I'm in the center of the bizarre world of commercial data center IT. How? I cannot say, as it's all fuzzy now. I talk about subjects my kids find absurd and my wife finds laughably geeky. I work with some of the most brilliant people you could ever hope to meet, and somehow it pays the bills, so I'll probably keep doing it.
I have four kids, a great dog, and a cat who thinks he can take you out by looking at you. My wife is a six foot blonde goddess - clearly out of my pay grade. The power of geek speak is apparently hypnotic to the fairer sex. More +
Jon Oltsik
> Insecure about Security
Brian Babineau
> IT BULLETins
Mark Bowker
> Liquefying IT
Mark Peters
> Mark My Words
Steve O'Donnell
> The Hot Aisle
Terri McClure
> IT Depends
 |
|
 |
 |
I hate complex. Life is hard enough. Nothing ever works right. I want to simplify. IT folks would LOVE to simplify. Here are three things that help simplify. 1. I/Osafe - www.iosafe.com - stinking brilliant in its simplicity. Take your disk drive, and stick it in one of their containers and it becomes 100% protected from fires or floods. One of the coolest (actually, hottest) demo's ever done for me - these guys literally took a drive I had copied some files too and stuffed it into a 1500 degree oven, melting it beyond recognition. They did the same with a drive in their magic packaging, then stuck it into a bucket of water. Guess what? It still worked. The packaging is stunningly cheap, which leads me to believe that eventually ALL disks will packaged like this. For now, only about 95% of the world could benefit. I'm not advocating that you shouldn't also have copies of critical data in remote sites - but let's face it, unless you are at the top of the IT pyramid, you ain't going to be shipping ALL data offsite. I'm advocating that 100% of disks in a primary site - no matter how large a company (and especially those small ones) spend the extra pennies and apply this technology. Imagine if your car had this protection? Sure, 99% of the time you'd never use it, but if you could guarantee it would be there when you did, wouldn't it be worth adding $200 bucks to the cost of the car? Sometimes we spend too much time thinking too many thoughts at too high a level. This is so smart, it's stupid! 2. Drobo (www.drobo.com). I've been a fan ever since I started using one at home - and am more convinced than ever that the world of heavy-duty IT needs to pay attention to these dudes. Drobo builds a consumer/small biz "RAID" system - that is 100% automatic, lets you use different size disks, grow one disk at a time, and is effectively moron proof. I'm living proof - I can make it work. I've got about 6TB of ripped DVD's on mine at home. I have 2 disks fail in the last 18 months, and have had zero downtime because of it. Each time I replaced the failed disk with the current bigger disk of the day, and each time the system simply grew without me doing anything. I'm not sure why storage is so complicated and hard, other than the fact that most array technologies were designed a hundred years ago - but if you are a fan of absolutely brain dead simple things, you owe it to yourself to look at a Drobo. I haven't installed a network version at my office, but I wouldn't think twice about it. They support iSCSI and NAS and my cat Floyd can make it work. (That's not really fair, Floyd is very smart, he's just a total A*hole, so while he could make it work, he wouldn't simply out of spite.). Drobo was founded a few years ago by Geoff Barrall, who also founded big iron NAS player BlueArc. They are shipping thousands of units per quarter now and continue to sell out of production. I find it tremendously interesting that the leap from "commercial" to "consumer" worked so very well in this case, as it's normally the other way around. The Drobettes have taken all the high-value function learned at the high-end of the market and applied it to the mass market beautifully. I'm glad to see they are kicking butt - not only because I love simple things - but also because they are nice people. Keep it up. 3. AutoVirt - www.autovirt.com - Go download their free AutoClone software. Robocopy in windows sucks, as most know, but this stuff rocks. Our giant IT department recently had to copy all of our Exchange mailboxes (all 34) for one reason or another, and Robocopy was taking 2 hours per. The AutoClone utility did them in about 8 seconds. (Not true, but my dudes told me it was 10X+ faster at least). After you use it, tell me your experience, because I made the Auto-V's give it away free. Their real juice is in their migration (Move) product so I convinced them that by letting the world use the clone product everyone would see how great it worked, which would entice folks to take a look at their move product (which isn't free - sorry). They begrudgingly went for it - so do me a favor and go download it, if for nothing else than not to make me look bad. Seriously, who doesn't need to copy stuff on or off Windows servers or NAS boxes? No one - therefore, think of all the time you'll save by dumping that dumb ass Robocopy and going way faster (and easier). I made them promise that they wouldn't harass you either. If they do, tell me and I'll publicly ridicule them. The summary message here is that the world LOVES simple stuff. Complex USED to mean value - but today, at least for me, its the opposite. I want easy. Life is hard enough, anyone who can simplify mine is welcome to the party. Last month, I bought my first MAC. Now I'm on a quest.
