Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Category: Data Storage

Structure Conference: A Chat with Paul Mikesell, CEO of Clustrix

PaulMikesell-Clustrix0610 Clustrix is all about clustered database systems for Internet-scale applications. It claims the first solution to "combine the high scalability of NoSQL key-value stores with robust relational database functionality, immediate transactional consistency, and seamless deployment of SQL."  Lest you think it's blowing smoke, the company was funded last month to the tune of $18 million by Sequoia Capital, U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), and ATA Ventures. Clustrix-logo

CEO and cofounder Paul Mikesell (who also participated in a great panel at the Structure conference) was previously cofounder of Isilon, which went IPO a few years ago and recently has had a valuation of around $1 billion.  Now he's back to build another company from scratch.

Paul talked to me about what his new firm is doing, and why.  Here's the news announcement Clustrix made at Structure.

Download or listen to Graeme's interview with Paul Mikesell of Clustrix about what's really needed to reach Internet scale.. (MP3)"

Gluecon 2010: A Chat With Mark Carlson About the State of Cloud Storage and the CDMI Standard

SNIA-cloud-logo I first met Mark at #CloudCampDenver on the evening before the Glue Conference (the event was also called CloudCamp @ Gluecon).  Mark volunteered to head up the breakout group on cloud storage, and he facilitated that quite well. I knew I'd want to interview him before Gluecon was over, with his great background in storage. 
MarkCarlson-Gluecon
I didn't understand till later that he was also Chair of the Cloud Storage Work Group within SNIA. Mark's long career in storage includes 12 years with Sun (recently acquired by Oracle).  His title is now Principal Cloud Strategist at Oracle. Follow Mark on Twitter here: @macsun.

Mark is one of the key guys behind SNIA's relatively new Cloud Storage Initiative, the mission of which is stated as "working together toward enabling easier cloud solutions deployment." A big part of this initiative is the new Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) Standard, which was the topic of Mark's presentation at the Glue Conference on Thursday afternoon, just prior to my interview with him (link below).

The Cloud Storage Initiative has a full slate of activities planned for 2010, including one that Mark is very much involved in: the 2010 Storage Developers Conference, being held September 20-23 in Santa Clara, CA. 
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Now in its seventh year, this event is surely being energized by the seemingly never-ending buzz of "cloud" — which Mark's ultimate boss, Larry Ellison, once called "the orange that's the new pink." (Makes me laugh out loud every time I think of that video clip.) Cloud storage is now being touted by virtually all the traditional storage vendors, and certainly a whole bunch of startups. The SDC event brings together developers, engineers, architects, product/program managers, technical marketing managers, and C-level storage execs as well.  I sure hope I have a chance to get there and cover this event. It would be great to live-blog the proceedings, as I did at Glue.

To stay connected with what's going with SNIA's cloud storage initiative, here are some key links:

1) Join the Google Group

2) Follow the Twitter account: @SNIAcloud

3) Subscribe to the SNIA Cloud Storage blog

4) Engage with others on Google Buzz


Download or listen to Graeme's interview with Mark Carlson about cloud storage, the CDMI standard, and the upcoming Storage Developers Conference (MP3)"


Gluecon 2010: A Chat With OxygenCloud


OxygenCloud-logo OxygenCloud wants to solve corporate end-users' file management problems with cloud storage. To date, the latter has been used mostly by developers creating applications, not by corporate IT to address end-user file management. Thus, the company says cloud storage lacks easy end-user access, security, and the IT admin tools needed for corporate deployment.

But OxygenCloud is out to change that, by way of a company file network that brings all storage clouds the company uses — public and private — to the desktop of the corporate end-user. 
OxygenCloud-diagram From an intuitive desktop interface, users can access any file, in any cloud, as if it were in local storage.  These files can be shared with anyone, including external users, within an encrypted and secure environment. 

A spinout of LeapFile, OxygenCloud describes itself as a "cloud storage broker."  Its customers can store and secure their files using any cloud provider.  Its service combines these multiple public and private
OxygenCloud-Peter+Alex clouds into a single synthetic cloud, allowing users to balance their cost and performance requirements. Here's my interview with Peter Chang, CEO, shown at left in the photo, with Alex Teu, director of business development.

Download or listen to Graeme's interview with OxygenCloud (MP3)"