Category: little data

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PACE your Server Storage I/O decision making, its about application requirements

PACE your Server Storage I/O decision making, its about application requirements

PACE your Server Storage I/O decision-making, it’s about application requirements. Regardless of if you are looking for physical, software-defined virtual, cloud or container storage, block, file or object, primary, secondary or protection copies, standalone, converged, hyper-converged, cluster in a box or other forms of storage and packaging, when it comes to server storage I/O decision-making, it’s about the applications.

I often see people deciding on the best storage before the questions of requirements, needs and wants are even mentioned. Sure the technology is important, so too are the techniques and trends including using new things in new ways, as well as old things in new ways. There are lots of buzzwords on the storage scene these days. But don’t even think about buying it until you truly understand your business’ storage needs.

However when it comes down to it unless you have a unique need, most environments server, and storage I/O resources exist to protect preserve and serve applications and their information or data. Recently I did a couple of articles over at Network Computing; these are tied to server and storage I/O decision-making balancing technology buzzwords with business and application requirements.

PACE and common applications characteristics

PACE your server storage decisions

A theme I mention in the above two articles as well as elsewhere on server, storage I/O and applications is PACE. That is, application Performance Availability Capacity Economics (PACE). Different applications will have various attributes, in general, as well as how they are used. For example database transaction activity vs. reporting or analytics, logs and journals vs. redo logs, indices, tables, indices, import/export, scratch and temp space. PACE (figure 2.7) describes the applications and data characters and needs.

Server Storage I/O PACE

Common Application Pace Attributes

All applications have PACE attributes

  • Those PACE attributes vary by application and usage
  • Some applications and their data are more active vs. others
  • PACE characteristics will vary within different parts of an application

Think of an application along with associated data PACE as its personality or how it behaves, what it does, how it does it and when along with value, benefit or cost along with Quality of Service (QoS) attributes. Understanding the applications in different environments, data value and associated PACE attributes is essential for making informed server, storage I/O decisions from configuration to acquisitions or upgrades, when, where, why and how to protect, or performance optimization along with capacity planning, reporting, and troubleshooting, not to mention addressing budget concerns.

Data and Application PACE

Primary PACE attributes for active and inactive applications and data:
P – Performance and activity (how things get used)
A – Availability and durability (resiliency and protection)
C – Capacity and space (what things use or occupy)
E – Energy and Economics (people, budgets and other barriers)

Some applications need more performance (server computer, or storage and network I/O) while others need space capacity (storage, memory, network or I/O connectivity). Likewise, some applications have different availability needs (data protection, durability, security, resiliency, backup, BC, DR) that determine various tools, technologies and techniques to use. Budgets are also a concern which for some applications meaning enabling more performance per cost while others are focused on maximizing space capacity and protection level per cost. PACE attributes also define or influence policies for QoS (performance, availability, capacity), as well as thresholds, limits, quotas, retention and disposition among others.

Where to learn more

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

The best storage will be the one that meets or exceeds your application requirements instead of the solution that meets somebody else’s needs or wants. Keep in mind, PACE your Server Storage I/O decision making, it is about application requirements

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

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Driving ROI with Cloud Storage Consolidation Seminars

Driving ROI with Cloud Storage Consolidation Seminars

Driving ROI with Cloud Storage Consolidation Seminars

Driving ROI with Cloud Storage Consolidation Seminars

Join me in a series of in-person seminars driving ROI with cloud storage consolidation for unstructured file data.

driving roi with cloud storage consolidation seminars
Various Data Infrastructure options from on-prem to edge to cloud and beyond

These initial seminars are being held at Amazon Web Services (AWS) locations April 30 in New York City, May 1 in Chicago and May 2 in Houston Amazon. At each of these three cities, I will be joined by experts from NetApp, Talon and AWS as we look at issues, trends and what can be done today (including hands on demos) driving ROI with cloud storage consolidation for unstructured file data.

