Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Insights and Analysis
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Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers
Gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Here is a quick video montage or mash-up if you prefer that Cory Peden (aka the Server and StorageIO Intern @Studentof_IT) put together using some video that recorded while at VMworld 2014 in San Francisco. In this YouTube video we take a quick tour around the expo hall to see who as well as what we run into while out and about.
Click on above image to view video
For those of you who were at VMworld 2014 the video (click above image) will give you a quick Dejavu memory of the sites and sounds while for those who were not there, see what you missed to plan for next year. Watch for appearances from Gina Minks (@Gminks) aka Gina Rosenthal (of BackupU)and Michael (not Dell) of Dell Data Protection, Luigi Danakos (@Nerdblurt) of HP Data Protection who lost his voice (tweet Luigi if you can help him find his voice). With Luigi we were able to get in a quick game of buzzword bingo before catching up with Marc Farley (@Gofarley) and John Howarth of Quaddra Software. Mark and John talk about their new solution from Quaddra which will enable searching and discovering data across different storage systems and technologies.
Other visits include a quick look at an EVO:Rail from Dell, along with Docker for Smarties overview with Nathan LeClaire (@upthecyberpunks) of Docker (click here to watch the extended interview with Nathan).
Check out the conversation with Max Kolomyeytsev of StarWind Software (@starwindsan) before we get interrupted by a sales person. During our walk about, we also bump into Mark Peters (@englishmdp) of ESG facing off video camera to video camera.
Watch for other things including rack cabinets that look like compute servers yet that have a large video screen so they can be software defined for different demo purposes.
Watch for more Server and StorageIO Industry Trend Perspective podcasts, videos as well as out and about updates soon, meanwhile check out others here.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
I often get asked, or, told that computer data storage is complex with so many options to choose from, apples to oranges comparison among other things.
On a recent trip to Europe while being interviewed by a Dutch journalist in Nijkerk Holland at a Brouwer Storage Consultancy event I was presenting at, the question came up again about storage complexity. Btw, you can read the article on data storage industry trends here (its in dutch).
I hesitated and thought for a moment and responded that in some ways it’s not as complex as some make it seem, although there is more to data storage than just cost per capacity. As I usually do when asked or told how complex data storage is my response is a mixed yes it (storage, data and information infrastructure) are complex, however lets put it in perspective which is storage any more complex than other things?
Our conversation then evolved with an example that I find shopping for an automobile complex unless I know exactly what I’m looking for. After all there are cars trucks SUV’s used new buy lease different manufacturers makes and models speeds cargo capacity management tools and interfaces not to mention metrics and fuel.
This is where I usually mention how IMHO buying a new car or vehicle is with all the different options, that is unless you know what you want, or know your selection criteria and options. Same with selecting a new laptop computer, tablet or smart phone, not to mention a long list of other things that to the outsiders can also seem complex, intimidating or overwhelming. However lets take a step back to look at storage then return to compare some other things that may be confusing to those who are not focused on them.
Similar to other technologies, there are different types of data storage to meet various needs from performance to space capacity as well as support various forms of scaling.
Server and storage I/O fundamentals
Various types of storage devices including HDD’s, SSHD/HHDD’s and SSD’s
Various types of storage devices
Storage options, block, file, object, ssd, hdd, primary, secondary, local and cloud
During my return trip to the US from the Dutch event, I had a layover at London Heathrow (LHR) and walking the concourse it occurred to me that while there are complexities involved with different technologies including storage, data and information infrastructures, there were other complexities.
Same thing with shoes so any differ options not to mention cell phones or laptops and tablets, PCIe, or how about tv’s?
I wan to go on a trip do I book based on lowest cost for air fare then hotel and car rental, or do I purchase a package? For the air fare is it the cheapest yet that takes all day to get from point a to b via plane changes at points c d and e not to mention paying extra fees vs paying a higher price for a direct flight with extra amenities?
Getting hungry so what to do for dinner, what type of cuisine or food?
