<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736</id><updated>2012-02-16T20:15:17.887+05:30</updated><category term='SMI-S'/><category term='SCSI'/><category term='Storage compliance'/><category term='Microsoft'/><category term='De-duplication'/><category term='Virtual Storage'/><category term='Startups'/><category term='Vmware'/><category term='EMC'/><category term='Server'/><category term='iSCSI'/><category term='Fun'/><category term='Storage Arrays'/><category term='SRM'/><category term='Netapp'/><category term='Zmanda'/><category term='Business'/><category term='Virtualisation'/><category term='SUN'/><category term='SRM SUN'/><category term='Backup'/><category term='Symantec'/><category term='Linux'/><category term='Hitachi'/><category term='Storage'/><category term='Virtualization'/><category term='Multipathing'/><category term='ZFS'/><title type='text'>Welcome to (Go)Cool Storage Space !</title><subtitle type='html'>This is a blog dedicated to my passion about technology, essentially articles aimed at Storage Networking ,where I talk about the latest storage concepts, dissect and analyze the trends in the storage world, and bring across news that I deem significant. Storage Technology is something that has kept me glued since four years now and continues to do so.So enjoy all u storage geeks, n feel free to comment :)</subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default?max-results=100'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>27</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>100</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-5474474148984217896</id><published>2008-12-28T13:50:00.004+05:30</published><updated>2008-12-28T13:56:09.457+05:30</updated><title type='text'>Finally ! A Code of Conduct for Data Centers !</title><content type='html'>I was so so happy to see this report from SearchStorage, the first official regulation from any country on the use and maintenance of data centers. I am sure, all we green IT enthusiasts would love to hear something similar from the US as well ..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/ministers/hunt.htm" target="_blank"&gt;Sustainable Development and Energy Innovation&lt;/a&gt; of the U.K.’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has challenged &lt;a href="http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2008/081119b.htm" target="_blank"&gt;the IT industry to prevent further climate change&lt;/a&gt; with the official launch of the &lt;a href="http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/energyefficiency/html/standby_initiative_data%20centers.htm" target="_blank"&gt;EU Code of Conduct for Data Centers&lt;/a&gt; on November 19.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The Code of Conduct was created in response to increasing energy consumption in data centers and the need to reduce the related environmental, economic and energy supply impacts. It was developed with collaboration from the British Computer Society, AMD, APC, Dell, Fujitsu, Gartner, HP, IBM, Intel, and many others.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Those who choose to abide by the voluntary Code of Conduct will have to implement energy efficiency best practices, meet minimum procurement standards, and report energy consumption every year.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The UK is also the first country in the world to approve &lt;a href="http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk/legislation/index.htm" target="_blank"&gt;legally binding climate change laws&lt;/a&gt; to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; data centers in the U.K. are responsible for about 3% of electricity use, and the goal is an 80% reduction in greenhouse gasses by 2050. &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;America is far behind Europe with climate change policies, but it looks like it might finally be getting its act together in terms of protecting the planet. Climate change legislation and carbon emission regulations promise to become a reality under President-elect Barack Obama, who has pledged to enact global-warming legislation.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the legislation would impose a &lt;a href="http://serverspecs.blogs.techtarget.com/2008/02/15/carbon-cap-and-trade-legislation%E2%80%99s-impact-on-the-data-center" target="_blank"&gt;cap-and-trade system on utility companies&lt;/a&gt; that could raise the price of power an estimated 20% across the board, so getting as efficient as possible before the legislation takes effect would be a wise move.&lt;/p&gt; To that end, vendors have come up with &lt;a href="http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid80_gci1251382,00.html" target="_blank"&gt;highly efficient servers&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid80_gci1338868,00.html" target="_blank"&gt;lower watt CPUs&lt;/a&gt; that perform just as well as their higher power predecessors. There is also &lt;a href="http://www.cassatt.com/" target="_blank"&gt;software to control power consumption&lt;/a&gt; and to &lt;a href="http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/server-farm/hewlett-packards-energy-efficiency-crusade-control-server-data-center-power/" target="_blank"&gt;cap server power usage&lt;/a&gt;, and finally reliable &lt;a href="http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid94_gci499539,00.html" target="_blank"&gt;virtualization software&lt;/a&gt; to increase server utilization, so there really are no excuses for running under-utilized systems these days&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-5474474148984217896?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/5474474148984217896/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=5474474148984217896' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/5474474148984217896'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/5474474148984217896'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2008/12/finally-code-of-conduct-for-data.html' title='Finally ! A Code of Conduct for Data Centers !'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-2242754154970634778</id><published>2008-12-07T13:07:00.002+05:30</published><updated>2008-12-07T13:13:20.539+05:30</updated><title type='text'>An  FAQ on Deduplication.</title><content type='html'>After my previous post, I thought an FAQ on deduplication would be the best way to strengthen concepts around the same .. So here they are :&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;a name="q1"&gt;&lt;b&gt;What type of data reduction ratios should you realistically expect using deduplication?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a name="q1"&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt; Realistically, I think it's safe to assume a ratio of anywhere between 13 to 17X. You'll probably see lower ratios on target-based deduplication, and you'll see higher ratios on source-based deduplication just because of how they are architected.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a name="q2"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Which data deduplication appliances and backup software do you view as enterprise ready?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;a name="q2"&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a name="q2"&gt;Some of the technologies that may be enterprise-ready are Dilligent Technologies and Sepaton. Both companies have had products on the market for some time now, and they are both having pretty good success in the market.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a name="q4"&gt;&lt;b&gt;How long does it take for companies to achieve these data reduction ratios?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;a name="q4"&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a name="q4"&gt;In the short term, you might see a reduction of 2X or 3X over the course of the first month or so. But the longer you keep the data deduplication, that's when you start to see the larger numbers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;p&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a name="q6"&gt;&lt;b&gt;When does data deduplication using backup software on the host make sense?