Interview with Jason Dea of Novell Platespin
PlateSpin was founded in 2003, and the company most people know is actually the second incarnation of the PlateSpin name. The original PlateSpin had a product that was centered around more general datacenter management, and in the second iteration, the founders had the idea to take the core technology and focus it around virtualization.
Once we made that change in focus, we saw explosive growth along with the rest of the virtualization space. Initially we brought to market the first, and what is still considered the best, P2V product originally PowerConvert now renamed PlateSpin Migrate, which today also has P2P, V2P, and imaging capabilities.
More recently we’ve expanded the portfolio to delivering management across the mixed Physical and Virtual datacenter, with our PlateSpin Recon capacity planning product and PlateSpin Orchestrate which is a powerful policy based automation framework.
Finally, the product line we’ve launched which is arguably our most exciting is our disaster recovery solution with the products PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Forge, which deliver to customers a unique, cost effective, yet high performance DR solution by leveraging our core technology plus our virtualization expertise.
Obviously the biggest turn of events recently was PlateSpin’s acquisition by Novell which closed in the first quarter of 2008.
How has the marketing or product plans of PlateSpin Forge changed, if at all, since the Novell acquisition?
The biggest change that Novell has added to our product management and product marketing plans is to introduce a much needed repeatable process in to our roadmap planning.
As with most small companies, at PlateSpin we were very ad hoc in our product development, which gave us a certain degree of agility, but that agility eventually became a problem as we tried to scale to the next level.
Overall the new Novell processes have been very well received.
What are some of the key new features with PlateSpin Forge 2.5?
The key new features in PlateSpin Forge 2.5 are the addition of our physical server sync technology, and our multi-tenancy features.
With physical server sync, PlateSpin Forge is arguably the most flexible DR solution on the market in terms of the fail back process. PlateSpin Forge acts as the virtual recovery resource upon disaster, but once a disaster has passed, users have the utmost flexibility in how they choose to fail back, or return to normal. As always we give them the ability to migrate the PlateSpin recovery resources from PlateSpin Forge back out to new bare metal servers or virtual infrastructure. Now with physical server sync, failed servers that can be recovered can now be failed back to by simply sending the changed data from the recovery resource, back to the repaired production server.
PlateSpin Forge has also added multi-tenancy capabilities which allows for particular users to be given permission to specified recovery resources along with specific administration access. This is a key feature for customers who need to silo their IT resources from department to department, or for managed service providers looking to host multiple distinct users.
When is Forge a better option for a customer than VMware's Site Recovery Manager (SRM)?
When comparing PlateSpin Forge to SRM, really it’s a classic apples to oranges discussion.
The two core strengths of PlateSpin Forge are the value of the plug-in and protect DR in a box concept, and our ability to protect both Physical and Virtual source workloads.
Obviously with SRM, customers are looking at a much more complex architecture involving shared disk and array level replication, which is in many ways much more sophisticated than PlateSpin Forge, which comes at a high cost of implementation and management.
As far as source workloads, again, SRM is focused solely only protecting virtual machines running on an ESX cluster, which falls in line with VMware’s vision of a fully virtualized datacenter of the future.
In my mind, on both fronts, from a cost and complexity standpoint, as well as with our ability to protect physical servers, we are the perfect solution to compliment customers using something like SRM to fill out and complete their overall end to end DR strategy.
If you were to say one thing to a customer looking to integrate a disaster recovery solution, such as Forge 2.5, what would it be?
Typical DR plans will include an annual test period or DR Event. With the speed of business today, that can be a very long period of time, and the amount of change that can occur across a data center and in business process over a 12-month period can be tremendous. With solutions such as PlateSpin Forge, this no longer has to be the case. Leveraging virtualization as an enabling technology, customers now not only have a more cost effective option, but ultimately one that is much more reliable, due to greater testing efficiency.
All too often testing is not adequate, and issues with a DR plan are not identified until restore procedures are executed, which by then is too late. PlateSpin Forge eliminates this risk with easy one-click testing that can be performed easily at any time.
Can you give us a sneak peek as to where, in your opinion, PlateSpin/Novell solutions will be in the next few years?
Here at Novell we’ve always believed that the future of the datacenter was a mix of different vendors and different platforms. We don’t believe that the monolithic sole source IT infrastructure of the past will be returning. Our integration with PlateSpin has further strengthened this core value proposition. All of the products and solutions from Novell are focused on best of breed integration and interoperability across vendors. For anyone looking for more details on what this vision looks like and how all the different components within our portfolio, from a PlateSpin Workload Management standpoint as from the greater Novell view, I’d encourage you to take a look at the Novell Service Driven Datacenter message.
Jason Dea serves as the Product Marketing Manager responsible for the PlateSpin Workload Management suite, from Novell. He works with the PlateSpin team to help deliver Novell's market leading datacenter transformation, optimization and disaster recovery product offerings. Contact him here.