What The Seminars Are About

These seminars look at how remove cost and complexity while boosting productivity for distributed sites with unstructured data and NAS file servers. The seminars look at making informed decisions balancing technical considerations with a business return on investment (ROI) model, along with return on innovation (the other ROI) from boosting productivity. It’s not about simply cutting costs that can create chaos or compromise elsewhere, it’s about removing complexity and cost while boosting productivity with smart cloud storage consolidation for unstructured file data.

distributed file server cloud storage consolidation

Distributed File Server Cloud Storage Consolidation ROI Economic Comparison

During these seminars I will discuss various industry and customer trends, challenges as well as solutions, particular for environments with distributed file servers for unstructured file data. As part of my discussion, we will look at both technical, as well as ROI business based model for distributed file server cloud storage consolidation based on the Server StorageIO white paper report titled Cloud File Data Storage Consolidation and Economic Comparison Model (Free PDF download here).

Where When and How to Register

New York City Tuesday April 30, 2019 9:00AM
Amazon Web Services
7 West 34th St.
6th Floor
Learn more and register here.

Chicago Illinois  Wednesday May 1, 2019 9:00AM
Amazon Web Services
222 West Adams Street
Suite 1400
Learn more and register here

Houston Texas Thursday May 2, 2019 9:00AM
Amazon Web Services
825 Town and Country Lane
Suite 1000
Learn more and register here

Where to learn more

Learn more about world backup day, recovery and data protection along with other related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Making informed decisions for data infrastructure resources including cloud storage consolidation and distributed file servers involves technical, application workload as well as business economic analysis. Which of the three (technical, application workload, financial) is more important for enabling a business benefit will depend on your perspective, as well as area of focus. However, all the above need to be considered in the balance as part of making an informed data infrastructure resource decision. That is where a discussion about a business financial ROI model (pro forma if you prefer) comes into play as part of cloud storage consolidation, including for distributed file server of unstructured file data.

I look forward to meeting with attendees and hope to see you at the events April 30th in New York City, May 1 in Chicago, and Houston May 2nd as we discuss driving ROI with cloud storage consolidation at these seminars.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers GS

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, ten-time VMware vExpert. Author of Data Infrastructure Insights (CRC Press), 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. Also visit www.picturesoverstillwater.com to view various UAS/UAV e.g. drone based aerial content created by Greg Schulz. 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. Visit our companion site https://picturesoverstillwater.com to view drone based aerial photography and video related topics. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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Fall 2018 Dutch Data Infrastructure Industry Trends Decision Making Seminars

Fall 2018 Dutch Data Infrastructure Industry Trends Decision Making Seminars

Fall 2018 Dutch Data Infrastructure Industry Trends Decision Making Seminars

Fall 2018 Dutch Data Infrastructure Industry Trends Decision Making Seminars.

There is still time to register for the fall 2018 Dutch data infrastructure industry trends decision-making seminars November 27th and 28th. The workshops are being organized by Brouwer Storage Consultancy of Holland and will be held in Nijkerk.

On Tuesday, November 27th, there will be an advanced education workshop seminar covering data infrastructure industry trends and technology update presented by myself. On Wednesday, November 28th, there will be a deeper dive workgroup seminar session addressing data infrastructure related strategy, planning, and decision-making.

xxxx

Data Infrastructures Industry Trends November 27

Whats New, Whats the buzz, what you need to know about, From Speeds and Feeds, Slots and Watts to Whos doing what, from interesting to What’s relevant for your environment.

This one-day seminar is a new and improved version of the popular speeds and feeds session where we look at what’s new and emerging in the industry as well as applicable to your environments. You will be updated about the latest trends and emerging data infrastructure technologies to support digital transformation, little and big data analytics, AI/ML/DL, GDPR, data protection, edge/fog compute, and IoT among others. From legacy to the software-defined cloud, container converged and virtual to composable. The seminar is a mix of presentation and engaging discussion as we look into details of favorite or new technologies for both those who are old-school, new-school and current or future school.

