Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST)

April 2009, that is when we heard about FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering). The hype around FAST is now built; we have all seen a 2 min demo of the product at Vmworld 2009. The industry, the analysts, the bloggers and EMC are all talking about it. EMC has promised this will be an exciting product and could help better integrate and federate EMC products of the future.

But, where is FAST today?

Initially FAST v1 was set to release late Q3 or early Q4. We are almost at the end of Q4. The announcement of FAST came in April 2009 with the release of EMC Symmetrix V-Max systems. The product was announced pre GA. Here is a blog post by Barry Burke (FAST: Fully Automated Storage Tiering) indicating a Q4 release date, but after all FAST is nowhere to be found.

It seems FAST probably got shuffled somewhere in the scheduling, product marketing, technology design and development or ?. A product talked about, written about but rather un-visible at this point. Here is a blog post from Chuck Hollis (Peering into the Storage Crystal Ball) indicating FAST v1 may now not be available until early 2010.

With a 2010 GA date, FAST will be a 9 to 11 month early announcement product technology that was sold and is being sold with the V-Max without an actual product.

FAST v1 will be available for the Symmetrix V-Max platform and then eventually for the Clariion and Celerra platforms. FAST v2 is due to be released in late Q2 2010.

Is EMC trying to bring some additional functionality from FAST v2 to FAST v1 since current test customers are probably not excited about FAST v1. It seems everyone in the industry is looking forward to FAST v2 and the features it may bring together with it. At this point, there is really a lack of excitement around FAST v1. Is FAST in any sort of legal battle today, which is causing additional delays, Chris Evans at The Storage Architect Blog has discussed the topic in the past.

At this point is FAST v1 something that should eventually be combined with FAST v2 before GA. Question remains, do we really need FAST v1 at this stage or can we wait for FAST v2. Will organizations skip the implementation of FAST v1 and directly go to FAST v2. Is the product being delayed intentionally, so the gap between FAST v1 and FAST v2 implementation becomes narrow and customers can rather jump to FAST v2 without FAST v1.

Well anyways, FAST is now over-over-due, 8 months into the announcement, but no product. Along with FAST v1 in early 2010, we will see a new version of Enginuity Code for the Symmetrix V-Max and some other expected enhancements around V-Max.

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Some interesting links to dig more about FAST technology and its functionality.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/22/emc_fast/

http://gestaltit.com/all/tech/storage/stephen/emc-vmax-fast-coming-december/

http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Peeling_the_Onion_on_EMCs_VMax

http://storagenerve.com/2009/10/20/policy-policy-policy/

http://gestaltit.com/featured/top/gestalt/emc-unified-platform-storage-tiering/

Note: The dates in this blog post are totally based on announcements happened so far and future time lines are based on some industry buzz around FAST. Its impossible to know the exact dates of any product releases without an NDA.

Today marks the first day of the two day GestaltIT Techfieldday 2009. As described on previous blog posts, this is a very unique event and will be an industry trendsetter. A very nice blog post by John Troyer from Vmware describing GestaltIT #Techfieldday and the wave it is creating in the industry, here

We had an action filled day today, 18 hours of non-stop techno-geek talk so far.

Vmware

The day started early morning today at 7 AM, we all left to go to Vmware first, where Xsigo Systems and MDS Micro were presenting. Expectations with both these presentations were very high, and they absolutely managed to deliver on it.

Met up with John Troyer first at Vmware headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. The bus took us from the hotel to Vmware and will be the means of transportation throughout the event. After a great breakfast this morning, they gave us a tour of the Vmworld DataCenter – Lab (hundreds of VM’s running within a single cabinet with Clariion, Xsigo, MDS running as a Converged Infrastructure).

Then we went for a walk around the Vmware campus to another building where the event was being hosted. Walking there, we ended up taking some funny pictures…

Simon Seagrave

Greg Knieriemen

Then Stephen Foskett took the stage to present us on the concept of GestaltIT TechFieldday 2009. He then passed on the mic to John Toor from Xsigo Systems who explained us the agenda for the rest of the morning.

MDS Micro

MDS Micro took the stage and went through the entire set of technical marketing presentation on the MDS Micro set of products and how the blocks compete in a converged infrastructure. Quite a compelling story from MDS.

Then Vmware took the stage next, the group called GETO (Global Engineering Technical Operations). These are the guys that worked on designing the Datacenter at Vmworld 2009. On a dinner table in Florida, they created the concept of the next datacenter at Vmworld 2009. Amazing 45 min technology talk.

