Ilja Coolen \ ICSS

I just read StorageBod‘s post on “Your Data, Your Responsibility” and I totally agree with him. You should really be very aware of the risks you are potentially facing when deciding to store all or most of your data in a cloud, no matter who’s cloud it is.

The remark on storing it in two different places triggered me to rethink something else in this context.

When you have decided you will not be open for the risk of storing the data with one cloud provider only, you might even consider having a different cloud provider for holding the second copy. Because if you store two copies at the same provider, you do not mitigate the risk of this single provider having a massive outage and possibly losing your data or even going “belly up”.

Selecting two cloud providers is most likely even more difficult than just one. You have to negotiate two Service Level Agreements, pricing models and such. If you consider all this effort and risk mitigation you are doing, is storing your stuff in the cloud still a lot cheaper or more convenient than providing for your own storage? Is the cloud still providing what you are looking for, such as reducing administrative labor, footprint, cost? I could only be sure about reducing footprint, the rest is dependent on a lot of other things.

I myself am very paranoid about losing data, so I always store all data I consider valuable in two different places.

I don’t have all the current prices for cloud storage services, so I cannot make a good comparison, but I am surely curious.

Well,

It has been quite a while since my last post. I’ve been very busy working on a number of storage proposals. Which I guess is good in this time of financial crisis.

I’ve been working on IBM San Volume Controller for a number of years, and I even had a contract as a Storage Instructor for IBM San Volume Controller.  I have had many questions or remarks as to why the SVC still had no support for role based access and centralized account administration like LDAP or Active Directory. And honestly, it did surprise me how long it took IBM to incorporate it into the code.
Only recently, the SVC code 6.3 has been released sporting AD and LDAP user authentication. I have not yet have any change to test LDAP, but I did get Active Directory working. The IBM documentation isn’t all that detailed as to how to setup AD authentication. Neither has the AD support team on site been very helpful (accept maybe for one guy who seems to know what AD is all about).

There are a couple of things you should be aware of;

• The SVC is an appliance that is not trusted by AD, it is not part of a Active Directory domain. Therefore you might need to provide an AD account that has sufficient credentials to use AD to authenticate.
• The account you will use to query AD with (not the account a user uses to attempt a login) has to be configured with it’s complete AD location path.an example: you are provided an AD account that is privileged  to query AD that is called ‘ibm2145queryad’ and sits in the AD tree at “DOMAIN\Accounts\ReadOnly” (<-fictional).You will need to enter the ldapconfiguration in the SVC console as;

  chldap -username 'CN=ibm2145queryad,ou=ReadOnly,ou=Accounts,dc=DOMAIN,dc=corp' -password 'XXXXXX' -security none -userattribute sAMAccountName -groupattribute memberOf -auditlogattribute name -type ad

• Even if AD authentication fails because the query user is not authorized to query AD, the ‘testldapserver’ will result in a success. If you are testing authentication of a valid user login, this will result in a message that the user is not correct or the password is mismatched. This suggests the user trying to login is invalid, but actually, the account used to query AD is invalid. So this might throw you of a bit.
• Only supply AD servers or LDAP servers, do not mix AD and LDAP servers. This will not work as desired.

Your SVC administrators have to be members of a specific security group in AD, separating them from ordinary users that should not have SVC access. This group name has to be defined in the SVC as a remote group. Only users that are member of that specific security group in AD will have access to the SVC. The user group on the SVC has to be configured with specific access rights on the SVC, like “administrator” or something else that matches your company requirements. This role is also assigned to AD users that are part of that security group at the moment the successfully log in to the SVC.
When using LDAP or AD user authentication, local users still are usable. You will need a local account with the “Security Administrator” privilege to update LDAP/AD settings on the SVC. I guess you do not want to make all authenticated users have the highest privilege on SVC.

Once you know these quirks you will  be able to configure and use LDAP or AD services to authenticate your SVC administrators with. Two things I have to comment about are the fact you cannot enter LDAP or AD servers by their hostnames. You need to enter the IPv4 addresses. This also shows the second annoyance. There is no support for IPv6 yet. I guess it is on it’s way, but who knows how long this will take IBM.

