Category: DCIM

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Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links to Others

Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links to Others

IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Industry Resources

Updated 2/20/2018

Following are some useful Data Infrastructure IT Industry Resource Links to cloud, virtual and traditional IT data infrastructure related web sites. The data infrastructure environment (servers, storage, IO and networking, hardware, software, services, virtual, container and cloud) is rapidly changing. You may encounter a missing URL, or a URL that has changed. This list is updated on a regular basis to reflect changes (additions, changes, and retirement).

Disclaimer and note: URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site.

Best effort has been made to validate and verify the data infrastructure URLs that appear on this page and web site however they are subject to change. The author and/or maintainer(s) of this page and web site make no endorsement to and assume no responsibility for the URLs and their content that are listed on this page.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Send an email note to info at storageio dot com that includes company name, URL, contact name, title and phone number along with a brief 40 character description to be considered for addition to the above data infrastructure list, or, to be removed. Note that Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC (e.g. StorageIO) does not sell, trade, barter, borrow or share your contact information per our Privacy and Disclosure policy. View related data infrastructure Server StorageIO content here, and signup for our free newsletter here.

Links A-E
Links F-J
Links K-O
Links P-T
Links U-Z
Other Links

  • www.10gea.org    10Gb Ethernet industry trade organization
  • www.1394ta.org    1394 (Firewire) trade association
  • www.3com.com    Networking equipment (Bought by HP)
  • www.3leafnetworks.com    I/O virtualization
  • www.3par.com    Clustered storage systems (Bought by HP)
  • www.3tera.com    IT Cloud management tools (Bought by CA)
  • www.4blox.com    Data center design services
  • www.4blox.com    Linux iSCSI target optimization stack
  • www.4bridgeworks.com aka Bridgeworks    SAN networking and connectivity solutions
  • www.80plus.org    Energy efficient power supply trade group

Where To Learn More

View additional NAS, NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and HDD 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

Visit the following additional data infrastructure and IT data center related links.

Links A-E
Links F-J
Links K-O
Links P-T
Links U-Z
Other Links

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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Six plus data center software defined management dashboards tools

Software defined data infrastructure management insight tools

server storage I/O trends

Updated 1/17/2018

Managing data infrastructures involves using software defined management dashboards tools. Recently I found in my inbox a link to a piece 6 Dashboards for Managing Every Modern Data Center that caught my attention. I was hoping to see who the six different datacenter technologies, dashboard solutions tools were instead of finding list of dashboard considerations for modern data centers and data infrastructures.

Turns out the piece was nothing more than a list of six items featured as part of the vendors (Sunbird) piece about what to look for in a dashboard (e.g. their product). Sure there were some of the usual key performance indicator (KPI) associated with or related to IT Service Management (ITSM), Data Center Infrastructure (Insight/Information) Management (DCIM), Configuration and Change management databases (CMDB), availability, capacity and Performance Management Databases (PMDB) among others.

  • Space
  • Inventory
  • Connectivity
  • Change
  • Environment
  • Power

Dashboard Discussions

Keep in mind however that there are many different types of dashboards (and consoles), some are active along with analytics including correlation, others are passive simply displaying. The focus area also various from physical data center facilities, to applications, to data infrastructures or components such as servers, storage, I/O networks, clouds, virtual, containers among others modern data centers.

Data Infrastructures and SDDI, SDDC, SDI
Data Infrastructures (hardware, software, services, servers, storage, I/O and networks)

This is where some context comes into play as there are different types of dashboards for various audience, technology and focus areas (e.g. domains) across data infrastructure (and other entities). For example do a google search of “dashboard” and see what appears, or “IT dashboard”, “data center dashboard” vs. “datacenter dashboard” among others.

Additional KPIs include:

  • Performance, availability, Capacity and Economic (PACE) attributes
  • Service Level Objectives (SLO), Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
  • Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), Recovery Point Objectives (SLO)
  • IT Service Management (ITSM) and Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM)
  • Configuration and Change Management (e.g. things part of CMDB)
  • Performance, availability and capacity (e.g. things part of PMDB)
  • Various focus and layers, cross domain functionality views
  • Costs management including subscriptions, licenses and others

IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Dashboard Options

For those of you who have made it this far, while not a comprehensive list, the following are some examples of vendors, services or solutions that either are, or have an association with data center, as well as data infrastructure management. Some dashboards or tools are homogenous in that they only work within a given area of focus such as particular cloud, service provider, vendor or solution set. Others are heterogeneous or federated working across different services, solutions, vendors and domain focus areas. Think of these as software defined management (SDM), or, software defined data infrastructure (SDDI) management, software defined data center (SDDC) management among other variations for the modern information factory.

There is a mix of tools that run on site (e.g. on premise) or via cloud services (e.g. manager your on site from the cloud). Likewise, some are for fee, others subscription and some are open source. In addition some of the tools are turnkey while others are do it yourself (DiY) or allow you to customize. Also keep in mind that depending on what your tradecraft (skills, experience, expertise) interest area is, these may or may not be applicable to you, while relevant to others. For example some such as Spiceworks tend to be more helpdesk focused while others on other data center or data infrastructure areas.

There are dashboards for or from AWS, Canonical (Ubuntu), Dell including EMC, Google, HPE, IBM, Microsoft System Center and Azure, NetApp, OpenStack, Oracle, Rackspace, Redhat, Rightscale, Servicenow, Softlayer, Suse and VMware among others.

Blue Medora (various data infrastructure monitoring)
Cloudkitty (open source cloud rating and chargeback)
Collectd (data infrastructure collection and monitoring)
cPanel and whm (web and hosting dashboards)
data infrastructure sddi cpanel

Dashbuilder (customize your dashboard)
Datadog (super easy to get access, download, install, configure and use)
Domo (various data infrastructure monitoring tools)
Extrahop (still waiting to be able to download and try their bits vs. watching a demo)
Firescope (data infrastructure insight and awareness)
Freezer (open source dashboard tools)
Komprise (interesting solution, would like try, however lots of gated material)
Nagios (data infrastructure monitoring)
Openit (data infrastructure tracking, report, monitoring)
Opvizor (data infrastructure monitoring and reporting)

storageio datadog dashboard

Panorama9 (various data infrastructure monitoring and reporting)
Quest (various tools)
Redhat Cloudforms (openstack and cloud management)
Rrdtools (data collection, logging and display)
Sisense (insight and awareness tools)
Solarwinds Server Application Monitor (SAM) among other tools
Teamquest (various monitoring, management, capacity planning tools)
Turbomomic (software defined data infrastructure insight tools)
Virtual Instruments (various monitoring and insight awareness along with analytics)

In addition to the above, there are tools such as Splunk among others that also provide insight and awareness to help avoid flying blind while managing your data center or data infrastructure.

Where to learn more

Learn more via the following links.

  • Data Infrastructure Primer and Overview (Its Whats Inside The Data Center)
  • E2E Awareness and insight for IT environments
  • Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking and Performance Resources
  • Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and IRM
  • The Value of Infrastructure Insight – Enabling Informed Decision Making
  • More storage and IO metrics that matter
  • Whats a data infrastructure?

    • 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

    Without insight and awareness you are flying blind, how can you make informed decisions about your information factory, data infrastructures, data center along with applications. There are different focus areas for various audiences up and down the stack layers in data infrastructures and data centers. Key is having insight and awareness including knowing what are some different tool options.

    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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    Some popular 2016 storageioblog posts

    Some popular 2016 storageioblog posts

    server storage I/O trends

    Big Files and Lots of Little File Processing and Benchmarking with Vdbench – Need to test, validate, compare, contrast or simply apply workload to file systems, NAS or other file-based access? Want the flexibility and simplicity to software define your benchmark workload to meet various needs? For example, millions of small files or thousands of large 5GB, 10GB, 15GB (or larger) files with various read, write size and access patterns spanning a single directory, or many with various depths? Do you want the flexibility for different platforms including Windows, *NIX, bare metal, container, virtual or cloud without a bulk tool using simple scripts that produce lots of insightful results? Then you will want to check this post out.

    Breaking the VMware ESXi 5.5 ACPI boot loop on Lenovo TD350 – Ever have a VMware host server go into a boot loop and purple screen of death (PSD) then displaying a message about ACPI or similar? After spending time searching and applying many filters to sift through the noise of false positive matches, finally found the simple fix (e.g. a BIOS setting) to break the VMware ESXi vSphere boot loop, or at least on a Lenovo server.

    Cloud and Object Storage

    Cloud conversations: AWS EBS, Glacier and S3 overview (Part I) – This is one of the perennial favorites that while new features have been added with others extended, the post series still provides a good overview, primer or refresher of various Amazon Web Services (AWS) services including how they work. Interesting in learning more about Microsoft and Azure, then check out this, this, this and this.

    Cloud Conversations: AWS EFS Elastic File System (Cloud NAS) – This is a companion to the above AWS as well as other cloud post series that looks at AWS Elastic File System. Note that other cloud service providers have also added NAS file access support, some are intra (e.g. inside AWS cloud), others are inter-cloud (e.g. inside and outside cloud) such as Azure (can work with external Windows Servers using SMB3). Even OpenStack has added NAS file with Manila folders and Ceph with CephFS among others. So when some people tell you that NAS and file access are dead particular for cloud, remind them of the increasing number of services and software stacks that are adding new services to allow their solution to be compatible with existing environments or applications.

    Server Storage I/O performance

    Collecting Transaction Per Minute from SQL Server and HammerDB – If you have used the free tool HammerDB (e.g. Hammora) for driving database workloads, simulations or benchmarks you should recall that the resulting statistics are rather lacking. Sure there is a nice GUI chart that shows current executing transactions per second (TPS) along with some very simple counters in the log. However compared to some other tools such as sysbench, Quest Benchmark Factory and YCSB among others, the Hammer metrics are rather lacking. In this post I show how you can collect some more metrics from SQL Server if you have to use HammerDB. View more server storage I/O performance benchmark and monitoring tools resources here.

