ZDNet Must Read:
HP vs. Dell: Showdown at the Windows 7 upgrade corral
Here's a tale of two PC titans: HP and Dell. One executes well every quarter. The other doesn't. Both see big PC upgrade cycles ahead. Both are looking to ride... Continued »
Category: Storage
November 16th, 2009
EMC extends deduplication to corporate laptops, desktops
EMC, in its effort to reduce the use of tape for long-term storage, will announce Tuesday that it is extending its Avamar deduplication technology to laptop and desktop computers, taking it beyond networked servers and data centers.
For many businesses, data backups occur regularly for files that reside on the network. But files that are physically housed on a laptop or desktop computer don’t always have the same protections. In a statement, EMC VP Jim O’Dorisio said:
The backup and protection of critical corporate data on desktops and laptops is often overlooked. Also, as the number of mobile users grows and the amount and importance of the data stored by those users increases, organizations can face critical corporate data protection exposures. Until now, the solution or many customers has been to deploy costly point solutions that focus only on desktops and laptoips. EMC Avamar provides customers with a signle solution that can protect all corporate assets, simplify operations and reduce costs by leveraging one operational skill set for all categories of data.
Deduplication not only reduces the amount of time that it takes to back up files but also reduces the amount of space that each backup uses. After the first backup, subsequent backups only record the changes to the file instead of copying the entire file again. For example, if a user creates a Powerpoint presentation and, after it’s been backed up, goes in and adds an additional slide, then that slide is the only part of the file that’s backed up.
Of course, this doesn’t eliminate the need for tape backups but it does reduce the amount of tape storage needed if the daily backup files are duplicates of yesterday’s backup files - plus a new pie chart or two.
November 11th, 2009
Google's storage price cuts and a big missed backup opportunity
Google cut its pricing for extra storage for its Gmail and Picasa services and in a nutshell you can buy 20 GB of storage for a mere $5 a year. That’s great news and a huge missed opportunity.
Why? I’d love to back up my entire home PC for $5 a year. Instead, Google is only giving me storage for Gmail and photos (Google blog, Techmeme).
Toybox: Google offers 20GB online storage for price of a latte
How big of a missed opportunity is this? It’s potentially huge. With this mythical GDrive idea—just give me a light client that backs up everything to the cloud—Google could convince plenty of users to also become storage subscribers. But as ReadWriteWeb notes, Google is missing the mark.
Consider the following math:
- I pay $4.95 a month to Mozy, a unit of EMC via Decho, to back up my hard drive.
- That’s almost $60 a year. And there’s roughly 14 GB backed up.
- I could eradicate Mozy, a service I’m happy with for $5 a year and Google.
So what’s the hold up? Google will allow you to back up 1 TB of data for $256 a year, but can’t figure out a lightweight desktop client that would back up your entire computer. It just doesn’t make sense.
Google is willing to back up all the Gmail and photos you have lying around. Would it kill the company to back up my Word docs and other loose ends too? Thanks for the cheap storage Google, but you may want to think a little bigger.
October 28th, 2009
Intel, Numonyx claim memory breakthrough
Intel and Numonyx said Wednesday that they have found a way to stack phase change memory (PCM) arrays of on one die.
Phase change memory is a new non-volatile technology that features some of the best aspects of various memory types (think DRAM and Flash).
The companies said that the ability to stack PCM means that devices with more memory capacity, lower power consumption and space savings are possible. Numonyx is a flash memory specialist founded by Intel, STMicroelectronics and Francisco Partners.
According to Intel and Numonyx (statement), the companies will present its findings in a joint paper titled “A Stackable Cross Point Phase Change Memory.” The paper will be presented at the 2009 International Electron Devices Meeting in Baltimore, Md. on Dec. 9.
Also see: Samsung’s ‘melting’ memory chips could boost mobile phone battery life by 20%
October 22nd, 2009
EMC: Customers have 'more comfort' about IT budgets
EMC CEO Joe Tucci said that customers are “signaling more comfort spending their IT budgets.” The company reported better-than-expected third quarter results.