How about a new handbag or perhaps shoes?
How about a new backpack, brief case or luggage?
What to drink for a beverage, so many options unless you know what you want.
Complexity of choosing what cell phone, PDA or other electronics
How about what to read including print vs. online accessible content?
Once I got home from my European trip I had some mechanical things to tend to including replacing some spark plugs.
How about automobile parts from tires, to windshield wiper blades to spark plugs?
Sure if you know the exact part number and assuming that part number has not changed, then you can start shopping for the part. However recently I had a part number based on a vehicle serial number (e.g. make, model, year, etc) only to receive the wrong part. Sure the part numbers were correct, however along the line somewhere the manufacture made a change and not all downstream vendors knew about the part change, granted I eventually received the correct part.
Ok, hopefully you got the point from the above examples among many others in that we live in world full of options and those options can bring complexity.
What type of network or server? How about operating system, browser, database, programming or development language as there are different needs and options?
Sure there are many storage options as not everything is the same.
Likewise while there can be simple answer with a trend of what to use before the question is understood (perhaps due to a preference) or explained, the best or applicable answer may be it depends. However saying it depends may seem complex to those who just want a simple answer.
So is storage more complex than other technologies, tools, products or services?
What say you?
Ok, nuff said, for now…
Cheers
Gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
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Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers
Gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
In case you missed it, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) recently released their version 1.1 of its Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) specification.
Highlights of CDMI version 1.1 include:
Check out the full specification here.
Speaking of SNIA and CDMI, check out this pod cast post of CDMI in a conversation with Wayne Adams and David Dale of SNIA.
Ok, nuff said
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
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August 2014 Industry trend and perspectives
The following is a synopsis of some StorageIOblog posts, articles and comments in different venues on various industry trends, perspectives and related themes about clouds, virtualization, data and storage infrastructure topics among related themes. StorageIO comments and perspectives in the news
Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI) remains a popular industry and IT customer topic, not to mention being one of the favorite themes of Solid State Device (SSD) vendors. SSD component and system solution vendors along with their supporters love VDI as the by-product of aggregation (e.g. consolidation) which applies to VDI is aggravation. Aggravation is the result of increased storage I/O performance (IOP’s, bandwidth, response time) from consolidating the various desktops. It should not be a surprise that some of the biggest fans encouraging organizations to adopt VDI are the SSD vendors. Read some of my comments and perspectives on VDI here at FedTech Magazine. Speaking of virtualizing the data center, software defined data centers (SDDC) along with software defined networking (SDN) and software defined storage (SDS) remain popular including some software defined marketing (SDM). Here are some of my comments and perspectives moving beyond the hype of SDDC.
Recently the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) who works with the T11 standards body of both legacy or classic Fibre Channel (FC) as well as newer FC over Ethernet (FCoE) made some announcements. These announcements including enhancements such as Fibre Channel Back Bone version 6 (FC-BB-6) among others. Both FC and FCoE are alive and doing well, granted one has been around longer (FC) and can be seen at its plateau while the other (FCoE) continues to evolve and grow in adoption. In some ways, FCoE is in a similar role today to where FC was in the late 90s and early 2000s ironically facing some common fud. You can read my comments here as part of a quote in support of the announcement , along with my more industry trend perspectives in this blog post here. Buyers guides are popular with both vendors, VAR’s as well as IT organizations (e.g. customers) following are some of my comments and industry trend perspectives appearing in Enterprise Storage Forum. Here are perspectives on buyers guides for Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS), Unified Data Storage and Object Storage. EMC has come under pressure as mentioned in earlier StorageIO update newsletters to increase its shareholder benefit including spin-off of VMware. Here are some of my comments and perspectives that appeared in CruxialCIO. Read more industry trends perspectives comments on the StorageIO news page. StorageIO video and audio pod casts
StorageIOblog posts and perspectives
Despite being declared dead, traditional or classic Fibre Channel (FC) along with FC over Ethernet (FCoE) continues to evolve with FC-BB-6, read more here. VMworld 2014 took place this past week and included announcements about EVO:Rack and Rail (more on this in a future edition). You can get started learning about EVO:Rack and RAIL at Duncan Epping (aka @DuncanYB) Yellow Bricks site. VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) is at the heart of EVO which you can read an overview here in this earlier StorageIO update newsletter (March 2014).
