Category: DCIM

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)

    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.

    • 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 2006-2026 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)

    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


    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 2006-2026 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

    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

    Modernizing Data Protection = Using new and old things in new ways

    Server Storage I/O trends

    Modernizing Data Protection = Using new and old things in new ways

    This is part of an ongoing series of posts that part of www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/ on data protection including archiving, backup/restore, business continuance (BC), business resiliency (BC), data footprint reduction (DFR), disaster recovery (DR), High Availability (HA) along with related themes, tools, technologies, techniques, trends and strategies.

    data protection trends

    Keep in mind that a fundamental goal of an Information Technology (IT) organization is to protect, preserve and serve data and information in a cost-effective as well as productive way when needed. There is no such thing as an information recession with more data being generated and processed. In addition to more of it, data is also getting larger, having more dependencies on it being available as well as living longer (e.g. retention).

    Proof Points, No Data or Information Recession

    A quick easy proof point of more data and it getting larger is your cell phone and the pictures it take. Compare the size of those photos today to what you had in your previous generation of smart phone or even digital camera as the Mega Pixels (e.g. resolution and size of data) increased, along with the size of media (e.g. storage) to save those to also grew. Another proof point is look at your presentations, documents, web sites and other mediums with how the amount of rich or unstructured content (e.g. photos, videos) exists on those now vs. a few years ago. Yet another proof-point is to look at your structured little data databases and how there are more rows and columns, as well as how some of those columns have gotten larger or are point to external "blobs" or "objects" that have also gotten larger.

    Industry trend and challenges

    There has been industry buzz the past several years around data protection modernizing, modernizing data protection or simply modernizing backup along with modernizing your data and information infrastructure. Many of these conversations focus around swapping out an older technology in favor of whatever the new industry buzzword trend is (e.g. swap tape for disk, disk for cloud) or perhaps from one data protection, backup, archive or copy tool for another. Some of these conversations also focus around swapping legacy for virtual, cloud or some other variation of software defined marketing.

    Data protection strategy

    The Opportunity to do new things

    What is common with all the above is basically swapping out one technology, tool, medium or technique for another new one yet using it in old ways. For example tape gets swapped for disk, yet the same approach to when, where, why, how often and what gets copied or protected is left the same. Sure some new tools and technologies get introduced.  However when was the last time you put the tools down, took a step back and revisited the fundamental questions of how and why you are doing data protection the way it is being done? When was the last time you thought about data protection as an asset or business enabler as opposed to a cost center, overhead or after thought?

    Data protection tool box
    What’s in your data protection toolbox, do you know what to use when?

    What about modernizing beyond the tools

    One of the challenges with modernizing is that there is a cost involved including people time, staff skills as well as budgets not to mention keeping things running, so how do you go about paying for any improvements? Sure you can go get a data infrastructure or habitat for technology aka data home improvement loan, however there are costs associated to that.

    Big data garbage in = big data garbage out

    What about reducing data protection costs?

    So why not self-fund the improvements and modernization activities by finding and removing costs, eliminating complexity vs. moving and masking issues? Part of this can be accomplished by simply revisiting if you are treating all your applications and data the same from a data protection perspective. Are you providing a data protection service ability to your organization that is based on business wants or business needs? For example, does the business want recovery time objective (RTO) 0 and recovery point objective (RPO) 0 for all applications, while it needs RTO 4 hours and RPO 15 minutes for application-a while application-b requires RTO 12 hours and RPO of 2 hours and application must have RTO 24 hours with RPO of 12 hours?

    As a reminder RTO is how much time, or how quickly you need your applications and data to be restored and made ready for use. RPO is the point in time to where data needs to be protected as of, or the amount of data or time frame data could be lost or missing. Thus RTO = 0 means instant recovery no downtime and RPO = 0 means no loss of data. RTO one day and RPO of ten (10) minutes means applications and their data are ready for use within 24 hours and no more than 10 minutes of data can be lost (e.g. the granularity of protection coverage)., Also keep in mind that you can have various RTO and RPO combinations to meet your specific application along with business needs as part of a tiered data protection strategy implementation.

    With RTO and RPO in mind, when was the last time you sat down with the business and applications people to revisit what they want vs. what they must have? From these conversation you can easily Transition into how long to keep, how many copies in what place among other things which in turn allows you to review data protection as well as start using both old and new technologies, tools and techniques in new ways.

    Where to learn more

    Learn more about data protection and related topics, themes, trends, tools and technologies via the following links:

    Server Storage I/O trends

    What this all means and wrap-up

    Data protection is a broad topic that spans from logical and physical security to HA, BC, BR, DR, archiving (including life beyond compliance) along with various tools, technologies, techniques. Key is aligning those to the needs of the business or organization for today’s as well as tomorrows requirements. Instead of doing things what has been done in the past that may have been based on what was known or possible due to technology capabilities, why not start using new and old things in new ways. Let’s start using all the tools in the data protection toolbox regardless of if they are new or old, cloud, virtual, physical, software defined product or service in new ways while keeping the requirements of the business in focus.

    Keeping with the theme of protect preserve and serve, data protection to be modernized needs to become and be seen as a business asset or enabler vs. an after thought or cost over-head topic. Also, keep in mind that only you can prevent data loss, are your restores ready for when you need them? as well as one of the fundamental goals of IT is to protect, preserve and serve information including its applications as well as data when, where needed in a cost-effective way.

    What say you?

