of such a historic project and value our contribution to finding a deeper understanding of the moon and its environment.”
Nirvanix CloudNAS is a fast, secure and easy way to gain access to the benefits of Cloud Storage. As the world's first software-only NAS solution accessible via CIFS or NFS, CloudNAS offers enhanced secure data transfers to any of Nirvanix's globally distributed storage nodes using integrated AES 256-bit encryption and SSL options. Through the Nirvanix CloudNAS, organizations have access to unlimited storage via the Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network with the ability to turn any server on their network into a gateway to the cloud accessible by many existing applications and processes.
For more news and in-depth features on cloud-based storage, see InfoStor’s cloud storage Topic Center.
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