NetApp - Absolute Architect

NetApp Pride @ Oracle OpenWorld 2009

It’s always nice to party with NetApp’s former President Tom Mendoza, and current Vice Chairman.  He’s the trailblazer for team comradery, amazing culture, and overall company pride for this amazing place.  He exemplifies what it is we try to achieve every single day as members of the #1 Best Place To Work by just being himself, sharing stories, and making our customers feel #1 - which they certainly are.  

I had the privilege and pleasure of spending some quality time with THE MAN himself last night at the NetApp-Oracle OpenWorld Party and just like always, it gave me a renewed sense of humility yet pride at the same time.  It also gave me an overwhelming feeling of utter motivation and drive to keep plugging the value & greatness of NetApp.  It’s not just the technology that is best of breed, it’s also the people.   We pride ourselves on that while going further, faster.  Long live NetApp.

Arista’s done it again.

What do you get when you combine chocolate and peanut butter?  A delicious combo worthy of the best dessert sinner.  What do you get when you combine the industry’s top heavy hitters to lead a company of unsurpassed technology?  A competitor killer.  Also known as Arista Networks, the “Glamour Startup” of Silicon Valley and NetApp’s Advantage Alliance Partner.  The recipe for a pseudo Reese’s cup may be simple, but the ingredients that have made Arista an even more complimentary combination is its stellar leadership team, engineering, and best of breed 10 GbE technology, which now even allows you to bridge not only physical, but also virtual and cloud networks .  You’ve got Andy Bechtolsheim, Jayshree Ullal – and a list of other stellar rock stars that keep wowing us in the networking industry.  Well... now they’ve done it again.

In order to address the growing challenges of managing virtual and physical infrastructures with multiple network operating systems, our strong partner, Arista Networks has developed the first management system to bridge physical, virtual and cloud networks.  With this solution, network administrators now have the ability to treat existing Virtual Distributed Switches as an extension of the physical network and manage them with industry standard CLI and SNMP while at the same time relieving the burden of network configuration from VM host administrators. 

This is HUGE and will be one of the most significant solutions in the virtual/cloud space given that one of the biggest networking challenges with server virtualization is the management of virtualized network and security profiles along with VM configurations as they migrate across physical hosts.  Achieving this in a way that scales is very difficult and usually ends up with enterprises to take their server virtualization efforts beyond server consolidation and into dynamic resource allocation.  Now, Arista has solved this problem… and very elegantly and cost-effectively, I might add.

vEOS (virtualized Extensible Operating System) is an integrated networking software that peers with VMware’s vSphere to link physical and virtual machines to network policy and profiles. With vEOS, IT organizations can now move applications from physical servers to virtual machines and to cloud infrastructures while maintaining segmentation, trust boundaries, and policy.  vEOS is a single system image that runs on the Arista 7000 Family of switches or as a VMware virtual appliance running on any host.  It is an implementation of Arista EOS that manages VMware vNetwork Distributed Switches (vDS).  vEOS also provides an industry-standard and familiar network interface to the administrator for configuration and monitoring, without disrupting the virtualized infrastructure.

 Arista vEOS Workflow and Operation

NetApp believes that since there are numerous elements that must come together to create a cloud infrastructure, no single vendor is able to adequately address every single layer.  This is why it’s vital that customers identify the right partners that can provide the services, technology, and integration necessary for their unique cloud needs.  We have some best-of-breed partners that not only help our customers, but also help validate our technology offering for the cloud.  NetApp has long been a Cloud Enabler and with Arista being a Advantage Alliance Partner of ours, I am very excited to see how their vEOS will help enable NetApp to continue as a leader in this space.  I feel this is especially evident given the fact that we have two very strong common partners – VMware and Citrix. 

