Analyst and Media Reaction to the DataProtect Launch
It has been just over a month since Kaminario launched the DataProtect™ high availability and data protection capabilities for the Kaminario K2 product line. Analyst and media reaction has been very positive — highlighting the advantages and challenges that we have ahead.

After reviewing the DataProtect coverage, three messages stood out:

• High availability and data protection features such as DataProtect are needed for SSDs to be accepted as a HDD replacement in the data center;
• Kaminario is moving beyond the high-performance storage niche segment and aiming squarely at primary storage;
• DataProtect gives Kaminario some advantages but market competition is very aggressive.

Just to recap the coverage highlights, I’d like to share a selection of comments that capture much of the feedback we have observed.

Arun Taneja
Taneja Group
(as quoted in searchsolidstatestorage.com)

“In the first volley of all-flash or all-DRAM arrays it was crucial to focus on performance,” he said. “But as soon as that baseline was set, customers started asking why there wasn’t HA or protection and why could they not manage several arrays from a common management tool, just like they do a regular array. As an industry, we are already in the second phase of maturity. This rounding out of what I call ‘soft features’ will give Kaminario a solid standing.”

Dan Kusnetzky
ZDNet
“For the most part, solid state storage has been added on as a caching mechanism, but not as part of the standard set of storage architectures traditional storage servers are designed to support. So, most of today’s storage systems do not offer the range of performance, ease of management or availability offered by newer generation storage systems, such as those offered by Kaminario.  I expect that over time, all storage system suppliers will offer the same capabilities that Kaminario is offering today.”

George Crump
Storage Switzerland
“This is a significant upgrade for Kaminario. The high availability, the uniqueness of RAID 10HD and the addition of data protection services like snapshots and replication clearly move the Kaminario solution out of the niche performance market and into the primary storage market. The solution is now just as viable for accelerating a virtualized server infrastructure as it is for accelerating a high end Oracle or Oracle RAC databases.”

Stephen Foskett
Pack Rat
“Kaminario is wise to move from the small but lucrative “maximum performance” market to the broader but more competitive “disk replacement” segment. DataProtect adds important features required by mainstream buyers, but Kaminario still lacks capacity optimization features (deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning) that their competitors boast.”

(Editor’s note: Kaminario argues that today dedupe, compression and similar features negatively impact latency and therefore have not, up until now, focused on adding them.)

David Hill
Network Computing
“Although with K2 Kaminario is not necessarily alone at the top of the high-performance SSD storage mountain, it has a clear view of where it is going and what benefits high-performance-demanding customers need and are willing to pay for. And that is a good position to be in.”

So What Does this Mean?
My conclusions are that:

• Customers require performance and advanced data protection features, something that, until our DataProtect launch, they could not get anywhere else in SSD-based arrays;
• Performance alone is insufficient to drive SSD adoption in the data center. Our DataProtect launch responds to those customers with a solid commitment to data protection;
• Our Scale-out Performance Storage Architecture (SPEAR) truly enables our continued innovation around data protection, as well as with scalability and other areas.

What Data Protection Features do Customers want Most?
The launch taught me that data protection conversations need to continue. Our customers are demanding it and we expect that they are not alone. One way we are facilitating this is by conducting customer research about their views on the data protection features they want/need most, see previous post Which Data Protection Features Would You Like to See. This project is just beginning, but we’ll share the results online to foster healthy debate.

(photo credit)

Tags: application performance, data protection, DataProtect, Disk latency, DRAM Storage, DRAM-based SSD Appliances, Flash, Flash SSD, High Availablity, IOPS, K2, Kaminario