Xsigo

Then Xsigo took the stage. Wow…..what a presentation, Cam Ford from Xsigo was on the stage, this guy has a passion and believed in what he was presenting. I was really really impressed.

At times its just not only walking up to the stage and presenting on a technology, believing in something and presenting the technology is completely different. That is exactly what we saw with this presentation. Tons of questions were asked and Cam Ford was able to answer each one of them……..Loved the techno talk. I am now believing that Xsigo will in a short duration be a take over target. They have a great technology in their hands.

3Par

Had lunch at Vmware and then we all headed to 3Par. Now after the Xsigo presentation, we were expecting a lot from 3Par.

Craig Nunes, Marc Farley and John D’Avolio were at the 3Par lobby to receive us as we reached to their headquarters.

We were looking for the famous Pooja Desai – the “Check it out Girl” from the StorageRap Videos and the joke @edsai made on the Infosmack – Storage Monkeys – Vmware Wrap up Podcast.

3Par brought in Siamak Nazari on the stage to talk about various 3Par technologies.

This guy was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One thing I would like to emphasize again, please make sure all the presenters for the GestaltIT #techfieldday are technology experts. We need to talk to “the best of the breed”, I have typically seen based on all the presentations at GestaltIT Techfieldday and HPTechday so far that the engineering / technical marketing folks have been very well received amongst the audience. There are aways people in the group ready to chew the presenter if they are not aware of the technology they are presenting on.

Siamak Nazari started the presentation and within a few mins, had questions from the audience, but he started going into details, white boarding, diagrams, explaining chunklets, buses, clusters, software, architecture and he won everyone in the room. This presentation was scheduled for about 45 mins, but by the time the presentation was done, we were well over 90 mins.

Its hard to write about the technology in one blog post and will not be fair to 3Par and its technology. So what i will do is provide you all with a detailed architectural overview of the 3Par technology over next couple of weeks, showing a video of the presentation and the architecture around the 3Par clusters.

Siamak Nazari wanted to go into a lot of details, but i believe since this was a non NDA session, the folks in the room had to stop him going into architecture and futures.

Then Craig Nunes along with Marc Farley presented on the 3Par Thin Technology and Zero Page reclaimation. I truly believe they have a great team of people there that are driving the product.

We then went to the 3Par Test and Development labs. This lab has to at least be warehousing about 200 to 300 3Par systems. At times it is great breathing the data center air…..

Symantec

Then Symantec took the stage with its Storage Foundations suite. Some nice technical chat around filesystems, how Symantec integrates with 3Par for Zero page reclaimation, how customers can drive the storage they already have in data centers with the use of Storage Foundations suite. There were quite a few questions asked and contradictions made in this presentation, where the GestaltIT Bloggers didn’t understand the complete strategy of Symantec in relation to Storage Foundations product. Though from my perspective I felt it was a complete solution but not a lot of market applicability.

GestaltIT Party

We then left there to head to the Computer history Museum in San Jose for the GestaltIT Party. What a crowd of people there. This event was sponsored by TechValidate (Brad O’Neil’s new venture). Tons of people from various Tech PR companies, HP, Nirvanix, 3Par, Vmware, Data Robotics, Ocarina Networks, Bhava Communications, MDS Micro and many more were present.

Met up with Murli, CEO from Ocarina Networks, he is just a magnificent personality. Very humble and approachable. Met up with Brad O’Neil and many others from the Storage industry.

Then was the video presentation by Sunshine Mugrabi and Marc Farley as a tribute to Stephen Foskett. This is a great video.

The Bar

We then headed back to the hotel…..the night was just beginning. At the bar, people were just dissecting everything that they had heard today and putting it into perspective.

Around 2 AM in the morning the night finally finishes (at least for me) and looking forward for a new day tomorrow, more TECHNO-GEEK talk to continue…..

My eyes are barely staying up now, All I can say is Goodnight!!!!!!!

GestaltIT TechFieldDay is being kicked off on Thursday 12^th of Nov 2009, a two day event by GestaltIT. The vendors will have a chance to have a one on one technology discussion with industry independent bloggers related to various virtualization and storage technologies.

