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September 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter



Server StorageIO September 2017 Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

Volume 17, Issue IX (September 2017)

Hello and welcome to the September 2017 issue of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

With September being generally known as back to school month, the two September event bookends were VMware VMworld and Microsoft Ignite with many other things in between. Needless to say, a lot has happened in and around data infrastructure topic areas since the August newsletter (here if you missed it). Here is a post covering some of the things that I participated with during September including presentations at events in Las Vegas (VMworld), New York City (Wipro SDx Summit), SNIA SDC in Santa Clara, Fujifilm Executive Summitt in Seattle, Minneapolis/St. Paul CMG along with other activities.

Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC

One of the activities I participated in with while at VMworld in Las Vegas was a book signing event at the VMware bookstore of my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press) available at Amazon.com and other global venues.

September has been a busy month pertaining data infrastructure including server storage I/O related trends, activities, news, perspectives and related topics, so let’s have a look at them.

In This Issue

Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO data infrastructure update newsletter.

Cheers GS

Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

Some recent Industry Activities, Trends, News and Announcements include:

The month started out with VMworld in Las Vegas (e.g. one of the event bookends for the month). Rather than a long list of announcements in this newsletter, check out this StorageIOblog post covering VMworld, VMware and Dell EMC and related news. As part of VMworld, VMware and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced news about their partnership. AWS also had several other enhancements and new product announcements during september that can be found in this StorageIOblog post here.

AWS, Dell EMC and VMware were not the only ones making news or announcements during September. Startup NVMe based storage startup Apeiron has announced a Splunk appliance to boost log and analytics processing performance. Gigamon has extended its public cloud monitoring, insight awareness and analytics capabilities including support for Microsoft Azure.

For those looking for the latest new emerging data infrastructure vendors to watch, add Vexta to your list of NVMe based storage systems. Vexta talks a lot about NVMe particular for their backend (e.g. where data stored on NVM based devices accessed via NVMe), access of their storage system is via traditional Fibre Channel (FC) or emerging NVMe over fabric.

Long time data infrastructure server and storage vendor HDS (Hitachi Data Systems) is no more (at least in name) having re branded themselves as Vantara focusing on IoT and Cloud analytics besides their traditional data center focus. Vantara combines what was HDS, Hitachi Insight Group and Pentaho into a single unit effectively based in what was HDS as a new, repackaged, refocused business unit.

Another longtime data infrastructure solution and service provider IBM announced a new Linux only zSeries (ZED) mainframe solution. Some might think the Mainframe is dead, others that it can only run Linux as a virtual guest in a virtual machine. On the other hand some might recall that there are native Linux implementations on the ZED including Ubuntu among others.

Also note that while IBM zOS mainframe operating systems use FICON for storage access, native ZED Linux systems can use open systems based Fibre Channel (FC) e.g. SCSI command set protocols. Is the ZED based Linux for everybody or every environment? Probably not, however for those who have large-scale Linux needs, it might be worth a look to do a total cost of ownership analysis. If nothing else, do your homework, play your cards right and you might have some leverage with the x86 based server crowd when it comes to negotiating leverage.

Cloud storage gateway vendor Nasuni has landed another $38 Million USD in funding, hopefully that will enable them to start landing some new and larger customer revenues growing their business. Meanwhile storage startup Qumulo has announced extending their global file fabric name space to include spanning AWS.

Attala Systems has announced next generation software defined storage for data infrastructures for Telco environments. Percona has added an experimental release of their MySQL engine enhancing performance for high volume, write intensive workloads along with improved cost effectiveness.

Software defined storage vendor Datacore announced enhancements to support fast databases for online transaction processing (OLTP) along with analytics. Meanwhile Linux provider SUSE continues to expand its software defined storage story based around Ceph. Panasas has enhanced its scale out high performance cluster file system global name space for HPC environments with 20 PByte support. Another longtime storage vendor X-IO (formerly known as Xiotech) announced their 4th generation of their Intelligent Storage Element (ISE).

September wrapped up with Microsoft Ignite conference along with many updated, enhancements and new features for Azure, Azure Stack, Windows among others. Read more about those and other Microsoft September announcements here in this StorageIOblog post.

Check out other industry news, comments, trends perspectives here.

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via CDW: Comments on Is Your Network About To Fail?
Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Data Storage and Big Data Analytics
Via InfoGoto: Comments on Cloud FOMO (Fear of missing out)
Via InfoGoto: Comments on Building a Modern Data Strategy
Via InfoGoto: Comments on the future of Multi-Cloud Computing
Via InfoGoto: Comments on AI, Machine Learning and Data management
Via InfoGoto: Comments on Your riskiest data might be in plain sight
Via InfoGoto: Comments on Data Management Too Much To Handle
Via InfoGoto: Comments on Google Cloud Platform Gaining Data Storage Momentum
Via InfoGoto: Comments on Singapore High Rise Data Centers
Via InfoGoto: Comments on New Tape Storage Capacity
Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on 8 ways to save on cloud storage
Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Google Cloud Platform and Storage

View more Server, Storage and I/O trends and perspectives comments here

Server StorageIOblog Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

In Case You Missed It #ICYMI

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Tips and Articles

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Who Will Rule the Storage World?
Via InfoGoto: Comments on Google Cloud Platform Gaining Data Storage Momentum
Via InfoGoto: Comments on Singapore High Rise Data Centers
Via InfoGoto: Comments on New Tape Storage Capacity
Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on 8 ways to save on cloud storage
Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Google Cloud Platform and Storage

View more Server, Storage and I/O trends and perspectives comments here

Server StorageIO Recommended Reading (Watching and Listening) List

In addition to my own books including Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017), the following are Server StorageIO recommended reading, watching and listening list items. The list includes various IT, Data Infrastructure and related topics.

Intel Recommended Reading List (IRRL) for developers is a good resource to check out.

Its October which means that it is also Blogtober, check out some of the blogs and posts occurring during October here.

Preston De Guise aka @backupbear is Author of several books has an interesting new site Foolsrushin.info that looks at topics including Ethics in IT among others. Check out his new book Data Protection: Ensuring Data Availability (CRC Press 2017).

Brendan Gregg has a great site for Linux performance related topics here.

Greg Knieriemen has a must read weekly blog, post, column collection of whats going on in and around the IT and data infrastructure related industries, Check it out here.

Interested in file systems, CIFS, SMB, SAMBA and related topics then check out Chris Hertels book on implementing CIFS here at Amazon.com

For those involved with VMware, check out Frank Denneman VMware vSphere 6.5 host resource guide-book here at Amazon.com.

I often mention in presentations a must have for anybody involved with software defined anything, or programming for that matter which is the Niklaus Wirth classic Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs that you can get on Amazon.com here.

Another great book to have is Seven Databases in Seven Weeks which not only provides an overview of popular NoSQL databases such as Cassandra, Mongo, HBASE among others, lots of good examples and hands on guides. Get your copy here at Amazon.com.

Watch for more more items to be added to the book shelf soon.

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

Nov. 2, 2017 – Webinar – Modern Data Protection for Hyper-Convergence
Sep. 21, 2017 – MSP CMG – Minneapolis MN
Sep. 20, 2017 – Webinar – BC, DR and Business Resiliency (BR) tips
Sep. 14, 2017 – Fujifilm IT Executive Summit – Seattle WA
Sep. 12, 2017 – SNIA Software Developers Conference (SDC) – Santa Clara CA
Sep. 7, 2017 – Wipro SDX – Enabling, Planning Your Software Defined Journey
August 28-30, 2017 – VMworld – Las Vegas

See more webinars and activities on the Server StorageIO Events page here.

Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

Useful links and pages:
Microsoft TechNet – Various Microsoft related from Azure to Docker to Windows
storageio.com/links – Various industry links (over 1,000 with more to be added soon)
objectstoragecenter.com – Cloud and object storage topics, tips and news items
OpenStack.org – Various OpenStack related items
storageio.com/downloads – Various presentations and other download material
storageio.com/protect – Various data protection items and topics
thenvmeplace.com – Focus on NVMe trends and technologies
thessdplace.com – NVM and Solid State Disk topics, tips and techniques
storageio.com/converge – Various CI, HCI and related SDS topics
storageio.com/performance – Various server, storage and I/O benchmark and tools
VMware Technical Network – Various VMware related items

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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Getting Caught Up What Happened In September 2017

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Getting Caught Up, What Happened In September?

Seems like just yesterday it was the end of August with the start of VMworld in Las Vegas, now its the end of September and Microsoft Ignite in Orlando is wrapping up. Microsoft has made several announcements this week at Ignite including Azure cloud related, AI, IoT, Windows platforms, O365 among others. More about Microsoft Azure, Azure Stack, Windows Server, Hyper-V and related data infrastructure topics in future posts.

Like many of you, September is a busy time of the year, so here is a recap of some of what I have been doing for the past month (among other things).

vmworld 2017

VMworld Las Vegas

During VMworld US VMware announced enhanced workspace, security and endpoint solutions, Pivotal Container Service (PKS) with Google for Kubernetes serverless container management, DXC partnership for hybrid cloud management, security enablement via its AppDefense solutions, data infrastructure platform enhancements including integrated OpenStack, vRealize management tools, vSAN among others. VMware also made announcements including expanded multi-cloud and hybrid cloud support along with VMware on AWS as well as Dell EMC data protection for VMware and AWS environments.

xxxx

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press) at VMworld bookstore

In other VMworld activity, my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press) made its public debut in the VMware book store where I did a book signing event. You can get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials which includes Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC) along with hybrid, multi-cloud, serverless, converged and related topics at Amazon among other venues. Learn more here.

Software Defined Everything (x)

In early September I was invited to present at the Wipro Software Defined Everything (x) event in New York City. This event follows Wipro invited me to present at in London England this past January at the inaugural SDx Summit event. At the New York City event my presentation was Planning and Enabling Your Journey to SDx which bridged the higher level big picture industry trends to the applied feet on the ground topics. Attendees of the event included customers, prospects, partners, various analyst firms along with Wipro personal.

At the Wipro event during a panel discussion a question was asked about definition of software defined. After the usual vendor and industry responses, mine was a simple, put the emphasis on Define as opposed to software, with a focus on what is the resulting outcome. In other words how and what are you defining (e.g. x) which could be storage, server, data center, data infrastructure, network among others to make a particular result, outcome, service or capability. While the emphasis is around defined, that also can mean curate, compose, craft, program or whatever you prefer to create an outcome.

Image via snia.org

Role of Storage in a Software Defined Data Infrastructure

At the Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA) Storage Developers Conference (SDC) in Santa Clara I did a talk about the role of Storage in Software Defined Data Infrastructures. The theme was that not only is there a role, storage is fundamental and essential for any software defined data infrastructure (as well as legacy) from cloud to container, serverless to virtual servers, converged and hybrid among others. Other themes included the changing role of storage along with how hardware needs software, software needs hardware, and serverless has hardware and software somewhere in the stack. Tradecraft along with other related data infrastructure topics were also discussed.

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

While promoted as an event for storage developers by storage developers, based on a lot of the content presented, SNIA could easily increase attendance to a broader audience with some slight tweaks as well as messaging. If SNIA is looking to focus the event only for vendor storage developers, surprise surprise, there were developers there, however I also talked with IT customers who were there among other non developers. SDC IMHO is not a replacement for SNW, however with some simple adjustments in messaging from who shouldn’t attend to who should or could attend, more attendees and sponsors might just happen appear.

Check out the SNIA SDC presentations here, along with my presentation from the 2017 event here (among others).

tape and cloud storage

Tape in a Software Defined and Hybrid Cloud World

I was invited by Fujifilm to present at their recent 9th annual executive summit in Seattle. The Fujifilm event was attended by various partners, customers and industry folks covering a diverse set of topics. Focus areas spanned from legacy IT to hyper-scale to public cloud and High-Performance Compute (HPC) among others. Magnetic Tape (e.g. tape) may be going away from your data center, however, chances are if you are doing or storing things in the cloud, your data may end up on tape. In other words, not only does tape continue to evolve, its place and how used (as well as accessed) is also changing. Check out the Fujifilm site here where you can scroll down and check out mine and other presentations from the event.

Focus on Data Protection (and recovery)

September also saw hurricanes, tropical storms, flooding, earthquakes, and acts of natural events, to man-made accidental as well as intentional including software-defined threats such as ransomware, malware, virus, Equifax data information breaches, leaks, loss among other security concerns. A reminder that there are the headline-making news events, as well as those that may be more common yet not widely talked about. What this means is that big or small, full or partial damage, destruction, loss or loss of access, data protection should be proactive to enable recovery instead of an afterthought.

Think of data protection as an investment instead of cost overhead, however that also means finding ways to spread costs out while gaining more benefit. Also remember that if something can occur, fail or happen, it probably will. In other words, the question should not be if, rather when, with what impact. This also means evolving from backup/restore, disaster recovery to business resiliency that enables your applications and data to stay available as well as accessible. In other words, how well are you prepared?

Additional data protection related topics and content include:

  • Free Webinar (registration required) with tips for disaster recovery (DR) and business resiliency (BR)
  • Preventing Unexpected Disasters article tip via Iron Mountain
  • Server StorageIO data infrastructure data protection diaries (various tips and content)
  • Free webinar (registration required) planning for GDPR
  • Time to recover, do you know where backup data is (article from Computerweekly)
  • Ensuring your data infrastructure remains available (article from Networkworld)
  • Tips on preparing for Hurricane and storm season (via IronMountain)

Expanding Your Data Infrastructure Tradecraft

At the September Minneapolis St. Paul (MSP) Computer Measurement Group (CMG) event, I gave a presentation discussing industry trends perspectives, buzzword bingo updates including software defined, NVM (the media) vs. NVMe (the interface) benchmarking, tools, cloud, serverless and tradecraft. Tradecraft as a refresher are those skills and fundamental experiences you acquire over time including what tools, techniques to use for different scenarios.

As part of the CMG presentation, the discussion looked at expanding your data infrastructure tradecraft into adjacent areas around your current focus. Also discussed were the importance of context as different words have two or more meanings. For example SAS can mean Scandinavian Air System, Statistics Analysis Software the original unstructured and big data tool, as well as for storage Serial Attached SCSI. However there is another meaning for SAS which spans server, storage, networking, cloud, security and other focus areas which is Shared Access Signature.

Downloads the CMG and other presentations from the Server StorageIO website here.

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

What This All Means

The above are some of the things I was involved with during September with themes of data infrastructure, data protection, software defined cloud, virtual, serverless containers, servers, storage, I/O networking, SSD including NVMe, performance and capacity planning, metrics that matter, management among other topics. It was great meeting many new people at the various venues this past month, likewise seeing old acquaintances and friends. Also thanks to all who have ordered copies of my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials along with your comments. Check out the Server StorageIO data infrastructure update newsletter for other related activity, industry trends among other topics. Now lets see how fast October and the rest of 2017 goes.

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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August 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter



Server StorageIO August 2017 Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

Volume 17, Issue VII (Pre VMworld 2017)

Hello and welcome to the August 2017 issue of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

Its end of summer season here in north america which means wrapping up holidays, vacations, back to school shopping (and going to school), as well as the start of the fall IT technology conference season. VMworld 2017 USA is this week in Las Vegas and there will be several announcements coming out of that event. Given all of the activity so far this month, I’m going to cover the VMworld and related topics in a special early September issue of this newsletter.

Speaking of VMworld 2017, if you are going to be there in Las Vegas, stop by the book store located in the community village area on Tuesday at 1PM I will be doing a book signing, meet and greet, stop by and say hello.

