Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Insights and Analysis
|
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
This 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.
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.
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
Example of a step test results with various workers and workload
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)
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 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
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).
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.
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] )
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gaining application and operating system level performance insight via different tools
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.
Hypervisor performance using VMware ESXi / vsphere built-in tools
Using Visual ESXtop to dig deeper into virtual server storage I/O performance
Gaining insight into virtual server storage I/O cache performance
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.
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.
>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 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.
Green IT is about enabling efficient, effective and productive information services delivery. There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE). To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.
There are many aspects to "Green" Information Technology including servers, storage, networks and associated management tools and techniques. The reasons and focus of "Green IT" including "Green Data Storage ", "Green Computing" and related focus areas are varied to discuss diverse needs, issues and requirements including among others:
While much of the IT industry focuses on CO2 emissions footprints, data management software and electrical power consumption, cooling and ventilation of IT data centers is an area of focus associated with "Green IT" as well as a means to discuss more effective use of electrical energy that can yield rapid results for many environments. Large tier-1 vendors including HP and IBM among others who have an IT and data center wide focus have services designed to do quick assessments as well as detailed analysis and re-organization of IT data center physical facilities to improve air flow and power consumption for more effective cooling of IT technologies including servers, storage, networks and other equipment.
Similar to your own residence, basic steps to improve your cooling effectiveness can lead to use of less energy to cut your budget impact, or, enable you to do more with what you already have with your cooling capacity to support growth, acquisitions and or consolidation initiatives. Vendors are also looking at means and alternatives for cooling IT equipment ranging from computer assisted computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software analysis of data center cooling and ventilation to refrigerated cooling racks some leveraging water or inert liquid cooling.
Various metrics exists and others are evolving for measuring, estimating, reporting, analyzing and discussing IT Data Center infrastructure resource topics including servers, storage, networks, facilities and associated software management tools from a power, cooling and green environmental standpoint. The importance of metrics is to focus on the larger impact of a piece of IT equipment that includes its cost and energy consumption that factors in cooling and other hosting or site environmental costs. Naturally energy costs and CO2 (carbon offsets) will vary by geography and region along with type of electrical power being used (Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Wind, Thermo, Solar, etc) and other factors that should be kept in perspective as part of the big picture.
Consequently your view and needs or interests around "Green" IT may be from an electrical power conservation perspective to maximize your power consumption or to adapt to a given power footprint or ceiling. Your focus around "Green" Data Centers and Green Storage may be from a carbon savings standpoint or proper disposition of old and retired IT equipment or from a data center cooling standpoint. Another area of focus may be that you are looking to cut your data footprint to align with your power, cooling and green footprint while enhancing application and data service delivery to your customers.
The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.
Various IT industry vendor and service provider links
Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible
Green and Virtual Data Center links
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
A Green and Virtual IT Data Center (e.g. an information factory) means an environment comprising:
Green and Virtual Data Center Resources
| ||
Productive Efficient Effective Economical Flexible Agile and SustainableGreen hype and green washing may be on the endangered species list and going away, however, green IT for servers, storage, networks, facilities as well as related software and management techniques that address energy efficiency including power and cooling along with e-waste, environmental health and safety related issues are topics that wont be going away anytime soon. There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE). To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here. |
The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.
Various IT industry vendor and service provider links
Green and Virtual Data Center Primer
Green and Virtual Data Center links
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage Update
EPA Energy Star for data center storage draft 3 specification
Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed!
Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
How much SSD do you need vs. want?
How to reduce your Data Footprint impact (Podcast)
Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
More storage and IO metrics that matter
Optimizing storage capacity and performance to reduce your data footprint
Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency
PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?
Saving Money with Green Data Storage Technology
Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories
Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency
SNIA Green Storage Knowledge Center
Speaking of speeding up business with SSD storage
SSD and Green IT moving beyond green washing
Storage Efficiency and Optimization: The Other Green
Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
The Green and Virtual Data Center Book (CRC Press, Intel Recommended Reading)
The new Green IT: Efficient, Effective, Smart and Productive
The other Green Storage: Efficiency and Optimization
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do
Watch for more links and resources to be added soon.
The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Updated 10/25/2017
Green hype and green washing may be on the endangered species list and going away, however, green IT for servers, storage, networks, facilities as well as related software and management techniques that address energy efficiency including power and cooling along with e-waste, environmental health and safety related issues are topics that wont be going away anytime soon.
There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE).
To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.
The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.
Various IT industry vendors and other links
Via StorageIOblog – Happy Earth Day 2016 Eliminating Digital and Data e-Waste
Green and Virtual Data Center Primer
Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
Closing the Green Gap
Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage Update
EPA Energy Star for data center storage draft 3 specification
Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed!
Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
How much SSD do you need vs. want?
How to reduce your Data Footprint impact (Podcast)
Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
More storage and IO metrics that matter
Optimizing storage capacity and performance to reduce your data footprint
Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency
PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?
