Catching Up With Summer 2018 IBM Cloudy Software Defined Storage Announcements

Summer 2018 IBM Cloudy Software Defined Storage Announcements

Catching Up With Summer 2018 IBM Cloudy Software Defined Storage Announcements

Time for some catching up with summer 2018 IBM cloudy software defined storage announcements that were made earlier this week. The Share Event (Mainframe centric) is occurring this week in St. Louis. Thus, it is no surprise that it is time for catching up with summer 2018 IBM cloudy software-defined storage announcements that are geared to mainframe Z environments. These cloud and software-defined storage for the mainframe environment announcements follow those from a few weeks ago including new Power9 based servers and IBM FlashSystem 9100 flash SSD.

What was announced

What IBM announced this week were a mix of mainframe Z server storage with software-defined storage and cloud (e.g. cloudy) support including:

IBM Spectrum Protect 8.1.6 multi-cloud updates with tiered backup across on-site and cloud. For example, active data remains on-site (or on-prem), inactive data protection copies get moved (tiered) to cloud storage. Other enhancements include software-defined threat protection such as malware and ransomware extending to hypervisor data, along with blueprint guides for IBM Cloud (e.g., Softlayer), AWS and Microsoft Azure.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 10.1.1 enhanced with encryption of vSnap repositories for security, VMware vSphere 6.7 support, improved dashboards user interfaces (UI), and DB2 support in addition to Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle.

IBM DS8882F storage
IBM DS8882F Z mainframe rack mount storage Image via IBM.com

IBM DS8882F rack-mounted storage system (part of DS8000 storage family) integrated with IBM Z ZR1 (mainframe) and LinuxOne Rockhopper II (mainframe) servers. The DS8882F supports from 6.4TB to 368.64TB raw capacity. Along with safeguarded copy protection including read-only copies (e.g., a variation of WORM), along with encrypted digital signatures, and 256-bit AES encryption.

IBM Cloud Object Storage aka COS (formerly known as Cleversafe) functions as a target tier for DS8880 without the need for an external gateway. Enhancements also include a new 1U server (via Quanta) supporting up to 72 TB configurations.

IBM Elastic Storage Server File and Object pre-configured storage for AI, ML, Big Data and High-Performance Compute (HPC) includes an integrated file (NFS, SMB, S3, Swift) and object access. The solution is pre-installed on IBM Power8 servers running Red Hat Linux (e.g., RHEL). IBM claims high throughput for NAS NFS workloads with a large number of server connections. However, some performance numbers would be impressive to see along with a side of context.

IBM Spectrum Scale on AWS is a software-defined storage solution alternative to the traditional appliance-based solution. With Spectrum Scale 5.0.2 IBM is joining other vendors who have made their software-defined storage solutions available on clouds such as AWS, Azure, Google among others. Besides running on AWS working with Virtual Private Clouds (VPC), IBM supports per TB licenses including bringing your own license a growing industry trend.

Where to learn more

Learn more about IBM Server, Storage, Data Protection and data infrastructures related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Despite having been declared dead for decades, IBM Z series are still prevalent in many large environments even in a software-defined cloudy era. It’s good to see IBM continuing to invest in, and join other industry vendors who are supporting various cloudy deployments, as well as legacy on-site aka on-prem.

Likewise, IBM is making its legacy Z mainframe systems trendy and cloudy with these new enhancements to support customer hybrid server, storage, and data infrastructure deployments.

Overall, a nice set of incremental improvements following industry trends, and catching up with summer 2018 IBM cloudy software defined storage announcements.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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.

Amazon Web Services AWS July 2018 Updates

Amazon Web Services AWS July 2018 Updates

Amazon Web Services (AWS) July 2018 Updates

Amazon Web Services AWS July 2018 Updates

Amazon Web Services AWS July 2018 Updates continue to expand feature, functionality, service capabilities of the public cloud providers capabilities across various geographies.

Recent AWS updates include Snowball Edge (SBE) that adds local, on-site, on-premises aka on-prem EC2 compute capabilities as part of the Snowball appliance. Previously Snowball was a data and storage migration only appliance, now with the new capabilities, compute is also enabled as part of a turnkey converged platform. Read more about SBE here.

In other updates, AWS has extended its Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) capabilities (besides Snowball Edge) with new instance types, along with leveraging their next generation hypervisor as part of Nitro enabled systems. New EC2 instances span from on-prem Snowball Edge (SBE) to AWS Dedicated aka bare metal instances, along with traditional cloud instances (e.g., virtual machines).

These new instances including R5, R5D, and Z1 among others leverage faster Intel Xeon Platinum 8000 series processors, along with more memory. For example, Z1D is a compute-intensive instance with 4.0 GHz all turbo enabled core, while R5 is memory optimized with 3.1 GHz cores (up to 96 vCPU) and up to 768GB of RAM. The R5D is a memory-optimized instance that also supports up to 3.6TB of on-instance NVMe based storage. View additional AWS instance types here.

AWS has enhanced SageMaker (Machine Learning) service supporting higher throughput enabling faster data transformation batch jobs of non-real-time inference. To enable higher data and API call rates, AWS has also enhanced Simple Storage Service (S3) request rate. Another enhancement by AWS is enabling bring your own IP address preview for virtual private cloud (VPC) as part of allowing hybrid clouds.

View additional new, recent and past AWS updates here, and here.

Where to learn more

Learn more about AWS, Cloud and data infrastructures related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Amazon Web Services AWS July 2018 Updates continue to expand the number, type and extensiveness of public cloud services, as well as enabling hybrid capabilities. The Amazon Web Services AWS July 2018 Updates also address different data infrastructure layers from lower level Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) including EC2 compute, as well as higher level artificial inelegance (AI), machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL) among other cognitive as well as analytic offerings.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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.

Broadcom buying CA, Brilliant or a Brainbuster?

Broadcom buying CA, Brilliant or a Brainbuster?

Broadcom buying CA, Brilliant or a Brain buster?

For some in the IT industry as well as financial markets, there is skepticism about Broadcom (formerly known as Avago) making an announcing that they are buying CA Technologies (CA) for USD 18.9 Billion (cash). For example, the Broadcom stock ( AVGO) took a significant negative hit (13%) on the news.

Broadcom Stock impact after announcing CA purchase
Broadcom Stock upon announcing buying CA (via Google)

Broadcom aka Avago and CA rewind

Why the backlash over buying CA? a couple of reasons, CA is not exactly the most loved software vendor by customers in the industry, and, Broadcom (Avago) has been traditionally focused on hardware.

However, to understand this better, lets take a step back.

After digesting the likes of Broadcom, Brocade, and LSI among others, as well as after failing to capture Qualcomm in a USD 117 Billion takeover attempt, Avago (e.g., Broadcom) has set its sights on Mainframe and legacy enterprise software vendor Computer Technologies (CA) formerly known as Computer Associates. CA has about USD 4.2 Billion in annual revenue with about two-thirds tied to legacy IBM mainframe software, and the rest in other enterprise software. While not a growth segment, the IBM mainframe software business is a good annuity revenue and margin stream.

Data Infrastructures
Data Infrastructures support IT business applications

Broadcom had 2017 revenues of about USD 17.6 Billion made up of a diverse product set including data infrastructure hardware along with associated software spanning legacy to new and emerging cloud environments. Some of Broadcom technologies include server I/O devices such as PCIe, SAS, SATA and NVMe adapters, RAID controllers and chips, Fibre Channel, NVMe over Fabric (NVMeoF), Ethernet, switches and much more.
Broadcom and CA, Brainbuster or Brilliant?

This deal is a bit of a head-scratcher or brainbuster on the surface as Broadcom aka Avago has been primarily a hardware company (they do have a portfolio of drivers, management tools, monitoring and other software) and I can understand them wanting to get more into the software business.

Avago (excuse me, Broadcom) has had a focus on leaning out acquisitions to drive volume and integration across its portfolio, bringing value to its partners and customers. For its part, CA has been known where old (or new) software goes to die or retire garnering CA reputations as a software retirement home, or undertaker for technology. Refer to the Broadcom SEC filing for more information here.

On the other hand, CA has made a successful business wringing our value from existing software as opposed to substantial investment in new development; they do do some new development.

Perhaps this is the risk and reward that Avago sees, where similar to themselves of wringing out value from existing hardware, maybe they will do the same with CA, however, taking it to a new level. If that is the game, then once CA is bought by Broadcom, who will they pursue from a software acquisition target list similar to what Avago has done with hardware?

Where to learn more

Learn more about Broadcom (Avago), CA and data infrastructures related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

For now, Broadcom buying CA is a brainbuster, especially on the surface. However, there could be a brilliant move if Broadcom can leverage CA to do what it has done in the past. That is, similar to Avago buying various companies and leaning them out; CA has done similar with both boosting recurring revenues and increasing market footprint. Also, the combined companies can also leverage their reach into various partner ecosystems as keep in mind, hardware needs software, software needs hardware, and Broadcom is now a supplier of both.

It will be interesting to see how much Broadcom leans out CA, perhaps the lessons from buying Brocade might help as opposed to previous purchases. My point is that Brocade solutions are higher up the data infrastructure technology stack than traditional Broadcom, Avago, LSI components that require more direct customer-facing sales and marketing.

CA for its part also relies on direct customer-facing sales and marketing, however, is their room or opportunity for leaning things out?

Something else interesting to watch is how much Broadcom allows CA to operate on its own, vs. more under the direct Broadcom umbrella.

Then there is the question of to sustain growth, does Broadcom and CA go on additional shopping sprees for undervalued software companies and whom would those be? Perhaps some of the legacy big vendors such as Cisco, Dell Technologies, HPE, IBM, Oracle among others might be interested in selling off some under performing software.

On the other hand, perhaps there are some opportunities for Broadcom and CA to do some buy out deals with private equity firms?

Keep in mind that over the past few years, several software business units have been divested from the likes of the combined Dell and EMC, HPE among others.

For now, I’m sticking with Broadcom buying CA as a brainbuster, however, see some interesting scenarios in the future.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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.

