[New post] (QoM16-002): Will Intel Omni-Path GA in scale out enterprise storage by February 2016 – NO 0.91 probability

Ray posted: "Question of the month (QoM for February is: Will Intel Omni-Path (Architecture, OPA) GA in scale out enterprise storage by February 2016? In this forecast enterprise storage are the major and startup vendors supplying storage to data center customers. Wh" New post on RayOnStorage Blog (QoM16-002): Will Intel Omni-Path GA in scale out enterprise storage by February 2016 – NO 0.91 probability by Ray Question of the month (QoM for February is: Will Intel Omni-Path (Architecture, OPA) GA in scale out enterprise storage by February 2016? In this forecast enterprise storage are the major and startup vendors supplying storage to data center customers. What is OPA? OPA is Intel's replacement for InfiniBand and starts out at 100Gbps. It's intended more for high performance computing (HPC), to be used as an inter-cluster server interconnect or next generation fabric. Intel says it "will maintain consistency and compatibility with existing Intel True Scale Fabric and InfiniBand APIs by working through the open source OpenFabrics Alliance (OFA) software stack on leading Linux* distribution releases". Seems like Intel is making it as easy as possible for vendors to adopt the technology. There are already implementations on a few HPC supercomputing data centers that currently using OPA (see Intel's OPA overview page for more info). Why would any storage vendor want to use it? In enterprise storage we find InfiniBand used primarily in scale out architectures such as EMC Isilon, VMAX and XtremIO. There are quite a few scale-out storage systems that use Ethernet for their inter cluster interconnect, e.g., NetApp,  IBM SAN Volume Controller, and HDS HNAS from established vendors and (NetApp) SolidFire, Coho Data, and Qumulo from startups.  And several that use their own IP for cluster interconnect HPE 3PAR and HDS VSP G1000. InfiniBand 4 link, FDR supports ~54Gbps, so a single link OPA would almost double this bandwidth. Moreover, in the HPC space we already know of DDN using OPA in their SFA14K hybrid storage systems. Not sure whether Intel's OPA can compete with a company's internal IP for cluster/mesh interconnect but any vendor using InfiniBand or Ethernet should see a significant bandwidth advantage in adopting OPA. Most of Ethernet interconnected, scale-out storage do so because of the economical advantage of Ethernet and its availability across a wide spectrum of off the shelf servers. Whether the speed advantages of OPA would be enough to convince these vendors to adopt is an open debate. Further, it might be more pertinent for all flash arrays than hybrid storage but a case can be made for both. Any storage vendor looking or currently using InfiniBand would probably be interested in going OPA over time, if the price was right. Is the hardware available? Intel released switches and PCIe add-on cards for OPA last year. Aside from Intel,, SuperMicro has also released a Omni-Path 100G 48-port top of rack networking switch and an Omni-Path PCIe add-on card for their (storage) servers that can be used to connect to an OPA fabric. So yes, the hardware is available from multiple vendors today. Pricing of OPA componentry Comparing a SuperMicros 48-port OPA switch to a 36-port Mellanox FDR Infiniband switch, current pricing for OPA ports is about 3.2X the price of InfiniBand FDR ports (see pricing at 3D-systems). Although I didn't check on the PCIe cards for the two, I assume the pricing differential for PCIe cards is similar. The pricing differential for ethernet components is a bit cheaper than InfiniBand so, OPA is about 5.0X more expensive than Ethernet on a port basis. Again, I didn't check NICs vs. OPA PCIe cards but believe the differential would be similar. Summary: We have already estimated (see QoW15-001 post) that there are likely to be 13 new hardware systems over the next 12 months. And of that, probably a third are scale-out systems, so maybe, ~4.3 new hardware scale-out storage systems will be introduced over the next 12 months. The InfiniBand users are probably most likely to adopt it, 2nd most would be internal proprietary bus users and finally, the ethernet crowd. So, for the ~4.3 new scale-out systems: ~1.6 will be new versions of InfiniBand scale out storage; ~1.1 will be new versions of internal IP cluster interconnect storage; and another ~1.6 will be new versions of Ethernet storage. Given the pricing differential, I believe that 15% of InfiniBand systems are likely to adopt OPA, 10% of internal IP systems are likely to adopt OPA and 5% of ethernet systems are likely to adopt OPA in the next 12 months. So given those assumptions: ~0.2 InfiniBand system adopters, ~0.1 Internal IP adopters, and ~0.1 Ethernet system adopters or a high likelihood of ~0.4 new hardware storage systems will adopt OPA over the 12 months. So given the current pricing environment I would forecast OPA adoption in enterprise storage over the next 12 months at NO with a 0.91 probability.  Forecasting contest updates: QoW15-002 Will 3D TLC NAND GA in major enterprise storage systems by YE 2016 is now closed. EMC announced 2/29/16 that new VMAX All Flash will ship with 3D TLC NAND SSDs. Also Dell has been shipping 3D TLC NAND SSDs since last June in their Compellent Storage systems SC8000, SC4000 and SCv2000 storage systems. I had not considered Dell to be a "major enterprise storage" vendor before but I must confess a number of analysts have a different opinion. My latest QoW15-002 forecast was No with a 0.53 probability, I was wrong (see my original forecast on QoW15-002). I will post something later in March about what went wrong when I figure it out. Two other forecasters had it correct: one with a forecast YES at 1.0 probability and the other had it as a YES at 0.95 probability. So far I am 0 for 1, and they are both 1 for 1.... Other updates: there were no other updates to the current outstanding questions of the week/month. Photo Credit(s): TechReport News website Ray | February 29, 2016 at 3:48 pm | Tags: Intel Omni-Path Architecture, Intercluster interconnects, QoM16-002, QoW15-002, Scale-out storage | Categories: Clustered storage, Ethernet, Forecasting, Infiniband, Omni-Path, QoM 2016, QoW 2015, SSD storage | URL: http://wp.me/pNK0N-1WT Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from RayOnStorage Blog. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? 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[New Post] Influencer Insights: Media Moves and Intel for the Week of February 29