Also watch for some extra content that I’m working on including some video podcasts articles and blog posts from my trip to VMworld 2014. However one of the themes in the background of VMworld 2014 is the current beta of VMware vSphere V6 along with Virtual Volumes aka VVOL’s. The following are a couple of my recent posts including primer overview of VVOL’s along with a poll you can cast your vote. Check out Are VMware VVOL’s in your virtual server and storage I/O future? and VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals (Part 1) along with (Part 2). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
StorageIO events and activities The StorageIO calendar continues to evolve including several new events being added for September and well into the fall with more in the works including upcoming Dutch European sessions the week of October 6th in Nijkerk Holland (learn more here). The following are some upcoming September events. These include live in-person seminars, conferences, keynote and speaking activities as well as on-line webinars, twitter chats, Google+ hangouts among others.
Note: Dates, times, venues and subject contents subject to change, refer to events page for current status Click here to view other upcoming along with earlier event activities. Watch for more 2014 events to be added soon to the StorageIO events calendar page. Topics include data protection modernization (backup/restore, HA, BC, DR, archive), data footprint reduction (archive, compression, dedupe), storage optimization, SSD, object storage, server and storage virtualization, software defined, big data, little data, cloud and object storage, performance and management trends among others. Vendors, VAR’s and event organizers, give us a call or send an email to discuss having us involved in your upcoming pod cast, web cast, virtual seminar, conference or other events. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Server and StorageIO Technology Tips and Tools In addition to the industry trends and perspectives comments in the news mentioned above, along with the StorageIO blog posts, the following are some of my recent articles and tips that have appeared in various industry venues.
Over at the new Storage Acceleration site I have a couple of pieces, the first is What, When, Why & How to Accelerate Storage and the other is Tips for Measuring Your Storage Acceleration. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
StorageIO Update Newsletter ArchivesClick here to view earlier StorageIO Update newsletters (HTML and PDF versions) at www.storageio.com/newsletter. Subscribe to this newsletter (and pass it along) by clicking here (Via Secure Campaigner site). View archives of past StorageIO update news letters as well as download PDF versions at: www.storageio.com/newsletter | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ok, nuff said (for now) Cheers gs Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Note that this is a three part series with the first piece here (e.g. Are VMware VVOL’s in your virtual server and storage I/O future?), the second piece here (e.g.VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals Part 1) and the third piece here (e.g. VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals Part 2).
Picking up from where we left off in the first part of the VMware VVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals, lets take a closer look at VVOL’s.
First however lets be clear that while VMware uses terms including object and object storage in the context of VVOL’s, its not the same as some other object storage solutions. Learn more about object storage here at www.objectstoragecenter.com
No, VVOL’s are accessed via the VMware software and associated API’s that are supported by various storage providers. VVOL’s are not LUN’s like regular block (e.g. DAS or SAN) storage that use SAS, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, IBA/SRP, nor are they NAS volumes like NFS mount points. Likewise VVOL’s are not accessed using any of the various object storage access methods mentioned above (e.g. AWS S3, Rest, CDMI, etc) instead they are an application specific implementation. For some of you this approach of an applications specific or unique storage access method may be new, perhaps revolutionary, otoh, some of you might be having a DejaVu moment right about now.
VVOL is not a LUN in the context of what you may know and like (or hate, even if you have never worked with them), likewise it is not a NAS volume like you know (or have heard of), neither are they objects in the context of what you might have seen or heard such as S3 among others.
Keep in mind that what makes up a VMware virtual machine are the VMK, VMDK and some other files (shown in the figure below), and if enough information is known about where those blocks of data are or can be found, they can be worked upon. Also keep in mind that at least near-term, block is the lowest common denominator that all file systems and object repositories get built-up.