Part I – Industry Trends, Applications, and Workload
Part II – Server Compute, Memory, I/O, hardware and software
Part III – Storage and Data protection for on-prem and cloud
Part IV – Bringing it all together, managing and decision making

Topics to be covered include among others:

  • What these trends, tools, technologies mean for different environments of various size.
  • Tips on evaluating legacy and startup or newer vendors as well as technologies.
  • Updates on vendors, services, technologies, products you may or may not have heard of.
  • Cloud (public/private/multi-cloud/hybrid) compute, storage and management.
  • Containers (including docker, windows, kubernetes, FaaS, serverless, lambda).
  • Converged and hyper-converged; Gen-Z and composable; NVMe and NVMeoF.
  • Persistent Memory (PMEM), Storage Class Memory (SCM), 3D XPoint, NAND Flash SSD.
  • Legacy vs. software-defined, appliances, storage systems, block, NAS file, object, table.
  • Bulk cloud data migration appliances, storage for the edge, file sync and share.
  • Role and importance of context (what’s applicable, what something means).
  • Who’s doing what, what to look for today for the future.

This seminar is for those involved with ICT/IT servers, storage, storage, I/O networking, and associated management activities including data protection, of legacy, as well as software-defined cloud, containers, converged hyper-converged and virtualization. This seminar is for professionals who manage, architect or are otherwise involved with data infrastructure related topic strategy and acquisitions.

Data Infrastructures Deep Dive Decision Making November 28

Enabling Informed Strategy and Decision Making, moving from what are the tools, trends and technologies evolving to what to use, when, where, why, how, along with strategy, planning, decision-making, and ongoing management.

If the answer is a cloud, converged, container, composable, edge, fog, digital transformation, on-prem, hybrid, software-defined, what were or are the questions to plan as well as prepare for deployment today, along with in the future? This workshop format seminar provides answers to fundamental questions, with essential insight into software-defined data infrastructures (SDDI) and software-defined data centers (SDDC). For ICT/IT professionals (architects, strategists, administrators, managers) currently or planning on being involved with servers, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, converged, containers, cloud backup/data protection, and associated topics, this seminar is for you.

Clouds converged, and containers will be a primary focus along with related themes and topics that you need to know more about. Don’t be scared of clouds, be prepared, and this includes for on-prem, public, hybrid and multi-cloud. As part of our deeper dive decision-making strategy focus, we look at cloud cost considerations including are you paying too much or not enough (e.g., are you depriving your applications of performance to save money?). We will explore various decision-making and strategy topics spanning AWS, Microsoft Azure, Azure Stack, Windows and Hyper-V, VMware (including on AWS) and OpenStack, is it still open for business?

Additional topics, trends, themes include:

  • Everything is not the same across cloud services, converged, or containers.
  • Different environments have various data infrastructure resource needs.
  • How to balance legacy on-prem application needs with emerging technology options.
  • Different comparison criteria for smaller environments remote office vs. Larger enterprise
  • Do it yourself (DiY) vs. Turnkey software vs. Bundled tin wrapped software solution
  • Strategy, planning, decision-making, and ongoing management

How To Register For Seminar Workshops

Learn more about fall 2018 Dutch Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Tuesday trends workshop seminar here (PDF), and Wednesday deeper dive decision-making workshop session here (PDF).

To register and obtain more information, contact event organizers Brouwer Storage consultancy at +31-33-246-6825 or +31-652-601-309 and info at brouwerconsultancy.com.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Data Infrastructure and related trends, tools, technologies and topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Everything is not the same across different organizations, environments, application workloads, data, technology, tools, trends. These two one day interactive workshop seminars provide timely insight into what’s going on in the data infrastructure related industry, along with common IT organization challenges as well as how to address them. Moving from the what to what to use when, where, why, how along with alternatives, gaining insight and awareness to avoid flying blind enables effective strategy, decision-making, planning and ongoing management. Learn more and sign up for Fall 2018 Dutch Data Infrastructure Industry Trends Decision Making Seminars, see you in Nijkerk.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

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Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Impressions #blogtobertech

Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Test Drive Impressions #blogtobertech

Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Test Drive Impressions #blogtobertech

Data Box Disk Test Drive Impressions is the last of a four-post series looking at Microsoft Azure Data Box. View Part 1 Microsoft announced Azure Data Box updates, Part 2 Microsoft Azure Data Box Family, and Part 3 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Test Drive Review.