Saving Money with Green Data Storage Technology
Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories
Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency
SNIA Green Storage Knowledge Center
Speaking of speeding up business with SSD storage
SSD and Green IT moving beyond green washing
Storage Efficiency and Optimization: The Other Green
Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
The Green and Virtual Data Center Book (CRC Press, Intel Recommended Reading)
The new Green IT: Efficient, Effective, Smart and Productive
The other Green Storage: Efficiency and Optimization
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do
 | Click here to learn about "The Green and Virtual Data Center" book (CRC Press) for enabling efficient , productive IT data centers. This book covers cloud, virtualization, servers, storage, networks, software, facilities and associated management topics, technologies and techniques including metrics that matter. This book by industry veteran IT advisor and author Greg Schulz is the definitive guide for enabling economic efficiency and productive next generation data center strategies. Read more here and order your copyhere. Also check out Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press) a new book by Greg Schulz. |
White papers, analyst reports and perspectivesBusiness benefits of data footprint reduction (archiving, compression, de-dupe) Data center I/O and performance issues – Server I/O and storage capacity gap Analysis of EPA Report to Congress (Law 109-431) The Many Faces of MAID Storage Technology Achieving Energy Efficiency with FLASH based SSD MAID 2.0: Energy Savings without Performance Compromises Articles, Tips, Blogs, Webcasts and Podcasts AP – SNIA Green Emerald Program and measurements AP – Southern California heat wave strains electrical system Ars Technica – EPA: Power usage in data centers could double by 2011 Ars Technica – Meet the climate savers: Major tech firms launch war on energy-inefficient PCs – Article Askageek.com – Buying an environmental friendly laptop – November 2008 Baseline – Examining Energy Consumption in the Data Center Baseline – Burts Bees: What IT Means When You Go Green Bizcovering – Green architecture for the masses Broadstuff – Are Green 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 Incompatible? Business Week – CEO Guide to Technology Business Week – Computers’ elusive eco factor Business Week – Clean Energy – Its Getting Affordable Byte & Switch – Keeping it Green This Summer – Don’t be "Green washed" Byte & Switch – IBM Sees Green in Energy Certificates Byte & Switch – Users Search for power solutions Byte & Switch – DoE issues Green Storage Warning CBR – The Green Light for Green IT CBR – Big boxes make greener data centers CFO – Power Scourge Channel Insider – A 12 Step Program to Dispose of IT Equipment China.org.cn – China publishes Energy paper CIO – Green Storage Means Money Saved on Power CIO – Data center designers share secrets for going green CIO – Best Place to Build a Data Center in North America CIO Insight – Clever Marketing or the Real Thing? Cleantechnica – Cooling Data Centers Could Prevent Massive Electrical Waste – June 2008 Climatebiz – Carbon Calculators Yield Spectrum of Results: Study CNET News – Linux coders tackle power efficiency CNET News – Research: Old data centers can be nearly as ‘green’ as new ones CNET News – Congress, Greenpeace move on e-wast CNN Money – A Green Collar Recession CNN Money – IBM creates alliance with industry leaders supporting new data center standards Communication News – Utility bills key to greener IT Computerweekly – Business case for green storage Computerweekly – Optimising data centre operations Computerweekly – Green still good for IT, if it saves money Computerweekly – Meeting the Demands for storage Computerworld – Wells Fargo Free Data Center Cooling System Computerworld – Seven ways to get green and save money Computerworld – Build your data center here: The most energy-efficient locations Computerworld – EPA: U.S. needs more power plants to support data centers Computerworld – GreenIT: A marketing ploy or new technology? Computerworld – Gartner Criticizes Green Grid Computerworld – IT Skills no longer sufficient for data center execs. Computerworld – Meet MAID 2.0 and Intelligent Power Management Computerworld – Feds to offer energy ratings on servers and storage Computerworld – Greenpeace still hunting for truly green electronics Computerworld – How to benchmark data center energy costs ComputerworldUK – Datacenters at risk from poor governance ComputerworldUK – Top IT Leaders Back Green Survey ComputerworldMH – Lean and Green CTR – Strategies for enhancing energy efficiency CTR – Economies of Scale – Green Data Warehouse Appliances Datacenterknowledge – Microsoft to build Illinois datacenter Data Center Strategies – Storage The Next Hot Topic Earthtimes – Fujitsu installs hydrogen fuel cell power eChannelline – IBM Goes Green(er) Ecoearth.info – California Moves To Speed Solar, Wind Power Grid Connections Ecogeek – Solar power company figures they can power 90% of America Economist – Cool IT Electronic Design – How many watts in that Gigabyte eMazzanti – Desktop virtualization movement creeping into customer sites ens-Newswire – Western Governors Ask Obama for National Green Energy Plan Environmental Leader – Best Place to Build an Energy Efficient Data Center Environmental Leader – New Guide Helps Advertisers Avoid Greenwash Complaints Enterprise Storage Forum – Power Struggles Take Center Stage at SNW Enterprise Storage Forum – Pace Yourself for Storage Power & Cooling Needs Enterprise Storage Forum – Storage Power and Cooling Issues Heat Up – StorageIO Article Enterprise Storage Forum – Score Savings With A Storage Power Play Enterprise Storage Forum – I/O, I/O, Its off to Virtual Work I Go Enterprise Storage Forum – Not Just a Flash in the Pan – Various SSD options Enterprise Storage Forum – Closing the Green Gap – Article August 2008 EPA Report to Congress and Public Law 109-431 – Reports & links eWeek – Saving Green by being Green eWeek – ‘No Cooling Necessary’ Data Centers Coming? eWeek – How the ‘Down’ Macroeconomy Will Impact the Data Storage Sector ExpressComputer – In defense of Green IT ExpressComputer – What data center crisis Forbes – How to Build a Quick Charging Battery GCN – Sun launches eco data center GreenerComputing – New Code of Conduct to Establish Best Practices in Green Data Centers GreenerComputing – Silicon valley’s green detente GreenerComputing – Majority of companies plan to green their data centers GreenerComputing – Citigroup to spend $232M on Green Data Center GreenerComputing – Chicago and Quincy, WA Top Green Data Center Locations GreenerComputing – Using airside economizers to chill data center cooling bills GreenerComputing – Making the most of asset disposal GreenerComputing – Greenpeace vendor rankings GreenerComputing – Four Steps to Improving Data Center Efficiency without Capital Expenditures GreenerComputing – Enabling a Green and Virtual Data Center Green-PC – Strategic Steps Down the Green Path Greeniewatch – BBC news chiefs attack plans for climate change campaign Greeniewatch – Warmest year predictions and data that has not yet been measured GoverenmentExecutive – Public Private Sectors Differ on "Green" Efforts HPC Wire – How hot is your code Industry Standard – Why green data centers mean partner opportunities InformationWeek – It could be 15 years before we know what is really green InformationWeek – Beyond Server Consolidaiton InformationWeek – Green IT Beyond Virtualization: The Case For Consolidation InfoWorld – Sun celebrates green datacenter innovations InfoWorld – Tech’s own datacenters are their green showrooms InfoWorld – 2007: The Year in Green InfoWorld – Green Grid Announces Tech Forum in Feb 2008 InfoWorld – SPEC seeds future green-server benchmarks InfoWorld – Climate Savers green catalog proves un-ripe InfoWorld – Forester: Eco-minded activity up among IT pros InfoWorld – Green ventures in Silicon Valley, Mass reaped most VC cash in ’07 InfoWorld – Congress misses chance to see green-energy growth InfoWorld – Unisys pushes green envelope with datacenter expansion InfoWorld – No easy green strategy for storage Internet News – Storage Technologies for a Slowing Economy Internet News – Economy will Force IT to Transform ITManagement – Green Computing, Green Revenue itnews – Data centre chiefs dismiss green hype itnews – Australian Green IT regulations could arrive this year IT Pro – SNIA Green storage metrics released ITtoolbox – MAID discussion Linux Power – Saving power with Linux on Intel platforms