VMware ESXi storage I/O, IOPS and data store basics
Here is the thing, while VVOL’s will be accessible via a block interface such as iSCSI, FC or FCoE or for that matter, over Ethernet based IP using NFS. Think of these storage interfaces and access mechanisms as the general transport for how vSphere ESXi will communicate with the storage system (e.g. their data path) under vCenter management.
What is happening inside the storage system that will be presented back to ESXi will be different than a normal SCSI LUN contents and only understood by VMware hypervisor. ESXi will still tell the storage system what it wants to do including moving blocks of data. The storage system however will have more insight and awareness into the context of what those blocks of data mean. This is how the storage systems will be able to more closely integrate snapshots, replication, cloning and other functions by having awareness into which data to move, as opposed to moving or working with an entire LUN where a VMDK may live. Keep in mind that the storage system will still function as it normally would, just think of VVOL as another or new personality and access mechanism used for VMware to communicate and manage storage.
VMware VVOL concepts (in general) with VMDK being pushed down into the storage system
Think in terms of the iSCSI (or FC or something else) for block or NFS for NAS as being the addressing mechanism to communicate between ESXi and the storage array, except instead of traditional SCSI LUN access and mapping, more work and insight is pushed down into the array. Also keep in mind that with a LUN, it is simply an address from what to use Logical Block Numbers or Logical Block Addresses. In the case of a storage array, it in turn manages placement of data on SSD or HDDs in turn using blocks aka LBA/LBN’s In other words, a host that does not speak VVOL would get an error if trying to use a LUN or target on a storage system that is a VVOL, that’s assuming it is not masked or hidden ;).
The Storage Provider aka SP is created by the, well, the provider of the storage system or appliance leveraging a VMware API (hint, sign up for the beta and there is an SDK). Simply put, the SP is a two-way communication mechanism leveraging VASA for reporting information, configuration and other insight up to VMware ESXi hypervisor, vCenter and other management tools. In addition the storage provider receives VASA configuration information from VMware about how to configure the storage system (e.g. storage containers). Keep in mind that the SP is the out of band management interface between the storage system supporting and presenting VVOL’s and VMware hypervisors.
This is a storage pool created on the storage array or appliance (e.g. VMware vCenter works with array and storage provider (SP) to create) in place of using a normal LUN. With a SP and PE, the storage container becomes visible to ESXi hosts, VVOL’s can be created in the storage container until it runs out of space. Also note that the storage container takes on the storage profile assigned to it which are inherited by the VVOLs in it. This is in place of presenting LUN’s to ESXi that you can then create VMFS data stores (or use as raw) and then carve storage to VMs.
The PE provides visibility for the VMware hypervisor to see and access VMDK’s and other objects (e.g. .vmx, swap, etc) stored in VVOL’s. The protocol endpoint (PE) manages or directs I/O received from the VM enabling scaling across many virtual volumes leveraging multipathing of the PE (inherited by the VVOL’s.). Note that for storage I/O operations, the PE is simply a pass thru mechanism and does not store the VMDK or other contents. If using iSCSI, FC, FCoE or other SAN interface, then the PE works on a LUN basis (again not actually storing data), and if using NAS NFS, then with a mount point. Key point is that the PE gets out-of-the-way.
What are you VVOL plans, view results and cast your vote here
There certainly are many more details to VVOL’s. that you can get a preview of in the beta, a well as via various demos, webinars, VMworld sessions as more becomes public. However for now, hope you found this quick overview on VVOL’s. of use, since VVOL’s. at the time of this writing are not yet released, you will need to wait for more detailed info, or join the beta or poke around the web (for now). Also if you have not seen the first part overview to this piece, check it out here as I give some more links to get you started to learn more about VVOL’s.
Keep an eye on and learn more about VVOL’s. at VMworld 2014 as well as in various other venues.
IMHO VVOL’s. are or will be in your future, however the question will be is there going to be a back to the future moment for some of you with VVOL’s.?