    Windows Server 2016

    Gaining Server Storage I/O Insight into Microsoft Windows Server 2016 – Microsoft released into general availability Windows Server 2016 and this post looks at some of the new features along with functionality including Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), Storage Replica (SR) as well as other enhancements. With these new and enhanced features Windows Servers increase their interoperability with Azure, as well as supporting aggregated hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), disaggregated converged (CI) as well as traditional workloads along with Hyper-V (and containers). One of the other new enhancements in Windows Server 2016 which now uses ReFS (Reliable File System) as its default file system that you can read more about here. RIP Windows SIS (Single Instance Storage), or at least in Server 2016 With Windows Server 2016 Microsoft removed single instance storage replacing with new capabilities that you can read more about in the this post.

    Garbage data in garbage data out

    Garbage data in, garbage information out, big data or big garbage? There is a classic IT expression of garbage data in results in garbage data (or information out) in that your algorithms and data structures (which equals programs e.g. Niklaus Wirth) are only as good as the data they work on. What this means then is that if there is a large amount of big data then there can also be a big garbage in and garbage out problem unless addressed.

    Hard product vs. soft product – Hard product refers to something such as hardware, software or a service resource that is obtained and then joined with other resources in a particular way to create a soft product. Not to be confused with software, the soft product is the result or how resources get defined that give some ability or benefit. Think of a soft product as for how airlines can use the same airplane, serve the same coca cola, have same seats, yet their soft product is the service experience of how those are delivered, as well as how you find and buy or use them. Another way of thinking about it is hard products are the ingredients for a recipe, the recipe defines how those ingredients result in some food dish.

    how many IOPs can an HDD or SSD do

    Part II: How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do with VMware? – This is part of a multi-post series looking at how many IOPs (or bandwidth) various HDD and SSDs can do handling different workloads. Of course, your results will vary with configuration settings, tools among other considerations. However, some of the older rules of thumb (RUT) about RPM and other considerations for HDDs have changed and continue to do so. As an example of how HDDs continue to evolve check out this popular post from the 2016 list Which Enterprise HDDs to use for a Content Server Platform.

    Part II: What I did with Lenovo TS140 in my Server and Storage I/O Review – This is a popular post series of some things I have done with a Lenovo TS140 including defining with various software as well as hardware. This is a great price performer value system that several years ago after testing one Lenovo sent me, I returned that to Lenovo and bought several of them to join my other systems.

    Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking and Performance Resources – This is a collection of various server, storage I/O and networking hardware, software as well as services tools, techniques as well as tips for benchmarking, comparing, simulation, testing, gaining insight across cloud, virtual, container and legacy resources. Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I) – This is one of the tools found on the server, storage I/O benchmarking and performance resources page. Diskspd is a tool developed by Microsoft as an alternative to using Iometer, vdbench, fio.exe, SQLIO among many others, plus, it is on github.

    server storage I/O nvme and ssd

    The NVM (Non Volatile Memory) and NVMe Place – Interesting and adoption in nand flash, nvram, 3D XPoint among other SSD and Non-volatile Memory (NVM) continues. Another popular post that you can find at thenvmeplace.com is this NVMe overview and primer – Part I. There is a growing interest, awareness and deployment adoption around NVM Express (NVMe) the new protocol for accessing NVMs and SSDs. Some of the common conversations and questions I encounter is confusion between NVM and NVMe, too which the answer is one (the former) are the media or devices, the other is the access method alternative to using AHCI/SATA or SCSI (e.g. SAS, iSCSI, FCP, SRP) among others.

    VMware VVOLs and storage I/O fundamentals (Part 1) – VMware Virtual Volumes (VVOL) continue to gain adoption and this post is part of an overview and primer. If you want to go deeper into VVOL as well as see some adoption insights check out Eric Sieberts post here over at vsphere-land.com

    Welcome to the Object Storage Center page – This is a micro site that has a primer and overview of cloud as well as object storage along with an expanding list of links to various resources, tips, technologies, tools, trends and industry activity.

    Where To Learn More

    www.storageio.com particular if you have not been there for awhile to check out the new streamlined look and navigation to various content including Server StorageIO update newsletters (free subscription) among other resources.

    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 and wrapping up

    Some of the popular posts for 2016 are perennial favorites and based on experience will probably appear on the 2017 list. However there are also several new posts that appeared in 2016 that I suspect will also appear on the 2017 version of the above list, along with new content from 2017.

    Thank you to all of you who frequent StorageIOblog.com as well as StorageIO.com along with our various micro sites including server storage I/O performance and benchmarking resources, thenvmeplace.com, thessdplace.com, cloud and objectstoragecenter.com, data protection diaries among others.

    Also thank you for viewing various partner venues and syndicates with extra ones appearing throughout 2017. Watch for more content in the coming weeks, months and throughout 2017 on software defined data infrastructures (SDDI) along with server, storage I/O, networking, hardware, software, cloud, container, data protection and related topics, trends, technologies, tools and tips.

    Again, thank you

    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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    January 2017 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Volume 17, Issue I

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

    Now that we are past the holidays, year-end crunch, post new years activity including NFL football playoffs, its time to get back on track for the new year and new things.

    There is a lot going on, in and around data infrastructure server, storage, and I/O networking connectivity from a hardware, software, and services perceptive. From consumer to small/medium business (SMB), enterprise to web-scale and cloud-managed service providers, physical to virtual, spanning structured database (aka “little data”) to unstructured big data and very big fast data, a lot is happening today.

    Watch for more coverage involving data infrastructures as well as other related topics in future newsletters, at StorageIOblog.com as well as in different venues and events.

    In This Issue

  • Commentary in the news
  • Tips and Articles
  • StorageIOblog posts
  • Events and Webinars
  • Industry Activity Trends
  • Resources and Links
  • Connect and Converse With Us
  • About Us

    • Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    Cheers GS

    Industry Activity Trends

    Recent Industry News and Activity includes:

    Broadcom buying Brocade for $5.5B USD (if you missed last fall)
    Cavium QLogic expands 10GbE connectivity for server and storage I/O
    HPE announces enhancements to flash-ready HPE StoreVirtual 3200
    HPE buying scaleable HCI vendor Simplivity for $650 million USD (Cash)
    LinBit and SUSE providing open source high availability (HA) solutions
    StorageCraft (data protection software) acquires Exablox (object storage)
    Teradata has launched their big data database on Azure

     

    StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    Data Infrastructure Primer and Overview (Its Whats Inside Data Centers)
    SDx (Software Defined) Summit London UK
    SSD, flash, Non-volatile memory (NVM) storage Trends, Tips & Topics
    Cloud and Object storage are in your future, what are some questions?
    Overview Review of Microsoft ReFS (Reliable File System) and resource links
    September and October 2016 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter

    In case you missed it:

  • PCIe Server Storage I/O Network Fundamentals
  • If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?
  • Fixing the Microsoft Windows 10 1709 post upgrade restart loop
  • Data Infrastructure server storage I/O network Recommended Reading
  • Introducing Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL Overview
  • IT transformation Serverless Life Beyond DevOps with New York Times CTO Nick Rockwell Podcast
  • HPE Announces AMD Powered Gen 10 ProLiant DL385 For Software Defined Workloads
  • AWS Announces New S3 Cloud Storage Security Encryption Features
  • NVM Non Volatile Memory Express NVMe Place
  • Data Protection Fundamental Topics Tools Techniques Technologies Tips

    • View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

     

    StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

    Via InfoStor: 10 Top Data Storage Applications
    Via InfoStor: Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
    Via InfoStor: 10 Top Data Storage Applications
    Via InfoStor: SSD Trends, Tips and Topics
    Via HPE: Decision guide: Public cloud versus on-prem storage
    Via InfoStor: Six Ways to Boost Data Storage Performance

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

     

    StorageIO Tips and Articles

    Recent and past Server StorageIO articles appearing in different venues include:

    Via FutureReadyOEM:  When to implement ultra-dense storage
    Via InfoStor: Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
    Via InfoStor: SSD Trends, Tips and Topics

    Check out these resources techniques, trends and tools. View more tips and articles here

     

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

    April 3-7, 2017 – Seminars – Dutch workshop seminar series – Nijkerk Netherlands

    March 15, 2017 – Webinar – SNIA/BrightTalk – HyperConverged (HCI) and Storage – 10AM PT

    January 26 2017 – Seminar – Presenting at Wipro SDx Summit London UK

    January 11, 2017 Webinar – Redmond Magazine
    Dell Software – Presenting – Tailor Your Backup Data Repositories to Fit Your Needs

    December 13 VMware webinar – vSAN, HCIBench, vSAN Observer and healthcheck

    December 7, 2016 11AM PT – BrightTalk Webinar: Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

    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/performance – Various server, storage and I/O benchmark and tools
    VMware Technical Network – Various VMware related items

    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

    Data Infrastructure Primer Overview (Its Whats Inside The Data Center)

    Data Infrastructure Primer Overview

    Data Infrastructure Primer Overview

    Updated 1/17/2018

    Data Infrastructure Primer Overview looks at the resources that combine to support business, cloud and information technology (IT) among other applications that transform data into information or services. The fundamental role of data infrastructures is to provide a platform environment for applications and data that is resilient, flexible, scalable, agile, efficient as well as cost-effective. Put another way, data infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, process, move, secure and serve data as well as their applications for information services delivery. Technologies that make up data infrastructures include hardware, software, cloud or managed services, servers, storage, I/O and networking along with people, processes, policies along with various tools spanning legacy, software-defined virtual, containers and cloud.