Thanks to all who participated in the recent thevPad top 100 vBloggers event, I am honored to have StorageIOblog listed in the top 100 vBlogs. Also congratulations to new and returning fellow Microsoft MVPs and VMware vExperts. There is a lot going on in the industry, lets get to it in this Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter.

In This Issue

Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter (pre VMworld edition).

Cheers GS

Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

Acronis announced True Image 2018 for home based data protection (backup), while Crashplan aka code42 announced they were getting out of the consumer, small office home office (SOHO) backup and data protection space to focus on the enterprise.

Cisco bought software defined storage converged infrastructure software vendor Springpath for about $320M USD. Cisco and Swiftstack (object storage software) also announced interoperability news with the UCS S32600 storage server platform.

GPU vendor NVIDIA announced Quadro Virtual Data Center workstation technology.

Meanwhile ioFABRIC announced their new Vicinity 3.0 software defined management solution.

Microsemi (remember PMC Sierra) announced release of its Flashtec PCIe controllers to help speed adoption deployment of SSDs including NVMe based.

Microsoft bought Cycle Computing to enhance Azure services, while also making Azure Blob storage tiering available as part of an ongoing public preview. For those not aware, Azure Blob is similar to what other services call objects. Get in on the public preview here. For those who live in a hybrid world where your environment and experience include both Windows and Linux, check out Windows Services for Linux here. With this service which can install onto an Windows 10 system along side Win32 (e.g. it co-exists, its not a virtual machine), you can choose from the Windows Store which Linux distro you want (e.g. Centos, Ubuntu, etc).

Need to learn, refresh or simply gain a better understanding of Microsoft PowerShell for software defined management of Windows, Azure and other environments? Check out this great post from Microsoft Blogs.

For those who work in a Windows or Azure environment, here are some useful icons for Powerpoint, Visio, PNG and SVG from Microsoft. With Microsoft Ignite coming up in September, watch for some interesting update enhancements to Windows Server from a server storage I/O perspective.

NextPlatform.com has an interesting article on Exascale Timeline for Storage and I/O systems worth a read. Panzura global name space and scale out software defined storage management software announced mobile client file sharing. After dropping their own cloud business, Verizon is now a virtual network services partner with Amazon.

Over at all flash array (AFA) SSD vendor Pure, revenues are growing closer to an annual $1B USD rate despite loss per share, Pure also announced a change in leadership with current CEO Scott Dietzen stepping aside for Charles Giancarlo to take the lead spot.

VMware has been talking about the continued increase in customer adoption and deployment of VSAN now they are showing they eat their own dog food. Check out this post here from VMware that shows how many and what size VSAN clusters they are using for various internal operations. Also on the VMware storage front, learn more about enhancements for large and small file allocation blocks with vSphere VMFS6.

With all of the pre and post VMworld related announcements, remember to check out the tools available over at the VMware flings site including vSphere HTML5 Web Client, HCIBench, vRealize Operations Export, VisualEsxtop, ESXi Embedded Host Client, VMware OS Optimization Tool and many others. Watch for VMworld coverage in the September newsletter along with posts at www.storageioblog.com

Check out other industry news, comments, trends perspectives here.

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Who Will Rule the Storage World?
Via InfoGoto: Comments on Google Cloud Platform Gaining Data Storage Momentum
Via InfoGoto: Comments on Singapore High Rise Data Centers
Via InfoGoto: Comments on New Tape Storage Capacity

View more Server, Storage and I/O trends and perspectives comments here

Server StorageIOblog Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

In Case You Missed It #ICYMI

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Tips and Articles

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via NetworkWorld: Do you have an IT trade craft skills gap?

View more Server, Storage and I/O trends and perspectives comments here

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

Sep. 21, 2017 – MSP CMG – Minneapolis MN
Sep. 20, 2017 – Redmond Data Protection and Backup – Webinar
Sep. 14, 2017 – Fujifilm IT Executive Summit – Seattle WA
Sep. 12, 2017 – SNIA Software Developers Conference (SDC) – Santa Clara CA
Sep. 7, 2017 – WiPro – Planning Your Software Defined Journey – New York City
August 29, 2017 – VMworld – Las Vegas

See more webinars and activities on the Server StorageIO Events page here.

Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

Useful links and pages:
Microsoft TechNet – Various Microsoft related from Azure to Docker to Windows
storageio.com/links – Various industry links (over 1,000 with more to be added soon)
objectstoragecenter.com – Cloud and object storage topics, tips and news items
OpenStack.org – Various OpenStack related items
storageio.com/protect – Various data protection items and topics
thenvmeplace.com – Focus on NVMe trends and technologies
thessdplace.com – NVM and Solid State Disk topics, tips and techniques
storageio.com/converge – Various CI, HCI and related SDS topics
storageio.com/performance – Various server, storage and I/O benchmark and tools
VMware Technical Network – Various VMware related items

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch

Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Updated 1/21/2018

A common question I get asked is who are the hot popular new trending data infrastructure vendors to watch. This post looks at some data infrastructure vendors to watch and keep an eye on.

Keep in mind that there is a difference between industry adoption and customer deployment, the former being what the industry (e.g. Vendors, resellers, integrators, investors, consultants, analyst, press, media, analysts, bloggers or other influences) like, want and need to talk about. Then there is customer adoption and deployment which is what is being bought, installed and used.

Some Popular Trending Vendors To Watch

The following is far from an exhaustive list however here are some that come to mind that I’m watching.

Apcera – Enterprise class containers and management tools
AWS – Rolls our new services like a startup with size momentum of a legacy player
Blue Medora – Data Infrastructure insight, software defined management
Broadcom – Avago/LSI, legacy Broadcom, Emulex, Brocade acquisition interesting portfolio
Chelsio – Server, storage and data Infrastructure I/O technologies
Commvault – Data protection and backup solutions
Compuverde – Software defined storage
Data Direct Networks (DDN) – Scale out and high performance storage
Datadog – Software defined management, data infrastructure insight, analytics, reporting
Datrium – Converged software defined data infrastructure solutions
Dell EMC Code – Rexray container persistent storage management
Docker – Container and management tools
E8 Storage – NVMe based storage solutions
Elastifile – Scale out software defined storage and file system
Enmotus – MicroTiering that works with Windows, Linux and various cloud platforms
Everspin – storage class memories and NVDIMM
Excelero – NVMe based storage
Hedvig – Scale out software defined storage
Huawei – While not common in the US, in Europe and elsewhere they are gaining momentum
Intel – Watch what they do with Optane and storage class memories
Kubernetes – Container software defined management
Liqid – Stealth Colorado startup focusing on PCIe fabrics and composable infrastructure
Maxta – Hyper converged infrastructure (HCI) and software defined data infrastructure vendor
Mellanox – While not a startup, keep an eye on what they are doing with their adapters
Micron – Watch what they do with 3D XPoint storage class memory and SSD
Microsoft – Not a startup, however keep an eye on Azure, Azure Stack, Window Server with S2D, ReFS, tiering, CI/HCI as well as Linux services on Windows.
Minio – Software defined storage solutions
NetApp – While FAS/Ontap and Solidfire get the headlines, E series generates revenue, keep an eye on StorageGrid and AltaVault
Neuvector – Container management and security
Noobaa – Software defined storage and more
NVIDA – No longer just another graphics process unit based company
Pivot3 – An original HCI software defined players, granted, some of their competitors might not think so
Pluribus Networks – Software Defined Networks for Software Defined Data Infrastructures
Portwork – Container management and persistent storage
Rozo Systems – Scale out software defined storage and file system
Rubrik – Data Protection software, reminds me of a startup called Commvault 20 years ago.
ScaleMP – Composable scale out software defined servers
Storpool – Scale out software defined storage
Stratoscale – Software defined data infrastructure and hybrid solutions
SUSE – Linux distribution looking to expand their offerings, gain more insight
Tidalscale – Composable software defined data infrastructures
Turbonomic – Software Defined Management, insight, analytics and automation
Ubuntu – Known for their Linux distribution, check out their Metal as a Service (MaaS) technology
Veeam – Data protection and backup solutions
technology
Virtuozzo – Software defined storage and data infrastructure technologies
VMware – AWS, vSAN, NSX, Integrated Containers and much more
WekaIO – Scale out software defined storage and file system

Some Popular Trending Technology Trends

  • ARM, ASIC, FPGA, GPU servers among others
  • Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI), Composable Infrastructure
  • Analytics, reporting, insight, machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), automation
  • Software Defined including Cloud, Virtual, Containers, Docker, kubernetes, mesos, serverless, micro services
  • Data protection, backup/restore, archive, security, business resiliency (BR), business continuance (BC), disaster recovery (DR)
  • Non-volatile memory (NMV), NVM Express (NVMe), storage class memories (SCM), persistent memory, nand flash, SSD

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

There are always more hot popular new or trending data infrastructure vendors to watch, which ones are you keeping an eye on?