    Ok, nuff said for now

    Cheers
    Gs

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

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    Data Protection Gumbo = Protect Preserve and Serve Information

    Storage I/O trends

    Data Protection Gumbo = Protect Preserve and Serve Information

    Recently I was invited to be a guest on the podcast Data Protection Gumbo hosted by Demetrius Malbrough (@dmalbrough).

    Data Protection Gumbo Podcast Description
    Data Protection Gumbo is set up with the aim of expanding the awareness of anyone responsible for protecting mission critical data, by providing them with a mix of the latest news, data protection technologies, and interesting facts on topics in the Data Backup and Recovery industry.

    Data Protection Gumbo Also available on

    Protect Preserve and Serve Applications, Information and Data

    Keep in mind that a fundamental role of Information Technology (IT) is to protect, preserve and serve business or organizations information assets including applications, configuration settings and data for use when or where needed.

    Our conversation covers various aspects of data protection which has a focus of protect preserve and serve information, applications and data across different environments and customer segments. While we discuss enterprise and small medium business (SMB) data protection, we also talk about trends from Mobile to the cloud among many others tools, technologies and techniques.

    Where to learn more

    Learn more about data protection and related trends, tools and technologies via the following links:

    Data Protection Gumbo Also available on

    What this all means and wrap-up

    Data protection is a broad topic that spans from logical and physical security to high availability (HA), disaster recovery (DR), business continuance (BC), business resiliency (BR), archiving (including life beyond compliance) along with various tools, technologies, techniques. Keeping with the theme of protect preserve and serve, data protection to be modernized needs to become and be seen as a business asset or enabler vs. an after thought or cost over-head topic. Also, keep in mind that only you can prevent data loss, are your restores ready for when you need them?

    Check out Demetrius Data Protection Gumbo podcast, also check out his Linkedin Backup & Recovery Professionals group. Speaking of data protection, check out the www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/ page for more coverage of backup/restore, HA, BC, DR, archiving and restated themes.

    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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    March 2015 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter

     

     

    Volume 15, Issue III

    Hello and welcome to this March 2015 Server and StorageIO update newsletter. Here in the northern hemisphere at least by the calendar spring is here, weather wise winter continues to linger in some areas. March also means in the US college university sports tournaments with many focused on their NCAA men’s basketball championship brackets.

    Besides various college championships, March also has a connection to back up and data protection. Thus this months newsletter has a focus on data protection, after all March 31 is World Backup Day which means it should also be World Restore test day!

    Focus on Data Protection

    Data protection including backup/restore, business continuance (BC), disaster recovery (DR), business resiliency (BR) and archiving across physical, virtual and cloud environments.

    Data Protection Fundamentals

    A reminder on the importance of data protection including backup, BC, DR and related technologies is to make sure they are occuring as planned. Also test your copies and remember the 4 3 2 1 rule or guide.

    4 – Versions (different time intervals)
    3 – Copies of critical data (including versions)
    2 – Different media, devices or systems
    1 – Off-site (cloud or elsewhere)

    The above means having at least four (4) different versions from various points in time of your data. Having three (3) copies including various versions protects against one or more copies being corrupt or damaged. Placing those versions and copies on at least two (2) different storage systems, devices or media if something happens.

    While it might be common sense, a bad April Fools recovery joke would be finding out all of your copies were on the same device which is damaged. That might seem obvious however sometimes the obvious needs to be stated. Also make sure that at least one (1) of your copies is off-site either on off-line media (tape, disk, ssd, optical) or cloud.

    Take a few moments and to verify that your data protection strategy is being implemented and practiced as intended. Also test what is being copied including not only restore the data from cloud, disk, ssd or tape, also make sure you can actually read or use the data being protected. This means make sure that your security credentials including access certificates and decryption occur as expected.

    Watch for more news, updates industry trends perspectives commentary, tips, articles and other information at Storageio.com, StorageIOblog.com, various partner venues as well as in future newsletters.

    StorageIOblog posts

    Data Protection Diaries
    Are restores ready for World Backup Day?
    In case you forgot or did not know, World Backup Day is March 31 2015 (@worldbackupday) so now is a good time to be ready. The only challenge that I have with the World Backup Day (view their site here) that has gone on for a few years know is that it is a good way to call out the importance of backing up or protecting data.
    world backup day test your restore

    However it’s also time to put more emphasis and focus on being able to make sure those backups or protection copies actually work.

    By this I mean doing more than making sure that your data can be read from tape, disk, SSD or cloud service actually going a step further and verifying that restored data can actually be used (read, written, etc).

    The problem, issue and challenges are simple, are your applications, systems and data protected as well as can you use those protection copies (e.g. backups, snapshots, replicas or archives) when as well as were needed? Read more here about World Backup Day and what I’m doing as well as various tips to be ready for successful recovery and avoid being an April 1st fool ;).

    Cloud Conversations
    AWS S3 Cross Region Replication
    Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced several enhancements including a new Simple Storage Service (S3) cross-region replication of objects from a bucket (e.g. container) in one region to a bucket in another region.

    AWS also recently enhanced Elastic Block Storage (EBS) increasing maximum performance and size of Provisioned IOPS (SSD) and General Purpose (SSD) volumes. EBS enhancements included ability to store up to 16 TBytes of data in a single volume and do 20,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS). Read more about EBS and other AWS server, storage I/O  enhancements here.
    AWS regions and availability zones (AZ)
    Example of some AWS Regions and AZs

    AWS S3 buckets and objects are stored in a specific region designated by the customer or user (AWS S3, EBS, EC2, Glacier, Regions and Availability Zone primer can be found here). The challenge being addressed by AWS with S3 replication is being able to move data (e.g. objects) stored in AWS buckets in one region to another in a safe, secure, timely, automated, cost-effective way.