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;  &lt;a name="q6"&gt;There are a couple factors that you really need to consider. If you're bandwidth constrained and are trying to back up data and you have large amounts of data coming over the network, then using data deduplication at the host makes a lot of sense. That can dramatically free up the amount of bandwidth that you have.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;  &lt;a name="q6"&gt;It is important that the host can sustain the initial hit. This technology requires memory and CPU processing to perform the data deduplication. It might be a good idea to run the initial backup over a weekend when the backup window is a bit longer.&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;p&gt;  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a name="q7"&gt;&lt;b&gt;Are there any instances where data deduplication will not provide any benefits? Superior benefits?&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;  &lt;a name="q7"&gt;With photos, videos, etc., there's not a lot of duplicate information. If there are a lot of new images being created, then you'll see very little benefit from data deduplication. In that case, you're better off just running differential or incremental backups.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a name="q7"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a name="q1"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a name="q2"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a name="q4"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a name="q4"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a name="q2"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;a name="q1"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-2242754154970634778?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/2242754154970634778/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=2242754154970634778' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/2242754154970634778'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/2242754154970634778'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2008/12/faq-on-deduplication.html' title='An  FAQ on Deduplication.'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-3860482689933202059</id><published>2008-11-07T12:58:00.000+05:30</published><updated>2008-12-07T13:07:32.695+05:30</updated><title type='text'>Duplication from a backup perspective ..</title><content type='html'>&lt;span class="a3"&gt;Data deduplication identifies duplicate data, removing redundancies and reducing the overall capacity of data transferred and stored.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;Byte-level deduplication provides a more granular inspection of data than block-level approaches, ensuring more accuracy, but it often requires more knowledge of the backup stream to do its job.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Block-level approaches&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Block-level data deduplication segments data streams into blocks, inspecting the blocks to determine if each has been encountered before (typically by generating a digital signature or unique identifier via a hash algorithm for each block). If the block is unique, it is written to disk and its unique identifier is stored in an index; otherwise, only a pointer to the original, unique block is stored. By replacing repeated blocks with much smaller pointers rather than storing the block again, disk storage space is saved.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;p&gt;  &lt;b&gt;Byte-level data deduplication&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Analyzing data streams at the byte level is another approach to deduplication. By performing a byte-by-byte comparison of new data streams versus previously stored ones, a higher level of accuracy can be delivered. Deduplication products that use this method have one thing in common: It's likely that the incoming backup data stream has been seen before, so it is reviewed to see if it matches similar data received in the past.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;Products leveraging a byte-level approach are typically "content aware," which means the vendor has done some reverse engineering of the backup application's data stream to understand how to retrieve information such as the file name, file type, date/time stamp, etc. This method reduces the amount of computation required to determine unique versus duplicate data. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;Backup jobs, therefore, complete at full disk performance, but require a reserve of disk cache to perform the deduplication process. It's also likely that the deduplication process is limited to a backup stream from a single backup set and not applied "globally" across backup sets.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;Once the deduplication process is complete, the solution reclaims disk space by deleting the duplicate data. Before space reclamation is performed, an integrity check can be performed to ensure that the deduplicated data matches the original data objects. The last full backup can also be maintained so recovery is not dependent on reconstituting deduplicated data, enabling rapid recovery.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;b&gt;The better one ...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;&lt;span class="a3"&gt;Well, the choice is yours depending on what exactly you would want to do. Things like Trade-off between duplication accuracy versus performance, cache ratio etc should come onto the fore while making your decision ..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-3860482689933202059?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/3860482689933202059/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=3860482689933202059' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/3860482689933202059'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/3860482689933202059'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2008/12/duplication-from-backup-perspective.html' title='Duplication from a backup perspective ..'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-6021198950110214465</id><published>2008-08-01T15:35:00.008+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:08:38.567+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Startups'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Storage'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Business'/><title type='text'>Analysis :: Well , quite a shocker ..An evolving storage org "Agami" bites the dust !</title><content type='html'>Agami systems , one of the evolving network storage startups delivering networked storage appliances has almost shut doors amidst, total surprise amongst its employees.Agami systems, dwelved on the storage solutions space , on a wide array of areas like file replications systems, High Availability systems and unified storage solutions. They had also racked up around 50 customers by early 2007.Sources say, they had finished their VC Round 3 funding of 45 million dollars(which seems quite big an amount). Read more here&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.byteandswitch.com/document.asp?doc_id=160547&amp;amp;WT.svl=news1_1"&gt;Read the full story here &lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-6021198950110214465?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/6021198950110214465/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=6021198950110214465' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/6021198950110214465'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/6021198950110214465'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2008/08/well-quite-shocker-another-storage-co.html' title='Analysis :: Well , quite a shocker ..An evolving storage org &quot;Agami&quot; bites the dust !'