The storage giant reported third quarter earnings of $298.2 million, or 14 cents a share, on revenue of $3.52 billion, down 5 percent from a year ago. Under a non-GAAP basis, EMC reported earnings of $480.3 million, or 23 cents a share, two cents better than Wall Street estimates.
Generally speaking, EMC has been well positioned in the downturn due to a focus on storage, cloud computing, virtualization and data centers — hot areas in enterprise IT. Tucci added in a statement that the company has expanded its product line while cutting costs.
Also see: VMware posts solid third quarter, tops estimates
As for the outlook, Tucci added that the company was well positioned to hit its 2009 targets. EMC expects fourth quarter revenue of $4 billion and 2009 revenue of $13.9 billion. Net income is expected to be 21 cents a share in the fourth quarter and 55 cents a share for the year.
October 20th, 2009
Earnings flash (memory): SanDisk delivers big quarter
SanDisk CEO Eli Harari said he was encouraged by “improved industry fundamentals.” And there’s a good reason for that. The company crushed third quarter estimates with a blowout quarter.
The flash memory card maker reported net income of $231 million, or 99 cents a share, on revenue of $935 million, up 14 percent from a year ago. Those results reversed a year ago loss of $166 million, or 74 cents a share. Excluding a bevy of items—acquisition expenses, option compensation and interest expenses related to retiring debt—SanDisk reported earnings of $176 million, or 75 cents a share (statement).
To put all of those moving parts in perspective, Wall Street was expecting earnings of 26 cents a share on $787.9 million. Harari also added that he expects strong pricing and orders to continue into the fourth quarter.
A few odds and ends:
October 13th, 2009
TR Dojo: Five cool things you can do with a USB flash drive
Bill Detwiler demonstrates five Windows 7 features, like the Problem Steps Recorder, that may make IT professionals love the new OS. Once you’ve watched this TR Dojo video, you can find a link to the original TechRepublic article and print the tip from our TR Dojo Blog.
October 6th, 2009
CTERA launches CloudPlug; Aims for cloud-attached storage
CTERA on Tuesday launched its first “cloud attached storage” devices
for general availability. The devices, the CTERA CloudPlug and the CTERA C200, are worth a look.
The CloudPlug, a little contraption I was introduced to at the Under the Radar conference in April, has a lot of potential. In a nutshell, you plug the gadget into a USB or eSATA hard drive and it acts as a network attached storage unit with online backup.
And the installation is cake: Plug in an external drive, plug into the network and plug into the wall. The CloudPlug doesn’t require desktop software and works well for teleworkers.
Read the rest of this entry »
September 14th, 2009
Oracle to unveil Sun-based Exadata database machine
Oracle Tuesday will unveil a database machine that runs on Sun’s FlashFire technology.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, along with Sun executive vice president John Fowler, will showcase the “world’s first OLTP database machine with Sun FlashFire technology.” OLTP refers to online transaction processing, which requires 24×7 availability.
The move comes as Oracle steps up its defense of Sun as its proposed acquisition is held up by European Union regulators. Sun has been losing server share to the likes of IBM and Oracle is trying to stop the bleeding.
Also see: Oracle tries to stop Sun’s bleeding: Is it too late?
Oracle pitched its Webcast (Sun version), which happens at 1 p.m. PT Tuesday, as a chance to “learn firsthand how the partnership between Oracle and Sun can benefit customers now and in the future.”
Judging from the invite, it appears that Oracle will offer a Sun-based flavor of its Exadata database machine.
September 14th, 2009
EMC's Tucci will stick around through 2012
The countdown to EMC’s succession transition is underway. EMC CEO Joe Tucci plans to remain an active chairman and CEO through 2012. In the meantime, may the jockeying begin for his replacement.
As noted by previous reports, EMC named former Intel executive Pat Gelsinger to be president and chief operating officer for EMC’s information infrastructure products. Gelsinger is in charge of EMC storage lines, the RSA unit, content management and Ionix IT management divisions (statement).