MSNBC – Microsoft to build data center in Ireland National Post – Green technology at the L.A. Auto Show Network World – Turning the datacenter green Network World – Color Interop Green Network World – Green not helpful word for setting environmental policies NewScientistEnvironment – Computer servers as bad for climate as SUVs Newser – Texas commission approves nation’s largest wind power project New Yorker – Big Foot: In measuring carbon emissions, it’s easy to confuse morality and science NY Times – What the Green Bubble Will Leave Behind PRNewswire – Al Gore and Cisco CEO John Chambers to debate climate change Processor – More than just monitoring Processor – The new data center: What’s hot in Data Center physical infrastructure: Processor – Liquid Cooling in the Data Center Processor – Curbing IT Power Usage Processor – Services To The Rescue – Services Available For Today’s Data Centers Processor – Green Initiatives: Hire A Consultant? Processor – Energy-Saving Initiatives Processor – The EPA’s Low Carbon Campaig Processor – Data Center Power Planning SAN Jose Mercury – Making Data Centers Green SDA-Asia – Green IT still a priority despite Credit Crunch SearchCIO – EPA report gives data centers little guidance SearchCIO – Green IT Strategies Could Lead to hefty ROIs SearchCIO – Green IT In the Data Center: Plenty of Talk, not much Walk SearchCIO – Green IT Overpitched by Vendors, CIOs beware SearchDataCenter – Study ranks cheapest places to build a data center SearchDataCenter – Green technology still ranks low for data center planners SearchDataCenter – Green Data Center: Energy Effiecnty Computing in the 21st Century SearchDataCenter – Green Data Center Advice: Is LEED Feasible SearchDataCenter – Green Data Centers Tackle LEED Certification SearchDataCenter – PG&E invests in data center effieicny SearchDataCenter – A solar powered datacenter SearchSMBStorage – Improve your storage energy efficiency SearchSMBStorage – SMB capacity planning: Focusing on energy conservation SearchSMBStorage – Data footprint reduction for SMBs SearchSMBStorage – MAID & other energy-saving storage technologies for SMBs SearchStorage – How to increase your storage energy efficiency SearchStorage – Is storage now top energy hog in the data center SearchStorage – Storage eZine: Turning Storage Green SearchStorage – The Green Storage Gap SearchStorageChannel – Green Data Storage Projects Silicon.com – The greening of IT: Cooling costs SNIA – SNIA Green Storage Overview SNIA – Green Storage SNW – Beyond Green-wash SNW Spring 2008 Beyond Green-wash State.org – Why Texas Has Its Own Power Grid StorageDecisions – Different Shades of Green Storage Magazine – Storage still lacks energy metrics StorageIOblog – Posts pertaining to Green, power, cooling, floor-space, EHS (PCFE) Storage Search – Various postings, news and topics pertaining to Green IT Technology Times – Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches TechTarget – Data center power efficiency TechTarget – Tip for determining power consumption Techworld – Inside a green data center Techworld – Box reduction – Low hanging green datacenter fruit Techworld – Datacentere used to heat swimming pool Theinquirer – Spansion and Virident flash server farms Theinquirer – Storage firms worry about energy efficiency How green is the valley TheRegister – Data Centre Efficiency, the good, the bad and the way to hot TheRegister – Server makers snub whalesong for serious windmill abuse TheRegister – Green data center threat level: Not Green The Standard – Growing cynicism around going Green ThoughtPut – Energy Central Thoughtput – Power, Cooling, Green Storage and related industry trends Wallstreet Journal – Utilities Amp Up Push To Slash Energy Use Wallstreet Journal – The IT in Green Investing Wallstreet Journal – Tech’s Energy Consumption on the Rise Washingtonpost – Texas approves major new wind power project WhatPC – Green IT: It doesnt have to cost the earth WHIRnews – SingTel building green data center Wind-watch.org – Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency WyomingNews – Overcoming Greens Stereotype Yahoo – Washington Senate Unviel Green Job Plan ZDnet – Will supercomputer speeds hit a plateau? Are data centers causing climate change News and Press Releases Business Wire – The Green and Virtual Data Center Enterprise Storage Forum – Intel and HGST (Hitachi) partner on FLASH SSD PCworld – Intel and HP describe Green Strategy DoE – To Invest Approximately $1.3 Billion to Commercialize CCS Technology Yahoo – Shell Opens Los Angeles’ First Combined Hydrogen and Gasoline Station DuPont – DuPont Projects Save Enough Energy to Power 25,000 Homes Gartner – Users Are Becoming Increasingly Confused About the Issues and Solutions Surrounding Green IT Websites and Tools Various power, cooling, emmisions and device configuration tools and calculators Solar Action Alliance web site SNIA Emerald program Carbon Disclosure Project The Chicago Climate Exchange Climate Savers Data Center Decisions Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) EMC – Digital Life Calculator Energy Star Energy Star Data Center Initiatives Greenpeace – Technology ranking website also here GlobalActionPlan KyotoPlanet LBNL High Tech Data centers Millicomputing RoHS & WEE News Storage Performance Council (SPC) SNIA Green Technical Working Group SPEC Transaction Processing Council (TPC) The Green Grid The Raised Floor Terra Pass Carbon Offset Credits – Website with CO2 calculators Energy Information Administration – EIA (US and International Electrical Information) U.S. Department of Energy and related information U.S. DOE Energy Efficient Industrial Programs U.S. EPA server and storage energy topics Zerofootprint – Various "Green" and environmental related links and calculators Vendor Centric and Marketing Website Links and toolsVendors and organizations have different types of calculators some with focus on power, cooling, floor space, carbon offsets or emissions, ROI, TCO and other IT data center infrastructure resource management. Following is an evolving list and by no means definitive even for a particular vendors as different manufactures may have multiple different calculators for different product lines or areas of focus. Brocade – Green website Cisco – Green and Environmental websites here, here and here Dell – Green website EMC – EMC Energy, Power and Cooling Related Website HDS – How to be green – HDS Positioning White Paper HP – HP Green Website IBM – Green Data Center – IBM Positioning White Paper IBM – Green Data Center for Education – IBM Positioning White Paper Intel – What is an Efficient Data Center and how do I measure it? LSI – Green site and white paper NetApp – Press Release and related information Sun – Various articles and links Symantec – Global 2000 Struggle to Adopt "Green" Data Centers – Announcement of Survey results ACTON Adinfa APC Australian Conservation Foundation Avocent BBC Brocade Carbon Credit Calculator UK Carbon Footprint Site Carbon Planet Carbonify CarbonZero Cassatt CO2 Stats Site Copan Dell DirectGov UK Acton Diesel Service & Supply Power Calculator & Converter Eaton Powerware Ecobusinesslinks Ecoscale EMC Power Calculator EMC Web Power Calculator EMC Digital Life Calculator EPA Power Profiler EPA Related Tools EPEAT Google UK Green Footprint Green Grid Calculator HP and more here HVAC Calculator IBM Logicalis Kohler Power (Business and Residential) Micron MSN Carbon Footprint Calculator National Wildlife Foundation NEF UK NetApp Rackwise Platespin Safecom Sterling Planet Sun and more here and here and here Tandberg TechRepublic TerraPass Carbon Offset Credits Thomas Kreen AG Toronto Hydro Calculator 80 Plus Calculator VMware 42u Green Grid PUE DCiE calculator 42u energy calculator Green and Virtual Tools
Green and Virtual Metrics
Disclaimer and notesDisclaimer and note: URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site. Best effort has been made to validate and verify the URLs that appear on this page and web site however they are subject to change. The author and/or maintainer’s) of this page and web site make no endorsement to and assume no responsibility for the URLs and their content that are listed on this page. |
The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Updated 2/10/2018
RAID data protection remains relevant including erasure codes (EC), local reconstruction codes (LRC) among other technologies. If RAID were really not relevant anymore (e.g. actually dead), why do some people spend so much time trying to convince others that it is dead or to use a different RAID level or enhanced RAID or beyond raid with related advanced approaches?
