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    The opinions contained within this website, it's blog(s), forums, and Wikis, are those of the original poster and do not represent the position of my (or any other) employer.
    Mr. Backup Blog
    Major updates in a "minor" release of TSM 6.2 PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 08 March 2010
    A press release went out today about IBM's TSM 6.2.  Among other things, it says that TSM now has source dedupe!  As big as that news is, there's another piece of news that is even bigger.
    Read more...
     
    VMware backup follow-up PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 05 March 2010
    Last month I wrote a blog post about how I thought that Hyper-V was ahead of VMware in the backup race.  If you haven't read, you should read it before reading this follow-up.  Before you read that post, however, you should probably know about what's in this post that explains Windows VSS and why you should care.

    Now that we're all caught up, let's summarize, shall we?  Although the vStorage API fixes most of the problems with VCB, it still has one gaping hole to be fixed.  It does not fully leverage Windows VSS to the point that it is not possible to get an application-consistent backup of Windows 2008 guests without putting some kind of agent in the VM.  You can get app-consistent backups of Windows 2003 apps, but the apps won't know you backed them up because VMware uses VSS_COPY and not VSS_FULL_BACKUP when it creates the snapshot. And that's why we're here.
    Read more...
     
    My journey with rsync PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 19 February 2010
    A few weeks ago, I posted a blog entry about building my own backup system using rsync, instead of using MacOS's built-in Time Machine.  I did this for a number of reasons.  Well, it's been a few weeks and I've learned some lessons.  So I thought I'd share them!
    Read more...
     
    Can you have a backup system based solely on snapshots and replication? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 05 February 2010
    This question has come up again. For what it’s worth, I’m still firmly in the camp that says that it is possible to have a complete backup system based solely on snapshots and replications — as long as you can address the criticisms that people have against the idea. So I thought I’d throw out all the objections and see how the concept does against them.
    Read more...
     
    Quantum: Third OEM's the charm? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 29 January 2010
    Dave Raffo announced in Storage Soup that Quantum announced yesterday that they had found a new OEM for their DXi line.  I hope for their sake (and their investors' sake) that things work out better for them this time.
    Read more...
     
    Avamar does dedupe to tape PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 29 January 2010
    Up until today I thought that CommVault was the only backup product that was storing deduped data to tape.  It turns out the Avamar now does it too.
    Read more...
     
    Cloud vendors: Replication is not backup PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 21 January 2010

    I've been following cloud backup vendors (e.g. Mozy, Carbonite, Crashplan) quite closely -- and am generally a big fan -- but have not spent a lot of time looking at primary cloud vendors. That is, I haven't spent much time looking at those who would like you to store the only copy of a given piece of data on their storage. Vendors like Amazon, Iron Mountain, and Nirvanix want you to put things like your "persistent" data in their cloud and claim that they can store this data for you cheaper than you can.  Some of these vendors are telling potential customers that the data in their cloud doesn't need to be backed up, because they're replicating it all over the place.  I've got one word for that: balderdash.

    Read more...
     
    Crash-consistent backups aren't good enough PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 19 January 2010
    Scott Waterhouse finalized his thoughts on the whole VMware backup idea on his blog today.  One of the things he said that surprised me was that, while you can't get application-consistent backups in VMware without the use of a host-level agent, you can get crash-consistent backups. My response is simply this:  I'm sorry, that is not even close to the MINIMUM requirement of what you need.
    Read more...
     
    Hey CA/ARCserve: Stop spamming Twitter PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 18 January 2010
    I know this isn't about backups, per se, but I just couldn't help it.  CA is the first major storage vendor I've found that is spamming twitter a lot and I want them to stop!  So I'll through this up there and hope for the best.
    Read more...
     
    Chapa shoots at Mr. Backup and misses PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 13 January 2010

    My long time friend David Chapa just wrote a blog entry called "Mr. Backup makes predictions for 2010. He shoots and misses!"  I can't let a title like that go without a response, so, here goes.

    Read more...
     
    TruthinIT.com needs an inside sales rep PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 13 January 2010
    If you know a good inside/telephone sales representative, then you should have them look at this job posting: http://www.truthinit.com/blogs/truth-in-it-blog/8-internal-sales-position.html


    Read more...
     
    Why your company needs a Tweep PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 12 January 2010
    Tweep: a person who uses twitter

    The other day I posted a blog post about Why I love Twitter.  It was very popular and got a lot of people talking about how useful it was to me in that scenario.  I'd also argue that the post points out how useful it was to those on the other side of the conversation -- and how everyone should be doing what they were doing.  Let me elaborate.
    Read more...
     
