Traditional enterprise storage architecture had very limited autonomy. The autonomy on these systems was limited to providing spare drives, to automatically replace failed drives. Controller failures required manual intervention and high cost maintenance contracts to maintain storage SLO. Data migrations done to improve performance or provide resiliency were typically disruptive operations which meant a hit […]
An exciting day at Datera as we welcome Fujitsu, a well respected global brand, as a strategic partner to support enterprises who are rapidly adopting software-defined storage in order to achieve radically better business outcomes.
It’s been three years since I worked up a software-defined comparison between Red Hat Ceph and Datera, which you can see here for reference. That’s 30 years in technology time (one year of human life equals 10 in technology evolution), so it’s more than time for an update. And, as you’d expect, a sea change […]
Who, When, How, Why and What’s Coming in 2020 Geekonomics? Yes, we pay homage again to Freakonomics, the National Public Radio Podcast series that reveals the hidden side of everything, applying economic theory and exposing often hidden data to reveal the underlying truth. In Geekonomics, we take the same approach to all things IT to […]
Hint: Container Storage Interface (CSI) Plug-In doesn’t mean Container Storage-Optimized. Straight out of DevOps land comes this missive: 90% of the Fortune 1000 are using containers in production, restructuring their architectures to meet the challenges of the next decade, and migrating their applications from virtual and traditional infrastructure to container solutions and Kubernetes (known industry-wide […]
When I first saw Scott Sinclair’s recent ESG research indicating that 72% of large enterprises are committed to software-defined storage for their data infrastructure of the future, I thought he had to have transposed the digits: 72% is a big number; the array vendors are, in a word, entrenched, and corporate IT is already fighting […]
Fortune 1000 companies can use this document to generate a comprehensive Request For Information and a focused and efficient Proof of Concept to test for current and future storage needs. Transition was everywhere in 2019. Enterprises that had rushed to get to the public cloud started bringing applications back. They also began to deploy Tier […]
As cloud storage geeks, we’re big fans of deep dives that help separate the hype from the reality in the land of Cloud and Data Storage. To get to the bottom of it, Datera CTO Hal Woods met recently with Chris M. Evans and Martin Glassborow of ArchitectingIT for their Storage Unpacked podcast series for […]
We live in a data-driven world. As modern enterprises continue moving from hardware-defined to software-defined, the most advanced organizations are looking at data-driven architectures to free their data from the underlying infrastructure. Our CEO Guy Churchward recently appeared on theCUBE to discuss just how to end the “data silo debacle.” Watch the full video below. […]
Below is the embedded video of a TV late night show-style conversation—complete with 1950s style microphone unconnected to anything!—I had with Guy Churchward of Datera and Tom Sabol of HPE on the occasion of the Datera-germinated SDDC Virtual Symposium event recently. There’s a danger in writing this blog that I might start simply repeating what […]
Yesterday was Day 1 of the first SDDC Symposium hosted by Datera, the leading data-defined storage software platform, with fellow leaders in networking, storage, compute, and solutions: Cumulus, HPE, Intel, Mellanox, and Scality. The virtual event was conceived to give you the information and tools you need to build or expand a modern, software-defined data […]
As an industry analyst, I am fortunate to get a front-row seat to how technologies are developed and consumed, and how markets shift. One of the key trends I’ve been tracking in 2019 is the continued strong interest in—and move to—software-defined infrastructure. I wrote about this in a prior guest blog for Datera earlier this […]
Hybrid cloud architectures are the new norm for today’s enterprise, and the majority of organizations are repatriating from the public cloud to a software-defined, hybrid cloud environment. Are you looking for a “crash course” to achieve the software-defined data canter without the crash? That’s where our virtual SDDC Symposium comes in. Hosted by software-defined storage […]
This article explores how to evaluate enterprise storage choices for hybrid and private cloud environments that use a mix of media from SATA to NVMe, and a mix of application deployment options such as VMs, containers, and bare metal. I recently upsized to a big ol’ pickup truck, a Ford F-350 with four-wheel drive, a […]
This US-based company is “digitally transforming” (buzzword meter is flashing yellow again) the human capital management industry with a slate of cloud offerings serving 3,700 customers in 160 countries. No Fortune 500 ranking now, but watch this space. I’ll do my best to provide you with some insights into their challenges, the range of options […]
I spent many years buying and building High Performance and Highly Availability data storage environments using all-flash and hybrid arrays from three- and four-letter storage vendors. From this year’s newest flash to old school disk array system, these array vendors are always trying to convince us of two things: first, that with enough money and […]
