Archivo de la categoría: Storage

Cleversafe, hybrid cloud, IBM, News & Analysis, Storage, Storage as a Service

IBM acquires storage vendor Cleversafe in hybrid cloud play

IBMEnterprise IT giant IBM has announced it will be acquiring object-based storage software and appliances vendor Cleversafe to boost its storage and hybrid cloud offering.

IBM will integrate the Cleversafe portfolio into its IBM Cloud business unit. The growth in the amount of unstructured data companies are looking to process, coupled with the need to find a balance between on-premise and cloud storage deployments, has created the demand for more storage options and greater flexibility, according to IBM.

“Today a massive digital transformation is underway as organizations increasingly turn to cloud computing for innovative ways to manage more complex business operations and increasing volumes of data in a secure and effective way,” said Robert LeBlanc, SVP of IBM Cloud. “Cleversafe, a pioneer in object storage, will add to our efforts to help clients overcome these challenges by extending and strengthening our cloud storage strategy, as well as our portfolio.”

“IBM is an innovator and leader in cloud and storage and we’re excited about the opportunities that lay ahead once this transaction closes,” said John Morris, President and CEO of Cleversafe. “Together with IBM we can extend our object storage leadership position to address the broadest set of workloads for clients with the most expansive set of object-based solutions.”

The terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but Cleversafe employs 210 people so the size of the acquisition is likely to be in the tens of million dollars.

Incidentally IBM has also announced a new mobile cloud security solution aimed at enterprise, which is a combination of products from both companies.

“More employees are using mobile devices to be more productive. At the same time, data and apps are moving to the cloud. The changes are exciting, but security needs to be top-of-mind,” said Steve McGaw, CMO of AT&T Business Solutions. “Trusted collaborators like IBM are helping us better address changing business models. Together we’re giving options to deliver highly secure mobile access to cloud apps and data.”

BackBlaze, News & Analysis, Public Cloud, Storage, Storage as a Service

Backblaze launches cheap cloud storage service

BackBlaze B2 screenBackup service provider Backblaze has made a cloud storage service available for beta testing. When launched it could provide businesses with a cheap alternative to the Amazon S3 and the storage services bundled with Microsoft Azure and Google’s Cloud.

According to sources, Backblaze B2 will offer a free tier of service of up to 10GB storage, with 1GB/ per day of outbound traffic and unlimited inbound bandwidth. Developers will be able to access it through an API and command-line interface, but the service will also offer a web interface for less technical users.

Launched in 2007 Backblaze stores 150 petabytes of backup data and over 10 billion files on its servers, having built its own storage pods and software as a policy. Now, it intends to use this infrastructure building knowledge to offer a competitive cloud storage service, according to CEO Gleb Budman.

“We spent 90 per cent of our time and energy on building out the cloud storage and only 10 per cent on the front end,” Glebman told Tech Crunch. The stability of its backup service technology persuaded many users to extend the service into data storage. In response to customer demand,

Backblaze’s engineers spent a year working on the software to make this possible. Now the company is preparing to launch a business to business service that, it says, can compete with the cloud storage market’s incumbents on price and availability.

Backblaze’s service, when launched, will be half the price of Amazon Glacier, and ‘about a fourth’ of Amazon’s S3 service, according to sources. “Storage is still expensive,” Glebman said.

Though the primary use for Backblaze B2 will be to store images, videos and other documents, Budman said he expects some users to use it to store large research data sets.

Amazon, AWS, News & Analysis, Storage, Storage as a Service

Amazon Web Services to offer new hierarchical storage options after customer feedback

amazon awsAmazon Web services (AWS) is adding a new storage class to speed up the retrieval of frequently accessed information.

The announcement was made by AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr on his company blog. Customer feedback had made AWS conduct an analysis of usage patterns, Barr said. AWS’s analytical team discovered that many customers store rarely-read backup and log files, which compete for resources with shared documents or raw data that need immediate analysis. Most users have frequent activity with their files shortly after uploading them after which activity drops off significantly with age. Information that’s important but not immediately urgent needs to be addressed through a new storage model, said Barr.