    Hyper-V ahead of VMware in the backup race PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 11 January 2010
    Hyper-V offers fully-supported, application-aware, transactionally-consistent backups of any applications that have a VSS writer.  These include Exchange, SQL Server, Oracle, SharePoint, and others.  There is no need in Hyper-V to put an agent in any VM.  Your applications will get properly backed up and they will know they've been backed up (thus clearing their logs) -- without any agents.  VMware, on the other hand, offers no such support -- even though the functionality to do so has been available for seven years.  And I think it's time we talk about it.

    BTW, if you're not that familar with Microsoft VSS and all it allows you to do, you should read this blog post I wrote last week first.
    Read more...
     
    What is Windows VSS & why you should care PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 07 January 2010
    I've just finished my research out what VMware and Hyper-V do (or don't do) with Windows Volume Shadow Services (VSS) on Windows Guests.  This whole thing started from a post by Scott Waterhouse that basically said that there was no way in VMware to get an application-consistent backup without performing a host-based backup. Scott appears to have been given at least some bad information, but he's a lot closer to the truth than most people realize.

    But as I was googling my way around vmware.com, I found a number of people asking questions about just what VSS is, and other people giving incorrect answers to some of those questions.  So I thought that before I respond to Scott's post,  I should start with what VSS is and why you should care.
    Read more...
     
    Why I love twitter PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 06 January 2010
    Just yesterday I was trying to answer a guy on facebook who was asking "why do you use twitter?"  He, like a lot of people, "got on it, and didn't see the point."  Well, let me describe my day and you tell me how I would have accomplished what I did without it.
    Read more...
     
    CommVault Simpana is target dedupe -- for now PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 04 January 2010
    Every once in a while someone talks to a CommVault sales rep that seems to want to classify CommVault as either source dedupe or (at the very least) not target dedupe.  As one of those who does not like ambiguity (except for the whole near-CDP thing), I will explain why I put them firmly in the target dedupe camp -- for now.
    Read more...
     
    NetWorker nsradmin "Mini-Manual" PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 04 January 2010
    A guy who I refer to as "the other Preston" has just written and published what he refers to as a "mini-manual" for NetWorker and published it on his blog.
    Read more...
     
    My 8TB ext3 Drobo LUN on Ubuntu 9.10 PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 29 December 2009
    i've already written a post that gave the folks at Data Robotics a hard time for not officially supporting Linux.  (It's been in "beta" for well over a year, maybe two -- and they don't support LUNs bigger than 2 TB on ext3.)  I needed a LUN bigger than 2TB, so I was a bit upset.  Well, I've got my 8TB LUN and I'm happy.
    Read more...
     
    Dissecting Time Machine & Replacing It With rsync PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 29 December 2009
    A little while ago I wrote a blog entry about how I was disappointed in Time Machine and how I was trying to figure out something better.  I believe I've found my solution, and even have a working shell script that does the job for me.  Those of you that don't have Macs really want to pay attention as well, as what I ended up doing works for anything you can run rsync on.
    Read more...
     
    Should the term "near-CDP" exist? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 22 December 2009
    A couple of weeks ago I got into a twight (twitter fight) with Storagezilla over whether or not the term near-CDP should be allowed to exist.  He opened the dialogue with this parting shot mini-blog post, then went on to refer to near-CDP as non-CDP in this longer blog post.  My side is that, while the term isn't perfect, it's as good as we've got.
    Read more...
     
    A "year-end" greeting PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 18 December 2009
    My father, who is what I would call a "red-dog Republican"  (look it up), sent me this joke.  Normally I roll my eyes at much of the political stuff that he sends my way.  (I get all his right-wing stuff and I'm also on Moveon.org's mailing list, so I get it from both sides.)  But I thought this was just too funny not to pass on.  I'm not making a political statement here.  I just thought it was funny.  BTW, do you know the difference between Tiger Woods and Santa Claus?  Santa stops at three hos. Now that's funny right there.

    OK, on with the joke.

    I wish to offer the following "year-end" greeting to all of my Backup Central friends.
    Read more...
     
    Gresham Clareti VTL sold to Tributary Systems PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 16 December 2009
    The "also ran" Clareti VTL (or as I called it, "the only VTL going after the enterprise not doing dedupe") from Gresham software was quietly sold to Tributary Systems, Inc (a storage VAR) in October.  I've never heard of them prior to today.  Maybe I'm a cynic, but I doubt this move will change that much. 
    Read more...
     