Overall, I liked the Azure Data Box experience along with a range of options to select the best fit solution for my needs. A common trend among the major cloud service providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google is that one size fits all approach solution does not meet different customer needs.

The only things that I did not like about and would like to see improved with Azure Data Box are two items one at the beginning, the other at the end of the process. Granted with Data Box Disks still in preview, there is time for those items to be addressed before general availability, and I have passed on the feedback to Microsoft.

At the beginning of the process, things are pretty straightforward with good tools along with resources to help you navigate which type of Data Box to order, how to order, specify your account details and other information.

What I did not like with the up front experience was after the quick ordering and notification process, the time delay of a week or more until notified when a Data Box would be arriving. Granted I was not in a rush and Microsoft did indicate that it could take about ten days to be informed of availability, this is something that should be done quickly as resources become available. Another option is for Microsoft to add an ordering option for priority or low-priority in the future.

The other experience that I did not like was at the very end, in that perhaps its stuck in an email spam trap (checked, could not find it), the final notification could be better. Not only a final email note saying your data is copied, but also a reminder of where your block or page blobs were copied to (e.g., what your setup when ordering).

Monitoring the progress of the process, I knew when Data Box drives arrived at Microsoft, copy started and completed including with error status. Having gotten used to receiving update notifications from Azure, not receiving one at the end saying congratulations your data has been copied, check here for any errors or other info, as well as a reminder where the data was copied to would be useful.

Likewise, a follow-up note from Microsoft saying that the Azure Data Box drives used as part of the transfer were securely erased along with a certificate of digital destruction would be useful for compliance purposes.

As mentioned above, overall, I found the Data Box Disk experience very positive and a great way to move bulk data faster than what could be done with available networks. My next step is now to migrate some of the transferred data to cold long-term archive storage, and some others to Azure Files, with some staying in block blobs. There are also a couple of VHD and VHDX that will be moved and attached to VMs for additional testing.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Microsoft Azure Data Box, Clouds and Data Infrastructure related trends, tools, technologies and topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

For those who have a need to move large amounts of data including structured, unstructured, semi-structured, little or big data to a cloud resource, solutions such as Azure Data Box may be in your future. Likewise, for those looking to support remote and edge workloads from AI, ML, DL inferencing, to large-scale data pre-processing, data collection and acquisition, video, telemetry, IoT among others Data Box type solutions may be in your future. Overall I found Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Impressions Favorable and was able to address a project I had on the to-do list for some time.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

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Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Test Drive Review #blogtobertech

Microsoft Azure Data Box Test Drive #blogtobertech

Microsoft Azure Data Box Test Drive #blogtobertech

Microsoft Azure Data Box Test Drive is part three of four series looking at Data Box. View Part 1 Microsoft announced Azure Data Box updates,  Part 2 Microsoft Azure Data Box Family, and Part 4 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Impressions.

Getting Started

The workflow for using Data Box involves selecting with the type of Data Box to use via the Microsoft Azure portal (here), or Data Box Family page (here).

Getting Started via the Microsoft Azure Data Box Family Page image via Microsoft.com
Getting Started via the Microsoft Azure Data Box Family Page image via Microsoft.com

First step of ordering a Data Box is to specify your Azure subscription, type of operation (e.g., import data into Azure, or export out), source country/region and destination Azure region.

Selecting Data Box from Azure Portal
Selecting Data Box from Azure Portal

The next step is to determine what type of Data Box, in this test I choose 40 TB Data Box Disks. Make a note of fees to avoid any surprises.

Selecting Data Box Disks (40 TB) From Azure Portal
Selecting Data Box Disks (40 TB) From Azure Portal

After selecting the type of Data Box, fill in storage account information using an existing resource, or create new ones as needed. Make a note of these selections as you will need them after the copy is done as this is where your data will be located.

