IDEAS Insights

Dell Shows Off a New Blade Server

Recently, Dell gave IDEAS a special preview of the upcoming new Dell blade server. We cannot reveal details until Dell announces the product, but we can say that we are impressed. When Dell opened the door to the room, we could see that they had converted it into a remote conference center, complete with a media center similar to what one would expect to see in a Dell corporate briefing center. And there it was, sitting on a blanket on a table. This new Dell blade server is not some marketing vaporware; it’s fully designed and ready for manufacturing. The unit we observed was fully functional but not running. Instead, Dell tapped into a running blade server back in Round Rock to do the demo.

When one thinks of Dell, the two words that often come to mind are "standardization" and "value." Everyone knows that Dell is the master of pulling together industry-standard components and selling the resultant device at a lower price than the competition. When we arrived at the demo, we thought we were going to be seeing a "parts bin" blade server being offered at a "Dell" price. We could not have been more wrong in this case. What lay in front of us was the product of two years of intensive R&D. Dell, which is not known for its R&D, spent more than 54,000 R&D hours on the technology, for which it has garnered 30 patents. This blade server far exceeded what one would expect from Dell.

We cannot tell you much about the blade server itself since it is still under a confidentiality agreement. What we can tell you is that Dell has pulled out all stops to make this one of the most energy -efficient, "green" blade servers ever launched – just about every component had a green message to it. Dell is so confident that its blade server is the most energy efficient blade server that it is challenging any other blade server to an independent evaluation of power and cooling. IDEAS cannot wait to see if any of the other blade vendors actually accept Dell’s challenge.

With this product, Dell is planning to become more aggressive in its marketing. After all, this blade is entering in direct competition with IBM’s BladeCenter and HP’s BladeSystem, and we all know that IBM and HP do not play "nice" when it comes to blades. When asked whether Dell would lash out at its competitors, the answer was "no." Dell plans to do positive marketing and focus on how the blade server can solve real customer problems and deliver "IT Simplification." Dell feels this blade has virtually every feature that an enterprise IT organization could want at a competitive price. (There is no need to bash your competition when you have the right product at the right price.) We will see how long Dell plays nicely when it re-enters the "shark-infested" waters of the blade server market with its new server.

Overall, we were impressed with what we saw. Dell talked to many blade customers and carefully investigated what they need both today and in the future. We were especially impressed with what we heard from Dell’s systems architect. He truly understands the blade market and has convinced Dell management to allow his group to design and build a blade server that is more typical of what we would expect from HP or IBM. Is this the new Dell R&D strategy? Dell would not say. But Dell does have a message for HP and IBM: Check your rearview mirror for a fast-moving competitor gaining on your market share. This blade race is about to turn into a three-way competition.

Microsoft Kicks Off Home Server Era

Microsoft recently held a reviewer's workshop for its upcoming Windows Server 2008 operating system, due for introduction in February. The conference was attended by about 100 press, bloggers, and a handful of analysts, who were largely subdued for much of the three-day conference as the new system's many functional improvements were itemized in detail. The audience noticeably perked up during the very last presentation, though, which reviewed Microsoft’s just-released Windows Home Server operating system. That session generated a swell of questions, revealing considerable interest in the potential for a server platform targeting the needs of consumers.

Windows Home Server is designed for homes with two or more PCs/laptops, and it will typically be delivered in OEM hardware like HP’s new MediaSmart server. The home server is supposed to be turned on all the time and connects directly – i.e. via cable – to the home router (which is usually inside the home's wireless base station). As an appliance, it runs headlessly, so it doesn't have a monitor, mouse, or keyboard - all interaction with it occurs remotely over the network. Microsoft showed prototypes of devices that were very unobtrusive, some fanless and not much larger than a  car battery, designed to be bolted inside closets or under cabinets.

One of the main functions of Windows Home Server is to automatically back up the home’s PCs and laptops (possibly even if they are turned off, since many clients can be remotely powered up on demand using Intel’s Wake-on-LAN protocol). The Windows Home Server backup engine uses a very space-efficient method that duplicates redundant blocks to minimize disk consumption. To protect files from disk failure, data is mirrored over available drives using an adaptive algorithm, so it is not necessary to have strict RAID configurations, which also makes it easy to add or upgrade drives. The server is designed to share media like videos and music between different clients around the home, which will be increasingly valuable to users with media collections swelling to hundreds of GBs (more than currently fits on most Apple iPods), which they may want to consume on multiple devices in addition to portable players, i.e. home audio-visual systems. Any content on the server can be shared over the web, allowing it to be accessed from anywhere, and authorized remote users such as family and friends can deposit content on the server over the web.