    Abusive ebay seller indicted for fraud & trafficking PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 04 December 2009
    In an amazing twist to my ebay story last month about an abusive (and possibly fraudulent) ebay seller, the owner of the company behind the ebay id macworkstwo was just indicted for allegedly running a counterfit Cisco equipment ring at the same time -- and the story gets even better.  This isn't his first time being in trouble with the feds.  It turns out that he's been previously convicted for mail fraud and even served time in Leavenworth for it.


    Read more...
     
    Drobo: Support Linux or drop it PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 03 December 2009
    I am in the middle of a migration from a Drobo to a DroboPro.  I love the way these things work.  I love how easy they make it to protect your data.  It's so easy their CEO's grandmother could use it.  (I learned that they actually referred to Geoff Barral's grandmother during initial design.  They wanted to make it easy enough for her to use.) And I think they succeeded there.  It's not everything to everybody.  it's not the cheapest box or the fastest box, but it does what it does well.

    And then there's what happens if you try and use it on a Linux system.  Let's talk about that.
    Read more...
     
    Network filesystem showdown PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 01 December 2009
    Now that I'm trying to use my home-built NAS solution to store things like video imported from a video camera via Firewire, I needed much more performance than I was getting, as I was dropping frames during import.  NOT GOOD.  I sought counsel via Twitter, Facebook and email, and I got all kinds of conflicting advice.  I heard FreeBSD NFS was definitely faster than Linux's NFS.  I heard AFP was definitely faster than NFS.  Then I heard that both of those were crazy.  So I decided to test for myself and see what happened.  (I do have a backup tie-in to this at the end, BTW -- if you're a MacOS customer.)
    Read more...
     
    Macworkstwo/Patlandman:EXTREMELY abusive, unprofessional ebay seller PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 20 November 2009
    After being treated about as unprofessionally as possible on a simple ebay purchase, and feeling extremely underwheled with the redress that ebay offers, I decided to use this bully pulpit to publicly shame them for their behavior.  This has nothing to do with backups, but it is quite a story.
    Read more...
     
    Tape still going strong PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 20 November 2009
    As a person who has spent a good portion of the last couple of years talking about disk backups, one might think that I've given up on tape.  Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I'm encouraged by my friends over at Spectralogic that just released the industry's largest tape library.
    Read more...
     
    Is dedupe to tape crazy? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Saturday, 24 October 2009
    Dedupe to tape is definitely crazy.  But is it crazy good or crazy bad?  I spent two days in (lovely?) Oceanport, New Jersey surrounded by a bunch of CommVault Kool-Aid drinking, Frank Slootman hated, but seriously technical people that knew their product very well.  Over those two days, I had every question I had about CommVault answered, and one of the questions was: "Why the heck would you want to dedupe to tape?"

    Read more...
     
    ZL files lawsuit against Gartner PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 21 October 2009
    Email archiving software vendor ZL (who, by the way, I never heard of until this lawsuit) is suing Gartner for saying that they're a "niche player."   According to the lawsuit they bring this action "in its individual capacity and on behalf of the general public," as Gartners actions have harmed "the creative forces of American innovation, and, consequently, the long-term competitiveness of the American economy."

    While I appreciate ZL's attempt to look out for me (as a member of the general public) and its concern for the economy that ultimately keeps me employed, I've got to say that IT IS MY OPINION (you saw that, right, ZL lawyers?) that their lawsuit has no real merit but will serve its purpose nonetheless, and this blog post will actually help accomplish their goal.

    Read more...
     
    I'm in love with my Drobo PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 12 October 2009
    This weekend I really fell in love with my Drobo, so I thought I'd tell you about it.  If you're not familiar with what makes them so cool, read on.  I think you'll be impressed, too.

    Disclaimer: My Drobo was a gift from the folks at Drobo, but I still think it's one of the coolest pieces of tech in my house.

    Read more...
     
    Updated my "Friends & Family" Post PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 06 October 2009
    I updated my post on my computer advice to friends and family to reflect my recent move to Mac and CrashPlan.
    Read more...
     
    New solutions for using replicated backup data PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 06 October 2009
    There have been some interesting options that have recently presented themselves for using deduplicated, replicated backups on a regular basis.  If you're not familiar with the challenges of using these backups without some help, I'll explain those first, and then go into the solutions to these problems that are showing up.