    Various Types and Layers of Infrastructures

    Depending on your role or focus, you may have a different view than somebody else of what is infrastructure, or what an infrastructure is. Generally speaking, people tend to refer to infrastructure as those things that support what they are doing at work, at home, or in other aspects of their lives. For example, the roads and bridges that carry you over rivers or valleys when traveling in a vehicle are referred to as infrastructure.

    Similarly, the system of pipes, valves, meters, lifts, and pumps that bring fresh water to you, and the sewer system that takes away waste water, are called infrastructure. The telecommunications network. This includes both wired and wireless, such as cell phone networks, along with electrical generating and transmission networks are considered infrastructure. Even the airplanes, trains, boats, and buses that transport us locally or globally are considered part of the transportation infrastructure. Anything that is below what you do, or that supports what you do is considered infrastructure.

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure overview

    Figure 1 Business, IT Information, Data and other Infrastructures

    This is also the situation with IT systems and services where, depending on where you sit or use various services, anything below what you do may be considered infrastructure. However, that also causes a context issue in that infrastructure can mean different things. For example in figure 1, the user, customer, client, or consumer who is accessing some service or application may view IT in general as infrastructure, or perhaps as business infrastructure.

    Those who develop, service, and support the business infrastructure and its users or clients may view anything below them as infrastructure, from desktop to database, servers to storage, network to security, data protection to physical facilities. Moving down a layer (lower altitude) in figure 1 is the information infrastructure which, depending on your view, may also include servers, storage, and I/O hardware and software.

    To help make a point, let’s think of the information infrastructure as the collection of databases, key-value stores, repositories, and applications along with development tools that support the business infrastructure. This is where you may find developers who maintain and create real business applications for the business infrastructure. Those in the information infrastructure usually refer to what’s below them as infrastructure. Meanwhile, those lower in the stack shown in figure 1 may refer to what’s above them as the customer, user, or application, even if the real user is up another layer or two.

    Whats inside a data infrastructure
    Context matters in the discussion of infrastructure. So for our of server storage I/O fundamentals, the data infrastructures support the databases and applications developers as well as things above, while existing above the physical facilities infrastructure, leveraging power, cooling, and communication network infrastructures below.

    SDDI and Data Infrastructure building blocks

    Figure 2 Data Infrastructure fundamental building blocks (hardware, software, services).

    Figure 2 shows the fundamental pillars or building blocks for a data infrastructure, including servers for computer processing, I/O networks for connectivity, and storage for storing data. These resources including both hardware and software as well as services and tools. The size of the environment, organization, or application needs will determine how large or small the data infrastructure is or can be.

    For example, at one extreme you can have a single high-performance laptop with a hypervisor running OpenStack; along with various operating systems along with their applications leveraging flash SSD and high-performance wired or wireless networks powering a home lab or test environment. On the other hand, you can have a scenario with tens of thousands (or more) servers, networking devices, and hundreds of petabytes (PBs) of storage (or more).

    In figure 2 the primary data infrastructure components or pillar (server, storage, and I/O) hardware and software resources are packaged and defined to meet various needs. Software-defined storage management includes configuring the server, storage, and I/O hardware and software as well as services for use, implementing data protection and security, provisioning, diagnostics, troubleshooting, performance analysis, and other activities. Server storage and I/O hardware and software can be individual components, prepackaged as bundles or application suites and converged, among other options.

    Figure 3 shows a deeper look into the data infrastructure shown at a high level in figure 2. The lower left of figure 2 shows the common-to-all-environments hardware, software, people, processes, and practices that include tradecraft (experiences, skills, techniques) and “valueware”. Valueware is how you define the hardware and software along with any customization to create a resulting service that adds value to what you are doing or supporting. Also shown in figure 3 are common application and services attributes including performance, availability, capacity, and economics (PACE), which vary with different applications or usage scenarios.

    Data Infrastructure components

    Figure 3 Data Infrastructure server storage I/O hardware and software components.

    Applications are what transform data into information. Figure 4 shows how applications, which are software defined by people and software, consist of algorithms, policies, procedures, and rules that are put into some code to tell the server processor (CPU) what to do.

    SDDI and SDDC server storage I/O

    Figure 4 How data infrastructure resources transform data into information.

    Application programs include data structures (not to be confused with infrastructures) that define what data looks like and how to organize and access it using the “rules of the road” (the algorithms). The program algorithms along with data structures are stored in memory, together with some of the data being worked on (i.e., the active working set). Additional data is stored in some form of extended memory storage devices such as Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) solid-state devices (SSD), hard disk drives (HDD), or tape, among others, either locally or remotely. Also shown in figure 4 are various devices that do input/output (I/O) with the applications and server, including mobile devices as well as other application servers.

    Bringing IT All Together (for now)

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure overview

    Figure 5 Data Infrastructure  fundamentals “big picture”

    A fundamental theme is that servers process data using various applications programs to create information; I/O networks provide connectivity to access servers and storage; storage is where data gets stored, protected, preserved, and served from; and all of this needs to be managed. There are also many technologies involved, including hardware, software, and services as well as various techniques that make up a server, storage, and I/O enabled data infrastructure.

    Server storage I/O and data infrastructure fundamental focus areas include:

    • Organizations: Markets and industry focus, organizational size
    • Applications: What’s using, creating, and resulting in server storage I/O demands
    • Technologies: Tools and hard products (hardware, software, services, packaging)
    • Trade craft: Techniques, skills, best practices, how managed, decision making
    • Management: Configuration, monitoring, reporting, troubleshooting, performance, availability, data protection and security, access, and capacity planning

    Where To Learn More

    View additional 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

    Whether you realize it or not, you may already be using, rely upon, affiliated with, support or otherwise involved with data infrastructures. Granted what you or others generically refer to as infrastructure or the data center may, in fact, be the data infrastructure. Watch for more discussions and content about as well as related technologies, tools, trends, techniques and tradecraft in future posts as well as other venues, some of which involve legacy, others software-defined, cloud, virtual, container and hybrid.

    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

    Updated Software Defined Data Infrastructure Webinars and Fall 2016 events

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Webinars and Fall 2016 events

    server storage I/O trends

    Here is the updated Server StorageIO fall 2016 webinar and event activities covering software defined data center, data infrastructure, virtual, cloud, containers, converged, hyper-converged server, storage, I/O network, performance and data protection among other topics.

    December 7, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – BrightTalk
    Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Decision Making

    Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, HCI and CI Decision Making

    Are Converged Infrastructures (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructures (HCI), Cluster in Box or Cloud in Box (CiB) solutions for you? The answer is it depends on what your needs, requirements, application among other criteria are. In addition are you focused on a particular technology solution or architecture approach, or, looking for something that adapts to your needs? Join us in this discussion exploring your options for different scenarios as we look beyond they hype including to next wave of hyper-scale converged along with applicable decision-making criteria. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – What are your application and environment needs along with other objectives
    – Explore various approaches for hyper-small and hyper-large environments
    – What are you converging, hardware, hypervisors, management or something else?
    – Does HCI mean hyper-vendor-lock-in, if so, is that a bad thing?
    – When, where, why and how to use different scenarios

    November 29-30, 2016 (New) – Converged & Hyper-Converged Decision Making
    Is Converged Infrastructure Right For You?
    Workshop Seminar – Nijkerk The Netherlands

    Converged and server storage I/O data infrastructure trends
    Agenda and topics to be covered include:

    • When should decide to evaluate CI/HCI vs. traditional approach
    • What are decision and evaluation criteria for apples to apples vs. Apples to pears
    • What are the costs, benefits, and caveats of the different approaches
    • How different applications such as VDI or VSI or database have different needs
    • What are the network, storage, software license and training cost implications
    • Different comparison criteria for smaller environments remote office vs. Larger enterprise
    • How will you protect and secure a CI, HCI environment (HA, BC, BR, DR, Backup)
    • What is the risk and benefit of startups, companies with limited portfolios vs. Big vendors
    • Do it yourself (DiY) vs. Turnkey software vs. Bundled tin wrapped software solution
    • We will also look at associated trends including software-defined, NVM/SSD, NVMe, VMware, Microsoft, KVM, Citrix/Xen, Docker, OpenStack among others.

    Organized by:
    Brouwer Storage Consultancy

    November 28, 2016 (New) – Server Storage I/O Fundamental Trends V2.1116
    Whats New, Whats the buzz, what you need to know about and whos doing what
    Workshop Seminar – Nijkerk The Netherlands

    Converged and server storage I/O data infrastructure trends
    Agenda and topics that will be covered include:

    • Who’s doing what, who are the new emerging vendors, solutions and technologies to watch
    • Non-Volatile Memory (NVM), flash solid state device (SSD), Storage Class Memory (SCM)
    • Networking with your servers and storage including NVMe, NVMeoF and RoCE
    • Cloud, Object and Bulk storage for data protection, archiving, near-line, scale-out
    • Data protection and software defined storage management (backup, BC, BR, DR, archive)
    • Microsoft Windows Server 2016, Nano, S2D and Hyper-V
    • VMware, OpenStack, Ceph, Docker and Containers, CI and HCI
    • EMC is gone, now there is Dell EMC and what that means
    • Various vendors and solutions from legacy to new and emerging
    • Recommendations, usage or deployment scenarios and tips
    • Some examples of who’s doing what includes AWS, Brocade, Cisco, Dell EMC, Enmotus, Futjistu, Google, HDS, HP and Huawei, IBM, Intel, Lenovo, Mellanox, Micron, Microsoft, NetApp, Nutanix, Oracle, Pure, Quantum, Qumulo, Reduxio, Rubrik, Samsung, SANdisk, Seagate, Simplivity and Tintri, Veeam, Veritas, VMware and WD among others.

