• Share
  • ?
  • Profiles ▼
  • Communities ▼
  • Apps ▼

Blogs

  • My Blogs
  • Public Blogs
  • My Updates

LATEST TRENDS:

  • Log in to participate
Tony Pearson Tony Pearson is a Master Inventor and Senior IT Architect for the IBM Storage product line at the IBM Systems Client Experience Center in Tucson Arizona, and featured contributor to IBM's developerWorks. In 2016, Tony celebrates his 30th year anniversary with IBM Storage. He is author of the Inside System Storage series of books. This blog is for the open exchange of ideas relating to storage and storage networking hardware, software and services.
(Short URL for this blog: ibm.co/Pearson )
Facebook,   Twitter,   LinkedIn,   RSS Feed 

My books are available on Lulu.com! Order your copies today!

Featured Redbooks and Redpapers:

  • IBM System Storage Solutions Handbook
  • IBM Software-Defined Storage Guide
  • IBM Private, Public, and Hybrid Cloud Storage Solutions
  • IBM Spectrum Archive Enterprise Edition V1.2: Installation and Configuration Guide
  • IBM Spectrum Scale and ECM FileNet Content Manager Are a Winning Combination
  • IBM Spectrum Scale in an OpenStack Environment


IT featured blogger BlogWithIntegrity.com HootSuite Certified Professional

Links to other blogs...

  • Accelerate with ATS
  • Alltop - Top Storage Blogs
  • Anthony Vandewerdt
  • Barry Whyte (IBM)
  • Bob Sutor (IBM)
  • Brad Johns Consulting
  • Chris M. Evans
  • Chuck Hollis (Oracle)
  • Corporate Blogs
  • Greg Schulz
  • Hu Yoshida (HDS)
  • Jim Kelly (IBM)
  • Jon Toigo - DrunkenData
  • Kirby Wadsworth (F5)
  • Martin Glasborow
  • Raj Sharma, IBM Storage and Te...
  • Richard Swain (IBM)
  • Roger Leuthy, Storage CH Blog
  • Ron Riffe, "The Line"
  • Seb's SANblog
  • Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat
  • Steve Duplessie (ESG)
  • Storagezilla
  • Technology Blogs
  • Top 10 Storage Blogs
  • VMblog by David Marshall

Archive

  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006

Disclaimer

"The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of each author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management."

(c) Copyright Tony Pearson and IBM Corporation. All postings are written by Tony Pearson unless noted otherwise.

Tony Pearson is employed by IBM. Mentions of IBM Products, solutions or services might be deemed as "paid endorsements" or "celebrity endorsements" by the US Federal Trade Commission.

This blog complies with the IBM Business Conduct Guidelines, IBM Social Computing Guidelines, and IBM Social Brand Governance. This blog is admistered by Tony Pearson and Sarochin Tollette.

Safe Harbor Statement: The information on IBM products is intended to outline IBM's general product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The information on the new products is for informational purposes only and may not be incorporated into any contract. The information on IBM products is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for IBM products remains at IBM's sole discretion.

Tony Pearson is a an active participant in local, regional, and industry-specific interests, and does not receive any special payments to mention them on this blog.

Tony Pearson receives part of the revenue proceeds from sales of books he has authored listed in the side panel.

Tony Pearson is not a medical doctor, and this blog does not reference any IBM product or service that is intended for use in the diagnosis, treatment, cure, prevention or monitoring of a disease or medical condition, unless otherwise specified on individual posts.

with Tags: follow-the-moon Remove the tag from the selected filter tags - follow-the-moon X
All posts
  • Sort by:
  • Date ▼
  • Title
  • Likes
  • Comments
  • Views

Day3 Keynote Session on the Megavendors

| | Visits (10942)
Gartner Data Center 2011 Banner

Continuing my coverage of the 30th annual [Data Center Conference]. here is a recap of Wednesday morning sessions.

A Data Center Perspective on MegaVendors

The morning started with a keynote session. The analyst felt that the eight most strategic or disruptive companies in the past few decades were: IBM, HP, Cisco, SAP, Oracle, Apple and Google. Of these, he focused on the first three, which he termed the "Megavendors", presented in alphabetical order.