The difference in positioning of Windows Home Server compared to Microsoft’s previous “home appliance"  efforts, i.e. Windows XP Media Center Edition, could be critical to its success. As an entertainment device, the Windows Media PC had to compete for living room shelf space that was already cluttered with a variety of other gadgets (and their remote controls), including video games, Tivo boxes, audio/video receivers, VHS/DVD players, and even the TV itself. By contrast, the Windows Home Server device is oriented towards the home network, which allows it to be placed far less obtrusively, like in the basement, attic etc. and promises to give the platform significant leverage as the “gatekeeper” between the home and the web.

The home server concept is still controversial, and skeptics point out that consumers may have little interest in becoming server administrators. However, it appears that Microsoft has done a lot of work to make Windows Home Server as simple as possible to set up, manage, and use. If Windows Home Server devices are successful at becoming as unobtrusive and maintenance-free as other home appliances, while supporting a variety of functions based the growing use of digital resources in day-to-day life, why wouldn’t every future home have one of these built in? If so, Windows Home Server promises to create opportunities for a huge range of applications. ISVs are already starting to line up with add-ons, offering applications for home control & security monitoring etc. Centralized backup solutions targeting consumers in an appliance form factor and based on other operating systems have been on the market for some time. However, it is Microsoft's vast and diverse ecosystem of developers, OEMs and partners that will give Windows Home Server the best chance to reach its full potential as a true server platform meeting the needs of a broad new set of customers.

Thin Provisioning Offers Benefits But Requires Planning

While not exactly a new technology, thin provisioning (TP) is getting some attention of late due the continued emphasis on IT efficiency and cost savings.  The promise of thin provisioning is twofold: less physical capacity will need to be purchased and utilization will be increased. Less capacity purchased translates into cost savings – increased utilization translates into efficiency, easier management, and an overall greener environment. 

The key to TP is flexibility, where capacity can be allocated quickly to an application in need. With traditional provisioning methods, storage administrators would typically allocate more capacity than required for each application. This method is also known as “fat provisioning”. The goal of traditional or fat provisioning is to ensure that applications will always have capacity available as their demands increase. The issue with traditional or fat provisioning is low utilization -- there is typically a great deal of unused capacity sitting idle in case it is needed.  One analogy is to leave a car running continuously in the event that it will be used at some point --obviously, not the most efficient scenario.

So with all its advantages, why isn’t every storage vendor offering TP and why isn’t everyone using it? One of the many answers is that implementation requires careful consideration and planning. As with any technology, there are pros and cons -- and not every end user may realize a benefit. With TP, administrators purchase a minimum amount of capacity initially. Thresholds are set provide alerts when more capacity is required. Additional capacity is acquired and provisioned as needed. The danger with this method is that if capacity is not provisioned in a timely manner, the application(s) will run out of space and crash. Needless to say, this can be more than a little concerning to administrators who are responsible to ensure that mission critical applications be continually up and running. However, a well implemented TP system will have alerts the provide adequate time to take action as well as offer automated procedures, such as preventing lower priority applications from eating up disk space before it can be allocated. Another issue with TP is how file systems, operating systems, and databases interoperate in such an environment. For example, some file systems will attempt to write their metadata across all available capacity. Problems could occur if file systems or databases attempt to claim space that really isn’t available. Careful consideration at the planning phase can help prevent these types of incompatibilities.

Storage vendors that offer thin provisioning range from smaller niche vendors to some of the major players. 3Par Data is one of the TP pioneers.  Compellent and Pillar Data offer thin provisioning on their storage systems as well.  Some of the larger players that offer TP are NetApp and HDS. In fact, HDS last week announced TP support for multivendor arrays attached externally to its USP V systems.  HP and Sun offer TP on their enterprise storage systems OEMed from HDS. Noticeably absent from the thin provisioning space are EMC and IBM.  Both have announced plans for these products, but to date have no specific TP offerings. Both IBM and EMC however, offer a form of dynamic volume expansion that allows capacity to be allocated on the fly. IBM and EMC have stated that while some customers have inquired about TP, it is not an immediate priority for them.

TP is another technology, as with virtualization, that results in cost savings and efficiency. Expect to see all the major storage vendors offer TP capability by the end of 2008. Of course, planning and implementation will be the determining factors in the level of success TP can ultimately provide.