In response AWS has unveiled a new S3 Standard, within which there is a hierarchy of pricing options, based on the frequency of access. Customers now have the choice of three S3 storage classes, Standard, Standard – IA (infrequent access) and Glacier. All still offer the same level of 99.999999999 per cent durability.‎ The IA Standard for infrequent access has a service level agreement (SLA) of 99 per cent availability and is priced accordingly. Prices start at $0.0125 per gigabyte per month with a 30 day minimum storage duration for billing and a $0.01 per gigabyte charge for retrieval. The usual data transfer and request charges apply.

For billing purposes, objects that are smaller than 128 kilobytes are charged for 128 kilobytes of storage. AWS says this new pricing model will make its storage class more economical for long-term storage, backups and disaster recovery.

AWS has also introduced a lifecycle policy option, in a system that emulates the hierarchical storage model of centralised computing. Users can now create policies that will automate the movement of data between Amazon S3 storage classes over time. Typically, according to Barr, uploaded data using the Standard storage class will be moved by customers to Standard IA class when it’s 30 days old, and on to the Amazon Glacier class after another 60 days, where data storage will $0.01 per gigabyte per month.

Ctera, Data management, Enterprise IT, HP, News & Analysis, Storage, Storage as a Service

Ctera now integrated with HP’s hybrid cloud manager

Cloud storageCtera Networks says it has integrated its storage and data management systems with HP’s cloud service automation (HP CSA) as it seeks way to simplify the management of enterprise file services across hybrid clouds.

The HP CSA ‘architecture’ now officially recognises and includes Ctera’s Enterprise File Services platform. The logic of the collaboration is that as the HP service helps companies build private and hybrid clouds they will need tighter data management in order to deliver new services to enterprise users, according to the vendors.

Ctera, which specialises in remote site storage, data protection, file synchronisation, file sharing and mobile collaboration services, has moved to make it easier to get those services on HP’s systems. According to Ctera, the new services can now be run on any organization’s HP CSA managed private or virtual private cloud infrastructure.

Enterprises that embrace the cloud need to modernise their file services and IT delivery models, according to Jeff Denworth, Ctera’s marketing SVP. The new addition of Ctera to HP CSA means they can easily manage file services from a single control point and quickly roll out the apps using a self-service portal, Denworth said.

“HP CSA helps IT managers become organisational heroes by accelerating the deployment of private and hybrid clouds and IT services,” said Denworth. The partnership with HP will result in a ‘broad suite’ of file services, increased agility and cheaper hybrid cloud services, according to Denworth.

The partnership should make things simpler for cloud managers, who are being forced to take on several roles, according to Atul Garg, HP’s general manager of cloud automation. “Today’s IT teams are becoming cloud services brokers, managing various products and services across hybrid environments and fundamentally changing how they deliver value to the broader organisation,” said Garg. Now file services can be deployed easily to tens of thousands of users, said Garg.

Cloud Storage, hybrid cloud, Storage, Storage and Information Management

The Storage (R)Evolution or The Storage Superstorm?

The storage market is changing, and it isn’t changing slowly. While traditional storage vendors still dominate the revenue and units sold market share, IDC concludes that direct sales to hyperscale (cloud scale, rack scale) service providers are dominating sales of storage. Hyperscale is the ability of an architecture to scale appropriately as increased demand is added to the system; hyperscale datacenters are the type run by Facebook, Amazon, and Google. 

Quote to remember:

“…cloud-based storage, integrated systems, software-defined storage, and flash-optimized storage systems <are selling> at the expense of traditional external arrays.”

In my opinion, this is like the leading edge of a thunderstorm supercell or a “Sandy” Superstorm – the changes that are behind this trend will be tornadoes of upheaval in the datacenter technology business. As cloud services implementations accelerate and software defined storage services proliferate, the impact will be felt not only in the storage market, but also in the server and networking markets. These changes will be reflected in how solutions providers, consulting firms, and VAR/DVARs will help the commercial market solve their technology and business challenges.