    Update: I'm talking about backups from a regular backup software product that are going to a VTL or IDT (intelligent disk target).  I know there are all kinds of other backups out there that use replcation.  In this blog post, I'm talking about regular ol' backups.
    Read more...
     
    Why would you install VCB right now? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 25 September 2009
    VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) was a first attempt by VMware to address the backup challenges of backing up VMs.  However, it has significant limitations and has already been replaced by VMware.  If you're already using it, fine.  But why would you move to it NOW?
    Read more...
     
    Mozy backups didn't run for a year and never complained PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 18 September 2009
    Anyone that's read this blog knows I'm a big fan of Mozy.  I'm a fan of other online products as well, but I use Mozy for my own data and it's always done me very well.  Well, I've got my first gripe and it's kind of a big one.  It wasn't backing up and it never told me.
    Read more...
     
    Converting from Windows to Mac OS PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 16 September 2009
    As you may already know, I decided last week that I had rebuilt Windows for the last time. My Windows laptop got corrupted somehow and none of the usual tools I use could fix it, and the only way to fix it would be a complete reinstall of the OS.  I said "Deja Vu" for the last time and bought a Macbook Pro for me and two iMacs for the house.  I got a pretty good deal on all three, spending just about $2000 for three 2-2.2 GHz machines with 2 GB of RAM and large enough hard drives for the job.  This is slightly faster than the laptop and PCs that I had, so I thought it would make a good transition and wouldn't bankrupt me all at the same time.

    Since this is a backup blog, I'll limit the number of PC/Mac posts. I'll actually keep updating this one and putting more and more stuff in it until it gets too much, after which I'll start another one.
    Read more...
     
    Are you using any of these products? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Sunday, 13 September 2009
    I recently reached out to several thousand Backup Central subscribers looking for customers of several backup products.  There are a few products, however, that I didn't get quite enough respondents from, so I'm hoping to reach them this way.   I know that at least some of these products actually have thousands of customers.

    If you are one of the first few customers of these products to respond, I have a special free offer for your kindness!
    Read more...
     
    Exchange 2010 says goodbye to SIS PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 09 September 2009
    Fans of Exchange's Single Instance Storage feature will be sad to know that is gone as of Exchange 2010.  That's right.  Gone.
    Read more...
     
    I've gone to the dark side PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Sunday, 06 September 2009
    After spending three days trying yet again to resurrect a PC that had no hardware problems and oddly enough not even any viruses that any of my usual tools could find, AND wrestling with one PC that constantly doesn't want to recognze the USB, I've decided to go over to the dark side.  I just ordered a Macbook Pro and two iMacs for my house.  That oughta do it.
    Read more...
     
    Why are the major backup products slow to fully support vSphere? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 04 September 2009
    Reading announcements from companies like EMC, Symantec, CommVault, and CA, you'd think they were in the forefront of "proper" support for EMC's vSphere.  When you read things like "NetBackup & Backup Exec certified for vSphere 4.0," you would think that means that it supports vSphere's new backup features.  You would be incorrect on both counts, and the same is true for EMC, CommVault, CA, and (oddly enough) VizionCore!
    Read more...
     
    Is dedupe more expensive than JBOD? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 20 August 2009
    My good friend, Steve Duplessie, wrote a blog article that basically said that the issue that dedupe was designed to solve is "NO LONGER VALID" (Caps his).  He didn't say dedupe is bad, but he says that he can buy JBOD for 1/9th the cost of a deduped system; "therefore, using deduplication to solve an economic scarcity issue is no longer legitimate."  He also said that "if I'm off by 100%, I'm still 1/4 the cost."

    With all due respect to my good friend, I don't agree with him any more on this than I do on whether or not you should root for the Patriots or the Chargers.  His logic is sound, but his numbers are off -- off by a whole lot more than 100%.  And there's another "scarcity" factor that he's not considering.
    Read more...
     
    Straight Talk from EMC About DDUP vs QTM in Their Portfolio PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 03 August 2009
    I just got off the phone wtih Rob Emsley and Dave Farmer from EMC where we had a much-awaited conversation about what their plans are for the Quantum-based products now that they own DDUP. They were actually more candid than I expected them to be.
    Read more...
     
    DDUP doubles speed: EMC pleasantly surprised PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 20 July 2009
    Data Domain announced their DD880 today that doubles the speed and capacity of the DD690.  Nice move.  It looks like it was news to us AND EMC!
    Read more...
     