What VVOL questions, comments and concerns are in your future and on your mind?
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Server and StorageIO Update newsletter – July 2014 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In case you missed it today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced Zocalo an enterprise class storage and file sharing service. As you might have guessed, by being file sync and share of cloud storage Zocalo can be seen as a competitor or option to other services including Box, Dropbox and Google among many others in the enterprise file sync and share (EFSS) space.
Learn more in the Zocalo FAQ found here
Register for the limited free Zocalo trial here
Additional Zocalo product details can be found here
AWS also announced as part of its Mobile Services Cognito a mobile service for simple user identity and data synchronization, along with SNS, Mobile Analytics and other enhancements. Learn more about AWS Cognito here and Mobile Services here.
Check out other AWS updates, news and enhancements here
Ok, nuff said
Cheers
gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
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Server and StorageIO Update newsletter – April and May 2014 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Is there an information recession where you are creating, processing, moving or saving less data?
Are you using less data storage than in the past either locally online, offline or remote including via clouds?
IMHO there is no such thing as a data or information recession, granted storage is being used more effectively by some, while economic pressures or competition enables your budgets to be stretched further. Likewise people and data are living longer and getting larger.
In conversations with IT professionals particular the real customers (e.g. not vendors, VAR’s, analysts, blogalysts, consultants or media) I routinely hear from people that they continue to have the need to store more information, however they’re data storage usage and acquisition patterns are changing. For some this means using what they have more effectively leveraging data footprint reduction (DFR) which includes (archiving, compression, dedupe, thin provision, changing how and when data is protected). This also means using different types of storage from flash SSD to HDD to SSHD to tape summit resources as well as cloud in different ways spanning block, file and object storage local and remote.
A common question that comes up particular around vendor earnings announcement times is if the data storage industry is in decline with some vendors experience poor results?
As a back ground reading, you might want to check out this post here (IT and storage economics 101, supply and demand) which candidly should be common sense.
If all you looked at were a vendors revenues or margin numbers as an indicator of how well such as the data storage industry (includes traditional, legacy as well as cloud) you would not be getting the picture.
What needs to be factored into the picture is how much storage is being shipped (from components such as drives to systems and appliances) as well as delivered by service providers.
Looking at storage systems vendors from a revenue earnings perspective you would get mixed indicators depending on who you include, not to mention on how those vendors report break of revenues by product, or amount units shipped. For example looking at public vendors EMC, HDS, HP, IBM, NetApp, Nimble and Oracle (among others) as well as the private ones (if you can see the data) such as Dell, Pure, Simplivity, Solidfire, Tintri results in different analysis. Some are doing better than others on revenues and margins, however try to get clarity on number of units or systems shipped (for actual revenue vs. loaners (planting seeds for future revenue or trials) or demos).
Then look at the service providers such as AWS, Centurlylink, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft Rackspace or Verizon (among others) you should see growth, however clarity about how much they are actually generating on revenues plus margin for storage specific vs. broad general buckets can be tricky.
Now look at the component suppliers such as Seagate and Western Digital (WD) for HDDs and SSHDs who also provide flash SSD drives and other technology. Also look at the other flash component suppliers such as Avago/LSI whose flash business is being bought by Seagate, FusionIO, SANdisk, Samsung, Micron and Intel among others (this does not include the systems vendors who OEM those or other products to build systems or appliances). These and other component suppliers can give another indicator as to the health of the industry both from revenue and margin, as well as footprint (e.g. how many devices are being shipped). For example the legacy and startup storage systems and appliance vendors may have soft or lower revenue numbers, however are they shipping the same or less product? Likewise the cloud or service providers may be showing more revenues and product being acquired however at what margin?
Look at revenue numbers in the proper context as well as in the bigger picture.
If the same number of component devices (e.g. processors, HDD, SSD, SSHD, memory, etc) are being shipped or more, that is an indicator of continued or increased demand. Likewise if there is more competition and options for IT organizations there will be price competition between vendors as well as service providers.
