Comments on: A stroll down memory lane: HP’s 2004 storage grid vision

By: Kashif Shaikh

Kashif Shaikh — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:15:02 +0000

The fact is, “Storage Grid” is marketing hype simply like “Cloud Computing” you hear these days. There are tons of computer science papers on storage cluster/grid technologies with lofty goals….and you can implement any “technique” (albeit non-proven but wonderful for engineers to “try out”)…which is why John got 85 papers…

In the end, it is very difficult to create dynamic, scalable storage, simply because mass storage use physical heads/media to store data. Dynamically moving tons of data around every time new storage is added is a _show stopper_ simply because you’re copying and re-calculating parity on terabytes of data at meager throughput.

What’s interesting is that Isilon changed the rules of the game and implemented RAID within the filesystem…a novel technique that gives them a lot of benefits…

By: John

John — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:16:51 +0000

I was an architect on that project. I left in disgust after a year.

It’s fair to place some of the blame on marketing, for sending mixed and contradictory signals, and for their inability to decide on the target customer. But engineering deserves a hell of a lot of the blame, too, for letting the folks lead with the worst track record on delivering product, but the best on hot air.

At the start of the project, HP Labs essentially handed engineering a working prototype. Management decided to throw the entire weight of the storage division behind the project, which involved putting 20 architects and 80 engineers to work.

After a year, the group had identified 85 (!) different papers to be written and reviewed. They’d successfully reviewed seven. Exactly twenty lines of code had been added to the prototype.

Paralyzed by specmanship, Geneva was doomed from the start.

By: Pete Steege

Pete Steege — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:29:40 +0000

Sounds a lot like storage virtualization - big ideas, a little ahead of their time, overmarketed, but then ultimately the right solution. It’s not just perserverence, it’s timing, too. EMC realized that when it scooped up VMWare.

By: Danno

Danno — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:06:02 +0000

HP Storage has their share of issues to wrestle with today as they did four years ago. Although I do not see their failing to deliver on Grid Storage as a large issue. Such initiatives are far more likely to fail than succeed in large corporation.

Taking a page from Sun’s storage strategy would be a bad idea IMHO. Let’s not forget that after failed acquisitions of MaxStrat (late 90’s), Pirus (sold off to HDS), and spending $4B on StorageTek they are now pushing toward software. A circuitous route to selling commodity hardware with open source software.

To their credit Sun is changing the storage game and I applaud Jonathan for making the moves he has. In the chess game of corporate strategy he has so far come out on top of NetApp in the latest contest. At least from a PR perspective. The end game will be interesting.