Gelsinger was senior vice president and co-general manager of Intel’s digital enterprise group, which includes the chip giant’s PC, server and embedded semiconductor lines.
September 2nd, 2009
Backblaze reveals how to build petabyte storage arrays for a 10th of the cost
Online storage provider Backblaze has opened up its kimono and offered detailed specs on how it builds high-density 67TB storage arrays for less than $8000 each. For IT departments willing to follow the Backblaze formula, they can get massive storage systems for a fraction of what they’d pay Dell, EMC, Netapp, or Amazon AWS for the same amount of storage (see chart below).
The secret to the Backblaze formula is that it uses a custom case, off-the-shelf hardware parts, and open source software. In a blog post on its site, the company provides a complete parts lists, diagrams that show exactly how to build one of its “Red Pods,” and details of the software used to make it run. The 3D diagram below shows what a Red Pod looks click. Click play to watch the 19-second animation.
Backblaze made this revelation in order to show how it can offer reliable service at such a cheap price ($5/month for unlimited storage). While this blueprint can help IT departments build their own high-density storage arrays, it’s doubtful that it will cannibalize any of Backblaze’s business, since Backblaze is aimed mostly at making backup-to-the-cloud easy for home users and small businesses.
Thus, this is mostly just a publicity stunt by Backblaze. However, I have to admit that it’s a really good one. It can offer some real value to IT departments and create a positive brand impression of Backblaze with IT pros, who tend to serve as the personal tech support department for all of their friends, family, and neighbors, and that often includes recommending services such as backup.
I’ll admit that when I get asked about online backup providers by small businesses and individuals, the first two I tend to think of are Mozy and Carbonite. With the Red Pod, Backblaze has now shown up on the radar.
August 31st, 2009
Report: Tech component inventory lean (perhaps too lean)
Inventory levels of key items in the technology industry’s supply chain—components like semiconductors, hard drives and interconnects—are very lean, according to a report by Goldman Sachs.
These tight inventories are the result of some proactive management in the supply chain. The tech industry saw demand slow and cut inventories to muddle through economic Armageddon. The problem: If Armageddon doesn’t come, Windows 7 boosts demand, Apple continues to deliver and consumers fall in love with tech we’re looking at potential component shortages.
Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey writes:
August 28th, 2009
Iomega's NAS: Is the mainstream ready for network storage?
Is the average household ready for a network-attached storage device?
Iomega, an EMC company, sees an opportunity when it comes to mainstream consumers and a storage device that allows all of the PCs in a home to connect to the same storage drive. This week, the company launched a next-generation quad-drive desktop NAS appliance built on EMC’s enterprise-class storage technologies.
The device - officially called the Iomega StorCenter ix4-200d - comes in 2-terabyte, 4-terabyte and 8-terabyte capacities and features EMC’s LifeLine software, which is designed for cross-platform support for PC, Mac and Linux computers.
Among its features:
- Device-to-Device replication allows users to backup and copy files between the ix4-200d and any other NAS device without the need for a client computer by setting up automatic backups or with a QuikTransfer button on the device.
- VMWare-ready certification: The device is certified as both NAS and iSCSI storage for VMWare vSphere.
- Video Surveillance: Supports networked video cameras for real-time monitoring and video capture directly to the device without the need for a dedicated computer.
- Support for Apple’s Time Machine allows Mac users running OS X 10.5 or better to automatically back up their systems using Apple’s built-in software.
Network-attached storage is nothing new but those that see a future in the consumer market might just be on to something. Consider that many homes now have multiple PCs and that many households likely share music and photo libraries among the users of those various machines.
By storing things like tunes and pics, as well as important documents (archived tax returns, insurance documents and so on), on a storage device other than the PC not only makes them accessible by everyone but also allows them to be located in case a computer goes down.
Maybe these devices will also help consumers to finally take regular backing up of their data seriously.
August 19th, 2009
NetApp names new CEO; Reports solid quarter
Storage company NetApp said Wednesday that Tom Georgens, chief operating officer, will become CEO replacing Dan Warmenhoven.