When you hear RAID, what comes to mind?
A legacy monolithic storage system that supports narrow 4, 5 or 6 drive wide stripe sets or a modern system support dozens of drives in a RAID group with different options?
RAID means many things, likewise there are different implementations (hardware, software, systems, adapters, operating systems) with various functionality, some better than others.
For example, which of the items in the following figure come to mind, or perhaps are new to your RAID vocabulary?
There are Many Variations of RAID Storage some for the enterprise, some for SMB, SOHO or consumer. Some have better performance than others, some have poor performance for example causing extra writes that lead to the perception that all parity based RAID do extra writes (some actually do write gathering and optimization).
Some hardware and software implementations using WBC (write back cache) mirrored or battery backed-BBU along with being able to group writes together in memory (cache) to do full stripe writes. The result can be fewer back-end writes compared to other systems. Hence, not all RAID implementations in either hardware or software are the same. Likewise, just because a RAID definition shows a particular theoretical implementation approach does not mean all vendors have implemented it in that way. |
RAID is not a replacement for backup rather part of an overall approach to providing data availability and accessibility.
There are different RAID levels and implementations (hardware, software, controller, storage system, operating system, adapter among others) for various environments (enterprise, SME, SMB, SOHO, consumer) supporting primary, secondary, tertiary (backup/data protection, archiving).
General RAID comparisons
Thus one size or approach does fit all solutions, likewise RAID rules of thumbs or guides need context. Context means that a RAID rule or guide for consumer or SOHO or SMB might be different for enterprise and vise versa, not to mention on the type of storage system, number of drives, drive type and capacity among other factors.
General basic RAID comparisons
Thus the best RAID level is the one that meets your specific needs in your environment. What is best for one environment and application may be different from what is applicable to your needs.
Key points and RAID considerations include: · Not all RAID implementations are the same, some are very much alive and evolving while others are in need of a rest or rewrite. So it is not the technology or techniques that are often the problem, rather how it is implemented and then deployed. · It may not be RAID that is dead, rather the solution that uses it, hence if you think a particular storage system, appliance, product or software is old and dead along with its RAID implementation, then just say that product or vendors solution is dead. · RAID can be implemented in hardware controllers, adapters or storage systems and appliances as well as via software and those have different features, capabilities or constraints. · Long or slow drive rebuilds are a reality with larger disk drives and parity-based approaches; however, you have options on how to balance performance, availability, capacity, and economics. · RAID can be single, dual or multiple parity or mirroring-based. · Erasure and other coding schemes leverage parity schemes and guess what umbrella parity schemes fall under. · RAID may not be cool, sexy or a fun topic and technology to talk about, however many trendy tools, solutions and services actually use some form or variation of RAID as part of their basic building blocks. This is an example of using new and old things in new ways to help each other do more without increasing complexity. · Even if you are not a fan of RAID and think it is old and dead, at least take a few minutes to learn more about what it is that you do not like to update your dead FUD. |
There is some dead marketing that paints a broad picture that RAID is dead to prop up something new, which in some cases may be a derivative variation of parity RAID.
Data dispersal and durability
RAID continues to evolve with rapid rebuilds for some systems
Otoh, there are some specific products, technologies, implementations that may be end of life or actually dead. Likewise what might be dead, dying or simply not in vogue are specific RAID implementations or packaging. Certainly there is a lot of buzz around object storage, cloud storage, forward error correction (FEC) and erasure coding including messages of how they cut RAID. Catch is that some object storage solutions are overlayed on top of lower level file systems that do things such as RAID 6, granted they are out of sight, out of mind.
General RAID parity and erasure code/FEC comparisons
Then there are advanced parity protection schemes which include FEC and erasure codes that while they are not your traditional RAID levels, they have characteristic including chunking or sharding data, spreading it out over multiple devices with multiple parity (or derivatives of parity) protection.
Bottom line is that for some environments, different RAID levels may be more applicable and alive than for others.
Via BizTech – How to Turn Storage Networks into Better Performers
|
If you are new to RAID, learn more about the past, present and future keeping mind context. Keeping context in mind means that there are different RAID levels and implementations for various environments. Not all RAID 0, 1, 1/0, 10, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or other variations (past, present and emerging) are the same for consumer vs. SOHO vs. SMB vs. SME vs. Enterprise, nor are the usage cases. Some need performance for reads, others for writes, some for high-capacity with low performance using hardware or software. RAID Rules of thumb are ok and useful, however keep them in context to what you are doing as well as using.
Take some time to learn, ask questions including what to use when, where, why and how as well as if an approach or recommendation are applicable to your needs. Check out the following links to read some extra perspectives about RAID and keep in mind, what might apply to enterprise may not be relevant for consumer or SMB and vise versa.