EMC is still number one by a very large margin, although down 4% year over year. HP is up nearly 9%; IBM and NetApp are way down. EMC overall (with NAS) has 32.4% revenue share; NetApp number 2 with 12.3%. Even with the apparent domination of the storage vendor market, it is obvious to EMC, their investors, and storage analysts everywhere (including yours truly) that the handwriting on the wall says they must adapt or become irrelevant. The list of great technology firms that didn’t adapt is long, even in New England alone. Digital Equipment Corporation is just one example.

Is EMC next? Not if the leadership team has anything to say about it. The recent announcements by VMware (EMC majority owned) at VMworld 2015 show not only the renewed emphasis on hybrid cloud services but also the intensive focus on software defined storage initiatives enabling the storage stack to be centrally managed within the vSphere Hypervisor. VMware vSphere APIs for IO Filtering are focused on enabling third party data services, such as replication, as part of vSphere Storage Policy-Based Management, the framework for software-defined storage services in vSphere.

EMC is clearly doubling down on the move to Hybrid Clouds with their Federation EMC Hybrid Cloud, as well as all the VMware vCloud Air initiatives. GreenPages is exploring and advising their customers on ways to develop a hybrid cloud strategy, and this includes engaging the EMC FEHC team as well as the VMware vCloud Air­ solution. EMC isn’t the only traditional disk array vendor to explore a cloud strategy, but it seems to be much further along than the others.

Software Defined Storage is the technology to keep an eye on. DataCore and FalconStor software dominated this space before it was even called SDS by default – there were no other SDS solutions out there. EMC came back in a big way with ViPR, arguably the most advanced “true” software defined storage solution in the market place now. Some of the other software-only vendors surging in this space, where software manages advanced data services across different arrays, like provisioning, deduplication, tiering, replication and snapshots, include Nexenta, Hedvig and others. Vendor SDS is a valid share of the market and is enabled by storage virtualization solutions by IBM, NetApp and others. Once “virtualized,” the vendor software enables cross platform data services. Other software-enabled platforms for advanced storage solutions include Coho Data and Pivot3. Hyperconverged solutions such as VSAN, SimpliVity or Nutanix offer more options to new datacenter solutions that don’t include a traditional storage array. “Tier 2” storage platforms such as Nexsan can benefit from this surge because, while the hardware platforms are solid and well-built, those companies haven’t invested as much or as long in the add-on software services that NetApp (for example) has. With advanced SDS solutions in place, this tier of storage can step up with a more “commodity” priced solution for advanced storage solutions.

In addition to the Hybrid Cloud diversification strategy, EMC and other traditional storage manufacturers are keeping a wary eye on the non-traditional vendors such as Nimble Storage, which is offering innovative and easy-to-use alternatives to the core EMC market. There are also a myriad of startups developing new storage services such as Coho, Rubrik, Nexenta, CleverSafe and others. The All Flash Array market is exploding with advanced solutions made possible by the growing maturity of the flash technology and the proliferation of new software designed to leverage the uniqueness of flash storage. Pure Storage grabbed early market share, followed by XtremIO (EMC), but SolidFire, Nexenta, Coho and Kaminario have developed competitive solutions that range from service provider oriented products to software defined storage services leveraging commodity flash storage.

 

What does this coming superstorm of change mean to you, your company, and your data center strategy? It means that when you are developing a strategic plan for your storage refreshes or datacenter refreshes, you have more options than ever to reduce total cost of ownership, add advanced data services such as disaster recovery or integrated backups, and replace parts (or the whole) of your datacenter storage, server and networking stacks. Contact us today to continue this discussion and see where it leads you. 

 

 

 

 

 

By Randy Weis, Principal Architect

Cloud Storage, Featured, hybrid cloud, Storage, Storage and Information Management

The Storage (R)Evolution or The Storage Superstorm?