Warmenhoven will be executive chairman of the company. Georgens (right) has been a member of the board and president and chief operating officer since February 2008. He joined the company in 2005.
NetApp positioned the CEO swap as part of a planned succession process (statement). Warmenhoven had been CEO for 15 years.
While the swap may have been planned the timing is notable. EMC recently outbid NetApp for Data Domain. Some analysts have speculated that NetApp went from the hunter to the hunted with the deal.
The company also reported its first quarter results. For the quarter ended July 31, NetApp reported earnings of $51.7 million, or 15 cents a share, up 49 percent from a year ago. Adjusted earnings were 22 cents a share, two pennies better than Wall Street estimates. NetApp’s revenue in the first quarter was $838 million, down 4 percent from a year ago but better than Wall Street estimates.
Georgens said in a statement:
Given the economic backdrop, NetApp performed well in the first quarter. With year over year revenue growth roughly flat on a constant currency basis, our revenue performance clearly outpaced the storage industry.
However, NetApp wouldn’t provide an outlook for the second quarter given the rocky economy.
By the numbers:
- NetApp reported fiscal first quarter product revenue of $478.2 million, down from $547.8 million a year ago. Software and maintenance revenue was $165.3 million, up from $144.4 million a year ago. Services revenue was $194.4 million, up from $176.5 million a year ago.
- The company ended the quarter with $1.78 billion in cash and equivalents with short-term investments of $878.4 million.
- R&D spending was $130.3 million, up from $125.3 million a year ago.
August 10th, 2009
Toshiba to join Blu-ray club
Toshiba said Monday it is planning a lineup of products that support the Blu-ray storage format. Toshiba was one of the leading companies behind HD DVD, a standard that lost to Blu-ray.
In a statement, Toshiba said that it will provide “a wide range of advanced digital products” including DVD players, HDTVs and laptops that support multiple storage devices. “In light of recent growth in digital devices supporting the Blu-ray format, combined with market demand from consumers and retailers alike, Toshiba has decided to join the BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association).
The company said it will roll out Blu-ray products “in the course of this year.”
Sony was one of the founders of Blu-ray and supported the technology via its high-definition video products and PlayStation 3. Toshiba ceded the format war to Blu-ray in February 2008. In July, Toshiba said it would roll out Blu-ray products.
July 29th, 2009
Symantec: Corporate customers moving to shorter contracts
Symantec’s fiscal first quarter fell short of expectations as corporate customers opted for shorter-term maintenance and license renewals.
The company, which makes security and storage software, reported first quarter net income of $73, million, or 9 cents a share, down from $172 million, or 20 cents a share a year ago (statement). On a non-GAAP basis, Symantec reported first quarter earnings of $285 million, or 34 cents a share. Wall Street was expecting 35 cents a share. Symantec’s revenue for the first quarter was $1.43 billion, down 13 percent from a year ago.
Analysts have noted that security spending has been spotty. In addition, competition has been fierce. In a research note, Jeffries analyst Katherine Egbert said:
July 27th, 2009
Egnyte raises $6 million in venture funding
Egnyte, a startup focused on on-demand file servers, said Monday that it raised $6 million in funding from Polaris Venture Partners and Maples Investments.
The series A round will be used to boost distribution for its service (statement, Techmeme).
I saw Egnyte present at the Under the Radar conference in April and the company was impressive. Vineet Jain, CEO of Egnyte, is also focused on the business market. Egnyte was presenting with a handful of cloud storage companies.
According to Jain, Egnyte has been growing at a 15 percent month clip. The company, which launched in 2008, in March rolled out the Egnyte Local Cloud, which blends hosted on-premise and cloud storage. Despite all the yapping about the cloud, most companies are likely to adopt a hybrid approach.
Here’s a look at Egnyte’s presentation from April:
July 23rd, 2009
EMC's second quarter better than expected; Says IT budgets stabilize
EMC reported better-than-expected second quarter results and upped its outlook for the remainder of the year. The company said that IT budgets have stabilized and customers are more confident about their visibility.