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Travel Fun Crossword Puzzle For VMworld 2017 Las Vegas

Travel Fun Crossword Puzzle For VMworld 2017 Las Vegas

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Some of you may be traveling to VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas next week to sharpen, expand, refresh or share your VMware and data infrastructure tradecraft (skills, experiences, expertise, knowledge). Here is something fun to sharpen your VMware skills while traveling. Most of these should be pretty easy meaning that you do not have to be a Unicorn, full of vCertifications, vCredentials or a 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1st time vExpert or top 100 vBlogger. However if you need the answers they are below.

VMworld 2017 crossword puzzle SDDI, SDDC

Note that you can also click here to get a PDF version that is larger (or click on the image) that also has the answers.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC

For those of you who will be in Las Vegas at VMworld next week, stop by the VMworld Book Store at 1PM on Tuesday (the 29th) where I will be doing a book signing event for my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), stop by and say hello. Note there are also Kindle and other electronic versions of my new SDDI Essentials Book on Amazon.com and other venues if you need something to read during your upcoming travels.

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

What This All Means

Have a safe and fun trip on your way to Las Vegas for next weeks VMworld, enjoy the crossword puzzle, and if you need the answers, they are located here (PDF), see you at VMworld 2017 in Last Vegas.

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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Announcing Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book by Greg Schulz

New SDDI Essentials Book by Greg Schulz of Server StorageIO

Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Update 1/21/2018

Over the past several months I have posted, commenting, presenting and discussing more about Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials aka SDDI or SDDC and SDI. Now it is time to announce my new book (my 4th solo project), Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book (CRC Press). Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials is now generally available at various global venues in hardcopy, hardback print as well as various electronic versions including via Amazon and CRC Press among others. For those attending VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas, I will be doing a book signing, meet and greet at 1PM Tuesday August 29 in the VMworld book store, as well as presenting at various other fall industry events.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book Announcement

(Via Businesswire) Stillwater, Minnesota – August 23, 2017  – Server StorageIO, a leading independent IT industry advisory and consultancy firm, in conjunction with publisher CRC Press, a Taylor and Francis imprint, announced the release and general availability of “Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials,” a new book by Greg Schulz, noted author and Server StorageIO founder.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials

The Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book covers physical, cloud, converged (and hyper-converged), container, and virtual server storage I/O networking technologies, revealing trends, tools, techniques, and tradecraft skills.

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

From cloud web scale to enterprise and small environments, IoT to database, software-defined data center (SDDC) to converged and container servers, flash solid state devices (SSD) to storage and I/O networking,, the book helps develop or refine hardware, software, services and management experiences, providing real-world examples for those involved with or looking to expand their data infrastructure education knowledge and tradecraft skills.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book topics include:

  • Cloud, Converged, Container, and Virtual Server Storage I/O networking
  • Data protection (archive, availability, backup, BC/DR, snapshot, security)
  • Block, file, object, structured, unstructured and data value
  • Analytics, monitoring, reporting, and management metrics
  • Industry trends, tools, techniques, decision making
  • Local, remote server, storage and network I/O troubleshooting
  • Performance, availability, capacity and  economics (PACE)

Where To Purchase Your Copy

Order via Amazon.com and CRC Press along with Google Books among other global venues.

What People Are Saying About Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book

“From CIOs to operations, sales to engineering, this book is a comprehensive reference, a must-read for IT infrastructure professionals, beginners to seasoned experts,” said Tom Becchetti, advisory systems engineer.

"We had a front row seat watching Greg present live in our education workshop seminar sessions for ITC professionals in the Netherlands material that is in this book. We recommend this amazing book to expand your converged and data infrastructure knowledge from beginners to industry veterans."

Gert and Frank Brouwer – Brouwer Storage Consultancy

"Software-Defined Data Infrastructures provides the foundational building blocks to improve your craft in several areas including applications, clouds, legacy, and more.  IT professionals, as well as sales professionals and support personal, stand to gain a great deal by reading this book."

Mark McSherry- Oracle Regional Sales Manager

"Greg Schulz has provided a complete ‘toolkit’ for storage management along with the background and framework for the storage or data infrastructure professional (or those aspiring to become one)."
Greg Brunton – Experienced Storage and Data Management Professional

“Software-defined data infrastructures are where hardware, software, server, storage, I/O networking and related services converge inside data centers or clouds to protect, preserve, secure and serve applications and data,” said Schulz.  “Both readers who are new to data infrastructures and seasoned pros will find this indispensable for gaining and expanding their knowledge.”

SDDI and SDDC components

More About Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials
Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) Essentials provides fundamental coverage of physical, cloud, converged, and virtual server storage I/O networking technologies, trends, tools, techniques, and tradecraft skills. From webscale, software-defined, containers, database, key-value store, cloud, and enterprise to small or medium-size business, the book is filled with techniques, and tips to help develop or refine your server storage I/O hardware, software, Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC), Software Data Infrastructures (SDI) or Software Defined Anything (SDx) and services skills. Whether you are new to data infrastructures or a seasoned pro, you will find this comprehensive reference indispensable for gaining as well as expanding experience with technologies, tools, techniques, and trends.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC content

This book is the definitive source providing comprehensive coverage about IT and cloud Data Infrastructures for experienced industry experts to beginners. Coverage of topics spans from higher level applications down to components (hardware, software, networks, and services) that get defined to create data infrastructures that support business, web, and other information services. This includes Servers, Storage, I/O Networks, Hardware, Software, Management Tools, Physical, Software Defined Virtual, Cloud, Docker, Containers (Docker and others) as well as Bulk, Block, File, Object, Cloud, Virtual and software defined storage.

Additional topics include Data protection (Availability, Archiving, Resiliency, HA, BC, BR, DR, Backup), Performance and Capacity Planning, Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper-Converged, NVM and NVMe Flash SSD, Storage Class Memory (SCM), NVMe over Fabrics, Benchmarking (including metrics matter along with tools), Performance Capacity Planning and much more including whos doing what, how things work, what to use when, where, why along with current and emerging trends.

Book Features

ISBN-13: 978-1498738156
ISBN-10: 149873815X
Hardcover: 672 pages
(Available in Kindle and other electronic formats)
Over 200 illustrations and 70 plus tables
Frequently asked Questions (and answers) along with many tips
Various learning exercises, extensive glossary and appendices
Publisher: Auerbach/CRC Press Publications; 1 edition (June 19, 2017)
Language: English

SDDI and SDDC toolbox

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Data Infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve information along with the applications and data they depend on. With more data being created at a faster rate, along with the size of data becoming larger, increased application functionality to transform data into information means more demands on data infrastructures and their underlying resources.

Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials: Cloud, Converged, and Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft is for people who are currently involved with or looking to expand their knowledge and tradecraft skills (experience) of data infrastructures. Software-defined data centers (SDDC), software data infrastructures (SDI), software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and traditional data infrastructures are made up of software, hardware, services, and best practices and tools spanning servers, I/O networking, and storage from physical to software-defined virtual, container, and clouds. The role of data infrastructures is to enable and support information technology (IT) and organizational information applications.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Everything is not the same in business, organizations, IT, and in particular servers, storage, and I/O. This means that there are different audiences who will benefit from reading this book. Because everything and everybody is not the same when it comes to server and storage I/O along with associated IT environments and applications, different readers may want to focus on various sections or chapters of this book.

If you are looking to expand your knowledge into an adjacent area or to understand whats under the hood, from converged, hyper-converged to traditional data infrastructures topics, this book is for you. For experienced storage, server, and networking professionals, this book connects the dots as well as provides coverage of virtualization, cloud, and other convergence themes and topics.

This book is also for those who are new or need to learn more about data infrastructure, server, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, and services. Another audience for this book is experienced IT professionals who are now responsible for or working with data infrastructure components, technologies, tools, and techniques.

Learn more here about Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) Essentials book along with cloud, converged, and virtual fundamental server storage I/O tradecraft topics, order your copy from Amazon.com or CRC Press here, and thank you in advance for learning more about SDDI and related topics.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Chelsio Storage over IP and other Networks Enable Data Infrastructures

Chelsio Storage over IP Enable Data Infrastructures

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Chelsio and Storage over IP (SoIP) continue to enable Data Infrastructures from legacy to software defined virtual, container, cloud as well as converged. This past week I had a chance to visit with Chelsio to discuss data infrastructures, server storage I/O networking along with other related topics. More on Chelsio later in this post, however, for now lets take a quick step back and refresh what is SoIP (Storage over IP) along with Storage over Ethernet (among other networks).

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

Server Storage over IP Revisited

There are many variations of SoIP from network attached storage (NAS) file based processing including NFS, SAMBA/SMB (aka Windows File sharing) among others. In addition there is various block such as SCSI over IP (e.g. iSCSI), along with object via HTTP/HTTPS, not to mention the buzzword bingo list of RoCE, iSER, iWARP, RDMA, DDPK, FTP, FCoE, IFCP, and SMB3 direct to name a few.

Who is Chelsio

For those who are not aware or need a refresher, Chelsio is involved with enabling server storage I/O by creating ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) that do various functions offloading those from the host server processor. What this means for some is a throw back to the early 2000s of the TCP Offload Engine (TOE) era where various processing to handle regular along with iSCSI and other storage over Ethernet and IP could be accelerated.

Chelsio data infrastructure focus

Chelsio ecosystem across different data infrastructure focus areas and application workloads

As seen in the image above, certainly there is a server and storage I/O network play with Chelsio, along with traffic management, packet inspection, security (encryption, SSL and other offload), traditional, commercial, web, high performance compute (HPC) along with high profit or productivity compute (the other HPC). Chelsio also enables data infrastructures that are part of physical bare metal (BM), software defined virtual, container, cloud, serverless among others.

Chelsio server storage I/O focus

The above image shows how Chelsio enables initiators on server and storage appliances as well as targets via various storage over IP (or Ethernet) protocols.

Chelsio enabling various data center resources

Chelsio also plays in several different sectors from *NIX to Windows, Cloud to Containers, Various processor architectures and hypervisors.

Chelsio ecosystem

Besides diverse server storage I/O enabling capabilities across various data infrastructure environments, what caught my eye with Chelsio is how far they, and storage over IP have progressed over the past decade (or more). Granted there are faster underlying networks today, however the offload and specialized chip sets (e.g. ASICs) have also progressed as seen in the above and next series of images via Chelsio.

The above showing TCP and UDP acceleration, the following show Microsoft SMB 3.1.1 performance something important for doing Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) and Windows-based Converged Infrastructure (CI) along with Hyper Converged Infrastructures (HCI) deployments.

Chelsio software environments

Something else that caught my eye was iSCSI performance which in the following shows 4 initiators accessing a single target doing about 4 million IOPs (reads and writes), various size and configurations. Granted that is with a 100Gb network interface, however it also shows that potential bottlenecks are removed enabling that faster network to be more effectively used.

Chelsio server storage I/O performance

Moving on from TCP, UDP and iSCSI, NVMe and in particular NVMe over Fabric (NVMeoF) have become popular industry topics so check out the following. One of my comments to Chelsio is to add host or server CPU usage to the following chart to help show the story and value proposition of NVMe in general to do more I/O activity while consuming less server-side resources. Lets see what they put out in the future.

Chelsio

Ok, so Chelsio does storage over IP, storage over Ethernet and other interfaces accelerating performance, as well as regular TCP and UDP activity. One of the other benefits of what Chelsio and others are doing with their ASICs (or FPGA by some) is to also offload processing for security among other topics. Given the increased focus around server storage I/O and data infrastructure security from encryption to SSL and related usage that requires more resources, these new ASIC such as from Chelsio help to offload various specialized processing from the server.

The customer benefit is that more productive application work can be done by their servers (or storage appliances). For example, if you have a database server, that means more product ivy data base transactions per second per licensed software. Put another way, want to get more value out of your Oracle, Microsoft or other vendors software licenses, simple, get more work done per server that is licensed by offloading and eliminate waits or other bottlenecks.

Using offloads and removing server bottlenecks might seem like common sense however I’m still amazed that the number of organizations who are more focused on getting extra value out of their hardware vs. getting value out of their software licenses (which might be more expensive).

Chelsio

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

What This All Means

Data Infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve information along with the applications and data they depend on. With more data being created at a faster rate, along with the size of data becoming larger, increased application functionality to transform data into information means more demands on data infrastructures and their underlying resources.

This means more server I/O to storage system and other servers, along with increased use of SoIP as well as storage over Ethernet and other interfaces including NVMe. Chelsio (and others) are addressing the various application and workload demands by enabling more robust, productive, effective and efficient data infrastructures.

Check out Chelsio and how they are enabling storage over IPO (SoIP) to enable Data Infrastructures from legacy to software defined virtual, container, cloud as well as converged, oh, and thanks Chelsio for being able to use the above images.

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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Microsoft Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Reference Resources

Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Architecture Resources

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Need to learn more about Microsoft Azure Cloud Software Defined Data Infrastructure topics including reference architecture among other resources for various application workloads?

Microsoft Azure has an architecture and resources page (here) that includes various application workload reference tools.

Microsoft Azure Software Defined Cloud
Azure Reference Architectures via Microsoft Azure

Examples of some Azure Reference Architecture for various application and workloads include among others:

For example, need to know how to configure a high availability (HA) Sharepoint deployment with Azure, then check out this reference architecture shown below.

Microsoft Azure Sharepoint HA reference architecture
Sharepoint HA via Microsoft Azure

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

What This All Means

Data Infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve information along with the applications and data they depend on. Software Defined Data Infrastructures span legacy, virtual, container, cloud and other environments to support various application workloads. Check out the Microsoft Azure cloud reference architecture and resources mentioned above as well as the Azure Free trial and getting started site here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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Like Data They Protect For Now Quantum Revenues Continue To Grow

For Now Quantum Revenues Continue To Grow

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

For Now Quantum Revenues Continue To Grow. The other day following their formal announced, I received an summary update from Quantum pertaining to their recent Q1 Results (show later below).

Data Infrastructures Protect Preserve Secure and Serve Information
Various IT and Cloud Infrastructure Layers including Data Infrastructures

Quantums Revenues Continue To Grow Like Data

One of the certainties in life is change and the other is continued growth in data that gets transformed into information via IT and other applications. Data Infrastructures fundamental role is to enable an environment for applications and data to be transformed into information and delivered as services. In other words, Data Infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve information along with the applications and data they depend on. Quantums role is to provide solutions and technologies for enabling legacy and cloud or other software defined data infrastructures to protect, preserve, secure and serve data.