The storage market is changing, and it isn’t changing slowly. While traditional storage vendors still dominate the revenue and units sold market share, IDC concludes that direct sales to hyperscale (cloud scale, rack scale) service providers are dominating sales of storage. Hyperscale is the ability of an architecture to scale appropriately as increased demand is added to the system; hyperscale datacenters are the type run by Facebook, Amazon, and Google. 

Quote to remember:

“…cloud-based storage, integrated systems, software-defined storage, and flash-optimized storage systems <are selling> at the expense of traditional external arrays.”

In my opinion, this is like the leading edge of a thunderstorm supercell or a “Sandy” Superstorm – the changes that are behind this trend will be tornadoes of upheaval in the datacenter technology business. As cloud services implementations accelerate and software defined storage services proliferate, the impact will be felt not only in the storage market, but also in the server and networking markets. These changes will be reflected in how solutions providers, consulting firms, and VAR/DVARs will help the commercial market solve their technology and business challenges.

EMC is still number one by a very large margin, although down 4% year over year. HP is up nearly 9%; IBM and NetApp are way down. EMC overall (with NAS) has 32.4% revenue share; NetApp number 2 with 12.3%. Even with the apparent domination of the storage vendor market, it is obvious to EMC, their investors, and storage analysts everywhere (including yours truly) that the handwriting on the wall says they must adapt or become irrelevant. The list of great technology firms that didn’t adapt is long, even in New England alone. Digital Equipment Corporation is just one example.

Is EMC next? Not if the leadership team has anything to say about it. The recent announcements by VMware (EMC majority owned) at VMworld 2015 show not only the renewed emphasis on hybrid cloud services but also the intensive focus on software defined storage initiatives enabling the storage stack to be centrally managed within the vSphere Hypervisor. VMware vSphere APIs for IO Filtering are focused on enabling third party data services, such as replication, as part of vSphere Storage Policy-Based Management, the framework for software-defined storage services in vSphere.

EMC is clearly doubling down on the move to Hybrid Clouds with their Federation EMC Hybrid Cloud, as well as all the VMware vCloud Air initiatives. GreenPages is exploring and advising their customers on ways to develop a hybrid cloud strategy, and this includes engaging the EMC FEHC team as well as the VMware vCloud Air­ solution. EMC isn’t the only traditional disk array vendor to explore a cloud strategy, but it seems to be much further along than the others.

Software Defined Storage is the technology to keep an eye on. DataCore and FalconStor software dominated this space before it was even called SDS by default – there were no other SDS solutions out there. EMC came back in a big way with ViPR, arguably the most advanced “true” software defined storage solution in the market place now. Some of the other software-only vendors surging in this space, where software manages advanced data services across different arrays, like provisioning, deduplication, tiering, replication and snapshots, include Nexenta, Hedvig and others. Vendor SDS is a valid share of the market and is enabled by storage virtualization solutions by IBM, NetApp and others. Once “virtualized,” the vendor software enables cross platform data services. Other software-enabled platforms for advanced storage solutions include Coho Data and Pivot3. Hyperconverged solutions such as VSAN, SimpliVity or Nutanix offer more options to new datacenter solutions that don’t include a traditional storage array. “Tier 2” storage platforms such as Nexsan can benefit from this surge because, while the hardware platforms are solid and well-built, those companies haven’t invested as much or as long in the add-on software services that NetApp (for example) has. With advanced SDS solutions in place, this tier of storage can step up with a more “commodity” priced solution for advanced storage solutions.

In addition to the Hybrid Cloud diversification strategy, EMC and other traditional storage manufacturers are keeping a wary eye on the non-traditional vendors such as Nimble Storage, which is offering innovative and easy-to-use alternatives to the core EMC market. There are also a myriad of startups developing new storage services such as Coho, Rubrik, Nexenta, CleverSafe and others. The All Flash Array market is exploding with advanced solutions made possible by the growing maturity of the flash technology and the proliferation of new software designed to leverage the uniqueness of flash storage. Pure Storage grabbed early market share, followed by XtremIO (EMC), but SolidFire, Nexenta, Coho and Kaminario have developed competitive solutions that range from service provider oriented products to software defined storage services leveraging commodity flash storage.

