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     Time for an update about storage protocols, I say protocols, because the transport layer is something that is in flux right now.  NFS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, and FCOE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) are storage PROTOCOLS!  It is pretty important to understand this as base knowledge when discussing storage connectivity to a VMWare environment.  So what does this mean for you.

     Recent published White Paper from VMWare shows in little detail the testing they did for these protocols.  However, this assumes that ALL storage and storage solutions are equal, which we all know NOT to be the case.  The white paper can be found here.  So let me first explore what they tested, and then we can look at some changes to the components.

The Storage:

     So I have when a software company does things like this, they take a “storage server” and emulate different storage protocols in order to test them.  This configuration used 9 disks, how it was configured, what type of “storage server” wasn’t disclosed, and how the LUNs were emulated wasn’t disclosed either.  So I can’t really make too many judgments, because they will end up being assumptions and we all know what you get from that.  I can however say that this was not “purpose built” and seemed to have been thrown together for this test, most likely using some Linux distribution.  The problem with this approach is it doesn’t take into account the massive development that a storage vendor has gone through either with hardware or software to get the most out of a protocol.

The performance:

     Looking just at the basic configuration, comparing GigE ethernet (with any protocol) compared to 4Gb FC doesn’t seem like a fare test.  Looking closely, VMware really was trying to prove out scalability regardless of storage protocol.  They also pointed out clearly that not using the VMFS might have a significant impact on performance, but they excluded it in order to not give a block level device an advantage over NFS mounted storage.  They also clearly pointed out that an update to this White paper was needed in order to consider 8Gb FC and 10GigE, which I think will be a much closer comparison of technologies.  If you look at the differences in performance, 4Gb FC was almost exactly 4x the performance of any of the 1Gb Ethernet used in the test, which I would expect.  It also showed that the packet size/block size was a significant differentiator because of the extra processing that needs to occur with a 1500MTU packet limitation on GigE.

The Point:

     The point is simple, why even bother putting out a “White Paper” that really proves nothing, well, it does prove something.  When using basic volumes iSCSI and NFS have pretty much equal performance over a single GigE connection.  NFS has more of a CPU overhead (minimally) then software initiator based iSCSI, and if you are counting clock cycles, then you really need to go with iSCSI or FC HBAs.  I would have rather seen NFS compared to VMFS over the iSCSI connections, that would have at least compared similar access functionality.

      So changes I would like to see, compare 1Gb FC to GigE for these protocols.  Use the best of breed NAS, iSCSI, and FC arrays for these tests (oh that would create a field day for us out here in the stoblogosphere).  Compare like functionality, NFS offers shared access, VMFS offers shared access.  In any case, someone has to write something over there, I would have named this What Paper, “VMWare 4.0 Scales Regardless of Storage Protocol”.

Comments always welcome.

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     I am sitting on a plane from Charlotte to NYC, which airport in the NYC area isn’t important, but how I’m getting there and where I’ve come from right now is.  I’m on my 3rd airline in 48 hours, and will end up in my 4th city.  We talk about green initiatives in IT, the automotive industry, our homes, and our businesses, but I haven’t heard too much about a “green” airplane, maybe because we’d all feel safer knowing that our flights weren’t dependent on solar power or leftover frying oil.   That tangent done, there are many things “green” going on in the world of today.  Denver is about to open it’s first LEEDs compliant apartment building (rating to be determined).  DOE/NREL is in the process of breaking ground for a new LEEDs Platinum campus in Golden, CO.  Business parks all over the U.S. have “green” roofs that support plant life, and not only cool the building but now help support the failing business I’ve had of rooftop lawn mowing services.  Oh, in case you haven’t noticed, this is going to be a rant of rants.  If you think I’m serious please see the latest entry in wiki for serious.

     Let’s be honest, though, some businesses don’t give a crap about being “green”.  A major content delivery company’s IT Director literally said he’d support the burning of whale oil in power plants if it meant it was cheaper to his bottom line.  Ok, maybe it was dirty coal, but you get the point.  I don’t need the Sea Sheppard crew coming and launching an attack on my whale oil power plant, I‘m sure they are already upset about me clubbing a baby seal, which if you’ve never done give it a try, it is much more enjoyable then spilling oil in the ocean, or hunting the Bald Eagle, which taste like chicken in case you’re wondering.

     So here I am heading to one of the more congested cities in the US, and I’m thinking does anyone really give a crap about “greening” IT.  No, I say, they really don’t!  Not for the purpose of spending more money to save the environment, the “green” story they want to hear is how this product, any product will take up less footprint, use less energy, and require less cooling!  Why, not to keep the polar ice caps from melting, but because building a new data center, bringing in new cooling systems, and dropping more circuits costs too much money, oh and electricity, regardless of getting it from the SUN or the WIND, still seems to be going up in price.  If they could buy a product, at a reasonable cost, that was cheaper to run, cooler to run, but killed 20 sea turtles to make, I think we’d still have a lot of takers, maybe even a line, they are slow and easy to catch anyway.