“With VMware® vSphere™ 4 and NetApp storage technologies, enterprises can build and operate a virtualized, services-based data center to more rapidly address changes in business requirements, meet the demand for 24x7 business resiliency, and drastically reduce costs. VMware vSphere 4 allows IT to virtualize and allocate resources on demand and complements the special cloud benefits of NetApp storage. VMware and NetApp together help enable the next generation of flexible, reliable enterprise IT services with the efficiency, control, and choice that cloud computing offers.”  - Parag Patel, vice president, Alliances, for VMware

"Customers like the idea of seamlessly managing their heterogeneous datacenter environments. The new Arista vEOS complements VMware vSphere 4 and existing management frameworks so that customers can move workloads across mixed deployments without the headache of manual configurations" - Shekar Ayyar, Vice President, Infrastructure Alliances, VMware.

“Citrix Cloud Center (C3) integrated with NetApp storage systems provides cloud providers with a robust platform for delivering infrastructure as a service. As the foundation for Citrix C3, XenServer and Citrix Essentials enable cloud service providers to seamlessly leverage the advanced NetApp storage capabilities across their cloud platform, reducing the time and cost to deploy highly scalable and elastic services.” - Frank Artale, vice president of business development for Citrix Systems, Inc.

"We are excited to be working with Arista Networks to define important, emerging standards for cloud networking solutions. NetScaler VPX is a revolutionary technology enabling critical application delivery services to be deployed throughout datacenter and cloud networks." -Klaus Oestermann, Vice President & General Manager, NetScaler Product Group, Citrix Systems.

So, Arista’s done it again with adding another component to their best-of-breed products and you can be sure that I’ll be following how well this is going to be deployed and received in the industry just as soon as they start their Open Beta program in October/November 2009.

Is your head in the clouds like mine?  If so, visit NetApp to float some of your own ideas.

The Same Thing, Over & Over.

There are 6 Billion people in the world.  Of the people with first names of Gilda and last initial starting with F., yours truly is the first most googled name of the bunch.  [BTW, I just googled “googled” to provide that link]  I’m not exactly touting that as some great feat, but it does bring me to a valid point… how many of the same thing are out there in the world?  Let’s talk about Deduplication… let’s talk about you and me.

What’s a Gilda Floor Lamp?

Deduplication.  What is it good for?  Absolutely something.  Managing storage growth as well as proper capacity forecasting and storage reporting are some of the top pain points and challenges for Storage teams.  The ability the store “more” data per storage unit, or retain online data for longer periods of time is a key management benefit.  Additionally, and… especially in this economy, reduced initial storage acquisition cost, or longer intervals between storage capacity upgrades is going to help a great deal when it comes to cost benefit. Eliminating redundant data reduces storage requirements.  Yes and no.  It improves bandwidth efficiency.  True.

Enterprises store lots of versions of the same information.  When it comes to backup, there’s lots of duplicate data. NetApp deduplication is a fundamental component of our core operating architecture and it's the first that can be used broadly across many applications, including primary data, backup data, and archival data.  Dedupe is coming up in almost every one of my customers, without fail.  The concept of redundancy being wasteful (or as I like to look at it -- consolidation without the overlap) is constantly discussed in my meetings… I must say, the discussion is quite fun whether it be about NetApp FAS Dedupe or NetApp VTL Dedupe.  Both grand.  Both great.  Both good for absolutely a lot.

The main topic of discussion however for me is VTL Dedupe.

When dedupe is enabled on the VTL, tapes within a virtual library are deduplicated against each other.  Data on a tape can also be deduplicated against other data on the same tape or backup image.  Actual deduplication of data is done at the storage pool level. The "deduplication domain" is unique to a storage pool.  This means that if data is written to a vlib with dedupe enabled and the same data is written to a different tape in a different vlib that also has dedupe enabled, then those tapes will dedupe against each other as long as they are using the same storage pool.

