A couple weeks ago I did a short blog post about SAN storage failures and how people are blinded by all the bells and whistles that are supposed to make storage arrays 100% reliable and failsafe. My conclusion was that there is no way to avoid storage failures, and that a better way is to anticipate those failures and be ready to handle them with minimal service impact.
I referenced a wake up call from a CTO of an Australian hosting company. Let me quote it again:
The outage, blamed on an IBM storage array, saw the company’s chief technology officer promise “significant changes to the way we deploy and manage our storage environment”.
Today, I stumbled across another article that demonstrates their solution of the storage reliability problem. From Melbourne IT on $18m Oracle revamp:
… to improve the reliability of its operational support systems at a cost of $7 million over three years, which has also seen it switch storage vendors from IBM to EMC. Data corruption that had occurred on its IBM storage systems were blamed for a several day outage experienced at the company’s WebCentral web-hosting business.
So we see that, instead of learning the right lesson, they conclude, “This IBM storage stuff isn’t reliable, EMC sales folks convinced me that they are better. Now my storage will not fail.” The “significant changes to the way we deploy and manage our storage environment” were mere vendor change.
Pythian has launched a Partner Program to assist Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), whose applications have intensive database requirements. We assist their client base by helping them correctly plan, deploy, and manage the underlying database infrastructure, be it MySQL, Oracle or SQL Server, to ensure the ISV customers’ software environment is sound, and performs well over time.
By partnering with Pythian, software vendors can rest assured that their applications will perform well, knowing that their customers’ databases are correctly installed, configured, and maintained for proper ongoing usage, and customized specifically to the ISV’s application requirements.
Stay tuned over the next few weeks, as we announce new ISV Partners whose clients are thriving from this relationship. We’re working with some fascinating ISVs whose technology is second to none!
So, a quick update on the Pythian/Oracle partnership, and what it’s like to be an OPN Platinum partner.
So far, it’s been really worthwhile.
And in under a month from the signing, Oracle has begun sending us amazing quality leads! The first was a doozie, an email made it’s way to us with the subject “OPN Solutions Catalog Message – Request for Information” and sure enough, inside was the full contact information for a prospective ISV partner who is looking for a collaborator to launch a managed service to their customers for operations support on their data-intensive systems. AMAZING!
And, I must say, the OPN group at Oracle are really a class act and know how to get a partner excited about working with them. In the mail today, we received a very nice box and in an unboxing moment that beats the iPhone or Nexus One … well it had no ninjas but it did have a beautiful magnet-latch lid! Inside was a lovely OPN Platinum partner plaque with a plexi stand, a letter of welcome to the programme, and a really cool OPN Platinum Partner grommet-sign tied in a red bow. Impressed!
We owe this to our VP BizDev Pete Ling of course, so here’s a gratuitous hero shot of him holding his prize:
This achievement took us lots of efforts before the launch to get recognized as one of the first platinum level partners but we’ve made it through. Now, we are working on updating all of our specialization areas. It’s still a bit cloudy on how to navigate in the new OPN Specialized interface but I guess in these days of cloud computing cloudiness is becoming a norm, especially early on!
The OPN Specialized Program was designed as the result of numerous acquisitions completed recently and over time the old Oracle Partners Network structure couldn’t accommodate all the different kinds of partnerships that Oracle inherited. The Oracle/Sun merger was going to make a tough situation untenable, and as a result Oracle designed OPN Specialized to simplify the search of a partner for Oracle internal staff and Oracle customers on one hand while it also lets partners distinguish themselves amongst the rest by technical areas and types of services and products. Congratulations and good job to the OPN group at Oracle for what we at Pythian believe is a much improved vision and structure for partnering with the vibrant Oracle ecosystem.
Our VP, Biz Dev and Strategic Alliances, Peter Ling, should take all blame for this as he’s been working on this non-stop. Well done Pete — you are a rock star, indeed
More details to come as we go through available options and build our profile so stay tuned — lots to learn still.
The Server Manageability Roundtable is on Monday, 30-Nov, at 16:25 in the foyer on the 5th level. It’s a bit late and I should have probably proposed to change the venue to the nearby pub but it’s too late now so let’s make it the last effort for the day and then…
The topic is quite broad so we will obviously need to focus on the most relevant areas for the attendees and this is the chance to state your interest so please comment away!
Here are the topics that I think might be particularly interested:
Impact of virtualization and cloud computing — does it make it easier to manage our infrastructure?
Costs cutting by manageability improvements — myth or reality?
Managing highly available environment — human factors.
Make sure to leave a comment below whether you have something to say on the topics above or something completely new. Sharing your experience would be fantastic! Thanks in advance for all contributions and I promise I’ll write up the report on this round-table.
I recently nominated my colleague and good friend Christo Kutrovsky for the Oracle ACE program. Today, I’m excited to share that he has been accepted and is now part of the community of 200+ Oracle ACEs and Oracle ACE Directors.
Christo has been an active blogger on our blog and has made numerous top-class presentations at Oracle Conference world-wide. He has also been an active contributor on the Oracle-L list.
Christo has been always representing an independent voice in the community and it’s a pleasure to have him on board. I’m looking forward to his contributions to the Oracle ACE program and the Oracle community at large.
I’m looking forward to attending the conference in Perth, not only because I’ll be presenting there but also because it’s my first time in Western Australia. All going well my presentation will be honed before the weekend and I’ll be arriving in Perth still this week, on Friday, to enjoy an extended weekend in Perth and Margareth River wine region with my wife before the conference begins.
Yes, it’s almost that time of the year when one of the best Oracle conferences in the world opens its doors to attendees in Birmingham — UKOUG Conference 2009: Technology & E-Business Suite. The lineup of speakers will be fantastic as usual and agenda is full of juicy bits — You will have usual troubles scheduling sessions to attend and hate to make compromises between presentations you want to see badly but that’s kind of problems you’d rather have at a good conference.
The past year was very eventful so I feel like I haven’t been at the UKOUG Conferences for years even though I did come to the UKOUG Conference 2008. This conference is something special for me — it’s the first conference I attended and presented on so it’s set the tone for the whole conferencing experience of my life and I’m very grateful for that! So far, I haven’t missed a single year since my first UKOUG conference and I hope I keep it this way for years to come. Read the rest of this entry . . .
Singe I’ve got a special press badge this year, I felt I had to do something about it so I decided to make short interview with few people that I’m running into during this Oracle Open World.
I have already blogged about my Sunday’s interviews but I created a Youtube playlist where you can see them all (use arrows on the sides).
So far I interviewed Justin Kestelyn, Richard Foote, Stanley ACE Director, John Kanagaraj, Marko Gralike, Jacco Landlust, Chris Muir, Tim Hall, Steven Feuerstein, Gareth Llewellyn, Doug Burns, Marcel Kratochvil and Gary Goodman. There is one more day left so I’ll trying to do few more.
As I’ve done my presentation this morning, I’m free for the rest of the day and I stopped by OTN Lounge where the cool stuff is almost ready to go — final tweaks and preparation before 4 days of rocking.
I’ve spoke to Justin Kestelyn of Oracle Technology Network and here what he has to say about this year’s OTN activities at the Oracle Open World. The keywords for me – “Espresso in the Morning, Beer in the Afternoon”.
I recently nominated my colleague and good friend 
It’s only one week to go now and the 