All of this means that while IT organizations budgets stay stretched, their available dollars or euros should be able to buy (or rent) them more storage space capacity.
Likewise using various data and storage management techniques including DFR, the available space capacity can be stretched further.
So this then begs the question of if the management of storage is important, why are we not hearing vendors talking about software defined storage management vs. chasing each other to out software define storage each other?
Ah, that’s for a different post ;).
So what say you?
Are you using less storage?
Do you have less data being created?
Are you using storage and your available budget more effectively?
Please take a few minutes and cast your vote (and see the results).
Sorry I have no Amex or Amazon gift cards or other things to offer you as a giveaway for participating as nobody is secretly sponsoring this poll or post, it’s simply sharing and conveying information for you and others to see and gain insight from.
Do you think that there is an information or data recession?
How about are you using or buying more storage, could there be a data storage recession?
Some more reading links
IT and storage economics 101, supply and demand
Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
Is There a Data and I/O Activity Recession?
Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
The Human Face of Big Data, a Book Review
Garbage data in, garbage information out, big data or big garbage?
Little data, big data and very big data (VBD) or big BS?
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
In this episode, SNIA Chairman Emeritus Wayne Adams and current Chairman David Dale join me in a conversation from the Data Storage Innovation Conference (DSICON) 2014 conference event.
SNIA Chairman David Dale opening remarks SNIA DSICON 2014
DSICON is a new event produced by SNIA targeted for IT professionals involved with data storage related topics, themes, technologies and tools spanning hardware, software, cloud, virtual and physical. In this conversation, we talk about the new DSI event, the diversity of new attendees who are attending their first SNIA event, along with other updates. Some of these updates include what is new with the SNIA Cloud Data Management Initiative (CDMI), Non Volatile Memory (think flash and SSD), SMIS, education and more. In addition to the DSICON event, SNIA also announced CDMI Cloud Interoperability Conformance Test Program is now available for cloud solution vendors and providers.
DSI, Santa Clara, CA (April 22, 2014)— The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), today announced the launch of a Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) Conformance Test Program (CTP)that validates cloud products’ conformance to the ISO/IEC CDMI standard for cloud data interoperability(ISO catalog number ISO/IEC 17826:2012). Cloud solutions that pass the CDMI CTP offer cloud consumers assurance that the CDMI standard has been properly implemented and that data stored in any conformant implementation will be transportable to any other conformant implementation. |
Here is a perspective commentary quote that I issued which was included in the SNIA Press Release.
“Today, the cloud market is crowded with a slew of vendors offering different solutions for migration, data management and security, often leaving IT customers confused about the right solution for their requirements,” said Greg Schulz, founder of StorageIO, a storage technology advisory and consulting firm. “SNIA’s CDMI Conformance Test Program is a great step forward helping IT customers, VARs or others in the industry navigate their way through the fog of cloud interoperability requirements in a streamlined fashion, not to mention laying standard routes vendors will want to adopt going forward.” |
Check out the full SNIA CDMI press release announcement for the conformance testing here, as well as learn more about CDMI here.
Listen in to our podcast conversation here as we cover cloud, convergence, software defined and more about data storage.
Topics and themes discussed:
Check out SNIA and DSICON listen in to the conversation with David Dale and Wayne Adams here.
Ok, nuff said.
Cheers
Gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
This World Backup Day piece is part of my ongoing Data Protection Diaries series of posts (www.dataprotecitondiaries.com) about trends, strategies, tools and best practices spanning applications, archiving, backup/restore, business continuance (BC), business resiliency (BR), cloud, data footprint reduction (DFR), security, servers, storage and virtualization among other related topic themes.
Different threat risks and reasons to protect your digital assets (data)
March 31 is World Backup Day which means you should make sure that your data and digital assets (photos, videos, music or audio, scanned items) along with other digital documents are protected. Keep in mind that various reasons for protecting, preserving and serving your data regardless of if you are a consumer with needs to protect your home and personal information, or a large business, institution or government agency.