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-4750559635847508082</id><published>2008-07-16T16:41:00.003+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:41:46.272+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='EMC'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='De-duplication'/><title type='text'>News-n-Analysis :: EMC unravles DATA DEDUP,,, with new features in their VTL's</title><content type='html'>EMC Corp. launched three new virtual tape libraries (VTLs) at EMC World today that include Quantum Corp.'s data deduplication software. Users of the disk-based backup hardware can choose either inline or post-process deduplication, and the largest of the new VTL models -- the EMC Disk Library 4000 -- is based on the first Clariion disk array model to ship with drive spin-down.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EMC Disk Library 4000 customers can get data deduplication and the new drive spin-down capability as free upgrades.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's been known for months that EMC would license Quantum software for deduplication with disk targets, but not why EMC declined to use its own Avamar dedupe software in that capacity.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-4750559635847508082?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/4750559635847508082/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=4750559635847508082' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/4750559635847508082'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/4750559635847508082'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2008/06/emc-unveils-data-deduplication-spin.html' title='News-n-Analysis :: EMC unravles DATA DEDUP,,, with new features in their VTL&apos;s'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-6245369976163492829</id><published>2008-06-16T16:02:00.007+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:09:28.311+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Storage compliance'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Symantec'/><title type='text'>Analysis :: Symantec hails Enterprise Vault</title><content type='html'>For people/developers and folks working on the Enterprise Vault at Symantec, this might come as good news..&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;With e-discovery regulations getting more stringent and email data continuing to grow, many users at the Symantec Vision conference were crediting Symantec's Enterprise Vault archiving software with saving them time and storage space in email management and litigation support. However, some users had concerns about the archiving software's performance with SATA drives under certain conditions.&lt;br /&gt;A representative for the UZ Leuven, the largest hospital in Belgium, discussed the hospital's use of Enterprise Vault during a session at the conference. The hospital rolled out Microsoft Exchange about three years ago along with NetApp storage. Asked which NetApp filers run in his environment, Reinoud Reynders, IT manager for UZ Leuven, said, "We have almost everything.".&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nevertheless, the 1 million emails that the hospital was generating each month were soon overwhelming the email systems and the storage infrastructure. Reynders evaluated archiving systems from Zantaz (now owned by Autonomy) and IXOS (now owned by Open Text), before choosing Enterprise Vault because it was the only software that made archived emails available offline and allowed direct retrieval of emails from the archive through the Outlook email client. (Autonomy Zantaz and Open Text now offer those features.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Symantec also announced a set of Enterprise Vault e-discovery connectors last August that preserve the chain of custody for data between the archive and commonly used legal review applications, but Olsen said it's not yet available for the application Mitel wants to use, FTI Ringtail ediscovery software. "Once that's in place, we'll have a full supply chain to support the legal department," he said.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-6245369976163492829?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/6245369976163492829/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=6245369976163492829' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/6245369976163492829'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/6245369976163492829'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2008/06/symantec-hails-enterprise-vault.html' title='Analysis :: Symantec hails Enterprise Vault'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-438204368066261337</id><published>2008-04-12T12:19:00.001+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:11:34.854+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Server'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Microsoft'/><title type='text'>Analysis :: Microsoft still trying hard to get a share in the server market !</title><content type='html'>It is something that they haven't got "right" right from the word go and still continue to crackle. It is something that they never had their sights on,but now are forced to look  at. It is the evergreen "Enterprise Server" market, that they are still weak at and according to me , they need to rework their strategy towards that space. They still look confused as to what they want to achieve out of it. A comprehensive comparison chart with "Linux" at Microsoft.Com just shows how desperate they are to get a share of the juicy server market. So does it work? No , according to me , it still does not. Many of the points mentioned there seems to by cynical and vague.  &lt;a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/compare/default.mspx"&gt;Find out for yourself&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-438204368066261337?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/438204368066261337/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=438204368066261337' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/438204368066261337'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/438204368066261337'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2007/09/microsoft-still-trying-hard-to-get.html' title='Analysis :: Microsoft still trying hard to get a share in the server market !'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-3632612076396595151</id><published>2008-03-11T11:53:00.001+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:11:59.425+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='iSCSI'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Virtual Storage'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Virtualisation'/><title type='text'>Concept :: DAS to iSCSI SAN using Virtual Appliances</title><content type='html'>Now , users wanting to convert locally attached disk in ESX servers to an &lt;a href="http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid5_gci1240634_tax306209,00.html" target="_blank"&gt;iSCSI storage area network&lt;/a&gt; (SAN) can do so with their SANiQ software. This just increases the trend of more and more storage cos wanting to conquer the Virtual storage space(Vmware) by giving out virtual appliances. The above mentioned technology allows your local disks on a DAS/ESX server to be exposed as iSCSI disks on SAN.This is interesting as, it is not easily configurable otherwise. This still conforms with the idea of Virtual Storage Appliances(VSA's) not replacing SAN's. But i guess,there would still be performance issues with this . Watch out for more on this later as it looks to be in its nascent stages.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-3632612076396595151?