    Continue reading more here about AWS S3 bucket and object replication feature along with related material.

    Additional March StorageIOblog posts include:

    Server Storage I/O performance (Image licensed from Shutterstock by StorageIO)

     

     

    View other recent as well as past blog posts here

    In This Issue

    • Industry Trends Perspectives News
    • Commentary in the news
    • Tips and Articles
    • StorageIOblog posts
    • Events and Webinars
    • Recommended Reading List
    • StorageIOblog posts
    • Server StorageIO Lab reports
    • Resources and Links

     

    Industry News and Activity

    Recent Industry news and activity

    EMC sets up cloudfoundry Dojo
    AWS S3, EBS IOPs and other updates
    New backup/data protection vendor Rubrik
    Google adds nearline Cloud Storage
    AWS and Microsoft Cloud Price battle

    View other recent and upcoming events here

    StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO commentary and industry trends perspectives about news, activities and announcements.

    Processor: Enterprise Backup Solution Tips
    Processor: Failed & Old Drives
    EnterpriseStorageForum: Disk Buying Guide
    ChannelProNetwork: 2015 Tech and SSD
    Processor: Detect & Avoid Drive Failures

    View more trends comments here

    StorageIO Tips and Articles

    So you have a new storage device or system. How will you test or find its performance? Check out this quick-read tip on storage benchmark and testing fundamentals over at BizTech.

    Keeping with this months theme of data protection including backup/restore, BC, DR, BR and archiving, here are some more tips. These tips span server storage I/O networking hardware, software, cloud, virtual, performance, data protection applications and related themes including:

    • Test your data restores, can you read and actually use the data? Is you data decrypted, proper security certificates applied?
    • Remember to back up or protect your security encryption keys, certificates and application settings!
    • Revisit what format your data is being saved in including how will you be able to use data saved to the cloud. Will you be able to do a restore to a cloud server or do you need to make sure a copy of your backup tools are on your cloud server instances?

    Check out these resources and links on server storage I/O performance and benchmarking tools. View more tips and articles here

    Various Industry Events

    EMCworld – May 4-6 2015

    Interop – April 29 2015 (Las Vegas)

    Presenting Smart Shopping for Your Storage Strategy

    NAB – April 14-15 2015

    SNIA DSI Event – April 7-9

    View other recent and upcoming events here

    Webinars

    December 11, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Server & Storage I/O Performance

    December 10, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Server & Storage I/O Decision Making

    December 9, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Virtual Server and Storage Decision Making

    December 3, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Data Protection Modernization

    Videos and Podcasts

    StorageIO podcasts are also available via and at StorageIO.tv

    From StorageIO Labs

    Research, Reviews and Reports

    Datadynamics StorageX
    Datadynamics StorageX

    More than a data mover migration tool, StorageX is a tool for adding management and automation around unstructured local and distributed NAS (NFS, CIFS, DFS) file data. Read more here.

    View other StorageIO lab review reports here

    Recommended Reading List

    This is a new section being introduced in this edition of the Server StorageIO update mentioning various books, websites, blogs, articles, tips, tools, videos, podcasts along with other things I have found interesting and want to share with you.

      • Introducing s3motion (via EMCcode e.g. opensource) a tool for copying buckets and objects between public, private and hybrid clouds (e.g. AWS S3, GCS, Microsoft Azure and others) as well as object storage systems. This is a great tool which I have added to my server storage I/O cloud, virtual and physical toolbox. If you are not familiar with EMCcode check it out to learn more…
    • Running Hadoop on Ubuntu Linux (Series of tutorials) for those who want to get their hands dirty vs. using one of the All In One (AIO) appliances.
      • Yellow-bricks (Good blog focused on virtualization, VMware and other related themes) by Duncan Epping @duncanyb

    Resources and Links

    Check out these useful links and pages:
    storageio.com/links
    objectstoragecenter.com
    storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/
    storageperformance.us
    thessdplace.com
    storageio.com/raid
    storageio.com/ssd

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

    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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    Top vblog voting V2.015 (Its IT award season, cast your votes)

    Top vblog voting V2.015 (Its IT award season, cast your votes)

    Storage I/O trends

    It’s that time of the year again for award season:

    • The motion picture association Academy awards (e.g. the Oscars)
    • The Grammys and other entertainment awards
    • As well as Eric Siebert (aka @ericsiebert) vsphere-land.com top vblog

    Vsphere-land.com top vblog

    Eric has run for several years now an annual top VMware, Virtualization, Storage and related blogs voting now taking place until March 16th 2015 (click on the image below). You will find a nice mix of new school, old school and a few current or future school theme blogs represented with some being more VMware specific. However there are also many blogs at the vpad site that have a cloud, virtual, server, storage, networking, software defined, development and other related themes.

    Click on the above image to cast your vote for favorite:

    • Ten blogs (e.g. select up to ten and then rank 1 through 10)
    • Storage blog
    • Scripting blog
    • VDI blog
    • New Blogger
    • Independent Blogger (e.g. non-vendor)
    • News/Information Web site
    • Podcast

    Call to action, take a moment to cast your vote

    My StorageIOblog.com has been on the vLaunchPad site for several years now as well as having syndicated content that also appears via some of the other venues listed there.