 

Blogs

Influencer Insights: Media Moves and Intel for the Week of February 29 Nida Asheer To keep up with today's media landscape, public relations professionals need to know not only who is going where, but also how to communicate more effectively with those journalists, bloggers, and influencers making moves. This week’s highlights include Margaret Sullivan’s move to the Washington Post, a new editor at Food & Wine, and an interview with Les Affaires’ Julien Brault, whose open letter to PR professionals recently garnered attention. Want even more media moves? Check out the latest issue of PR Newswire Media Moves on our Knowledge Center and follow @PRNMedia for daily updates. 1. The Washington Post: New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) is signing on as a media columnist at @washingtonpost. Sullivan began at The Times in 2012 after spending thirteen years at The Buffalo News as editor and vice president. Her new column will focus on digital media, its impact on people’s daily lives, and its effect on privacy, news, and free speech. She will start her new position in the spring. 2. Los Angeles Times: Dan Beucke has been named deputy business editor at @latimes. Having held many editorial leadership roles, Beucke has a significant array of journalism experience. He was most recently news managing editor at the Orange County Register. Prior to that, he was senior editor/news director at Bloomberg Businessweek for more than fifteen years and business news editor at the San Jose Mercury News for three years. He also taught business journalism at Columbia University. 3. Business Insider: Jay Yarow (@jyarow) has announced he is moving on from his position of executive editor at @businessinsider to pursue other opportunities. Yarow started at the publication in 2007 as an intern. He then worked his way up to senior editor, deputy editor in charge of the technology vertical SAI, and, finally, executive editor in March of 2015. Prior to Business Insider, Yarow was an editorial intern at Businessweek. 4. Vanity Fair: Stephanie Mehta (@stephaniemehta) has joined @VanityFair as a deputy editor, coming aboard the prestigious publication from her position as editor of Bloomberg Live. Mehta has also written for the Wall Street Journal and worked for Fortune Magazine for fourteen years in a variety of editorial positions including assistant managing editor, executive editor, and deputy managing editor. 5. Food & Wine: Niloufar Motamed (@niloumotamed) has been named @foodandwine editor. Motamed was most recently editor-in-chief of Epicurious and, prior to that, the features director at Travel + Leisure. She is known to have transformed Travel + Leisure’s restaurant coverage and was also the creator of its Food & Travel issue. Her hard work there earned the publication eight James Beard Foundation Journalism Award nominations. She will start her role as editor March 14th. Influencer Intel of the Week: When Julien Brault of Quebec newspaper Les Affaires wrote an open letter to PR professionals, CNW’s Beyond the Wire blog seized the opportunity to interview him. In their latest Meet the Press, Brault shares his likes and dislikes and explains why email is the worst way to reach him. To reach the right journalists and influencers, you need to understand the nuts and bolts of press release writing. Download our Quick & Easy Guide to Sharing Your Press Release with the World for tips on preparing your next press release for distribution. Author Nida Asheer is a member of PR Newswire's audience research team, which makes thousands of updates weekly to the media database underpinning our Agility workflow platform. In her audience researcher role, she keeps an eye on the latest media moves and news throughout the Southwest region.

