Tag Archives: NetApp

NetApp United 2017 — A Numerical Breakdown

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As you likely saw, earlier this week, NetApp announced the official kick-off of their 2017 NetApp United influencer program, welcoming 111 members.

While 111 members gives us a little idea of what the 2017 NetApp United looks like, I thought it was worth taking a closer look.

So, as I’ve done in the past for the EMC Elect program, I’ve taken a look at the information that’s available to see what other insights we could gain into the new program.

In addition to the numbers themselves, I’ve created some graphics to help visualize what the numbers tell us. You’ll find them below. Continue reading →

NetApp Names Members of 2017 NetApp United Program

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NetApp has announced the first members of their new community recognition program, called NetApp United. I’m proud to announce that I’m one of those 111 people.

What makes a good candidate for the NetApp United program? According to the application announcement, NetApp was looking for technology enthusiasts who:

  • Have a social media presence
  • Have overall expertise within the technology industry
  • Are a member of the technical community in good standing
  • Are interested in learning more about NetApp products and services

My own NetApp experience dates back to 1993, when I installed several of the first Network Appliance “file toasters” to be purchased in the New England area. Back then the NetApp boxes were often replacing larger and more expensive Auspex NAS devices (although we hadn’t yet started using the term “NAS” at that point). Never heard of Auspex? NetApp is a lot of the reason for that…

More recently, in my last job I got quite familiar with Solidfire‘s scale-out all-Flash arrays. Solidfire joined the NetApp family through acquisition.

I look forward to meeting my fellow NetApp United members and seeing back this program brings in the coming year.

You can see the full list of the 2017 NetApp United members on NetApp’s announcement of the program’s launch.

 

NetApp to Acquire SolidFire for $870 Million – GeekFluent’s Thoughts

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SolidFire logoYesterday, NetApp announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SolidFire for $870 Million in an all-cash bid.

SolidFire is a privately-held storage company who makes an All-Flash array based on a scale-out architecture. I’m a big fan of both SolidFire and their Element X operating system (available as a software-only option) — I’ve written about them before.

Below I’ll walk through some aspects of the deal and offer my opinions and speculations. I promise they’ll be worth at least as much as you’re paying for them. You can read SolidFire’s official take on it here. My take is completely unofficial. Continue reading →

Enhancement to VAAI-NAS in vSphere 5.1

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I’ve already done a write-up of the VAAI-NAS features in vSphere 5.0, but one of the three VAAI NAS primitives has expanded functionality in vSphere 5.1.

In vSphere 5.1, the NFS File Cloning primitive is expanded to allow array-based snapshots to be used for virtual machines and vApps being fast-provisioned by vCloud Director.  When vCloud Director does a fast-provision of VMs and/or vApps on a supported NAS array, VAAI-NAS File Cloning is used to off-load the clone creation to the array transparently.  As with NFS File Cloning in vSphere 5.0, this feature requires a VAAI NAS plug-in from the storage array vendor.

Continue reading →

CloudSlam 2011 Multi-vendor Panel on the Future of Storage for the Cloud

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I had the opportunity last week to sit in on a CloudSlam multi-vendor panel session on the future of storage in the cloud. It was a very interesting and revealing discussion. I’ll do my best to summarize it here and share my thoughts and conclusions.

What is CloudSlam?

CloudSlam is a virtual conference, an online gathering of Cloud computing professionals.  Now in its third year, CloudSlam 2011 had thousands of attendees from over 80 countries.

The Topic

The session was titled “EMC, HP, IBM, NetApp: where they are taking the Cloud”.  It was intended as a discussion of where the vendors see the future of data storage for the cloud. To quote the session description: Continue reading →