Specify Azure Storage Account Information Where Data Will Transfer To
Specify Azure Storage Account Information Where Data Will Transfer To

Once the order is placed, an email is received confirming the order and also being a preview, indicating that it might take ten days to hear a status update or availability of the devices.

Email notification received after the order is placed
Email notification received after the order is placed

After about ten days, I was contacted by Microsoft via an email (not shown) confirming the amount of data to be copied to determine how many disks would be needed. Once this was confirmed with Microsoft, a status update was noted on the Azure dashboard.

Azure Data Box Dashboard Status after order placed
Azure Data Box Dashboard Status after order placed

After a few days, a box arrived with the Data Box disks, cables and return shipping labels enclosed. Also received was an email notification indicating the disks had arrived.

Email notice Data Box has arrived on site
Email notice Data Box has arrived on site (on-prem if you prefer)

The following is the physical box that contains the Data Box disks that I received from Microsoft.

The shipping box with Data Box Disks arrives
The shipping box with Data Box Disks arrives

Once you get the Data Box, go to the Azure portal for Data Box and access the tools. There are tools and commands for Windows as well as Linux that are needed for accessing and unlocking the disks. This is where you also obtain device IDs. You will also need to have the access key phrase you specified in an earlier step as part of placing the order.

Access Data Box Software Tools and Keys from Azure Portal
Access Data Box Software Tools and Keys from Azure Portal

Inside the shipping box was a pair of 8 TB SATA SSDs, SATA to USB cables, along with return shipping labels.

Contents inside the shipping box, two Data Box 8 TB disks
Contents inside the shipping box, two Data Box 8 TB disks

From the Azure portal, access the device IDs that will be needed along with passphrase for obtaining and unlocking the Data Box disks. You will also want to download the tools as well as follow other instructions on the portal for accessing disks.

Azure Data Box tools, device IDs and Keys
Azure Data Box tools, device IDs and Keys

The Windows system I used for testing is a virtual machine hosted on a VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7 host. After physically attaching the Data Box Disks to the VM host, a virtual or software attachment was done by adding USB devices to the VM.

Virtual Attach of Data Box Disks to VMware vSphere ESXi host and guest VM
Virtual Attach of Data Box Disks to VMware vSphere ESXi host and guest VM

Once the VM had the Data Box disks attached and mapped, they appeared to Windows. After downloading the Data Box software tools and unlocking the devices, they were ready to copy data to. Note that the disks appear as a regular Windows device once unlocked. Simply using bit locker does not unlock the drives, you need to use the Data Box tools. Speaking of Windows disks, there are a couple of folders on the Data Box disk when shipped including one for Block Blob and Page Blob along with verification items.

View of Data Box Disks (8 TB each) after attaching to Windows system
View of Data Box Disks (8 TB each) after attaching to Windows system

Note that you are given several days as part of the base transfer cost, then extra days apply. Since I had a few extra days, I used some of the excess capacity to do some staging and reorganization of data before the actual copy.

Data copy is done using your choice of tools, for example, Robocopy among many others. I used a combination of Robocopy, Retrospect among others. Also, note that for most data place them in the folder or directory structure of your choice in the Block Blob folder. Page Blobs are for VHDX to be used with virtual machines on Azure. After spending a few days to copy the data I wanted to move along with performing verification, it was time to pack up the devices.

As a reminder, blobs are analogous to and what Microsoft Azure refers to instead of objects (e.g., object storage). Also remember that Azure blobs include block, page (512-byte page aligned for VHDX) and append (similar to other vendors object storage). Microsoft Azure in addition to blobs, supports file (SMB and NFS) access, along with table (database) and queue storage services.

The following shows the return label attached to the shipping box that contains the Data Box disks and cables. I also included a copy of the shipping label inside the box just in case something happened during shipment. Once prepared for delivery, I took the box to a local UPS store where I received a shipment receipt (not shown). Later that day I also received an email from Microsoft indicating the shipment was in-progress.

Data Box disks packaged with return receipt (was in the box)
Data Box disks packaged with return receipt (was in the box)

The Azure portal shows status of Data Box shipment being sent to Microsoft, along with a follow-up email notification.