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February StorInt Newsletter, latest SPC-1 & -2 performance and EMC VMAX All Flash & Mainframe

Latest SPC-1 & -2 performance results and EMC VMAX All Flash & Mainframe announcement summary

In this month's newsletter, we publish our review of the latest SPC-1 and -2 performance results and discuss Hitachi's VSP F series of all flash storage announcement. StorInt™ Newsletter - Issue 103 -  Febuary 2016 Latest SPC-1 and SPC-2 performance report  Lot's of activity in SPC-1 submissions and one in particular lit up our top ten charts on a number of metrics. Read the report to learn more.    See the Report EMC announces new VMAX All Flash and VMAX Mainframe  EMC released a new all flash version of VMAX3 with 3D TLC SSDs, with new software-hardware bundled solutions. Performance is pretty impressive as well. EMC  also announced a mainframe version of VMAX3 which supports FICON channels as well as iSCSI & FC.  Read the report to learn more.   See the Report  RayOnStorage top blog post(s)   Platform9, a whole new way to run OpenStack - Earlier this month we were at TechFieldDay 10 in Austin and we met with a company I had never heard of before, Platform9. It appears they have created a new way to deploy OpenStack in your environment. Making it look almost as easy as using AWS.  Read the post to learn more. GreyBeards OnStorage    Greybeards talk year with Pivot3 & NexGen Storage  on their recent acquisition - John Spiers, CEO NexGen Storage and Ron Nash CEO Pivot3 were on our podcast to discuss Pivot3's acquisition of NexGen. Pivot3 is active in the hyper converged space and was looking to up their game in storage and NexGen was searching for some new funding to take their maketing to the next level. Seems like a match made in heaven. . Listen to the podcast to learn more...   What you may have missed last month   Latest Microsoft Exchange Solution Reviewed Program (ESRP) performance report - ESRP for the over 5K category has had seven new submissions since we last covered this over 5000 mailbox category. Most of these had between 8 and 25K mailboxes so there weren't many new top 10 entries. Nonetheless, we do show two of our ESRP top ten performance charts with new entries. Read the report to learn more. Hitachi announces a new all flash array product line the Hitachi Flash Storage (HFS) A-Series  The new systems use industry standard controllers and SSDs with brand new storage software with deduplication and compression to go after the current crop of data reduced all flash arrays on the market. R ead the report to learn more.   Silverton Consulting, Inc. | Respond to email |1-720-221-7270 | Updated (Feb. 2016) SAN Storage Buying Guide | SilvertonConsulting.com See what's happening on our social sites:

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[New Post] Content We Love: How Delta Air Lines Created 80,000 Brand Advocates

 