Some advise needed on SSD’s and Raid (Via Spiceworks)
RAID 5 URE Rebuild Means The Sky Is Falling (Via BenchmarkReview)
Double drive failures in a RAID-10 configuration (Via SearchStorage)
Industry Trends and Perspectives: RAID Rebuild Rates (Via StorageIOblog)
RAID, IOPS and IO observations (Via StorageIOBlog)
RAID Relevance Revisited (Via StorageIOBlog)
HDDs Are Still Spinning (Rust Never Sleeps) (Via InfoStor)
When and Where to Use NAND Flash SSD for Virtual Servers (Via TheVirtualizationPractice)
What’s the best way to learn about RAID storage? (Via Spiceworks)
Design considerations for the host local FVP architecture (Via Frank Denneman)
Some basic RAID fundamentals and definitions (Via SearchStorage)
Can RAID extend nand flash SSD life? (Via StorageIOBlog)
I/O Performance Issues and Impacts on Time-Sensitive Applications (Via CMG)
The original RAID white paper (PDF) that while over 20 years old, it provides a basis, foundation and some history by Katz, Gibson, Patterson et al
Storage Interview Series (Via Infortrend)
Different RAID methods (Via RAID Recovery Guide)
A good RAID tutorial (Via TheGeekStuff)
Basics of RAID explained (Via ZDNet)
RAID and IOPs (Via VMware Communities)
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.
What is my favorite or preferred RAID level?
That depends, for some things its RAID 1, for others RAID 10 yet for others RAID 4, 5, 6 or DP and yet other situations could be a fit for RAID 0 or erasure codes and FEC. Instead of being focused on just one or two RAID levels as the solution for different problems, I prefer to look at the environment (consumer, SOHO, small or large SMB, SME, enterprise), type of usage (primary or secondary or data protection), performance characteristics, reads, writes, type and number of drives among other factors. What might be a fit for one environment would not be a fit for others, thus my preferred RAID level along with where implemented is the one that meets the given situation. However also keep in mind is tying RAID into part of an overall data protection strategy, remember, RAID is not a replacement for backup.
Like other technologies that have been declared dead for years or decades, aka the Zombie technologies (e.g. dead yet still alive) RAID continues to be used while the technologies evolves. There are specific products, implementations or even RAID levels that have faded away, or are declining in some environments, yet alive in others. RAID and its variations are still alive, however how it is used or deployed in conjunction with other technologies also is evolving.
Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs
Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.
|
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
This is part one of a two part series for what to get a geek for a gift, read part two here.
It is that time of the year when annual predictions are made for the upcoming year, including those that will be repeated next year or that were also made last year.
It’s also the time of the year to get various projects wrapped up, line up new activities, get the book-keeping things ready for year-end processing and taxes, as well as other things.
It’s also that time of the year to do some budget and project planning including upgrades, replacements, enhancements while balancing an over-subscribed holiday party schedule some of you may have.
Lets not forget getting ready for vacations, perhaps time off from work with some time upgrading your home lab or other projects.
Then there are the gift lists or trying to figure out what to get that difficult to shop for person particular geek’s who may have everything, or want the latest and greatest that others have, or something their peers don’t have yet.
Sure I have a DJI Phantom II on my wish list, however also have other things on my needs list (e.g. what I really need and want vs. what would be fun to wish for).
Image via DJI.com, click on image to learn more and compare models
So here are some things for the geek or may have everything or is up on having the latest and greatest, yet forgot or didn’t know about some of these things.
Not to mention some of these might seem really simple and low-cost, think of them like a Lego block or erector set part where your imagination will be your boundary how to use them. Also, most if not all of these are budget friendly particular if you shop around.
So you need to add some 2.5" SAS or SATA HDD’s, SSD’s, HHDD’s/SSHD’s to your server for supporting your VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM, Xen, OpenStack, Hadoop or legacy *nix or Windows environment or perhaps gaming system. Challenge is that you are out of disk drive bay slots and you want things neatly organized vs. a rat’s nest of cables hanging out of your system. No worries assuming your server has an empty media bay (e.g. those 5.25" slots where CDs/DVDs or really old HDD’s go), or if you can give up the CD/DVD, then use that bay and its power connector to add ones of these. This is a 4 x 2.5" SAS and SATA drive bay that has a common power connector (molex male) with each drive bay having its own SATA drive connection. By each drive having its own SATA connection you can map the drives to an on-board available SATA port attached to a SAS or SATA controller, or attach an available port on a RAID adapter to the ports using a cable such as small form factor (SFF) 8087 to SATA.
(Left) Rear view with Molex power and SATA cables (Right) front view
I have a few of these in different systems and what I like about them is that they support different drive speeds, plus they will accept a SAS drive where many enclosures in this category only support SATA. Once you mount your 2.5" HDD or SSD using screws, you can hot swap (requires controller and OS support) the drives and move them between other similar enclosures as needed. The other thing I like is that there are front indicator lights as well as by each drive having its own separate connection, you can attach some of the drives to a RAID adapter while others connected to on-board SATA ports. Oh, and you can also have different speeds of drives as well.
Depending on the type of your server, you may have Molex, SATA or some other type of power connections. You can use different power connection cables to go from one type (Molex) to another, create a connection for two devices, create an extension to reach hard to get to mounting locations.
Warning and disclosure note, keep in mind how much power you are drawing when attaching devices to not cause an electrical or fire hazard, follow manufactures instructions and specification doing so at your own risk! After all, Just like Clark Grizzwald in National Lampoon Christmas Vacation who found you could attach extension cord to splitters to splitters and fan-out to have many lights attached, you don’t want to cause a fire or blackout when you plug to many drives in.
National Lampoon Christmas Vacation
Ok so you do not want to do a Clark Grizzwald (see above video) and overload a power circuit, or perhaps you simply want to know how many watts, amps or quality of your voltage is.
There are many types of power meters along with various prices, some even have interfaces where you can grab event data to correlate with server storage I/O networking performance to do things such as IOP’s per watt among other metrics. Speaking of IOP’s per watt, check out the SNIA Emerald site where they have some good tools including a benchmark script that uses Vdbench to drive hot band workload (e.g. basically kick the crap out of a storage system).
Back to power meters, I like the Kill A Watt series of meters as they give good info about amps, volts, power quality. I have these plugged into outlets so I can see how much power is being used by the battery backup units (BBU) aka UPS that also serve as power surge filters. If needed I can move these further downstream to watch the power intake of a specific server, storage, network or other device.
Electrical power surge strips should be a given or considered common sense, however what is or should be common sense should be repeated so that it remains common sense, you should be using power surge strips or other devices.
For most situations a good surge suppressor will cover short power transients.
Image via APC and model similar to those that I have
For slightly longer power outages of a few seconds to minutes, that’s where battery backup up (BBU) units that also have surge suppression comes into play. There are many types, sizes with various features to meet your needs and budget. I have several of theses in a couple of different sizes not only for servers, storage and networking equipment (including some WiFi access points, routers, etc), I also have them for home things such as satellite DVR’s. However not everything needs to stay on while others simply need to stay on long-enough in order to shutdown manually or via automated power off sequences.
