At TriAxis, we have been working more and more with Colorado Springs-based vendor, STORServer. They have an interesting value proposition: eliminate all, or as many as you would like, of the various data protection ‘point vendors’ and let us be the “one throat to choke”, or, if I may, 1T2C.

They do this by providing a tested suite of standard products in a mix that meets clients’ needs. It can range from as much as the backup software (Tivoli Storage Manager), their own TSM management software (changes the CLI interface to an easy-to-use GUI), their own reporting utility (Reporter for TSM), VMware Consolidated Backup (native VCB), the server(s) to run the software (IBM), the array to store the backup on (IBM DSxx00), and the library for tape (IBM). Or any logical combination of these where the client has already too much invested in a particular tool, to replace. They, STORServer, then take ownership of the turnkey installation and ongoing maintenance, hence: 1T2C.

Now, obviously, any components that aren’t supplied by STORServer are supported by the particular supplying vendor, which erodes the 1T2C paradigm. But it is interesting, nonetheless. Arguably “best of breed” components (all IBM along with their software offerings), fully qualified, integrated, installed and supported by one mature organization. This value proposition is one we have been working with since 2008 and, as multi-point solutions are becoming less and less desirable, this has really taken off for us.

Let me not forget why I was talking with them in the first place. Credit where credit is due: they were introduced to me by Ken Ryan, then of Spectra Logic, and currently with Starboard Storage Systems. I invited them in because, at TriAxis, we were not providing as much value in existing TSM environments when it comes to data protection. Since then, we have had much more luck in offering STORServer tools, both software enhancements to TSM and complete TSM-based appliances. As a matter of fact, we recently put up a “micro-site” that allows TriAxis customers and prospects to quote their own STORServer solution.

Also, we’ve just provided a very cool solution for another client, not STORServer-based (not to be a tease, but I can’t yet release the name) for a TSM environment that I will chat about in the near future. But, back to STORServer.

I liked what I saw at first glimpse and I continue to like the value and expertise a STORServer solution is bringing our clients. It continues to interest me that this whole appliance approach is replacing multi-vendor approaches for backup software replacement opportunities. Here are your choices:

• the 1T2C approach, as described above, or
• the ‘traditional’ multi-vendor approach: “Data Domain says the problem is on the CommVault side…” followed by “CommVault says their application is providing the data as fast as it is receiving it, the problem is with your backup server…” followed by “Dell says the backup server is fine, call Microsoft to get the latest patches…” and so on.

Not to get too far off the subject concerning 1T2C, but I recently had a discussion with the CEO of another vendor/business partner of ours, Srinivas Yalavarthy of Indmax. We were chatting about a few accounts we collaborate with and how, in a multi-vendor approach, especially in the data protection space, we are achieving 1T2C. We are finding increasingly that the complexity of legacy (read: NetBackup, Networker, TSM) backup applications is helping fuel his outsourced remote IT management services growth. This continues to present itself as an area of growth to TriAxis as well and it is one of our  TriAssist Services offering. More to come on this topic as I continue to look at managed services to provide measurable value and  supplement our current storage-related offerings to our existing clients as well as to assist new ones.

“1T2C” — it doesn’t roll off the tongue, but it is a growing model, nonetheless.

The first had to do with a company, PMC-Sierra, that has come up with another doubling of connectivity to storage devices. They have come up with a RAID-on-Chip (RoC) controller that has a throughput of 12Gb/s using the SAS protocol. Their Tachyon family of products allows for up to 16 ports accessing a PCIe 3.0 spec (at a potential 16GB/s) and you have the making of some real performance. With the proliferation of SSDs in storage arrays, not including the point products plugged directly into a PCIe bus like from Micron, etc., these Tachyon controllers can diminish the bottleneck at this point. This would allow a quicker ROI for SSD investments.

But will they become mainstream or proliferate as OEM products from mainstream HBA and controller vendors? Time will tell.

The other  interesting piece of technology I was reading about is in the optical storage market. Currently, optical techniques for storage are still mated on a spindle-based platform so that they can work in more conventional technologies, similar to the way magnetic disks work. The performance is thus limited to electro-mechanical functions (how long has 15K rpm been the fastest spin rate of a disk drive?) as well as for density as it is writing primarily in two dimensions.

Access Optical Networks (AON) has developed, essentially, 3D storage. They are putting over 1TB on a 1 cubic centimeter piece of re-writeable technology. And, getting performance number as fast a 1Gb/s. That is 1Gb/s per cubic centimeter! Kinda blows the mind on what you could do for density if you can achieve parallel access to, let’s say, 100 cm³.

Reportedly, they are seeking partners to commercialize the HDS products. That makes sense. It is said they will initially target cloud computing, high-performance computing, enterprise, and solid-state device applications. For the latter, would it be to replace SSD? Is that is what is meant by “SSD applications” — an application that is currently being addressed by SSD? I guess we’ll see.

I can’t wait — like I mentioned above, technology is fascinating. The rate of change is huge. And I remain blown away by the brain power and innovative ideas that are turning into product designs, especially in the data storage industry. TriAxis has always tried to stay ahead of the curve of technology and I’m excited by what the future holds for us and our customers!

We thought about a lot of the reasons for a slow growth 2011, including:

• not embracing a true “impact player” when it came to innovative storage technologies
• too much time spent on TriAssist Services’ offerings instead of TriAxis on-prem solutions
• not recognizing early enough the lack of impact out-bound telemarketing has had

 We discovered the reasons (excuses?) go on and on. But we needed to nail it down. Essentially we were not communicating enough value to a wide enough audience. We were not enough “top of mind” in the marketplace. But why?

