This week’s digest features new cloud backup software and a Chia note from Backblaze, Infinidat suggesting it’s an AIOps supplier, and Robin.io notching up another server deal for its 5G Kubernetes orchestration and system code. Windocks claims it has a data virtualisation tool coming that will be be better than anything Delphix offers. Plus, we have the usual collection of shorter news items and people moves — quite a large set of people moves, too.
Backblaze dances eightsome reel
Cloud and backup storage provider Backblaze announced v8.0 of its Computer Backup software — adding speed, throttling, lower client IO loading and a new look.
Backblaze Computer Backup software runs on a client Mac or Windows device and backs up user files to Backblaze cloud storage for $6/month with no limit on file numbers or file sizes.
Gleb Budman, CEO and Co-Founder, Backblaze, said: “This new release will make it easier than ever for consumers and businesses to take control of their data and prevent data loss.”
Version 8 adds a performance increase by raising the maximum number of threads used from 30 to 100. It also throttles the network bandwidth used, to avoid it hogging the link. The software writes to and reads from a user’s storage drives in a different way. This lowers the number of IO events by up to 80 per cent, before data is encrypted and sent up to the Backblaze vault.
Backblaze and Chia
Separately, Backblaze will support storage for pooled Chia cryptocurrency plots in addition to the full plot storage it recently offered. Chia’s long-awaited “pooling” functionality allows farmers to gather their plots, increasing their chance of winning challenges — the proceeds from which are then shared among pool members.
Also, in a blog post, Backblaze shared the behind-the-scenes analysis supporting its decision not to farm Chia on its own platform, but reaffirming that B2 Cloud Storage is wide open to individuals or pools seeking to try their own hand at Chia.
Infinidat claims AIOps momentum
High-end array supplier Infinidat claims it is doing great with AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT operations). Phil Bullinger, CEO at Infinidat, said: “The breadth of Infinidat’s end-to-end AIOps offerings differentiates us in the enterprise market, enabling centralised operations, improving cost management, and resulting in scalable, multi-petabyte storage-as-a-service.”
This is AIOps just for Infinidat InfiniBox arrays, not for a general IT infrastructure. Infinidat is describing some of its existing features, like memory caching (Neural Cache), as using AI. Infinidat AIOps comprises Neural Cache, InfiniVerse cloud-based, AI-driven monitoring, predictive analytics and support systems spanning Infinidat’s systems, and Infinidat’s ecosystem of AI technology partnerships.
Hmm. We think AIOps generally refers to non-vendor-specific IT operations in data centres, not to how one vendor manages its own storage arrays. That’s just system management.
Datamation’s Top AIOps Companies list from November 220 lists AppDynamics, BigPanda, BMC, DataDog, DynaTrace, Moogsoft, New Relic, PagerDuty, ScienceLogic and Splunk. None of these are storage array or networking or server vendors.
Datamation says AIOps “collects data across increasingly complex IT infrastructure, identifying key patterns and events, and automating problem resolution.” That’s infrastructure and not one vendor’s storage arrays. Possibly Infinidat is over-egging its AIOps pudding.
Robin.io grabs another 5G win
5G-focussed cloud-native storage and system startup Robin.io is partnering Quanta Cloud Technology (QTC). That company has announced its IronCloud Robin Cloud Native Platform (IRCNP), a carrier-grade cloud-native platform with multi-cluster management.
Partha Seetala, CEO and founder of Robin.io, said: “Our close relationships with QCT and Intel have delivered a production-ready open and extensible platform for deployment and life cycle management. It’s an entire Telco Network Stack, with both CNFs and VNFs that offers industry leading TCO.”
IRCNP is built on the Robin.io’s Multi-Data Center Automation Platform (MDCAP) and Cloud Native Platform (CNP). These comprise a carrier-grade bare-metal to services orchestration and enhanced Kubernetes platform, for 5G and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) applications.
The product harmonises virtual machines and containers, enabling resource sharing, unified workflows and lifecycle automation.
IRCNP is deployable on QCT servers using third-gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors.
Windocks taking on Delphix
We’re told SQL Server system software supplier and database cloner Windocks will soon launch data virtualization that’s superior to Delphix and running on standard Linux and Windows servers. It sees a growing group of Delphix clients seeking to move off of what they view as a proprietary platform to a standards-based software solution.
Windocks says the key differences between its offering and Delphix are:
- Prices are 1/10th of Delphix;
- Standards-based software for Linux and Windows servers;
- Cloud-native support for containers, Kubernetes, and conventional instances — Delphix is an outdated client/server solution limited to instances.