    Six time VMware vExpert

    In addition to my StorageIOblog and podcast, you will also find many of my fellow VMware vExperts among others at the vLaunchpad site so check them out as well.

    What this means

    This is a people’s choice process (yes it is a popularity process of sorts as well) however also a way of rewarding or thanking those who take time to create and share content with you and others. If you take time to read various blogs, listen to podcasts as well as consume other content, please take a few moments and cast your vote here (thank you in advance) which I hope includes StorageIOblog.com as part of the top ten, as well as being nominated in the Storage, Podcast and Independent blogger categories.

    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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    February 2015 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Volume 15, Issue II

    Hello and welcome to this February 2015 Server and StorageIO update newsletter. The new year is off and running with many events already underway including the recent USENIX FAST conference and others on the docket over the next few months.

    Speaking of FAST (File and Storage Technologies) event which I attended last week, here is a link to where you can download the conference proceedings.

    In other events, VMware announced version 6 of their vSphere ESXi hypervisor and associated management tools including VSAN, VVOL among other items.

    This months newsletter has a focus on server storage I/O performance topics with various articles, tips, commentary and blog posts.

    Watch for more news, updates and industry trends perspectives coming soon.

    Commentary In The News

    Following are some StorageIO industry trends perspectives comments that have appeared in various print and on-line venues. Over at Processor there are comments on resilient & highly available, underutilized or unused servers, what abandoned data Is costing your company, align application needs with your infrastructure (server, storage, networking) resources.

    Also at processor explore flash based (SSD) storage, enterprise backup buying tips, re-evaluate server security, new tech advancements for server upgrades, and understand cost of acquiring storage.

    Meanwhile over at CyberTrend there are some perspectives on enterprise backup and better servers mean better business.

    View more trends comments here

    Tips and Articles

    So you have a new storage device or system.

    How will you test or find its performance?

    Check out this quick-read tip on storage benchmark and testing fundamentals over at BizTech. Also check out these resources and links on server storage I/O performance and benchmarking tools.

    View recent as well as past tips and articles here

    StorageIOblog posts

    Recent StorageIOblog posts include:

    View other recent as well as past blog posts here

    In This Issue

  • Industry Trends Perspectives
  • Commentary in the news
  • Tips and Articles
  • StorageIOblog posts

    • Events & Activities

    EMCworld – May 4-6 2015

    Interop – April 29 2015

    NAB – April 14-15 2015

    Deltaware Event – March 3 2015

    Feb. 18 – FAST 2015 – Santa Clara CA

    View other recent and upcoming events here

    Webinars

    December 11, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Server & Storage I/O Performance

    December 10, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Server & Storage I/O Decision Making

    December 9, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Virtual Server and Storage Decision Making

    December 3, 2014 – BrightTalk
    Data Protection Modernization

    November 13 9AM PT – BrightTalk
    Software Defined Storage

    Videos and Podcasts

    StorageIO podcasts are also available via and at StorageIO.tv

    From StorageIO Labs

    Research, Reviews and Reports

    StarWind Virtual SAN
    starwind virtual san

    Using less hardware with software defined storage management. This looks at the needs of Microsoft Hyper-V ROBO and SMB environments with software defined storage less hardware. Read more here.

    View other StorageIO lab review reports here.

    Resources and Links

    Check out these useful links and pages:
    storageio.com/links
    objectstoragecenter.com
    storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/
    storageperformance.us
    thessdplace.com
    storageio.com/raid
    storageio.com/ssd

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

    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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    VMware announces vSphere V6 and associated virtualization technologies

    VMware announces vSphere V6 and associated virtualization technologies

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware has announced version 6 (V6) of its software defined data center (SDDC) server virtualization hypervisor called vSphere aka ESXi. In addition to a new version of its software defined server hypervisor along with companion software defined management and convergence tools.

    VMware

    VMware vSphere Refresh

    As a refresh for those whose world does not revolve around VMware, vSphere and software defined data centers (believe it or not there are some who exist ;), ESXi is the hypervisor that virtualizes underlying physical machines (PM’s) known as hosts.

    software defined data center convergence
    The path to software defined data center convergence

    Guest operating systems (or other hypervisors using nesting) run as virtual machines (VM’s) on top of the vSphere hypervisor host (e.g. ESXi software). Various VMware management tools (or third-party) are used for managing the virtualized data center from initial configuration, configuration, conversion from physical to virtual (P2V) or virtual to virtual (V2V) along with data protection, performance, capacity planning across servers, storage and networks.

    virtual machines

    VMware vSphere is flexible and can adapt to different sized environments from small office home office (SOHO) or small SMB, to large SMB, SME, enterprise or cloud service provider. There are a free version of ESXi along with paid versions that include support and added management tool features. Besides the ESXi vSphere hypervisor, other commonly deployed modules include the vCenter administration along with Infrastructure Controller services platform among others. In addition, there are optional solution bundles to add support for virtual networking, cloud (public and private), data protection (backup/restore, replication, HA, BC, DR), big data among other capabilities.

