What's new in NetWorker 7.5?. Virtualization, the visualization of virtualization environments, ease of use as well as de-duplication of backup data from applications are a big deal in this release. We'll talk about those in a second but first a little background. Today's data protection... By info@emc.com (EMC).

Data Protection Advisor. Note: 2nd of 3 updates on new product announcements for this week. The 3rd installment will cover what is new with NetWorker 7.5. I thought I would take the opportunity in the second of my product update discussion to discuss... By info@emc.com (EMC).

The End Of Snaps?. EMC today announced a whole slew of updates to our backup, recovery and archiving (BuRA) portfolio. Thanks to 'Zilla and Scott for covering different aspects -- since there's a LOT to cover here. Among all the goodies, I noticed that... By info@emc.com (EMC).

Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) News.

I am catching up on my Blog entries after the run up to Momentum Europe and the blur that was a trip to Prague...here's another one that I should have posted 3 weeks ago!

I usually avoid blatant EMC Product information regurgitation but actually this one is worthy of a brief posting. We have made an early access release of our CMIS integration available for download. It works with Documentum and can be downloaded from the following site: https://community.emc.com/community/labs/cmis

Here's the blurb that arrived wrapped in a $20.00 note yesterday, (I might be cheap but my work is mediocre so that balances it out nicely.)

EMC Documentum is providing an Early Access Release of its CMIS implementation to enable customers and developers to familiarize themselves with the proposed standard. This will provide both developers and customers the information they need to jumpstart development or ensure that they include commitment to CMIS compatibility in future purchases and acquisitions.

Go crazy...

By info@emc.com (EMC).

Full-blown SharePoint Access from an iPhone 3G.

OK, if that Blog entry title doesn't get me 1,000 hits a day then I give up. iPhone 3G and SharePoint both in the title!! The 3G is my newest and mostest favorite toy right now. It is not great as a business device, (no copy/paste, no email search and typing on it takes some getting used to), but as a general productivity device it rocks. It is extremely easy to use, reading emails and web pages is a joy and the free bubble wrap popping application keeps me going during project review meetings.

It got me to thinking that there are some similarities between the iPhone and SharePoint...I really do need to get out more. Here's my thinking...consider the iPhone in comparison to a Blackberry. The iPhone,

• Is amazingly easy to use - in fact you do not really need end user training,
• Includes things that make tasks that bit more fun during the day,
• Is aimed at the needs/desires of the end user,
• Is designed to be pervasive and provide 80% of the functionality that I need 80% of the time,
• Looks like it does everything that a Blackberry does if you read the marketing literature but it isn't quite there,

Now consider the same analogies with SharePoint and a classic ECM solution. SharePoint is intuitive, fun to use and definitely aimed at the end user community. It does provide a lot of the functionality that you need a lot of the time and according to the marketing fluff out there it is a panacea for the enterprise. The comparison falls apart completely when you start to look at the interaction between an iPhone/Blackberry and SharePoint/classic ECM... iPhones and Blackberries don't interact but it is obvious that SharePoint and traditional ECM systems actually work well together!

Oh the title, the image and the reason for this post? I faked the image and but the concept is real; it relates to this article...but truth be told I just wanted to increase my daily hit rate

By info@emc.com (EMC).

SharePoint Archiving #3 - EBS vs. RBS...the ultimate grudge match..

This is part three of a thrilling series of entries related to the aggregation of SharePoint content. It relates back to reference architecture #7, RBS vs. EBS vs. Content Transfer vs. Shortcuts and An Overview of the Potential Solutions.

In the previous entry I rambled on about the different options available to support the aggregation of data behind a SharePoint deployment however I left you hanging on for more about two recently added technologies. In this entry I’ll go in to more details about these sexy new options, why you might care and the pros and cons of each.

I'll do my best to be technically accurate but bear in mind that I am a manager now so just stringing together non-monosyllabic works is difficult enough for me. My main concern is not the actual implementation details; I am more interested in whether either solution might deal with the inherent business problems.