    Organized by:
    Brouwer Storage Consultancy

    November 23, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT BrightTalk
    BCDR and Cloud Backup Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) and Data Protection

    BC DR Cloud Backup and Data Protection

    The answer is BCDR and Cloud Backup, however what was the question? Besides how to protect preserve and secure your data, applications along with data Infrastructures against various threat risk issues, what are some other common questions? For example how to modernize, rethink, re-architect, use new and old things in new ways, these and other topics, techniques, trends, tools have a common theme of BCDR and Cloud Backup. Join us in this discussion exploring your options for protecting data, applications and your data Infrastructures spanning legacy, software-defined virtual and cloud environments. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Various cloud storage options to meet different application PACE needs
    – Do clouds need to be backed-up or protected?
    – How to leverage clouds for various data protection objectives
    – When, where, why and how to use different scenarios

    November 23, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk
    Cloud Storage – Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

    Cloud Storage Decision Making

    You have been told, or determined that you need (or want) to use cloud storage, ok, now what? What type of cloud storage do you need or want, or do you simply want cloud storage? However, what are your options as well as application requirements including Performance, Availability, Capacity and Economics (PACE) along with access or interfaces? Where are your applications and where will they be located? What are your objectives for using cloud storage or is it simply you have heard or told its cheaper. Join us in this discussion exploring your options, considerations for cloud storage decision-making. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Various cloud storage options to meet different application PACE needs
    – Storage for primary, secondary, performance, availability, capacity, backup, archiving
    – Public, private and hybrid cloud storage options from block, file, object to application service
    – When, where, why and how to use cloud storage for different scenarios

    November 22, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT – BrightTalk
    Cloud Infrastructure Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

    Cloud Infrastructure and Hybrid Software Defined

    At the core of cloud (public, private, hybrid) next generation data centers are software defined data infrastructures that exist to protect, preserve and serve applications, data along with their resulting information services. Software defined data infrastructure core components include hardware, software servers and storage configured (defined) to provide various services enabling application Performance Availability Capacity and Economics (PACE). Just as there are different types of environments, applications along with workloads various options, technologies as well as techniques exist for cloud services (and underlying data infrastructures). Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services options for cloud infrastructures. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Software Defined Infrastructures (SDDI) are what enable Software Defined Data Centers and clouds
    – Various types of clouds along with cloud services that determine how resources get defined
    – When, where, why and how to use cloud Infrastructures along with associated resources

    November 15, 2016 (New) – 11AM PT Webinar – Redmond Magazine and Solarwinds
    The O.A.R. of Virtualization Scaling
    A journey of optimization, automation, and reporting

    Your journey to a flexible, scalable and secure IT universe begins now. Join Microsoft MVP and VMware vSAN and vExpert Greg Schulz of Server StorageIO along with VMware vExpert, Cisco Champion and Head Geek of Virtualization and Cloud Practice Kong Yang of SolarWinds for an interactive discussion empowering you to become the master of your software defined and virtual data center. Topics will include:

    • Trust your instruments and automation, however, verify they are working properl
    • Insight into how your environment, as well as automation tools, are working
    • Leverage automation to handle recurring tasks so you can focus on more productive activities
    • Capture, retain and transfer knowledge and tradecraft experiences into automation policies
    • Automated system management is only as good as the policies and data they rely upon
    • Optimize via automation that relies on reporting for insight, awareness and analytics 

    November 3, 2016 (New) – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and
    Dell Software
    Tailor Your Backup Data Repositories to
    Fit Your Security and Management Needs

    Does data protection storage have you working overtime to take care of it? Do you have the flexibility to protect, preserve, secure and serve different workgroups or customers in a shared environment? Is your environment looking to expand with new applications and remote offices, yet your data protection is slowing you down? 

    In this webinar we will look at current and emerging trends along with issues including how different threat risk challenges impact your evolving environment, as well as opportunities to address them. It’s time to deploy technology that works for you and your environment instead of you working for the solution. 

    Attend and learn about:

    • Data protection trends, issues, regulatory compliance, challenges and opportunities
    • How to utilize purpose built appliances to protect and defend your systems, applications and data from various threat risks
    • Importance of timely insight and situational awareness into your data protection infrastructure
    • Protecting centralized and distributed remote office branch offices (ROBO) workgroups
    • What you can do today to optimize your environment

    October 27, 2016 (New) – Webinar 10AM PT – Virtual Instruments
    The Value of Infrastructure Insight

    This webinar looks at the value of data center infrastructure insight both as a technology as well as a business productivity enabler. Besides productivity, having insight into how data infrastructure resources (servers, storage, networks, system software) are used, enables informed analysis, troubleshooting, planning, forecasting as well as cost-effective decision-making. In other words, data center infrastructure insight, based on infrastructure performance analytics, enables you to avoid flying blind, having situational awareness for proactive Information Technology (IT) management. Your return on innovation is increased, and leveraging insight awareness along with metrics that matter drives return on investment (ROI) along with enhanced service delivery.

    October 20, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk
    Next-Gen Data Centers Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) including Servers, Storage and Virtualization

    Cloud Storage Decision Making

    At the core of next generation data centers are software defined data infrastructures that enable, protect, preserve and serve applications, data along with their resulting information services. Software defined data infrastructure core components include hardware, software servers and storage configured (defined) to provide various services enabling application Performance Availability Capacity and Economics (PACE). Just as there are different types of environments, applications along with workloads various options, technologies as well as techniques exist for virtual servers and storage. Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services around storage and virtualization for today, tomorrow, and in the years to come. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Software Defined Infrastructures (SDDI) are what enable Software Defined Data Centers
    – Server and Storage Virtualization better together, with and without CI/HCI
    – Many different facets (types) of Server virtualization and virtual storage
    – When, where, why and how to use storage virtualization and virtual storage

    September 20, 2016 – Webinar 8AM PT – BrightTalk
    Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) Enabling Software Defined Data Centers – Part of Software-Defined Storage summit

    Cloud Storage Decision Making

    Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs. Software-Defined Infrastructures (SDI) are what enable Software-Defined Data Centers, and at the heart of a SDI is storage that is software-defined. This spans cloud, virtual and physical storage and is at the focal point of today. Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services around SDI and SDDC- today, tomorrow, and in the years to come.

    September 13, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and
    Dell Software
    Windows Server 2016 and Active Directory
    Whats New and How to Plan for Migration

    Windows Server 2016 is expected to GA this fall and is a modernized version of the Microsoft operating system that includes new capabilities such as Active Directory (AD) enhancements. AD is critical to organizational operations providing control and secure access to data, networks, servers, storage and more from physical, virtual and cloud (public and hybrid). But over time, organizations along with their associated IT infrastructures have evolved due to mergers, acquisitions, restructuring and general growth. As a result, yesterday’s AD deployments may look like they did in the past while using new technology (e.g. in old ways). Now is the time to start planning for how you will optimize your AD environment using new tools and technologies such as those in Windows Server 2016 and AD in new ways. Optimizing AD means having a new design, performing cleanup and restructuring prior to migration vs. simply moving what you have. Join us for this interactive webinar to begin planning your journey to Windows Server 2016 and a new optimized AD deployment that is flexible, scalable and elastic, and enables resilient infrastructures. You will learn:

    • What’s new in Windows Server 2016 and how it impacts your AD
    • Why an optimized AD is critical for IT environments moving forward
    • How to gain insight into your current AD environment
    • AD restructuring planning considerations

    September 8, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT (Watch on Demand) – Redmond Magazine, Acronis and Unitrends
    Data Protection for Modern Microsoft Environments

    Your organization’s business depends on modern Microsoft® environments — Microsoft Azure and new versions of Windows Server 2016, Microsoft Hyper-V with RCT, and business applications — and you need a data protection solution that keeps pace with Microsoft technologies. If you lose mission-critical data, it can cost you $100,000 or more for a single hour of downtime. Join our webinar and learn how different data protection solutions can protect your Microsoft environment, whether you store data on company premises, at remote locations, in private and public clouds, and on mobile devices.

    Where To Learn More

    What This All Means

    Its fall back to school and learning time, join me on these and other upcoming event activities.

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, vSAN and VMware vExpert. Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio

    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

    The Value of Infrastructure Insight – Enabling Informed Decision Making

    The Value of Infrastructure Insight – Enabling Informed Decision Making

    server storage I/O trends

    Join me and Virtual Instruments CTO John Gentry on October 27, 2016 for a free webinar (registration required) titled The Value of Infrastructure Insight – Enabling Informed Decision Making with Virtual Instruments. In this webinar, John and me will discuss the value of data center infrastructure insight both as a technology as well as a business and IT imperative.

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure
    Various Infrastructures – Business, Information, Data and Physical (or cloud)

    Leveraging infrastructure performance analytics is key to assuring the performance, availability and cost-effectiveness of your infrastructure, especially as you transform to a hybrid data center over the coming years. By utilizing real-time and historical infrastructure insight from your servers, storage and networking, you can avoid flying blind and give situational awareness for proactive decision-making. The result is faster problem resolution, problem avoidance, higher utilization and the elimination of performance slowdowns and outages.

    View the companion Server StorageIO Industry Trends Report available here (free, no registration required) at the Virtual Instruments web page resource center.

    xxxx

    The above Server StorageIO Industry Trends Perspective Report (click here to download PDF) looks at the value of data center infrastructure insight both as a technology as well as a business productivity enabler. Besides productivity, having insight into how data infrastructure resources (servers, storage, networks, system software) are used, enables informed analysis, troubleshooting, planning, forecasting as well as cost-effective decision-making.