    What is new with vSphere V6

    VMware has streamlined the installation, configuration and deployment of vSphere along with associated tools which for smaller environments makes things simply easier. For the larger environments, having to do less means being able to do more in the same amount of time which results in cost savings. In addition to easier to use, deploy and configure, VMware has extended the scaling capabilities of vSphere in terms of scaling-out (larger clusters), scaling-up (more and larger servers), as well as scaling-down (smaller environments and ease of use).

    cloud virtual software defined servers

    • Compute: Expanded support for new hardware, guest operating systems and general scalability in terms of physical, and virtual resources. For example increasing the number of virtual CPU (vCPUs), number of cluster nodes among other speeds and feeds enhancements.

    server storage I/O vsan

    • Storage: This is an area where several enhancements were made including updates for Storage I/O controls (Storage QoS and performance optimizations) with per VM reservations, NFS v4.1 with Kerberos client, Virtual SAN (VSAN) improvements (new back-end underlying file system) as well as new Virtual Volumes (vVOLs) for Storage Policy Based Management.
    • Availability: Improvements for vMotion (ability to live move virtual machines between physical servers (vmware hosts) including long distance fault-tolerance. Other improvements include faster replication, vMotion across vCenter servers, and long distance vMotion (up to 100ms round trip time latency).
    • Network: Network I/O Control (NIOC) provides per VM and dat (VM and data repository) bandwidth reservations for quality of service (QoS) performance optimization.
    • Management: Improvements for multi-site, virtual data centers, content-library (storage and versioning of files and objects including ISOs and OVFs (Open Virtualization Format files) that can be on a VMFS (VMware File System) dat or NFS volume, policy-based management and web-client performance enhancements.

    What is vVOL?

    The quick synopsis of VMware vVOL’s overview:

    • Higher level of abstraction of storage vs. traditional SCSI LUN’s or NAS NFS mount points
    • Tighter level of integration and awareness between VMware hypervisors and storage systems
    • Simplified management for storage and virtualization administrators
    • Removing complexity to support increased scaling
    • Enable automation and service managed storage aka software defined storage management

    server storage I/O volumes
    How data storage access and managed via VMware today (read more here)

    vVOL’s are not LUN’s like regular block (e.g. DAS or SAN) storage that use SAS, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, IBA/SRP, nor are they NAS volumes like NFS mount points. Likewise vVOL’s are not accessed using any of the various object storage access methods mentioned above (e.g. AWS S3, Rest, CDMI, etc) instead they are an application specific implementation. For some of you this approach of an applications specific or unique storage access method may be new, perhaps revolutionary, otoh, some of you might be having a DejaVu moment right about now.

    vVOL is not a LUN in the context of what you may know and like (or hate, even if you have never worked with them), likewise it is not a NAS volume like you know (or have heard of), neither are they objects in the context of what you might have seen or heard such as S3 among others.

    Keep in mind that what makes up a VMware virtual machine are the VMK, VMDK and some other files (shown in the figure below), and if enough information is known about where those blocks of data are or can be found, they can be worked upon. Also keep in mind that at least near-term, block is the lowest common denominator that all file systems and object repositories get built-up.

    server storage I/O vVOL basics
    How VMware data storage accessed and managed with vVOLs (read more here)

    Here is the thing, while vVOL’s will be accessible via a block interface such as iSCSI, FC or FCoE or for that matter, over Ethernet based IP using NFS. Think of these storage interfaces and access mechanisms as the general transport for how vSphere ESXi will communicate with the storage system (e.g. their data path) under vCenter management.

    What is happening inside the storage system that will be presented back to ESXi will be different than a normal SCSI LUN contents and only understood by VMware hypervisor. ESXi will still tell the storage system what it wants to do including moving blocks of data. The storage system however will have more insight and awareness into the context of what those blocks of data mean. This is how the storage systems will be able to more closely integrate snapshots, replication, cloning and other functions by having awareness into which data to move, as opposed to moving or working with an entire LUN where a VMDK may live.

    Keep in mind that the storage system will still function as it normally would, just think of vVOL as another or new personality and access mechanism used for VMware to communicate and manage storage. Watch for vVOL storage provider support from the who’s who of existing and startup storage system providers including Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HDS, HP, IBM, NetApp, Nimble and many others. Read more about Storage I/O fundamentals here and vVOLs here and here.

    What this announcement means

    Depending on your experiences, you might use revolutionary to describe some of the VMware vSphere V6 features and functionalities. Otoh, if you have some Dejavu moments looking pragmatically at what VMware is delivering with V6 of vSphere executing on their vision, evolutionary might be more applicable. I will leave it up to you do decide if you are having a Dejavu moment and what that might pertain to, or if this is all new and revolutionary, or something more along the lines of technolutionary.

    VMware continues to execute delivering on the Virtual Data Center aka Software Defined Data Center paradigm by increasing functionality, as well as enhancing existing capabilities with performance along with resiliency improvements. These abilities enable the aggregation of compute, storage, networking, management and policies for enabling a global virtual data center while supporting existing along with new emerging applications.

    Where to learn more

    If you were not part of the beta to gain early hands-on experience with VMware vSphere V6 and associated technologies, download a copy to check it out as part of making your upgrade or migration plans.

    Check out the various VMware resources including communities links here
    VMware vSphere Hypervisor getting started and general vSphere information (including download)
    VMware vSphere data sheet, compatibility guide along with speeds and feeds (size and other limits)
    VMware vExpert
    VMware Blogs and VMware vExpert page

    Various fellow VMware vExpert blogs including among many others vsphere-land, scott lowe, virtuallyghetto and yellow-bricks among many others found at the vpad here.