     I like car analogies, does someone really go out and buy a hybrid to reduce greenhouse gasses? No, they want better MPG (Km/L for our metric folks) Why?  Gas isn’t going away, and will only go up in price and it will be cheaper to run a hybrid with that regenerative breaking and electric assist stuff, the only problem is, hybrids are so darn expensive, you have to do a ton of driving just to break even, let alone save money over the traditional fossil burning beasts.

     So where is this rant going?  I’m working on a few opportunities right now where actual rack space, cooling, and electrical needs are critical components because the locations this hardware is going to be going is limited on all of them, oh and the budget is tight too, oh and high performance is critical as well.  It is like the old triangle of IT, where you really can’t ever get all the sides, you have to compromise somewhere.  I told them I’ve got a storage system, very inexpensive (can’t say cheap because that dilutes the value), super fast, gives energy back to the grid, and as a by product of running it, cools the data center, however, once you buy it, you and your family will spend the rest of eternity in Purgatory.  I have had 10,000 units ordered to date, some with conditional P.O.s however, because they want to make sure they are on the other side of Purgatory from their spouses.  I’m looking for investors, my "angel investor” has fallen.

     So, why does any of this matter?  I really don’t know, I’m tired, I’m stuck on a plane, and I have a bunch of readers that typical want something funny, or angry, or inflammatory out of me.  Automakers, try running whale oil in the engines, not like we don’t have a shortage of whales right now.  Airlines, I sign up for the first all solar commercial flight, Iccarus we learned nothing from you.  Baby seals, I do like you guys, but I have a weird whack-a-baby seal fetish lately.  Oh and I hate Soy beans, so there.

Image by global oneness project via Flickr

There is a story about a sales call that I did that has been passed around enough that I heard it as almost a legend the other day.  I am exaggerating a bit, but I was asked if I knew who the people were in the story.  Well, it my story, so with a little litterary license and changing names, dates, and places to protect everyone other then me, I will tell a story of the “How to get thrown out of an account in a few easy steps!”

     In a land not so far away, a sales region near you, there was a team, a team that legends are made from.  This team worked for a start-up storage company, a company on the path to greatness!  This company was little, but in the dawn of explosive growth, this team was new to each other, but fought like they had been in battle for ever side by side.  The typical battle was hard to get into, but once in the fight we were pretty much unbeatable.  The team was Steven (me) and Sean (name changed to protect Sean, oops).

     One day, this mighty team was introduced into an account by a weak partner, strong in revenue, but weak in the ability to do anything other then cause trouble.  What kind of trouble?  Registration issues, bringing in multiple storage vendors into the same account, and not being able to close even the easiest of deals.  This account was a simple, let’s parade our list of vendors by the Director of IT, of what?, a Zoo.  Yes that is right, lions, bears, elephants, etc. Zoo. 

     So we do our awesome “dog & pony” show, but the questions being asked are too clearly directed, both by our partner and by the customer.  We were getting sloppy second sales meetings vibes.  Towards, the end of the meeting, Sean and I are getting a bit jaded about the opportunity, and figure let’s at least enjoy our meeting at the Zoo.  This is how the conversation went:

Sean: (to IT Director) “Hey before we get out of here, any chance we could feed a lion?”

IT Director: (laughs) “No, but maybe you’d like to feed a giraffe?”

Sean: “Nah, a lion would be much more fun, how about a monkey?”

Steven: “Forget a monkey or giraffe, any chance I could club a baby seal?”

all: (silence)

IT Director: (in his head – did he really say he wants to club a seal?)

Sean: (in his head – STEVEN!!!! he doesn’t know you are sarcastic and kidding)

Steven: “I mean I’m pretty quick, I will be able to grab it before it sinks!”

IT Director: “Here let me show you guys to the door.”

     Needless to say, we didn’t win the deal, as the legend stands, we were physically thrown out of the Zoo, and a permanent ban is in place.  My name in on the PETA most wanted list, and Sean has to get family members to buy dog food since he is shunned in the animal community as well.  The real events, how it happened, where it happened, well kiddos, that is why it has become a sales legend.  The moral of the story, no matter how badly you want to club a baby seal, asking to do so will loose you the storage deal.