What caught my eye in Quantums announcements was that while not earth shattering growth numbers normally associated with a hot startup, being a legacy data infrasture and storage vendor, Quantum’s numbers are hanging in there.

At a time when some legacy as well as startups struggle with increased competition from others including cloud, Quantum appears for at least now to be hanging in there with some gains.

The other thing that caught my eye is that most of the growth not surprisingly is non tape related solutions, particular around their bulk scale out StorNext storage solutions, there is some growth in tape.

Here is the excerpt of what Quantum sent out:


Highlights for the quarter (all comparisons are to the same period a year ago):

•	Grew total revenue and generated profit for 5th consecutive quarter
•	Total revenue was up slightly to $117M, with 3% increase in branded revenue
•	Generated operating profit of $1M with earnings per share of 4 cents, up 2 cents
•	Grew scale-out tiered storage revenue 10% to $34M, with strong growth in video surveillance and technical workflows
o	Key surveillance wins included deals with an Asian government for surveillance at a presidential palace and other government facilities, with a major U.S. port and with four new police department customers
o	Established several new surveillance partnerships – one of top three resellers/integrators in China (Uniview) and two major U.S. integrators (Protection 1 and Kratos)
o	Won two surveillance awards for StorNext – Security Industry Association’s New Product Showcase award and Security Today magazine’s Platinum Govies Government Security award
o	Key technical workflow wins included deals at an international defense and aerospace company to expand StorNext archive environment, a leading biotechnology firm for 1 PB genomic sequencing archive, a top automaker involving autonomous driving research data and a U.S. technology institute involving high performance computing  
o	Announced StorNext 6, which adds new advanced data management features to StorNext’s industry-leading performance and is now shipping
o	Announced scale-out partnerships with Veritone on artificial intelligence and DataFrameworks on data visualization and management  
•	Tape automation, devices and media revenue increased 6% overall while branded revenue for this product category was up 14%
o	Strong sales of newest generation Scalar i3 and i6 tape libraries
•	Established new/enhanced data protection partnerships
o	Enhanced partnership with Veeam, making it easier for their customers to deploy 3-2-1 data protection best practices
o	Became Pure Storage alliance partner, providing our data protection and archive solutions for their customers through mutual channel partners

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

What This All Means

Keep in mind that Data Infrastructures fundamental role is to enable an environment for applications and data to be transformed into information and delivered as services. Data Infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve information along with the applications and data they depend on. Quantum continues to evolve their business as they have for several years from one focused on tape and related technologies to one that includes tape as well as many other solutions for legacy as well as software defined, cloud and virtual environments. For now, quantum revenues continue to grow and diversify.

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Data Infrastructure Industry Trends WekaIO Matrix Software Defined Storage SDS

WekaIO Matrix Scale Out Software Defined Storage SDS

server storage I/O trends

Updated 2/11/2018

WekaIO Matrix is a scale out software defined solution (SDS).

WekaIO Matrix software defined scale out storage SDS

This Server StorageIO Industry Trends Perspective report looks at common issues, trends, and how to address different application server storage I/O challenges. In this report, we look at WekaIO Matrix, an elastic, flexible, highly scalable easy to use (and manage) software defined (e.g. software based) storage solution. WekaIO Matrix enables flexible elastic scaling with stability and without compromise.

Matrix is a new scale out software defined storage solution that:

  • Installs on bare metal, virtual or cloud servers
  • Has POSIX, NFS, SMB, and HDFS storage access
  • Adaptable performance for little and big data
  • Tiering of flash SSD and cloud object storage
  • Distributed resilience without compromise
  • Removes complexity of traditional storage
  • Deploys on bare metal, virtual and cloud environments

Where To Learn More

View additional SDS and related topics via the following links.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Read more about WekaIO Matrix in this (free, no registration required) Server StorageIO Industry Trends Perspective (ITP) Report compliments of WekaIO.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

Posted on

Like IT Data Centers Do You Take Trade Show Exhibit Infrastructure For Granted?

Do You Take Trade Show Exhibit Infrastructure For Granted?

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Think about this for a moment; do you assume that Information Technology (IT) and Cloud based data centers along with their associated Data Infrastructure supporting various applications will be accessible when needed. Likewise, when you go to a trade show, conference, symposium, user group or another conclave is it assumed that the trade show, exposition (expo), exhibits, booths, stands or demo areas will be ready, waiting and accessible?

IT industry cloud software defined events

Fire Disrupts Flash Memory Summit Conference Exhibits

This past week at the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) conference trade show event in Santa Clara California, what normally would be taken for granted (e.g. expo hall and exhibits) were disrupted. The disruption (more here and here) was caused by an early morning fire in one of the exhibitor’s booths (stand) in the expo hall (view some photos here via Toms Hardware.com).

Fortunately, nobody was hurt, at least physically, and damage (physically) appears to have been isolated.

However while the key notes, panels, and other presentations did take place as part of the show must go on, the popular exhibit expo hall did not. Granted for some people who only attend conferences or seminar events for the presentation content, lack of the exhibition hall simply meant no free giveaways.

On the other hand, for those who attend events like FMS mainly for the exhibition hall experience, the show did not go on, perhaps resulting in a trip in vain (e.g. how you might be able to recoup some travel costs in some scenarios) for some people. For example, those who were attending to meet with a particular vendor, see a product technology, conduct some business or other meetings, do an interview, video, podcast, take some photos, or simply get some free stuff were disrupted.

Likewise those behind the scenes, from conference organizers, event staff not to mention the vendor’s sponsors who put resources (time, money, people, and equipment) into an exhibit were disrupted. Vendors were still able to issue their press releases and conduct their presentations, keynotes, panel discussions, however what about the lack of the expo.

Do We Take Data and Event Infrastructures For Granted

This begs the question of if trade show exhibits still have value, or can an event function without one?

I am not sure as some events can and do stand on their merit with presentation content being the primary focus, others the expo is the draw, many are hybrid with a mix of both.

A question and point of this piece is that how many people take conferences in general, and exhibits along with their associated Infrastructure for granted?

How many know or understand the amount of time, money, people resources and various tradecraft skills across different disciplines go into event planning, staging, coordination, the execution, so they occur?

This also ties into the theme of how many people only think and assume that IT data centers and clouds along with their data Infrastructure resources, services are available supporting applications along with data access to give information?

The same holds true for your telephone (plain old telephone system [POTS] and cellular or mobile) service, gas, electric, sewer, water, waste (garbage), traditional or network based television, internet provider, highways, railroads, airports, the list goes on.

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

What This All Means

The good news is that nobody physically was injured this past week.

Granted some may have incurred emotional, monetary or public and marketing related injuries, however, those can be dealt with over time.

My point is, do we assume too much (perhaps rightfully so) that events, exhibits and other trade show conference related items are always on, always available, accessible open on time? With IT data center and clouds, you have different expectation levels of access, availability, durability, survivability for a given cost to meet service expectations.

Data center, cloud and data infrastructure SDC, SDDI, SDI, SDx

Next time you attend a webinar, seminar, conference, symposium, trade show, presentation, exhibit or expo, take a moment and look around at what you see, as well as what you do not see. Having been in involved in and around conferences, conventions, seminars, expos across different industries, both behind the scenes as well as on the public side, I do not take these events for granted.

Knowing what goes into the planning, coordination, scheduling, promotion, logistics, all the things behind the scenes, next time you go to an event, look around. What you can see that perhaps are not meant to be seen as part of their Infrastructure. In event venue exhibit halls as well as data centers, there are those things you see such as data infrastructure resources including racks of servers, storage, I/O networking, monitors, displays, work areas, heating ventilation air conditioning (HVAC) along with those you might not see.