Azure Data Box portal status
Azure Data Box portal status

Email notification of Data Box on the way to Microsoft.

Notice data box is on the way to Azure
Notice data box is on the way to Azure

After a few days’ ways, checking the Azure Portal shows the Data Box arrived at Microsoft and copied operations underway. Remember the storage account you specified back in the early steps is where you will look for your data. This is something I think Microsoft can improve on by providing a link, or some reminder of where the data is being copied to in the status. Likewise, a copy completion email notice would be handy after getting used to the other alerts previous in the process.

Azure Data Box portal showing disk copy operation status
Azure Data Box portal showing disk copy operation status

Looking at the Azure storage account specified during the ordering process in the Blob storage resources the contents of the Data Box Disks can be found.

Contents of Data Box disks copied into specified Azure Blobs and storage account
Contents of Data Box disks copied into specified Azure Blobs and storage account

The following shows folders that I had copied from on-prem systems to the Data Box now located in the proper Azure Block Blobs. Not shown are Page blobs where I moved some VHDXs.

xMission accomplished, data folders now stored in Azure block blobs
Mission accomplished, data folders now stored in Azure block blobs

Where to learn more

Learn more about Microsoft Azure Data Box, Clouds and Data Infrastructure related trends, tools, technologies and topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Overall the test drive of the Azure Data Box Disk solution was positive, and look forward to trying out some of the other Data Box solutions, both offline and online options in the future. Continue reading Part 4 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Impressions as part of this series including Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Test Drive Review.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

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Microsoft Azure Data Box Family #blogtobertech

Microsoft Azure Data Box Family #blogtobertech

Microsoft Azure Data Box Family #blogtobertech

Microsoft Azure Data Box Family is part two of a four-part series looking at Data Box. View Part 1 Microsoft announced Azure Data Box updates, Part 3 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Test Drive Review, Part 4 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Impressions.

Microsoft Azure Data Box Overview

Microsoft has several Data Box solutions available or in the preview to meet various customer needs. These include both online as well as offline solutions that include hardware (except Data Box Gateway), software tools and cloud services.

Data Box Online

Microsoft has two online Data Box offerings that provide real-time access of Azure cloud storage resources from on-prem including remote, edge locations. The online Data Box solutions include Edge and Gateway both with local on-prem storage.


Data Box Edge image via Microsoft.com

Data Box Edge (Preview)

Currently, in preview, Data Box Edge is a 1U appliance that combines hardware along with software resources for deployment on-prem at the edge or remote locations. Data Box Edge places locally converged compute and storage resources as an appliance along with connectivity to Azure cloud-based resources.

Intended workloads and applications for Data Box Edge include remote AI, ML, and DL inferencing, data processing or pre-processing before sending to Azure Cloud, function as an edge compute, data protection and data transfer platform (e.g., cloud storage gateway) with local compute. Data Box Edge is similar in functionality and focuses on other cloud service provider solutions such as AWS Snow Ball Edge (SBE). Management tools include Data Box Edge resource Azure portal for management from a web UI, create and manage resources, devices, shares.

Other Data Box Edge attributes include:

  • Supports Azure Blob or Files via SMB and NFS storage access protocols
  • Dual Intel Xeon processors each with 10 CPU cores, 64GB RAM
  • 2 x 10 Gbps SFP+ copper cables, 2 x 1 Gbps RJ45 cables
  • 8 NVMe SSD (1.6 TB each), no HA, 12.8 TB total raw cap
  • 2 x 1 GbE (one for management, one for user access)
  • 2 x 25 GbE (can operate at 10 GbE) and 2 x 25 GbE ports
  • Local web UI for management and configuration

Data Box Gateway (Preview)

Also in Preview, Data Box Gateway is a virtual machine (VM) based software defined appliance that runs on VMware vSphere (ESXi) or Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors. The functionality of Data Box Gateway is that of a cloud storage gateway providing access to Azure Blob (Page and Block) or Files (NAS) via SMB or NFS protocols. Learn more about both Data Box Edge and Data Box Gateway here including pricing here.