[HEX for Enginerds : 48 65 6c 6c 6f 20 41 62 73 6f 6c 75 74 65 20 46 61 6e 73 21 20 20 53 6f 72 72 79 20 69 74 27 73 20 62 65 65 6e 20 61 20 77 68 69 6c 65 20 73 69 6e 63 65 20 6d 79 20 6c 61 73 74 20 70 6f 73 74 2e 20 20 54 69 6d 65 73 20 68 61 76 65 20 62 65 65 6e 20 66 61 73 74 20 61 6e 64 20 66 75 72 69 6f 75 73 20 61 74 20 4e 65 74 41 70 70 20 69 6e 20 74 68 65 20 70 61 73 74 20 36 20 6d 6f 6e 74 68 73 2c 20 73 6f 20 6a 75 73 74 20 77 61 6e 74 65 64 20 74 6f 20 6c 65 74 20 79 6f 75 20 6b 6e 6f 77 20 49 27 4d 20 42 41 43 43 43 43 4b 4b 4b 4b 21 ]

What's on Top at Interop

 

NetApp, of course.  We are showcasing and demonstrating our interoperability with FCoE technology, breakthroughs in storage efficiency, and consolidating Ethernet storage. Vegas is not only the hot spot right now in terms of climate, but also for technology solutions that you should know about.  We've even got a Storage Efficiency Calculator that can tell you how much you'll save.  It's based on seven key business apps and six NetApp key storage efficiency components.  If you haven't checked it out yet, you should.  Additionally, we're showcasing our consolidation of Ethernet storage positioning where we talk about how you can consolidate and standardize your disparate DAS, NAS, and SAN environments into a unified infrastructure.  Stop by and check out NetApp at the Ethernet Alliance Pavilion, booth #527.

 

Also, given that my head is always up in the “Clouds”, I noticed some new products launched by my favorite 10 Gig vendor, Arista Networks.  There has been a lot of hype and publicity around this start-up, with their high performance and low-cost model that is leaving everyone else in the dust.  Information Week wrote an article about them where they stated “…Arista believes it's on to something with its 10-Gb Ethernet switches, particularly when it comes to high performance and cloud computing situations where a lot of data is getting moved around and there's little tolerance for latency or downtime or the traditional expense associated with overcoming either problem in mission critical environments.”

 

They’ve got a 1/10GBASE-T switch that is going to blow the socks off the competition since it will allow you to push 10 gigabits worth of traffic over a 1 gigabit cable.  Wall Street & Technology magazine was one publication that covered the launch.  The 7100T Series is a family of high performance, layer 2/3/4, 1/10GBASE-T, auto-negotiating datacenter switches that's positioned for server aggregation, high density 1/10G server virtualization, storage access and HPC cluster interconnects.  Here’s a video data sheet about it.  Check out some product demos and presentations at their Booth #1651.

 

Interop is the leading business technology event series, with in-depth educational programs, workshops, real-world demonstrations, and live technology implementations.  Interop 2009 takes place May 17–21 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

NetApp on Cloud 9

 

I’ve written extensively about Cloud Computing and Cloud Networking in the past.  Now I want to take a deeper dive in regards to the components of a Cloud and what it takes to make it work and work well.  First off, we need the infrastructure to support it which entails compute power, networking, storage, and security.  Secondly, we need to have management which includes provisioning, billing/chargeback, and SLA metrics.  The third significant component is policies in the form of security and availability, and finally the last component is services comprised of application, platform, and infrastructure.

Players such as Amazon, Google, and SalesForce.com are known as Cloud Service providers.  Their role within this concept is to deliver application / platform / infrastructure services via the internet.

 

 

NetApp will play in the services component of cloud computing as a Cloud Enabler where we sell products and technologies which allow clouds to be built and cloud services to be delivered efficiently.  I care about storage, and specifically cloud storage is going to consist of a combination of hardware, software, and processes designed to efficiently deliver storage services and applications to an organization.