What you might not see and take for granted are the smoke and fire detection along with suppression systems which at the Santa Clara convention center appeared to have done their job. There are also the electrical power and distribution systems; perhaps battery backed uninterruptible power systems (UPS) along with standby alternate generator power.

How about a big round of applause, thank you, Atta boy and Atta girl, acknowledgment and other signs of appreciation for all those involved behind the scenes who do the planning, preparation, coordination, setup, tear down and in person what you see at events.

Thank you to all who have, and continue to enable trade shows, conferences, seminars, exhibits, road shows among other events to take place, after all, the show must go on. In other words, like IT and cloud Data Centers, do you take trade show exhibit infrastructures for granted?

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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NVMe Wont Replace Flash By Itself They Complement Each Other

NVMe Wont Replace Flash By Itself They Complement Each Other

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Updated 2/2/2018

NVMe Wont Replace Flash By Itself They Complement Each Other

>various NVM flash and SSD devices
Various Solid State Devices (SSD) including NVMe, SAS, SATA, USB, M.2

There has been some recent industry marketing buzz generated by a startup to get some attention by claiming via a study sponsored by including the startup that Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Express (NVMe) will replace flash storage. Granted, many IT customers as well as vendors are still confused by NVMe thinking it is a storage medium as opposed to an interface used for accessing fast storage devices such as nand flash among other solid state devices (SSDs). Part of that confusion can be tied to common SSD based devices rely on NVM that are persistent memory retaining data when powered off (unlike the memory in your computer).

NVMe is an access interface and protocol

Instead of saying NVMe will mean the demise of flash, what should or could be said however some might be scared to say it is that other interfaces and protocols such as SAS (Serial Attached SCSI), AHCI/SATA, mSATA, Fibre Channel SCSI Protocol aka FCP aka simply Fibre Channel (FC), iSCSI and others are what can be replaced by NVMe. NVMe is simply the path or roadway along with traffic rules for getting from point a (such as a server) to point b (some storage device or medium e.g. flash SSD). The storage medium is where data is stored such as magnetic for Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or tape, nand flash, 3D XPoint, Optane among others.

NVMe and NVM better together

NVMe and NVM including flash are better together

The simple quick get to the point is that NVMe (e.g. Non Volatile Memory aka NVM Express [NVMe]) is an interface protocol (like SAS/SATA/iSCSI among others) used for communicating with various nonvolatile memory (NVM) and solid state device (SSDs). NVMe is how data gets moved between a computer or other system and the NVM persistent memory such as nand flash, 3D XPoint, Spintorque or other storage class memories (SCM).

In other words, the only thing NVMe will, should, might or could kill off would be the use of some other interface such as SAS, SATA/AHCI, Fibre Channel, iSCSI along with propritary driver or protocols. On the other hand, given the extensibility of NVMe and how it can be used in different configurations including as part of fabrics, it is an enabler for various NVMs also known as persistent memories, SCMs, SSDs including those based on NAND flash as well as emerging 3D XPoint (or Intel version) among others.

Where To Learn More

View additional NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and related topics via the following links.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Context matters for example, NVM as the medium compared to NVMe as the interface and access protocols. With context in mind you can compare like or similar apples to apples such as nand flash, MRAM, NVRAM, 3D XPoint, Optane among other persistent memories also known as storage class memories, NVMs and SSDs. Likewise with context in mind NVMe can be compared to other interfaces and protocols such as SAS, SATA, PCIe, mSATA, Fibre Channel among others. The following puts all of this into context including various packaging options, interfaces and access protocols, functionality and media.

NVMe is the access for NVM flash
Putting IT all together

Will NVMe kill off flash? IMHO no not by itself, however NVMe combined with some other form of NVM, SCM, persistent memory as a storage medium may eventually combine as an alternative to NVMe and flash (or SAS/SATA and flash). However, for now at least for many applications, NVMe is in your future (along with flash among other storage mediums), the questions include when, where, why, how, with what among other questions (and answers). NVMe wont replace flash by itself (at least yet) as they complement each other.

Keep in mind, if NVMe is the answer, what are the questions.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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July 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructures Update Newsletter

Volume 17, Issue VII

Hello and welcome to the July 2017 issue of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

It has been busy time with a lot going on, so let’s get right to this months topics which include software defined, data infrastructures, server, I/O networking, storage and related topics.

Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC

A quick update following up from the June newsletter is that my new book is now available via Amazon.com, CRC Press and other venues in hardcopy hardcover as well as electronic versions. Visit storageio.com/book4 to learn more including view table of contents, preface, how organized among other items.

In This Issue

Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

Cheers GS

Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

Some recent Industry Activities, Trends, News and Announcements include:

Arcserve who gained their independence from CA a few years ago has now acquired Zetta to expand its data protection solution portfolio for legacy, software defined virtual and cloud data infrastructure environments.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) solution provider Compuverde has been awarded a US Patent for optimal server selection in software defined data centers (SDDC).

The InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) announced its April 2017 integrators list including RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) along with other recent plugfest updates. Learn more about IBTA and related topics at www.infinibandta.org

Next Platform has an interesting piece about a slump in the High Performance Computing (HPC) also known as High Profit Compute (for financial firms among others) along with Super Compute (SC) industry sector. Some of the vendors in the HPC and SC space include AMD, Cisco, Cray, DDN, Dell EMC, Fujifilm, IBM, Intel, HPE/SGI, Mellanox, NetApp, Oracle, Seagate and Western Digital (WD) among others. Check out the piece over at Next Platform here.

To beef up its storage solution offerings, Cray has done a deal with Seagate who is one of their suppliers of HDDs as well as software defined storage software (ClusterStore) and related systems. In this new deal, Cray will get (e.g. now own) Lustre based ClusterStore storage solution which besides the intellectual property (IP) including software, around 100 or so workers will shift from being Seagate to becoming Cray employees. Note that Seagate acquired ClusterStore solution as part of its acquisition a few years ago of Xyratex (enclosures and Lustre storage system software).

Meanwhile Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo is steeping down from his top leadership position after posting poor earnings and more job cuts. We have heard that HDDs are dead for decades, yet they continue to be consumed, granted with ups and downs, lately more downs for Seagate than its competitor Western Digital (WD). Seagate has dabbled in flash solid state devices (SSDs) ranging from drives to cards including acquisition of the flash business from LSI/Avago a few years ago, along with some partnerships. As a component supplier, does Seagate need to take a bold move and get closer or do a deal with one of the nand flash or other persistent memory chip makers? Or, does Seagate need to continue to move up the stack with solutions building on their previous deals buying Xyratex (enclosure and ClusterStor), Evault (data protection software), DotHill (storage systems), LSI/Avago flash (flash cards)? Lets see what happens with Seagate both from a big picture as well as more focused product, technology, portfolio perspective.

Watch for a flurry of NVMe, along with flash SSD and other non-volatile memory (NVM), persistent memories along with storage class memories over the next few weeks. Keep in mind that If Answer is NVMe, what are the questions? Also watch for a flurry of software defined, cloud, virtual and related news towards the end of the month and into September.

Just for fun, Mike Acton (@mike_acton) has an interesting read on Introductory bullshit detection for non-technical managers that you can check out here. Over at Coding Horror there is another interesting read on the notion of paying down your technical debt, check it out here.

Check out other industry news, comments, trends perspectives here.

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Who Will Rule the Storage World?
Via SearchDataCenter: Comments on Dell EMC Cisco VxBlock news

View more Server, Storage and I/O trends and perspectives comments here

Server StorageIO Featured White Paper Report

This months featured Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure content is a new white paper industry trends perspective report looking at Weka.IO Matrix Multi-Dimensional Software Based Storage (e.g. software defined storage). In this report, we look at WekaIO Matrix, an elastic, flexible, highly scalable easy to use (and manage) software-defined (e.g. software-based) storage solution. WekaIO Matrix enables radically simple software defined storage that is flexible elastic scaling with stability and without compromise.