    StorageIO Out and About Update – VMworld 2014 (with Video)
    VMware vVOL’s and storage I/O fundamentals (Storage I/O overview and vVOL, details Part I and Part II)
    How many IOPs can a HDD or SSD do in a VMware environment (Part I and Part II)
    VMware VSAN overview and primer, DIY converged software defined storage on a budget

    Wrap up and summary

    Overall VMware vSphere V6 has a great set of features that support both ease of management for small environments as well as the scaling needs of larger organizations.

    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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties

    Server Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties or dummies ;)

    server storage I/O trends

    This is the first of a series of posts and links to resources on server storage I/O performance and benchmarking (view more and follow-up posts here).

    The best I/O is the I/O that you do not have to do, the second best is the one with the least impact as well as low overhead.

    server storage I/O performance

    Drew Robb (@robbdrew) has a Data Storage Benchmarking Guide article over at Enterprise Storage Forum that provides a good framework and summary quick guide to server storage I/O benchmarking.

    Via Drew:

    Data storage benchmarking can be quite esoteric in that vast complexity awaits anyone attempting to get to the heart of a particular benchmark.

    Case in point: The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has developed the Emerald benchmark to measure power consumption. This invaluable benchmark has a vast amount of supporting literature. That so much could be written about one benchmark test tells you just how technical a subject this is. And in SNIA’s defense, it is creating a Quick Reference Guide for Emerald (coming soon).

    But rather than getting into the nitty-gritty nuances of the tests, the purpose of this article is to provide a high-level overview of a few basic storage benchmarks, what value they might have and where you can find out more. 

    Read more here including some of my comments, tips and recommendations.

    Drew’s provides a good summary and overview in his article which is a great opener for this first post in a series on server storage I/O benchmarking and related resources.

    You can think of this series (along with Drew’s article) as server storage I/O benchmarking fundamentals (e.g. 101) for smarties (e.g. non-dummies ;) ).

    Note that even if you are not a server, storage or I/O expert, you can still be considered a smarty vs. a dummy if you found the need or interest to read as well as learn more about benchmarking, metrics that matter, tools, technology and related topics.

    Server and Storage I/O benchmarking 101

    There are different reasons for benchmarking, such as, you might be asked or want to know how many IOPs per disk, Solid State Device (SSD), device or storage system such as for a 15K RPM (revolutions per minute) 146GB SAS Hard Disk Drive (HDD). Sure you can go to a manufactures website and look at the speeds and feeds (technical performance numbers) however are those metrics applicable to your environments applications or workload?

    You might get higher IOPs with smaller IO size on sequential reads vs. random writes which will also depend on what the HDD is attached to. For example are you going to attach the HDD to a storage system or appliance with RAID and caching? Are you going to attach the HDD to a PCIe RAID card or will it be part of a server or storage system. Or are you simply going to put the HDD into a server or workstation and use as a drive without any RAID or performance acceleration.

    What this all means is understanding what it is that you want to benchmark test to learn what the system, solution, service or specific device can do under different workload conditions.

    Some benchmark and related topics include

    • What are you trying to benchmark
    • Why do you need to benchmark something
    • What are some server storage I/O benchmark tools
    • What is the best benchmark tool
    • What to benchmark, how to use tools
    • What are the metrics that matter
    • What is benchmark context why does it matter
    • What are marketing hero benchmark results
    • What to do with your benchmark results

      • server storage I/O benchmark step test
      Example of a step test results with various workers and workload

    • What do the various metrics mean (can we get a side of context with them metrics?)
    • Why look at server CPU if doing storage and I/O networking tests
    • Where and how to profile your application workloads
    • What about physical vs. virtual vs. cloud and software defined benchmarking
    • How to benchmark block DAS or SAN, file NAS, object, cloud, databases and other things
    • Avoiding common benchmark mistakes
    • Tips, recommendations, things to watch out for
    • What to do next

    server storage I/O trends

    Where to learn more

    The following are related links to read more about server (cloud, virtual and physical) storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques.

    Drew Robb’s benchmarking quick reference guide
    Server storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques resource page
    Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties.
    Microsoft Diskspd download and Microsoft Diskspd overview (via Technet)
    I/O, I/O how well do you know about good or bad server and storage I/Os?
    Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I and Part II)

    Wrap up and summary

    We have just scratched the surface when it comes to benchmarking cloud, virtual and physical server storage I/O and networking hardware, software along with associated tools, techniques and technologies. However hopefully this and the links for more reading mentioned above give a basis for connecting the dots of what you already know or enable learning more about workloads, synthetic generation and real-world workloads, benchmarks and associated topics. Needless to say there are many more things that we will cover in future posts (e.g. keep an eye on and bookmark the server storage I/O benchmark tools and resources page here).

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers gs

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

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    Microsoft Diskspd (Part II): Server Storage I/O Benchmark Tools

    Microsoft Diskspd (Part II): Server Storage I/O Benchmark Tools

    server storage I/O trends

    This is part-two of a two-part post pertaining Microsoft Diskspd.that is also part of a broader series focused on server storage I/O benchmarking, performance, capacity planning, tools and related technologies. You can view part-one of this post here, along with companion links here.

    Microsoft Diskspd StorageIO lab test drive

    Server and StorageIO lab

    Talking about tools and technologies is one thing, installing as well as trying them is the next step for gaining experience so how about some quick hands-on time with Microsoft Diskspd (download your copy here).

    The following commands all specify an I/O size of 8Kbytes doing I/O to a 45GByte file called diskspd.dat located on the F: drive. Note that a 45GByte file is on the small size for general performance testing, however it was used for simplicity in this example. Ideally a larger target storage area (file, partition, device) would be used, otoh, if your application uses a small storage device or volume, then tune accordingly.