Generators are not just for the rich and famous or large data center, like other technologies they are available in different sizes, power capacity, fuel sources, manual or automated among other things.
Image via Kohler Power similar to model that I have
Note that even with a typical generator there will be a time gap from the time power goes off until the generator starts, stabilizes and you have good power. That’s where the BBU and UPS mentioned above comes into play to bridge those time gaps which in my cases is about 25-30 seconds. Btw, knowing how much power your technology is drawing using tools such as the Kill A Watt is part of the planning process to avoid surprises.
Yup, whether it is to fit in and be green, or simply to get some electrical power when or where it is not needed to charge a battery or power some device, these small solar power devices are very handy.
Image via Amazon.com
Image via Amazon.com
For example you can get or easily make an adapter to charge laptops, cell phones or even power them for normal use (check manufactures information on power usage, Amps and Voltage draws among other warnings to prevent fire and other things). Btw, not only are these handy for computer related things, they also work great for keeping batteries on my fishing boat charged so that I have my fish finder and other electronics, just saying.
How about a new or updated smoke and fire detection alarm monitor, as well as fire extinguisher for the geek’s software defined hardware that runs on power (electrical or battery)?
The following is from the site Fire Extinguisher 101 where you can learn more about different types of suppression technologies.
| Image via Fire Extinguisher 101 |
|
This wraps up part I of what to get a geek V2014, continue reading part II here.
Ok, nuff said, for now…
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
This is part one of a two-part series about Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent 2014 and other recent cloud updates, read part two here.
A few weeks ago I attended Amazon Web Service (AWS) re:Invent 2014 in Las Vegas for a few days. For those of you who have not yet attended this event, I recommend adding it to your agenda. If you have interest in compute servers, networking, storage, development tools or management of cloud (public, private, hybrid), virtualization and related topic themes, you should check out AWS re:invent.
AWS made several announcements at re:invent including many around development tools, compute and data storage services. One of those to keep an eye on is cloud based Aurora relational database service that complement existing RDS tools. Aurora is positioned as an alternative to traditional SQL based transactional databases commonly found in enterprise environments (e.g. SQL Server among others).
Using the AWS Management Portal for vCenter adds a plug-in within your VMware vCenter to manage your AWS infrastructure. The vCenter for AWS plug-in includes support for AWS EC2 and Virtual Machine (VM) import to migrate your VMware VMs to AWS EC2, create VPC (Virtual Private Clouds) along with subnet’s. There is no cost for the plug-in, you simply pay for the underlying AWS resources consumed (e.g. EC2, EBS, S3). Learn more about AWS Management Portal for vCenter here, and download the OVA plug-in for vCenter here.
AWS Andy Jassy (Image via AWS)
November 12, 2014 (Day 1) Keynote (highlight video, full keynote). This is the session where AWS SVP Andy Jassy made several announcements including Aurora relational database that complements existing RDS (Relational Data Services). In addition to Andy, the key-note sessions also included various special guests ranging from AWS customers, partners and internal people in support of the various initiatives and announcements.
Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels (Image via AWS)
November 13, 2014 (Day 2) Keynote (highlight video, full keynote). In this session, Amazon.com CTO Werner Vogels appears making announcements about the new Container and Lambda services.
Announcements and enhancements made by AWS during re:Invent include:
Hardware security module (HSM) based key managed service for creating and control of encryption keys to protect security of digital assets and their keys. Integration with AWS EBS and others services including S3 and Redshift along with CloudTrail logs for regulatory, compliance and management. Learn more about AWS KMS here
For those who are not familiar, AWS has a suite of database related services including SQL and no SQL based, simple to transactional to Petabyte (PB) scale data warehouses for big data and analytics. AWS offers the Relational Database Service (RDS) which is a suite of different database types, instances and services. RDS instance and types include SimpleDB, MySQL, Postgress, Oracle, SQL Server and the new AWS Aurora offering (read more below). Other little data database and big data repository related offerings include DynamoDB (a non-SQL database), ElasticCache (in memory cache repository) and Redshift (large-scale data warehouse and big data repository).
In addition to database services offered by AWS, you can also combine various AWS resources including EC2 compute, EBS and other storage offerings to create your own solution. For example there are various Amazon Machine Images (AMI’s) or pre-built operating systems and database tools available with EC2 as well as via the AWS Marketplace , such as MongoDB and Couchbase among others. For those not familiar with MongoDB, Couchbase, Cassandra, Riak along with other non SQL or alternative databases and key value repositories, check out Seven Databases in Seven Weeks in my book review of it here.
Seven Databases in Seven Weeks and NoSQL movement available from Amazon.com
Aurora is a new relational database offering part of the AWS RDS suite of services. Positioned as an alternative to commercial high-end database, Aurora is a cost-effective database engine compatible with MySQL. AWS is claiming 5x better performance than standard MySQL with Aurora while being resilient and durable. Learn more about Aurora which will be available in early 2015 and its current preview here.
AWS will be adding a new C4 instance as a next generation of EC2 compute instance based on Intel Xeon E5-2666 v3 (Haswell) processors. The Intel Xeon E5-2666 v3 processors run at a clock speed of 2.9 GHz providing the highest level of EC2 performance. AWS is targeting traditional High Performance Computing (HPC) along with other compute intensive workloads including analytics, gaming, and transcoding among others. Learn more AWS EC2 instances here, and view this Server and StorageIO EC2, EBS and associated AWS primer here.
Containers such as those via Docker have become popular to support developers rapidly build as well as deploy scalable applications. AWS has added a new feature called EC2 Container Service that supports Docker using simple API’s. In addition to supporting Docker, EC2 Container Service is a high performance scalable container management service for distributed applications deployed on a cluster of EC2 instances. Similar to other EC2 services, EC2 Container Service leverages security groups, EBS volumes and Identity Access Management (IAM) roles along with scheduling placement of containers to meet your needs. Note that AWS is not alone in adding container and docker support with Microsoft Azure also having recently made some announcements, learn more about Azure and Docker here. Learn more about EC2 container service here and more about Docker here.
Continue reading about re:Invent 2014 and other recent AWS enhancements here in part two of this two-part series.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
This is part two of a two-part series about Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent 2014 and other recent cloud updates, read part one here.