    In other words, data center infrastructure insight, based on infrastructure performance analytics, enables you to avoid flying blind, having situational awareness for proactive Information Technology (IT) management. Your return on innovation is increased, and leveraging insight awareness along with metrics that matter drives return on investment (ROI) along with enhanced service delivery.

    Where To Learn More

    • Free Server StorageIO Industry Trends Report The Value of Infrastructure Insight – Enabling Informed Decision Making (PDF)
    • Register for the free webinar on October 27, 2016 1PM ET here.
    • View other upcoming and recent events at the Server StorageIO activities page here.

    What This All Means

    What this all means is that the key to making smart, informed decisions involving data infrastructure, servers, storage, I/O across different applications is having insight and awareness. See for yourself how you can gain insight into your existing information factory environment performing analysis, as well as comparing and simulating your application workloads for informed decision-making.

    Having insight and awareness (e.g. instruments) allows you to avoid flying blind, enabling smart, safe and informed decisions in different conditions impacting your data infrastructure. How is your investment in hardware, software, services and tools being leveraged to meet given levels of services? Is your information factory (data center and data infrastructure) performing at its peak effectiveness?

    How are you positioned to support growth, improve productivity, remove complexity and costs while evolving from a legacy to a next generation software-defined, cloud, virtual, converged or hyper-converged environment with new application needs?

    Data infrastructure insight benefits and takeaways:

    • Informed performance-related decision-making
    • Support growth, agility, flexibility and availability
    • Maximize resource investment and utilization
    • Find, fix and remove I/O bottlenecks
    • Puts you in control in the driver’s seat

    Remember to register and attend the October 27 webinar that you can register here.

    Btw, Virtual Instruments has been a client of Server StorageIO and that fwiw is a disclosure.

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

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

    Posted on

    Back To Software Defined Data Infrastructure School, Webinar and Fall 2016 events

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Webinars and Fall 2016 events

    server storage I/O trends

    Its September and that means back to school time, and not just for the kids. Here is the preliminary Server StorageIO fall 2016 back to school, webinar and event activities covering software defined data center, data infrastructure, virtual, cloud, containers, converged, hyper-converged server, storage, I/O network, performance and data protection among other topics.

    December 7, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – BrightTalk
    Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Decision Making

    Are Converged Infrastructures (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructures (HCI), Cluster in Box or Cloud in Box (CiB) solutions for you? The answer is it depends on what your needs, requirements, application among other criteria are. In addition are you focused on a particular technology solution or architecture approach, or, looking for something that adapts to your needs? Join us in this discussion exploring your options for different scenarios as we look beyond they hype including to next wave of hyper-scale converged along with applicable decision-making criteria. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – What are your application and environment needs along with other objectives
    – Explore various approaches for hyper-small and hyper-large environments
    – What are you converging, hardware, hypervisors, management or something else?
    – Does HCI mean hyper-vendor-lock-in, if so, is that a bad thing?
    – When, where, why and how to use different scenarios

    November 23, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT BrightTalk
    BCDR and Cloud Backup Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) and Data Protection

    The answer is BCDR and Cloud Backup, however what was the question? Besides how to protect preserve and secure your data, applications along with data Infrastructures against various threat risk issues, what are some other common questions? For example how to modernize, rethink, re-architect, use new and old things in new ways, these and other topics, techniques, trends, tools have a common theme of BCDR and Cloud Backup. Join us in this discussion exploring your options for protecting data, applications and your data Infrastructures spanning legacy, software-defined virtual and cloud environments. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Various cloud storage options to meet different application PACE needs
    – Do clouds need to be backed-up or protected?
    – How to leverage clouds for various data protection objectives
    – When, where, why and how to use different scenarios

    November 23, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk
    Cloud Storage – Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

    You have been told, or determined that you need (or want) to use cloud storage, ok, now what? What type of cloud storage do you need or want, or do you simply want cloud storage? However, what are your options as well as application requirements including Performance, Availability, Capacity and Economics (PACE) along with access or interfaces? Where are your applications and where will they be located? What are your objectives for using cloud storage or is it simply you have heard or told its cheaper. Join us in this discussion exploring your options, considerations for cloud storage decision-making. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Various cloud storage options to meet different application PACE needs
    – Storage for primary, secondary, performance, availability, capacity, backup, archiving
    – Public, private and hybrid cloud storage options from block, file, object to application service
    – When, where, why and how to use cloud storage for different scenarios

    November 22, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT – BrightTalk
    Cloud Infrastructure Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

    At the core of cloud (public, private, hybrid) next generation data centers are software defined data infrastructures that exist to protect, preserve and serve applications, data along with their resulting information services. Software defined data infrastructure core components include hardware, software servers and storage configured (defined) to provide various services enabling application Performance Availability Capacity and Economics (PACE). Just as there are different types of environments, applications along with workloads various options, technologies as well as techniques exist for cloud services (and underlying data infrastructures). Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services options for cloud infrastructures. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Software Defined Infrastructures (SDDI) are what enable Software Defined Data Centers and clouds
    – Various types of clouds along with cloud services that determine how resources get defined
    – When, where, why and how to use cloud Infrastructures along with associated resources

    October 27, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT – Virtual Instruments
    The Value of Infrastructure Insight

    This webinar looks at the value of data center infrastructure insight both as a technology as well as a business productivity enabler. Besides productivity, having insight into how data infrastructure resources (servers, storage, networks, system software) are used, enables informed analysis, troubleshooting, planning, forecasting as well as cost-effective decision-making. In other words, data center infrastructure insight, based on infrastructure performance analytics, enables you to avoid flying blind, having situational awareness for proactive Information Technology (IT) management. Your return on innovation is increased, and leveraging insight awareness along with metrics that matter drives return on investment (ROI) along with enhanced service delivery.

    October 20, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk
    Next-Gen Data Centers Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) including Servers, Storage and Virtualizations

    At the core of next generation data centers are software defined data infrastructures that enable, protect, preserve and serve applications, data along with their resulting information services. Software defined data infrastructure core components include hardware, software servers and storage configured (defined) to provide various services enabling application Performance Availability Capacity and Economics (PACE). Just as there are different types of environments, applications along with workloads various options, technologies as well as techniques exist for virtual servers and storage. Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services around storage and virtualization for today, tomorrow, and in the years to come. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Software Defined Infrastructures (SDDI) are what enable Software Defined Data Centers
    – Server and Storage Virtualization better together, with and without CI/HCI
    – Many different facets (types) of Server virtualization and virtual storage
    – When, where, why and how to use storage virtualization and virtual storage

    September 20, 2016 – Webinar 8AM PT – BrightTalk
    Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) Enabling Software Defined Data Centers – Part of Software-Defined Storage summit

    Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs. Software-Defined Infrastructures (SDI) are what enable Software-Defined Data Centers, and at the heart of a SDI is storage that is software-defined. This spans cloud, virtual and physical storage and is at the focal point of today. Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services around SDI and SDDC- today, tomorrow, and in the years to come.

    September 13, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and
    Dell Software
    Windows Server 2016 and Active Directory
    Whats New and How to Plan for Migration

    Windows Server 2016 is expected to GA this fall and is a modernized version of the Microsoft operating system that includes new capabilities such as Active Directory (AD) enhancements. AD is critical to organizational operations providing control and secure access to data, networks, servers, storage and more from physical, virtual and cloud (public and hybrid). But over time, organizations along with their associated IT infrastructures have evolved due to mergers, acquisitions, restructuring and general growth. As a result, yesterday’s AD deployments may look like they did in the past while using new technology (e.g. in old ways). Now is the time to start planning for how you will optimize your AD environment using new tools and technologies such as those in Windows Server 2016 and AD in new ways. Optimizing AD means having a new design, performing cleanup and restructuring prior to migration vs. simply moving what you have. Join us for this interactive webinar to begin planning your journey to Windows Server 2016 and a new optimized AD deployment that is flexible, scalable and elastic, and enables resilient infrastructures. You will learn:

    • What’s new in Windows Server 2016 and how it impacts your AD
    • Why an optimized AD is critical for IT environments moving forward
    • How to gain insight into your current AD environment
    • AD restructuring planning considerations

    September 8, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT (Watch on Demand) – Redmond Magazine, Acronis and Unitrends
    Data Protection for Modern Microsoft Environments

    Your organization’s business depends on modern Microsoft® environments — Microsoft Azure and new versions of Windows Server 2016, Microsoft Hyper-V with RCT, and business applications — and you need a data protection solution that keeps pace with Microsoft technologies. If you lose mission-critical data, it can cost you $100,000 or more for a single hour of downtime. Join our webinar and learn how different data protection solutions can protect your Microsoft environment, whether you store data on company premises, at remote locations, in private and public clouds, and on mobile devices.

    Where To Learn More

    What This All Means

    Its back to school and learning time, join me on these and other upcoming event activities.

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

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

    Posted on

    Happy 20th Birthday Microsoft Windows Server, get ready for Windows Server 2016

    Happy 20th Birthday Windows Server, ready for Server 2016?

    server storage I/O trends

    In case you have not heard, Microsoft is celebrating the 20th birthday (or anniversary) of Windows Server.

    Microsoft has a nice site with info graphics and timelines of where Windows Server has been and accomplished over the past 20 years (view here).

    Some of you may remember from 20 years ago Windows Server with a different name aka Windows NT Server. Back in the day, if you recall (or read), server requirements were more in the 33 MHz vs. 3.3GHz range, 32MB of RAM Memory vs. 32GB to 320GB, 150MB HDD vs. 150GB SSD or 1.5TB HDD.