Shorts
Airbyte, a supplier of an open-source ETL/ELT data integration platform, announced the industry-first release of open-source data integration for data lakes, enabling AWS users to replicate data from anywhere to their Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) account. Airbyte has 75-plus pre-built connectors, or customers can build their own custom connectors within two hours using Airbyte’s Connector Development Kit (CDK) in order to replicate their data to S3.
It says businesses can create data pipelines from sources such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, Facebook Ads, Salesforce, and Stripe, and connect to destinations that include Redshift, Snowflake, and BigQuery.
SoftwareRAID developer RAIDIX says its ERA is the fastest SW RAID engine for NVMe SSDs. Watch a YouTube video to find out more, such as its ERA v3.3 and v4.0 roadmap overview.
RiverMeadow says Mitel used its offerings to migrate 1000 VMs to Google Cloud VMware Engine in less than 90 days, and three months ahead of schedule. RiverMeadow says its migration methodology is tested and has been used in hundreds of successful projects. It covers discovery, assessment, migration and validation, and has a flexible, fixed-price approach.
Israel-based Statehub (previously known as Replix.io), a pioneer in stateful Kubernetes management, announced the private beta launch of a fully-managed app mobility platform that enables companies to easily deploy and manage stateful Kubernetes applications.
It claims its platform solves Kubernetes stateful mobility issues by deploying an infrastructure-as-a-code (IaaC) solution, pre-configured with storage, replication, and networking, completely agnostic to the public cloud infrastructure being utilised.
Winbond Electronics Corporation, a global supplier of semiconductor memory products, announced that its HyperRAM and SpiStack (NOR+NAND) can be operated with Renesas’s RZ/A2M Arm-based microprocessors (MPUs).
People
Data intelligence and SaaS automation supplier Aparavi has expanded into Germany, appointing Gregor Bieler as CEO Europe. Before Aparavi, Bieler was General Manager at Microsoft Germany.
DataCore has hired Gregg Machon to be its VP Americas Sales. He joined in June having left a VP Worldwide Channels & OEMs role at Qumulo in May. Before that he was Director Channel Sales at HPE from April 2017 to August 2018. Machon says he’s in hiring mode at DataCore.
Toby Owen has been hired by Fungible as its VP of Products. He comes from NetApp where he was Senior Director of Product Management. We also note Brian McCloskey joined Fungible as Chief Revenue Officer in February. He came from being VP for worldwide FlashBlade Sales at Pure Storage and spent time at NetApp and at (NetApp-acquired) SolidFire before that, with EMC Isilon experience prior to SolidFire.
Intel’s Rebecca Weekly, VP, GM and Senior Principal Engineer of Hyperscale Strategy and Execution, was announced as the new Chair and President of the Board of Directors of the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP). Rebecca replaces Mark Roenigk, Head of Hardware Engineering at Facebook, who served as Chair for the past two years.
Amy Love, the CMO of Pavilion Data, is leaving to become CMO at SambaNova, which is working on a a new category of AI/ML. It has developed Dataflow-as-a-Service, a subscription-based, extensible AI services platform for enterprises. SambaNova has raised over $1 billion in funding. Her departure is not related to the arrival of the new CEO at Pavilion.
Ross Fujii has been appointed as General Manager of Emerging Markets and Product Marketing at Quantum, a new position. He brings experience from SolarWinds, Seagate’s Cloud Solutions division, and Cisco Cloud Automation & Management business unit.
The hiring will further enable Quantum’s business shift — from a hardware appliance vendor to a subscription and as-a-Service company that provides comprehensive data management and analysis solutions. Fujii will focus on growing Quantum’s reach into emerging markets, primarily video surveillance and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS).
Although listed on its website leadership page as its Chief Marketing Officer, Anne Vincent has left Strongbox after about a year in post and joined Canadian investment firm Partner One Capital as its CMO. Partner One Capital is the controlling shareholder of Strongbox. And we hear she’s now left Partner One as well. She was the CMO for 3 of Partner One’s holding companies, of which StrongBox is one.
Western Digital has appointed Dr Thomas (Tom) Caulfield and Miyuki Suzuki to its Board of Directors. Caulfield is the CEO of Global Foundries, while Suzuki serves as a Director on the Boards of MetLife Japan and Jera, Japan’s largest power generation company. She was most recently president of Asia Pacific, Japan and China at Cisco.