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/3632612076396595151/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=3632612076396595151' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/3632612076396595151'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/3632612076396595151'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2007/09/interesting-das-to-iscsi-san-using.html' title='Concept :: DAS to iSCSI SAN using Virtual Appliances'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-4626305734288729346</id><published>2008-01-12T15:09:00.003+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:12:28.599+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='iSCSI'/><title type='text'>Concept :: All about iSCSI !</title><content type='html'>I am compiling a list of common FAQ's to understand iSCSI better .&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;1 . What is iSCSI?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;iSCSI is based upon existing industry standards, practises and applications that are known and understood by end users.&lt;br /&gt;iSCSI is a network storage protocol that encompasses block level SCSI data in a TCP/IP frame, thus allowing servers to access storage resources over an existing IP infrastructure.&lt;br /&gt;iSCSI is a combination of SCSI and Ethernet technologies that have been around for more than 20 years and are fully tried and tested.&lt;br /&gt;iSCSI is a cost effective way to build SAN’s at much lower cost point, giving users greater consolidation in their environment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;2 . What is an iSCSI Appliance?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Our iSCSI Appliance has lots of disk storage attached. This disk can be SATA, FC or SCSI based. The iSCSI Appliance also has multiple Gigabit cards for sustaining the transfer rates that are required by the servers on the network. The Appliance also offers a high degree of redundancy against component failure and typically two or more processors.&lt;br /&gt;In addition to this Snapshots can be taken for the disk being offered up along with mirroring and high availability.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;3 . What are the drawbacks of Fibre Channel compared to iSCSI?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fibre Channel is still viewed as an alien architecture. It requires special training and high-priced expertise to keep a Fibre Channel fabric operational. Fibre Channel also requires its own management software, which is not fully integrated with mainstream IP network management. So, although Fibre Channel fabrics have many technical strengths, overall they require additional skill sets and tools.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;4 . Do you think packet loss will be an issue in IP storage protocols?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Packet or frame loss also can occur in Fibre Channel fabrics if links are over-subscribed or poorly implemented. For IP storage, the TCP session control will insure that there is recovery from packet loss, should it occur. However, if the network is properly designed, this recovery mechanism won't be invoked frequently. I doubt that many users will start putting mission-critical IP storage data over congested or lossy network links.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;5 . Which in your view will succeed, in order over time, between FCIP, iFCP and iSCSI and why?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Good question. We will see all three protocols used initially, but I think that over time you will see FCIP fall out of favor. FCIP is just FC tunneling and it perpetuates a lot of the problems associated with large or extended Fibre Channel fabrics. The more FCIP products deployed, the more these issues will surface and customers will look at alternatives.&lt;br /&gt;iSCSI may gradually displace Fibre Channel, both as a transport protocol and as an interface for storage devices.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;6 . Is there a difference between an iSCSI HBA and an iSCSI NIC?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The iSCSI adapter vendors are all in a toot about what to call these things. Companies from the IP space like Alacritech or Intel are content to call them iSCSI NICs. Companies from the Fibre Channel space like QLogic want to call them iSCSI HBAs. The acronym "NIC" seems to have a commodity connotation, whereas "HBA" implies some additional value.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;7 . How would you define how iSCSI works in layman's terms?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Information that is key to modern business is ultimately stored on disk in the form of blocks of data. That block data is written to and read from disk using the SCSI protocol, which is optimized for low-overhead movement of data from disks to file servers, application servers or workstations. The iSCSI protocol carries those SCSI commands for reads and writes of data to disk using TCP/IP.&lt;br /&gt;In short, for the layman, iSCSI simplifies storing or retrieving of blocks of data by using familiar, well-understood IP networking protocols and infrastructure and traditional SCSI commands.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-4626305734288729346?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/4626305734288729346/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=4626305734288729346' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/4626305734288729346'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/4626305734288729346'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2007/09/all-about-iscsi.html' title='Concept :: All about iSCSI !'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-920392722858817894</id><published>2007-11-11T12:18:00.002+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:42:03.161+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='SRM'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Virtualization'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Vmware'/><title type='text'>Analysis :: Vmware helps SRM make a comeback !</title><content type='html'>This is interesting for me as I once worked in this space (Storage Resource Monitoring - SRM) . All I will do here is send out a link , because the whole post is interesting. I once worked for Veritas CommandCentral(which was pretty nascent at that time) and then onto to work with its competitor SUN-acquired Storagetek(Global Storage Manager). SRM was quite a hot topic those days, however the industry is not very excited about it these days. It still interests me though :). &lt;a href="http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid5_gci1266401,00.html"&gt;Read the full post here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-920392722858817894?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/920392722858817894/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=920392722858817894' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/920392722858817894'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/920392722858817894'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2007/09/vmware-helps-srm-make-comeback.html' title='Analysis :: Vmware helps SRM make a comeback !'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-7312866923808008336</id><published>2007-10-09T15:08:00.001+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:15:54.667+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Business'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='EMC'/><title type='text'>News :: EMC opens $160M R&amp;D center in Singapore</title><content type='html'>EMC said it will hire more than 100 engineers and spend U.S.$160 million to open a new 15,000-square-foot research center in Singapore. (EMC already has a smaller engineering operation established in that country.) &lt;a href="http://storage.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/05/07/emc-stop-collaborate-and-listen/" target="_blank"&gt;EMC announced its plans&lt;/a&gt; to up its research and development (R&amp;amp;D) efforts worldwide last month.