    Keep in mind that 20 years ago Linux was a relative new thing with Red Hat not yet quite household or more specific enterprise name. The various Unix (e.g. IBM AIX, HP HP-UX, Sun Solaris, DEC Unix and Ultrix among many others) were still dominate, OS2 had peaked or close to, among others. Virtual Machines were Logical Partitions (LPAR) on Mainframes along with virtual PCs software and hardware assist boards.

    IMHO there is no coincidence of Microsoft celebrating 20 years of WIndows Server going into the fall of 2016 and the upcoming release of Server 2016.

    What’s New in Server 2016 (TP5)?

    If you have not done so, check out the latest Tech Preview 5 (TP5) of Windows Server 2016 (get the bits e.g. software here to try) which includes Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) that leverages internal PCIe and drive format SSD (NVMe, SAS, SATA) along with HDDs (SAS, SATA) for creating local and scale-out converged (desegregated) and hyper-converged (aggregated) solutions. In addition to S2D there is Storage Replica (SR) which is replication of local storage part of S2D (not to be confused with DFS or other replication).

    Other enhancements include ReFS as the default file system instead of NTFS (don’t worry, NTFS like FAT does not go away yet). There are enhancements to Hyper-V including VM shielding, hot-plug virtual network adapters, enhanced Linux support and fail over priorities among others. Other enhancements include updates for AD including improved integration with on-premises as well as Azure AD for hybrid environments, PowerShell updates, Docker management including Linux (via Hyper-V) and Windows via Nano) container engines.

    Microsoft Windows Server 2016 TP5

    Speaking of Nano, if you had not heard, this is a new very light weight Windows Kernel that removes 32 bit WOW and GUI support. The result is that Nano is a very small physical (under 1GB image instance size) using less disk, less memory and less CPU to do a given amount of work, oh, and boots super fast, even without SSD. By not having all the 32 bit and GUI overhead, the intent with Nano is there should be fewer updates and maintenance tasks to do, while enabling Windows containers for SQL Server and other applications.

    In addition to PowerShell, AD and other management enhancements, Windows Server 2016 (TP5) also enables bridging two worlds e.g. traditional on-premises (or cloud) based Windows Server and Public Cloud (e.g. Azure) and Private or Hybrid including Azure Stack. Note that if you have not heard of Azure Stack and are looking at cloud stacks such as OpenStack, do your due diligence and at least familiarize yourself with Azure Stack.

    View more about WIndows 2016 TP5 enhancements here.

    Where To Learn More

    What This All Means

    Congratulations Microsoft and Windows Server on 20th birthday (anniversary) you have come a long way.

    With the new features and functionality in Windows Server 2016, looks like there is still a good future for the software defined server.

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

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

    Posted on

    Server StorageIO February 2016 Update Newsletter

    Volume 16, Issue II

    Hello and welcome to the February 2016 Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    Even with an extra day during the month of February, there was a lot going on in a short amount of time. This included industry activity from servers to storage and I/O networking, hardware, software, services, mergers and acquisitions for cloud, virtual, containers and legacy environments. Check out the sampling of some of the various industry activities below.

    Meanwhile, its now time for March Madness which also means metrics that matter and getting ready for World Backup Data on March 31st. Speaking of World Backup Day, check out the StorageIO events and activities page for a webinar on March 31st involving data protection as part of smart backups.

    While your focus for March may be around brackets and other related themes, check out the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) white paper listed below that looks at NAND flash SSD failures at Facebook. Some of the takeaways involve the importance of cooling and thermal management for flash, as well as wear management and role of flash translation layer firmware along with controllers.

    Also see the links to the Google White Paper on their request to the industry for a new type of Hard Disk Drive (HDD) to store capacity data while SSD’s handle the IOP’s. The take away is that while Google uses a lot of flash SSD for high performance, low latency workloads, they also need to have a lot of high-capacity bulk storage that is more affordable on a cost per capacity basis. Google also makes several proposals and suggestions to the industry on what should and can be done on a go forward basis.

    Backblaze also has a new report out on their 2015 HDD reliability and failure analysis which makes for an interesting read. One of the take away’s is that while there are newer, larger capacity 6TB and 8TB drives, Backblaze is leveraging the lower cost per capacity of 4TB drives that are also available in volume quantity.

    Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcast’s along with in the news commentary appearing soon.

    Cheers GS

    In This Issue

  • StorageIOblog posts
  • Industry Activity Trends
  • New and Old Vendor Update
  • Events and Webinars

    • StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    • EMC DSSD D5 Rack Scale Direct Attached Shared SSD All Flash Array Part I
      and Part II – EMC DSSD D5 Direct Attached Shared AFA
      EMC announced the general availability of their DSSD D5 Shared Direct Attached SSD (DAS) flash storage system (e.g. All Flash Array or AFA) which is a rack-scale solution. If you recall, EMC acquired DSSD back in 2014 which you can read more about here. EMC announced four configurations that include 36TB, 72TB and 144TB raw flash SSD capacity with support for up to 48 dual-ported host client servers.
    • Various Hardware (SAS, SATA, NVM, M2) and Software (VHD) Defined Odd’s and Ends
      Ever need to add another GbE port to a small server, workstation or perhaps Intel NUC, however no PCIe slots are available? How about attaching a M2 form factor flash SSD card to a server or device that does not have an M2 port, or, for mirroring two M2 cards together with a RAID adapter? Looking for tool to convert a Windows system to a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) while it is running? The following are a collection of odd’s and end’s devices and tools for hardware and software defining your environment.
    • Software Defined Storage Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Algorithms + Data Structures
      For those who are into, or simply like to talk about software defined storage (SDS), API’s, Windows, Virtual Hard Disks (VHD) or VHDX, or Hyper-V among other related themes, have you ever actually looked at the specification for VHDX? If not, here is the link to the open specification that Microsoft published (this one dates back to 2012).
    • Big Files and Lots of Little File Processing and Benchmarking with Vdbench
      Need to test a server, storage I/O networking, hardware, software, services, cloud, virtual, physical or other environment that is either doing some form of file processing, or, that you simply want to have some extra workload running in the background for what ever reason?

    View other recent as well as past blog posts here

    Server Storage I/O Industry Activity Trends (Cloud, Virtual, Physical)

    StorageIO news (image licensed for use from Shutterstock by StorageIO)

    Some new Products Technology Services Announcements (PTSA) include:

  • Tegile – IntelliFlash HD Now Available To Enterprises Worldwide
  • Via Forbes – Competitors and Cash Bleed Put Pressure on Pure Storage
  • Via HealthCareBusiness – Philips and Amazon team up on cloud-based health record storage
  • Via Zacks – IBM Advances Hybrid Cloud Object Based Storage
  • DataONstorage expands Microsoft Hyper Converged Infrastructure platforms
  • Via ITBusinessEdge – Nimble updates All Flash Array (AFA) storage
  • Carnegie Mellon University – A Large-Scale Study of Flash Memory Failures
  • Cisco Buys Cliqr Cloud Orchestration
  • Backblaze – 2015 Hard Drive Reliability Reports and Analysis
  • Via BusinessCloudNews – Verizon Closing Down Its Public Cloud
  • Via BusinessInsider – US Government Approves Dell and EMC Deal
  • EMC and VMware announce new VCE VxRAIL Converged Solutions
  • EMC announces new IBM zSeries Mainframe enhancements for VMAX
  • EMC announces new DSSD D5 AFA and VMAX AFA enhancements
  • HPE announces enhancements to StoreEasy 1650 storage
  • Seagate now shipping worlds slimmest and fastest 2TB mobile HDD
  • Via VMblog – Oracle Scoops Up Ravello to Boosts Its Public Cloud Offerings
  • Via Investors – SSD and Chinese Investments in Western Digital
  • ATTO announces 32G (e.g. Gen 6) Fibre Channel adapters
  • Google to disk vendors: Make hard drives like this, even if they lose more data
  • Google Disk for Data Centers White Paper (PDF Here)

    • View other recent news and industry trends here

    Vendors you may not have heard of

    Various vendors (and service providers) you may not know or heard about recently.

    StorageIO news (image licensed for use from Shutterstock by StorageIO)

    • SkySync – Enterprise File Sync and Share
    • SANblaze – Storage protocol emulation tools
    • OpenIT – DCIM and Data Infrastructure Management Tools
    • Infinit.sh – Decentralized Software Based File Storage Platform
    • Alluxio –
      Open Source Software Defined Storage Abstraction Layer
    • Genie9 –
      Backup and Data Protection Tools
    • E8 Storage – Software Defined Stealth Storage Startup

    Check out more vendors you may know, have heard of, or that are perhaps new on the Server StorageIO Industry Links page here (over 1,000 entries and growing).

     

    StorageIO Webinars and Industry Events

    EMCworld (Las Vegas) May 2-4, 2016

    Interop (Las Vegas) May 4-6 2016

    NAB (Las Vegas) April 19-20, 2016

    March 31, 2016 Webinar (1PM ET) – Smart Backup and World Backup Day

    February 25, 2016 Webinar (11AM PT) – Migrating to Hyper-V including from Vmware

    February 24, 2016 Webinar (11AM ET) – How To Become a Data Protection Hero

    February 23, 2016 Webinar (11AM PT) – Rethinking Data Protection

    January 19, 2016 Webinar (9AM PT) – Solve Virtualization Performance Issues Like a Pro

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

    Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

    Check out these useful links and pages:

    storageio.com/links,
    objectstoragecenter.com, storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/,
    thenvmeplace.com, thessdplace.com and storageio.com/performance among others.

