Does Your Hardware Keep Up With Technology?

Does your hardware keep up with technology? Technology advancements have been and are moving at an incredible pace with new and exciting features getting added with each new release or update of a product. Unfortunately, technology can outpace are physical hardware which can leave us in a true troubleshooting nightmare. There is one specific example that I have seen a few times and is worth sharing.

Why VASA is important to have in your VMware CASA

There are many enhancements and new features that are part of VMware vSphere V5.0 from a storage and I/O perspective (See VMware vSphere v5 and Storage DRS posts). One of those enhancements is a new Application Programming Interface (API) called VASA (vSphere Aware Storage API) which joins other VMware vSphere APIs some of which are shown in table 1. Note that there is a three letter acronym (TLA) shown in table 1 that is part of the VMware vSphere 5.0 release that can be confused with VASA called VSA (VMware Storage Appliance) however for now, let’s leave VSA for a future discussion.

VMware vSphere v5 and Storage DRS

Recently VMware announced version 5.0 of their vSphere virtualization solution with a theme of reducing complexity, enabling automation, and supporting scaling with confidence. As a key component for supporting cloud, virtual and dynamic infrastructure environments, vSphere V5.0 includes many storage related enhancements and new features.

GestaltIT Tech Field Day: Storage Line Up

I participated in GestaltIT’s TechFieldDay which is a sort of inverse conference, where the bloggers and independent analysts go to the vendors and then discuss the information they have received. We visited the following storage vendors:
* Data Robotics where we were introduced to the new Drobo FS
* EMC where we discussed stretched storage and other interesting futures
* HP where we were introduced to the IBRIX products