Storage Virtualization a Corporate Priority and a Cloud Building Block

You may have seen the press on the recently released Symantec survey on the state of the Data Center 2010.  Having been involved in these efforts in the past, I know they are typically generated by a PR agency and can be thinly veiled platforms for product promotions.  Yet this one rings true at least as it pertains to the continued importance of certain technologies such as Storage Virtualization.  So long as data growth continues about 60% a year, regardless of a company's size, or top line growth, something needs to be done to manage the growing torrent of bits & bytes, but with about the same number of IT staff.  Because, as they say, even bad numbers need to be stored somewhere.

The bigger trend I'm seeing is that virtualized storage resources are becoming an atomic unit of a Dynamic IT operation.  Companies are adopting ‘private cloud computing’ and are using capabilities like storage virtualization to make their environments more dynamic, cost effective and responsive to the needs of the business.   In order to realize these benefits, virtualized storage, server and network resources need to be managed in a unified way, and this requires a unified, intelligent fabric connecting it all.

I echo the recommendation of leading infrastructure players that IT organizations proceed cautiously and develop an infrastructure that can support the performance, security and distributed data aspects of cloud computing and virtualization. 

We can expect to see continued innovation in managing larger data sets either via private cloud array and fabric-based solutions or external cloud-based services -- both with the goal to achieve greater scalability, reduced total cost of ownership and improved ability to manage geographically distributed data sets.  All of these efforts will benefit from a high-throughput, converged network that can intelligently manage data at the packet-level and optimize connections between resources.

Pay-as-you-go Computing

It's exciting to see as both vendors and customers become more evolved with this IT business, that the nature of our transactions change. The recent buzz about the expected explosive growth in Cloud computing has not-surprisingly coincided with continued IT cost reduction pressures. Some is certainly due to the current global economic crisis, but the trend has been in play for a long time. What has gone from an exercise in procuring something cool and breakthrough, has become buying something basic and vital, like milk. I've taken a stab at capturing some key aspects of this evolution to cloud computing.

What I'm seeing as especially significant is how we as infrastructure technology providers are going to have to package our solutions in a more pay-as-you-go fashion. Very much like how we all buy our power at home - it sounds like a no-brainer, but let's say you make your living selling network hardware. How does that work? And as the customer, what do you expect this utilization-based arrangement to look like? Or maybe the real takeaway is that you don't want the arrangement at all. You want email, a way to track your sales pipeline, and a means to do book-keeping, and don't want to have to staff experts to determine if the best way to do this requires Fibre Channel, Ethernet, FCoE, CEE, or M-O-U-S-E.

Fabric Applications = Private Cloud computing

I've never been one to add to what is already some serious vendor over-hype, e.g. 'Cloud Computing', but then again I'm not one to rant against something either (regardless of how funny that can be). I'm hearing that some customers find the concept helpful. Cool. I know I find it helpful to review why these things have value to customers.

In my day job, we've been delivering what we call Fabric Applications for many years. In concept Fabric Applications are similar to what is being called a Private Cloud, especially as it relates to fabric apps such as Storage Virtualization. Our company's focus up to this point has been specific to Storage networks (vs. LANs), though this will change with FCoE and CEE.

And I had been wondering if given the current economy, or trends in vendor consolidation, or a new administration, or Jessica Simpon's weight challenges, etc... if customers' needs were really changing with regard to Fabric Apps and this whole cloud computing thing. As you may recall, a key driver to network-resident computing is the value it brings to managing resources from many different vendors. As it turns out, this is still a growing need for companies.

Data recently released by a leading IT research firm shows that more that 80% of Enterprises are working with 2 or more storage vendors, and more than 25% of companies are now working with 6-10 different vendors - an increase over last year! In addition, enterprises that have products for Storage Virtualization are continuing to expand their use. The hype around ‘cloud computing’ and ‘private clouds’ is apparently there because there's value in it: companies want best-of-breed solutions along with management flexibility. And Fabric Apps or Private Clouds or Enterprise Clouds or insert-your-favorite-term-here, are the way to achieve it.

Bringing Clarity to Cloud Computing

There's a great deal of news out there on Cloud Computing. And a number of new innovators and recent deals show this to be an IT hot spot for '09. But as shown in earlier posts, the idea of running applications on a network fabric isn't new. Storage management apps have been running within the SAN fabric for sometime.

So, What fabric apps are on the market today?

If you're looking for a more efficient way to do Storage virtualization, Data replication or Data migration, to name a few, you can accomplish this Today with established, enterprise-class applications from brand name suppliers. Here's a focus on one:

EMC Invista -- this leading Storage Virtualization app runs on the SAN fabrics of hundreds of leading global companies, some with up to a Petabyte of data virtualized. Invista enables non-disruptive data movement, ILM, increases storage hardware utilization, supports server virtualization efforts, and does it all across a heterogeneous storage environment.

Invista has proven benefits: one company realized a 3:1 consolidation of storage equipment. Another saved 91% on storage provisioning time via pooling. And another reduced a 22-month migration plan to just 4 months. And being able to mix-and-match storage allows organizations to optimize on lower-cost hardware and reduce thier overall Cost/TB - a big deal in today's economy.

The hallmark of todays fabric apps is Enterprise-class functionality with very high-performance. If this is the space you're operating in, then you should definitely be looking into this quieter corner of cloud computing: SAN fabric applications.

Enjoy this very recent story on reducing storage cost through things like storage virtualization.