Out of solidarity, my brothers and sisters. Since I now hate them, I call on you to join me. Dump their lame arses.
The Deal: A while ago, I got a call from American Express inquiring about some unusual charges. They were unusual because they were small and outrageously random in parts of the world I've never been. I had my card number stolen and sold through some dirtbag online hack/broker.
Amex is great at this - normally. It's probably the reason I use them almost exclusively. It wasn't the first time I was data violated, so I figured it was over with.
The good news with Amex is that they "take care of it" and cancel the account, get rid of the charges, etc. The bad news is, for some inexplicable reason, even when an account has been cancelled due to fraud, that doesn't mean the account stops accepting recurring charges. Duh!
A few months later, I was reading one of my statements where I noticed (2) identical charges on the same day to AOL for $25.90 each. I stopped dealing with AOL in 1987 when they refused to stop sending me CDs in the mail. I was a bit surprised they were still in business, truth be told. Anyone that annoying eventually goes away, normally.
Anyway, I called Amex, and said "hey, these aren't my charges." They figured out that the charges were placed on the cancelled account (then spent ten minutes trying to explain why that could happen, which I still don't understand for the life of me). They got AOL on the line and we had a nice chat. I explained that the charges were fraudulent, AMEX explained that the card account was cancelled prior to them placing the fraudulent orders, and we all wasted time. No problem. All is well.
$50.80 and I spent an hour. Today, I received a collection letter from Allied Interstate (nice!) for $50.80 for AOL. Back on the phone with Amex, they told me the account was cleared, so AOL was coming after me directly. I hate them now.
Amex got AOL back on the phone. They acknowledged the fraud report and the conversation of months ago. The woman then said, in very sloppy English, "I'm making no changes to any account and noting to remove you from any collection list." Huh? No changes? I want changes. After 10 minutes of Abbott & Costello routines I gave up. I'm willing to bet this is not over.
A business KNOWS they have received fraudulent charges - so they now can't claim moronic ignorance - and then they STILL attempt to extort money from me. Perpetrators? Maybe. They certainly are just as guilty now as the original thief in my book. Is that service or what? Is that the marketing strategy of a legitimate business? Screw the victim to make $50 bucks? They better hope their supply of Eastern European ID thieves add fake orders to AOL faster than legitimate people dump their sorry ass.
Who does business in the real world like that? Dumb companies and criminals, that's who.
This is very interesting - though not because of this particular company. I don't have high hopes for any company that sends out a release such as this, but can't even get it on their own Web site. Plus, their site is useless. Check out the form they put up "if you would like to invest in zer01mobile.com fill out this form" - brilliant. How can they fail?
Having said that - read the release I received - it makes the mind do gyrations.
I would have linked to it, but there is no place to link. Blame them.
"(Las Vegas, Nevada) – Zer01 Mobile announced today the formal launch of its new nationwide truly unlimited voice, data and Web mobile wireless service that will allow users to make as many phone calls, surf the Web, view movies and videos, text messages, download music and use their smartphones for a variety of other applications all for one, low monthly fee. Offering the new mobile wireless service as a mobile virtual network enabler, Zer01 Mobile has created its own grouping of mobile virtual network operators and strategic business alliances including a new partnership with Netmovies.com, an online entertainment network.