AWS Snowball Edge SBE Converged Cloud Storage Appliance

AWS Snowball Edge SBE Converged Cloud Storage Appliance

AWS Snowball Edge SBE Converged Cloud Storage Appliance

As part of extending their cloud platform reach, recent Amazon Web Services (AWS) announcements include AWS Snowball Edge SBE Converged Cloud Storage Appliance. Snowball Edge (SBE) has evolved from its previous focus as a data transfer, migration platform appliance to now include support for on-prem compute. SBE has previously been available as an appliance that ships from AWS to your location as a service to enable bulk data movement to the public cloud (e.g. AWS Simple Storage Service (S3) bucket). With this new capability, AWS is enabling SBE to support on-prem compute similar to Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) cloud instances.

AWS Snowball Data Migration at PB scale
AWS Snowball Appliance Image via AWS.com

What is AWS Snowball

Snowball is a bulk physical data migration appliance that AWS ships to your location. You use Snowball by setting up a copy job with AWS, when the device arrives at your site, set it up, and enable the copy jobs to occur moving data from source to Snowball destination. Once data is copied, you ship the Snowball back to an AWS region and availability zone (AZ) where its contents are copied into a Simple Storage Service (S3) bucket of your choice. Once the copy job into an AWS S3 is complete, AWS performs a secure erase of the Snowball.

Basic Snowball includes 10 GbE network connections (RJ45 and SFP+ [fiber or copper]). Security and Encryption includes 256-bit keys that can be managed via AWS Key Management Service (KMS). Note that keys are not sent to or stored on the device for security during transit. For additional protection, tamper-resistant seals are included along with the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to detect unauthorized hardware, firmware or software changes.

End to End tracking is enabled using E ink shipping labels and allow monitoring via AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS). Once your data transfer job completes along with verified, a software erasure of the SBE is performed by AWS following NIST media handling guidelines.

For management, SBE has an API for customer integration, as well as the ability to create and manage transfer jobs via the AWS management console. SBE Adapter also gives customers direct access to Snowball where it appears as an S3 endpoint (how you access the storage and data).

Backside view of AWS Snowball
Backside view of Snowball Image via Amazon.com

Additional Snowball Speeds and Specification Feature Feeds include:

  • Storage space capacity of 50TB (42TB usable) or 80TB (72TB usable)
  • Network connectivity 10 GbE RJ45 (Cat6), SFP+ (Copper and Optical). Cables include RJ45 and Copper SFP+. For Fiber attached Ethernet, the customer supplies their own SFP+ optical cables.
  • SBE is designed for office environments, as well as data centers (e.g., about 68db) and weigh about 47 pounds.
  • Power requirements include NEMA 5-15p (standard wall outlet) 100-200 volts with power cable included.

Note for traditional Snowball deployments an on-prem workstation or server is needed to copy data from source locations to the Snowball device.

How AWS Snowball and Snowball Edge work

How AWS Snowball Works

Referring to the image above, first step to using AWS Snowball (or Snowball Edge) is to place an order via AWS management console (A). Part of the ordering process involves setting up the data transfer job, and in the case of AWS Snowball Edge, defining the EC2 instance and image (read more about that here via AWS). After placing order and setup, the AWS Snowball arrives at your location (B), on-site setup is done and data transfer performed (C). Once data is transferred, the AWS Snowball is returned to designated AWS location via two day shipping (D) and data copied into your specified S3 or Glacier bucket (E). After your data is transferred into the S3 or Glacier bucket you specify as part of the transfer job, you are able to do what you want with your files, folders, images, videos, VHDX’s, VMDK’s, ISO, little data, big data.

What is AWS Snowball Edge

AWS has enhanced its Snowball Edge (SBE) data mobility, migration, and transport appliance to now also include compute. For those not familiar, Snowball is an appliance that comes in various sizes that you order from AWS, it shows up at your site, and then you copy your data to it for migration into AWS. Once data is copied, you return to AWS where the data then appears in your designated S3 bucket. From your S3 bucket, you can then move the data, files, volumes, images to other locations, use for standing up EC2 compute, populating databases or other items.

With the new compute feature, AWS is enabling compute on the snowball edge appliance functioning similar to EC2 instance, except that they are on your site. This means you can use the compute to run your own custom AMI’s (Amazon Machine Image) on site or on-prem in support of data migration, conversion or another process. You can also keep the appliance on-site for as long as you want, granted your credit card gets charged to support development, test, extended migration, or to have a converged, or, hyper-converged platform.

Note that with SBE having compute capability, you can now run an EC2 image that functions as your copy server eliminating the need to have a workstation or server on-prem for the copy operation.

Additional AWS Snowball Edge Speeds and feature function feeds include:

  • 100TB (82TB usable) storage space capacity
  • 10 GbE network, along with 10/25 GbE SFP28 and 40 GbE QSFP+ with device-based encryption (customer provided network cables)
  • Local computing with EC2 and Lambda functions for remote deployment along with scale-out clustering of multiple SBE’s
  • S3 compatible endpoint along with NFS endpoint (mount point) using both NFS v3 and v4.1.
  • Weighs about 50 pounds, tamper evident seals along with TPM similar to traditional Snowball along with detection of hardware, firmware or software changes.
  • Can exist in an office environment, or data center.
  • Power cables are included, NEMA 5-15p, 100-220 volts, 400 watts.

What is AWS Snowmobile

Need something with more capacity than an SBE? AWS has a more extensive version called Snowmobile that supports up to 100PB that is brought to your site via a 45-foot-long tractor-trailer truck. Both SBE and Snowmobile physically move data from your location to an AWS region availability zone (AZ) aka data center where it is placed into the Simple Storage Service (S3) or Glacier bucket of your choice. Once in the S3 or Glacier bucket, you can move the data to where ever you need it.

Why Snowball Edge and Snowmobile vs. Fast Networks

Some people ask why the need for services such as SBE and Snowmobile, or, physically shipping your SSDs, HDD’s, tape or other storage media to a cloud provider in the Internet era of fast networks. The reason can be quite simple; most environments do not have internet connection speeds of 10 GbE or higher that can be dedicated outside of regular use for data movement at scale.

Likewise, some public cloud service providers have limitations on the network speed of their front-end general-purpose Internet access.

Note that some such as AWS have high-speed, low latency direct connect services from partner staging locations. However, those too may be limited in speed for large bulk transfers. AWS also has other performance-enhanced services for general Internet access including S3 Transfer Acceleration. Note that Microsoft Azure has special connectivity options such as ExpressRoute, while Google Compute Platform (GCP) has Cloud Interconnect.

Is AWS SBE and CI, HCI, CiB or Appliance?

The answer to the question of if SBE is a Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI), Cloud in a Box (CiB) or Cloud Appliance depends on your view and definition of those deployment models. Some will argue that SBE is a CI or HCI as well as CiB based on what Cisco, Dell Technologies, HPE, Microsoft (Azure Stack and Windows S2D), NetApp, Nutanix, Pivot3 and VMware vSAN among others offerings.

On the other hand, some will argue that SBE is not the same as the above and others give it does not meet the definition of their CI, HCI, CiB or cloud appliance. What is important is not if CI, HCI, CiB or appliance, rather, what it can do, how it can adapt to your environment and work for you vs. you work for it. In other words, what is important is the enablement a solution provides vs. if it is CI, HCI, CIB or something else. Meanwhile watch to see who ignores SBE, who welcomes it to their market space, and who throws mud balls and fud balls at snowball.

When to use Snowball vs. Snowball Edge

If all you need is bulk data migration appliance using one of your servers or workstations for smaller amounts of data, traditional Snowball is a good fit. On the other hand, if you need to move more data, leverage SBE enabled on-prem compute with EC2 and Lambda functionality for short, or long-term duration, as well as scale-out to create a cluster, then SBE is for you. SBE is also a good fit for environments that need short-term, as well as the longer-term deployment of compute, storage and network (e.g., converged). For example, factory environments, rugged implementations on ships, energy exploration and processing, traveling venues and sporting events, distributed environments being consolidated among others.

AWS Regions, AZ locations
AWS Regions and AZ’s image Via AWS.com

What About AWS Snowball Edge Pricing

Pricing varies based on AWS region you are using for your transfer and management from. Another variable is if you are selecting data transfer only, or, enabling EC2 compute instance on-prem. Yet another pricing variable is how long you will keep the Snowball Edge on-prem. You are given ten (10) free days as part of your data transfer job along with days for shipping and return.

Beyond the ten free days, you will pay a daily rate that varies. The longer you keep the SBE on-prem, and for example commit to a one or three-year pre-pay, you will receive larger discounts. Also note that there are no data transfer fees for moving data into AWS. However, standard pricing applies once stored into AWS, or moved. Also note that standard AWS storage charges (e.g. S3, Glacier, along with API calls apply once data is stored).

As an example, data transfer only, the service fee for a data transfer job is USD 300 for the US and another non-Asia-Pacific (Singapore). Additional days are $30 each.

Another example is selecting data transfer plus EC2 compute instance which varies by region example is $500 for transfer job (US East Northern Virginia or Ohio), $50 a day extra fee. However, if you are will to pay up front for one year, the day fee drops to $42 (varies by region), and to $35 a day for a three commitment.

For some environments, it may cost less to buy a server with storage, set it up and manage, while for others, the simplicity of a turnkey converged platform may be more cost-effective along with better value. Learn more about AWS Snowball Edge pricing here.

Where to learn more

Learn more about AWS, Snowball Edge, Cloud and data infrastructures related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Has AWS embraced hybrid public cloud and on-prem computing? IMHO while AWS is making it easier for environments to use, access as well as move to public cloud, they are still focused on the public cloud as the destination. In other words, AWS is making it easy to move your data and applications to their services as well as access them with AWS Snowball Edge SBE Converged Cloud Storage Appliance.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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.

Google Cloud Platform GCP announced new Los Angeles Region

Google Cloud Platform GCP announced new Los Angeles Region

Google Cloud Platform GCP announced new Los Angeles Region

Google Cloud Platform GCP announced new Los Angeles Region

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) has announced a new Los Angeles Region (e.g., uswest-2) with three initial Availability Zones (AZ) also known as data centers. Keep in mind that a region is a geographic area that is made up of two or more AZ’s. Thus, a region has multiple data centers for availability, resiliency, durability.

