Buzz Marketing: Windows 7 next generation of Windows
Microsoft has been so successful by constantly making its old product redundant but it has failed to do so with Windows Vista which has not ...
https://ideasmarkit.blogspot.com/2008/05/buzz-marketing-windows-7-next.html
Microsoft has been so successful by constantly making its old product redundant but it has failed to do so with Windows Vista which has not been as successful in replacing a much more stable Windows XP. Now Microsoft has started creating buzz for its next product which is named so far as Windows 7 and is due for release in 2010 it seems to be inspired by the success of 
touchscreen based Apple Ipod and Iphones and they have revealed a multi touch interface.In Technology marketing there is always a scope for creating buzz by reaching out to early adopters and passionate tech users who can spread the word through word of mouth and Microsoft has done it quite well with releasing small videos and leaking pics of various interfaces well before the actual launch. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer revealed about Windows 7 at All Things Digital Conference and added to the buzz by revealing a small video.Microsoft however had to face the enormous expectations built up through this kind of buzz building for Vista in which the product failed to live up to expectation lets see how this works out for Windows 7. These screen grabs illustrate the soon to be launched Windows.Head to Engadget, Gizmodo, Crunchgear for more
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Safe Multi-tenancy and Logical Partitioning
Safe multi-tenancy, is a term that few people seem to understand. I was observing a focus session recently, and when that term was used, no one in the four sessions that I observed seemed to know what it meant.
Multi-tenancy, means that multiple users can share the same resources.. A hotel provides beds for many users or tenants. Safe multi-tenancy would be a hotel where each tenant had their own room with a lock on the door, versus a youth hostel where tenants share a common room and safety is dependent on the good behavior of the tenants.
In the same way, safe multi-tenancy is required for storage users who share the same storage resources, like a SAN. Unlike DAS or Direct Attach Storage, where a user’s storage is directly attached to the user’s host server and is separated from other servers by an air gap, SAN’s create a network where any server can get to any storage that is connected to the same SAN. Safe multi-tenancy is provided by SAN zoning in the switch and LUN masking in the storage systems. This type of protection is limited and makes LUN address assignments difficult since one user may get access to LUN 0, 1, 3; and the next user would get LUN 4, 5, but not LUN 0 which is needed as a boot address.
Hitachi solved that problem by assigning each user its own virtual port address with its own address space (Host Storage Domain), so that each user could assign LUNs from LUN 0 on up, even if they shared the same physical storage port. Hitachi storage systems can assign up to 1024 virtual ports to each physical port. The address space associated with each port is separate unless it is specifically assigned to be shared by multiple virtual ports for alternate path redundancy.
Safe multi-tenancy becomes even more important when virtualization is layered on top of the SAN. While switch zoning still works, LUN masking is difficult since that is done in the storage controller and not in the SAN based virtualization appliance. Hitachi avoids this problem by implementing storage virtualization in the storage controller where Host Storage domains provide the protection for safe multi-tenancy.
While safe multi-tenancy can protect users from accessing each other’ data, it is not enough. There is still the danger that one user may dominate the use of shared resources and impact the performance of other users. For instance one user may kick off a data base reorganization which will suck up the shared cache, rippling through rows and tables, just as another user is trying to service a high performance transaction.
In order for users to get the right Quality of Service, QoS, when they need it, there must be a way to logically partition the use of common resources like cache and be able to change that partition dynamically based on policies that are triggered by time or events. Since Hitachi does storage virtualization in a storage controller, it has control of the storage cache, and other storage resources like storage spindles, in order to provide partitioning of these resources. Other storage virtualization systems that sit outside of the storage control unit are not able to provide partitioning of storage resources.
Logical partitioning goes hand in hand with safe multi-tenancy and is important when many users are sharing the same physical storage resources. This is true for a SAN, but is especially true when this sharing is done through a virtual abstraction. If you are considering storage virtualization, ask the vendor how they provide safe multi-tenancy and logical partitioning before you commit.
About the Writer:
Hu Yoshida, the CTO of Hitachi Data Systems, provides his insight into industry issues, discusses in his own words storage best practices, and provides realistic solutions to real storage needs in today. Yoshida is well known within the storage industry, and his blog was recently ranked among the “top 10 most influential” within the storage industry by Network World. In 2006, he was named “CTO of the Year” by Jon Toigo, and in October of 2006, Byte and Switch named him one of “Storage Networking’s Heaviest Hitters.”
Check out Hu’s blog at: http://blogs.hds.com/hu/
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