Hallo beste lezer,

Het #StorageBeers concept is op veel plaatsen een behoorlijk succes. Het is een leuke netwerkborrel waar vooral consultants, analisten en natuurlijk ook leveranciers bij aanwezig zijn.
Het is een open uitnodiging, en de bedoeling is om dit vaker te doen.

Omdat er voor de Storage Expo NL een aantal gasten uit het buitenland aanwezig zijn, leek het mij leuk om hen ook een leuke avond te bezorgen in het bijzijn van “peers”.

Het is alles behalve de bedoeling dat dit een feestje wordt met lead-generatie. Het doel is om elkaar beter te leren kennen en problemen en oplossingen met elkaar te delen. Alle storage-gerelateerde leveranciers zijn welkom. De vertegenwoordigers van de leveranciers worden natuurlijk geacht sportief ten opzichte van elkaar te zijn, hetgeen bij dit soort borrels normaal gesproken nooit een probleem is.  Het leukste is uiteindelijk als er zo nu en dan ook “corporate executives” bij zijn die om welke reden dan ook toevallig in de buurt zijn.

De aanwezige leveranciers zijn natuurlijk de beroerdste niet en nemen de drankjes en hapjes voor hun rekening.

Ik wil proberen de #StorageBeersNL borrel een keer of 4 per jaar te organiseren op verschillende plaatsen in NL.

De eerste zal dus aansluitend aan de Storage-Expo plaats vinden op donderdag 3 november, in Cafe-Restaurant Olivier in Utrecht. Dit is op loopafstand van de Jaarbeurs hallen.

• Facebook Event
• LinkedIN Event
• Volg twitter hashtag #StorageBeersNL voor updates.

Check enkele voorbeelden van andere StorageBeers

• StorageBod : http://www.storagebod.com/wordpress/?cat=6
• Chris M. Evans (The Storage Architect)

Hi there all.

First, i would like to thank everybody who put a lot of effort into writing their motivation for the Lenovo m90z unit. My apologies for the delay in presenting you guys with the winner.

There were a lot of compelling stories posted, showing me there is a lot of folks out there caring for someone in their family or school, who in some form is dependent on help. This just shows how great the need for supporting tools and also understanding is. Unfortunately many institutions that help disabled people suffer from budget cuts and government funding cuts. Everybody does, but it is my opinion that people with disabilities are off worse than people who can take care of themselves.

It was very hard for me to judge the entries based on the content, because all the motivations are compelling in some way. I feel like I wanted to give you all a touch screen unit,  but that simply isn’t possible.

But with some help from this “Random Name Picker” tool, I managed to pick a winner.

I apologize to all of you who didn’t win this unit, but you should try your luck at one of the other participating promotion websites below.

Thanks for playing.

Congratulations go out Frank Zeijen.

He won the price drawing for their school and the Lenovo computer will come their way in the next few weeks.

I hope your school can benefit greatly from this equipment, and you will show us some pictures or video when you have received it.

Thanks to Lenovo and Ivy Worldwide for making this possible.

Lenovo M90z Participants

I am very sorry, but new entries can no longer be accepted

Well my friends,

today starts a 5-day period in which you can enter a contest to win a brand new “Lenovo M90z all-in-one Multitouch Windows 7 PC“. I have been given the opportunity by Lenovo/Intel via Ivy Worldwide (along with a list of other Phase II participants) to review such a unit, and now we all have another unit standing by, ready to be shipped to the contest price winners.

Who can enter?

We are all free in how we set up our contest, and believe me, we all have very different motivations and drawings. I have been included in the review crowd partly because I have a son with certain disabilities. He is slow in development and has been diagnosed with a form of autism. He cannot read or write and has limited (fine) motor skills. In his school, the therapists have limited access to a touch screen computer to help in his development through custom software programs tailored specifically to “mentally of physically challenged  kids”. These touch screen programs have been very successful in helping development and he can now navigate a computer without a mouse, just by touch screen, very well.

Due to the possibilities this Lenovo unit offers to special schools for disabled children as well as for home situations in which a family has the care over a “mentally of physically challenged child” I have decided try to help them out and therefore limit this contest to this specific audience. So if you represent a school for disabled children or a family with care for a “mentally of physically challenged child” you should enter.

