* IBM's shaky network-attached storage dance
Many of us who live on either coast of the U.S. (the east coast, where I live, and the other one, where people drink guava juice) tend to ignore much of the great mass of land in between. Certainly, we don’t often look to the heartland for philosophical insight, but that’s where I have often found spiritual guidance for the storage networker.
Wichita, Kan., is a relatively flat place, home of the Wichita State Shockers (as in corn shocks, not those of the electrical kind), and is where a surprising number of airplanes and storage systems come from (do you know who builds them there, and who sells them? You get 10 Network World bonus points for each one that you can name). It’s also the home of my good friend Stan, whom I have long felt to be one of the most insightful people in our business.
During a meeting many years ago, Stan introduced me to the concept of “Hokey-Pokey marketing.” For the benefit of those of you outside the U.S., the Hokey-Pokey is a dance often done here by children and, on occasion, by partying adults who are too far into the evening to care adequately about embarrassing themselves. It is the U.S.’ precursor to the Macarena and the chicken dance, and differs from those two chiefly in the fact that in the Hokey-Pokey the dancers actually are expected to move their legs. As in “you put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you shake it all about.”
It is not likely that anyone will make a television show based on dancing of this sort.
The hokey-pokey is a good way to describe the approach IBM has taken during the last several years when it comes to IP-based storage. ISCSI machines have come and gone at IBM (remember the 200i, one of the earliest such devices, in 2001), as have a number of network-attached storage devices (the xSeries 150 in 2000, rebranded as the Total Storage 200, which begat the 300, which begat the 300G, which begat the 500). In terms of current-day systems, these competed with high-end NAS appliances and gateways such as Network Appliance’s 900 series and EMC’s Celerra.
NAS machines came and went, operating systems for NAS machines came and went, and whole product lines appeared and were withdrawn. When it came to the IP storage segment, IBM’s products were underpowered and the company never quite put things together in a way that achieved any noticeable success in the market. They put their right toe in, pulled their right toe out, and never seemed to put together a viable product set or even a visibly coherent NAS strategy. It was the hokey-pokey all right.
This year however, things have changed, and IBM is finally a serious contender in the NAS business. Last week, IBM introduced its N5000 midrange NAS filers, aimed at small and midsize businesses operating remote sites across distributed networks. How this finally happened and what it portends for the future will be the subject of my next newsletter.
*** Your chance to write this year’s Christmas storage wish list
The winds are blowing and the heating bills are mounting here in the Boston area, all a sure sign that in a few weeks it will be time to publish my annual Christmas storage wish list. This is an opportunity that the good folks at Network World provide for you to tell the vendors what you would like to see from them in the coming year.
If you want to make a point, zing a vendor, or just engage in some healthy venting, e-mail your wish list to me some time during the next few weeks. Who knows what you might find under your tree.