The new GCP uswest-2 region is the fifth in the US and seventh in the Americas. GCP regions (and AZ’s) in the Americas include Iowa (us-central1), Montreal Quebec Canada (northamerica-northeast1), Northern Virginia (us-east4), Oregon (us-west1), Los Angeles (us-west2), South Carolina (us-east1) and Sao Paulo Brazil (southamerica-east1). View other Geographies as well as services including Europe and the Asia-Pacific here.

How Does GCP Compare to AWS and Azure?

The following are simple graphical comparisons of what Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure currently have deployed for regions and AZ’s across different geographies. Note, each region may have a different set of services available so check your cloud providers notes as to what is currently available at various locations.

Google Cloud Compute Platform regions
Google Compute Platform Locations (Regions and AZ’s) Image via Google.com

AWS Regions, AZ locations
AWS Regions and AZ’s image Via AWS.com

Microsoft Azure Cloud Region Locations
Microsoft Azure Regions and AZ’s image Via Azure.com

Where to learn more

Learn more about data infrastructures and related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Google continues to evolve its public cloud platform (GCP) both regarding geographical global physical locations (e.g., regions and AZ’s), also regarding feature, function, extensibility. By adding a new Los Angeles (e.g. uswest-2) Region and three AZ’s within it, Google is providing a local point of presence for data infrastructure intense (server compute, memory, I/O, storage) applications such as those in media, entertainment, high performance compute, aerospace among others in the southern California region.  Overall, Google Cloud Platform GCP announced new Los Angeles Region is good to see not only new features being added to GCP but also physical points of presences.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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.

2018 Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors to Watch

2018 Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors to Watch

2018 Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors to Watch

2018 Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors to Watch

Here is the 2018 Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch which includes startups as well as established vendors doing new things. This piece follows last year’s hot favorite trending data infrastructure vendors to watch list (here), as well as who will be top of storage world in a decade piece here.

2018 Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors to Watch
Data Infrastructures Support Information Systems Applications and Their Data

Data Infrastructures are what exists inside physical data centers and cloud availability zones (AZ) that are defined to provide traditional, as well as cloud services. Cloud and legacy data infrastructures are combined by hardware (server, storage, I/O network), software along with management tools, policies, tradecraft techniques (skills), best practices to support applications and their data. There are different types of data infrastructures to meet the needs of various environments that range in size, scope, focus, application workloads, along with Performance and capacity.

Another important aspect of data infrastructures is that they exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve applications that transform data into information. This means that availability and Data Protection including archive, backup, business continuance (BC), business resiliency (BR), disaster recovery (DR), privacy and security among other related topics, technology, techniques, and trends are essential data infrastructure topics.

2018 Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors to Watch
Different timelines of adoption and deployment for various audiences

2018 Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors to Watch

Some of those on this year’s list are focused on different technology areas, while others on size or types of vendors, suppliers, service providers. Others on the list are focused on who is new, startup, evolving, or established which varies from if you are an industry insider or IT customer environment. Meanwhile others new and some are established doing new things, mix of some you may not have heard of for those who want or need to have the most current list to rattle off startups for industry adoption (and deployment), as well as what some established players are doing that might lead to customer deployment (and adoption).

AMD – The AMD EPYC family of processors is opening up new opportunities for AMD to challenge Intel among others for a more significant share of the general-purpose compute market in support of data center and data infrastructure markets. An advantage that AMD has and is playing to in the industry speeds feeds, slots and watts price performance game is the ability to support more memory and PCIe lanes per socket than others including Intel. Keep in mind that PCIe lanes will become even more critical as NVMe deployment increases, as well as the use of GPU’s and faster Ethernet among other devices. Name brand vendors including Dell and HPE among others have announced or are shipping AMD EPYC based processors.

Aperion – Cloud and managed service provider with diverse capabilities.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) – Continues to expand its footprint regarding regions, availability zones (AZ) also known as data centers in regions, as well as some services along with the breadth of those capabilities. AWS has recently announced a new Snowball Edge (SBE) which in the past has been a data migration appliance now enhanced with on-prem Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) capabilities. What this means is that AWS can put on-prem compute capabilities as part of a storage appliance for short-term data movement, migration, conversion, importing of virtual machines and other items.

On the other hand, AWS can also be seen as using SBE as a first entry to placing equipment on-prem for hybrid clouds, or, converged infrastructure (CI), hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), cloud in a box similar to Microsoft Azure Stack, as well as CI/HCI solutions from others.

My prediction near term, however, is that CI/HCI vendors will either ignore SBE, downplay it, create some new marketing on why it is not CI/HCI or fud about vendor lock-in. In other words, make some popcorn and sit back, watch the show.

Backblaze – Low-cost, high-capacity cloud storage for backup and archiving provider known for their quarterly disk drive reliability ratings (or failure) reports. They have been around for a while, have a good reputation among those who use their services for being a low-cost alternative to the larger providers.

Barefoot networks – Some of you may already be aware of or following Barefoot Networks, while others may not have heard of them outside of the networking space. They have some impressive capabilities, are new, you probably have not heard of them, thus an excellent addition to this list.

Cloudian – Continue to evolve and no longer just another object storage solution, Cloudian has been expanding via organic technology development, as well as acquisitions giving them a broad portfolio of software-defined storage and tiering from on-prem to the cloud, block, file and object access.

Cloudflare – Not exactly a startup, some of you may know or are using Cloudflare, while to others, their role as a web cache, DNS, and other service is transparent. I have been using Cloudflare on my various sites for over a year, and like the security, DNS, cache and analytics tools they provide as a customer.

Cobalt Iron – For some, they might be new, Software-defined Data protection and management is the name of the game over at Cobalt Iron which has been around a few years under the radar compared to more popular players. If you have or are involved with IBM Tivoli aka TSM based backup and data protection among others, check out the exciting capabilities that Cobalt can bring to the table.

CTERA – Having been around for a while, to some they might not be a startup, on the other hand, they may be new to others while offering new data and file management options to others.

DataCore – You might know of DataCore for their software-defined storage and past storage hypervisor activity. However, they have a new piece of software MaxParallel that boost server storage I/O performance. The software installs on your Windows Server instance (bare metal, VM, or cloud instance) and shows you performance with and without acceleration which you can dynamically turn off and off.

DataDirect Networks (DDN) – Recently acquired Lustre assets from Intel, now picking up the storage startup Tintri pieces after it ceased operations. What this means is that while beefing up their traditional High-Performance Compute (HPC) and Super Compute (SC) focus, DDN is also expanding into broader markets.

Dell Technologies – At its recent Dell Technology World event in Las Vegas during late April, early May 2018, several announcements were made, including some tied to emerging Gen-Z along with composability. More recently, Dell Technologies along with VMware announced business structure and finance changes. Changes include VMware declaring a dividend, Dell Technologies being its largest shareholder will use proceeds to fund restricting and debt service. Read more about VMware and Dell Technology business and financial changes here.

Densify – With a name like Densify no surprise they propose to drive densification and automation with AI-powered deep learning to optimize application resource use across on-prem software-defined virtual as well as cloud instances and containers.

FlureDB – If you are into databases (SQL or NoSQL), as well as Blockchain or distributed ledgers, check out FlureDB.

Innovium.com – When it comes to data infrastructure and data center networking, Innovium is probably not on your radar, however, keep an eye on these folks and their TERALYNX switching silicon to see where it ends up given their performance claims.

Komprise – File, and data management solutions including tiering along with partners such as IBM.

Kubernetes – A few years ago OpenStack, then Docker containers was the favorite and trending discussion topic, then Mesos and along comes Kubernetes. It’s safe to say, at least for now, Kubernetes is settling in as a preferred open source industry and customer defecto choice (I want to say standard, however, will hold off on that for now) for container and related orchestration management. Besides, do it yourself (DiY) leveraging open source, there are also managed AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), and VMware Pivotal Container Service (PKS) among others. Besides Azure, Microsoft also includes Kubernetes support (along with Docker and Windows containers) as part of Windows Servers.

ManageEngine (part of Zoho) – Has data infrastructure monitoring technology called OpManager for keeping an eye on networking.

Marvel – Marvel may not be a familiar name (don’t confuse with comics), however, has been a critical component supplier to partners whose server or storage technology you may be familiar with or have yourself. Server, Storage, I/O Networking chip maker has closed on its acquisition of Cavium (who previously bought Qlogic among others). The combined company is well positioned as a key data infrastructure component supplier to various partners spanning servers, storage, I/O networking including Fibre Channel (FC), Ethernet, InfiniBand, NVMe (and NVMeoF) among others.

Mellanox – Known for their InfiniBand adapters, switches, and associated software, along with growing presence in RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), they are also well positioned for NVMe over Fabrics among other growth opportunities following recent boardroom updates, along with technology roadmap’s.

Microsoft – Azure public cloud continues to evolve similarly to AWS with more region locations, availability zone (AZ) data centers, as well as features and extensions. Microsoft also introduced about a year ago its hybrid on-prem CI/HCI cloud in a box platform appliance Azure Stack (read about my test drive here). However, there is more to Microsoft than just their current cloud first focus which means Windows (desktop), as well as Server, are also evolving. Currently, in public preview, Windows Server 2019 insiders build available to try out many new capabilities, some of which were covered in the recent free Microsoft Virtual Summit held in June. Key themes of Windows Server 2019 include security, performance, hybrid cloud, containers, software-defined storage and much more.

Microsemi – Has been around for a while is the combination of some vendors you may not have heard of or heard about in some time including PMC-Sierra (acquired Adaptec) and Vitesse among others. The reason I have Microsemi on this list is a combination of their acquisitions which might be an indicator of whom they pick up next. Another reason is that their components span data infrastructure topics from servers, storage, I/O and networking, PCIe and many more.

NVIDIA – GPU high performance compute and related compute offload technologies have been accessible for over a decade. More recently with new graphics and computational demands, GPU such as those NVIDIA are in need. Demand includes traditional graphics acceleration for physical and virtual, augmented and virtual reality, as well as cloud, along with compute-intensive analytics, AI, ML, DL along with other cognitive workloads.