What is expected of you?

I would like you to tell me in an elaborate way how you would use the Lenovo unit in your school or family. Just two lines will not be sufficient, because you really need to convince me that this Lenovo unit would enrich your the school experience or family life. I will be studying all entries and will make a decision on who wins the contest based on their motivation.
You can enter by posting a comment (please login or sign-up to do so, so I also have your email address to get in touch with you in case you win) or drop me a note at “lenovo at iljacoolen dot nl”.
All email entries will be posted in the comments by me.

You are free to include videos or photos in the entry. Just enter the hyperlinks and I will embed them in the approved posts.
I do preserve the right to do some final moderation over the entry to make sure all entries are legally valid and no offending language is present, before publishing it on the site, so you might not see your entry right away. But rest assured, I will be quick on this.

• Entries committed beyond April 19th are too late and will not be included.
• The winner will be announced soon after April 19th. How soon depends on the number of entries I have to judge.
• If you are a Dutch reader, you can post your entry in Dutch as I will be judging on content, not language, but English would be better for most of my readers.

Lenovo M90z Specs

Below you will find a list of other Phase II promotion participants. All have a contest of their own, all on separate dates. Make sure you check them out.
Lenovo M90z Participants

Heads-up everybody.
As you might have read in one of my earlier posts, I have received an evaluation unit from Lenovo/Intel. 

Now, me and 25 others in the same evaluation batch have been given word that in the next few weeks we all get a change to give away the same unit to a lucky price winner.

We can make up our own type of contest with our own requirements. Each evaluation participant will have a 5-day window in which site visitors can enter the drawing.

So, stay tuned, as it will be my turn from April 15th to April 19th. I will be posting the schedule for the whole evaluation group as well as how to enter the drawing on the 15th

Looking forward to your entries and participation.

In the meantime, follow the twitter search feed on the M90z which will also show the other participants.

The HDS Blogger Day or Geek Day 2011 was a blast. It was my first HDS Blogger day and when I entered the venue, I was kind of surprised by the number of HDS representatives in the room. At first it felt like a hearing committee. The HDS to blogger ration was about 2 to 1. After the introduction though, it already felt comfortable. HDS had assembled exactly the right sales and engineering staff, who were there clearly to listen to the feedback the bloggers were giving, and to respond thoroughly to whatever we could ask. HDS clearly knows how to handle a Bloggers event.

Corporate cultural change towards openness and feedback.

From the recent Hitachi Data Systems events a certain message can be distilled. If you know a bit about Japanese culture, than you will probably also know that in general Japanese people keep to themselves, as in they will not brag or tell you what they have or can do. This attitude has kept the rest of the world from knowing what is going on in Japan, and especially within Japanese IT land.

The earthquake and tsunami of early March would have been disasters that the rest of the world would have known little of, if they would have happened a few years back. This indicates that Japan is opening up a bit more to the rest of the world.

The same is true about the Hitachi philosophy. Hitachi Data Systems is now reaching out to the  IT crowd in the world to tell them what they are up to, and ask the customers/end-users what it is they want or need. This is a major change from what they have come from.

Hitachi now has to get that message and philosophy out into the world. Events like the Blogger Day and the Information Forums contribute a lot to that message, and I honestly have the impression Hitachi stands behind their message. So I would sincerely advise my readers to have a new and refreshing talk with your HDS representatives about this new approach.

Hitachi Servers

Lynn Mclean, Vice President Sales, gave an introduction to the server portfolio offered by HDS. Yes, servers. Hitachi is selling servers for some 50 years now. From mainframe type servers to blade chassis and servers today. The Hitachi Storage Division (HDS) is no longer limited to storage. As of 2009 Hitachi Ltd. has decided that it is up to the Hitachi Data Systems group to enter the server market in the US and EMEA region. If you consider that servers process data, that will make sense. Otherwise Hitachi should change the HDS acronym to “Hitachi Datacenter Systems”, to encapsulate all products they are covering in the datacenters. That would even work on their networking gear. Yes, HDS even has networking gear, but at this moment (Sean Moser gave away a small teaser here though), this is no fancy revolutionary stuff, and is not sold outside Japan. From my local HDS rep I also understood Hitachi even has a DBMS and Unix of their own.  I am completely flabbergasted. I would definitely love a peek into that stuff.

