My colleague Datalink Solutions Architect Joe Akerson is what we call a lab advocate, which means he's a Datalink technical person who has steroids-super-powers in our labs. Joe does much internal- and external-facing work on his own and in teams, and also mentors his peers to help them get their stuff done in labs. Today, we have about two dozen lab advocates across the country.
Joe’s also a broomball master-champion and a great guy. Depending on what technology you’re looking to see in Datalink Labs, he might be the guy showing it to you.
Joe and I were talking the other month about some recent HDS-related missions, which I'll only briefly describe as teaser/conversation fodder. We’re often fortunate to get early access to partner equipment and code, so we can stay ahead of the learning curve and provide developmental feedback on product.
From the fourth quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of this year, Akerson and his team put both the HDS HNAS version 8 code and HDS AppPro software through their paces. Some highlights from the adventure:
- Performance and efficiency enhancements to HNAS replication engine via integration of sub-file, object-based granularity
- Writable space-efficient clones (analogous to NetApp FlexClone, if you’re familiar with that)
- Proved AppPro’s capabilities in the current code base for Exchange, Microsoft SQL, and SharePoint
- A pretty detailed laundry list of future enhancements that we’d like to see around MS Cluster integration, usability enhancements for Exchange granular restores, and CCR integration
A partial list of other new product missions currently going on in Datalink Labs include:
Let’s be careful out there.
Regards, Rick