Related Links:
Check out Platespin Forge , PlateSpin Forge Introductory Demo , Novell Unveils Service-Driven Data Center Vision
Posted by Sean 12:59 PM 0 comments
Recent Acquisitions of note & Watch Out ! 2010 Will Be The Year of The BuyOut
2009 has seen a great deal of action especially in the hot, hot, hot virtualization arena.
We have seen Oracle grab Sun. Oracle swallowed (and digested) the tiny minnow, VirtualIron.
Today, CA completed its acquisition of NetQoS, a provider of network performance management and service delivery management solutions.
The number of buyout / acquisitions will accelerate in 2010. There will be continued consolidation in the traditional VAR/reseller area, distribution, and 2010 will see the fire sale of all fire sales as VC's, angels and others pull the plug on many failed start-ups.
A few recent acquisitions are noted below.
August - VMware enters into a definitive agreement to acquire SpringSource, a leader in enterprise and web application development and management.
September, GlassHouse Technologies has announced it has acquired UK-based virtualization infrastructure consulting company, Systems Group Integration (SGI). The acquisition broadens GlassHouse’s existing virtualization capabilities by combining vendor experience with analysis tools, helping customers realise ROI, increase efficiencies and reduce carbon emissions in their IT environments.
October, CBE Technologies, acquired GreenPages Government Division, a leading provider of product procurement services, project services, and maintenance and managed IT services for state, local, and education (SLED) institutions.
November 05, 2009—GreenPages Technology Solutions, a national IT consulting and integration company, announced that it is has acquired the VAR division of Boston-based Managed Technology Partners (MTP)—a move that accelerates GreenPages’ unified communications, virtualization, and data center strategy.
December 2, 2009 - Par 4 Technology Group, a leading provider of virtualization and data management IT solutions announced Monday the acquisition of Flytrap Technologies (HQ Tolland, CT with Data Center & Network Operating Center in Willimantic, CT) a virtualization, storage, professional services and managed/cloud services company. The acquisition will be a stock only transaction and the combined company will operate under the Par 4 Technology Group name.
This seems to be a natural and smart move.
Par 4 has been growing rapidly over the past 6 months or so and making in-roads into the virtualization space, especially with very large enterprise accounts. FlyTrap's execellent reputation as a professional services organization should help Par4 begin to build a services & consulting operation.
Posted by Sean 1:00 AM 0 comments
Stratus Avance grabs interest in Boston and GreenBytes coming to NYC
The recent Stratus Avance ( Boston) seminar had nearly a 50% request for follow-up which is nearly 2x the average...next stops are NYC , Hartford, and Philly.
Avance offers a unique twist with their virtual machine/clustering/HA software . It is very low cost, easy to install and comes from a company who has FOCUSED on HA for 20 years or so....
We are in the process of scheduling a data-dedup seminar in NYC - 12/10 hosted by GreenBytes
After a quick , small invitation was sent out - 6 VERY significant companies signed up to see the GreenBytes storage/dedup appliance in action.
Posted by Sean 3:54 PM 0 comments
Recession46: Forty-six 'Secrets' and 'Clever Strategies' For Dealing with the Recession
While catching up on what Tom Peter's has been doing lately and reviewing his TERRIFIC slide decks, I came across
"Recession46: Forty-six 'Secrets' and 'Clever Strategies' For Dealing with the Recession of 2008-XXXX."
Peters says "I am constantly asked for “strategies/‘secrets’ for surviving the recession.” I try to appear wise and informed—and parade original, sophisticated thoughts. But if you want to know what’s really going through my head, see the list that follows:"
Here are 11 of them....
- You volunteer to do more.
- You dig deep, deeper, deepest—and always bring a good attitude to work.
- You give new meaning to the idea and intensive practice of “visible management.”
- You take better than usual care of yourself and encourage others to do the same— physical well-being significantly impacts mental well-being and response to stress.
- You shrug off shit that flows downhill in your direction—buy a shovel or a
“pre-worn” raincoat on eBay.
- You try to forget about “the good old days”—nostalgia is self-destructive.
(And bores others.)
- You buck yourself up with the thought that “this too shall pass”—but then remind
yourself that it might not pass any time soon, and so you re-dedicate yourself to
making the absolute best of what you have now.
- You work the phones and then work the phones some more—and stay in touch with
and on the mind of positively everyone.
- You frequently invent breaks from routine, including “weird” ones—“changeups”
prevent wallowing and bring a fresh perspective.
- You learn new tricks of your trade.
- You pass old tricks of the trade on to others—mentoring matters now more than
ever.
Posted by Sean 11:57 PM 0 comments
A New Thumbs Up on TwinStrata's CloudArray
One of my trusted colleagues visited TwinStrata's HQ in Natick MA yesterday to take a look at CloudArray.
He was very impressed.
His view comes from a sales perspective - he has a good deal of experience in selling grid, hosted, and most importantly VMware back-up solutions...
The real test comes soon, when a few customers of mine take a test drive and evaluate this product....
Stay tuned...
Posted by Sean 11:46 AM 0 comments