    Ok, nuff said

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    RIP Windows SIS (Single Instance Storage), or at least in Server 2016

    RIP Windows SIS, or at least in Server 2016

    server storage I/O trends

    I received as a Microsoft MVP a partner communication today from Microsoft of a heads up as well as pass on to others that Single Instance Storage (SIS) has been removed from Windows Server 2016 (Read the Microsoft Announcement here, or below). Windows SIS is part of Microsoft’s portfolio of tools and technology for implementing Data Footprint Reduction (DFR).

    Granted Windows Server 2016 has not been released yet, however you can download and try out the latest release such as Technical Preview 4 (TP4), get the bits from Microsoft here. Learn more about some of the server and storage I/O enhancements in TP4 including storage spaces direct here.

    Partner Communication from Microsoft

    Partner Communication
    Please relay or forward this notification to ISVs and hardware partners that have used Single Instance Storage (SIS) or implemented the SIS backup API.

    Single Instance Storage (SIS) has been removed from Windows Server 2016
    Summary:   Single Instance Storage (SIS), a file system filter driver used for NTFS file deduplication, has been removed from Windows Server. In Dec 2015, the SIS feature has been completely removed from Windows Server and Windows Storage Server editions.  SIS was officially deprecated in Windows Server 2012 R2 in this announcement and will be removed from future Windows Server Technical Preview releases.

    Call to action:
    Storage vendors that have any application dependencies on legacy SIS functions or SIS backup and restore APIs should verify that their applications behave as expected on Windows Server 2016 and Windows Storage Server 2016. Windows Server 2012 included Microsoft’s next generation of deduplication technology that uses variable-sized chunking and hashing and offers far superior deduplication rates. Users and backup vendors have already moved to support the latest Microsoft deduplication technology and should continue to do so.

    Background:
    SIS was developed and used in Windows Server since 2000, when it was part of Remote Installation Services. SIS became a general purpose file system filter driver in Windows Storage Server 2003 and the SIS groveler (the deduplication engine) was included in Windows Storage Server. In Windows Storage Server 2008, the SIS legacy read/write filter driver was upgraded to a mini-filter and it shipped in Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 editions. Creating SIS-controlled volumes could only occur on Windows Storage Server, however, all editions of Windows Server could read and write to volumes that were under SIS control and could restore and backup volumes that had SIS applied.

    Volumes using SIS that are restored or plugged into Windows Server 2016 will only be able to read data that was not deduplicated. Prior to migrating or restoring a volume, users must remove SIS from the volume by copying it to another location or removing SIS using SISadmin commands.

    The SIS components and features:

    • SIS Groveler. The SIS Groveler searched for files that were identical on the NTFS file system volume. It then reported those files to the SIS filter driver.
    • SIS Storage Filter. The SIS Storage Filter was a file system filter that managed duplicate copies of files on logical volumes. This filter copied one instance of the duplicate file into the Common Store. The duplicate copies were replaced with a link to the Common Store to improve disk space utilization.
    • SIS Link. SIS links were pointers within the file system, maintaining both application and user experience (including attributes such as file size and directory path) while I/O was transparently redirected to the actual duplicate file located within the SIS Common Store.
    • SIS Common Store. The SIS Common Store served as the repository for each file identified as having duplicates. Each SIS-maintained volume contained one SIS Common Store, which contained all of the merged duplicate files that exist on that volume.
    • SIS Administrative Interface. The SIS Administrative Interface gave network administrators easy access to all SIS controls to simplify management.
    • SIS Backup API. The SIS Backup API (Sisbkup.dll) helped OEMs create SIS-aware backup and restoration solutions.

    References:
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa362538(v=vs.85).aspx
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa362512(v=vs.85).aspx
    https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dexter.functioncatall.sis(v=vs.90).aspx
    https://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2012/05/21/introduction-to-data-deduplication-in-windows-server-2012.aspx
    https://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2006/02/03/single-instance-store-sis-in-windows-storage-server-r2.aspx

    What this all means

    Like it or not, SIS is being removed from Windows 2016 replaced by the new Microsoft deduplication or data footprint reduction (DFR) technology.

    You have been advised…

    RIP Windows SIS

    Ok, nuff said (for now)

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

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

    Posted on

    Water, Data and Storage Analogy

    Water, Data and Storage Analogy

    server storage I/O trends

    Recently I did a piece over at InfoStor titled "Water, Data and Storage Analogy". Besides being taken for granted and all of us being dependent on them, several other similarities exist between water, data, and storage. In addition to being a link that piece, this is a companion with some different images to help show the similarities between water, data and storage if for no other reason to have a few moments of fun. Read the entire piece here.

    Water, Data and Storage Similarities

    Water can get cold and freeze, data can also go cold becoming dormant and a candidate for archiving or cold cloud storage.

    Like data and storage water can be frozen
    Like data and storage water can be frozen

    Various types of storage devices
    Various types of storage drives (HDD & SSD)

    different tiers of frozen water storage containers
    Different types and tiers of frozen water storage containers

    Data, like water, can move or be dormant, can be warm and active, or cold, frozen and inactive. Water, data and storage can also be used for work or fun.

    Kyak fishing
    Fishing on water vs. phishing for data on storage

    Eagle fly fishing on st croix river
    Eagle fly fishing on water over st croix river

    Data can be transformed into 3D images and video, water transformed into Snow can also be made into various virtual images or things.

    Data on storage can be transformed like water
    Data on storage can be transformed like water (e.g. snow)

    Data, like water, can exist in clouds, resulting in storms that if not properly prepared for, can cause problems.

    Data and storage can be damaged including by water, water can also be damaged by putting things into it or the environment.

    Water can destroy things, data and storage can be destroyed
    Water can destroy things, data and storage can be destroyed

    There are data lakes, data pools, data ponds, oceans of storage and seas of data as well as data centers.

    inside a data center
    Rows of servers and storage in a data center

    An indoor water lake (e.g. not an indoor data lake)
    An indoor water lake (e.g. not an indoor data lake)

    As water flows downstream it tends to increase in volume as tributaries or streams adding to the volume in lakes, reservoirs, rivers and streams. Another similarity is that water will tend to flow and seek its level filling up space, while data can involve a seek on an HDD in addition to filling up space.

    Flood of water vs. flood of data
    Flood of water vs. flood of data (e.g. need for Data Protection)

    There are also hybrid uses (or types) of water, just like hybrid technologies for supporting data infrastructures.

    Amphicar hybrid automobile
    Hybrid Automobile on water

    What this all means

    We might take water, data and storage for granted, yet they each need to be managed, protected, preserved and served. Servers utilize storage to support applications for managing water; water is used for cooling and powering storage, not to mention for making coffee for those who take care of IT resources.

    When you hear about data lakes, ponds or pools, keep in mind that there are also data streams, all of which need to be managed to prevent the flood of data from overwhelming you.

    Ok, nuff said (for now)

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

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

    Posted on

    Server StorageIO October 2015 Update Newsletter


    Server and StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Volume 15, Issue X – Industry Trends, M&A, PTSA

    Hello and welcome to this October 2015 Server StorageIO update newsletter. Fall has arrived here in the northern hemisphere which means its spring in the southern hemisphere, and getting colder here. While fall means cooler out-door temperature with winter just around the corner, in the IT/ITC industry, particular the data infrastructure sector (server, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, cloud, physical, software defined virtual) things are very hot. Sure the various industry and vendor focused conferences, road shows and mini-events with associated new product, technology or services announcements (PTSA. There are also the various merger and acquisitions (M&A) that have occurred throughout the year including the recent Dell buying EMC, and Western Digital (WD) buying SANdisk among others.

    This edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter has a focus on industry trends perspectives including recent M&A and PTSA activity. In addition to industry fall industry M&A and PTSA activity, there also plenty of conference, seminars, workshops, webinars and other events some of which you can see here on the Server StorageIO events page.

    On a slightly different note, for those interested and not aware of the European Union (EU) ruling earlier this month on data privacy (e.g. Safe Harbor), here and here are a couple of links to stories discussing the new ruling changes between the EU and US (among other countries). The EU data privacy rulings involve personal data being moved out of EU countries to US data centers such as cloud and application services firms.

    Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter and watch for new tips, articles, StorageIO lab report reviews, blog posts, videos and podcast’s along with in the news commentary appearing soon.

    Cheers GS

    In This Issue

  • Feature Topic
  • Industry Trends News
  • Commentary in the news
  • Tips and Articles
  • StorageIOblog posts
  • Videos and Podcasts
  • Events and Webinars
  • Recommended Reading List
  • Industry Activity Trends
  • Server StorageIO Lab reports
  • New and Old Vendor Update
  • Resources and Links

    • Feature Topic – TBD

    This months feature topic theme is industry trends perspectives including M&A activity.

    Some M&A, IPO and divestiture activity includes:

    Continue reading more about NVM, NVMe, NAND flash, SSD Server and storage I/O related topics at www.thessdplace.com as well as about I/O performance, monitoring and benchmarking tools at www.storageperformance.us.

     

    StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    View other recent as well as past blog posts here

    Server Storage I/O Industry Activity Trends (Cloud, Virtual, Physical)

    StorageIO news (image licensed for use from Shutterstock by StorageIO)

    Some new Products Technology Services Announcements (PTSA) include:

    • Amazon Web Service (AWS) Simple Storage Service (S3) Infrequent Access (IA) storage class for inactive data with immediate access vs. Glacier cold or frozen (dormant) data with slow or time delayed access. AWS also announced Snowball bulk data import/export 50TB appliance service in addition to their earlier offered capabilities.
    • EMC Rexray (part of EMCcode) and Mesosphere (for Mesos data center operating system) have joined to enable persistent Docker volumes for Mesos (e.g. data center operating system platform).
    • Microsoft Azure recent enhancements include file access of cloud storage (on-premises and within Azure cloud) leveraging SMB interfaces. Here is a primer on Azure cloud storage service offerings. View other recent Azure Cloud Storage, Compute, Database and Data Analytics service offerings here. In addition to Microsoft Azure cloud offerings or Windows 10 desktop operating system, you can also download WIndows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 (TP3) and see what’s new here. Some of the features include Storage Spaces Direct (e.g. DAS storage) and replication among other features.