 

What does this coming superstorm of change mean to you, your company, and your data center strategy? It means that when you are developing a strategic plan for your storage refreshes or datacenter refreshes, you have more options than ever to reduce total cost of ownership, add advanced data services such as disaster recovery or integrated backups, and replace parts (or the whole) of your datacenter storage, server and networking stacks. Contact us today to continue this discussion and see where it leads you. 

 

 

 

 

 

By Randy Weis, Principal Architect

IDC, News & Analysis, Research, Storage

The cloud is commoditising storage for enterprises – report

Cloud storageLittle known unbranded manufacturers are making inroads into the storage market as the cloud commoditises the industry storage, according to a new report by market researcher IDC. Meanwhile, the market for traditional external storage systems is shrinking, it warns.

The data centres of big cloud companies like Google and Facebook are much more likely to buy from smaller, lesser known storage vendors now, as they are no longer compelled to commit themselves to specialised storage platforms, said IDC in its latest Enterprise Storage report.

Revenue for original design manufacturers (ODMs) that sell directly to hyperscale data-center operators grew 25.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2015, in a period when overall industry revenue rose just 2.1 per cent. However, data centre purchases accounted for US$1 billion in the second quarter, while the overall industry revenue is still larger, for now, at $8.8 billion. However, the growth trends indicate that a shift in buying power will take place, according to IDC analyst Eric Sheppard. Increasingly, the platform of choice for storage is a standard x86 server dedicated to storing data, said Sheppard.

ODMs such as Quanta Computer and Wistron are becoming increasingly influential, said Sheppard. Like many low-profile vendors, based in Taiwan, they are providing hardware to be sold under the badges of better known brand names, as sales of server-based storage rose 10 per cent in the second quarter to reach $2.1 billion.

Traditional external systems like SANs (storage area networks) are still the bulk of the enterprise storage business, which was worth $5.7 billion in revenue for the quarter. But sales in this segment are declining, down 3.9 per cent in that period.

With the cloud transferring the burden of processing to data centres, the biggest purchasers of storage are now Internet giants and cloud service providers. Typically their hyper-scale data centres are software controlled and no longer need the more expensive proprietary systems that individual companies were persuaded to buy, according to the report. Generic, unbranded hardware is sufficient, provided that it is software defined, the report said.

“The software, not the hardware, defines the storage architecture,” said Sheppard. The cloud has made it possible to define the management of storage in more detail, so that the resources can be matched more evenly to each virtual machine. This has cut the long term operating costs. These changes will intensify in the next five years, the analyst predicted.

EMC remained the biggest vendor by revenue with just over 19 per cent of the market, followed by Hewlett-Packard with just over 16 per cent.

Douglas C. Carlisle, IPO, Menlo Ventures, News & Analysis, Scality, software, software defined storage, Storage, Storage as a Service

Software-defined storage vendor Scality nabs $45m to prep for IPO

Scality has secured $45m in its latest funding round and plans to go public in 2017

Scality has secured $45m in its latest funding round and plans to go public in 2017

Software-defined storage expert Scality has secured $45m in a funding round led by Menlo Ventures, which the company said will be used to fuel its North American and international expansion.

Scality’s offering uses object storage to abstract underlying hardware to create a single pool of storage that can be manipulated with a wide range of protocols and technologies (SMB, Linux FS, OpenStack Swift, etc.).

The company, which offers storage software and has large reseller agreements in place with big box vendors like HP and Dell, has secured over $80m since its founding in 2009. It claims over 50 per cent of the server market is now reselling its SDS software.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that today, Scality is the biggest disruptor of the traditional storage industry, and I am extremely excited to witness their progression,” said Douglas C. Carlisle, managing director at Menlo Ventures.

“Their innovative storage model is meeting demand for scale like no other product on the market, and is poised to keep up with the steep incline in data volumes. With Jerome’s forward-thinking mindset, we expect to see Scality continue to be a trailblazer and to take its RING technology to the next level.”