    In this test, the F: drive is an iSCSI RAID protected volume, however you could use other storage interfaces supported by Windows including other block DAS or SAN (e.g. SATA, SAS, USB, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, etc) as well as NAS. Also common to the following commands is using 16 threads and 32 outstanding I/Os to simulate concurrent activity of many users, or application processing threads.
    server storage I/O performance
    Another common parameter used in the following was -r for random, 7200 seconds (e.g. two hour) test duration time, display latency ( -L ) disable hardware and software cache ( -h), forcing cpu affinity (-a0,1,2,3). Since the test ran on a server with four cores I wanted to see if I could use those for helping to keep the threads and storage busy. What varies in the commands below is the percentage of reads vs. writes, as well as the results output file. Some of the workload below also had the -S option specified to disable OS I/O buffering (to view how buffering helps when enabled or disabled). Depending on the goal, or type of test, validation, or workload being run, I would choose to set some of these parameters differently.

    diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -w0 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noh_write000.txt

    diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -w50 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noh_write050.txt

    diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -w100 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noh_write100.txt

    diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -S -w0 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noSh_test_write000.txt

    diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -S -w50 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noSh_write050.txt

    diskspd -c45g -b8K -t16 -o32 -r -d7200 -h -S -w100 -L -a0,1,2,3 F:\diskspd.dat >> SIOWS2012R203_Eiscsi_145_noSh_write100.txt

    The following is the output from the above workload command.
    Microsoft Diskspd sample output
    Microsoft Diskspd sample output part 2
    Microsoft Diskspd sample output part 3

    Note that as with any benchmark, workload test or simulation your results will vary. In the above the server, storage and I/O system were not tuned as the focus was on working with the tool, determining its capabilities. Thus do not focus on the performance results per say, rather what you can do with Diskspd as a tool to try different things. Btw, fwiw, in the above example in addition to using an iSCSI target, the Windows 2012 R2 server was a guest on a VMware ESXi 5.5 system.

    Where to learn more

    The following are related links to read more about server (cloud, virtual and physical) storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques.

    Drew Robb’s benchmarking quick reference guide
    Server storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques resource page
    Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties.
    Microsoft Diskspd download and Microsoft Diskspd overview (via Technet)
    I/O, I/O how well do you know about good or bad server and storage I/Os?
    Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I and Part II)

    Comments and wrap-up

    What I like about Diskspd (Pros)

    Reporting including CPU usage (you can’t do server and storage I/O without CPU) along with IOP’s (activity), bandwidth (throughout or amount of data being moved), per thread and total results along with optional reporting. While a GUI would be nice particular for beginners, I’m used to setting up scripts for different workloads so having an extensive options for setting up different workloads is welcome. Being associated with a specific OS (e.g. Windows) the CPU affinity and buffer management controls will be handy for some projects.

    Diskspd has the flexibility to use different storage interfaces and types of storage including files or partitions should be taken for granted, however with some tools don’t take things for granted. I like the flexibility to easily specify various IO sizes including large 1MByte, 10MByte, 20MByte, 100MByte and 500MByte to simulate application workloads that do large sequential (or random) activity. I tried some IO sizes (e.g. specified by -b parameter larger than 500MB however, I received various errors including "Could not allocate a buffer bytes for target" which means that Diskspd can do IO sizes smaller than that. While not able to do IO sizes larger than 500MB, this is actually impressive. Several other tools I have used or with have IO size limits down around 10MByte which makes it difficult for creating workloads that do large IOP’s (note this is the IOP size, not the number of IOP’s).

    Oh, something else that should be obvious however will state it, Diskspd is free unlike some industry de-facto standard tools or workload generators that need a fee to get and use.

    Where Diskspd could be improved (Cons)

    For some users a GUI or configuration wizard would make the tool easier to get started with, on the other hand (oth), I tend to use the command capabilities of tools. Would also be nice to specify ranges as part of a single command such as stepping through an IO size range (e.g. 4K, 8K, 16K, 1MB, 10MB) as well as read write percentages along with varying random sequential mixes. Granted this can easily be done by having a series of commands, however I have become spoiled by using other tools such as vdbench.

    Summary

    Server and storage I/O performance toolbox

    Overall I like Diskspd and have added it to my Server Storage I/O workload and benchmark tool-box

    Keep in mind that the best benchmark or workload generation technology tool will be your own application(s) configured to run as close as possible to production activity levels.

    However when that is not possible, the an alternative is to use tools that have the flexibility to be configured as close as possible to your application(s) workload characteristics. This means that the focus should not be as much on the tool, as opposed to how flexible is a tool to work for you, granted the tool needs to be robust.

    Having said that, Microsoft Diskspd is a good and extensible tool for benchmarking, simulation, validation and comparisons, however it will only be as good as the parameters and configuration you set it up to use.

    Check out Microsoft Diskspd and add it to your benchmark and server storage I/O tool-box like I have done.

    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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    I/O, I/O how well do you know good bad ugly server storage I/O iops?

    How well do you know good bad ugly I/O iops?

    server storage i/o iops activity data infrastructure trends

    Updated 2/10/2018

    There are many different types of server storage I/O iops associated with various environments, applications and workloads. Some I/Os activity are iops, others are transactions per second (TPS), files or messages per time (hour, minute, second), gets, puts or other operations. The best IO is one you do not have to do.

