Bruce Backa's thoughts on technology and life - Observations

Another Technology Passes

Your DisplayName here! — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:47:13 GMT

Depressingly (for me, anyway),today's generation doesn't even know what floppy drives are. In another 10 years the same will be true of 'disk' drives or 'hard' drives. This year is the beginning of the end for rotating media. You can already go to Staples and, for a reasonable price, buy an 80-gig solid state drive that is 100 times faster rotating media. Once there are no more rotating drives in desktop computers, servers will follow in a couple of years. Goodbye hard drive... you've served us well.

Cloud? What cloud?

Your DisplayName here! — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:43:06 GMT

The bad news is that for this post I have to admit to being over 40 (maybe even over 50…).

These days I’m often fascinated to see what 30-something MBAs in high tech marketing can come up with – and how much money they get to spend once they do. The latest, of course, is Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage. What is Cloud Computing? All your data and your applications are somewhere else and you connect to them over the common carrier (read: phone company) network. We did this 40 years ago. It was called mainframe computing.

This is an ideal scenario for smaller companies that don’t need much computing infrastructure and who cannot afford a systems maintenance staff. For the SOHO (small office, home office) market, this is a great thing. Over the years I've watched small businesses try to run their own infrastructure and it's not pretty.

But Cloud Computing isn't being marketed as a small business solution. The buzz is that this is the answer for everyone and everything.

However, for companies large enough to have or need an IT staff, there is little value here. What is the CIO going to do? Go to the CEO and say, “I quit. I just outsourced everything to the cloud. My job here is done.”

Let's look at a long-standing example. I’ve always been impressed by the success of Salesforce.com com who, by the way – when they talked to us a few years ago, did not encrypt the data you gave them and put it on a system you share with others. (Anyone read those stories about lost backup tapes...) I can’t see giving the life blood of my company to someone else to manage, nor having my staff rely on the vagaries of Verizon (or, in New Hampshire’s case, the literally bankrupt Fairpoint) as to whether they can do work today. Sorry.

This doesn't mean that we don't use web-based applications. We certainly do. But not for anything critical to our business.

If it sounds too good to be true… it probably is

Your DisplayName here! — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:43:06 GMT

One of the hottest topics in the storage industry today is deduplication. Deduplication is this year’s fancy way to do data compression, something that has been available for decades. If you were a fan of compression in years past, then you will probably be a fan of deduplication. But it’s not all upside.

Whereas most of the older compression formats have become standards (Winzip, for example) and thereby readable and writeable by most programs, all of the deduplication formats are proprietary. This means that the only thing that can read the deduped data is the hardware or software that wrote it in the first place. This, of course, is what all the platform manufacturers want – to lock you into their platform.

Dedupe is smarter than ‘ordinary’ compression, which does allow it to compress more, on average. These results, however, come at a price – processing time. Many of the dedupe solutions that perform brilliantly in demo fail when the volume being compressed grows beyond a few terabytes. Their algorithms become unwieldy and system performance deteriorates.

The bottom line for dedupe is the same as it is for most technologies… Under the right circumstances, it offers a lot of value. But dedupe is not the silver bullet. It is not a solution to every problem, and it may or may not be an answer to the challenges confronting you today.

Structural vs. Informative Technology

Your DisplayName here! — Sat, 16 May 2009 16:39:34 GMT

An interesting thing happened this year – an aspect of our business reversed… For years, the bulk of our discussions with customers has been about NTP Software QFS®. QFS provides a structural solution for managing file data. QFS users can set policies that govern the use of their resources. These policies can be both hard (an absolute rule) and soft (warnings, but not prohibitions). But in the majority of situations, QFS users set hard policies. Part of the value proposition for QFS is that it will automatically control what is allowed to go on in your environment.

However, these days it seems that many people have been taken by surprise by the need to manage their storage. Now, all of a sudden, they view storage management as something that has to be addressed immediately – not tomorrow, but today – but they don’t know where to start.

As a result, the character of our conversations has changed. What people want to talk about is no longer about implementing structural solutions, rather we’re talking more and more about how to gather the information necessary to decide what to manage and how to manage it.