RBS and EBS Review

The Problem...SharePoint stores everything related to an object in SQL Server. This includes the:

1. Content, (PDFs, PPTs, Zip files, etc.),

2. Metadata, (the object's title, project number, format, etc.)

3. Context, (which site it came from, the folder location, security details, etc.)

#2 and #3 belong in SQL Server because they are represented by structured content. Storing #1 in a database is a travesty of the highest order. I've seen system architects tarred and feathered for doing this. Why? Databases excel at managing lots of ickle bits of data but they suck when it comes to managing large binary objects, (called BLOBs - Binary Large OBjects). Go read more about these issues in the Eight Reference Architectures series. I have seen estimates that suggest that up to 96 petabytes of data will be archived from SharePoint instances over the next 5 years - that's 96 quadrillion bytes of data...not in to a database me thinks!

The solution...Bottom line, you have to get the binary objects out of the database. Not necessarily out of SharePoint but out of SQL Server. In the previous posting I mentioned 5 ways of doing this but did not dig in to options #4 and #5 - RBS and EBS.

RBS and EBS are both pretty new technologies. Given that they have very similar names it is not surprising that people get them confused so here's a primer:

RBS is implemented by SQL Server (only SQL Server 2008 and later); it is nothing to do with SharePoint directly. When you enable RBS, all BLOB streams that SQL Server would normally be compelled to store internally are spewed forth to the file system.

EBS is implemented by MOSS 2007 (available as a hot fix to MOSS 2007 SP1 and later). The EBS provider lives at the very bottom of the SharePoint stack, just above the interface in to SQL Server. Just before the BLOB is passed to SQL server the EBS provider gives your process the opportunity to optionally take ownership of the BLOB.  You give SharePoint a token in exchange so it knows how to get the object back from you at a later date.

RBS vs. EBS…

There are pros and cons to both approaches and the balance will change over time according to the SharePoint product plans that we know of. Let me spoil the ending for you…I’d recommend EBS today but RBS later as it matures. Here’s the rationale:

Remote BLOB Storage (RBS)

Pros:

• RBS is implemented in SQL Server and is application agnostic. That’s to say, if you turn RBS on then all BLOB objects from any SQL Server-based application will be externalized. If that’s what you want to happen then that’s great but if you need to be able to apply business logic to what is externalized and whence it goes then you are severely restricted.
• It is simple – you turn RBS on and the content is simply stored on to the local file system. If you have some kind of file system virtualization software in place then you can do some basic management tasks but only based on the file system attributes of the object.
• If you want access to the context and metadata of the object then you are going to have to dip in to SQL Server and start hunting down SharePoint based reference information; Microsoft do not recommend this - in fact they do not publicly publish the DB schema for SharePoint so it would be potentially dangerous.
• The current thinking is that RBS might have more longevity than EBS. It is likely that EBS will fade out of the stack over time – obviously this is not 100% certain but likely.

Cons:

• Getting the content out of SQL Server only solves 5% of the real issues according to 9 of my 10 personalities. Seriously, getting the BLOBs out of SQL Server gives you scalability but it does not deliver any of the IT efficiencies, compliance overlays, or re-purpose/re-use benefits of managing the externalized content.
• Intelligent archiving is the key to getting this right. You need to have the BLOB, the metadata, the context and the ability to manage the object – no less than this. The RBS model only provides the BLOB – no context and no ability to manage the object.
• No business rule mapping…RBS is all or nothing – you get all BLOBs all of the time. EBS is not much better but does support certain rules. For example, in theory you could configure EBS to not externalize content from certain sites or content less than 50KB in size.
• Needs SQL Server 2008 – not a huge deal but a consideration.

External BLOB Storage (EBS)

Pros:

• EBS is provided by the SharePoint team and although it is lacking in some areas it does understand the context of the BLOB that it exposes. In other words, we do know what the BLOB object is and we can track changes/deletes on the object.
• The architecture allows is to provide an intelligent process for capturing the BLOB and just as importantly for returning the BLOB on demand, (i.e. when you want to view it from SharePoint).
• Because we are interacting directly with the SharePoint processes we can perform more intelligent operations. For example, if the BLOB was deleted (with good reason) from the store then we could cascade that delete back up to SharePoint. Same with changes to the object or its status.
• It does not require SQL Server 2008.