The storage giant on Thursday reported net income of $205.2 million, or 10 cents a share, on revenue of $3.26 billion, down 11 percent from a year ago. On a non-GAAP basis, EMC reported earnings of 18 cents a share.
Wall Street was expecting earnings of 16 cents a share on revenue of $3.2 billion.
EMC’s outlook was also raised. EMC projected 2009 earnings of 51 cents a share and non-GAAP earnings of 82 cents a share. Wall Street was expecting 78 cents a share of non-GAAP earnings. On the revenue front, EMC projected 2009 sales of $13.8 billion compared to estimates of $13.5 billion. Data Domain will contribute $200 million in revenue for 2009 and will be neutral to non-GAAP earnings. On a net basis, the Data Domain amounts to a less than 2 cents a share impact.
July 21st, 2009
Restore files from a damaged hard drive with ZAR [video]
Hard drive failures are always a nuisance — if not a disaster — especially when the backups have gone missing or were never made. Whether it’s your own oversight or that of a panicked user, at some point you’ll probably attempt to retrieve files from a damaged hard drive. In this IT Dojo video, Bill Detwiler shows you how the Zero Assumption Recovery (ZAR) tool can help you find and restore recoverable files from a failed hard drive.
July 20th, 2009
EMC outlines where Data Domain will fit
EMC said it has acquired majority ownership of Data Domain and will complete the purchase at the end of July. EMC also outlined where Data Domain will fit in the storage giant’s lineup.
EMC, which outbid NetApp for Data Domain, said it now controls 82.1 percent of Data Domain shares after a tender offer.
In a statement, EMC said that Data Domain will lead a division focused on the latest disk-based backup, recovery and archive products. Data Domain CEO Frank Slootman will lead the division and report to Joe Tucci, EMC’s Chairman and CEO, and Frank Hauck, executive vice president in charge of EMC’s storage business.
EMC also said it plans to increase its investment in the division and build complementary technologies around it. EMC added that it expects the unit to continue to grow at double digit rates and hit $1 billion in revenue in 2010.
July 17th, 2009
The storage consolidation continues: HP acquires IBRIX
HP on Friday picked up IBRIX, a file serving software company, in the latest round of merger and acquisition activity. Terms of HP’s acquisition weren’t disclosed.
IBRIX provides enterprise-class file serving software designed for data protection, high availability and cloud computing environments.
The deal comes as EMC won Data Domain for $2.1 billion. EMC outbid NetApp for the company.
In a nutshell, storage giants are gobbling up smaller companies to round out their portfolios and get ahead of trends. These hardware players are also chasing growth—storage is one of the few bright spots in a declining market.
In a statement, HP said the IBRIX deal is designed to position the company better in the cloud storage market. IBRIX, an HP partner for the last three years, has 53 employees and 175 enterprise customers in multiple verticals.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.
Subscribe to Between the Lines via Email alerts or RSS.
SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads
- Virtualization: Architectural Considerations And Other Evaluation Criteria VMware Of the many approaches to x86 systems virtualization available in the ... Download Now
- The True Costs of Virtual Server Solutions VMware In an economic environment that is repeatedly heralding the message "do ... Download Now
- VMware Infrastructure: A Guide to Bottom-Line Benefits VMware Frustrated by the costs of maintain ever larger data centers?or building ... Download Now
Essential Topics 
Recent Entries
- DreamHost customers hit with nightmare
- The Big Question podcast: Will News Corp. really pull its content from Google?
- SaaS and cloud computing: A look at the due diligence
- News to know: Thanksgiving tech support; Apple; Silverlight; Facebook; Black Friday
- Microsoft CFO Liddell to leave; Klein named new finance chief
Blogs From Our Sponsors
Most Popular Posts
- Verizon to AT&T: "Our ads are true and the truth hurts"
- My scareware night and how McAfee lost a customer
- Netbooks dead? Not when sales are up 264 percent
- Intel to pay AMD $1.25 billion as companies end litigation war; Is it a new chip era?