By being protected this means making sure that there are copies of your documents, data, files, software tools, settings, configurations and other digital assets. These copies can be in different locations (home, office, on-site, off-site, in the cloud) as well as for various points in time or recovery point objective (RPO) such as monthly, weekly, daily, hourly and so forth.
Having different copies for various times (e.g. your protection interval) gives you the ability to go back to a specific time to recover or restore lost, stolen, damaged, infected, erased, or accidentally over-written data. Having multiple copies is also a safeguard incase either the data, files, objects or items being backed up or protected are bad, or the copy is damaged, lost or stolen.
While the focus of world backup data is to make sure that you are backing up or protecting your data and digital assets, it is also about making sure what you think is being protected is actually occurring. It is also a time to make sure what you think is occurring or know is being done can actually be used when needed (restore, recover, rebuild, reload, rollback among other things that start with R). This means testing that you can find the files, folders, volumes, objects or data items that were protected, use those copies or backups to restore to a different place (you don’t want to create a disaster by over-writing your good data).
In addition to making sure that the data can be restored to a different place, go one more step to verify that the data can actually be used which means has it be decrypted or unlocked, have the security or other rights and access settings along with meta data been applied. While that might seem obvious it is often the obvious that will bite you and cause problems, hence take some time to test that all is working, not to mention get some practice doing restores.
Recently I did a piece based on my own experiences with data protection including Backup as well as Restore over at Spiceworks called My copies were corrupted: The 3-2-1 rule. For those not familiar, or as a reminder 3 2 1 means have more than three copies or better yet, versions stored on at least two different devices, systems, drives, media or mediums in at least one different location from the primary or main copy.
Following is an excerpt from the My copies were corrupted: The 3-2-1 rule piece: Not long ago I had a situation where something happened to an XML file that I needed. I discovered it was corrupted, and I needed to do a quick restore. “No worries,” I thought, “I’ll simply copy the most recent version that I had saved to my file server.” No such luck. That file had been just copied and was damaged. “OK, no worries,” I thought. “That’s why I have a periodic backup copy.” It turns out that had worked flawlessly. Except there was a catch — it had backed up the damaged file. This meant that any and all other copies of the file were also damaged as far back as to when the problem occurred. Read the full piece here. |
Yes I eat my own dog food meaning that I practice what I talk about (e.g. walking the talk) leveraging not just a 3 2 1 approach, actually more of a 4 3 2 1 hybrid which means different protection internals, various retention’s and frequencies, not all data gets treated the same, using local disk, removable disk to go off-site as well as cloud. I also test candidly more often by accident using the local, removable and cloud copies when I accidentally delete something, or save the wrong version.
Some of my data and applications are protected throughout the day, others on set schedules that vary from hours to days to weeks to months or more. Yes, some of my data such as large videos or other items that are static do not change, so why backup them up or protect every day, week or month? I also align the type of protection, frequency, retention to meet different threat risks, as well as encrypt data. Part of actually testing and using the restores or recoveries is also determining what certificates or settings are missing, as well as where opportunities exist or needed to enhance data protection.
Take some time to learn more about data protection including how you can improve or modernize while rethinking what to protect, when, where, why how and with what.
In addition to having copies from different points in time and extra copies in various locations, also make sure that they are secured or encrypted AND make sure to protect your encryption keys. After all, try to find a digital locksmith to unlock your data who is not working for a government agency when you need to get access to your data ;)…
Learn more about data protection including Backup/Restore at www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/ where there are a collection of related posts and presentations including:
Also check out the collection of technology and vendor / product neutral data protection and backup/restore content at BackupU (disclosure: sponsored by Dell Data Protection Software) that includes various webinars and Google+ hangout sessions that I have been involved with.
Watch for more data protection conversations about related trends, themes, technologies, techniques perspectives in my ongoing data protection diaries discussions as well as read more about Backup and other related items at www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/.
Ok, nuff said
Cheers
Gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
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