Originally posted by: TonyPearson

Are you trying to find the right way to explain Storage Management concepts to your friends and family at the next holiday cocktail party?

One of my readers made the following request:

Hi Tony,
Having been around IBM Storage for some time, I was wondering if by chance you might recall an old recording about the "Hierarchical Sock Manager", I have a vague recollection, but I can't remember who did it or when, which means that I have no way to ask if anyone has a copy. This was an analogy comparing levels of storage of socks (i.e. footwear) to dresser drawers and boxes in the garage. Sound familiar?

I had mentioned this video in my 2007 blog post [Re-arranging the Sock Drawer], so I felt I needed to at least make an effort to track it down.

As it turns out, the IBM sales executive in the video, Charles "C.D." Larson, now works for another company (Hitachi Data Systems). Thanks to social media, I was able get in contact with him, and he sent me a copy of this 1989 video, and granted me permission to post it on YouTube.

To put it on YouTube, I had to convert the VOB file to something YouTube could understand. Since I run Linux, I was able to use the [ffmpeg] utility to do this. The result is now an [18-minute video], uploaded for all to enjoy.

The concepts discussed back then still apply today. Yes, we still have DFSMS for the mainframe mentioned in the video, but we also have extended these concepts to the Active Cloud Engine in the SONAS and Storwize V7000 Unified, as well as the hieararchy management included in the Linear Tape File System (LTFS) Enterprise Edition (LTFS-EE) solutions.

Happy Winter Solstice, or whatever holiday you may choose to celebrate this season!

technorati tags: IBM, DFSMS, DFHSM, DFDSS, RACF, ISMF, ABARS, DFSMShsm, HSM, CD Larson, HDS, ffmpeg, YouTube, SONAS, Storwize+V7000+Unified, LTFS, LTFS-EE