Data Box Offline Solutions

Microsoft has several offline Data Box offerings including previously available and new in preview models. Offline Data Box solutions enable large amounts of data to be moved from on-prem primary, remote and edge locations to Azure cloud storage resources. Bulk data movement operations can be one-time or recurring in support of big data migration of energy, research, media & entertainment and other large volumes of data.

Other bulk movement includes for archive, backup, BC/DR, virtual machine and application migration among others. Use Data Box Offline solutions when large amounts of data need to be moved from on-prem to Azure cloud faster than what available networks will support promptly.

Offline Data Box solutions include:

  • Data Box Heavy (Preview) 1 PB Storage, 800 TB usable
  • Data Box 100 TB (80 TB usable)
  • Data Box Disk (Preview) 40 TB (35 TB Usable)


Data Box Heavy 1 PB (Preview) image via Microsoft.com

Data Box Heavy 1 PB (Preview)

  • Appliance with Up to 800 TB usable capacity per order
  • One system per order
  • Supports Azure Blob or Files
  • Copy data to up to 10 storage accounts
  • 1 x 1/10 Gbps RJ45 connector, 4 x 40 Gbps QSFP+ connectors
  • AES 256-bit encryption
  • Copies data using NAS SMB and NFS protocols


Data Box 100TB image via Microsoft.com

100 TB Data Box

  • An appliance that supports 80 TB usable storage capacity
  • Supports Azure Blob or Files
  • Copies data to 10 storage accounts
  • 1 x 1/10 GbE RJ45 connector
  • 2 x 10 GbE SFP+ connector
  • AES 256-bit encryption
  • Storage access and copy via SMB and NFS NAS protocols

Case of Data Box Disks image via Microsoft.com

Data Box Disk 40 TB (Preview)

  • Up to 35 TB usable capacity per order
  • Up to 5 SSDs per order
  • This is what I tested (2 x 8 TB)
  • Supports Azure Blob storage (Block and Page)
  • Copies data to a single storage account
  • USB/SATA II, III server I/O interface (comes with SATA to USB connector cables)
  • AES 128-bit encryption
  • Copy data with standard tools

Where to learn more

Learn more about Microsoft Azure Data Box, Clouds and Data Infrastructure related trends, tools, technologies and topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Which Microsoft Azure Data Box is the best? That depends on your needs and requirements.

Microsoft along with other major cloud service providers continue to evolve their data migration services. Realizing that customers who need, want, or have to get data to the cloud also need to remove barriers, solutions such as Azure Data Box are a step in eliminating cloud barriers while addressing cloud concerns. Continue reading Part 3 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Test Drive Review and Part 4 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Impressions as part of Microsoft Azure Data Box Family.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

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Microsoft announced Azure Data Box updates #blogtobertech

Microsoft announced Azure Data Box updates – #blogtobertech

Microsoft announced Azure Data Box updates - #blogtobertech

Microsoft announced Azure Data Box is the first in a series of four posts looking at Data Box including a test drive experience. View Part 2 Microsoft Azure Data Box Family, Part 3 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Test Drive Review, Part 4 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Impressions.

Microsoft Azure Data Box Family Page image via Microsoft.com
Microsoft Azure Data Box Family Page image via Microsoft.com

At Ignite in Microsoft announced Azure Data Box updates, which means its time for a test drive and review. Microsoft has several Data Box solutions available or in the preview to meet various customer needs. These include both online as well as offline solutions that include hardware (except Data Box Gateway), software tools and cloud services. In general, Data Box enables bulk movement and migration of data from on-prem environments to Azure cloud storage including blobs (e.g., objects) and files (e.g., NAS accessible) resources.

Whats The Need for Data Movement Appliance Service

Some might ask the question why do you need a Microsoft Azure Data Box when there are fast networks? Good question, assuming you have fast networks that can move large amounts of bulk data promptly. Microsoft supports traditional Internet-based access to Azure cloud resources for data migration, along with higher speed Express Route service similar to Amazon Web Service (AWS) Direct Connect among other options.