"Many years of research and testing have culminated in the public launch this week of the new, truly unlimited voice, data and Web mobile wireless service from Zer01 Mobile. Thanks to the ingenuity of the Zer01 Mobile engineering team, our new Veritable Mobile Convergence technology allows each smartphone user to make voice calls or transmit data through a VoIP system," explained Ben Piilani, CEO, Zer01 Mobile. "Because Zer01 Mobile is the only carrier in the United States offering truly unlimited mobile Web access, a number of important strategic partnerships with Zer01 Mobile have been finalized including the recent agreement with Netmovies.com, the Boston-based online entertainment network."
In April 2009, Zer01 Mobile first premiered its new truly unlimited voice, data and Web mobile wireless service at the CTIA Wireless Conference in Las Vegas, NV. Receiving positive reviews while showcasing its service at the global wireless industry event, Zer01 Mobile was presented with the "Best Overall Product" Award by Laptop Magazine. "That's the appeal of Zer01, which uses highly efficient VoIP technology to let users make phone calls over existing cellular networks. This new breed of carrier will sell a variety of Windows Mobile devices starting in July that can tap into its service, but it will also enable users to bring their unlocked BlackBerrys, Android phones and other handsets. An extra $10 per month will allow subscribers to add international calling to 40 destinations. Zer01 Mobile promises that it will take as little as five minutes for the company to update your phone's SIM card to make it compatible with its network," stated the Laptop Magazine Web site.
"With movies, music, games and television available anywhere on a mobile device, our agreement with Zer01 Mobile is a natural fit with our company's business model and overall plan for the coming decade. The technology behind Zer01 Mobile's service will assure a top rated viewing and listening experience for the end-user," explained John Fanning, chairman & CTO, Netmovies.com and founding chairman & CEO, Napster, Inc.
Creating interconnect agreements throughout North America and the globe, Zer01 Mobile is the first mobile service to offer a truly unlimited voice, data and Internet plan that is priced affordably with taxes and fees included. Zer01 Mobile's international plan also reaches out to the most popular calling countries around the world and is also economically priced. The company has licensed patent pending proprietary Veritable Mobile Convergence technology that allows each smart phone user to make voice calls or transmit data by sending voice communications through a VoIP system.
Established in 2001 and 34% owned by Blockbuster, Inc., NetMovies is an online entertainment network providing producers and owners of video content a secure, highly functional and efficient digital distribution outlet. NetMovies' proprietary downstreaming network builds on the technology model pioneered at Napster which was created using a regulated peering system offering high-speed downloads and secure and flexible digital rights management. NetMovies' video content is licensed from studios or created by independent artists and introduced into a centrally managed and protected network then distributed to and among paying subscribers.
Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, Zer01 Communications is owned and operated by the Unified Technologies Group, Inc., a global technology services and consulting company headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware. Zer01 Communications recently premiered the new Zer01 Mobile service at the CTIA Wireless 2009 Conference. Laptop Magazine awarded Zer01 Mobile the "Best Overall Product" Award at the conclusion of the industry conference. For more information about Zer01 Communications, visit www.Zer01mobile.com."
Fixed price all-in phone and data? with SMS? Global? Way cool. Again, I can't imagine that zer01 can be a zillion dollar winner, with the way they are messaging (would it be too much to ask to actually explain what a CMVO is at least one of the 800 times you refer to it?). That kills the high priced traditional cell carrier and the outrageous issue of international usage. It also enables real endpoint data usage, which in turn enables more corporate end point application requirements, security, etc. It sounds like it's $50 bucks for a net connection and all the apps I can eat - which is how it should be.
Traditional carriers will fight it of course, the same way they all fought IP. Eventually they gave up, and now those of us who still have a land line pay a fraction of what we used to pay. The cell carrier will go the same way - although the land line did actually require a line - the cell is not so sticky. WiFi = internet and internet = IP, therefore Cell = who cares? Play nice or perish, methinks.
Hey zer01 - cool thoughts, horrid execution. At least Vonage had snappy commercials.
I recently sat in a meeting with Tim Lieto, who had a fantastic tale to tell. The customer was talking, as so many do, about the fact that their product was relevant across many IT constituencies, but budgeted by none. They had clear value at many points of IT, but (surprise) couldn't find their way high enough in the organization to convince someone to spend some money.
Tim talked about Cisco facing the same issue a thousand years ago. When the systems administrator ruled the roost and networking was considered a "nice to have," Cisco ran in to many of the same issues. They needed to convince the guy with the money to give them some, which turned out to be (surprise) hard since networking was not on the top of anyone's list.