    NetBackup OST just got cooler PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 09 July 2009
    I just got off the phone with the folks at Symantec where we talked about NBU 6.5.4.  The thing that stood out for me were the enhancements for OST, so I thought I'd talk about those.
    Read more...
     
    Open letter to EMC, future owners of DDUP PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 08 July 2009
    In this world where everyone seems to be writing open letters to other people, I thought I'd do the same.  Hopefully they'll see it.
    Read more...
     
    It's over. I think. NTAP withdrew its bid for DDUP PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 08 July 2009
    NetApp officially pulled out of its bidding for Data Domain today, allowing the EMC acquisition to move forward.
    Read more...
     
    Challenge with NetApp deduplication (ASIS) PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 22 June 2009
    An interesting aspect of NetApp's primary dedupe (ASIS) came to light while talking with one of their customers the other day.  It's one of those things that should have been obvious from the start, but I never really thought about it until this customer brought it up.
    Read more...
     
    The Rehydration Myth PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Sunday, 21 June 2009
    I think that the concept that deduplication vendors "rehydrate" data is completely wrong and needs to be abandoned.  This "rehydration" or "reduping" data is blamed for the penalty that some dedupe vendors have on reads, but I think the concept is completely incorrect.  Click Read More to see what I'm talking about.
    Read more...
     
    The BD Event: 1, SNW:0 PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 12 June 2009
    Anyone who attended SNW this year knows that it isn't the show it used to be.  At the same hotel as usual, there were plenty of seats available at the bar, plenty at the Starbucks, and some very conspicous companies were absent from the entire ordeal.  The BD Event, however, was very different.  Cick Read More to see more.
    Read more...
     
    Crazy Pills PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 03 June 2009
    See, I told you NetApp wouldn't match EMC's offer!  What's that?  They matched it?  To see what I think about that, click Read More.
    Read more...
     
    What a love triangle! PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 02 June 2009
    When NetApp made a $1.5B bid for Data Domain, I was shocked. When EMC announced a $1.8B bid to take the deal away from them, I almost hit the floor.  Click Read More to see more.
    Read more...
     
    Data Domain now says Post-Process is OK PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 20 May 2009
    In a surprise reverse of their longstanding "inline is the ONLY way to go and anyone that does post processing is stupid" position, Data Domain today announced that Post Process is A-OK with them.  Or at least that's how I'm reading the acquisition of Data Domain for $1.5B by NetApp.  Click Read More to see more.
    Read more...
     
    I Watched Star Trek With Uhura PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Sunday, 10 May 2009
    This post has a little to do with backup and everything to do with Star Trek & SCUBA.  Feel free to ignore or read on.  I attended a special screening of Star Trek XI on Catalina Island this weekend.  In attendance were... well. Click Read More to see!
    Read more...
     
    What is a best practice PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 06 May 2009
    While beginning work on a series of articles entitled "NetBackup Best Practices," I was reminded of the arguments I've had with customers and coworkers about such things.  Some argue that there is no such thing as a best practice.  Others argue that they don't apply to them.  Click Read More to see what I think.
    Read more...
     
    Who's the pot & who's the kettle? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 29 April 2009
    I just read Tony Asaro's blog entry entitled "EMC Anti-Social Media Gang."  He says that the EMC trio of Chuck Hollis, Barry Burke, and Mark Twomey has targeted him with personal attacks using terms like "industry streetwalker" and "pimping his services."  I read also with interest Chuck Hollis' reply to the post, and Tony's response to, well, you know how that works. I have some thoughts on this subject.  Click Read More to see them.
    Read more...
     
    Free dedupe test for good home PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 27 April 2009
    Are you interested in purchasing a target deduplication system (NAS or VTL)?  Do you want to perform full testing before you buy, but have been unable to do so due to lack of manpower?  Did you get a quote from a consulting company on what it would cost for them to do the testing, and almost die of shock?  What if I and my cohorts could do the test for free?  Would that be interesting to you?  Click Read More for details.
    Read more...
     
    Updated product capabilities table PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 23 April 2009
    I updated the "Disk Targets" directory in the Backup Central Wiki.  Check it out if you want to see who does what now.  I've updated the "global dedupe" column and added a "deduped replication" column.
    Read more...
     
    Hey Backup Vendors! I'm never happy! PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 23 April 2009
    Some of the vendors I'm dealing with in the blogosphere are having a difficult time with my frankness.  They think I'm picking on them. I've got news for them: it's not just you.  Click Read More to see what I'm talking about.
    Read more...
     
