Gabriel Broner, GM, Windows Storage Divison, Microsoft

Microsoft's storage general manager Gabriel Broner headed to Redmond earlier this year with more than two decades of technology experience, mostly in high performance computing (HPC) companies Cray Research and Silicon Graphics (SGI).

With an un-Microsoftish background like that, could we expect Broner to lead his new company into the high-end enterprise storage space? Not likely, says Broner, who says Microsoft's storage is aimed at capturing the company's traditional user base.

"We don't target the high end of the enterprise," Broner says. "I don't think it's in the DNA of Microsoft to just say 'We're going to be the top of the pyramid.' I personally came from Cray and SGI. I lived through a bit of the top of the pyramid. The business model is different. You send an engineer with some of the machines, the volume is small, the margins are high. I think Microsoft has strength in the volume space where it can make things simple to deploy selling volume at lower margins and lower cost."

Instead of living at the top of the pyramid, Broner says Microsoft's strategy is to bring the technology up there down to the levels where Microsoft resides most comfortably.

"Youre going to see us try to address the needs of large numbers of users, taking some of the features of the storage industry that were once considered high-end features but are starting to become appealing to millions of users," he says. "Our objective would be to make those available and make them simple to use and deploy and enable a partner ecosystem where we can develop features that are specialized in each of the areas."In a far-ranging recent interview with Broner, we discussed Microsoft's major storage products, such as Windows Storage Server 2003, Data Protection Manager (DPM), and its iSCSI targets as well as recent moves into clusters, WAFS, and archiving.

Contents:

— Dave Raffo, News Editor, Byte and SwitchNext Page Serving Up Storage

Byte and Switch: What role does Windows Storage Server play in Microsoft’s overall strategy? (See Chunghwa Plans $4B NGN and Kaseya Unveils 4.5.)

Broner: We'll continue to use Storage Server as the product line where we'll be doing storage innovation. It gives us an agile product line somewhat separated from releases of Windows Server, which has a longer cycle. It gives us an opportunity to introduce new storage features. Some of the features we've introduced so far in [Storage Server 2003] R2 are single instance storage that we're using inside Microsoft and we're saving 30 to 40 percent of capacity for the IT department.In general you’re going to see us try to address the needs of large numbers of users, taking some of the features of the storage industry that were once considered high-end features but are starting to become appealing to millions of users. Our objective would be to make those available and make them simple to use and deploy and enable a partner ecosystem where we can develop features that are specialized in each of the areas.

We'll use Storage Server as a delivery mechanism to make them easier to install and easier to use. You can see over time those features trickling down from the high end of the industry to Storage Server to general purpose Windows.

Byte and Switch: What are some of the high end features that will trickle down?

Broner: Vista [the next Windows operating system] will have some of the storage features such as snapshot. You can take a snapshot at a point in time, if you modify your files or delete your files you can go back in time. I view it as a transition from features that were once the domain of proprietary high-end solutions and are becoming more interesting a few years later for a large number of people.

Byte and Switch: How granular will the snapshots be in Vista?Broner: They'll be traditional volume level snapshots. You take a snapshot of your volume or file system and copy and write any modifications you make after that. From an end user point of view, it has a simple interface. You're looking at your file, you can see earlier versions and choose to open an earlier version of the file.

Byte and Switch: You said Storage Server will be updated more frequently than Windows Server. How frequent will the upgrades be?

Broner: Just to give you a sense, the last development project took under a year but more than half a year. Two a year would be too often. But it could be a year or something like that. I'm not committing to a schedule, but just giving you a sense of how frequently we can release Storage Server as opposed to Windows. That takes years.

Byte and Switch: Windows Storage Server 2003 is available only through OEMs. Will that be made available directly to customers?