Cisco didn't spend all their time and money trying to convince those who had other agendas to follow the Cisco agenda. Instead, they developed a brand new position inside the organization. The Cisco CCNE wasn't a training agenda - it was a means for Cisco to add a new position of authority into the picture. They developed the position by defining the training and certification, made it relevant, and then let the Joneses fight with each other to keep up. It is simply brilliant. What is a CCNE going to buy? Cisco comes to mind.
There are other successful examples of this strategy. Auditors, for example, are a self-policing, self-creating, and self-fulfilling business. Lawyers are pretty good at it, too. By making storage an independent decision, EMC successfully created their own customer eventually. Oracle and other market leaders have the same benefits. Which came first, the Chief Risk Officer or the Risk itself? How does one become a chief risk officer? I'm not sure, but I'm guessing they have learned a thing or two about mitigating risk - from someone with a vested interest.
So the question is, since we all know how very hard it is to change a market's behavior or to convince someone that a "nice to have" is really a "need to have," why don't more companies attempt to develop the market backwards? First, create the skill certification program and let those who have it do the dirty work of convincing the IT world that those credentials are critical?
Part 1 can be found here. Part 2 on Monday. Dan is a smart, smart guy. Plus, he's Dutch.
I would have put it up yesterday, but was too busy trying to understand the odd circular connection between myself, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. You see, as a young boy I experienced tremendous pleasure as a direct result of my poster of Farrah. As a grownup Michael apparently experienced tremendous pleasure with young boys. Disturbing, I know.
Have a nice weekend.
Mark Bowker and Brian Babineau kicked off a series of events today - more soon (Dallas, NY, Hartford) and a ton more in the fall. As far as I know, they are only U.S. now, but assuming they are valuable, I suspect at least Europe may see some action later this year.
The Dell site has absolutely no information about them, unfortunately, but Brian and Mark tell me the content is great and the gurus from the companies are worth hearing.
Interesting combination of folks, for sure. Lot of friends today who could be enemies next week. I love co-opetition! Everyone is talking virtualization - server, storage, and all the associated processes. I'd like to see Dell put up some better marketing (I guess it was a time crunch on the first round of events, to be fair), as this is a good combo for such things - everyone has Intel and at least 2 out of 3 of the rest. I'll post the content overviews when I get them.
I've been watching this whole event from the get go - and it continues to be fascinating. Quick recap:
1. I think it's too much money for either of them to pay.
2. If the offers were 100% identical, and I were the sole vote and had to determine where the best fit for Data Domain lies - between EMC and NetApp - I would pick NetApp. I change my mind every day, but as I write this, it seems that there is more natural synergy with NetApp than with EMC. Fortunately for all concerned, I don't have a vote.
3. I believe that this deal should be as simple as "let the best man win" - i.e. cut all the b.s., put up your best and final offers, and let the voters decide.
Nothing, however, is that easy. Now we have an undertone of anti-trust going on, and for the life of me I can't see why - other than what must be some pretty darn good spinning out of NetApp.
Here's Jay Kidd's, NetApp's VP of Marketing,latest blog, where he states:
"When you own or distribute so many of the products in the market, you tend to acquire high market share. According to IDC, the worldwide market for open systems VTL was $630.6M in 2008. EMC has about 42% of this market, based on NetApp share calculations and in the deduplicating backup appliance (non-VTL) market, their Avamar solutions has about 19% share. By themselves, these share numbers are not a great concern. But Data Domain has 17% share in the deduplicating VTL market and about 52% share in the deduplicating backup appliance market (according to a Taneja Group/Cowen Research report market size and NetApp share estimates). So the combination of EMC and Data Domain would have 59% share in deduplicating VTLs and 71% share in deduplicating backup appliances.
Beyond the overwhelming market share that EMC would gain with Data Domain, EMC also would gain control over more than half of the patents that are vital to these fast growing markets.
Deduplicating data is good for the customer. Deduplicating customer's choice of vendors is not."