    EMC doesn't do free? Really? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 17 April 2009
    In a blog post while I was down under, Storagezilla said that EMC doesn't do free, in response to comments from Frank Slootman that they were giving away dedupe to get footprint.  Storagezilla basically says that this is untrue.  Click Read More to see what I think.
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    Back from Down Under PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 15 April 2009
    I have just returned from an 18-day part-work, part-vacation trip to wonderful Australia.  That's why you didn't seen any entries in that time!  Click Read More to see more.
    Read more...
     
    The real deal on the EMC 3D 4000 (Part 2) PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 20 March 2009

    As you’re probably aware, my blog post “The real deal on the 3D4000” drew some rather harsh criticism from Mark Twomey of EMC. He didn't give a title, but he said that he is the, "owner of every DL in EMEA marked engineering sample since product introduction. Setter upper of systems from the cardboard box to production." The only thing I got when I asked EMC was that he was "in the sales organization."  Apparently I'm the last person to figure this out, but Mark Twomey is Storagezilla.  I have read his blog before, but did not equate the two together.  His blog says that he is the "Information Protection Subject Matter Expert for Ireland."

    Mark and I have never spoken or met before, but he claims to be “the voice of authority,” and he made several statements that can be summarized as “Preston has no idea what he’s talking about.”  Since my credibility is the only thing I have going for me, I felt it was important to make a second post that proves that what I said was true.  Click Read More to see the proof.

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    Why global dedupe matters PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 13 March 2009

    My previous post on dedupe performance illustrated the impact that global dedupe has on the effective performance of different dedupe appliances.  I received a lot of comments from vendors that didn’t have global dedupe saying one of two things.  One thing they would say is that the vendors that claimed to have global dedupe didn’t really have it.  I know too much to believe that.  The other thing they’d say is that global dedupe wasn’t as important as I was making it out to be.  Well, that’s definitely not the case, and that’s what this post is all about.  Click Read More to see why I think global dedupe is critical for larger environments.

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    The real deal on the EMC 3D 4000 PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 06 March 2009
    In his blog, Scott Waterhouse (from EMC), asked the question “Why did we build a DL 4000 3D?”  He rightly notes that I have been a vocal critic, but he thinks I’m “dead wrong” on my thoughts about the 3D 4000.  He’s saying “nothing personal,” and I’ll say that this post is the same thing – nothing personal.  He said his piece, now I’ll say mine.  This is another long post, but I think it's an important one.  Click Read More to see what my problems are with the EMC 3D 4000.  (Update: After you've read this post, make sure to read this follow-on post.)
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    Performance Comparison of Deduped Disk Vendors PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 05 March 2009

    [This article was slightly updated May 7, 2009.  New comments are in brackets.]

    This blog entry is, to my knowledge, the first article or blog entry to compare the performance numbers of various [target] dedupe vendors side by side.  I decided to do this comparison while writing my response to Scott Waterhouse's post about how wonderful the 3DL 4000 is, but then I realized that this part was enough that it should be in a separate post.  Click Read More to see a table that compares backup and dedupe performance of the various dedupe products.

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    Two cloud backup services shutting down PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 04 March 2009
    As I'm generally a fan of cloud backup services for the home user (and for some corporate users), it is sad that stories are reporting that both HP Upline and Yahoo! Briefcase are shutting down at the end of this month.  Click Read More to know more.
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    History must repeat itself PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 20 February 2009
    Thirteen years ago, two companies accomplished the impossible and created NDMP.  It's become such a standard way to back up NAS that you may have forgotten just how revolutionary it was when it came out.  I'm going to remind you of its history and say that history needs to repeat itself with dedupe & virtualizatioin.  Click Read More to see what in the world I'm talking aobut.
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    St. Louis & San Antonio: Places to eat PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 19 February 2009
    I just finished the St. Louis and San Antonio dedupe schools, and had a great time.  I actually ate at 3, count them, THREE restaurants covered on The Food Channel's "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives."  Wanna hear what I thought of them?  Click Read More.
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    TSM 6.1, dedupe & DB2 PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 17 February 2009
    IBM announced TSM 6.1 a few days ago, and it's supposed to be GA in March.  The two features of DB2 and dedupe have been long awaited.  What do I think about them?  Click Read More to see more.
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    1234567890! is gone PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 13 February 2009
    If you're not a UNIX geek, you won't care, but a milestone just happened, where UNIX time was 1234567890.  You could have counted down with me, but it's over now.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click Read More to be enlightened.
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    It's official: I'm a target now PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 10 February 2009
    A Tech Target, that is.  You may have already received an email from Tech Target that started out like this:

    We're pleased to announce that W. Curtis Preston -- unquestionably the leading independent expert on the topic of backup and recovery -- has joined TechTarget in the role of Executive Editor. Curtis will continue to pursue his career as an independent consultant, while expanding his already prolific writing and speaking efforts with TechTarget.