Cons:

• There are a lot of areas where I would improve EBS but for what we are doing at this point in time the only con is that EBS will probably not survive in the long term. For what it is worth, we have worked with Microsoft to ensure that a transition to RBS in the future would be seamless.

The Bottom Line

The fact that Microsoft have provided mechanisms to allow for partners to hook in to the underlying storage capabilities of SharePoint is testament to the fact that Microsoft recognize the value that other companies can add to SharePoint. I am often asked whether Microsoft might not just add all of the capabilities of a classic ECM solution to SharePoint - obviously they could but take it from me, they'd be better off focusing on usability, integrations, information worker productivity efficiencies and nailing the Office integrations - that's their sweet spot. It took us 15 years to build up the suite of ECM functionality that you see today and it was painful!

So what's next?

Not surprisingly we have a set of products that leverage all of the pros of this new architecture and that have been designed to add all of the benefits of classic ECM without taking away anything from the SharePoint user experience. Contact me if you need more information under NDA.

By info@emc.com (EMC).

The Speculation Game -- IBM Buys Transitive. Those of us the industry enjoy speculating what certain moves might mean -- especially acquisitions. One hot topic is the significance of IBM's recent acquisition of Transitive. A lot of the eye-candy used the word "virtualization" (at least they didn't... By info@emc.com (EMC).

What Was Next?. Since the prediction did come true, it seems that whatever was done over that seventeen year span wasn't enough. By info@emc.com (EMC).

Death Watch. Real blog post later. It's Q4 which means it's insanity on wheels at the moment. Now I take no pleasure in doing this but it's a tradition I started during the dot com crash and I've reopened the book on... By info@emc.com (EMC).

A Clear Discussion On Clouds. Wanted to share with you this interview I did with Gary Orenstein regarding cloud dynamics in the markeplace. We ended up talking about a whole bunch of interesting things. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to talk about Atmos and Decho at... By info@emc.com (EMC).

What I'm thankful for.. A happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the US. But what I'm thankful for is that Tony P. lives in some weird IBM/Get Smart cone of silence where either shoving SVC in front of it or XIV/tape behind it... By info@emc.com (EMC).

Need ideas to save $$$? Ask the community.. Last week, Joe sent out a memo providing perspective on the current global economic situation. In it, he talked about EMC's strong position and sighted how the company has weathered such tough times in the past - only to emerge... By info@emc.com (EMC).

Scrooge Too. If half of all the incandescent decorative holiday lights in the US were replaced by LED lights we could cut the December power bill by $17 billion dollars.Does Hank Paulson know about this? By info@emc.com (EMC).

On leaks.. I was flipping through TV channels earlier when I ran across a segment about Barack Obama trying to negotiate with White House lawyers and the Secret Service to keep his Blackberry. I can understand his need to be connected but... By info@emc.com (EMC).

EMC's email archiving policy. Quick comment on unstructured data. Storagebod mentions he has 2 to 3 GBs of data stored in PST files generated over three years. Since the two applications I start up first are Outlook and Powerlink on the Outlook side of... By info@emc.com (EMC).

EMC World 2009. Yes we're heading towards that time of year again.Chances are that I won't be there (Six years of booth duty is enough for me while six years of me is enough for the booth organizers) but that doesn't mean you... By info@emc.com (EMC).

Career choices.. Time to ask people questions. Blogged responses most appreciated. Dave Spencer, I'm reliably informed you were a very talented coder and then opted to go the management route, which as we all know requires the use of a different skill... By info@emc.com (EMC).

Towards Thoughtful IT. Greetings from Melbourne, Australia!We've all enjoyed the pleasure of stumbling upon a great blog that we hadn't known about before. Last week, I happened to stumble upon Cap Gemini's CTO blog, which I found excellent in several regards.One posting in... By info@emc.com (EMC).

Wisdom of the week. We sometimes forget.. “As former managing editor of Fortune Marshall Loeb used to say, “It’s a long career and a small community.” When you think about our community it's microscopic. By info@emc.com (EMC).

StorTOC: The Storage Technology Online Community. SNIA announcement in my inbox about StorTOC, the Storage Technology Online Community. Getting end users together is always a good idea, even if you're a vendor and the end users are only interested in giving you a good kicking, so... By info@emc.com (EMC).