So in case you are now thinking whether or not you have been living under a rock for 50 years, because you didn’t know HDS is selling servers, the answer would be no, you’re probably fine. Hitachi actually did not sell outside Japan up until 2004, so they are fairly young in the US and EMEA server market, but not young enough to get away with existing completely unnoticed. Therein lies the actual problem . Hitachi has a huge marketing flaw that has allowed the Hitachi servers to go unnoticed for this long.

The gear we have been introduced to, actually seems nothing less to what other vendors have to offer. It’s decent and high-tech equipment of at least the same standard as all Hitachi equipment.

Blade failover, blade stacking are features supported by the majority of blade vendors. The one thing that does stand out is the fact the blade chassis has 8 internal PCIe busses available for expansion, along with the somewhat standard mezzazine slots.  If those PCI slots aren’t sufficient, you can externally expand with a 16 PCI slot expansion unit, which interconnects to the main chassis on two of the internal PCI slots using PCI-Express connections. This expands connectivity massively for a blade chassis, but the performance is not enhanced, as you are limited to the bandwidth of the PCI lanes of the two busses in the chassis.

Hitachi already recognized that this needs more work. Hitachi is able to deliver a completely filled 42u rack with 320 high density micro servers. The total rack would consume less than 12 Kilowatt. Whether or not this is a great accomplishment, actually depends on the total processing capacity this rack would have. I need to dig deeper into this to make a comparison. There are bloggers out there that know server stuff better than I do, so I will be collection a number of related posts later on. For now, you will have to do with some HDS documentation I could find that contains a reference to the Hitachi servers.

They have no other differentiators I know of, but that could also proof that they potentially could have been right up there with the server market leaders, if they would have done marketing right.

Should we worry about Hitachi trying to enter the server market to take on vendors currently ruling the datacenters? According to Lynn, the approach will not be to take on the other big dogs, but include the servers in a complete solution package, which I consider to be comparable in concept to UCS or VCE type solutions.

It is good that Hitachi is not arrogant enough to pick a fight.  I think they earn respect for that attitude. Searching the HDS website gave me no results on servers except some white papers, so I  think Stephen Foskett’s quote is spot on.

“HDS is smart enough not to wander into the blade server saloon and pick a fight with the big guys at the bar #HDSday “

More to come from this event on “Hitachi Content Platform” and “Storage Economics” when I get time to write….

In the mean time, make sure you read these related posts (updates will follow):

• Chris Evans :  Hitachi Bloggers Day 2011 – Part I (focus on VAAI)
• Hu Yoshida : An Amazing Week of Content and Context
• Bundled search result by HDS
• Juku IT : Hitachi’s new VMware strategy (focus on VMware)

Disclaimer:
HDS has invited me and a range of well known and respected bloggers to visit HDS EMEA Headquarters at Sefton Park UK for  the 2nd HDS Annual Blogger Day. Travel expenses and meals have been paid by HDS and there we are not obligated in any way to write about what we have seen or heard. My time has not by compensated, except for the good company I was in.

Last year HDS had a Blogger Day in Japan. This must have been a good experience for HDS to have another event like this planned on March 23rd and 24th.

Usually, blogger events are tough on the presenters and their respective companies, because analysts and bloggers tend to ask questions usually not asked by prospects, although prospects should also be asking these questions. HDS already had an event like the HDS Bloggers Day 2011, so they know what to expect. I guess HDS will be very prepared for the attending crowd’s avalanche of questions.

The attending delegation of bloggers is quite impressive, and like I tweeted a couple of days back, I do feel honored to be mentioned among them.
If you at all care about the storage industry, you should be reading their blogs, and certainly follow them on twitter if you don’t do so already.

Below is the list of attendees in random order.

Make sure you follow the tweets using the twitter hashtag #HDSday and keep updated throug http://www.hds.com/go/geekday/

Looing forward to it….