The various vendors attending the GestaltIT TechFieldDay are

3Par

Data Robotics

Xsigo Systems

Ocarina Networks

MDS

Nirvanix

Symantec Storage

The various sponsors of this event are

Bhava Communications

Vmware

TechValidate

Truth in IT

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Vendors

3Par: We might get to hear about various 3Par Products including the T-Class and the F-Class computing platforms. Also possibly a technology review on the Agile Cloud. Looking forward to meeting up with Marc Farley and his team at 3Par.

Data Robotics: We might get to see and play with the Drobo and DroboPro from Data Robotics.

Xsigo (See-go Systems): Absolutely looking forward to talking to Xsigo systems, there are quite a few customers that have asked about these products. Understanding the underlying technology with Xsigo system platforms is the key. Saw the demo of Xsigo systems running at Vmworld 2009 Expo floors, quite impressed.

Ocarina Networks: I have always read about the Ocarina products, never actually have any hands-on experience with it. It will be great to see the product in action with the Ocarina challenge put forward to bring a 2GB memory stick at the GestaltIT TechFieldDay for a live product demo. Looking forward to meeting up with Sunshine Mugrabi and her team at Ocarina Networks.

MDS Systems: The Green computing blocks, as I would like to call them. Again I personally do not have any experiences with MDS products, but would like to understand the technology, the market, pricing and how it scales in an enterprise environment.

Nirvanix: Tons of questions already lined up for them. Looking forward to the Nirvanix team presentation. I wonder what side of the team would Stephen Foskett sit with this presentation.

Symantec Storage: We will probably hear about some data protection and storage management products from Symantec. I do have some questions on the storage management products from Symantec and would like to discuss those during the presentation.

Along with the vendors, there will be some sponsors of the event.

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Sponsors

Bhava Communications: Bhava communications is an up and coming Tech PR company.

Vmware: What can I say about Vmware.

TechValidate: A Marketing Research Company. Looking forward to meeting up with the Tech Validate team. Looking forward to meeting up with Brad O’Neil, a true industry entrepreneur as I would like to call him.

Truth in IT: W.Curtis Preston started company, providing user experience on IT products. I have personally never spoken to W. Curtis Preston and hope this will be a chance to connect with him.

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Hope this will be an exciting trip, looking forward to attending the event and hopefully understanding technologies and products from these vendors.

Comments always welcome….

For some reason, I couldnt copy the logo’s of the vendors and sponsors.

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We are coming very close to the GestaltIT Techfieldday 2009 being organized in San Francisco, CA and San Jose, CA on the 12^th and 13^th of Nov 2009.

Over the next few days, you will see a ton of new blog posts coming out from various different sources, including invited bloggers and possibly some vendor posts. I do promise to provide a very extensive coverage of this event. I am pretty sure if you are on twitter you saw the fireworks of #hptechday 2009 that happened about a month and a half ago, I believe this event will cause similar if not more fireworks on twitter with #techfieldday 2009.

This is a very unique event, I am pretty sure, there has been nothing similar to what is being planned ever planned before in relation to using Social Media. An event organized by GestaltIT that will take independent bloggers to vendors to understand the storage and virtualization technology offered by these vendors. The value something an event like this creates is phenomenal and could leave great impact on customer, consumers & user that read through social media for research of a given technology. A ton of credit goes to Stephen Foskett for organizing this event. I would absolutely call this is brainchild. I still remember the day he called me about this event; he was in NYC having lunch and the next thing I know he is talking about this and asked if I can attend.

Though I will give Calvin Zito from HP a lot of credit for the kind of event that HP organized and invited the bloggers, they did set the standard and expectations from an event like this. The results were amazing.

Though I am a pretty new face in social media, only been around on blog and twitter for about a year now, this will be my 5^th event in 2009. First it started with EMC World 2009, then VMworld 2009, then HP Techday 2009, then EMC Forums NYC 2009 and now GestaltIT Techfieldday 2009.

This post starts at No. 1 for the GestaltIT TechFieldDay event but I promise by the time this event is done and the postmortem is finished, we will at least have 10 new blog post. I will be republishing some of those on GestaltIT.com, but some of them will only be exclusive on the Storagenerve.com blog.

To follow the updates from this event on StorageNerve.com site look for the Logo

On Twitter, follow me @storagenerve

Twitter hashtag: #TechFieldDay

Also I will be creating a TweetGrid on the StorageNerve.com site on Tuesday with #techfieldday for a minute-by-minute update on the event.

Stay tuned…

Comments always welcome

Note: If you find this blog post interesting and would like to read more from the author, please subscribe to this blog. http://storagenerve.com/feed