NGDSystems (NGD) – Similar to what NVIDIA and other GPU vendors do for enabling compute offload for specific applications and workloads, NGD is working on a variation. That variation is to move offload compute capabilities for the server I/O storage-intensive workloads closer, in fact into storage system components such as SSDs and emerging SCMs and PMEMs. Unlike GPU based applications or workloads that tend to be more memory and compute intensive, NGD is positioned for applications that are the server I/O and storage intensive.

The premise of NGD is that they move the compute and application closer to where the data is, eliminating extra I/O, as well as reducing the amount of main server memory and compute cycles. If you are familiar with other server storage I/O offload engines and systems such as Oracle Exadata database appliance NGD is working at a tighter integration granularity. How it works is your application gets ported to run on the NGD storage platform which is SSD based and having a general-purpose processor. Your application is initiated from a host server, where it then runs on the NGD meaning I/Os are kept local to the storage system. Keep in mind that the best I/O is the one that you do not have to do, the second best is the one with the least resource or user impact.

Opvisor – Performance activity and capacity monitoring tools including for VMware environments.

Pavillon – Startup with an interesting NVMe based hardware appliance.

Quest – Having gained their independence as a free-standing company since divestiture from Dell Technologies (Dell had previously acquired Quest before EMC acquisition), Quest continues to make their data infrastructure related management tools available. Besides now being a standalone company again, keep an eye on Quest to see how they evolve their existing data protection and data infrastructure resource management tools portfolio via growth, acquisition, or, perhaps Quest will be on somebody else’s future growth list.

Retrospect – Far from being a startup, after gaining their independence from when EMC bought them several years ago, they have since continued to enhance their data protection technology. Disclosure, I have been a Retrospect customer since 2001 using it for on-site, as well as cloud data protection backups to the cloud.

Rubrik – Becoming more of a data infrastructure household name given their expanding technology portfolio and marketing efforts. More commonly known in smaller customer environments, as well as broadly within industry insider circles, Rubrik has potential with continued technology evolution to move further upmarket similar to how Commvault did back in the late 90s, just saying.

SkyScale – Cloud service provider that offers dedicated bare metal, as well as private, hybrid cloud instances along with GPU to support AI, ML, DL and other high performance,  compute workloads.

Snowflake – The name does not describe well what they do or who they are. However, they have an interesting cloud data warehouse (old school) large-scale data lakes (new school) technologies.

Strongbox – Not to be confused with technology such as those from Iosafe (e.g., waterproof, fireproof), Strongbox is a data protection storage solution for storing archives, backups, BC/BR/DR data, as well as cloud tiering. For those who are into buzzword bingo, think cloud tiering, object, cold storage among others. The technology evolved out of Crossroads and with David Cerf at the helm has branched out into a private company with keeping an eye on.

Storbyte – With longtime industry insider sales and marketing pro-Diamond Lauffin (formerly Nexsan) involved as Chief Evangelist, this is worth keeping an eye on and could be entertaining as well as exciting. In some ways it could be seen as a bit of Nexsan meets NVme meets NAND Flash meets cost-effective value storage dejavu play.

Talon – Enterprise storage and management solutions for file sharing across organizations, ROBO and cloud environments.

Ubitqui – Also known as UBNT is a data infrastructure networking vendor whose technologies span from WiFi access points (AP), high-performance antennas, routing, switching and related hardware, along with software solutions. UBNT is not as well-known in more larger environments as a Cisco or others. However, they are making a name for themselves moving from the edge to the core. That is, working from the edge with AP and routers, firewalls, gateways for the SMB, ROBO, SOHO as well as consumer (I have several of their APs, switches, routers and high-performance antennas along with management software), these technologies are also finding their way into larger environments. 

My first use of UBNT was several years ago when I needed to get an IP network connection to a remote building separated by several hundred yards of forest. The solution I found was to get a pair of UBNT NANO Apps, put them in secure bridge mode; now I have a high-performance WiFi service through a forest of trees. Since then have replaced an older Cisco router, several Cisco, and other APs, as well as the phased migration of switches.

UpdraftPlus– If you have a WordPress web or blog site, you should also have a UpdraftPlus plugin (go premium btw) for data protection. I have been using Updraft for several years on my various sites to backup and protect the MySQL databases and all other content. For those of you who are familiar with Spanning (e.g., was acquired by EMC then divested by Dell) and what they do for cloud applications, UpdraftPlus does similar for lower-end, smaller cloud-based applications.

Vexata – Startup scale out NVMe storage solution.

VMware – Expanding their cloud foundation from on-prem to in and on clouds including AWS among others. Data Infrastructure focus continues to expand from core to edge, server, storage, I/O, networking. With recent Dell Technologies and VMware declaring a dividend, should be interesting to see what lies ahead for both entities.

What About Those Not Mentioned?

By the way, if you were wondering about or why others are not in the above list, simple, check out last year’s list which includes Apcera, Blue Medora, Broadcom, Chelsio, Commvault, Compuverde, Datadog, Datrium, Docker, E8 Storage, Elastifile, Enmotus, Everspin, Excelero, Hedvig, Huawei, Intel, Kubernetes, Liqid, Maxta, Micron, Minio, NetApp, Neuvector, Noobaa, NVIDA, Pivot3, Pluribus Networks, Portwork, Rozo Systems, ScaleMP, Storpool, Stratoscale, SUSE Technology, Tidalscale, Turbonomic, Ubuntu, Veeam, Virtuozzo and WekaIO. Note that many of the above have expanded their capabilities in the past year and remain, or have become even more interesting to watch, while some might be on the future where are they now list sometime down the road. View additional vendors and service providers via our industry links and resources page here.

What About New, Emerging, Trending and Trendy Technologies

Bitcoin and Blockchain storage startups, some of which claim or would like to replace cloud storage taking on giants such as AWS S3 in the not so distant future have been popping up lately. Some of these have good and exciting stories if they can deliver on the hype along with the premise. A couple of names to drop include among others Filecoin, Maidsafe, Sia, Storj along with services from AWS, Azure, Google and a long list of others.

Besides Blockchain distributed ledgers, other technologies and trends to keep an eye on include compute processes from ARM to SoC, GPU, FPGA, ASIC for offload and specialized processing. GPU, ASIC, and FPGA are appearing in new deployments across cloud providers as they look to offload processing from their general servers to derive total effective productivity out of them. In other words, innovating by offloading to boost their effective return on investment (old ROI), as well as increase their return on innovation (the new ROI).

Other data infrastructure server I/O which also ties into storage and network trends to watch include Gen-Z that some may claim as the successor to PCIe, Ethernet, InfiniBand among others (hint, get ready for a new round of “something is dead” hype). Near-term the objective of Gen-Z is to coexist, complement PCIe, Ethernet, CPU to memory interconnect, while enabling more granular allocation of data infrastructure resources (e.g., composability). Besides watching who is part of the Gen-Z movement, keep an eye on who is not part of it yet, specifically Intel.

NVMe and its many variations from a server internal to networked NVMe over Fabrics (NVMeoF) along with its derivatives continue to gain both industry adoption, as well as customer deployment. There are some early NVMeoF based server storage deployments (along with marketing dollars). However, the server side NVMe customer adoption is where the dollars are moving to the vendors. In other words, it’s still early in the bigger broader NVMe and NVMeoF game.

Where to learn more

Learn more about data infrastructures and related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Let’s see how those mentioned last year as well as this year, along with some new and emerging vendors, service providers who did not get said end up next year, as well as the years after that.

2018 Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors to Watch
Different timelines of adoption and deployment for various audiences

Keep in mind that there is a difference between industry adoption and customer deployment, granted they are related. Likewise let’s see who will be at the top in three, five and ten years, which means some of the current top or favorite vendors may or may not be on the list, same with some of the established vendors. Meanwhile, check out the 2018 Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors to Watch.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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.

Dell Technologies Announces Class V VMware Tracking Stock exchange for stock or cash

Dell Technologies Announces Class V VMware Tracking Stock exchange for stock or cash

Dell Technologies Announces Class V VMware Tracking Stock exchange for stock or cash

Dell Technologies Announces Class V VMware Tracking Stock exchange for stock or cash.

Dell Technologies Announces Class V VMware Tracking Stock exchange for stock or cash
Image via Dell Technologies

Summary of Dell transaction announcement includes:

  • VMware declares an $11 Billion USD cash dividend pro rata to all VMware stock holders.
  • Given ownership percentage of VMware, Dell Technologies will receive approximately $9 Billion USD cash dividend.
  • Dell plans to list its Class C common stock shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
  • Dell plans to use the VMware dividend proceeds to fund cash consideration to be paid to Class V (tracking stock) shareholders.
  • For each Class V share (e.g. VMware tracking stock) shareholders can choose to receive:

    1.3665 shares of Dell Technologies Class C common stock, or
    $109 in cash per DVMT (Class V share) a 29% premium per share

Dell Announces Class V VMware Tracking Stock exchange for stock or cash
Image via Dell Technologies

Additional interest points of this transaction include:

  • Transaction expected to close Q4 CY2018, subject to Class V shareholder approval.
  • VMware maintains its independence as a separate publicly traded company.
  • Dell Technologies maintains its 81% ownership of VMware common stock
    Dell Technologies Class V (DVMT) shareholders will own 20.8% to 31.0% of Dell Class C (depending on cash election amounts).
  • Streamline Dell capital and ownership structure.
  • Establishes a public security (stock) in global end to end data infrastructure provider (e.g. Dell Technologies Stock on NYSE).
  • Enables financial flexibility for future strategic initiatives

Dell Announces Class V VMware Tracking Stock exchange for stock or cash
Image via Dell Technologies

Michael Dell and Silver Lake Continued Ownership

As part of this transaction, both Michael Dell and Silver Lake partners announce commitment to Dell Technologies. Michael Dell will continue to serve as Chairman and CEO, along with a committed stockholder beneficially owning between about 47% to 54% of Dell Technologies on a fully diluted basis. Silver Lake equity partners, an investor in Dell will continue its long-term partnership with Michael Dell beneficially owning between about 16%-18% of Dell Technologies on a fully diluted basis.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Dell Technologies, VMware, Data Infrastructures and related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

This announcement enables Dell to streamline its financial structure, while providing VMware shareholder with a dividend value. In addition, this Dell Technologies announcement puts to rest industry discussions of what will Michael Dell along with Dell Technologies and VMware do in the future. Speaking of the future, this transaction could also page the wave for future investment or acquisitions by Dell and/or VMware. Now the question is if you are a DVMT tracking stock shareholder, do you take the $109 USD cash, or, new Class C Dell Technologies stock? Now lets see how Dell Technologies Announces Class V VMware Tracking Stock exchange for stock or cash plays out during the rest of summer and into the fall.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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.