The good news is that the applications that can show you where you stand and what your issues may be are non-invasive and easy to implement. You can gather data today, make decisions tomorrow, and start taking action the day after. If you find yourself in a storage management crisis, it only needs to last a matter of days. A non-structural, non-invasive solution is easy to implement and it will provide answers and direction in just a few days.

When it comes to storage management, there is no need to suffer. You can start making progress as soon as the day after tomorrow…

The Fastest Way to Save Money on Storage

Your DisplayName here! — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:19:34 GMT

The speed and depth of the economy’s decline has taken a lot of people by surprise, me included. Today it’s clear that the Storage Industry is no longer immune to reductions in IT spending. While we all still have to keep our businesses running, we also need to cut expenses and cut them now.

Storage, however, remains one of the most expensive aspects of most people’s networks and the end-users’ requirements continue to increase. We need our users to be doing new business every day. This means we’re telling them to create and save new business objects every day. So how do we control this expense? And how do we do it now!

While Harry Potter can just waive his magic wand, the rest of us cannot. Nevertheless, here are some easy to implement techniques that will do the job – and get it done now!

Block all non-business content. There are numerous ways to create file blocking policies depending on your storage infrastructure. The first and easiest step in reducing costs is to stop treating storage as though it were infinite and free.

Set reasonable limits on personal space. There are very few jobs that require the creation of mountains of content. Normally when someone has a large home directory it’s because they never take the time to clean up, or they’re filling it with non-business content. Again, depending on your storage platform, there are a variety straight-forward ways to set limits.

Analyze what’s out there. Unfortunately, there are no easy ways to do this. You will ultimately need find the right application and probably buy a license for it. But a terabyte of storage at today’s prices costs $47,000 a year to own and maintain. Compared to this price, the cost of analysis software is quite modest. For the customers that we work with, their one-year ROI is normally 3 to 5 times the license cost. (Providing, of course, they act on the information the application gives them.)

Everything here can be done on any storage platform. And all of it should have a positive one-year return whether your investment is in staff costs or applications. There is no reason why you cannot make a meaningful reduction in your storage costs this year. None. To quote Nike, “Just do it!”

A Job Offer You Should Refuse

Your DisplayName here! — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:07:28 GMT

Over the years a fair number of people have asked my opinion about the job offers they have received. I am happy to say that most of these offers were quite good. In fact, a couple of times I was jealous…

But if I were offered the job of most of the storage managers and CSOs (Chief Storage Officers) I meet, I would refuse. Not because being an infrastructure manager is a thankless job – which it is. Most jobs are characterized by more criticism than praise. The issue for me is that I won’t take a job where I am held responsible for delivering non-stop, high-quality service while, at the same time, I have no control over the consumption of the resources, and little or no insight about how they are being used.

What am I talking about?

Only a few of the storage mangers I meet have any policies describing the appropriate consumption of corporate storage resources. In fact, their users are free to do pretty much anything they please. The majority of these storage managers also lack a system management application that they can use to control the consumption of their storage, nor do they have anything that tells them how the existing resources are being consumed.

Even worse, a surprising number of these people are reluctant to set firm policies governing resource consumption. They live in fear of their end-users.

As an entrepreneur, I’m used to taking risks. But in a successful company, these are controlled risks. I never write blank checks. Why would I want to be responsible in a situation where any one of my users could create a service outage…? And where it’s even somewhat likely that a naïve user will do so by accident one day.

Doing a great job – in storage management or anything else – requires having the right tools for the job. A carpenter without a hammer and a saw is very limited in what he can do. Don’t put yourself in a situation where you don’t have the tools to succeed. Infrastructure management is hard enough even when you have what you need.

The Easiest Way to Save Money on Storage

Your DisplayName here! — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:18:23 GMT

In the world at large, there is a saying that goes: “Often, the old ways are the best ways.” When it comes to managing storage, this can be equally true.

While I don’t often admit it, I am old enough to have worked on and managed mainframes – in a world before networked storage existed. In those days users had limits on the amount of resources they could tie up, and most companies allocated the cost of the users’ consumption back to the department they worked for.