Weka.io Matrix software defined storage

  • Matrix is a new storage solution that:
  • Installs on bare metal, virtual or cloud servers
  • Has POSIX, NFS, SMB, and HDFS storage access
  • Adaptable performance for little and big data
  • Tiering of flash SSD and cloud object storage
  • Distributed resilience without compromise
  • Removes complexity of traditional storage

Read more in this StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspective (ITP) Report compliments of WekaIO by clicking here. Visit www.weka.io to learn more about WekaIO and their Matrix solution.

View more Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure White Papers, Lab Reports, Solution Briefs, Research, Polls, Surveys and additional content here on our portfolio page.

 

Server StorageIOblog Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

  • Intel Announces New Xeon Processors for Software Defined Data Infrastructures
    Intel announced a new family of Xeon Scalable Processors (aka Purely) that for some workloads Intel claims to be on average of 1.65x faster than their predecessors. Note your real improvement will vary based on workload, configuration, benchmark testing, type of processor, memory, and many other server storage I/O performance considerations.

  • Who Will Be At Top Of Storage World Next Decade?
    It is safe to say that each new year will bring new trends, techniques, technologies, tools, features, functionality as well as solutions involving data storage as well as data infrastructures. This means a usual safe bet is to say that the current year is the most exciting and has the most new things than in the past when it comes to data infrastructures along with resources such as data storage.

  • Zombie Technology Life after Death Tape Is Still Alive
    A Zombie Technology is one declared dead yet has Life after Death such as Tape which is still alive, despite having declared dead for decades.

In Case You Missed It #ICYMI

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Tips and Articles

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via IDG/NetworkWorld: Ensure your data infrastructure remains available and resilient
Via IDG/NetworkWorld: Whats a data infrastructure?
Via InfoStor: Object Storage Is In Your Future
Via InfoStor: Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
Via InfoStor: SSD Trends, Tips and Topics

View more Server, Storage and I/O trends and perspectives comments here

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

Sep. 21, 2017 – MSP CMG – Minneapolis MN

Sep. 14, 2017 – Fujifilm IT Executive Summit – Seattle WA

Sep. 12, 2017 – SNIA Software Developers Conference (SDC) – Santa Clara CA

Sep. 7, 2017 – TBA – Enabling, Planning and Executing Your Software Defined Journey

August 28-30, 2017 – VMworld – Las Vegas

June 22, 2017 – Webinar – GDPR and Microsoft Environments

May 11, 2017 – Webinar – Email Archiving, Compliance and Ransomware

See more webinars and activities on the Server StorageIO Events page here.

Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

Useful links and pages:
Microsoft TechNet – Various Microsoft related from Azure to Docker to Windows
storageio.com/links – Various industry links (over 1,000 with more to be added soon)
objectstoragecenter.com – Cloud and object storage topics, tips and news items
OpenStack.org – Various OpenStack related items
storageio.com/protect – Various data protection items and topics
thenvmeplace.com – Focus on NVMe trends and technologies
thessdplace.com – NVM and Solid State Disk topics, tips and techniques
storageio.com/converge – Various CI, HCI and related SDS topics
storageio.com/performance – Various server, storage and I/O benchmark and tools
VMware Technical Network – Various VMware related items

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

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Zombie Technology Life after Death Tape Is Still Alive

Zombie Technology Life after Death Tape Is Still Alive

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

A Zombie Technology is one declared dead yet has Life after Death such as Tape which is still alive.

zombie technology
Image via StorageIO.com (licensed for use from Shutterstock.com)

Tapes Evolving Role

Sure we have heard for decade’s about the death of tape, and someday it will be dead and buried (I mean really dead), no longer used, buried, existing only in museums. Granted tape has been on the decline for some time, and even with many vendors exiting the marketplace, there remains continued development and demand within various data infrastructure environments, including software defined as well as legacy.

data infrastructures

Tape remains viable for some environments as part of an overall memory data storage hierarchy including as a portability (transportable) as well as bulk storage medium.

memory data storage hirearchy classes tiers

Keep in mind that tapes role as a data storage medium also continues to change as does its location. The following table (via Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press)) Chapter 10 shows examples of various data movements from source to destination. These movements include migration, replication, clones, mirroring, and backup, copies, among others. The source device can be a block LUN, volume, partition, physical or virtual drive, HDD or SSD, as well as a file system, object, or blob container or bucket. An example of the modes in Table 10.1 include D2D backup from local to local (or remote) disk (HDD or SSD) storage or D2D2D copy from local to local storage, then to the remote.

Mode – Description
D2D – Data gets copied (moved, migrated, replicated, cloned, backed up) from source storage (HDD or SSD) to another device or disk (HDD or SSD)-based device
D2C – Data gets copied from a source device to a cloud device.
D2T – Data gets copied from a source device to a tape device (drive or library).
D2D2D – Data gets copied from a source device to another device, and then to another device.
D2D2T – Data gets copied from a source device to another device, then to tape.
D2D2C   Data gets copied from a source device to another device, then to cloud.
Data Movement Modes from Source to Destination

Note that movement from source to the target can be a copy, rsync, backup, replicate, snapshot, clone, robocopy among many other actions. Also, note that in the earlier examples there are occurrences of tape existing in clouds (e.g. its place) and use changing.  Tip – In the past, “disk” usually referred to HDD. Today, however, it can also mean SSD. Think of D2D as not being just HDD to HDD, as it can also be SSD to SSD, Flash to Flash (F2F), or S2S among many other variations if you prefer (or needed).

Image via Tapestorage.org

For those still interested in tape, check out the Active Archive Alliance recent posts (here), as well as the 2017 Tape Storage Council Memo and State of their industry report (here). While lower end-tape such as LTO (which is not exactly the low-end it was a decade or so ago) continues to evolve, things may not be as persistent for tape at the high-end. With Oracle (via its Sun/StorageTek acquisition) exiting the high-end (e.g. Mainframe focused) tape business, that leaves mainly IBM as a technology provider.

Image via Tapestorage.org

With a single tape device (e.g. drive) vendor at the high-end, that could be the signal for many organizations that it is time to finally either move from tape or at least to LTO (linear tape open) as a stepping stone (e.g. phased migration). The reason not being technical rather business in that many organizations need to have a secondary or competitive offering or go through an exception process.

On the other hand, just as many exited the IBM mainframe server market (e.g. Fujitsu/Amdahl, HDS, NEC), big blue (e.g. IBM) continues to innovate and drive both revenue and margin from those platforms (hardware, software, and services). This leads me to believe that IBM will do what it can to keep its high-end tape customers supported while also providing alternative options.

Where To Learn More

Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.

What This All Means

I would not schedule the last tape funeral just yet, granted there will continue to be periodic wakes and send off over the coming decade. Tape remains for some environments a viable data storage option when used in new ways, as well as new locations complementing flash SSD and other persistent memories aka storage class memories along with HDD.

Personally, I have been directly tape free for over 14 years. Granted, I have data in some clouds and object storage that may exist on a very cold data storage tier possibly maybe on tape that is transparent to my use. However just because I do not physically have tape, does not mean I do not see the need why others still have to or prefer to use it for different needs.

Also, keep in mind that tape continues to be used as an economic data transport for bulk movement of data for some environments. Meanwhile for those who only want, need or wish tape to finally go away, close your eyes, click your heels together and repeat your favorite tape is not alive chant three (or more) times. Keep in mind that HDDs are keeping tape alive by off loading some functions, while SSDs are keeping HDDs alive handling tasks formerly done by spinning media. Meanwhile, tape can and is still called upon by some organizations to protect or enable bulk recovery for SSD and HDDs even in cloud environments, granted in new different ways.

What this all means is that as a zombie technology having been declared dead for decades yet still live there is life after death for tape, which is still alive, for now.

Ok, nuff said (for now…).

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio.

Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.