This US-based company is “disrupting” (just seeing if your buzzword meter is on) the financial industry by automating end-to-end credit and lending across the US, UK and Brazil. Problem Saw the lights flickering on the storage array industry and wanted to go in a different direction. Because they want to drive fast analytics to achieve […]
Geekonomics? Yes, we are paying homage to Freakonomics – the National Public Radio podcast series that reveals the hidden side of everything, applying economics theory and utilizing often hidden data to reveal the underlying truth. In Geekonomics we apply economic theory to all things IT to see what is really happening. Let’s do the math. […]
So I’ve been at this B2B technology game for a long time, and I know what you’re thinking when you see writeups on customers—what we refer to as “case studies” or “customer success stories” in the tech biz. In a phrase, you and I are thinking the same exact thing: pure and unadulterated bullshit. You’re […]
You’re ready to take Tier 1 apps into production on Kubernetes, but storage is holding you back. Here’s how to configure Datera to optimize for production and scale. You’ve containerized apps in Kubernetes and are ready to move to production, but accessing storage dynamically has been a road block. This is where your choice of […]
Join Shailesh Mittal of Datera on Thursday, August 8, 2019 for the Kubernetes Virtual Summit where he’ll be presenting “Overcoming Storage Challenges in Kubernetes” – alongside keynotes from Tim Hockin of Google Cloud, Dan Kohn of CNCF, Abby Kearns of Cloud Foundry, and Liz Rice of Aqua Security. Registration is free but space is limited. […]
And Every Team Needs a Captain – That’s Datera The confetti and tchotchkes are all gone following HPE Discover, the company’s signature customer event. After a week of reflection on the fanfare, product and solution announcements, and the findings from customers and partners, we’re even more energized on the path forward to reshape the industry. […]
Terms like “software-defined storage” (SDS) can be misinterpreted as representing something that came and went…some may even view it as a case of ‘failure to launch’; but the truth is that it is more like a rocket that had a very long and slow-burning fuse, but is now gradually escaping the gravitational pull of old-style […]
Just six months ago at the start of 2019, HPE introduced Datera as the newest member of the HPE Complete portfolio so that HPE could bring to market — for the first time — an enterprise software-defined storage platform for tier 1 block workloads with proven enterprise ‘ilities’ (e.g. agility, flexibility, availability, scalability), all backed […]
Before starting Datera in 2013, a small group of us contributed the block storage subsystem to the Linux (“Linux-IO”) open source project, adopted by the likes of Google, Red Hat (now IBM) and a multitude of array manufacturers. Linux-IO eventually became the industry standard and emerged as an essential ingredient to software-defined IT infrastructure. While […]
How the Cloud moved from the Public Clouds to the Agile Enterprise The 1990s saw the emergence of a new sport that captured the attention of the world – Women’s Soccer (or for our European friends Football). The landscape changed, older styles of play were overtaken with a pace unbeknownst to the world, and voila, […]
Tesla? God no. I did my level best to avoid the media hype, the social chatter and the swarm to Tesla because I just didn’t want one. My resistance was due less to the character and quality of the car than to the polarizing stigma they have here in Silicon Valley, just another emblem of […]
IDC reports that 63% of companies are in the process of repatriating applications and data back on-prem from the public cloud. So is the public cloud going bust? Hardly. There is no bust going on, but simply the maturation of a $100 billion dollar industry – a service oriented “cloud-like” approach to IT – that […]
Software-Defined Storage Does Not Pass Go Without Advanced Automation The world will be creating 163 zettabytes of data a year by 2025, according to IDC. Switching from blocks to kilometers for a minute, one measurement shows “if each Terabyte in a Zettabyte were a kilometer, it would be equivalent to 1,300 round trips to the […]
There you were, top of the food chain for millenniums and then it happened, clouds rolled in and you were done. On the other side of the world things were happening that changed your climate, it got cloudy. Too big and too slow to adapt, you tried to survive, but the end was at hand. […]
As Datera announces the joining of HPE Complete Program to accelerate the enterprise transition to software-defined storage, it seems an ideal moment to capture some thoughts on video. A great digital revolution happens only every ten to twenty years, with Silicon Valley at its epicenter. The amazing team of engineers and thought leaders at Datera […]
Happy Holidays, Y’all! As the old year closes up shop and a new one struts in, many of us are in the habit of making a list of the things we’d like to do differently this time around. New Year’s Resolutions aren’t always realized but they are based on the intention to make a change […]
As the end of the year approaches, let me reflect with some pride on what we have achieved at Datera so far and provide some perspective on the path forward. Our most recently reported revenue growth showed us up 240% in the first half of this year alone, fueled by customer growth of more than […]