    What about all the cloud, virtual, software defined and legacy based application that still need to do I/O?

    If no IO operation is the best IO, then the second best IO is the one that can be done as close to the application and processor as possible with the best locality of reference.

    Also keep in mind that aggregation (e.g. consolidation) can cause aggravation (server storage I/O performance bottlenecks).

    aggregation causes aggravation
    Example of aggregation (consolidation) causing aggravation (server storage i/o blender bottlenecks)

    And the third best?

    It’s the one that can be done in less time or at least cost or effect to the requesting application, which means moving further down the memory and storage stack.

    solving server storage i/o blender and other bottlenecks
    Leveraging flash SSD and cache technologies to find and fix server storage I/O bottlenecks

    On the other hand, any IOP regardless of if for block, file or object storage that involves some context is better than those without, particular involving metrics that matter (here, here and here [webinar] )

    Server Storage I/O optimization and effectiveness

    The problem with IO’s is that they are a basic operations to get data into and out of a computer or processor, so there’s no way to avoid all of them, unless you have a very large budget. Even if you have a large budget that can afford an all flash SSD solution, you may still meet bottlenecks or other barriers.

    IO’s require CPU or processor time and memory to set up and then process the results as well as IO and networking resources to move data too their destination or retrieve them from where they are stored. While IO’s cannot be eliminated, their impact can be greatly improved or optimized by, among other techniques, doing fewer of them via caching and by grouping reads or writes (pre-fetch, write-behind).

    server storage I/O STI and SUT

    Think of it this way: Instead of going on multiple errands, sometimes you can group multiple destinations together making for a shorter, more efficient trip. However, that optimization may also mean your drive will take longer. So, sometimes it makes sense to go on a couple of quick, short, low-latency trips instead of one larger one that takes half a day even as it accomplishes many tasks. Of course, how far you have to go on those trips (i.e., their locality) makes a difference about how many you can do in a given amount of time.

    Locality of reference (or proximity)

    What is locality of reference?

    This refers to how close (i.e., its place) data exists to where it is needed (being referenced) for use. For example, the best locality of reference in a computer would be registers in the processor core, ready to be acted on immediately. This would be followed by levels 1, 2, and 3 (L1, L2, and L3) onboard caches, followed by main memory, or DRAM. After that comes solid-state memory typically NAND flash either on PCIe cards or accessible on a direct attached storage (DAS), SAN, or NAS device. 

    server storage I/O locality of reference

    Even though a PCIe NAND flash card is close to the processor, there still remains the overhead of traversing the PCIe bus and associated drivers. To help offset that impact, PCIe cards use DRAM as cache or buffers for data along with meta or control information to further optimize and improve locality of reference. In other words, this information is used to help with cache hits, cache use, and cache effectiveness vs. simply boosting cache use.

    SSD to the rescue?

    What can you do the cut the impact of IO’s?

    There are many steps one can take, starting with establishing baseline performance and availability metrics.

    The metrics that matter include IOP’s, latency, bandwidth, and availability. Then, leverage metrics to gain insight into your application’s performance.

    Understand that IO’s are a fact of applications doing work (storing, retrieving, managing data) no matter whether systems are virtual, physical, or running up in the cloud. But it’s important to understand just what a bad IO is, along with its impact on performance. Try to identify those that are bad, and then find and fix the problem, either with software, application, or database changes. Perhaps you need to throw more software caching tools, hypervisors, or hardware at the problem. Hardware may include faster processors with more DRAM and faster internal busses.

    Leveraging local PCIe flash SSD cards for caching or as targets is another option.

    You may want to use storage systems or appliances that rely on intelligent caching and storage optimization capabilities to help with performance, availability, and capacity.

    Where to gain insight into your server storage I/O environment

    There are many tools that you can be used to gain insight into your server storage I/O environment across cloud, virtual, software defined and legacy as well as from different layers (e.g. applications, database, file systems, operating systems, hypervisors, server, storage, I/O networking). Many applications along with databases have either built-in or optional tools from their provider, third-party, or via other sources that can give information about work activity being done. Likewise there are tools to dig down deeper into the various data information infrastructure to see what is happening at the various layers as shown in the following figures.

    application storage I/O performance
    Gaining application and operating system level performance insight via different tools

    windows and linux storage I/O performance
    Insight and awareness via operating system tools on Windows and Linux

    In the above example, Spotlight on Windows (SoW) which you can download for free from Dell here along with Ubuntu utilities are shown, You could also use other tools to look at server storage I/O performance including Windows Perfmon among others.

    vmware server storage I/O
    Hypervisor performance using VMware ESXi / vsphere built-in tools

    vmware server storage I/O performance
    Using Visual ESXtop to dig deeper into virtual server storage I/O performance

    vmware server storage i/o cache
    Gaining insight into virtual server storage I/O cache performance

    Wrap up and summary

    There are many approaches to address (e.g. find and fix) vs. simply move or mask data center and server storage I/O bottlenecks. Having insight and awareness into how your environment along with applications is important to know to focus resources. Also keep in mind that a bit of flash SSD or DRAM cache in the applicable place can go along way while a lot of cache will also cost you cash. Even if you cant eliminate I/Os, look for ways to decrease their impact on your applications and systems.

    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

    >Keep in mind: SSD including flash and DRAM among others are in your future, the question is where, when, with what, how much and whose technology or packaging.

    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 2006-2026 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.