    View other recent news and industry trends here

    StorageIO Commentary in the news

    StorageIO news (image licensed for use from Shutterstock by StorageIO)
    Recent Server StorageIO commentary and industry trends perspectives about news, activities tips, and announcements.

    • NetworkComputing: Dell buying EMC: The Storage Ramifications
    • EnterpriseTech: VMware Targets Synergies in Dell EMC Deal 
    • HPCwire: Dell to Buy EMC for $67B
    • EnterpriseStorageForum: Data Storage: Do We Really Need to Store Everything?
    • EnterpriseStorageForum: Why Hard Drives Are Here to Stay (For Now)
    • EnterpriseStorageForum: Top Ten Ways to Use OpenStack for Storage
    • EnterpriseStorageForum: Are We Heading for Storage Armageddon?

    View more Server, Storage and I/O hardware as well as software trends comments here

    Vendors you may not have heard of

    Various vendors (and service providers) you may not know or heard about recently.

    • Hedvig – Converged server storage software management tools
    • Infinidat – Another Moshe Yanai Storage System Startup
    • Mesosphere – Mesos Data Center Operating System management tools
    • Plexxi – Networking startup with former EMC executive Rich Napolitano as CEO
    • ScaleMP – Scale-out server aggregation management tools

    Check out more vendors you may know, have heard of, or that are perhaps new on the Server StorageIO Industry Links page here (over 1,000 entries and growing).

    StorageIO Tips and Articles

    Recent Server StorageIO articles appearing in different venues include:

    • Virtual Blocks (VMware Blogs):  EVO:RAIL – What Is It And Why Does It Matter?
      This is the first of a multi-part series looking at Converged Infrastructures (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructures (HCI), Cluster in Box (CiB) and other unified solution bundles. There is a trend of industry adoption talking about CI, HCI, CiB and other bundled solutions, along with growing IT customer adoption and deployment. Different sized organizations are looking at various types of CI solutions to meet various application and workloads needs. Read more here.
    • WServerNews.com:  Cloud (Microsoft Azure) storage considerations
      Let’s say that you have been tasked with, or decided that it is time to use (or try) public cloud storage such as Microsoft Azure. Ok, now what do you do and what decisions need to be made? Keep in mind that Microsoft Azure like many other popular public clouds provides many difference services available for fee (subscription) along with free trials. These services include applications, compute, networking, storage along with development and management platform tools. Read more here.
    • NetworkComputing:  Selecting Storage: Buzzword Bingo
      The storage industry is rife with buzzwords. Here are some of the popular ones storage buyers need to navigate carefully to find storage products that truly meet their needs. Read more here.

    • InfoStor:  What’s The Best Storage Benchmark? It Depends…

    • EnterpriseStorageForum:  NAND, DRAM, SAS/SCSI & SATA/AHCI: Not Dead, Yet!

    Check out these resources and links technology, techniques, trends as well as tools. View more tips and articles here

    StorageIO Videos and Podcasts

    StorageIO podcasts are also available via and at StorageIO.tv

    StorageIO Webinars and Industry Events

    Deltaware Emerging Technology Summit November 10, 2015

    Dell Data Protection Summit Nov 4, 2015 7AM PT

    Microsoft MVP Summit Nov 2-5, 2015

    Server Storage I/O Dutch Workshop Seminar Series
    Nijkerk Netherlands October 13-16 2015

    October 13 – Symposium: Software Defined Storage Management
    October 14 – Server Storage I/O Fundamental Trends
    October 15 – Symposium – Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM)
    October 16 – “Converged Day” Server and Storage Decision making

    Learn more and register at the Brouwer Consultancy website here.

    September 23 – Webinar Redmond Magazine & Dell Data Protection
    The New World Order of Data Protection – Focus on Recovery
    Learn more about the 9Rs of data protection and recovery

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

    From StorageIO Labs

    Research, Reviews and Reports

    Quick Look: SATA and NVMe Flash SSD Performance
    SATA and NVMe flash SSD performance

    Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Express (NVMe) continues to evolve as a technology for enabling and improving server storage I/O for NVM including nand flash SSD storage. NVMe streamlines performance enabling more work to be done (e.g. IOPs), data to be moved (bandwidth) at a lower response time using less CPU. The above figure is a quick look comparing nand flash SSD being accessed via SATA III (6Gbps) on the left and NVMe (x4) on the right. As with any server storage I/O performance comparisons there are many variables and take them with a grain of salt. While IOPs and bandwidth are often discussed, keep in mind that with the new protocol, drivers and device controllers with NVMe that streamline I/O less CPU is needed. Learn more about NVM, NVMe, flash, SSD and related topics at www.thessdplace.com.

    View other StorageIO lab review reports here

    Server StorageIO Recommended Reading List

    The following are various recommended reading including books, blogs and videos. If you have not done so recently, also check out the Intel Recommended Reading List (here) where you will also find a couple of my books.

    Seven Databases in Seven Weeks guide to no SQL via Amazon.com

    The Human Face of Big Data book review. To say this is a big book would be an understatement, then again, big data is a big topic with a lot of diversity if you open your eyes and think in a pragmatic way, which once you open and see the pages you will see. This is physically a big book (11x 14 inches) with lots of pictures, texts, stories, factoids and thought stimulating information of the many facets and dimensions of big data across 224 pages. The Human Face of Big Data is more than a coffee table or picture book as it is full of with information, factoids and perspectives how information and data surround us every day. Open up a copy of The Human Face of Big Data and you will see examples of how data and information are all around us, and our dependence upon it. Read more here.

    Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

    Check out these useful links and pages:

    storageio.com/links
    objectstoragecenter.com
    storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/
    storageperformance.us
    thenvmeplace
    thessdplace.com
    storageio.com/raid
    storageio.com/ssd

    Ok, nuff said

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    Fall 2015 Server Storage I/O Cloud Virtual Seminars Going Dutch

    Storage I/O trends

    Fall 2015 Server Storage I/O Cloud Virtual Seminars Going Dutch

    StorageIO events, object storage, ssd cloud, virtualization and big data

    It’s that time of the year again where the fall 2015 events and activities are underway which also includes a week of sessions in Holland October 13-16. I will be participating in four days of workshop seminars being organized by Brouwer Storage Consultancy in Nijkerk covering server storage decision-making, converged and bulk storage options, software defined storage management, data center infrastructure management and data protection along with industry trends and update sessions.

    Brouwer Storage Consultnacy

    October 13th: Symposium – Software Defined Storage Management

    09:00 -17:00

    DOWNLOAD FLYER (Dutch)

    REGISTER HERE

    FREE Session! Access for end-users only, through invitation or contacting BSC.

    Event Location: Hotel & Gasterij De Roode Schuur, Oude Barneveldseweg 98, 3862PS Nijkerk – www.deroodeschuur.nl

    Brouwer Storage Making Decision Seminar Workshops

    October 14th: Server Storage I/O Fundamental Trends V2.015 – What’s New, What’s the buzz, what you need to know about.

    09:00 -17:00

    DOWNLOAD Abstract/Agenda

    REGISTER HERE

    Event Location: Golden Tulip Ampt van Nijkerk Hotel, Berencamperweg 4, 3861MC, Nijkerk – www.goldentulipamptvannijkerk.com/en

    Brouwer Storage Making Decision Seminar Workshops

    October 15th: Symposium – Data Center Infrastructure Management

    09:00 -17:00

    DOWNLOAD Abstract / Agenda

    REGISTER Here

    FREE Session! Access, through invitation or contacting BSC.

    Event Location: Hotel & Gasterij De Roode Schuur, Oude Barneveldseweg 98, 3862PS Nijkerk – www.deroodeschuur.nl

    Going Dutch Storage Seminars

    October 16th: "Converged Day" Server and Storage Decision making – How do you want or need your storage packaged?

    09:00 -17:00

    DOWNLOAD Abstract / Agenda

    REGISTER HERE

    Event Location: Golden Tulip Ampt van Nijkerk Hotel, Berencamperweg 4, 3861MC, Nijkerk – www.goldentulipamptvannijkerk.com/en

    Going Dutch Server Storage I/O

    Brouwer Storage Consultnacy

    Learn more at the Brouwer Storage Consultancy site here, or getting in touch with them to reserve your seat at these events.

    Office: Olevoortseweg 43
    3861 MH Nijkerk
    The Netherlands

    T +31-33-246-6825
    C +31-652-601-309
    F +31-33-245-8956
    E info@brouwerconsultancy.com

    Where to read, watch and learn more

    Watch for more events, seminars, live video, webinars and virtual trade shows by visiting the StorageIO events page.

    StorageIO events, object storage, ssd cloud, virtualization and big data

    What this all means and wrap up

    Smart server and storage for cloud, virtual and physical or legacy environments starts with being informed, knowing your requirements, options and having insight into industry trends that are applicable to your environment. These sessions are vendor and technology neutral held off-site at hotel venues in Nijkerk Netherlands so no need to worry about the sales teams coming in to sell you something during the breaks or lunch which are provided. There are also opportunities throughout the workshops for engagement, discussion and interaction with other attendees that includes your peers from various commercial, government and service providers among others. Hope to see in Nijkerk to discuss server stowage I/O cloud virtual and other industry trends, technologies, techniques in October.

    Ok, nuff said

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

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