Announcements and enhancements made by AWS during re:Invent include:
In addition to announcing new higher performance Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) compute instances along with container service, another new service is AWS Lambda. Lambda is a service that automatically and quickly runs your applications code in response to events, activities, or other triggers. In addition to running your code, Lambda service is billed in 100 millisecond increments along with corresponding memory use vs. standard EC2 per hour billing. What this means is that instead of paying for an hour of time for your code to run, you can choose to use the Lambda service with more fine-grained consumption billing.
Lambda service can be used to have your code functions staged ready to execute. AWS Lambda can run your code in response to S3 bucket content (e.g. objects) changes, messages arriving via Kinesis streams or table updates in databases. Some examples include responding to event such as a web-site click, response to data upload (photo, image, audio, file or other object), index, stream or analyze data, receive output from a connected device (think Internet of Things IoT or Internet of Device IoD), trigger from an in-app event among others. The basic idea with Lambda is to be able to pay for only the amount of time needed to do a particular function without having to have an AWS EC2 instance dedicated to your application. Initially Lambda supports Node.js (JavaScript) based code that runs in its own isolated environment.
Various application code deployment models
Lambda service is a pay for what you consume, charges are based on the number of requests for your code function (e.g. application), amount of memory and execution time. There is a free tier for Lambda that includes 1 million requests and 400,000 GByte seconds of time per month. A GByte second is the amount of memory (e.g. DRAM vs. storage) consumed during a second. An example is your application is run 100,000 times and runs for 1 second consuming 128MB of memory = 128,000,000MB = 128,000GB seconds. View various pricing models here on the AWS Lambda site that show examples for different memory sizes, times a function runs and run time.
How much memory you select for your application code determines how it can run in the AWS free tier, which is available to both existing and new customers. Lambda fees are based on the total across all of your functions starting with the code when it runs. Note that you could have from one to thousands or more different functions running in Lambda service. As of this time, AWS is showing Lambda pricing as free for the first 1 million requests, and beyond that, $0.20 per 1 million request ($0.0000002 per request) per duration. Duration is from when you code runs until it ends or otherwise terminates rounded up to the nearest 100ms. The Lambda price also depends on the amount of memory you allocated for your code. Once past the 400,000 GByte second per month free tier the fee is $0.00001667 for every GB second used.
Why would you use AWS Lambda vs. provisioning an Container, EC2 instance or running your application code function on a traditional or virtual machine?
If you need control and can leverage an entire physical server with its operating system (O.S.), application and support tools for your piece of code (e.g. JavaScript), that could be an option. If you simply need to have an isolated image instance (O.S., applications and tools) for your code on a shared virtual on-premises environment then that can be an option. Likewise if you have the need to move your application to an isolated cloud machine (CM) that hosts an O.S. along with your application paying for those resources such as on an hourly basis, that could be your option. Simply need a lighter-weight container to drop your application into that’s where Docker and containers comes into play to off-load some of the traditional application dependencies overhead.
However, if all you want to do is to add some code logic to support processing activity for example when an object, file or image is uploaded to AWS S3 without having to standup an EC2 instance along with associated server, O.S. and complete application activity, that’s where AWS Lambda comes into play. Simply create your code (initially JavaScript) and specify how much memory it needs, define what events or activities will trigger or invoke the event, and you have a solution.
View AWS Lambda pricing along with free tier information here.
AWS is increasing the performance and size of General Purpose SSD and Provisioned IOP’s SSD volumes. This means that you can create volumes up to 16TB and 10,000 IOP’s for AWS EBS general-purpose SSD volumes. For EBS Provisioned IOP’s SSD volumes you can create up to 16TB for 20,000 IOP’s. General-purpose SSD volumes deliver a maximum throughput (bandwidth) of 160 MBps and Provisioned IOP SSD volumes have been specified by AWS at 320MBps when attached to EBS optimized instances. Learn more about EBS capabilities here. Verify your IO size and verify AWS sizing information to avoid surprises as all IO sizes are not considered to be the same. Learn more about Provisioned IOP’s, optimized instances, EBS and EC2 fundamentals in this StorageIO AWS primer here.
In addition to compute and storage resource enhancements, AWS has also announced several tools to support application development, configuration along with deployment (life-cycle management). These include tools that AWS uses themselves as part of building and maintaining the AWS platform services.
Management, reporting and monitoring capabilities including Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) for monitoring your AWS resources, configuration (including history), governance, change management and notifications. AWS Config enables similar capabilities to support DCIM, Change Management Database (CMDB), trouble shooting and diagnostics, auditing, resource and configuration analysis among other activities. Learn more about AWS Config here.
AWS announced a new service catalog that will be available in early 2015. This new service capability will enable administrators to create and manage catalogs of approved resources for users to use via their personalized portal. Learn more about AWS service catalog here.
To support code rapid deployment automation for EC2 instances, AWS has released CodeDeploy. CodeDeploy masks complexity associated with deployment when adding new features to your applications while reducing human error-prone operations. As part of the announcement, AWS mentioned that they are using CodeDeploy as part of their own applications development, maintenance, and change-management and deployment operations. While suited for at scale deployments across many instances, CodeDeploy works with as small as a single EC2 instance. Learn more about AWS CodeDeploy here.
For application code management, AWS will be making available in early 2015 a new service called CodeCommit. CodeCommit is a highly scalable secure source control service that host private Git repositories. Supporting standard functionalities of Git, including collaboration, you can store things from source code to binaries while working with your existing tools. Learn more about AWS CodeCommit here.
To support application delivery and release automation along with associated management tools, AWS is making available CodePipeline. CodePipeline is a tool (service) that supports build, checking workflow’s, code staging, testing and release to production including support for 3rd party tool integration. CodePipeline will be available in early 2015, learn more here.
Learn more about the above and other AWS services by actually truing hands on using their free tier (AWS Free Tier). View AWS re:Invent produced breakout session videos here, audio podcasts here, and session slides here (all sessions may not yet be uploaded by AWS re:Invent)
AWS continues to invest as well as re-invest into its environment both adding new feature functionality, as well as expanding the extensibility of those features. This means that AWS like other vendors or service providers adds new check-box features, however they also like some increase the depth extensibility of those capabilities. Besides adding new features and increasing the extensibility of existing capabilities, AWS is addressing both the data and information infrastructure including compute (server), storage and database, networking along with associated management tools while also adding extra developer tools. Developer tools include life-cycle management supporting code creation, testing, tracking, testing, change management among other management activities.