Blogs

Content We Love: How Delta Air Lines Created 80,000 Brand Advocates Ryan Hansen Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful tool for any brand. Just think: How many times have you asked someone for their opinion on a certain product, whether they tried that new restaurant, or how they felt about their new car? The list goes on and on. Because no one wants to be left unsatisfied after spending their hard earned money, your brand’s customers and prospects are looking for honest insight from people who have experience with your product. From industry influencers to customer advocates, today’s brands have a number of ways to tap into word-of-mouth marketing. In fact, one incredibly knowledgeable, but under-utilized resource sits right around you: your colleagues. Highlighting your brand’s employees not only connects your customers with people who know your products inside and out, it also provides a behind-the-scenes look into how your company operates.  And both of these things offer immense value. When a company shows that it values its employees and the communities it serves, customers tend to take notice. A study by Nielsen reported that 55 percent of global online consumers were willing to pay more for products and services when a company was committed to making a social and environmental impact. Additionally, employees who are appreciated and empowered are more likely to perform better. Happier employees means happier customers. An excellent example of positive company culture leading to major revenue — and headlines — was Delta Air Lines’ recent announcement about its $1.5 billion profit sharing payout. This was the largest-ever payout of its kind in U.S. history. With good reason, it’s an accomplishment Delta has taken significant pride in, and they know exactly who deserves credit for the historic profits and industry-leading operational excellence they earned in 2015: Delta employees. On the day that employees received their payout, Delta’s Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson and President Ed Bastian sent a company memo which they then shared with the public. “We are often asked what makes Delta different,” they wrote. “The difference is you. Our unique people-focused culture, built on the Rules of the Road and working together, is the advantage that none of our competitors can match.” After learning that their profit sharing plan had made history, Delta created a 5 part communications plan to honor their team: Thank You Celebrations: Delta started with the construction of a 50-foot-tall greeting card at the Delta General Offices. It included the names of every Delta employee – all 80,000 of them — and set a Guinness World Record. Multimedia Message: They also created a thank you video detailing their record breaking year, which was then distributed through their social media platforms. Paid Advertising: The airline followed up by thanking employees with ad placements in U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, among others. Social Media Engagement: To inspire employees to share pride in their accomplishment, the air line provided them with the #DeltaProud hashtag. Press Release: Finally, the press release they issued detailed their profit sharing success and included a call-to-action to check out their online newsroom where additional information was published. These tools empowered employees to feel connected, and connected employees are good brand ambassadors. According to this follow-up article on the Delta News Hub, the air line’s profit sharing announcement not only resulted in excellent social media engagement, it also led to coverage in numerous newspapers, tv news stations, blogs and websites, which highlighted the payout and Delta’s impact on its communities. Even if your company doesn’t have the number of employees or budget Delta does, it’s possible to connect with your employees and promote unconventional story ideas in similar ways. Consider showcasing employees’ hard work through social channels or featuring their voices on your company website, blog and other owned channels. Similarly, encourage and make it easy for them to share the love via their own networks. Another relatively easy and inexpensive way to earn positive attention for your brand is by creating and sharing content that highlights authentic community contributions. Reassess your brand’s stories and map out a multichannel distribution plan to ensure the messaging you develop is seen. Get started now by downloading our free guide, Redefining Newsworthiness: New Opportunities to Earn Media, which offers more tips on finding brand stories that journalists, influencers and your customers will love. Author Ryan Hansen (@RPH2004) manages social media at PR Newswire, sharing the latest PR, marketing and social media trends across our networks. See what he's up to around the PR Newswire offices by following @PRNewswire on Instagram.

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4 Questions to Ask Before Investing in a Media Monitoring and Targeting Tool

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4 Questions to Ask Before Investing in a Media Monitoring and Targeting Tool Lucie Curtis Reaching your audience at the right moment, with the right content, on the right channel is a goal every communicator dreams of. And achieving this goal is possible if you have the right data … Data that gives you insight into what your sector is talking about, who's talking about it, where they're talking about it, and whether or not the content you've already created and distributed is aligned with these conversations. However, there's so much data and so many places to collect it from that there's not nearly enough time to sort through all of it by hand. Having to combine brand and industry monitoring from multiple sources is a time-consuming process. To then analyze and act on this research is even more resource intensive. Cutting corners on any step in the process can result in inaccurate intel and ill-informed decisions. One way to ease the pain is to look for a tool that packages your monitoring, targeting, distribution, and reporting into one central location. You need to ask the right questions, though, to make sure you're selecting a tool that's truly multifunctional. Ask these four questions of the monitoring and targeting tools you're considering to determine which one will work best for you. 1. Can you monitor multiple topics across multiple mediums? Having to jump between multiple tools to examine what's happening on social, online, broadcast, print and other media is not just inefficient, it can cause you to miss overlapping trends. At minimum, a multifunctional monitoring tool should enable you to observe different mediums and see how brand and/or topic mentions compare and contrast on each one. Moreover – whether you're an agency representing different clients or a brand targeting different audience personas – you need to be able to monitor conversations around more than one topic. Competitor intel, emerging trends, and customer behaviors are a few of the things you should monitor beyond brand mentions. After identifying what type of information is important to you, look for a tool that makes it easy to save all of your searches in one location, customize notifications for each, and update searches as new needs arise. 2. Can you maintain media and influencer lists based on your monitoring? Monitoring what's being said about your brand and your industry will not just help you understand what your audience cares about, it will also connect you with the journalists and influencers shaping those perspectives. Using your monitoring intel to inform your media research can result in targeted outreach lists that include journalists, bloggers and influencers who specifically cover your niche and are more likely to be interested in your content. Of course, journalists and influencers come and go, which adds another wrinkle to your search for a multifunctional monitoring and targeting tool. Your time is valuable. Spending it managing the freshness of your media database is not its best use. Instead, opt for a tool that automatically updates your saved lists.  As demonstrated in the case study Feintuch Communications Provides Customized PR Programs to Diverse Client Base, doing so will help you drive better results. 3. Can you efficiently distribute your message across multiple channels? While targeted outreach lists can be an effective way to reach a portion of your audience, you don't want to limit yourself to only one promotion channel. Your audience is engaging with content across social media, websites, apps, and other platforms. For your message to successfully reach everyone that matters, you must tap into a variety of distribution methods. Planning and executing a multichannel campaign isn't easy, though. You have to define which channels you want to target, what those channels' requirements are, how you plan to stagger your promotions' timing across them, and much more. A multifunctional monitoring and targeting tool can help you streamline the distribution of your communications not only to saved targeted lists, but also newsrooms, websites, social media and other channels. 4. Does the platform allow you to create, customize and share reporting? Distributing content over multiple channels means there are multiple types of metrics you need to stay on top of. Media clippings, email outreach success, and website visibility are just three of many things you should be tracking. The reporting you gather is crucial not just for informing your future efforts, but also delivering tangible results to your company's leadership. Choose a monitoring and targeting tool that makes it easy to compile, save, share and access comprehensive reporting at any time. In today's communication landscape, it’s worth investing in a multifunctional tool that helps you listen for topics generating buzz, target key journalists and influencers, share messages through multiple channels, and report on the effectiveness of your campaigns – all within a single interface. Request a demo of PR Newswire's Agility workflow platform to see our media database, targeting, and monitoring tools in action and learn how they can increase your communications’ effectiveness and efficiency.