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-7312866923808008336?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/7312866923808008336/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=7312866923808008336' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/7312866923808008336'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/7312866923808008336'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2007/09/emc-opens-160m-r-center-in-singapore.html' title='News :: EMC opens $160M R&amp;D center in Singapore'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-2037633815610900594</id><published>2007-09-13T16:14:00.003+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:16:07.462+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Business'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Zmanda'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Backup'/><title type='text'>News :: Zmanda announces service-centre in Pune</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://news.oneindia.in/2007/09/13/zmanda-announced-service-centre-at-pune-1189658077.html"&gt;Read the full story here &lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-2037633815610900594?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/2037633815610900594/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=2037633815610900594' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/2037633815610900594'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/2037633815610900594'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2007/09/zmanda-announces-service-centre-in-pune.html' title='News :: Zmanda announces service-centre in Pune'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-2817384935454442981</id><published>2007-09-12T14:57:00.004+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:41:51.963+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='ZFS'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='SUN'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Netapp'/><title type='text'>Analysis :: Netapp sues SUN !</title><content type='html'>The latest sue is from Netapp and it comes in the wake of ZFS' popularity. Netapp claims that SUN has been unfairly distributing ZFS technology(which infringes 7 Netapp patents) to third parties , without informing those parties about the infringement of Netapp patents. This could particularly get bitter where SUN's open ZFS is the closest competition to the Netapp FS. Jonathan Schwartz ,CEO , SUN however responded saying - "We're all focused on innovation and winning customers, not litigation," he wrote. Sun uses its patent portfolio, he explained, to protect communities and indemnify customers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;"Sun indemnifies its customers, so I'd encourage all interested parties to compare the economics of ZFS and Thumper to what you're currently forced to pay -- the savings are absolutely shocking," Schwartz said. "The rise of the open-source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors. I guess not everyone's learned that lesson."&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am sure there is more to come on this . :)&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-2817384935454442981?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/2817384935454442981/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=2817384935454442981' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/2817384935454442981'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/2817384935454442981'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2007/09/netapp-sues-sun.html' title='Analysis :: Netapp sues SUN !'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-7366653174578051452</id><published>2007-09-09T14:51:00.003+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:18:00.329+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Business'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Zmanda'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Backup'/><title type='text'>News-n-Analysis :: Zmanda launches Open-format Windows backup solution</title><content type='html'>Zmanda has launched an open-format backup solution for Windows in the Amanda family.Good news for all backup folks who wanted an open-ended backup solution on Windows. By the word open-ended i mean, a backup solution that will allow you to backup and restore in formats compatible with Winzip,Pkzip,Compressed Folders etc. This means any data backed up from a Windows box can be restored back even if you do not have Amanda installed , or if you have any of Winzip , Pk-zip or the Compressed Folders feature from Windows itself. Isn't that so cool ? The obvious advantage of this would be that, it eliminates vendor lock-in and takes you out from the jaws of a legacy backup provider to whom you are paying huge sums of money and can't find a way to migrate out ! And more so , its coming off the stable of a leading open-source provider - Zmanda. Here's the link -&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.zmanda.com/press_zmanda_08_29_2007.html&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.zmanda.com/press_zmanda_08_29_2007.html"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-7366653174578051452?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/7366653174578051452/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=7366653174578051452' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/7366653174578051452'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/7366653174578051452'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2007/09/zmanda-launches-open-format-windows.html' title='News-n-Analysis :: Zmanda launches Open-format Windows backup solution'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-115744474164576012</id><published>2007-07-05T13:55:00.001+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:18:08.877+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='SMI-S'/><title type='text'>Concept :: Why SMI-S compliance ?</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;Many of us know what SMI-s means and what it does ? But how important and relevant is the compliance of SMIS in today's times ? Well it is very important. The primary reason being heterogenous storage systems and varied product lines from different vendors that demand compliance from a centralised storage standard. This standard needs to works across various channel technologies and vendor specifics.This standard is essentially SMI-S or Storage Management Initiative Specification that works with these variations.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Essentially SMIS is an object oriented API  for managing storage resources on a SAN (NAS included).THE SMI-S API's have base classes that represent common properties that all vendors share.The vendor provides interfaces to the outside world to access information on its product through SMI-S and this is called SMI-S compliance.SMI-S can collect data about a huge category of SAN components that include HBA's,Hosts,Switches,Disk Arrays,Tape libraries etc.&lt;/p&gt;SNIA has a program called "CTP (Conformance Testing Program)" . Vendor products need to pass this test to acquire a SNIA-compliant mark for their product.More details at www.snia.org&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;Coming next : How does SMI-S increase efficiency of Storage Mgmt Software ? , SMI-S terms  &lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-115744474164576012?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/115744474164576012/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=115744474164576012' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115744474164576012'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115744474164576012'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/09/why-smi-s-compliance.html' title='Concept :: Why SMI-S compliance ?'