Tomorrow I will be attending the HDS 2011 Geek / Blogger Day. In light of this event and the recent Calvin Zito (@HPStorageGuy) post on the HP APEX features I had some thought on this.

We all know HP OEM’s the HDS VSP product, as they did (still do actually) for the XP (HDS USP) series. In the third quarter of last year, HDS announced the new VSP product line, instantaneously followed by HP and the P9500. HP is differentiating itself from HDS by having some additional features that are not available from HDS.

The HP Application Performance Extender (APEX) enables certain host operating systems (currently Linux, Windows and HP-UX) to prioritize their host I/O over other systems. This enables IT departments to set performance characteristics to their core applications to ensure the optimum services to their (internal) customers.

In the post by Calvin Zito I mentioned at the beginning, you can read the APEX software now also allows for LDEV ownership transfer to a less busy controller in the P9500. This way you can also optimize the array usage without depending on APEX host agents.

For this to work properly, you might want to make sure you do not set conflicting values for the APEX host agents and the settings for DLOM. My question, will the DLOM micro-processor ownership changes also change preferred LUN/ALUA settings in respect to the host, if they notice it at all? I believe not all native host MPIO drivers like this while being actively used.

Anyway, one of my questions for the HDS Geek Day will be whether HDS thinks an APEX type feature is not needed at all, or if they are working on a similar feature to be used by the VSP.

Since a few days (as of March 10th), Sony has a new PS3 firmware available. Version 3.60 to be exact.

As of this version, you can copy a number of your savegames, not all,  to your PlayStation^tm Network (Plus only) account. This way you can download all your “cloud stored” savegames to another PS3 console (with the same firmware obviously) and resume your gaming there. Be sure to copy them to the cloud again after you’re done gaming.

Note, it is a manual process. You have to navigate the crossbar menu to the Games options and then copy the savegames to your PlayStation^tm Network account.

I have been trying to figure out if I have a Plus account or not, but so far, all I got from the PlayStation^tm Network Plus site is a 404 error. It is also really annoying to navigate the website because it is cluttered with banners and game info, and to me it far from informational. I have been trying the website out since I got my PS3 a couple of years back, but it hasn’t improved much over time.

I do think it is a good move to enable “online” storing of your save games, but is it what we need? I think not. The Nintendo Wii did a better job I guess, by enabling you to store your game info on one of the controllers and bring that along to your friends place or wherever.
The problem to me is that it still is a manual process. Sony should make it an automatic synchronization (maybe a la Dropbox) feature you can enable in the settings menu.

The 150MB online storage space isn’t much, but it is more than enough to store a bunch of savegame data. Game progress information is only small in size. Sony has limited the online storage to 150MB or 1000 files, which seems like more then enough for me, but I couldn’t hardly determine the required space for hardcore gamers (which I am not).

Sony’s move is displaying a trend though. A lot more devices and not limited to game consoles or personal computers, are moving towards the online storing, or storing in the cloud if you wish.
My home cinema soundbar (HTS9140) has upgradable firmware (it is Busybox Linux under the hood), and it is quite possible that future releases enable me to save or read cloud saved configuration data. Heck,  I could even make this feature myself, because Philips offers the source code on request.

But for what purpose would I want all my consumer electronics connected to and storing in the cloud? We can all think of a number of things, like a real-time fridge inventory for my friendly neighborhood grocery store, so he or she can deliver new beer if my fridge tells him or her my stash has dried up.  I’d rather have  my frensh-fry cooker tell me on my PlayStation mid-game that the fries are done, or maybe even force a pause mid-game  to prevent a fire in the kitchen. Not speaking from experience here by the way !!  Will it come to that? Who knows…. it will only depend on the demand we can all generate.

I suspect most cloud-stored consumer electronics information will be vendor controlled and mined and might not interact with other devices in the same home, unless they are from the same vendor.
As a data center technology guy I have encountered numerous compatibility issues. This might all become true for home electronics as well if we don’t set the demands and requirements from a consumer standpoint instead of  vendors perspective.

I am really looking forward to what is yet to be invented…