 

 

Let’s talk about the economics of service providers and subscribers and the benefits that Cloud Computing provides.  A previous post of mine referred specifically to the economics of Cloud Computing.  The service providers gain economics of scale via a multi-tenant infrastructure.  Additionally, they have a predictable recurring revenue system.  The subscribers on the other hand shift storage to operating expenses where the subscriber only pays for what they use.  They end up reducing operating expenses because it’s covered by the SLA.  Additionally, it moves power, cooling, and carbon footprint to the cloud service provider.  In regards to their control, they can balance SLAs with costs and on-demand capacity and performance provides business flexibility.  Sounds like a winning game plan, right?

There is such a thing as a recipe for success.  The ingredients are a mix between requirements and technologies.  The requirements are low operating expenses and as close to ‘commodity’ pricing as possible while having everything based on standards.  The technologies that are required in this formula are integration with server virtualization and scale-out NAS. Data reduction, utilization reporting, multi-tenant security, multi-drive support, and multi-interface support are also critical components.

 

 

NetApp’s opportunity is new build-outs in the corporate data center and the ability to partner with service providers to determine if it’s an appliance that is needed or a hybrid product.  All in all, there are two business models for cloud – Service Providers and Enablers.  The role of NetApp will consist of parts of the storage infrastructure being a ‘service’ and NetApp being the key enabler. 

 

NetApp == #1 BEST PLACE TO WORK

We are Numero Uno & I'm not surprised one bit.

NetApp rocks and it always has since Day #1 for me. I’ve been here for almost 5 years now and still feel like it's my first month on the job. The excitement level, the ambition, the infectious positive attitudes are all components of why I love my job and why the rest of the nation recognizes it year over year. Our former President and current Vice Chairman Tom Mendoza always said “Catch someone doing something right.” Trust me; there is a lot of that going on around here.

Our CEO, Dan Warmenhoven, stated that “other examples of our strong worldwide culture are the many local “Best Companies” awards NetApp has received this year. In Australia, we ranked in the top 8 of “The Best Places To Work In Australia”, our NANE site was named a “Top Place to Work in Massachusetts”, our RTP site ranked the #2 “Best Place To Work”. In Silicon Valley we have been acknowledged as one the “Bay Area’s Most Admired Companies” by San Jose Magazine, and most recently we ranked #10 on the “Best Places to Work” list from GlassDoor.com. We have also received several awards for corporate philanthropy and corporate responsibility this year, which reflect the generosity of time, effort and resources you contribute to your communities worldwide. Over the past year we have also received many environmental awards for innovation in our datacenter including the InfoWorld Green 15, ComputerWorld Top 15 Green IT Companies, & the Uptime Enterprise Green Enterprise IT awards.”

That’s a whole lot of recognition and I’m more than proud, to say the least. It is an absolute privilege and pleasure to work for such a phenomenal company as NetApp. Ever since Day#1, it’s been #1 for me, so cheers to you, great place to work, and may the wind be at your back, and the sun upon your face… and may the winds of destiny carry you aloft to dance with the stars.

 

NetApp == Best of Breed

I talk to customers all the time about the value that NetApp brings to the table.  It's not even hard because there's so much to tell and so many wins to describe, especially in the solution areas that I focus closely on.  For starters, we've made some great strides in VTL with our deduplication offering.  As expected, we remove duplicate data so that common points of data are stored only one (1) time.  Our dedupe takes place for all of the data associated with a virtual library and works by scanning (terabytes of data) for repeating data, making references to it that point to the common set of data, and then removing and reclaiming the capacity used by the duplicate data.  It rocks.

NetApp VTL Deduplication delivers 95% (20:1) savings

ü      Fingerprinting inline, byte compare and deduplication post-process for now

ü      Leverages hardware compression for additional savings and speed

ü      Configured on virtual library basis for flexibility

It's all about the Benjamins.