Broner: We are considering multiple options for Storage Server. Right now our delivery is through OEMs. The advantage [is] that we can work very closely with our OEMs that deliver an appliance-type product. It can be tested for a level of stability and reliability that you can achieve working closely with the OEMs. We do look at other alternatives, and we want to grow but at the same time we want to provide reliability and stability.Byte and Switch: Can you give examples of the storage innovation you mentioned coming out of Storage Server?

Broner: I think scalability of our file system would be one. We're dealing with more and more large file systems, if you think of the basic NTFS file system, it uses internal instructions to scale very large. It has block-based capabilities.

We're looking at some new client/server capabilities. In terms of our SMB protocol, the CIFS protocol, new versions of CIFS are going to provide better high bandwidth capabilities end to end. So without a proprietary server you can have better performance. When you go over a wide area in the future you'll start to see performance of SMB protocols by using larger Windows.

Byte and Switch: How are things going with your disk backup product, Data Protection Manager (DPM)?

Broner: The DPM team introduced a beta version of continuous data protection software. (See Microsoft Intros DPM.) The new version will work better with Microsoft applications like Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint. You now have the capability of doing application level backup. And it provides fast recovery for disk to disk backup and disk to disk to tape.Next Page: Into the Enterprise?

Byte and Switch: You moved into clustered file systems with Windows Computer Cluster Server this year. (See Microsoft Pitches Linux Cluster Buster and Cluster Clamor.) How is that going?

Broner: We're looking at doing more and more and incorporating some of our high availability capabilities into file serving. Right now file serving and high availability are somewhat separate domains. In the future, we will be able integrate these capabilities. You want to be able to have a single-node file server or a multi-node file server. You don’t have to become a cluster administrator or a specialist to deploy these once-high-end capabilities into standard servers. So a small business can choose to have either a standard server for file and block or a highly available one. Ideally, it's just a check box -- I want it to be highly available.

Byte and Switch: Microsoft bought StringBean Software and turned their technology into the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target. (See Microsoft Munches String Bean and Microsoft Laces IP SAN Boots.) How important is that technology to Microsoft's storage plans?

Broner: HP introduced a system, the All-In-One, based on it [iSCSI Software Target]. (See HP Fills In SMB Storage.) We’re working with other OEMs that will be introducing products based on iSCSI. We do see the growth of iSCSI. We do believe it will continue to grow and we agree with the analysts projecting growth of iSCSI. As iSCSI is simpler to deploy than Fibre Channel, we expect that a number of small and medium businesses will select iSCSI over Fibre Channel. In projections from analysts you don’t see Fibre Channel growing significantly in the next three years but you see iSCSI SANs growing significantly.Byte and Switch: Do you see 10-Gig Ethernet accelerating the growth of iSCSI?

Broner: We believe 10-gigabit Ethernet will give a boost to iSCSI when it becomes cost effective and widely deployed. Suddenly, you have an alternative [to Fibre Channel] that is block-level sharing at a very high speed. That's exactly the role Microsoft plays in storage -- in places where as hardware standardizes, we can provide software that enables more users to take advantage.

Byte and Switch: How much does Fibre Channel figure into your storage plans?

Broner: We continue to support Fibre Channel. It is clearly the majority of the SANs we support today. We have a Simple SAN initiative where our partners can qualify their product. Our intention is to make SANs easier to use, easier to deploy, by having a qualification process where we see how products interact correctly together. We simplify the process for the users.

Byte and Switch: Does Microsoft have designs on enterprise storage?Broner: I think what you're going to see is more and more features in our storage line with higher end features like high availability. That continues to move us up in terms of the size and type of market we can address.

But we don't target the high end of the enterprise. I don't think it's in the DNA of Microsoft to just say 'We're going to be the top of the pyramid.' I personally came from Cray and SGI, those were my previous two jobs. I lived through a bit of the top of the pyramid. The business model is different. You send an engineer with some of the machines, the volume is small, the margins are high. I think Microsoft has strength in the volume space where it can make things simple to deploy selling volume at lower margins and lower cost.

In storage, Microsoft is providing a volume play in the file block space but continues to add functionality that makes it more attractive.

