Looking at Startups

Post SNW Anil has been looking at industry startups. Gear6 being the first to get the once over. I had a question around the consistency of array based point in time copies when using cacheFX (Backup guys want to know stuff like this) and G6's Gary Orenstein said he'd answer that question on the Gear6 company blog. Before I finished writing this post I found he had just finished answering my question. This internet stuff is great.

Currently Anil is looking at StorWiz, a startup focusing on compression of NAS storage. I found this quote interesting, and no I'm not picking just to be picky I just found it interesting the way he put it.

It is a single-purpose appliance that helps you reduce the data footprint on storage devices with better predictability than what you get from data de-duplication products.

The emphasis in that sentence is mine. What struck me about that is just like de-dup the data you're working with will dictate what savings you'll get. Image files or movies? Damn all or close to damn all. 1:1. Maybe even inverse compression if you're compression code is crummy. Databases or text files? Hell, you could get 5:1 compression, perhaps even more. On average marketing folks will throw a 3:1 number at you, it's the industry norm number and prime numbers are sexy on slides. I have a suspicion that 2:1 is the duller more realistic average but it's not like I've the time or the resources to get a definitive answer on that.

A quick note about the StorWiz site, interesting cab they've their appliance sitting in on this page. It reminds me of something I've seen before. ;)

I've known about StorWiz for a while now but I've always wondered where the FC/iSCSI compression boxes were? The sheer computational grunt required for such compression is an issue, but there are already dedicated compression processors on the market which will handle data rates upwards of 300MB/s. Is it only a matter of time before HBA vendors begin integrating hardware accelerated compression onto the HBA in the same way that they're currently integrating hardware accelerated encryption?

They wouldn't have key management to worry about either.

---The tech ends here, you may stop reading now---

I'm off to Spider-Man 3 in the hopes that it'll numb the pain of finding that my local comic book store had sold out of the final issue of DC's 52 before I got there. Once a week for 52 bloody weeks I've walked to the only comic book store for hundreds of miles around only to find that this week they were sold out of the final issue.

Fortunately for me there's always Chuck Rozanski and Mile High Comics. While all the digerati talk a great game about "The Long Tail" Chuck lives it. Unlike digital information where you only need one or two copies of something he has 6 Million (!) back issues available for worldwide shipping.

Lets be honest, that's seriously hardcore.

On a regular basis his customers receive a newsletter informing them as to how his farm is going, his plans for his pumpkin field, how much his rhubarb goes for at the local market, and the massive discounts he's running on his mountain of comics & trade paper backs, some of them printed in the early 1900's. Though I live in Silicon Bog where I'm surrounded by farmland I've probably learned more about farming from Chuck R. than from anyone else.

Comments

[Anil Gupta]

Mark,

Stay tuned. I will have some answers in next post. My feedback to Storewiz exec was to highlight their uniqueness to address some of the same concerns, you mentioned.

Anil

[Storagezilla]

Will do Anil.

[blake]

Hey, a storage blogger and a comic book reader? Sweet! I was bummed that my LCS was sold out of invincible today. The Bastards!

[Storagezilla]

The problem with Invincible being that it's a popular low volume book. Popular enough to make some issues difficult to find, but not popular enough to demand a larger print run. Gah! ;)

For a long time I was all against putting in orders at my local for a title, if an issue was crappy one month I could just give it a skip, but some of the trouble I've had with 52 (And to a lesser extent Checkmate) encouraged me to just order the entire run of Countdown upfront.

I hope to god its worth reading! :)