2008 is almost upon us.

I have had a relatively average year in my semi beloved profession as if it could go wrong, it did this year (2007). 

Can you believe in such things as double disk failures in one of my USP's parity groups?  Then there is the <grumble grumble> average service from IBM WRT to DS4000 series has made my life very miserable to say the least.  Add to that the issues with HSSM and HTnM.  Then incidents such as ISL's dying with DWDM failures and the severe lack of available Brocade knowledge on the web made me wish for a better year.  Fabric state changes that have not fully completed during ISL losses are so much fun.  Most issues are probably 1 in 100 or 1000 events and the double disk failure in the USP was sheer bad luck considering the number of disks in the DKU/DKC's.

But that year is behind me.  I have some new equipment (EMC, HDS and Cisco) and also staff that are keen and expect to become Storage guru's overnight.  So whats to be expected from 2008. 

I decided not to say what could happen with storage (and me) in 2008.  I don't want to do any IBM and EMC bashing and I wish all my SAN colleagues the best for the new year.  So, as part of my new years resolution, I humbly apologise for any IBM/EMC bashing that I did in 2007.  EMC was unfair but just plain fun.  IBM really needs to improve its service abilities.

So, come 1st of August 2008, I will be sitting on a ship somewhere just south of the North Pole (to the North of Svalbard) watching a total solar eclipse.  Storage can't really compete with that can it?

Happy new year.

Stephen