    For more about how this will (or will not) impact Backup Central, as well as the business idea I'm working on, click Read More.
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    I'm not alone: phpbb.com gets hacked PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 03 February 2009
    It's nice to know I"m in good company.  Phpbb.com got hacked.  Click Read More to see more.
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    Godaddy: all ads and no service? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Sunday, 01 February 2009
    I recently had my first (and probably my last) experience with godaddy services.  The interaction left me with a taste nasty enough that I thought I'd blog about it.
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    User-written reviews: trustable? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 29 January 2009
    After reading yet another story of a vendor in our space trying to stack the deck, I am reminded of my opinion that user-written reviews must be looked at with a very large grain of salt.  Click Read More to find out who the guilty party is this time.
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    I got hacked! PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 26 January 2009
    Someone defaced my site Friday evening and I had a really fun weekend (not).  Click Read More for the story.
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    I just bought two 1.5 TB SATA drives PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 23 January 2009
    Have we gone nuts?  Click Read More to see a pic and my thoughts on this craziness.
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    I'm everywhere this year! PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 21 January 2009
    Tech Target has announced the cities and dates of all my speaking events this year, and we've finally worked out the details of our new (post-GH) relationship.  So I thought I'd tell you when/where I'll be speaking this year.  Click Read More to see the schedule!
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    SD, SNW & BDE PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 20 January 2009
    For me there have always been two storage events: Storage Decisions & Storage Networking World.  There are others, but these are the two I have historically missed only if forced to.  Now I'm switching one of them out for a show I'll bet you've never heard of and I'll tell you why in this blog entry.   Click Read More for more.
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    A proud day to be an American PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 20 January 2009
    I don't care what your political affiliation is.  It's a proud day to be an American. 
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    Another open-source backup product goes commercial PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 16 January 2009
    Bacula Systems is now the commercial arm for the popular open-source backup product Bacula.  "It roams the datacenter at night and sucks the vital essence from your computers."  I'm not making that up.  This is the second open-source backup product to do such, with Zmanda preceding them.  Click Read More to see what I think about this.
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    Dedupe ratio DOES matter PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 09 January 2009
    I've now seen two vendors saying things to the effect that "once you get 10:1, dedupe ratio doesn't matter."  They state that 10:1 saves 90% of disk, and 20:1 saves 95% of disk, so the difference is only 5% -- so why is everyone so concerned about dedupe ratio?  To this 90%/95% comment I say, "balderdash!"  Click Read More to see more.
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    Journalspace Hate Video PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 09 January 2009
    This is what happens when you lose thousands of people's data in today's world.  Someone makes a hate video about you and posts it on Youtube.  Click Read More.
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    Journalspace: Going, Going, Gone! PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 07 January 2009
    It took all of a few seconds for an entire company and it's 16,000 bloggers to disappear.  Now they're gone forever.  Click Read More to see more, including an interesting note about one of the affected journalspace bloggers, who is actually quite famous among bloggers.
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    Want to hear my business idea? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Sunday, 04 January 2009
    I'm building a very small focus group consisting of IT managers from "end-user" companies (i.e. not IT vendors).  I'd like to see what you (the eventual company's target market) think about the idea before I start spending money to make it happen.

    This will require a very small time committment.  A few emails, a few phone calls, and no travel -- at least not for now.  If the idea gets funded and off the ground, things may change (if you want to continue the relationship).  But for right now, I just need a few smart people who see things from the end-user point of view.