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-115736118455990742</id><published>2007-06-04T14:41:00.001+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:18:21.036+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='SCSI'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Multipathing'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Linux'/><title type='text'>Concept :: More on Linux Multipathing</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/319/2293/1600/linux-multipathing.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/319/2293/320/linux-multipathing.jpg" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is how the EVMS and LVM2 interact with the Device mapper . EVMS(Enterprise. Vol Mgmt System) and the LVM2( an extension to Logical Vol Mgmt System (LVM) for 2.4) are user interfaces to interact with the kernel on logical device mgmt.   &lt;/p&gt;  &lt;p&gt;Basic SCSI terminologies around multipathing:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Physicalpath -&gt; Unique combination of a  SCSIinitiator and a SCSItarget,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Device -&gt; SCSI Logicalunit ,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Path -&gt;  Logical Connection along a physical path to a prticular device.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Also read - &gt; multipathing user-space tools like multipath , dmsetup ,  dmraid , udev , hotplug.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-115736118455990742?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/115736118455990742/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=115736118455990742' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115736118455990742'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115736118455990742'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/09/more-on-linux-multipathing.html' title='Concept :: More on Linux Multipathing'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-115822910210254364</id><published>2007-05-14T15:48:00.001+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:18:49.250+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='SMI-S'/><title type='text'>Analysis :: How does SMI-S increase efficiency of Storage Management Software ?</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;SMI-S(Storage Management Initiative-Spec) facilitates three very basic tasks that almost every SAN Mgmt Software needs to provide : &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;a) Discovery -&amp;gt; Discovery of SMI-S conformant devices from a SAN mgmt server.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;b) Monitoring -&amp;gt; The SMI-S client can gather status about each device like health , fault management checks etc.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;c) Control -&amp;gt; An SMI-S client enables an IT administrator to actively manage devices in a SAN. For e.g. LUN masking , LUN mapping provided the client has Access Control to LUN's from those host FC ports.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Apart from this , SMI-s facilitates a lot of other services like Multipathing , Copy Services that provide a standardised way of going about things.This standardisation increases efficiency and productivity for vendors who dont need to write vendor-centric or applications using proprietary protocols anymore .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-115822910210254364?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/115822910210254364/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=115822910210254364' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115822910210254364'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115822910210254364'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-does-smi-s-increase-efficiency-of.html' title='Analysis :: How does SMI-S increase efficiency of Storage Management Software ?'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-7213450816064479058</id><published>2007-04-09T15:04:00.002+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:41:58.532+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Storage'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Business'/><title type='text'>Analysis :: Who's doing well and who's not !</title><content type='html'>IBM , HP or EMC ??&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;  &lt;b&gt;IDC reports on storage growth&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For all the bluster from IBM that accompanied &lt;a href="http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid5_gci1259564,00.html" target="_blank"&gt;IDC's storage hardware report&lt;/a&gt;, the worldwide quarterly disk storage tracker for Q1 2007 from IDC told the same old story: EMC in the lead in the storage market with revenues of $912 million, virtually even with the same quarter last year (where IDC shows its revenues at $911 million). &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Hewlett-Packard (HP) lost 1% in revenue, but topped IBM in second place with $575 million in revenue. However, in terms of market share, IDC put HP and IBM in a "statistical tie" at 13.4% and 12.7% revenue share, respectively. EMC was sitting pretty at 21.2% market share but IDC also gave it some bad news. Systems costing less than $50,000 accounted for the majority of the overall market's 5.9% growth from a year ago to $4.3 billion in revenues, according to analyst Brad Nisbet, who was quoted in a press release. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-7213450816064479058?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/7213450816064479058/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=7213450816064479058' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/7213450816064479058'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/7213450816064479058'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2007/09/whos-doing-well-and-whos-not.html' title='Analysis :: Who&apos;s doing well and who&apos;s not !'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-115769736042146982</id><published>2007-02-08T12:06:00.002+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:19:13.121+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='SCSI'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Virtualization'/><title type='text'>Concepts :: gGlossary pick</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Appliance &lt;/em&gt;- A network product designed to perform a specialized task with minimal user administration . In storage virtualization , an appliance is an &lt;strong&gt;embedded virtualization engine &lt;/strong&gt;attached to a SAN.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Block level addressing &lt;/em&gt;- An algoithm for identifying blocks of data stored on disk / tape by number. Also known as &lt;strong&gt;Logical Block Addressing (LBA)&lt;/strong&gt;. Block address numbers are converted to physical locations on storage such as cylinder , head , sector for disk media.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;CDB - &lt;/em&gt;Known as &lt;strong&gt;SCSI Command Descriptor Block&lt;/strong&gt;. Used to transfer commands, status, data between an Initiator and Target through SCSI.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-115769736042146982?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/115769736042146982/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=115769736042146982' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115769736042146982'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115769736042146982'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/09/gglossary-pick.html' title='Concepts :: gGlossary pick'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-1587110713776584041</id><published>2007-01-12T12:18:00.003+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:20:50.019+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Server'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Virtualization'/><title type='text'>Concept :: Server Virtualisation from Vmware !