June 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

June 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

June 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

Volume 18, Issue 6 (June 2018)

Hello and welcome to the June 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter.

In cased you missed it, the May 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter can be viewed here (HTML and PDF).

In this issue buzzwords topics include AI, All Flash, HPC, Lustre, Multi Cloud, NVMe, NVMeoF, SAS, and SSD among others:

Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure update newsletter.

Cheers GS

Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

June data infrastructure, server, storage, I/O network, hardware, software, cloud, converged, and container as well as data protection industry activity includes among others:

Check out what’s new at Amazon Web Services (AWS) here, as well as Microsoft Azure here, Google Cloud Compute here, IBM Softlayer here, and OVH here. CTERA announced new cloud storage gateways (HC Series) for enterprise environments that include all flash SSD options, capacity up to 96TB (raw), Petabyte scale tiering to public and private cloud, 10 Gbe Ethernet connectivity, virtual machine deployment, along with high availability configuration.

Cray announced enhancements to its Lustre (parallel file system) based ClusterStor storage system for high performance compute (HPC) along with it previously acquired from Seagate (Who had acquired it as part of the Xyratex acquisition). New enhancements for ClusterStor include all flash SSD solution that will integrate and work with our existing hard disk drive (HDD) based systems.

In related Lustre based activity, DataDirect Network (DDN) has acquired from Intel, their Lustre File system capability. Intel acquired its Lustre capabilities via its purchase of Whamcloud back in 2012, and in 2017 announced that it was getting out of the Lustre business (here and here). DDN also announced new storage solutions for enabling HPC environment workloads along with Artificial Intelligence (AI) centric applications.

HPE which held its Discover event announced a $4 Billion USD investment over four years pertaining to development of edge technologies and services including software defined WAN (SD-WAN) and security among others.

Microsoft held its first virtual Windows Server Summit in June that outlined current and future plans for the operating system along with its hybrid cloud future.

Penguin computing has announced the Accelion solution for accessing geographically dispersed data enabling faster file transfer or other data movement functions.

SwiftStack has added multi cloud features (enhanced search, universal access, policy management, automation, data migration) and making them available via 1space open source project. 1space enables a single object namespace across different object storage locations including integration with OpenStack Swift.

Vexata announced a new version of its Vexata operating system (VX-OS) for its storage solution including NVMe over Fabric (NVMe-oF) support.

Speaking of NVMe and fabrics, the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) announced that the International Committee on Information Technology Standards (INCITS) has published T11 technical committee developed  Fibre Channel over NVMe (FC-NVMe) standard.

NVMe frontend NVMeoF
Various NVMe front-end including NVMeoF along with NVMe back-end devices (U.2, M.2, AiC)

Keep in mind that there are many different facets to NVMe including direct attached (M.2, U.2/8639, PCIe AiC) along with fabrics. Likewise, there are various fabric options for the NVMe protocol including over Fibre Channel (FC-NVMe), along with other NVMe over Fabrics including RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) as well as IP based among others. NVMe can be used as a front-end on storage systems supporting server attachment (e.g. competes with Fibre Channel, iSCSI, SAS among others).

Another variation of NVMe is as a back-end for attachment of drives or other NVMe based devices in storage systems, as well as servers. There is also end to end NVMe (e.g. both front-end and back-end) options. Keep context in mind when you hear or talk about NVMe and in particular, NVMe over fabrics, learn more about NVMe at https://storageioblog.com/nvme-place-volatile-memory-express/.

Toshiba announced new RM5 series of high capacity SAS SSDs for replacement of SATA devices in servers. The RM5 series being added to the Toshiba portfolio combine capacity and economics traditional associated with SATA SSDs along with performance as well as connectivity of SAS.

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

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIO Comments Content

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news, tips and articles

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via SearchStorage: Comments The storage administrator skills you need to keep up today
Via SearchStorage: Comments Managing storage for IoT data at the enterprise edge
Via SearchCloudComputing: Comments Hybrid cloud deployment demands a change in security mindset

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

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIOblog posts

Server StorageIOblog Data Infrastructure Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

Announcing Windows Server Summit Virtual Online Event
May 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter
Solving Application Server Storage I/O Performance Bottlenecks Webinar
Have you heard about the new CLOUD Act data regulation?
Data Protection Recovery Life Post World Backup Day Pre GDPR
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Insiders Preview
Which Enterprise HDD for Content Server Platform
Server Storage I/O Benchmark Performance Resource Tools
Introducing Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL Overview
Data Infrastructure Primer Overview (Its Whats Inside The Data Center)
If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Server StorageIO Recommended Reading (Watching and Listening) List

Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC

In addition to my own books including Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) available at Amazon.com (check out special sale price), the following are Server StorageIO data infrastructure recommended reading, watching and listening list items. The Server StorageIO data infrastructure recommended reading list includes various IT, Data Infrastructure and related topics including Intel Recommended Reading List (IRRL) for developers is a good resource to check out. Speaking of my books, Didier Van Hoye (@WorkingHardInIt) has a good review over on his site you can view here, also check out the rest of his great content while there.

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

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIO event activities

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

July 25, 2018 – Webinar – Data Protect & Storage

June 27, 2018 – Webinar – App Server Performance

June 26, 2018 – Webinar – Cloud App Optimize

May 29, 2018 – Webinar – Microsoft Windows as a Service

April 24, 2018 – Webinar – AWS and on-site, on-premises hybrid data protection

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

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

Various useful links and resources:

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

What this all means and wrap-up

Data Infrastructures are what exists inside physical data centers as well as spanning cloud, converged, hyper-converged, virtual, serverless and other software defined as well as legacy environments. NVMe continues to gain in industry adoption as well as customer deployment. Cloud adoption also continues along with multi-cloud deployments. Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure update newsletter and watch for more NVMe,cloud, data protection among other topics in future posts, articles, events, and newsletters.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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.

Announcing Windows Server Summit Virtual Online Event

Announcing Windows Server Summit Virtual Online Event

Dell Technology World 2018 Announcement Summary

Announcing Windows Server Summit Virtual Online Event

Microsoft will be hosting a free (no registration required) half day virtual (e.g. online) Windows Server Summit Virtual Online Event June 26, 2018 starting at 9AM PT. As part of its continued focus on supporting hybrid strategy spanning on-premises Windows Server to Azure (among others including AWS) cloud based, Microsoft is preparing for the launch later this year of Windows Server 2019.

There is no registration required, you can just show up without concern of getting email or other spam, however you can also click here to save the date, as well as here to get updates on the event.

Microsoft Windows Server LTSC and SAC release

Windows Server 2019 is now in insider preview (get it here) and is the next Long Term Service Channel (LTSC) release following Windows Server 2016. In the past, Microsoft would have called Windows Server 2019 something such as Windows Server 2016 R2, however that has changed with the new Semiannual Channel (SAC) and LTSC release cycles.

Keynote kick off presentations will be from Erin Chapple, Director of Program Management, Cloud + AI (which includes Windows Kernel, Hypervisors, Containers and Storage), Arpan Shah, General Manager of Azure Infrastructure marketing (Windows Server, Azure IaaS, Azure Stack, Azure Management and Security), and, Jeff Woosley Principal PM, Windows Server. In addition to the kick off presentations with current state and status of Windows Servers available for on-premises bare metal, virtual, container as well as cloud, there will be demos, Q&A, roadmap’s and much more. Topics will include new and recent functionalities such as Windows Server 2019, Windows Admin Center (formerly known as Honolulu), IoT, roadmap’s and much more.

Windows Server Summit HybridWindows Server Summit SecurityWindows Server Summit HCIWindows Server Summit Application Development
Images Via Microsoft Windows Server Summit Page

Windows Server Summit Break Out Tracks

During the Windows Server Summit, there will be four technology focused tracks including:

  • Hybrid – From on-premisess to Azure, how Windows Server supports different workloads in various configurations, along with associated management tools (including Windows Admin Center aka Honolulu)
  • Security – New and recent security enhancements for Windows Server along with Hyper-V and other related topics.
  • Application Platform – Containers and Linux support along with associated management tools for on-premisess and Azure.
  • Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) – Leveraging software defined storage (SDS) with Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) in Windows Server 2016, along with Hyper-V and other technologies, learn how Microsoft supports HCI and beyond.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Windows Server Summit and related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Windows Server remains relevant today for traditional, on site, on-premises, as well as on-premisess along with cloud, container among other deployments. Remember to click here to save the date, click here to sign up for Windows Server Summit updates and learn more about the Windows Server Summit Virtual Online event here, see there, or at least virtually.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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.

May 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

May 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

May 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

Volume 18, Issue 5 (May 2018)

Hello and welcome to the May 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter.

In cased you missed it, the April 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter can be viewed here (HTML and PDF).

May has been a busy month with a lot of data infrastructure related activity from software-defined virtual, cloud, container, converged, serverless to legacy, hardware, software, services, server, storage, I/O and networking along with data protection topics among others.

In this issue buzzwords topics include GDPR, NVMe, NVMeoF, Composable, Serverless, Data Protection, SCM, Gen-Z, MaaS:

Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure update newsletter.

Cheers GS

Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

May has been a busy month, some data infrastructure, server, storage, I/O network, hardware, software, cloud, converged, and container as well as data protection activity includes among others:

Depending on when you read this, the new global data protection regulations (GDPR) are either days away, or already in effect. For those who are not aware of GDPR other than seeing many inbox items in your email pertaining to it, here are some resources as a refresher or primer:

May Buzzword, Buzz Topic and Trends

Besides data protection and GDPR, other recent data infrastructure related news, trends, technologies and topics to keep an eye on (besides AI, ML, DL, AR/VR, IoT, Blockchain, Serverless) include Metal as a Service (MaaS) that might be familiar to some, for others, something new. Canonical has been busy for sometime now with MaaS including in Ubuntu and they are not alone with variations appearing with various managed service providers, hosting and cloud providers as well. NVMe has become a more common topic, technology, trend including for use in servers as well as over fabrics (e.g. NVMe over Fabrics) as a language for server, storage, I/O communication.

A new emerging companion to NVMe is Gen-Z which initially is a companion to PCIe. Longer term, Gen-Z could maybe possibly be a replacement, as well as for use accessing direct random access memory (DRAM) among other uses. Storage Class Memory (SCM) has been an industry conversation topic for several years now with new persistent memories (PMEM) that combine the best of traditional DRAM (Speed and write endurance) as well as persistent, higher capacity, lower cost of traditional NAND flash SSDs.

Another trend topic is that for some, ASIC, FPGA and GPU are new companions to standard commodity compute processors along with servers, yet for others it may be Dejavu as they have been being used for years (ok, decades) in some solutions. For now, two other buzzwords, buzz terms to add or refresh your data infrastructure vocabulary include distributed ledgers (aka blockchains), composable resources and ephemeral instance storage (storage on a cloud instance).

May NVMe Momentum Movement Activity

May saw a lot of NVMe related activity, from chips and components (adapters, devices) to systems spanning direct attached to NVMe over Fabric (NVMeoF). Here is a primer (or refresh) for NVMe along with various deployment options. NVMeoF includes RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) based, along with NVMe over Fibre Channel (FC-NVMe), as well as emerging NVMe over IP.

NVMe options
NVMe being used for front-end accessed via shared PCIe along with back-end devices

There are many different facets of NVMe including for use as a front-end on storage systems supporting server attachment (e.g. competes with Fibre Channel, iSCSI, SAS among others). Another variation of NVMe is as a back-end for attachment of drives or other NVMe based devices in storage systems, as well as servers.

NVMe backend
Front-end using traditional block SAN access with back-end NVMe, SAS and SATA devices

Read more about the many different options and variations of NVMe including key questions to ask or understand, deployment topology along with other related topics at thenvmeplace.com.

NVMe frontend NVMeoF
Various NVMe front-end including NVMeoF along with NVMe back-end devices (U.2, M.2, AiC)

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Activity

Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues to add new features, functionality as well as extending those as along with existing capabilities into various regions. Some recent updates include new Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) Microsoft Windows Servers versions 1709 and 1803 Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). Other AWS updates include spot instances support for Red Hat BYOL (Bring Your Own License), VPN enhancements, X1e instances available in Frankfurt, H1 instance price reduction, as well as LightSail now in Canada, Paris, and Seoul regions.

For those who are not familiar with LightSail, they are virtual private servers (VPS) which are different from traditional EC2 instances. LightSail can be a cost-effective way for those who need to move out of general population shared hosting, yet cannot justify a full EC2 instance while requiring more than a container.

The LightSail instance also is available with various software pre-installed such as for WordPress websites among others. For example, I have used LightSail as a backup and standby WordPress site for StorageIOblog using Updraft Plus  Pro for data protection.

In other news, AWS C5d EC2 instances are available in various regions. C5d instances are available with 2, 4, 8, 16, 36 and 72 vCPUs along with up to 1800GB of NVMe based ephemeral storage for on-demand reserved or spot instances.

Note that instance-based storage is temporary meaning that it persists for the life of the instance. What this means is that if you stop and restart the instance, the data is not persistence. Instance-based storage is useful for data that can be protected or persisted to other storage including EBS (Elastic Block Storage). Usage includes batch, log and analytics processing, burst buffers, cache or workspace.

AWS also announced a new Simple Storage Service (S3) storage class a month or so ago called One Zone Availability Infrequent Access. This new storage class primarily provides a lower cost of storage with lower durability (e.g., data spread across one zone vs. multiple). Over the past couple of months, I have been migrating from S3 Infrequent Access (IA) as well as standard into One Zone Availability. Some of my active data remains in S3 Standard storage class, while cold archives are in Glacier.

A tip about migrating to One Zone Availability, as well as between other S3 storage classes is paid attention to your API calls and monthly budget. You might see an increase in S3 costs during the migration time, that then settles into the lower prices once data has been moved due to API calls (gets, puts, lists, dir). In other words, pay attention to how many API calls you are allowed per storage class per month, along with other fees beyond focusing only on cost per TByte. Read about other recent AWS news updates here.

Software-defined storage startup Cloudian announced their technology available for test drive on Google Cloud Platform as part of a continued industry trend. That trend is for storage vendors to make their storage software technology available on different cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, Google, Softlayer among others.

Dell Technology World 2018

Dell Technologies made several announcements as part of Dell Technologies World that are covered in a series of posts here. Announcements included PowerMax the successor to VMAX, XtremIO X2 updates, new servers, workstations among many other items, read more here.

Besides the data infrastructure, cloud service providers and systems vendors, component suppliers including Cavium announced NVMe over Fibre Channel updates (here and here), along with Marvel NVMe updates here. HPE announced new thin clients and software (t430 Thin Client, HP mt44 Mobile Thin Client, HP ThinPro software), as well as updates to 3PAR and other storage solutions.

IBM announced various storage enhancements (and here) as well as a Happy 30th anniversary to the IBM Power9 based i systems. In other news, Kaseya bought backup data protection vendor Unitrends.

NVMe NAND flash Intel Optane

Micron announced the first quad layer cell (QLC) nand flash solid state device (SSD) named 52100 has begun shipping to select customers (and vendors). QLC packs or stacks 4 bits per cell. The 5200 is optimized for read-intensive workloads with up to 33% higher densities compared to previous generation TLC (triple layer cell) NAND flash. Broader market availability is expected to occur later fall 2018, 5210 form factor is 2.5” as a standard SSD or HDD, with capacities from 1.92TB to 7.68TB.

In other news, Micron also announced a $10 Billion (USD) stock repurchase plan, along with an extension of Intel 3D NAND flash memory partnership involving 3D NAND flash, as well as 96 layer 3D NAND. Meanwhile, various vendors are increasingly talking about how their systems are or will be storage class memory (SCM) ready including for use such as Micron 3D XPoint also known as Intel Optane among others.

Microsoft has placed into public preview Azure Active Directory (AAD) Storage authentication for Azure Blobs and Queues. Azure Storage Explorer is now released as version 1.0. AAD storage authentication enables organizations to implement role-based access control of Azure storage resources. Speaking of Azure, Microsoft has published several architectures, reference and other content at the Azure Virtual Datacenter portal here.

If you have not done so, check out Azure File Sync which is currently in public preview. Having been involved and using it for over a year including during private preview, Azure File Sync is an exciting, useful technology for creating a hybrid distributed file sharing with cloud tiering solutions. Learn more Azure File Sync here and here. In other news, Microsoft has announced a preview as part of the April 2018 Windows 10 build for a Hyper-V Google Android emulator support.

NetApp has had Azure based NAS storage in preview for a while now, and also announced Cloud Volumes on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). In addition to Cloud Volumes on AWS, Azure, and GCP, NetApp also announced enhanced NVMe based storage systems among other updates.

Two companies that have similar names are Opendrives (video workflow acceleration) and Opendrive (cloud storage, backup, and data protection). Meanwhile, data infrastructure startup Pavilion has received new funding as well as begun talking about their NVMe including NVMe over Fabric (NVMeOF) hardware storage system. Long-time data infrastructure converged server storage startup Pivot3 announced additional cloud workload mobility.

Pure storage made a couple of announcements including  FlashArray//X NVMe based shared accelerated storage system as well as NVIDIA (GPU powered) based AIRI Mini for AI/DL/ML.

Have you heard about Snowflake computing, aka, the cloud data warehouse solution? If not, check them out here. Another cloud-related data infrastructure vendor to look into is Upbound.io who have received additional funding for their multi-cloud management solutions.

Building off of recent VMware vSphere updates (here), and Dell Technology World here, the following is an excellent post about Instant Clone in vSphere 6.7, and VMware vSAN HCI assessment tool here.

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

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIO Comments Content

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news, tips and articles

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via SearchStorage: Comments Managing storage for IoT data at the enterprise edge
Via SearchCloudComputing: Comments Hybrid cloud deployment demands a change in security mindset
Via SearchStorage: Comments Dell EMC storage IPO, VMware merger plans still unclear
Via SearchStorage: Comments Dell EMC midrange storage keeps its overlapping arrays
Via SearchStorage: Comments Dell EMC all-flash PowerMax replaces VMAX, injects NVMe
Via IronMountain InfoGoto:  The growing Trend of Secondary Data Storage

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

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIOblog posts

Server StorageIOblog Data Infrastructure Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

Dell Technology World 2018 Announcement Summary
Part II Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details
Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details
Part IV Dell Technology World 2018 PowerEdge MX Gen-Z Composable Infrastructure
Part V Dell Technology World 2018 Server Converged Announcement Details
April 2018 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter
VMware vSphere vSAN vCenter version 6.7 SDDC Update Summary
PCIe Fundamentals Server Storage I/O Network Essentials
Have you heard about the new CLOUD Act data regulation?
Data Protection Recovery Life Post World Backup Day Pre GDPR
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Insiders Preview
Application Data Value Characteristics Everything Is Not The Same
Data Infrastructure Resource Links cloud data protection tradecraft trends
IT transformation Serverless Life Beyond DevOps Podcast
Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Topics Tools Techniques Technologies Tips
Introducing Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL Overview
Data Infrastructure Primer Overview (Its Whats Inside The Data Center)
If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Server StorageIO Recommended Reading (Watching and Listening) List

Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC

In addition to my own books including Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) available at Amazon.com (check out special sale price), the following are Server StorageIO data infrastructure recommended reading, watching and listening list items. The Server StorageIO data infrastructure recommended reading list includes various IT, Data Infrastructure and related topics including Intel Recommended Reading List (IRRL) for developers is a good resource to check out. Speaking of my books, Didier Van Hoye (@WorkingHardInIt) has a good review over on his site you can view here, also check out the rest of his great content while there.

Containers, serverless, kubernetes continue to gain in industry adoption, as well as customer deployments. Here is some information about Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Note that AWS has Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Google, VMware and Pivotal with Pivotal Kubernetes Service (PKS) among others.

Here is an interesting perspective by Ben Kepps about Serverless (e.g. life beyond Kubernetes and containers (e.g. life beyond virtualization which to some is or was life (e.g. life beyond bare metal))) as well as the all to often punditry, evangelism of something new causing something else to be dead.

SNIA has updated their Emerald aka Green energy effectiveness (focus on productivity) measurement specification (V3.01) including NAS NFS file activity (besides block). Learn more at snia.org/forums/green.

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

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIO event activities

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

June 27, 2018 – Webinar – TBA

May 29, 2018 – Webinar – Microsoft Windows as a Service

April 24, 2018 – Webinar – AWS and on-site, on-premises hybrid data protection

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

Data Infrastructure Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

Various useful links and resources:

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

Connect and Converse With Us

Storage IO RSS storageio linkedin storageio facebook Server StorageIO on twitter @StorageIO   Google+  Server StorageIO email storageio youtube  storageio instagram

Subscribe to Newsletter – Newsletter Archives StorageIO.comStorageIOblog.com

What this all means and wrap-up

Data Infrastructures are what exists inside physical data centers spanning cloud, converged, hyper-converged, virtual, serverless and other software defined as well as legacy environments. So far this spring there has been a lot of data infrastructure related activity, from new technology announcements, to events, trends among others. Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure update newsletter and watch for more NVMe, Gen-Z, cloud, data protection among other topics in future posts, articles, events, and newsletters.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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.

Dell Technology World 2018 Announcement Summary

Dell Technology World 2018 Announcement Summary

Dell Technology World 2018 Announcement Summary
This is part one of a five-part series about Dell Technology World 2018 announcement summary. Last week (April 30-May 3) I traveled to Las Vegas Nevada (LAS) to attend Dell Technology World 2018 (e.g., DTW 2018) as a guest of Dell (that is a disclosure btw). There were several announcements along with plenty of other activity from sessions, meetings, hallway and event networking taking place at Dell Technology World DTW 2018.

Major data infrastructure technology announcements include:

  • PowerMax all-flash array (AFA) solid state device (SSD) NVMe storage system
  • PowerEdge four-socket 2U and 4U rack servers
  • XtremIO X2 AFA SSD storage system updates
  • PowerEdge MX preview of future composable servers
  • Desktop and thin client along with other VDI updates
  • Cloud and networking enhancements

Besides the above, additional data infrastructure related announcements were made in association with Dell Technology family members including VMware along with other partners, as well as customer awards. Other updates and announcements were tied to business updates from Dell Technology, Dell Technical Capital (venture capital), and, Dell Financial Services.

Dell Technology World Buzzword Bingo Lineup

Some of the buzzword bingo terms, topics, acronyms from Dell Technology World 2018 included AFA, AI, Autonomous, Azure, Bare Metal, Big Data, Blockchain, CI, Cloud, Composable, Compression, Containers, Core, Data Analytics, Dedupe, Dell, DFS (Dell Financial Services), DFR (Data Footprint Reduction), Distributed Ledger, DL, Durability, Fabric, FPGA, GDPR, Gen-Z, GPU, HCI, HDD, HPC, Hybrid, IOP, Kubernetes, Latency, MaaS (Metal as a Service), ML, NFV, NSX, NVMe, NVMeoF, PACE (Performance Availability Capacity Economics), PCIe, Pivotal, PMEM, RAID, RPO, RTO, SAS, SATA, SC, SCM, SDDC, SDS, Socket, SSD, Stamp, TBW (Terabytes Written per day), VDI, venture capital, VMware and VR among others.

Dell Technology World 2018 Venue
Dell Technology World DTW 2018 Event and Venue

Dell Technology World 2018 was located at the combined Palazzo and Venetian hotels along with adjacent Sands Expo center kicking off Monday, April 30th and wrapping up May 4th.

The theme for Dell Technology World DTW 2018 was make it real, which in some ways was interesting given the focus on virtual including virtual reality (VR), software-defined data center (SDDC) virtualization, data infrastructure topics, along with artificial intelligence (AI).

Virtual Sky Dell Technology World 2018
Make it real – Venetian Palazzo St. Mark’s Square on the way to Sands Expo Center

There was plenty of AI, VR, SDDC along with other technologies, tools as well as some fun stuff to do including VR games.

Dell Technology World 2018 Commons Area
Dell Technology World Village Area near Key Note and Expo Halls

Dell Technology World 2018 Commons Area Drones
Dell Technology World Drone Flying Area

During a break from some meetings, I used a few minutes to fly a drone using VR which was interesting. I Have been operating drones (See some videos here) visually without dependence on first-person view (FPV) or relying on extensive autonomous operations instead flying heads up by hand for several years. Needless to say, the VR was interesting, granted encountered a bit of vertigo that I had to get used to.

Dell Technology World 2018 Commons Area Virtual Village
More views of the Dell Technology World Village and Commons Area with VR activity

Dell Technology World 2018 Commons Area Virtual Village
Dell Technology World Village and VR area

Dell Technology World 2018 Commons Area Virtual Village
Dell Technology World Bean Bag Area

Dell Technology World 2018 Announcement Summary

Ok, nuff with the AI, ML, DL, VR fun, time to move on to the business and technology topics of Dell Technologies World 2018.

What was announced at Dell Technology World 2018 included among others:

Dell Technology World 2018 PowerMax
Dell PowerMax Front View

Subsequent posts in this series take a deeper look at the various announcements as well as what they mean.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Dell Technology World 2018 and related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

On the surface it may appear that there was not much announced at Dell Technology World 2018 particular compared to some of the recent Dell EMC Worlds and EMC Worlds. However turns out that there was a lot announced, granted without some of the entertainment and circus like atmosphere of previous events. Continue reading here Part II Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details in this series, along with Part III here, Part IV here (including PowerEdge MX composable infrastructure leveraging Gen-Z) and Part V (servers and converged) here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers 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.

Part II Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details

Part II Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details

Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Summary
This is Part II Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details that is part of a five-post series (view part I here, part III here, part IV here and part V here). Last week (April 30-May 3) I traveled to Las Vegas Nevada (LAS) to attend Dell Technology World 2018 (e.g., DTW 2018) as a guest of Dell (that is a disclosure btw).

Dell Technology World 2018 Venue
Dell Technology World DTW 2018 Event and Venue

What was announced at Dell Technology World 2018 included among others:

Dell Technology World 2018 PowerMax
Dell PowerMax Front View

Dell Technology World 2018 Modern Data Center Announcement Details

Dell Technologies data infrastructure related announcements included new solutions competencies and expanded services deployment competencies with partners to boost deal size and revenues. An Internet of Things (IoT) solution competency was added with others planned including High-Performance Computing (HPC) / Super Computing (SC), Data Analytics, Business Applications and Security related topics. Dell Financial Services flexible consumption models announced at Dell EMC World 2017 provide flexible financing options for both partners as well as their clients.

Flexible Dell Financial Services cloud-like consumption model (e.g., pay for what you use) enhancements include reduced entry points for the Flex on Demand solutions across the Dell EMC storage portfolio. For example, Flex on Demand velocity pricing models for Dell EMC Unity All-Flash Array (AFA) solid state device (SSD) storage solution, and XtremIO X2 AFA systems with price points of less than USD 1,000.00 per month. The benefit is that Dell partners have a financial vehicle to help their midrange customers run consumption-based financing for all-flash storage without custom configurations resulting in faster deployment opportunities.

In other partner updates, Dell Technologies is enhancing the incentive program Dell EMC MyRewards program to help drive new business. Dell EMC MyRewards Program is an opt-in, points-based reward program for solution provider sales reps and systems engineers. MyRewards program is slated to replace the existing Partner Advantage and Sell & Earn programs with bigger and better promotions (up to 3x bonus payout, simplified global claiming).

What this means for partners is the ability to earn more while offering their clients new solutions with flexible financing and consumption-based pricing among other options. Other partner enhancements include update demo program, Proof of Concept (POC) program, and IT transformation campaigns.

Powering up the Modern Data Center and Future of Work

Powering up the modern data center along with future of work, part of the make it real theme of Dell Technologies world 2018 includes data infrastructure server, storage, I/O networking hardware, software and service solutions. These data infrastructure solutions include NVMe based storage, Converged Infrastructure (CI), hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), software-defined data center (SDDC), VMware based multi-clouds, along with modular infrastructure resources.

In addition to server and storage data infrastructure resources form desktop to data center, Dell also has a focus of enabling traditional as well as emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) as well as analytics applications. Besides providing data infrastructure resources to support AI, ML, DL, IoT and other applications along with their workloads, Dell is leveraging AI technology in some of their products for example PowerMax.

Other Dell Technologies announcements include Virtustream cloud risk management and compliance, along with Epic and SAP Digital Health healthcare software solutions. In addition to Virtustream, Dell Technologies cloud-related announcements also include VMware NSX network Virtual Cloud Network with Microsoft Azure support along with security enhancements. Refer here to recent April VMware vSphere, vCenter, vSAN, vRealize and other Virtual announcements as well as here for March VMware cloud updates.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Dell Technology World 2018 and related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

The above set of announcements span business to technology along with partner activity. Continue reading here (Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details) of this series, and part I (general summary) here, along with Part IV (PowerEdge MX Composable) here and part V here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers 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.

Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details

Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details

Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details

This is Part III Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcement Details that is part of a five-post series (view part I here, part II here, part IV (PowerEdge MX Composable) here and part V here). Last week (April 30-May 3) I traveled to Las Vegas Nevada (LAS) to attend Dell Technology World 2018 (e.g., DTW 2018) as a guest of Dell (that is a disclosure btw).

Dell Technology World 2018 Storage Announcements Include:

  • PowerMax – Enterprise class tier 0 and tier 1 all-flash array (AFA)
  • XtremIO X2 – Native replication and new entry-level pricing

Dell Technology World 2018 PowerMax back view
Back view of Dell PowerMax

Dell PowerMax Something Old, Something New, Something Fast Near You Soon

PowerMax is the new companion to VMAX. Positioned for traditional tier 0 and tier 1 enterprise-class applications and workloads, PowerMax is optimized for dense server virtualization and SDDC, SAP, Oracle, SQL Server along with other low-latency, high-performance database activity. Different target workloads include Mainframe as well as Open Systems, AI, ML, DL, Big Data, as well as consolidation.

The Dell PowerMax is an all-flash array (AFA) architecture with an end to end NVMe along with built-in AI and ML technology. Building on the architecture of Dell EMC VMAX (some models still available) with new faster processors, full end to end NVMe ready (e.g., front-end server attachment, back-end devices).

The AI and ML features of PowerMax PowerMaxOS include an engine (software) that learns and makes autonomous storage management decisions, as well as implementations including tiering. Other AI and ML enabled operations include performance optimizations based on I/O pattern recognition.

Other features of PowerMax besides increased speeds, feeds, performance includes data footprint reduction (DFR) inline deduplication along with enhanced compression. The DFR benefits include up to 5:1 data reduction for space efficiency, without performance impact to boost performance effectiveness. The DFR along with improved 2x rack density, along with up to 40% power savings (your results may vary) based on Dell claims to enable an impressive amount of performance, availability, capacity, economics (e.g., PACE) in a given number of cubic feet (or meters).

There are two PowerMax models including 2000 (scales from 1 to 2 redundant controllers) and 8000 (scales from 1 to 8 redundant controller nodes). Note that controller nodes are Intel Xeon multi-socket, multi-core processors enabling scale-up and scale-out performance, availability, and capacity. Competitors of the PowerMax include AFA solutions from HPE 3PAR, NetApp, and Pure Storage among others.

Dell Technology World 2018 PowerMax Front View
Front view of Dell PowerMax

Besides resiliency, data services along with data protection, Dell is claiming PowerMax is 2x faster than their nearest high-end storage system competitors with up to 150GB/sec (e.g., 1,200Gbps) of bandwidth, as well as up to 10 million IOPS with 50% lower latency compared to previous VMAX.

PowerMax is also a full end to end NVMe ready (both back-end and front-end). Back-end includes NVMe drives, devices, shelves, and enclosures) as well as front-end (future NVMe over Fabrics, e.g., NVMeoF). Being NVMeoF ready enables PowerMax to support future front-end server network connectivity options to traditional SAN Fibre Channel (FC), iSCSI among others.

PowerMax is also ready for new, emerging high speed, low-latency storage class memory (SCM).  SCM is the next generation of persistent memories (PMEM) having performance closer to traditional DRAM while persistence of flash SSD. Examples of SCM technologies entering the market include Intel Optane based on 3D XPoint, along with others such as those from Everspin among others.

IBM Z Zed Mainframe at Dell Technology World 2018
An IBM “Zed” Mainframe (in case you have never seen one)

Based on the performance claims, the Dell PowerMax has an interesting if not potentially industry leading power, performance, availability, capacity, economic footprint per cubic foot (or meter). It will be interesting to see some third-party validation or audits of Dell claims. Likewise, I look forward to seeing some real-world applied workloads of Dell PowerMax vs. other storage systems. Here are some additional perspectives Via SearchStorage: Dell EMC all-flash PowerMax replaces VMAX, injects NVMe


Dell PowerMax Visual Studio (Image via Dell.com)

To help with customer decision making, Dell has created an interactive VMAX and PowerMax configuration studio that you can use to try out as well as learn about different options here. View more Dell PowerMax speeds, feeds, slots, watts, features and functions here (PDF).

Dell Technology World 2018 XtremIO X2

XtremIO X2

Dell XtremIO X2 and XIOS 6.1 operating system (software-defined storage) enhanced with native replication across wide area networks (WAN). The new WAN replication is metadata-aware native to the XtremIO X2 that implements data footprint reduction (DFR) technology reducing the amount of data sent over network connections. The benefit is more data moved in a given amount of time along with better data protection requiring less time (and network) by only moving unique changed data.

Dell Technology World 2018 XtremIO X2 back view
Back View of XtremIO X2

Dell EMC claims to reduce WAN network bandwidth by up to 75% utilizing the new native XtremIO X2 native asynchronous replication. Also, Dell says XtremIO X2 requires up to 38% less storage space at disaster recovery and business resiliency locations while maintaining predictable recovery point objectives (RPO) of 30 seconds. Another XtremIO X2 announcement is a new entry model for customers at up to 55% lower cost than previous product generations. View more information about Dell XtremIO X2 here, along with speeds feeds here, here, as well as here.

What about Dell Midrange Storage Unity and SC?

Here are some perspectives Via SearchStorage: Dell EMC midrange storage keeps its overlapping arrays.

Dell Bulk and Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS)

One of the questions I had going into Dell Technology World 2018 was what is the status of ECS (and its predecessors Atmos as well as Centera) bulk object storage is given lack of messaging and news around it. Specifically, my concern was that if ECS is the platform for storing and managing data to be preserved for the future, what is the current status, state as well as future of ECS.

In conversations with the Dell ECS folks, ECS which has encompassed Centera functionality and it (ECS) is very much alive, stay tuned for more updates. Also, note that Centera has been EOL. However, its feature functionality has been absorbed by ECS meaning that data preserved can now be managed by ECS. While I can not divulge the details of some meeting discussions, I can say that I am comfortable (for now) with the future directions of ECS along with the data it manages, stay tuned for updates.

Dell Data Protection

What about Data Protection? Security was mentioned in several different contexts during Dell Technology World 2018, as was a strong physical security presence seen at the Palazzo and Sands venues. Likewise, there was a data protection presence at Dell Technologies World 2018 in the expo hall, as well as with various sessions.

What was heard was mainly around data protection management tools, hybrid, as well as data protection appliances and data domain-based solutions. Perhaps we will hear more from Dell Technologies World in the future about data protection related topics.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Dell Technology World 2018 and related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

If there was any doubt about would Dell keep EMC storage progressing forward, the above announcements help to show some examples of what they are doing. On the other hand, lets stay tuned to see what news and updates appear in the future pertaining to mid-range storage (e.g. Unity and SC) as well as Isilon, ScaleIO, Data Protection platforms as well as software among other technologies.

Continue reading part IV (PowerEdge MX Composable and Gen-Z) here in this series, as well as part I here, part II here, part IV (PowerEdge MX Composable) here, and, part V here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers 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.

Part IV Dell Technology World 2018 PowerEdge MX Gen-Z Composable Infrastructure

Part IV Dell Technology World 2018 PowerEdge MX Gen-Z Composable Infrastructure

Part IV Dell Technology World 2018 PowerEdge MX Gen-Z Composable Infrastructure
This is Part IV Dell Technology World 2018 PowerEdge MX Gen-Z Composable Infrastructure that is part of a five-post series (view part I here, part II here, part III here and part V here). Last week (April 30-May 3) I traveled to Las Vegas Nevada (LAS) to attend Dell Technology World 2018 (e.g., DTW 2018) as a guest of Dell (that is a disclosure btw).

Introducing PowerEdge MX Composable Infrastructure (the other CI)

Dell announced at Dell Technology World 2018 a preview of the new PowerEdge MX (kinetic) family of data infrastructure resource servers. PowerEdge MX is being developed to meet the needs of resource-centric data infrastructures that require scalability, as well as performance availability, capacity, economic (PACE) flexibility for diverse workloads. Read more about Dell PowerEdge MX, Gen-Z and composable infrastructures (the other CI) here.

Some of the workloads being targeted by PowerEdge MX include large-scale dense SDDC virtualization (and containers), private (or public clouds by service providers). Other workloads include AI, ML, DL, data analytics, HPC, SC, big data, in-memory database, software-defined storage (SDS), software-defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV) among others.

The new PowerEdge MX previewed will be announced later in 2018 featuring a flexible, decomposable, as well as composable architecture that enables resources to be disaggregated and reassigned or aggregated to meet particular needs (e.g., defined or composed). Instead of traditional software defined virtualization carving up servers in smaller virtual machines or containers to meet workload needs, PowerEdge MX is part of a next-generation approach to enable server resources to be leveraged at a finer granularity.

For example, today an entire server including all of its sockets, cores, memory, PCIe devices among other resources get allocated and defined for use. A server gets defined for use by an operating system when bare metal (or Metal as a Service) or a hypervisor. PowerEdge MX (and other platforms expected to enter the market) have a finer granularity where with a proper upper layer (or higher altitude) software resources can be allocated and defined to meet different needs.

What this means is the potential to allocate resources to a given server with more granularity and flexibility, as well as combine multiple server’s resources to create what appears to be a more massive server. There are vendors in the market who have been working on and enabling this type of approach for several years ranging from ScaleMP to startup Liqid and Tidal among others. However, at the heart of the Dell PowerEdge MX is the new emerging Gen-Z technology.

If you are not familiar with Gen-Z, add it to your buzzword bingo lineup and learn about it as it is coming your way. A brief overview of Gen-Z consortium and Gen-Z material and primer information here. A common question is if Gen-Z is a replacement for PCIe which for now is that they will coexist and complement each other. Another common question is if Gen-Z will replace Ethernet and InfiniBand and the answer is for now they complement each other. Another question is if Gen-Z will replace Intel Quick Path and another CPU device and memory interconnects and the answer is potentially, and in my opinion, watch to see how long Intel drags its feet.

Note that composability is another way of saying defined without saying defined, something to pay attention too as well as have some vendor fun with. Also, note that Dell is referent to PowerEdge MX and Kinetic architecture which is not the same as the Seagate Kinetic Ethernet-based object key value accessed drive initiative from a few years ago (learn more about Seagate Kinetic here). Learn more about Gen-Z and what Dell is doing here.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Dell Technology World 2018 and related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Dell has provided a glimpse of what they are working on pertaining composable infrastructure, the other CI, as well as Gen-Z and related next generation of servers with PowerEdge MX as well as Kinetic. Stay tuned for more about Gen-Z and composable infrastructures. Continue reading Part V (servers converged) in this series here, as well as part I here, part II here and part III here.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers 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.