Cisco ACI and Lossy Control

The centralised command-and-control method doesn’t work at scale. Many people have discovered this independently, from the Romans to the Chinese. It’s just not humanly- (or even computerly-) possible to track that many interdependent variables and make smart decisions. To manage a vast array of components, a central apparatus needs to… Read More

Video from Melbourne VMUG Meeting 14 May 2014

I recorded the presentations at the Melbourne VMUG meeting last week, and have finally uploaded them all to YouTube. You can view the entire playlist here, or watch pieces embedded in the post below. The slides for the talks are available here. Introduction and Update Craig Waters introduced the meeting… Read More

XtremIO Offers Xtrem Tradeoffs

Getting a clear picture of what XtremeIO was about from EMC’s presentation was a significant challenge. It’s taken me a few rewatches of the video, and triangulation from other sources (including Solidfire’s presentation, ironically) to figure out how it works. XtremeIO ‘X-bricks’ are dual-active controllers connected to 25 eMLC flash… Read More