With the advent of PC networks and networked storage, most companies stopped charging users for resource consumption. What happens when you make a valuable resource free to the consumer..? Usage soars. Analysts such as Gartner Group tell us that 20 to 40 percent of what’s stored on most networks is junk – it has no value to the business at all. Why is it there? Because the resource has no limits and consumption is free.

NTP Software has one of the very few storage billing applications available today. Our informal statistics on the net result of going from free to a fair-cost model is that consumption is reduced 10 to 20 percent almost over night and that growth rates are cut in half. When consumers understand that there is a cost associated with their actions, they moderate their behavior.

And... you don’t even need to bill people. Simply publishing the list of the top 25 or top 100 users has a similar effect. For many people, how others perceive them – in this case as resource hogs – is as valuable as cash.

Some times the old ways really are the best ways – even in high-tech.

Microsoft Sneaks Out A Winner

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:52:10 GMT

If Microsoft made a big announcement for the release of Windows Home Server, I certainly missed it. But it looks like Microsoft has created a winner. Windows Home Server will hold all of your files, automatically backup your home workstations, stream your audio and video, and act as a remote gateway into your home network – allowing you to access both the server and your workstations from outside the house. What more could anyone want?

Today you can buy a fast terabyte hard drive for $1,000 or less and gigabyte drives for a few hundred dollars. Using Windows Home Server you can create a home network whose capacity and features rival many corporate networks.

I don’t know what it says about me that I have a 5 terabyte network at my house or that I expect to need more storage in a couple of years, but I definitely enjoy having continuous online access to everything that I have from pretty much everywhere in the world.

The mystery of the missing bits in Europe

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:15:19 GMT

A couple of years ago i became sensitive to the fact that European companies seem to have dramatically less storage on their networks - in general, and per employee or per revenue dollar - than North American companies. Where are the missing bits? How can a multi-national, headquartered in Europe, run its business with a small fraction of the information its North American competitors need to run their business? If anyone has an answer, I would love to hear it. The difference (from my unscientific survey) is enormous – generally a factor of 10. If a North American bank has a petabyte, its European equal has only 100 terabytes, often less. Surely 90% of the bits in North America are not junk… So far the only material difference I can find in business practices is that while companies on both sides of the pond are treating compliance (other than PCI) quite lightly, many of the European companies I speak with are doing almost nothing. Since a lot of the compliance legislation ultimately translates to ‘you can’t delete anything’, this may account for some of the difference, but certainly not all of it. Stay tuned, the investigation continues…

What happens on the last day?

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 14:21:03 GMT

Many companies have dropped tape in favor of on-line archiving. This is certainly a good economic strategy and a requirement in some cases. But what's the end-game? You can storage an infinity of data on tapes and throw them in a mountain somewhere (data waste to go along with nuclear waste) at a low cost. (It's writing the tape that is expensive.) But the bits that go to the on-line archive simply require more and more storage... Who is doing the math? This is an exponential curve. Remember, for most organizations, the need for storage is doubling every 12 to 18 months (Gartner Group). This year you added 500 terabytes... Next year you don't add 500 terabytes, you add a petabyte.

How many doublings does it take before the cost of storage exceeds the company's annual revenue? I've yet to have anyone give me their plan for 5 years out. What's yours?

How much does junk cost?

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 20:51:29 GMT

We've heard it over and over again. Gartner Group tells us that 25% to 40% of what's on our storage is junk - expired, unneeded, inappropriate. What are we doing about it? Mostly nothing. However, as storage expands and companies move to tiered storage, the cost just grows and grows. First we pay for it on primary storage. Then we pay to migrate it to secondary storage - and the space to keep it there. Finally we pay to move the junk to archive. So we don't just pay for it once, we pay for it 4 or 5 times over.

Given this, the value of getting rid of even a fraction of the junk isn't a few terabytes, it's a few terabytes times 4 or times 5. This is real money.

How do you back up 750 terabytes of data?

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 21:06:58 GMT

Recently in London I was talking to the CIO of one of the larger Brokerage firms. He noted that they currently have 750 terabytes of storage and that he expects by this time next year to have twice as much 1.5 petabytes.

How do you backup 1 petabyte of storage? The answer is: you don’t. At least not in any conventional way… there is no technology on the market that can write a petabyte of storage to off-line media in any reasonable amount of time. Size changes everything.