</title><content type='html'>Hey guyz ,&lt;br /&gt;Server Virtualisation has been a hot buzzword for quite some time after it emerged in the early 2K's and then went into hibernate mode for a while.But now , its hotting up even more after EMC's acquisition of Vmware and , the controversial teaming up of Xensource with Microsoft pumping up a lot of furore from the open source community. But all said and done , what is Server Virtualisation from an amateur's point of view ? Well here's it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Server Virtualisation is basically virtualising systems and consolidating hardware for better resource utilisation and maximising ROI,TCO(return on investment,total cost of ownership) . Sounds too jargon'ish ?? Hmmmm..Well in simple terms , imagine ten hardware systems hosting ten different platforms with each one running enterprise server roles. What if you had to consolidate hardware and run these 10 platforms on one/two hardware systems. Well , your fist answer would be "How about configuring a dual/quadra boot" ? Nice answer , but if you had to have all the systems up and running enterprise server models simultaneously , your answer falls flat.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The solution to this problem is :-&gt; Server Virtualisation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So how does it work and look like ? Well , we have more than one virtualisation vendors and its difficult to take all of them up here. But let me take the example of one of the leading(if i may say) virtualisation vendors,Vmware. Vmware has around 8 years experience in the field of virtualisation and are now a part of EMC(one of the leading storage vendors). So how does it work ? Well, there are two models to the Vmware virtualisation strategy&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1 . Their virtual infrastructure that runs on a bare metal and doesnt need a host OS.This is called as the "Vmware ESX server". I would say ,this is server virtualisation in the purer sense , as it directly virtualises system services with the hardware. So this will essentially have an ESX Server running on Intel/AMD/etc and will run one or more instances of windows/unix/linux/mac etc as guest OS'es.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2 . Their virtual infrastructure server that runs on a host OS(Win,Unix) and relies on the host OS services for virtualising services within Guest OS'es. This is their older virtualisation model and is called Vmware Server / GSX Server.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So how does this work ? The Vmware infrastructure virtualises each of the services (Processor , RAM Memory , Storage , Networking , OS Services ) to each of the guest OS (virtual machines) as if they were directly accessing these services provided by the hardware.Give a thought to how this can be done .If not , wait for my next article :) .&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How does this look like ? Well , i am attaching two snapshots that display two virtual machines running within my host SuSE OS.This is the Vmware GSX Server model(although it runs thru Vmware workstation).The first screenshot shows a Fedore Core 4 desktop(with a "gnome-terminal" opened) running as guest OS while the second shows a Windows 2K3 Server(hope u can c the windows explorer there).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_3L-iO892GfM/Rac7ocYA1zI/AAAAAAAAAA8/--JvrMiFd_8/s400/vmware-fc4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5019045875725424434" border="0" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_3L-iO892GfM/Rac7_8YA10I/AAAAAAAAABE/6nsYRtjNrfo/s400/vmware-win2k3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5019046279452350274" border="0" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Interesting , right ? Hmmm ,,watch this space on more on server virtualisation .Will look to throw more light on other suites in this space - Xen , Zones etc ...&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-1587110713776584041?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/1587110713776584041/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=1587110713776584041' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/1587110713776584041'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/1587110713776584041'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2007/01/server-virtualisation-from-vmware.html' title='Concept :: Server Virtualisation from Vmware !'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media='http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/' url='http://bp2.blogger.com/_3L-iO892GfM/Rac7ocYA1zI/AAAAAAAAAA8/--JvrMiFd_8/s72-c/vmware-fc4.jpg' height='72' width='72'/><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-116628908744207208</id><published>2006-12-16T22:38:00.000+05:30</published><updated>2006-12-16T22:41:28.986+05:30</updated><title type='text'>Back to blogging !</title><content type='html'>Hey folks , &lt;br/&gt;             I have been out of tech blogging for a while but promise to b rite back &lt;br/&gt; peddle from now on .. Hope to be back on the storage circuit on topics like &lt;br/&gt; Virtualisation , Network attached storage ,  SMIS ... Watch this space for more ....&lt;style&gt;i{content: normal !important}&lt;/style&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-116628908744207208?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/116628908744207208/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=116628908744207208' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/116628908744207208'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/116628908744207208'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/12/back-to-blogging.html' title='Back to blogging !'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-115864515141986957</id><published>2006-11-19T11:22:00.001+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:20:27.836+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='EMC'/><title type='text'>News :: EMC to provide data classification for files without the use of agents</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;EMC is hoping to make the most from its acquisitions of Legato , Documentum and Smarts to deliver a significant product ( one of its kind ) . Read more here -&amp;gt; &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/originalConten..."&gt;http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid5_gci1216226,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-115864515141986957?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/115864515141986957/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=115864515141986957' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115864515141986957'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115864515141986957'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/09/storage-news-emc-to-provide-data.html' title='News :: EMC to provide data classification for files without the use of agents'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-115760592927338527</id><published>2006-10-07T10:42:00.001+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:20:42.411+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Storage'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Hitachi'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Storage Arrays'/><title type='text'>News :: Hitachi Data Systems grab the Enterprise Storage Array award for the second time in 2 years</title><content type='html'>HDS ( Hitachi Data Systems) have grabbed the enterprise Storage Array Award for the second time in a row , whereas the biggest surprise has been SUN Microsystems which has slipped from second place last year to last place this time around . You can catch the story at -&amp;gt;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid5_gci1214230,00.html"&gt;http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/originalConten...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-115760592927338527?