Tear up the old sheet music and improvise – the Software Defined Data Center is out on a World Wide Tour The Software defined data center (SDDC), like the spirit of the beloved Grateful Dead psychedelic band, is alive and well and headed out on the road despite what you may have last heard. The […]
Why is it when it’s your neck on the line that everyone in Silicon Valley queues up to lecture you on how critical it is that you take risks? From David Packard (“Take risks. Ask big questions. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.”), to Steve Jobs (“The greatest artists like Dylan, Picasso and Newton risked […]
The information maintained in databases is the lifeblood of today’s enterprise. Yet organizations are living the nightmare of keeping up with their rapidly growing database farms, both in sheer size and volume. The old way of provisioning database servers is simply too expensive and slow. Procuring more gear, racking it up, checking operating system versions, […]
Nicky Nichols from Netflix’s Orange is the New Black (OITNB) pretty much summed up what is happening right now in the typical enterprise data center when she said “You Know, another layer of icing on a sh!tcake doesn’t make it taste good.” These clean rooms full of aisles, racks and blinking lights have lots of […]
Waze absolutely rules! Yes, I am a Wazer, as Google calls the users of its most popular community-based navigation app, and I’m better for it. By planning your departure, route, arrival and to some extent, your life, it optimizes your transport in the most valuable units imaginable – your time. How else could I get […]
Sometimes, it seems as if success comes from just sticking it out. Take for example the infamous WD-40® named for its Water Displacement formula – perfected on the 40th try. Or bubble wrap – a newfangled textured wallpaper that morphed into home insulation before finally finding its niche as packing material. In each case these […]
More and more of what we do these days at work and at play requires fast access to data. One of the most popular pastimes online today is a 100-player, app-like video game that is being played by over 125 million people worldwide. That’s a lot of data from a lot of people who expect […]
Last month, I found myself on the hook to transport all of my Mom’s worldly possessions from California to Colorado. Like so many of us who accumulate more and more data with every passing day, my Mom had collected an awful lot of stuff over the years. Before departing on my 1500 mile journey through […]
The discussion about digital transformation envelops the cloud, architecture and delivery models with almost too many choices. Private cloud? Public cloud? Hybrid cloud? Microservices? CI/CD? SaaS? And what about what’s already in place? You can bet those pushing toward a digital transformation already have an on-premises environment that required blood, sweat and tears to perfect. […]
There was a time when a single application owned data forever. Today, data is hybrid, used by many applications. It has left the proverbial nest – and for good reason. Data has the value and tying it to one application traps that value.
Datera had a recent win attributed to our radical simplicity. The previous supplier required 27 steps using three different tool sets to provision every single volume. Before performing them, someone had to figure out the answers to every question…
When customers ask about performance and availability of storage systems, the answers often are both theoretical and full of caveats. If you’re lucky enough to get an honest answer, it shouldn’t involve crossing your fingers or dealing with a disgruntled admin named Chris…
Today, everyone thinks hybrid means flash and disk. What they need is a storage architecture that was built to be hybrid. Just as important is a system that allows the ratios to be changed and new technology to be incorporated.
Everyone’s talking about the move to cloud. But for most, there’s an existing on-prem environment that required blood, sweat and tears to get right. And it’s working just fine – even thriving. To manage a hybrid IT environment, you just need a common data substrate.
After 30 years in the data storage industry, we can all agree that I am old. But, I would like to point out that everything has its time, and at some point, its time has passed. No, I’m not talking about me – I’m talking about using IOPS as the measure of performance.
The hype around self-driving cars keeps reaching new heights, with most pundits focusing on their immediate innovation and novelty. But the true transformation isn’t the self-driving car, it’s the underlying digital technology.
Having integrated, architected, scrutinized, acquired or dismantled dozens of scale-out architectures in my career as a CTO, I can tell you that scale-out is not new, it is not easy and it is not perfect – but it is valuable.
Datera is the only storage product built to natively support a declarative, intent-based paradigm for configuration and management. It’s a new idea, so I’m going to clarify why it will revolutionize the way you manage storage.
In our tests, our goal was to achieve as much of an apples-to-apples comparison as possible, so we used the same hardware, switches, network, load generation, testing tools and number of volumes. And the winner is…
The ability to leverage commodity servers to build large scale storage systems is undeniably the future. However, when we look under the covers of two such software-defined storage solutions – Datera and Ceph – the differences become clear.