Now if you’re a Global 2000 multi-national like this brokerage firm, you may be able to skip backups altogether. (Backups, not archiving) If you have a world-wide distributed database, say in London , New York , and LA, and all of London , New York , and LA have ceased to exist, you probably don’t care very much about those very safe tapes in Iron Mountain … There would be no place to restore them to.

This is a turning point in our industry. Conventional backups must now give way to on-line backups, tiered storage and archiving. Don’t go buying stock in any of the tape companies…

One topic from the CES

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 23:15:31 GMT

The Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas always provides plenty to think about. One of the more interesting discussions concerned putting hard drives in cell phones.

I remember the day - years ago - when I figured out that my laptop would eventually have a gig of memory. I thought that was pretty wild. Never did I consider that my camera would have a gig of memory. (It does - about 400 pictures worth.) Also never did I consider that my phone might have a hard drive... This changes everything. What would it mean to have - and I mean all - of your data in your cell phone? What will it mean to Corporate America that everyone will be coming to work with the ability to download and transmit pretty much any and all information they can access?

And how are you going to backup your cell phone? The data there won't be mirrored on network servers. What happens if it goes away?

To date the phone / PDA has been a pretty klunky device and not all that useful. This is about to change, and when it does, a lot of other things will change.

Where's the money?

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 14:54:45 GMT

Remarkably, as we work with clients we discover that they rarely analyze the component costs of their operations. So let me make this easy: the bulk of the money is in whatever you do for data protection. But even if you know this, have you looked at the details of what you’re protecting and how it flows through you systems? What components make up the bits you write? How often do you write them and why?

Last year we worked with a client who had done this analysis. They discovered that 40% of what they were writing each day was user PST files in home directories, independent of server backups. (This is a financial institution whose corporate policy requires the preservation of email. Each user needs and wants their own record.)

Outlook, as you may know, has the annoying feature of updating your PST file each time you open it whether you have changed its contents or not. This means that if you do daily incremental backups every PST file for every user is written every day. And, if you’re keeping most or all of your emails, and you have lots of users, this is lots of data. Can this be made less burdensome and less expensive?

We worked with the client to set a system-enforced limit on the size of an individual PST file. This means that each user now has a series of smaller files. Outlook only attaches and updates the current PST file; the others are left as they are. Enterprise-wide, this eliminated 100 tapes from a year’s worth of incrementals. 3M is commonly cited as stating that the cost of maintaining writing and maintaining one tape in a typical backup scenario is about $3,500 a year. One hundred tapes times $3,500 is a lot of money – a third of a million dollars a year. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that your operations are less expensive – only $1,500 per tape per year. This is still $150,000 a year.

We would all agree that every user’s archival mail is something we have to protect. But, maybe it’s worth drilling deeper into how you do it…

As time passes, technology passes

Fri, 10 Sep 2004 19:41:45 GMT

Recently I have been reading articles on Apple vs. MSN and the downloadable music wars. More interesting (at least to me) than who will win this battle is what it all means. In the last 25-30 years (one generation), we have gone from phonograph records to half inch square memory chips (which now, by the way, come in gigabyte sizes). Let's look at the trends here:

Music goes from tape, to optical (CD), to bits. Does anyone doubt that video will go down the same path?

Displays go from CRTs at 640x480 to flat screens at 1280x1024.

Why is a music DVD more appealing than it's companion CD? Part of it is the video, but the DVD also has 3-4 times the audio density. The music sounds better because it is better.

Ok. So what does this all mean?

If it were me, I wouldn't buy Blockbuster stock or glass company stock (although Corning is a player in flat screen technology as well). I figure that in the next 2 years I'll have all my music as bits and the CDs will be in the bottom of some closet. How long before my movies get there?

Well... Hitachi now sells a 400 gig hard drive. That's about 100 movies, which is more than I have. But the key for movies is still bandwidth. We are now at the point (just this year) where more than half of all the homes that have Internet connectivity have high-speed Internet. The problem with Movies is that we don't yet have the right software and appliances (something we're working on a bit...). Give it another couple of years.

Oh, by the way, did you know you can produce a pretty good display using laser interference patterns... something to think about!