- Live from Googleplex: Chrome OS details revealed
- Memo to AT&T: When you're in a hole, stop digging
Top Rated
- Verizon to AT&T: "Our ads are true and the truth hurts"+44 votes
- Yes, Ubuntu can absolutely be the default Windows alternative+42 votes
- L.A. votes to "Go Google"; pressure shifts to Google and the cloud+31 votes
- Intel to pay AMD $1.25 billion as companies end litigation war; Is it a new chip era?+27 votes
- My scareware night and how McAfee lost a customer+25 votes
- New York AG files antitrust charges against Intel; alleges bribery, coercion+24 votes
- Netbooks dead? Not when sales are up 264 percent+21 votes
- AT&T launches Verizon counter-punch ad, keeps digging that hole+14 votes
Premier Vendor Content Whitepapers, webcasts & resources from our Power Center Sponsors
- New Online Dashboard for IT Leaders
-
Read about top issues IT decision-makers face every day, plus get cost-effective solutions to real-life IT problems.
- Learn more >>
- The best support in the Linux business
-
If Linux is going to power your mission-critical applications, you'd better have the best support known to business. Novell was rated the top provider of Linux technical support.
- Learn more >>
- Save time with automated shipping solutions
-
The Business Essentials Guide provides you useful tools and templates to help grow your business and save you time with automated shipping solutions.
- Visit the UPS Business Essentials Guide
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online - Free Six-Month Trial for Eligible Organizations
-
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online provides fast online access, simple contact management and better sales performance for a low monthly cost - the best value on the market today.
- Learn more about the free, six-month trial offer>>
Archives
Favorite Links
Favorite Sites
- Ars Technica
- Deal Journal
- Engadget
- Enterprise Irregulars
- GigaOm
- Google Blogoscoped
- Horses for Sources
- Mac Rumors
- Mashable
- Official Google Blog
- Read/WriteWeb
- Scobleizer
- Seeking Alpha
- TechCrunch
- Techdirt
- Techmeme
- The Ponderings of Woodrow
- The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
- Valleywag
- ZDNet: Latest blogs and news
ZDNet Blogs
- All About Microsoft
- The Apple Core
- Between the Lines
- BriefingsDirect
- Collaboration 2.0
- Dev Connection
- Digital Cameras & Camcorders
- Ed Bott's Microsoft Report
- Emerging Tech
- Enterprise Web 2.0
- Forrester Research
- Googling Google
- GreenTech Pastures
- Hardware 2.0
- Home Theater
- iGeneration
- Irregular Enterprise
- IT Project Failures
- Laptops & Desktops
- Lawgarithms
- Linux and Open Source
- Managing L'unix
- The Mobile Gadgeteer
- On Sustainability
- Rational Rants
- The Semantic Web
- Service Oriented
- Smartphones and Cell Phones
- Social Business
- Social CRM: The Conversation
- Software & Services Safari
- Software as Services
- Storage Bits
- Team Think
- Tech Broiler
- Technology and the Global Supply Chain
- Tom Foremski: IMHO
- The ToyBox
- Virtually Speaking
- The Web Life
- ZDNet Education
- ZDNet Government
- ZDNet Healthcare
- Zero Day
White Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads
- Using NIC Teaming to Achieve High Availability on Linux Platforms Dell Network interface card (NIC) teaming is one method for providing high ... Download Now
- Rethink Endpoint Security Trend Micro Watch this informative video on endpoint security solutions straight from ... Download Now
- MessageStats Version 6.5.1 ScriptLogic MessageStats allows you to: Justify expenses on Exchange ... Download Now
Enterprise Applications
- Check out some of the easiest and most powerful ways to boost productivity while saving money on your application infrastructure. See ZDNet's comprehensive Enterprise Application resource center, now!
- New Online Dashboard
-
- Read about top issues IT decision-makers face every day, plus get cost effective solutions to real life IT problems. Oracle Topline
-