This makes me curious on a number of levels. First, the numbers are just stupid. Second, NetApp clearly knows that the total market for all things dedupe is hundreds of times larger than the current total revenue the market generates - otherwise why on earth would they offer to pay $1.8B beans to own DD? Would they really pay that if they thought the total market was under a billion clams? Of course not. Thus, the argument that EMC/DD combined is silly; even if they had a combined 100% of the market share - it's still irrelevent. They would have 100% of today's market - which is a piddly little inconsequential market. If they were to maintain that share while the market grew 100X you would have an argument, but owning 71% of nothing can't be the lynchpin of the debate. Further, Quantum owns the patents that matter in this deal - and EMC and Data Domain already license them.
Let's put a little common sense into play.
A. The market for disk based backup targets is probably already more than $2-3B today - and growing. Dumb disk, cheap disk, expensive disk, fast disk, etc. All sorts of disk systems are used as a temporary or permanent backup target - probably more than 75% of all SMB's and up are using at least SOME disk targets in backup these days.
B. The overall market for disk based targets in backup ain't gonna get smaller - it's going to accelerate. 95% of all SMB's on up will be using disk sooner or later, and the ones already using it are going to use more.
C. Everyone except my mother has either introduced, or is introducing dedupe into their portfolios. Symantec, HP, IBM, CommVault, Asigra, Sepaton, Exagrid, EMC, NetApp, Quantum, Falconstor, StorWize, and about a thousand others have dedupe stuff for backup AND primary storage. My mother should have an announcement later this summer.
D. I believe that dedupe technologies will exist at all points of the spectrum within the infrastructure - from the birth (application) to death and everywhere in between. I believe that disk will continue to be the primary means to backup and archive data - and that data is going to continue to grow. I believe it's absurd to think that anyone who buys Data Domain could be viewed to have a lock on the market. I don't think you could lock the market if you bought Data Domain, IBM, and Symantec!
Think about it. IBM sells a little bit of a product called Tivoli TSM - backup software they have sold since 1843 that fundementally does two things: it deduplicates data, and backs it up to disk. They have sold about $10B worth of that little product over the years, maybe more. Oh yeah, they also sell disks - quite a few of which are probably used in the backup world. I hear they might even sell some Diligent stuff - which of course is exactly competitive to Data Domain. (Although they do seem to keep this a secret for no known reason). Symantec sells some stuff in the space I hear. I bet HP has sold $100M bucks of this kind of stuff in the last year - and I know they intend on selling more.
All of these guys are in the market because they know the market opportunity is HUGE - not because they want to battle over a little slice of a tiny pie.
Which gets me to the inevitable conclusion that NetApp is really, really smart. If I know all this, then they surely know all this. Therefore they must be promoting this issue as a weapon. I don't understand the process well enough, but logic tells me that if they get the government to look into this, they can probably create enough FUD with the DD stockholders to make them do the deal with NetApp immediately. The government tends to move at the speed of sludge. If I were a stockholder, I'd think 'why risk having the government coming to the conclusion that there is anti-trust and shutting down the deal?' As absolutely moronic as that would be, it is the government after all. If they didn't do stupid things, 60 Minutes would only be a 20 minute show.
So, I conclude (really) with this - let the boys play and let the stockholders drive them (and any other late bidder) to their best and final offers. Keep the government out of it. They don't need any more ways to waste my tax dollars. I applaud the brilliance of the move, but come on now.
I would like to thank all who chimed in on this issue on Twitter. Feel free to look at the replies to @stevedupe for some good commentary in under 140 characters! It seems there are others who are having trouble finding a legitimate anti-trust angle in this deal for either side.
Against all odds, Nick Glasgow has found not only one, but TWO donors with perfect 10 of 10 matches! More here. Thanks to everyone who helped - it was truly a global team effort!!! Now that's worth blogging about!
Not that I think that my taste is for everyone mind you, but these all made me think about things - agree or not.
Dave West of CommVault's take on dedupe and the uproar.
Chuck Hollis's take on barriers to private cloud adoption.
Brad Feld's "I've run out of namespace in my brain"
Barrons "Brocade crushing Cisco..."
And a Reuters article sent by Steve O'Donnell "MySpace prepares for massive layoffs"
|
|
|