  • Cisco enjoys high-margins and a loyal customer base with Ethernet switch gear. Their new strategy to sell UP and ACROSS the stack moves them into lower-margin business like servers. Their strong agenda with NetApp is not in sync with their partnership with EMC. They recently had senior management turn-over.
  • HP enjoys a large customer base and is recognized for good design and manufacturing capabilities. Their challenges are mostly organizational, distracted by changes at the top and an untested and ever-changing vision, shifting gears and messages too often. Concerns over the Itanium have not helped them lately.
  • IBM defies simple description. One can easily recognize Cisco as an "Ethernet Switch" company, HP as a "Printer Company", Oracle as a "Database Company', but you can't say that IBM is an "XYZ" company, as it has re-invented itself successfully over its past 100 years, with a strong focus on client relationships. IBM enjoys high margins, sustainable cost structure, huge resources, a proficient sales team, and is recognized for its innovation with a strong IBM Research division. Their "Smarter Planet" vision has been effective in supporting their individual brands and unlock new opportuties. IBM's focus on growth markets takes advantage of their global reach.

His final advice was to look for "good enough" solutions that are "built for change" rather than "built to last".

Cloud Computing – What's Real vs. Virtual

Chris Molloy, IBM Distinguished Engineer and fellow published author, presented this session on Cloud Computing. His book [IT Virtualization Best Practices: A Lean, Green Virtualized Data Center Approach] is available on Amazon.

Chris works in the Data Center Management and Optimization Services team. IBM owns and/or manages over 425 data centers, representing over 8 million square feet of floorspace. This includes managing 13 million desktops, and 325,000 x86 and UNIX server images, and 1,235 mainframes. IBM is able to pool resources and segment the complexity for flexible resource balancing.

Chris gave an example of a company that selected a Cloud Compute service provided on the East coast a Cloud Storage provider on the West coast, both for offering low rates, but was disappointed in the latency between the two.

Chris asked "How did 5 percent utilization on x86 servers ever become acceptable?" When IBM is brought in to manage a data center, it takes a "No Server Left Behind" approach to reduce risk and allow for a strong focus on end-user transition. Each server is evaluated for its current utilization:

UtilizationAction Taken
0 percentAmazingly, many servers are unused. These are recycled properly.
1 to 19 percentWorkload is virtualized and moved to a new server.
20 to 39 percentUse IBM's Active Energy Manager to monitor the server.
40 to 59 percentAdd more VMs to this virtualized server.
over 60 percentManage the workload balance on this server.

This approach allows IBM to achieve a 60 to 70 percent utilization average on x86 machines, with an ROI payback period of 6 to 18 months, and 2x-3x increase of servers-managed-per-FTE.

Storage is classified using Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) best practices, using automation with pre-defined data placement and movement policies. This allows only 5 percent of data to be on Tier-1, 15 percent on Tier-2, 15 percent on Tier-3, and 65 percent on Tier-4 storage.

Chris recommends adopting IT Service Management, and to shift away from one-off builds, stand-alone apps, and siloed cost management structures, and over to standardization and shared resources.

You may have heard of "Follow-the-sun" but have you heard of "Follow-the-moon"? Global companies often establish "follow-the-sun" for customer service, re-directing phone calls to be handled by people in countries during their respective daytime hours. In the same manner, server and storage virtualization allows workloads to be moved to data centers during night-time hours, following the moon, to take advantage of "free cooling" using outside air instead of computer room air conditioning (CRAC).

Since 2007, IBM has been able to double computer processing capability without increasing energy consumption or carbon gas emissions.

It's Wednesday, Day 3, and I can tell already that the attendees are suffering from "information overload'.

technorati tags: IBM, HP, Cisco, Megavendors, Oracle, SAP, Apple, Google, Chris+Molloy, Cloud Computing, x86, virtualization, IT Service Management, Follow-the-sun, Follow-the-moon, CRAC, Free Cooling



Tags:  x86 oracle hp follow-the-sun cisco chris+molloy apple megavendors follow-the-moon it+service+management free+cooling virtualization cloud+computing crac sap google ibm
  • Show:
  • 10
  • 20
  • 30
  • Previous
  • Next
1
Inside System Storage -- by Tony Pearson
  • Share
  • ?
  • Profiles ▼
  • Communities ▼
  • Apps ▼