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/115760592927338527/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=115760592927338527' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115760592927338527'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115760592927338527'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/09/storage-news-hitachi-data-systems-grab.html' title='News :: Hitachi Data Systems grab the Enterprise Storage Array award for the second time in 2 years'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-115865679871549531</id><published>2006-09-19T14:23:00.001+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:21:23.166+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Fun'/><title type='text'>Fun @ my workplace</title><content type='html'>My friends @ SUN , Murtaza  and Vikash have taken the literal meaning of my blog address and have cliked a picture (without my knowing), that expresses the same.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/319/2293/1600/gokulonstorage.jpg"&gt;&lt;img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/319/2293/320/gokulonstorage.jpg" alt="" border="0" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-115865679871549531?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/115865679871549531/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=115865679871549531' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115865679871549531'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115865679871549531'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/09/fun-my-workplace.html' title='Fun @ my workplace'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-115822749176290137</id><published>2006-09-14T15:21:00.002+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:21:17.780+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='SRM SUN'/><title type='text'>News :: SRM Software,SUN-STK  Business Analytics wins Best Storage Resource Management Software award at Big Bytes Storage Expo awards(Byte n Switch)</title><content type='html'>It really feels great when the product that you are working for gets rewarded by an open body storage publication for good work. I am talking about SUN-STK  Business Analytics Software that won the Award for Best Storage Resource Mgmt software at the Big Bytes Storage expo at Burlingame , California . Catch the news at -&amp;gt; &lt;a href="http://www.byteandswitch.com/document.asp?doc_id=103723&amp;amp;WT.svl=news1_4"&gt;http://www.byteandswitch.com/document.asp?doc_id=1...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-115822749176290137?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/115822749176290137/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=115822749176290137' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115822749176290137'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115822749176290137'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/09/srm-software-sun-stk-business.html' title='News :: SRM Software,SUN-STK  Business Analytics wins Best Storage Resource Management Software award at Big Bytes Storage Expo awards(Byte n Switch)'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-115734752302466005</id><published>2006-09-04T10:55:00.002+05:30</published><updated>2008-09-18T14:21:34.682+05:30</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Multipathing'/><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='Linux'/><title type='text'>Concept :: Volume Management on Linux ?? -&gt; EVMS , LVM2</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;Hey guyz !!! If you are lookin for Volume Management on Linux , then the EVMS (Enterprise Volume Management System) and LVM2(the successor of LVM) are a good read. It is pretty interesting to see how both of them use the newly added DM(Device mapper , introduced in Linux Kernel 2.6.x). The device mapper itself is interesting , as the entire multipathing logic/support has been added here.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The multipathing support revolves around what are known as "priority groups" . These priority groups contains a list of paths to follow for each device path in the storage environment. The  paths from each of the groups are selected in a round-robin fashion so as to facilitate I/O load balancing and high availability . Pretty cool !! &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;U can look at  : &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/libra"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5957"&gt;http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5957&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://evms.sourceforge.net/"&gt;http://evms.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/librar..."&gt;http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/librar...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://sourceware.org/lvm2/"&gt;http://sourceware.org/lvm2/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-115734752302466005?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/115734752302466005/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=115734752302466005' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115734752302466005'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115734752302466005'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/09/volume-management-on-linux-evms-lvm2.html' title='Concept :: Volume Management on Linux ?? -&amp;gt; EVMS , LVM2'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22535736.post-115693689510286523</id><published>2006-08-30T16:51:00.000+05:30</published><updated>2006-09-05T10:24:02.726+05:30</updated><title type='text'>My first blog post !!!</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;HI guyz !! This is my first post to the blog and i m really excited to post here . Microsoft have come up with a cool tool called "Windows Live writer" which you can download from &lt;a href="http://www.download.com/3001-2068_4-10572481.html"&gt;http://www.download.com/3001-2068_4-10572481.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Its a writer program that helps you publish feature rich content to blogs without the hassle of executing multi-click steps of writing to a blog . Have to say it is a handy tool ! &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Anyways , i m finally writing to this blog after much ado . It feels really nice to be back to blogging !! I used to blog at Yahoo360 and @ my organisational blog @SUN both of which you can still catch at &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://360.yahoo.com/gocoolkrish"&gt;http://360.yahoo.com/gocoolkrish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://blogs.sun.com/gocoolkrish"&gt;http://blogs.sun.com/gocoolkrish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;I hope to make this blog a write-up about the technologies and components in the Storage World that interest me . I would be putting up articles related to storage , basic glossary/definitions  for newbies to storage and latest buzzwords/technologies that rock the storage world..So keep in touch and hope to c u soon back again !&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/22535736-115693689510286523?l=gokulonstorage.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/feeds/115693689510286523/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=22535736&amp;postID=115693689510286523' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115693689510286523'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/22535736/posts/default/115693689510286523'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://gokulonstorage.blogspot.com/2006/08/my-first-blog-post.html' title='My first blog post !!!'/><author><name>Gokul</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02148034144809166494</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='32' src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/355584953_c2db8ad713_s.jpg'/></author><thr:total>4</thr:total></entry></feed>