Image by wynner3 via Flickr

About a week ago I tweeted that I had been invited to a storage vendor’s event, was invited as a potential customer by two different parties.  Funny thing about email lists, people get invited that you wouldn’t expect to attend.  I took off my storage hat, put on my analyst hat and promised a few old friends that I would behave.  I’ve competed against Compellent in the past (sometimes very aggressively!).  I’ve also said some nice things about the technology as well.

Compellent

Strong storage player, public company surviving in a harsh IT economy, and locally here in Colorado working with some great internal talent and one of my favorite partners.  Basic premise of the storage technology is controller based disk array (controllers are commodity based architecture which I’ve mentioned before) with a plethora of storage software services.  The special part that they bring to the table is at the storage service level, Data Progression™, Fast Track, replication, etc.  They have a very compelling story, proven scalability and a growing revenue and customer base.  The recent introduction of SSD support brings what most like to consider as a Tier0 storage layer, and although they have SATA, I would really like to see a strong archival tier in the near future.

Lewan and Associates

Lewan, is one of my favorite local integrators.  They did a very nice presentation about how they have several lines of business, specifically broken into two main lines of business, the traditional printer/copier side, and the IT Solutions side.  Lewan was relatively recently acquired by Xerox, but remains a very independent subsidiary.  What I liked the most about Lewan’s presentation was that they get the whole IT picture, and to date have had some of the key technology partners to create best-of-breed solutions for customers in the Rocky Mountain region.  The quick elevator pitch from Lewan?  D.N.A. – Data Center, Network, and Application Delivery.  They cover it all, and do it not only from a pure product basis, but from a consultative model that keeps the customers coming back!

Latisys

Latisys was another sponsor of this event, and they have some great solutions to the remote data center/hosting/co-location problem.  The purpose of the presentation on this day was to talk about Compellent’s place within Latisys, specifically to offer a target for secure remote replication.  This is something that any customer should look at that is currently running a Compellent SAN, because it reduces the complexity and I would assume costs associated in owning your own remote installation of Compellent gear, while giving you a place to recover too.  The better play they are offering however, is the ability to bring up your VMware based environment in a disaster, which is something that is very powerful for business continuance.

The SAN Technologist

I felt like a spy, I got funny looks, got directly asked if I had any questions, but I behaved and while I made no promises, I learned, I liked the things I saw, and I could without loosing sleep write something that is meaningful about these companies.  It isn’t everyday that you get a chance to see old friends, not try to destroy them, and leave with friendship renewed.  Quick shout out to my lovely mother who will greatly enjoy the Wizard of Oz reference, although not Judy’s greatest role, it is a good one. 

Image by www.ericcastro.biz via Flickr

I while ago I poked fun at the NetApp 50% Guarantee.  The idea that most of the savings come from taking a RAID10 environment and switching it to NetApp’s RAID-DP (btw, they only guarantee 35% if you are using your own storage behind a v-filer platform), is something I’ve touched upon in the past.  Now they have released a $1M’s worth of, at list, hardware if they can prove the reduction vs. a non-NetApp customer’s current environment.  What you win:

4. Prize

a) The prize ("Prize") to be awarded is comprised of the following NetApp products, and will be based on NetApp’s published US price List: storage hardware valued at $850,000, Professional Services Deployment, valued at $100K, and Software, valued at $50K.

b) The Prize will be subject to the Winner’s agreement to be bound by NetApp’s standard commercial terms. No purchase will be necessary to utilize the Prize; provided, however, after the applicable warranty period has elapsed for the hardware, software and service elements of the Prize, additional charges may apply to any requests for repair and maintenance.

c) To become the winner, the selected corporation must agree, if needed, to allow its representatives to be filmed by a NetApp representative and the winner’s representatives must execute a release and consent form that authorizes NetApp to use the video in NetApp Marketing material and activities. The winner must also agree to have a third party, nominated by NetApp, to evaluate the winner’s virtualization environment, both prior and after the commencement of NetApp’s implementation services to confirm the agreed upon virtualization metrics. Winner shall also agree to adhere to NetApp’s recommended best practices and requirements, including having NetApp’s professional services personnel on site to conduct a virtualization requirements analysis.

d) The Prize is not transferable. No Prize substitution is allowed except at the discretion of NetApp Inc. If the Prize cannot be awarded due to circumstances beyond NetApp Inc.’s control, a substitute prize of equal or greater retail value will be awarded.

So you get all this good stuff!  This is really a great marketing idea.  Get a bunch of non-customers to tell you exactly what they are running (lead generation), pick a customer and make a case study of it (great P.R.), and finally, still get them, after all is said an done, to pick up support costs after warranties are expired and upgrades for other features they will want to use.  This is a win-win though, take a company that has legacy hardware that was looking to refresh, quick easy way to get into a NetApp solution.