    If you're interested, please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
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    Looks like I wasn't the only one surprised PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 22 December 2008
    Looks like at least one other GlassHouse employee was as surprised by my departure as I was.  I had a good laugh when something arrived at my front door just now.  (Click Read More to see more.)
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    A festivus for the rest of us PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Sunday, 21 December 2008
    Somebody said something on Facebook about Festivus, and it just seemed appropriate for what I'm going through right now.
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    W. Curtis Preston immediately available for consulting/employment PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Friday, 19 December 2008
    I have been let go from GlassHouse Technologies, effective immediately, and am therefore free to pursue other opportunities.   Click Read More to find out more.
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    Omaha made me cry PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 02 December 2008
    I'm sitting here in Omaha, NE, waiting for my flight back to warmer weather in San Diego.  Something just happened that just touched my heart.  In these days of cynicism, it's so nice to see people do the Right Thing(tm).   Click Read More to find out what they did.
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    Fry's takes AMEX! PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Tuesday, 25 November 2008
    I went to Fry's today to buy something for the office, and was just about to pull out my personal MasterCard when I saw the AMEX logo!  Click Read More.
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    Unknown feature (TSM): Storage agents and backing up TO them PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 24 November 2008
    I thought I'd do a series of posts over time about little known or unknown features of backup software.  First up is TSM and its storage agent feature.
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    Presentation Tips PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 19 November 2008
    After sitting through four vendor presentations at Storage Decisions yesterday, I felt the urge to blog about it.  They ranged from mediocre to incredibly bad.  I'm certainly not the best presenter in the world, but I do all right, and I do think I've got a few tips to pass on.  So here I go.  (Click Read More.)
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    EMC DL3D: A post-processing target dedupe system PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 06 November 2008
    I remember when I first started talking to Quantum about dedupe and they were trying to call their “immediate” deduplication “inline” because it’s happening at the same time as backup.  They eventually stopped referring to it as inline, as it does not meet the definition of inline dedupe that was around long before they came out with their product.  Unfortunately, now that EMC is now selling their Quantum-based product, they’re apparently trying to do the same thing – or at least one of their bloggers is. As usual, I’m drawing a very thick line between inline and post-process.  Click Read More to see why.

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    NetApp: He who is first shall be last PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 05 November 2008
    I just posted a comment in Scott Waterhouse’s The Backup Blog that I didn’t agree that NetApp was the last major vendor to come out with dedupe.  Since that seems opposite to what seems to have happened, click Read More to see why I believe this, and why I think this is important.
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    NetBackup Open Storage Option (OST) vs sliced bread PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 29 October 2008
    Maybe you were like me when you first read about NetBackup's Open Storage Option (OST): you were underwhelmed.  You also may have been waiting for vendors to jump on it.  (It was announced two years ago.)  Things have definitely changed since then.  In fact, at a recent very large customer that was considering purchasing a dedupe target, they chose only to look at vendors that supported NetBackup's OST.  Click Read More to see why this option is so important for NetBackup customers, and why other backup software vendors better come up with something like it real-quick-like.
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    Vendor blogs: So much fun! PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 29 September 2008
    Most of my recent blog activity has been spent commenting on other people's blogs.  Specifically, vendor blogs.  It takes some serious chutzpah, and you have to be very respectful (even if you don't feel like doing so), but it can be very rewarding as well.  This blog entry talks about some of the blogs I've been commenting on and why.
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    The night the lights went out at DRJ PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 15 September 2008
    I was manning the booth at the DRJ conference today when a funny thing happend: the lights went out.  Funny, that.
    Read more...
     
    NetApp's Protection Manager PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Thursday, 28 August 2008
    NetApp has had an interesting line of data protection products for a long time, including snapmirror, snapvault, snapmanager, and open systems snapvault.  What they didn't have was a centralized place to configure, manage, and report on all those things.  That all changed with the release of Protection Manager several months ago.  Click Read More to learn more.
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    More Misinformation About Dedupe PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 27 August 2008
    The second installment of a Byte and Switch four-part series is out, and it's full of the same untrue statements found in the first installment.  I will say the same thing I said in a comment I made on the first installment: "Is the author completely unaware [of the real facts] … Or is the author purposefully withholding information…?"  Click Read More to see both sides of the story that he is only telling one side of.

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    Agentless Backup: Not evil after all PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Wednesday, 20 August 2008
    I'm reversing a long-standing position of mine, and people who know me know I don't do that sort of thing very often.  (My wife would tell you I never do.) Typical backup software installs an agent on each system to be protected.  Agentless backup gets the job done without installing agents, choosing instead to log in to each server each time it does a backup.  I've never liked this for security reasons, but someone has finally described to me an agentless setup that is just as secure (if not more secure) than the typical agent-based approach.  Click Read More to find out which one.
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    What do YOU want to ask the dedupe vendors? PDF Print E-mail
    Written by W. Curtis Preston   
    Monday, 04 August 2008
    As I started working on making sure all my information was up to date on all the dedupe vendors, I thought about you!  What have you always wanted to ask the dedupe vendors?  Click read more to see what I'm talking about.
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