The company has spent the better part of the past two years scaling up its operations in Asia and Europe, but it said the new funding will go towards bolstering its North American presence, with a view towards releasing and IPO in 2017.

“Over the course of the last year-and-a-half, we’ve seen an unprecedented amount of funding given to software storage startups. At the same time, we’ve seen the traditional storage vendors lose market share, change leadership and shift their business model to mimic the software-defined strategy. This latest funding round comes at a time when Scality and the software-defined storage industry are poised to attract billions of dollars from customers that are rethinking their storage strategies,” said Jerome Lecat, chief executive at Scality.

“Our employees and partners believe in us, and the fact that this last funding round was done at 2x valuation speaks volumes about the overall confidence in the future of Scality. This new capital investment will allow us to massively boost our go-to-market, attract strategic new hires, continue to expand globally, and be primed for a successful IPO by 2017,” Lecat said.

Dana Kammersgard, Datacentre, Dot Hill, M&A, News & Analysis, Phil Brace, Seagate, Storage

Seagate buys Dot Hill to bolster cloud cred

Seagate hasn't made too many cloud-focused acquisitions

Seagate hasn’t made too many cloud-focused acquisitions

Seagate announced plans to acquire storage software and hardware vendor Dot Hill Systems for $694m, which the company said would help bolster its cloud portfolio of products.

Dot Hill specialises in SAN technology and offers a range of storage array-based systems integrated with its storage and data management software, which are tailored primarily to the needs of cloud and virtualised workloads.

“Dot Hill’s innovative storage systems and IP portfolio are a strategic addition to our storage technology portfolio, enabling us to accelerate the growth of Seagate’s OEM-focused cloud storage system and solutions business,” said Phil Brace, president of Cloud Systems and Electronics Solutions at Seagate.

“We are focused on providing the highest quality storage systems for our OEM customers and Dot Hill’s storage solutions will enable us to advance our strategic efforts.  We look forward to welcoming Dot Hill’s strong team, which has proven experience in developing and delivering best-in-class storage solutions that are trusted by the world’s leading IT manufacturers and their channel partners,” Brace added.

The move will see Seagate pay $9.75 per Dot Hill share, totaling about $694m. Seagate said following the acquisition it will integrate Dot Hill’s portfolio into its cloud systems and electronics business.

“Seagate has a strong reputation in enterprise storage and is focused on building out its best-in-class storage system capabilities, making them the right home for the talented Dot Hill team,” said Dana Kammersgard, chief executive officer of Dot Hill.  “Dot Hill’s customers will benefit from leveraging Seagate’s leading technology and infrastructure to accelerate the delivery of advanced solutions.”

This is the latest cloud-centric acquisition for Seagate since it bought Exabyte last year.

Cloud Storage, Funding, News & Analysis, Storage, Tintri, Virtualisation

Storage tech provider Tintri bags $125m to take on EMC, NetApp

Tintri secured $125m in series F funding this week

Tintri secured $125m in series F funding this week

Storage specialist Tintri has secured $125m in a funding round the company said would go towards accelerating development of its virtualised storage solution.

The latest funding round, led by Silver Lake Kraftwerk with participation from Insight Venture Partners, Lightspeed Ventures, Menlo Ventures and NEA brings the total investment secured by Tintri since its founding in 2008 to $260m.

Tintri specialises in storage hardware optimised to serve up data for individual virtual machines. The company’s storage servers blend both HDD and SSD tech in order to optimise hot and cold storage and access, making storage more performant by making it smarter.

“The storage industry is going through a dramatic transformation. Virtualization and cloud are forces for change—and conventional DAS, NAS and SAN storage is struggling to keep pace. That’s why our message of VM-aware storage (VAS) is winning in the marketplace,” said Ken Klein, chairman and chief executive for Tintri.

“This funding fuels our mission—we’ll be growing our global footprint and raising visibility of the business benefits of storage built specifically for virtualized enterprises.”

The company’s virtualisation-aware storage wares have enjoyed some solid traction among some of the world’s largest companies and service providers including Chevron, GE, the EIB, NTT, SK Telecom and Rogers Communications.