This past year, we at Online Storage Op gathered all manner of images to illustrate our posts. So as a way of looking back at 2009, here are some of the ones we liked the best–and the stories that went with them:
Holodeck fun:
In February, Robin Harris at StorageMojo wrote about a potential breakthrough in storage technology that could change the landscape forever: quantum holographic storage. Online Storage Op was on the scene. It also gave us a chance to upload a pic of a Geordi La Forge doll. Admit it… this is one cool toy.
Squeezing into your Genes:
This blog’s parent Ocarina had quite a year–inking partnerships with a number of major storage vendors and becoming a noted player in the hot dedupe space. It was also the year that genomics labs woke up to the need for better data reduction to deal with the coming onslaught of genetic data. In short, compression can be a matter of life and death. We reported on it here, and our readers got to relive their 10th grade biology class by looking at images like the one above.
Racing for Dedupe
As many pundits are now opining, dedupe really was one of the biggest stories of 2009, not least because of the high profile battle for Data Domain between storage titans EMC and NetApp. In the end, EMC nabbed the dedupe specialist for an eye-popping $2.1 billion.
Booth Babe Mania:
We know our readers are sophisticated types who come here only to absorb information and opinion, and to better themselves for the benefit of all humankind. But for some odd reason we saw a major traffic spike the day we ran our post on the great Booth Babe Controversy. When we asked, everyone quickly told us, “I read the articles.” Mmmhmm!
VMworld a hit
And speaking of images that make storage folks drool, one of the most mesmerizing sights of the year was at VMworld, held in August in San Francisco. Participants descended the escalator to be greeted by gleaming rack of servers and storage–which we later learned was the result of a plan drawn on a napkin by the VMware GETO team. In any case, this year’s VMworld was a major event–and as we rightly noted, it foretold more economic activity in storage and virtualization.
Industry puts aside differences to try to save a life
This is one of the saddest stories of 2009, and one that demonstrates an activist and caring streak in the storage community. When word got out in May 2009 that EMC employee Nick Glasgow was in need of a bone marrow transplant, folks within the storage industry put aside competitive differences and pulled together to find him a match. Sadly, Nick passed away in October. The degree to which he inspired others will not be forgotten.
And, finally…
We never did have an egg and spoon race, but…
In November, Ocarina participated in the first ever Gestalt IT Tech Field Day, which brought independent bloggers from around the world to Silicon Valley for two days of tech deep dives. Our “bring out your data” challenge started tongues wagging well before the event began. Participants brought us their toughest data sets, and aside from those who used archaic encryption software to stump our algorithms, the results were impressive–an average of about 30% reduction on these tougher-than-tough data sets. Plus, the whole event was just a ton of fun. And it didn’t even require that we slog around the mud clapping coconut shells together.