[New Post] 3 Press Release Templates to Power Your PR and Content Marketing

 

Blogs

3 Press Release Templates to Power Your PR and Content Marketing Danielle Capriato Although the press release is a tried-and-true tactic for brand communications, there’s much more to writing and distributing one than meets the eye. From reaching media and industry influencers to driving search visibility and sales, there are so many things a press release can achieve for today’s PR and marketing pros. However, with all of the focus on storytelling and distribution (both very important things), it can be easy to forget other press release must-dos. Using a press release template or checklist can give your writing process the consistency needed to ensure all essentials are included. Press releases over the years have generally followed a standard format, including the same basic pieces of important information. And despite other changes to best practices, every press release still must include the following: Headline Dateline City Dateline Date Boilerplate Company Contact In our Quick & Easy Guide to Sharing Your Press Release with the World, we provide tips on these and other press release nuts and bolts. But, while the basic bones of all releases should remain the same, each press release’s purpose will present key differences in the way it should be formatted. As PR and marketing practices have evolved to meet audiences’ constantly shifting needs, so has the press release. When looking at the press releases distributed across PR Newswire day in and day out, we see an ever-growing variety and no “one-size-fits-all” method to writing them. However, we do see some trends, which can be grouped into three main categories, or press release archetypes: The General News Announcement Evergreen, or Feature, News Content Marketing Releases To help PR pros and content marketers craft releases that better fit their needs, we’ve designed the following three press release templates for news and content promotion. General News Release These are the classic, time-honored press releases brands issue for personnel announcements, quarterly earnings, new product launches and other standard company or corporate communications. It's important with any release to ensure you're writing for the appropriate audience, and straight news tends to be targeted toward business journalists, news editors, assignment editors and investors, as well as current and potential customers. For this reason, it's important to focus on presenting your news in a straightforward and easy-to-read manner.   Evergreen News Release Now that news releases have a longer lifespan on the Internet, feature news releases have risen in popularity. These releases take a unique angle on a brand's news and bring their message straight to consumer audiences in ways the audience will want to read and share. The point of an evergreen release is to provide useful and interesting information that is, and will remain, relevant to your target audience. These releases give brands a chance to stretch their storytelling muscles. Be natural and focus on writing well in your evergreen release.   Content Marketing Release Content marketers have been turning to press releases as a way to promote their content. And why shouldn't they? Release distribution allows you to reach a wide and often engaged audience through a trusted network of websites, and can drive traffic to owned media channels. When writing a content release, it's critical that you treat this type of release the same way you would treat other content marketing: by writing for your audience and telling a great story. While you can use these releases to build buzz around your brand and establish yourself as a thought leader, this content is likely used to drive engagement, demand and leads. To that end, be sure to include a direct call-to-action to optimize potential for audience engagement.   The next time you’re tasked with promoting your brand’s news and content, use these templates to write a release that works, and then download PR Newswire’s Quick & Easy Guide to Sharing Your Press Release with the World. This how-to walks through the steps to take when preparing your press releases for distribution. Author Danielle Capriato is the manager of strategic communications at PR Newswire. Follow her on Twitter @dcapriato.

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