Next Page: Branching Out

Byte and Switch: Storage at branch and remote offices is seen as a rapidly growing market, served by wide area file services (WAFS) and WAN acceleration. You’ve already made overtures here through partnerships with Packeteer and Citrix. How do you view this space?Broner: The reality is 30 percent of the servers Microsoft sells live in branch offices today. With that said, it’s significant that the storage solutions need to work between the branch office and central office. Our concerns are things like using the WAN correctly. So we're looking at things like how do we replicate files between the branch office and central office, and how do we improve the protocols of communication between the branch office and central office.

We've developed a file replication capability that we call DFS-R (Distributed File System-Replication) that gives you the ability to have copies of the same file in the central office and branch office. It uses a communication protocol between the central office and branch office that handles compression.

What that means is with data previously transmitted over the wide area network, instead of sending complete files again, it will find complete files or big sections of files that have already been transmitted and simply send pointers to those. That gives you huge amounts of compression.

Byte and Switch: Single instance storage again.

Broner: It's almost like single-instance chunking as you move files over the wide area. That capability is available with our latest versions of Storage Server R2. So we believe that addresses some of the needs of a branch office. New versions of the SMB protocol also have capabilities for optimizing traffic over the wide area, and that is done by larger Windows reducing the number of messages getting sent end to end.So if I were to summarize, I'd say what we’ve done for applications on the branch office is compress the traffic and improve the protocols so they work better between the branch office and the hub. That provides better service for branch office users.

Byte and Switch:How does your partnership with Citrx differ from the one you had with Tacit, which is now part of Packeteer? (See Citrix Widens WAN Strategy and Microsoft Gives Tacit Approval.)Broner: We looked at the problems of branches and we said customers really look at management as one big issue, and optimization as a second big issue. And the third issue was a balance between economy and productivity.

Most customers have to decide between three categories: Do they want 'almost like LAN' performance? If so, they have to think about putting in a local server because they want autonomy, they want high productivity levels. But there has to be enough people at the branch to justify that kind of structure.

Then there are people who just want a device to optimize basic services at the branch -- including DNS -- and do a bunch of WAN optimization.And the third category would say 'I don't need anything, I have powerful links and really good application support and I'm just going to centralize everything in the data center. We have customers across all these spectrums. People have different needs and different structures.

Citrix has some amazing capabilities and knowledge about application delivery because of their existing business. And we have solid platform knowledge. Citrix is going to develop an appliance on which we will be providing all services to the branch. In the same box you'll get an optimization solution, the wide area file services, all the basic services you need. We expect a product from Citrix sometime in late 2007.

If you look at our partners Packeteer and Citrix, they have their own strengths that they bring to the table. Citrix is great at application delivery and application optimization; Packeteer's a specialist in quality of service. We have great partnerships with both for people who don't want just basic print services, who want more than that but built on the same platform.

Next Page: Other Directions

Byte and Switch: Will you get deeper into archiving?Broner: We continue to look at that area. We’ll be working with partners. IBM just ported its solution to Windows in this space. (See IBM Unveils Solution.) We're looking at other partners that have solutions in this space. In general, clearly there is a need for read-only fixed content type of storage. We've been working with a number of partners taking their solutions and integrating them in the Windows Storage Server environment. We believe there is a need for that.

Byte and Switch: What about compliance? Is that a fit for Microsoft?

Broner: We looked at compliance and saw there's probably a $10 billion market today and doubling in the next three years. So clearly our customers will start to need solutions for that. Right now we're thinking about what are the things that will enable compliance -- is it multiple tiers of storage, is it retention capabilities, is it expirations, is it policies? We have developed some initial solutions we call FSRM (File Server Resource Manager). We are looking at things we need to do to enable compliance, but have not engaged in building a compliance application yet.

Byte and Switch: Where do server virtualization products such as VMware and your Virtual Server play in storage? (See Sonim Meets OMA Standard