What we decided that it really was is not doing enough creative events with the right vendors that draw storage technologists’ attention. With so many companies, solutions and techniques vying for their attention, we needed a way to stand out, So, here is what we are doing, thus far:

• actively working with three key vendors, ExaGrid, Nimble Storage and STORServer in Q1 and Q2 of 2012
• between NYC and Boston, hosting luncheons at high-end restaurants where we will be discussing solutions that convey real value to the audience
• something new — ExaGrid and TriAxis have planned an event at the Nickelback concert in Hartford to try to give back to the prospects and customers that have been working with us

We are hoping that these may keep us “above the noise”, as it were, and help our customers and prospects make the best decisions, not just the conventional ones. We’ll see how the first half of the year works out!

Essentially, Virtensys was extending the PCIe bus in servers with their own cards to one of their three appliances. This allowed them to aggregate 8Gb FC and 10GbE resources, effectively reducing the requisite port counts in the switch fabric and related costs. It also eliminated the need to buy the costly PCIe HBAs for the servers (pairs, if you required redundancy). On top of that, they had a management layer that provided tuning and QOS-like features to allow throughput as required within the fabric for each server. Very cool!

So, I sent an email to Steve late in December, but I didn’t hear back from him. Surprised by this, I sent an email to his personal address (we are LinkedIn) and Steve replied back that he had left in November, that they were running out of money and were going to have an asset sale.

Last week, Micron announced their agreement to purchase Virtensys. You can read more about that here.

This is an interesting acquisition. Micron makes, among other things, PCIe SSD. These point products can be deployed for specific needs, making a huge difference in latency for the right application. They claim they can get up to 3.3GB/s in sequential reads and 715K IOpS in random reads. Very nice.

What I am curious about is if they plan to take advantage of the management layer that Virtensys had to provide virtualized SSD storage? Or, are they going to continue with the product-set that Virtensys had brought to the market, but with deeper pockets to sustain them through initial market adoption.

The first would be interesting, but the second I’d like to see. It seems they, and now Micron, may have a winner.

My first reaction was that I am familiar with that technique, but haven’t given it much active thought over the last several years. When I worked for a company that did CRM software development back in the early ’90′s, we did something similar. As part of the design of the application I led, we wanted to pre-populate look-up tables with various entries. Simply put, if a field was designated to be used for ‘Country’, for example, we wanted to makes sure all of the companies were pre-populated. Very straight forward. However, if you wanted to pre-populate the ‘Title’ field look-up table, for instance, or the ‘First Name’ field, this we accomplished by reading text in a computerized directory, parsing then indexing the text, to come up with a list of values that we could import into the respective look-up table. No great shakes.

More recently, back in 2003, TriAxis used a company that could take PDF-based directories and import the text into database fields. I still see them out there positioning their product as a way to glean data off the web for acquiring more prospects.

My second, and near immediate, reaction was one of violation. When one company surreptitiously goes onto sites in order to ‘scrape’ data, without permission or regard for whom the data belongs or from where the data is obtained, then I think that should be dealt with swiftly and decisively. The fact that they don’t ask if they can do this says they, corporately, would rather “beg forgiveness than ask permission”. We are too lenient about this, which is why companies don’t fear reprisal and continue to push the limits on data acquisition. Google still argues that it’s Wi-Fi scraping is “… for the good of its customers …”, although it claims it has stopped that practice. That type of mentality is reminiscent of why we have Obamacare, but that is not for this column…

So, we have the technology that can be misused. It’s all about having information that can be used to an advantage. So, the collecting and storing of all types of data will continue, because the technology exists to do so. It makes me think of the ‘Jurassic Park’ quote by Dr. Ian Malcolm, “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

I believe the choice of whether we should or should not needs to be a decision made upfront, long before they did because they could.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this — maybe this is a bit of a rant. But I will conclude that, as long as the possessor of information sees power by possession, then these tactics will find new ways to proliferate. And we storage guys will continue to look at new ways to store, manage and protect it.

Why are they so negative? Do they fear prosperity?

Why don’t they say they look forward to the possibility of a sustained economic expansion? Isn’t that possible? If this feared possible double-dip recession is only a possibility, is it wrong for them to say that continued growth is also possible?!? The negativity of news drives me crazy!

But I prattle on.

Last week I began interviewing new candidates for specific roles here at TriAxis. I see light at the end of this economic tunnel. Despite the best efforts of our government to indebt us and act as a disincentive to job creation, the power and creativity of capitalism will win. That means more and more creative ways to store, manage and protect data will be required, developed and implemented. I need to make sure the staff at TriAxis is ready to meet this requirement. Hence, the interviewing.

Another aspect of this is to make sure I have the current (dare I cliché) ‘best of breed’ products available to our clients and prospects. One of the more interesting ones is from QuorumLabs, their continuity appliance they call OnQ. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend that you do. If I can assist in that review, let me know. At any rate, I have my eye on an individual that resides on the ‘Gold Coast’ (Fairfield County, Connecticut) that may be a product specialist focused on OnQ. This will be the first time I’ve designated a field person as, essentially, an extension of another organization. We’ve assigned inside staff to specific manufacturers, but never field staff.

We’ll see how it works, but I believe the timing is perfect to embark on this type of vendor/reseller investment. Regardless of who is in the White House or on Capitol Hill, America’s power and incentive to grow GDP cannot be held down for long! And TriAxis will continue to be at the tip of the spear.