In 2008, Cloud Computing was more popular than what A-List celebrities wore on the red carpet.   As the worst economic year since 1931 came to a close, why does Cloud Computing remain such a hot topic for 2009?  The driving force?  Arista Networks Chairman and Co-Founder (& Sun Microsystems Co-Founder), Andy Bechtolsheim, said it best in one word – Economics.    It’s all about the “Benjamins” and what a cloud computing infrastructure can do for your wallet.   

Analysts tend to agree; according to IDC, the market for cloud spending is expected to grow 6x faster than traditional IT spending in the foreseeable future and will reach $42 Billion by 2012.  That’s huge and definitely something worth exploring for vendors.   

Additionally, IDC predicts that Total IT Spending will grow an average of 7% per year from 2008 to 2012 whereas Cloud Spending will grow a staggering 27% per year.  The pie chart from IDC below shows that over half of IT Cloud spending will be for the application side.  By moving the application layer to the Internet, vendors can implement a “software-as-a-service” business model due to its ease of deployment across multiple sites while at the same time separating the user and the physical datacenter location.  Companies such as Facebook and Yahoo have already been reaping the benefits from a vendor perspective.

Here are some FACTS, not opinions, about what Cloud Computing  can do for vendors:

Easier for application vendors to reach new customers.

Delivering & supporting applications is easier and cost effective.

Using commodity server & storage hardware costs less.

Driving down data center operational costs saves money.   

Everything above in bold == economics.  Nuff said.

Dubai or Not to Buy? That is the Question.

I just spent a weekend in a place that likes to create their own islands.  They're literally adding habitable land mass to the earth while as they dredge up the bottom of the ocean and dump it back up to make up enormous piles of sand, thus PALM island and THE WORLD.  I'm not "talking about place called Aspen where women instinctively flock to you like the salmon of Capistrano..." [Dumb & Dumber movie quote]  I'm talking about Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

It's considered the "Las Vegas of the Middle East".  I don't know about that, but what I do know is that they have hotel resorts that could possible put The Bellagio to shame.  With nightclubs and bars on every corner, I'm sure that these folks may quite well partake in some shenanigans of their own.  But... what I'm most interested is in the technology sector that is booming and what's to come in the future.  Enter NetApp!

Dubai is also often referred to as "Internet City".  With all of the development and construction that is underway (I've never seen so many cranes in a single square mile in my life), my mind wanders to the opportunity at hand as it pertains to high tech and storage.

In my eyes, I just see NetApp all over Dubai.

Today Will Go Down in History for Cloud Networking!

As I sit here catching up on email in a high-rise penthouse tonight in downtown Dubai, I can’t help but feel the excitement and hype that is going on in the Valley right now as if I were back home halfway across the globe.  Today marks a day that will forever go down in history!  Arista Networks has appointed very well-respected industry veteran Jayshree Ullal, (check out her blog), as their President & CEO while founder Andy Bechtolsheim leaves Sun Microsystems to focus whole-heartedly on this latest and greatest venture. 

Arista Networks is gaining ground and rising to the very top on being known for having best-of-breed 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches that deliver Cloud Networking Solutions for large scale datacenter and computing environments.  (I've been watching them very closely and you should too!)  If you need a refresher, check out this 10GigE whitepaper. 

Why is this so cool? With all that is going on with Cloud Computing & Networking, it’s really awesome to see such strides in innovation with some of the best & brightest people in the world leading the charge – literally.

As discussed in my previous post, In order for this to work, and work well, you need to have better cost-performance over your current network infrastructure.  You also need better capacity to store everything and improved latency for the users who are depending on it to deliver their application delivery.  The diagram below from the up-and-coming leader sums it up nicely:

 

source Arista Networks

So, as I look out my high-rise window at the Burj Dubai, which is twice as tall as the Sears Tower FYI, I can’t help but think of it as a metaphor for what’s to come in the world of 10Gbit and Cloud Networking. I guess the sky really is the limit & I can’t wait to follow along and see where this best-of-breed technology takes us!

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