Another observation is that while AWS continues to promote the public cloud such as those services they offer as the present and future, they are also talking hybrid cloud. Granted you have to listen carefully as you may not simply hear hybrid cloud used like some toss it around, however listen for and look into AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), along with what you can do using various technologies via the AWS marketplace. AWS is also speaking the language of enterprise and traditional IT from an applications and development to data and information infrastructure perspective while also walking the cloud talk. What this means is that AWS realizes that they need to help existing environments evolve and make the transition to the cloud which means speaking their language vs. converting them to cloud conversations to then be able to migrate them to the cloud. These steps should make AWS practical for many enterprise environments looking to make the transition to public and hybrid cloud at their pace, some faster than others. More on these and some related themes in future posts.
The AWS re:Invent event continues to grow year over year, I heard a figure of over 12,000 people however it was not clear if that included exhibiting vendors, AWS people, attendees, analyst, bloggers and media among others. However a simple validation is that the keynotes were in the larger rooms used by events such as EMCworld and VMworld when they hosted in Las Vegas as was the expo space vs. what I saw last year while at re:Invent. Unlike some large events such as VMworld where at best there is a waiting queue or line to get into sessions or hands on lab (HOL), while becoming more crowded, AWS re:Invent is still easy to get in and spend some time using the HOL which is of course powered by AWS meaning you can resume what you started while at re:Invent later. Overall a good event and nice series of enhancements by AWS, looking forward to next years AWS re:Invent.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
Here is a quick video montage or mash-up if you prefer that Cory Peden (aka the Server and StorageIO Intern @Studentof_IT) put together using some video that recorded while at VMworld 2014 in San Francisco. In this YouTube video we take a quick tour around the expo hall to see who as well as what we run into while out and about.
Click on above image to view video
For those of you who were at VMworld 2014 the video (click above image) will give you a quick Dejavu memory of the sites and sounds while for those who were not there, see what you missed to plan for next year. Watch for appearances from Gina Minks (@Gminks) aka Gina Rosenthal (of BackupU)and Michael (not Dell) of Dell Data Protection, Luigi Danakos (@Nerdblurt) of HP Data Protection who lost his voice (tweet Luigi if you can help him find his voice). With Luigi we were able to get in a quick game of buzzword bingo before catching up with Marc Farley (@Gofarley) and John Howarth of Quaddra Software. Mark and John talk about their new solution from Quaddra which will enable searching and discovering data across different storage systems and technologies.
Other visits include a quick look at an EVO:Rail from Dell, along with Docker for Smarties overview with Nathan LeClaire (@upthecyberpunks) of Docker (click here to watch the extended interview with Nathan).
Check out the conversation with Max Kolomyeytsev of StarWind Software (@starwindsan) before we get interrupted by a sales person. During our walk about, we also bump into Mark Peters (@englishmdp) of ESG facing off video camera to video camera.
Watch for other things including rack cabinets that look like compute servers yet that have a large video screen so they can be software defined for different demo purposes.
Watch for more Server and StorageIO Industry Trend Perspective podcasts, videos as well as out and about updates soon, meanwhile check out others here.
Ok, nuff said (for now)
Cheers gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
I often get asked, or, told that computer data storage is complex with so many options to choose from, apples to oranges comparison among other things.
On a recent trip to Europe while being interviewed by a Dutch journalist in Nijkerk Holland at a Brouwer Storage Consultancy event I was presenting at, the question came up again about storage complexity. Btw, you can read the article on data storage industry trends here (its in dutch).
I hesitated and thought for a moment and responded that in some ways it’s not as complex as some make it seem, although there is more to data storage than just cost per capacity. As I usually do when asked or told how complex data storage is my response is a mixed yes it (storage, data and information infrastructure) are complex, however lets put it in perspective which is storage any more complex than other things?
Our conversation then evolved with an example that I find shopping for an automobile complex unless I know exactly what I’m looking for. After all there are cars trucks SUV’s used new buy lease different manufacturers makes and models speeds cargo capacity management tools and interfaces not to mention metrics and fuel.
This is where I usually mention how IMHO buying a new car or vehicle is with all the different options, that is unless you know what you want, or know your selection criteria and options. Same with selecting a new laptop computer, tablet or smart phone, not to mention a long list of other things that to the outsiders can also seem complex, intimidating or overwhelming. However lets take a step back to look at storage then return to compare some other things that may be confusing to those who are not focused on them.
Similar to other technologies, there are different types of data storage to meet various needs from performance to space capacity as well as support various forms of scaling.
Server and storage I/O fundamentals
Various types of storage devices including HDD’s, SSHD/HHDD’s and SSD’s
Various types of storage devices
Storage options, block, file, object, ssd, hdd, primary, secondary, local and cloud
During my return trip to the US from the Dutch event, I had a layover at London Heathrow (LHR) and walking the concourse it occurred to me that while there are complexities involved with different technologies including storage, data and information infrastructures, there were other complexities.
Same thing with shoes so any differ options not to mention cell phones or laptops and tablets, PCIe, or how about tv’s?
I wan to go on a trip do I book based on lowest cost for air fare then hotel and car rental, or do I purchase a package? For the air fare is it the cheapest yet that takes all day to get from point a to b via plane changes at points c d and e not to mention paying extra fees vs paying a higher price for a direct flight with extra amenities?
Getting hungry so what to do for dinner, what type of cuisine or food?
How about a new handbag or perhaps shoes?
How about a new backpack, brief case or luggage?
What to drink for a beverage, so many options unless you know what you want.
Complexity of choosing what cell phone, PDA or other electronics
How about what to read including print vs. online accessible content?
Once I got home from my European trip I had some mechanical things to tend to including replacing some spark plugs.
How about automobile parts from tires, to windshield wiper blades to spark plugs?
Sure if you know the exact part number and assuming that part number has not changed, then you can start shopping for the part. However recently I had a part number based on a vehicle serial number (e.g. make, model, year, etc) only to receive the wrong part. Sure the part numbers were correct, however along the line somewhere the manufacture made a change and not all downstream vendors knew about the part change, granted I eventually received the correct part.
Ok, hopefully you got the point from the above examples among many others in that we live in world full of options and those options can bring complexity.
What type of network or server? How about operating system, browser, database, programming or development language as there are different needs and options?
Sure there are many storage options as not everything is the same.
Likewise while there can be simple answer with a trend of what to use before the question is understood (perhaps due to a preference) or explained, the best or applicable answer may be it depends. However saying it depends may seem complex to those who just want a simple answer.
So is storage more complex than other technologies, tools, products or services?
What say you?
Ok, nuff said, for now…
Cheers
Gs
Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
twitter @storageio
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved
