Category: Data security

Encryption, Authentication, Authorization, Key management, digital rights management

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamentals Who Is Doing What Toolbox Technology Tools

Data Protection Toolbox Whos Doing What Technology Tools

Updated 1/17/2018

Data protection toolbox is a companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft ( CRC Press 2017)

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

By Greg Schulz – www.storageioblog.com November 26, 2017

This is Part 9 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Part 8 Walking The Data Protection Talk, and click here to view the next post Part 10 Data Protection Resources Where to Learn More.

Post in the series includes excerpts from Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) pertaining to data protection for legacy along with software defined data centers ( SDDC), data infrastructures in general along with related topics. In addition to excerpts, the posts also contain links to articles, tips, posts, videos, webinars, events and other companion material. Note that figure numbers in this series are those from the SDDI book and not in the order that they appear in the posts.

In this post the focus is around Data Protection who’s Doing What ( Toolbox Technology Tools).

SDDC, SDI, SDDI data infrastructure
Figure 1.5 Data Infrastructures and other IT Infrastructure Layers

who’s Doing What (Toolbox Technology Tools)

SDDC SDDI data center data protection toolbox
Data Protection Toolbox

Note that this post is evolving with additional tools, technologies, techniques, hardware, software, services being added over time along with applicable industry links.

The following are a sampling of some hardware, software, solution and component vendors along with service providers involved with data protection from RAID, Erasure Codes (EC) to snapshots, backup, BC, BR, DR, archive, security, cloud, bulk object storage, HDDs, SSD, tape among others including buzzword (and buzz term trends) bingo. Acronis, Actifio, Arcserve, ATTO, AWS, Backblaze, Barracuda, Broadcom, Caringo, Chelsio (offload), Code42/Crashplan, Cray, Ceph, Cisco, Cloudian, Cohesity, Compuverde, Commvault, Datadog, Datrium, Datos IO, DDN, Dell EMC, Druva, E8, Elastifile, Exagrid, Excelero, Fujifilm, Fujutsu, Google, HPE, Huawei, Hedvig, IBM, Intel, Iomega, Iron Mountain, IBM, Jungledisk, Kinetic key value drives (Seagate), Lenovo, LTO organization, Mangstor, Maxta, Mellanox (offload), Micron, Microsoft (Azure, Windows, Storage Spaces), Microsemi, Nakivo, NetApp, NooBaa, Nexsan, Nutanix, OpenIO, OpenStack (Swift), Oracle, Panasas, Panzura, Promise, Pure, Quantum, Quest, Qumulo, Retrospect, Riverbed, Rozo, Rubrik, Samsung, Scale, Scality, Seagate (DotHill), Sony, Solarwinds, Spectralogic, Starwind, Storpool, Strongbox, Sureline, Swiftstack, Synology, Toshiba, Tintri, Turbonomics, Unitrends, Unix and Linux platforms, Vantara, Veeam, VMware, Western Digital (Amplidata, Tegile and others), WekaIO, X-IO, Zadara and Zmanda among many others.

Note if you dont see yours, or your favorite, preferred or clients listed above or in the data Infrastructure industry related links send us a note for consideration to be included in future updates, or having a link, or sponsor spot pointing to your site added. Feel free to add a non sales marketing pitch to courteous comments to the comment section below.

View additional IT, data center and data Infrastructure along with data protection related vendors, services, tools, technologies links here.

Where To Learn More

Continue reading additional posts in this series of Data Infrastructure Data Protection fundamentals and companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017) book, as well as the following links covering technology, trends, tools, techniques, tradecraft and tips.

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

Part of modernizing data protection for various data center and data infrastructure environments is to know the tools, technologies and trends that are part of your data protection toolbox. The other part of modernizing data is protection is knowing the techniques of how to use different tools, technologies to meet various application workload performance, availability, capacity economic (PACE) needs.

Also keep in mind that information services requires applications (e.g. programs) and that programs are a combination of algorithms (code, rules, policies) and data structures (e.g. data and how it is organized including unstructured). What this means is that data protection needs to address not only data, also the applications, configuration settings, metadata as well as protecting the protection tools and its data.

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series, Part 10 Data Protection Fundamental Resources Where to Learn More.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Resources Where to Learn More

Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Resources Where to Learn More

Companion to Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft ( CRC Press 2017)

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

By Greg Schulz – www.storageioblog.com November 26, 2017

This is the last in a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Click here to view the previous post Part 9 – who’s Doing What ( Toolbox Technology Tools).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Post in the series includes excerpts from Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) pertaining to data protection for legacy along with software defined data centers ( SDDC), data infrastructures in general along with related topics. In addition to excerpts, the posts also contain links to articles, tips, posts, videos, webinars, events and other companion material. Note that figure numbers in this series are those from the SDDI book and not in the order that they appear in the posts.

In this post the focus is around Data Protection Resources Where to Learn More.

SDDC, SDI, SDDI data infrastructure
Figure 1.5 Data Infrastructures and other IT Infrastructure Layers

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Table of Contents (TOC)

Here is a link (PDF) to the table of contents (TOC) for Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials.

The following is a Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book TOC summary:

Chapter 1: Server Storage I/O and Data Infrastructure Fundamentals
Chapter 2: Application and IT Environments
Chapter 3: Bits, Bytes, Blobs, and Software-Defined Building Blocks
Chapter 4: Servers: Physical, Virtual, Cloud, and Containers
Chapter 5: Server I/O and Networking
Chapter 6: Servers and Storage-Defined Networking
Chapter 7: Storage Mediums and Component Devices
Chapter 8: Data Infrastructure Services: Access and Performance
Chapter 9: Data Infrastructure Services: Availability, RAS, and RAID
Chapter 10: Data Infrastructure Services: Availability, Recovery-Point Objective, and Security
Chapter 11: Data Infrastructure Services: Capacity and Data Reduction
Chapter 12: Storage Systems and Solutions (Products and Cloud)
Chapter 13: Data Infrastructure and Software-Defined Management
Chapter 14: Data Infrastructure Deployment Considerations
Chapter 15: Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Futures, Wrap-up, and Summary
Appendix A: Learning Experiences
Appendix B: Additional Learning, Tools, and tradecraft Tricks
Appendix C: Frequently Asked Questions
Appendix D: Book Shelf and Recommended Reading
Appendix E: Tools and Technologies Used in Support of This Book
Appendix F: How to Use This Book for Various Audiences
Appendix G: Companion Website and Where to Learn More
Glossary
Index

Click here to view (PDF) table of contents (TOC).

Data Protection Resources Where To Learn More

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

The following are the various posts that are part of this data protection series:

  • Part 1 – Data Infrastructure Data Protection Fundamentals
  • Part 2 – Reliability, Availability, Serviceability ( RAS) Data Protection Fundamentals
  • Part 3 – Data Protection Access Availability RAID Erasure Codes ( EC) including LRC
  • Part 4 – Data Protection Recovery Points (Archive, Backup, Snapshots, Versions)
  • Part 5 – Point In Time Data Protection Granularity Points of Interest
  • Part 6 – Data Protection Security Logical Physical Software Defined
  • Part 7 – Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends
  • Part 8 – Data Protection Diaries Walking Data Protection Talk
  • Part 9 – who’s Doing What ( Toolbox Technology Tools)
  • Part 10 – Data Protection Resources Where to Learn More


    • The following are various data protection blog posts:

  • Welcome to the Data Protection Diaries
  • Until the focus expands to data protection, backup is staying alive!
  • The blame game, Does cloud storage result in data loss?
  • Loss of data access vs. data loss
  • Revisiting RAID storage remains relevant and resources
  • Only you can prevent cloud (or other) data loss
  • Data protection is a shared responsibility
  • Time for CDP (Commonsense Data Protection)?
  • Data Infrastructure Server Storage I/O Tradecraft Trends (skills, experiences, knowledge)
  • My copies were corrupted: The [4] 3-2-1 rule and more about 4 3 2 1 as well as 3 2 1 here and here

    • The following are various data protection tips and articles:

  • Via Infostor Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
  • Via Network World What’s a data infrastructure?
  • Via Infostor Data Protection Gaps, Some Good, Some Not So Good
  • Via Infostor Object Storage is in your future
  • Via Iron Mountain Preventing Unexpected Disasters
  • Via InfoStor – The Many Variations of RAID Storage
  • Via InfoStor – RAID Remains Relevant, Really!
  • Via WservNews Cloud Storage Considerations (Microsoft Azure)
  • Via ComputerWeekly Time to restore from backup: Do you know where your data is?
  • Via Network World Ensure your data infrastructure remains available and resilient

    • The following are various data protection related webinars and events:

  • BrightTalk Webinar Data Protection Modernization – Protect, Preserve and Serve you Information
  • BrightTalk Webinar BCDR and Cloud Backup Protect Preserve and Secure Your Data Infrastructure
  • TechAdvisor Webinar (Free with registration) All You Need To Know about ROBO data protection
  • TechAdvisor Webinar (Free with registration) Tips for Moving from Backup to Full Disaster Recovery

    • The following are various data protection tools, technologies, services, vendor and industry resource links:

  • Various Data Infrastructure related news commentary, events, tips and articles
  • Data Center and Data Infrastructure industry links (vendors, services, tools, technologies, hardware, software)
  • Data Infrastructure server storage I/O network Recommended Reading List Book Shelf
  • Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC 2017) Book

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

    What This All Means

    Everything is not the same across environments, data centers, data infrastructures including SDDC, SDX and SDDI as well as applications along with their data.

    Likewise everything is and does not have to be the same when it comes to Data Protection.

    Since everything is not the same, various data protection approaches are needed to address various application performance, availability, capacity economic (PACE) needs, as well as SLO and SLAs.

    Data protection encompasses many different hardware, software, services including cloud technologies, tools, techniques, best practices, policies and tradecraft experience skills (e.g. knowing what to use when, where, why and how).

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    Context is important as different terms have various meanings depending on what they are being discussed with. Likewise different technologies and topics such as object, blob, backup, replication, RAID, erasure code (EC), mirroring, gaps (good, bad, ugly), snapshot, checkpoint, availability, durability among others have various meanings depending on context, as well as implementation approach.

    In most cases there is no bad technology or tool, granted there are some poor or bad (even ugly) implementations, as well as deployment or configuration decisions. What this means is the best technology or approach for your needs may be different from somebody else’s and vice versa.

    Some other points include there is no such thing as an information recession with more data generated every day, granted, how that data is transformed or stored can be in a smaller footprint. Likewise there is an increase in the size of data including unstructured big data, as well as the volume (how much data), as well as velocity (speed at which it is created, moved, processed, stored). This also means there is an increased dependency on data being available, accessible and intact with consistency. Thus the fundamental role of data Infrastructures (e.g. what’s inside the data center or cloud) is to combine resources, technologies, tools, techniques, best practices, policies, people skill set, experiences (e.g. tradecraft) to protect, preserve, secure and serve information (applications and data).

    modernizing data protection including backup, availability and related topics means more than swapping out one hardware, software, service or cloud for whatever is new, and then using it in old ways.

    What this means is to start using new (and old) things in new ways, for example move beyond using SSD or HDDs like tape as targets for backup or other data protection approaches. Instead use SSD, HDDs or cloud as a tier, yet also to enable faster protection and recovery by stepping back and rethinking what to protect, when, where, why, how and apply applicable techniques, tools and technologies. Find a balance between knowing all about the tools and trends while not understanding how to use those toolbox items, as well as knowing all about the techniques of how to use the tools, yet not knowing what the tools are.

    Want to learn more, have questions about specific tools, technologies, trends, vendors, products, services or techniques discussed in this series, send a note (info at storageio dot com) or via our contact page. We can set up a time to discuss your questions or needs pertaining to Data Protection as well as data infrastructures related topics from legacy to software defined virtual, cloud, container among others. For example consulting, advisory services, architecture strategy design, technology selection and acquisition coaching, education knowledge transfer sessions, seminars, webinars, special projects, test drive lab reviews or audits, content generation, videos, podcasts, custom content, chapter excerpts, demand generation among many other things.

    Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

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    AWS Announces New S3 Cloud Storage Security Encryption Features

    AWS Announces New S3 Cloud Storage Security Encryption Features

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Updated 1/17/2018

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently announced new Simple Storage Service (S3) e.g. AWS S3 encryption and security enhancements including Default Encryption, Permission Checks, Cross-Region Replication ACL Overwrite, Cross-Region Replication with KMS and Detailed Inventory Report. Another recent announcement by AWS is for PrivateLinks endpoints within a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).

    AWS Dashboard
    AWS Service Dashboard

    Default Encryption

    Extending previous security features, now you can mandate all objects stored in a given S3 bucket be encrypted without specifying a bucket policy that rejects non-encrypted objects. There are three server-side encryption (SSE) options for S3 objects including keys managed by S3, AWS KMS and SSE Customer ( SSE-C) managed keys. These options provide more flexibility as well as control for different environments along with increased granularity. Note that encryption can be forced on all objects in a bucket by specifying a bucket encryption configuration. When an unencrypted object is stored in an encrypted bucket, it will inherit the same encryption as the bucket, or, alternately specified by a PUT required.

    AWS S3 Bucket Encryption
    AWS S3 Buckets

    Permission Checks

    There is now an indicator on the S3 console dashboard prominently indicating which S3 buckets are publicly accessible. In the above image, some of my AWS S3 buckets are shown including one that is public facing. Note in the image above how there is a notion next to buckets that are open to public.

    Cross-Region Replication ACL Overwrite and KMS

    AWS Key Management Service (KMS) keys can be used for encrypting objects. Building on previous cross-region replication capabilities, now when you replicate objects across AWS accounts, a new ACL providing full access to the destination account can be specified.

    Detailed Inventory Report

    The S3 Inventory report ( which can also be encrypted) now includes the encryption status of each object.

    PrivateLink for AWS Services

    PrivateLinks enable AWS customers to access services from a VPC without using a public IP as well as traffic not having to go across the internet (e.g. keeps traffic within the AWS network. PrivateLink endpoints appear in Elastic Network Interface (ENI) with private IPs in your VPC and are highly available, resiliency and scalable. Besides scaling and resiliency, PrivateLink eliminates the need for white listing of public IPs as well as managing internet gateway, NAT and firewall proxies to connect to AWS services (Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2), Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), Kinesis Streams, Service Catalog, EC2 Systems Manager). Learn more about AWS PrivateLink for services here including  VPC Endpoint Pricing here. 

    Where To Learn More

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

    What This All Means

    Common cloud concern considerations include privacy and security. AWS S3 among other industry cloud service and storage providers have had their share of not so pleasant news coverage involving security.

    Keep in mind that data protection including security is a shared responsibility (and only you can prevent data loss). This means that the vendor or service provider has to take care of their responsibility making sure their solutions have proper data protection and security features by default, as well as extensions, and making those capabilities known to consumers.

    The other part of shared responsibility is that consumers and users of cloud services need to know what the capabilities are, defaults and options as well as when to use various approaches. Ultimately it is up to the user of a cloud service to implement best practices to leverage cloud as well as their own on-premises technologies so that they can support data infrastructure that in turn protect, preserve, secure and serve information (along with their applications and data).

    These are good enhancements by AWS to make their S3 cloud storage security encryption features available as well as provide options and awareness for users on how to use those capabilities.

     

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    October 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter



    Server StorageIO October 2017 Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

    Volume 17, Issue 10 (October 2017)

    Hello and welcome to the October 2017 issue of the Server StorageIO data infrastructure update newsletter.

    Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC

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

    In This Issue

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

    Cheers GS

    Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

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

    Startup Aparavi launched with a SaaS platform for managing long-term data retention. As part of a move to streamline the acquisition of Brocade by Broadcom (formerly known as Avago), the Brocade data center Ethernet networking business is being sold to Extreme networks. Datacore also updated their software defined storage solutions in October.

    Cisco announced new storage networking products and acquisition of Brodsoft (cloud calling and contact center solutions). As part of continued support for Fibre Channel based data infrastructure environments, Cisco has announced a 1U MDS 9132T 32 port 32 Gbps Fibre Channel Switch with FCP (SCSI Fibre Channel Protocol) now, and emerging FC-NVMe future support. Also announced are SAN telemetry activity monitoring, insight and event streaming for analysis in MDS 9700 32Gbps module.

    Cisco also announced interoperability for data center and data infrastructure insight, activity monitoring and telemetry with Virtual Instruments Virtual Wisdom technology eliminating the reliance on hardware based probes, along with Fibre Channel N-Port virtualization on Nexus 9300-FX DC switch.

    Commvault announced scale-out data protection with ScaleProtect for Cisco UCS platforms, along with their HyperScale appliance and HyperScale software.

    IBM had several October announcements include LTO 8 related, FlashSystem V9000 updates (e.g. All Flash Array) enclosure as well as hardware based compression, FlashSystem A9000 leveraging 3D TLC NAND flash (lower cost, higher capacity) among others.

    There is plenty of content (blogs, articles, podcasts, webinars, videos, white papers, presentations) on when to do containers, microservices and serverless compute including mesos, kubernetes and docker among others. What about when not to use those approaches or caveats to be aware of, here is such a piece (via Redhat) to have a look at.

    Granted if you are part of the micro services cheerleading bandwagon crowd you might not agree with the authors points, after all, everything is not the same in data centers and data infrastructures. Speaking of serverless, containers, here is a good post about Docker Swarm vs. Kubernetes management over at Upcloud.

    In Microsoft and Azure related activity, despite some early speculation in some venues that Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) was being discontinued as it was not part of Server release 1709, the reality is S2D is very much alive.

    Microsoft LTSC and SAC release cycles
    Image via Microsoft.com

    However some clarification is needed that might have lead to some initial speculation due to lack of understanding the new Microsoft release cycle.

    Microsoft has gone to Semi Annual Channel (SAC) releases that introduce new features in advance of the Long Term Support Channel (LTSC). LTSC are what you might be familiar with Windows and Windows Server releases that are updates spread out over time for a given major version (e.g. going from Server 2012 to Server 2012 R2 and so forth). The current Windows Server LTSC is the base introduced fall of 2016 along with incremental updates.

    By comparison, think of SAC as a branch channel for early adopters to get new features and with 1709 (e.g. September 2017), the focus is on containers. A mistake that has been made is to assume that a SAC release is actually a new major LTSC release, thus probably why some thought S2D was dead as it is not in SAC 1709. Indications from Microsoft are that there will be S2D enhancements in the next SAC, as well as future LTSC.

    For those interested in IoT, check out this Microsoft Azure IoT Hub and device twin document. Here is a post by Thomas Mauer looking at 10 hidden Hyper-V features to know about.

    In other activity, Minio announced experimental AWS S3 API support for Backblaze storage service. Software Defined Serverless Storage startup OpenIO gets $5M USD in additional funding. Quantum and other LTO Organization vendors have announced support for the new LTO version 8 tape drives and media. In addition to LTO 8, new roadmaps including out to LTO 12 are outlined here, and VMware vCloud Air is hosted by OVH. Western Digital Corporation (WDC) announced Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) enabled Hard Disk Drives (HDD) that will enable future, larger capacity devices to be brought to market.

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

    Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

    Via HPE Insights: Comments on Public cloud versus on-prem storage
    Via arsTechnica: Comments on cloud backup disaster recovery
    Via Gizmodo: Comments on WDC 40TB HDD
    Via CDW: Comments on Is Your Network About To Fail?
    Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Trends for Data Storage with Big Data Analytics
    Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on 8 ways to save on cloud storage
    Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Google Cloud Platform and Storage

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

    Server StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    In Case You Missed It #ICYMI

    View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

    Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Tips and Articles

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

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

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

    Server StorageIO Recommended Reading (Watching and Listening) List

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

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

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

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

    Docker: Up & Running: Shipping Reliable Containers in Production by Karl Matthias & Sean P. Kane via Amazon.com here.

    Essential Virtual SAN (VSAN): Administrator’s Guide to VMware Virtual SAN,2nd ed. by Cormac Hogan & Duncan Epping via Amazon.com here.

    Hadoop: The Definitive Guide: Storage and Analysis at Internet Scale by Tom White via Amazon.com here.

    Cisco IOS Cookbook: Field tested solutions to Cisco Router Problems by Kevin Dooley and Ian Brown Via Amazon.com here.

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

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

    Nov. 9, 2017 – Webinar – All You Need To Know about ROBO Data Protection Backup
    Nov. 2, 2017 – Webinar – Modern Data Protection for Hyper-Convergence
    Sep. 21, 2017 – MSP CMG – Minneapolis MN
    Sep. 20, 2017 – Webinar – BC, DR and Business Resiliency (BR) tips
    Sep. 14, 2017 – Fujifilm IT Executive Summit – Seattle WA
    Sep. 12, 2017 – SNIA Software Developers Conference (SDC) – Santa Clara CA
    Sep. 7, 2017 – Wipro SDX – Enabling, Planning Your Software Defined Journey

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

    Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    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 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.

    Posted on

    Data Infrastructure server storage I/O network Recommended Reading #blogtober

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends recommended reading list

    Updated 7/30/2018

    The following is an evolving recommended reading list of data infrastructure topics including, server, storage I/O, networking, cloud, virtual, container, data protection and related topics that includes books, blogs, podcast’s, events and industry links among other resources.

    Various Data Infrastructure including hardware, software, services related links:

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

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

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

    Duncan Epping (@DuncanYB), Frank Denneman (@FrankDenneman) and Neils Hagoort (@NHagoort) have released their VMware vSphere 6.7 Clustering Deep Dive book available at venues including Amazon.com. This is the latest in a series of Cluster and deep dive books from Frank and Duncan which if you are involved with VMware, SDDC and related software defined data infrastructures these should be on your bookshelf.

    Check out the Blogtober list of check out some of the blogs and posts occurring during October 2017 here.

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

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

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

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

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

    Docker: Up & Running: Shipping Reliable Containers in Production by Karl Matthias & Sean P. Kane via Amazon.com here.

    Essential Virtual SAN (VSAN): Administrator’s Guide to VMware Virtual SAN,2nd ed. by Cormac Hogan & Duncan Epping via Amazon.com here.

    Hadoop: The Definitive Guide: Storage and Analysis at Internet Scale by Tom White via Amazon.com here.

    Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud by Brendan Gregg Via Amazon.com here.

    Implementing Cloud Storage with OpenStack Swift by Amar Kapadia, Sreedhar Varma, & Kris Rajana Via Amazon.com here.

    The Human Face of Big Data by Rick Smolan & Jennifer Erwitt Via Amazon.com here.

    VMware vSphere 5.1 Clustering Deepdive (Vol. 1) by Duncan Epping & Frank Denneman Via Amazon.com here. Note: This is an older title, but there are still good fundamentals in it.

    Linux Administration: A Beginners Guide by Wale Soyinka Via Amazon.com here.

    TCP/IP Network Administration by Craig Hunt Via Amazon.com here.

    Cisco IOS Cookbook: Field tested solutions to Cisco Router Problems by Kevin Dooley and Ian Brown Via Amazon.com here.

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

    Seven Databases in Seven Weeks including NoSQL

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

    Additional Data Infrastructure and related topic sites

    In addition to those mentioned above, other sites, venues and data infrastructure related resources include:

    aiim.com – Archiving and records management trade group

    apache.org – Various open-source software

    blog.scottlowe.org – Scott Lowe VMware Networking and topics

    blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/virtual_pc_guy – Ben Armstrong Hyper-V blog

    brendangregg.com – Linux performance-related topics

    cablemap.info – Global network maps

    CMG.org – Computer Measurement Group (CMG)

    communities.vmware.com – VMware technical community and resources

    comptia.org – Various IT, cloud, and data infrastructure certifications

    cormachogan.com – Cormac Hogan VMware and vSAN related topics

    csrc.nist.gov – U.S. government cloud specifications

    dmtf.org – Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF)

    ethernetalliance.org – Ethernet industry trade group

    fibrechannel.org – Fibre Channel trade group

    github.com – Various open-source solutions and projects

    Intel Reading List – recommended reading list for developers

    ieee.org – Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

    ietf.org – Internet Engineering Task Force

    iso.org – International Standards Organizations

    it.toolbox.com – Various IT and data infrastructure topics forums

    labs.vmware.com/flings – VMware Fling additional tools and software

    nist.gov – National Institute of Standards and Technology

    nvmexpress.org – NVM Express (NVMe) industry trade group

    objectstoragecenter.com – Various object and cloud storage items

    opencompute.org – Open Compute Project (OCP) servers and related topics

    opendatacenteralliance.org – Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA)

    openfabrics.org – Open-fabric software industry group

    opennetworking.org – Open Networking Foundation (ONF)

    openstack.org – OpenStack resources

    pcisig.com – Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) trade group

    reddit.com – Various IT, cloud, and data infrastructure topics

    scsita.org – SCSI trade association (SAS and others)

    SNIA.org – Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA)

    Speakingintech.com – Popular industry and data infrastructure podcast

    Storage Bibliography – Collection of Dr. J. Metz storage related content

    technet.microsoft.com – Microsoft TechNet data infrastructure–related topics

    thenvmeplace.com – various NVMe and related tools, topics and links

    thevpad.com – Collection of various virtualization and related sites

    thessdplace.com – various NVM, SSD, flash, 3D XPoint related topics, tools, links

    tpc.org – Transaction Performance Council benchmark site

    vmug.org – VMware User Groups (VMUG)

    wahlnetwork.com – Chris Whal Networking and related topics

    yellow-bricks.com – Duncan Epping VMware and related topics

    Additional Data Infrastructure Venues

    Additional useful data infrastructure related information can be found at BizTechMagazine, BrightTalk, ChannelProNetwork, ChannelproSMB, ComputerWeekly, Computerworld, CRN, CruxialCIO, Data Center Journal (DCJ), Datacenterknowledge, and DZone. Other good sourses include Edtechmagazine, Enterprise Storage Forum, EnterpriseTech, Eweek.com, FedTech, Google+, HPCwire, InfoStor, ITKE, LinkedIn, NAB, Network Computing, Networkworld, and nextplatform. Also check out Reddit, Redmond Magazine and Webinars, Spiceworks Forums, StateTech, techcrunch.com, TechPageOne, TechTarget Venues (various Search sites, e.g., SearchStorage, SearchSSD, SearchAWS, and others), theregister.co.uk, TheVarGuy, Tom’s Hardware, and zdnet.com, among many others.

    Where To Learn More

    Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with 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 is an evolving collection of recommended reading including what I have on my physical and virtual bookshelves, as well as list of web sites, blogs and podcasts worth listening, reading or watching. Watch for more items to be added to the book shelf soon, and if you have a suggested recommendation, add it to the comments below.

    By the way, if you have not heard, its #Blogtober, check out some of the other blogs and posts occurring during October here as part of your recommended reading list.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

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    Cloud Conversations AWS Azure Service Maps via Microsoft

    Cloud Conversations AWS Azure Service Maps via Microsoft

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Updated 1/21/2018

    Microsoft has created an Amazon Web Service AWS Azure Service Map. The AWS Azure Service Map is a list created by Microsoft looks at corresponding services of both cloud providers.

    Azure AWS service map via Microsoft.com
    Image via Azure.Microsoft.com

    Note that this is an evolving work in progress from Microsoft and use it as a tool to help position the different services from Azure and AWS.

    Also note that not all features or services may not be available in different regions, visit Azure and AWS sites to see current availability.

    As with any comparison they are often dated the day they are posted hence this is a work in progress. If you are looking for another Microsoft created why Azure vs. AWS then check out this here. If you are looking for an AWS vs. Azure, do a simple Google (or Bing) search and watch all the various items appear, some sponsored, some not so sponsored among others.

    Whats In the Service Map

    The following AWS and Azure services are mapped:

    • Marketplace (e.g. where you select service offerings)
    • Compute (Virtual Machines instances, Containers, Virtual Private Servers, Serverless Microservices and Management)
    • Storage (Primary, Secondary, Archive, Premium SSD and HDD, Block, File, Object/Blobs, Tables, Queues, Import/Export, Bulk transfer, Backup, Data Protection, Disaster Recovery, Gateways)
    • Network & Content Delivery (Virtual networking, virtual private networks and virtual private cloud, domain name services (DNS), content delivery network (CDN), load balancing, direct connect, edge, alerts)
    • Database (Relational, SQL and NoSQL document and key value, caching, database migration)
    • Analytics and Big Data (data warehouse, data lake, data processing, real-time and batch, data orchestration, data platforms, analytics)
    • Intelligence and IoT (IoT hub and gateways, speech recognition, visualization, search, machine learning, AI)
    • Management and Monitoring (management, monitoring, advisor, DevOps)
    • Mobile Services (management, monitoring, administration)
    • Security, Identity and Access (Security, directory services, compliance, authorization, authentication, encryption, firewall
    • Developer Tools (workflow, messaging, email, API management, media trans coding, development tools, testing, DevOps)
    • Enterprise Integration (application integration, content management)

    Down load a PDF version of the service map from Microsoft here.

    Where To Learn More

    Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with 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 one hand this can and will likely be used as a comparison however use caution as both Azure and AWS services are rapidly evolving, adding new features, extending others. Likewise the service regions and site of data centers also continue to evolve thus use the above as a general guide or tool to help map what service offerings are similar between AWS and Azure.

    By the way, if you have not heard, its Blogtober, check out some of the other blogs and posts occurring during October here.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

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    Dell EMC VMware September 2017 Software Defined Data Infrastructure Updates

    Dell EMC VMware September 2017 Software Defined Data Infrastructure Updates

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Dell EMC VMware September 2017 Software Defined Data Infrastructure Updates

    vmworld 2017

    September was a busy month including VMworld in Las Vegas that featured many Dell EMC VMware (among other) software defined data infrastructure updates and announcements.

    A summary of September VMware (and partner) related announcements include:

    VMware on AWS via Amazon.com
    VMware and AWS via Amazon Web Services

    VMware and AWS

    Some of you might recall VMware earlier attempt at public cloud with vCloud Air service (see Server StorageIO lab test drive here) which has since been depreciated (e.g. retired). This new approach by VMware leverages the large global presence of AWS enabling customers to set up public or hybrid vSphere, vSAN and NSX based clouds, as well as software defined data centers (SDDC) and software defined data infrastructures (SDDI).

    VMware Cloud on AWS exists on a dedicated, single-tenant (unlike Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) multi-tenant instances or VMs) that supports from 4 to 16 underlying host per cluster. Unlike EC2 virtual machine instances, VMware Cloud on AWS is delivered on elastic bare-metal (e.g. dedicated private servers aka DPS). Note AWS EC2 is more commonly known, AWS also has other options for server compute including Lambda micro services serverless containers, as well as Lightsail virtual private servers (VPS).

    Besides servers with storage optimized I/O featuring low latency NVMe accessed SSDs, and applicable underlying server I/O networking, VMware Cloud on AWS leverages the VMware software stack directly on underlying host servers (e.g. there is no virtualization nesting taking place). This means more robust performance should be expected like in your on premise VMware environment. VM workloads can move between your onsite VMware systems and VMware Cloud on AWS using various tools. The VMware Cloud on AWS is delivered and managed by VMware, including pricing. Learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS here, and here (VMware PDF) and here (VMware Hands On Lab aka HOL).

    Read more about AWS September news and related updates here in this StorageIOblog post.

    VMware PKS
    VMware and Pivotal PKS via VMware.com

    Pivotal Container Service (PKS) and Google Kubernetes Partnership

    During VMworld VMware, Pivotal and Google announced a partnership for enabling Kubernetes container management called PKS (Pivotal Container Service). Kubernetes is evolving as a popular open source container microservice serverless management orchestration platform that has roots within Google. What this means is that what is good for Google and others for managing containers, is now good for VMware and Pivotal. In related news, VMware has become a platinum sponsor of the Cloud Native Compute Foundation (CNCF). If you are not familiar with CNCF, add it to your vocabulary and learn more here at www.cncf.io.

    Other VMworld and September VMware related announcements

    Hyper converged data infrastructure provider Maxta has announced a VMware vSphere Escape Pod (parachute not included ;) ) to facilitate migration from ESXi based to Red Hat Linux hypervisor environments. IBM and VMware for cloud partnership, along with Dell EMC, IBM and VMware joint cloud solutions. White listing of VMware vSphere VMs for enhanced security combine with earlier announced capabilities.

    Note that both VMware with vSphere ESXi and Microsoft with Hyper-V (Windows and Azure based) are supporting various approaches for securing Virtual Machines (VMs) and the hosts they run on. These enhancements are moving beyond simply encrypting the VMDK or VHDX virtual disks the VMs reside in or use, as well as more than password, ssh and other security measures. For example Microsoft is adding support for host guarded fabrics (and machine hosts) as well as shielded VMs. Keep an eye on how both VMware and Microsoft extend the data protection and security capabilities for software defined data infrastructures for their solutions and services.

    Dell EMC Announcements

    At VMworld in September Dell EMC announcements included:

    • Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI) and Hybrid Cloud enhancements
    • Data Protection, Goverence and Management suite updates
    • XtremIO X2 all flash array (AFA) availability optimized for vSphere and VDI

    HCI and Hybrid Cloud enhancements include VxRail Appliance, VxRack SDDC (vSphere 6.5, vSAN 6.6, NSX 6.3) along with hybrid cloud platforms (Enterprise Hybrid Cloud and Native Hybrid Cloud) along with vSAN Ready Nodes (vSAN 6.6 and encryption) and VMware Ready System. Note that Dell EMC in addition to supporting VMware hybrid clouds also previously announced solutions for Microsoft Azure Stack back in May.

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials at VMworld Bookstore

    xxxx

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

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

    Where To Learn More

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

    What This All Means

    A year ago at VMworld the initial conversations were started around what would become the VMware Cloud on AWS solution. Also a year ago besides VMware Integrated Containers (VIC) and some other pieces, the overall container and in particular related management story was a bit cloudy (pun intended). However, now the fog and cloud seem to be clearing with the PKS solution, along with details of VMware Cloud on AWS. Likewise vSphere, vSAN and NSX along with associated vRealize tools continue to evolve as well as customer deployment growing. All in all, VMware continues to evolve, let’s see how things progress now over the year until the next VMworld.

    By the way, if you have not heard, its Blogtober, check out some of the other blogs and posts occurring during October here.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Microsoft Azure September 2017 Software Defined Data Infrastructure Updates

    Microsoft Azure September 2017 Software Defined Data Infrastructure Updates

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Microsoft and Azure September 2017 Software Defined Data infrastructure Updates

    September was a busy month for data infrastructure topics as well as Microsoft in terms of new and enhanced technologies. Wrapping up September was Microsoft Ignite where Azure, Azure Stack, Windows, O365, AI, IoT, development tools announcements occurred, along with others from earlier in the month. As part of the September announcements, Microsoft released a new version of Windows server (e.g. 1709) that has a focus for enhanced container support. Note that if you have deployed Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) and are looking to upgrade to 1709, do your homework as there are some caveats that will cause you to wait for the next release. Note that there had been new storage related enhancements slated for the September update, however those were announced at Ignite to being pushed to the next semi-annual release. Learn more here and also here.

    Azure Files and NFS

    Microsoft made several Azure file storage related announcements and public previews during September including Native NFS based file sharing as companion to existing Azure Files, along with public preview of new Azure File Sync Service. Native NFS based file sharing (public preview announced, service is slated to be available in 2018) is a software defined storage deployment of NetApp OnTAP running on top of Azure data infrastructure including virtual machines and leverage Azure underlying storage.

    Note that the new native NFS is in addition to the earlier native Azure Files accessed via HTTP REST and SMB3 enabling sharing of files inside Azure public cloud, as well as accessible externally from Windows based and Linux platforms including on premises. Learn more about Azure Storage and Azure Files here.

    Azure File Sync (AFS)

    Azure File Sync AFS

    Azure File Sync (AFS) has now entered public preview. While users of Windows-based systems have been able to access and share Azure Files in the past, AFS is something different. I have used AFS for some time now during several private preview iterations having seen how it has evolved, along with how Microsoft listens incorporating feedback into the solution.

    Lets take a look at what is AFS, what it does, how it works, where and when to use it among other considerations. With AFS, different and independent systems can now synchronize file shares through Azure. Currently in the AFS preview Windows Server 2012 and 2016 are supported including bare metal, virtual, and cloud based. For example I have had bare metal, virtual (VMware), cloud (Azure and AWS) as part of participating in a file sync activities using AFS.

    Not to be confused with some other storage related AFS including Andrew File System among others, the new Microsoft Azure File Sync service enables files to be synchronized across different servers via Azure. This is different then the previous available Azure File Share service that enables files stored in Azure cloud storage to be accessed via Windows and Linux systems within Azure, as well as natively by Windows platforms outside of Azure. Likewise this is different from the recently announced Microsoft Azure native NFS file sharing serving service in partnership with NetApp (e.g. powered by OnTAP cloud).

    AFS can be used to synchronize across different on premise as well as cloud servers that can also function as cache. What this means is that for Windows work folders served via different on premise servers, those files can be synchronized across Azure to other locations. Besides providing a cache, cloud tiering and enterprise file sync share (EFSS) capabilities, AFS also has robust optimization for data movement to and from the cloud and across sites, along with management tools. Management tools including diagnostics, performance and activity monitoring among others.

    Check out the AFS preview including planning for an Azure File Sync (preview) deployment (Docs Microsoft), and for those who have Yammer accounts, here is the AFS preview group link.

    Microsoft Azure Blob Events via Microsoft

    Azure Blob Storage Tiering and Event Triggers

    Two other Azure storage features that are in public preview include blob tiering (for cold archiving) and event triggers for events. As their names imply, blob tiering enables automatic migration from active to cold inactive storage of dormant date. Event triggers are policies rules (code) that get executed when a blob is stored to do various functions or tasks. Here is an overview of blob events and a quick start from Microsoft here.

    Keep in mind that not all blob and object storage are the same, a good example is Microsoft Azure that has page, block and append blobs. Append blobs are similar to what you might be familiar with other services objects. Here is a Microsoft overview of various Azure blobs including what to use when.

    Project Honolulu and Windows Server Enhancements

    Microsoft has evolved from command prompt (e.g. early MSDOS) to GUI with Windows to command line extending into PowerShell that left some thinking there is no longer need for GUI. Even though Microsoft has extended its CLI with PowerShell spanning WIndows platforms and Azure, along with adding Linux command shell, there are those who still want or need a GUI. Project Honolulu is the effort to bring GUI based management back to Windows in a simplified way for what had been headless, and desktop less deployments (e.g. Nano, Server Core). Microsoft had Server Management Tools (SMT) accessible via the Azure Portal which has been discontinued.


    Project Honolulu Image via Microsoft.com

    This is where project Honolulu comes into play for managing Windows Server platforms. What this means is that for those who dont want to rely on or have a PowerShell dependency have an alternative option. Learn more about Project Honolulu here and here, including download the public preview here.

    Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) Kepler Appliance

    Data Infrastructure provider DataOn has announced a new turnkey Windows Server 2016 Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) powered Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (e.g. productization of project Kepler-47) solution with two node small form factor servers (partner with MSI). How small? Think suitcase or airplane roller board carry on luggage size.

    What this means is that you can get into the converged, hyper-converged software defined storage game with Windows-based servers supporting Hyper-V virtual machines (Windows and Linux) including hardware for around $10,000 USD (varies by configuration and other options).

    Azure and Microsoft Networking News

    Speaking of Microsoft Azure public cloud, ever wonder what the network that enables the service looks like and some of the software defined networking (SDN) along with network virtualization function (NFV) objectives are, have a look at this piece from over at Data Center Knowledge.

    In related Windows, Azure and other focus areas, Microsoft, Facebook and Telxius have completed the installation of a high-capacity subsea cable (network) to cross the atlantic ocean. Whats so interesting from a data infrastructure, cloud or legacy server storage I/O and data center focus perspective? The new network was built by the combined companies vs. in the past by a Telco provider consortium with the subsequent bandwidth sold or leased to others.

    This new network is also 4,000 miles long including in depths of 11,000 feet, supports with current optics 160 terabits (e.g. 20 TeraBytes) per second capable of supporting 71 million HD videos streamed simultaneous. To put things into perspective, some residential Fiber Optic services can operate best case up to 1 gigabit per second (line speed) and in an asymmetrical fashion (faster download than uploads). Granted there are some 10 Gbit based services out there more common with commercial than residential. Simply put, there is a large amount of bandwidth increased across the atlantic for Microsoft and Facebook to support growing demands.

    Where To Learn More

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

    What This All Means

    Microsoft announced a new release of Windows Server at Ignite as part of its new semi-annual release cycle. This latest version of Windows server is optimized for containers. In addition to Windows server enhancements, Microsoft continues to extend Azure and related technologies for public, private and hybrid cloud as well as software defined data infrastructures.

    By the way, if you have not heard, its Blogtober, check out some of the other blogs and posts occurring during October here.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Getting Caught Up What Happened In September 2017

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Getting Caught Up, What Happened In September?

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

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

    vmworld 2017

    VMworld Las Vegas

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

    xxxx

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

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

    Software Defined Everything (x)

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

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

    Image via snia.org

    Role of Storage in a Software Defined Data Infrastructure

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

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

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

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

    tape and cloud storage

    Tape in a Software Defined and Hybrid Cloud World

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

    Focus on Data Protection (and recovery)

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

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

    Additional data protection related topics and content include:

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

    Expanding Your Data Infrastructure Tradecraft

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

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

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

    Where To Learn More

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

    What This All Means

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    August 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter



    Server StorageIO August 2017 Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

    Volume 17, Issue VII (Pre VMworld 2017)

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

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

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

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

    In This Issue

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

    Cheers GS

    Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

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

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

    GPU vendor NVIDIA announced Quadro Virtual Data Center workstation technology.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

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

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

    Server StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    In Case You Missed It #ICYMI

    View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

    Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Tips and Articles

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

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

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

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

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

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

    Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch

    Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Updated 1/21/2018

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

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

    Some Popular Trending Vendors To Watch

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

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

    Some Popular Trending Technology Trends

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

    Where To Learn More

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

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

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    What This All Means

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Announcing Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book by Greg Schulz

    New SDDI Essentials Book by Greg Schulz of Server StorageIO

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

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Update 1/21/2018

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book Announcement

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials

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

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book topics include:

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

    Where To Purchase Your Copy

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

    What People Are Saying About Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book

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

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

    Gert and Frank Brouwer – Brouwer Storage Consultancy

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

    Mark McSherry- Oracle Regional Sales Manager

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

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

    SDDI and SDDC components

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC content

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

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

    Book Features

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

    SDDI and SDDC toolbox

    Where To Learn More

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

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    What This All Means

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

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Chelsio Storage over IP and other Networks Enable Data Infrastructures

    Chelsio Storage over IP Enable Data Infrastructures

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

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

    Server Storage over IP Revisited

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

    Who is Chelsio

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

    Chelsio data infrastructure focus

    Chelsio ecosystem across different data infrastructure focus areas and application workloads

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

    Chelsio server storage I/O focus

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

    Chelsio enabling various data center resources

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

    Chelsio ecosystem

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

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

    Chelsio software environments

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

    Chelsio server storage I/O performance

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

    Chelsio

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

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

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

    Chelsio

    Where To Learn More

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

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

    What This All Means

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

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

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Microsoft Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Reference Resources

    Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Architecture Resources

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

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

    Microsoft Azure Software Defined Cloud
    Azure Reference Architectures via Microsoft Azure

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

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

    Microsoft Azure Sharepoint HA reference architecture
    Sharepoint HA via Microsoft Azure

    Where To Learn More

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

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

    What This All Means

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.
    Gs

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

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

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