On the other hand, if you need to move a large amount of data that would take weeks, months or longer sending over expensive networks, then solutions like Data Box are an option. Microsoft is not alone or unique having data storage migration or movement services. AWS has Snowball, Snowball Edge with compute, as well as the truck size Snowmobile for large-scale data movement. Google also has their Transfer services including Google Transfer Appliance.

Who is Azure Data Box for?

Azure Data Box is for those who need to migrate data to Azure cloud storage and other services on a one-time or recurring basis. Another scenario is for those who need to have on-prem storage and optional compute at remote or edge locations in support of data acquisition, media & entertainment, energy exploration, AI, ML, DL inferencing, local data processing, pre-processing before sending to cloud among other workloads.

Yet other scenarios for those who need to move large amounts of data online, off-line, or in disconnected also known as submarine mode where a connection to the internet is not always available. Bulk data movement also applies for one-time, as well as recurring data protection such as archive, backups, BC/DR, as well as data shipping, virtual machine farm relocation, SQL Server data migration to cloud, data center consolidation among many other scenarios.

What is Azure Data Box

Azure Data Box is a combination of hardware, software, cloud services that support data migration (on-line and off-line) from on-prem environments including remote or edge to Azure cloud storage resources. There are different Data Box solutions available or in the preview to meet various needs from performance, capacity, functionality, without as well as without compute. In addition to being used for data migration, there are also Data Box solutions (e.g., Edge) that converge compute and storage for deployment at remote or edge locations.

Data Box Gateway is a software-defined virtual machine appliance that deploys on VMware and Microsoft (e.g., Hyper-V) hypervisors. Off-line Data Box solutions scale from single 8TB SSD disks to PB of capacity with various functionality.

As a reminder, blobs are analogous to and what Microsoft Azure refers to instead of objects (e.g., object storage). Also remember that Azure blobs include block, page (512-byte page aligned for VHDX) and append (similar to other vendors object storage). Microsoft Azure in addition to blobs, supports file (SMB and NFS) access, along with table (database) and queue storage services.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Microsoft Azure Data Box, Clouds and Data Infrastructure related trends, tools, technologies and topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Azure Data Box type solutions and services are becoming more common as well as diverse. With the addition of compute in some of these solutions to support remote edge workloads, the lines may blur with some of the converged and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) solutions. Likewise, keep an eye to see how cloud service providers leverage solutions like Data Box Edge to further place their reach out to the edge enabling fog (e.g., cloud at the edge) among other converged functionality. Continue reading Part 2 Microsoft Azure Data Box Family, Part 3 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Test Drive Review, and Part 4 Microsoft Azure Data Box Disk Impressions as part of Microsoft announced Azure Data Box updates.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

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Cloud File Data Storage Consolidation and Economic Comparison Model #blogtobertech

Cloud File Data Storage Consolidation and Economic Comparison Model #blogtobertech

Cloud File Data Storage Consolidation and Economic Comparison Model

The following is a new Industry Trends Perspective White Paper Report titled Cloud File Data Storage Consolidation and Economic Comparison Model.

Cloud File Data Storage Consolidation and Economic Comparison Model

This new report looks at Distributed File Server and Consolidated Cloud Storage Economic Comparison with a fundamental economic comparison model for remote (on-prem) distributed file-servers and cloud storage consolidation decision-making. IT data infrastructure resource (servers, storage, I/O network, hardware, software, services) decision-making involves evaluating and comparing technical attributes (speeds, feeds, features) of a solution or service. Another aspect of data infrastructure resource decision-making involves assessing how a solution or service will support and enable a given application workload from a Performance, Availability, Capacity, and Economic (PACE) perspective.

Cloud File Data Storage Consolidation and Economic Comparison Model

Keep in mind that all application workloads have some amount of PACE resource requirements that may be high, low or various permutations. Performance, Availability (including data protection along with security) as well as Capacity are addressed via technical speeds, feeds, functionality along with workload suitability analysis. The E in PACE resource decision-making is about the Economic analysis of various costs associated with different solution approaches.

Read more in this Server StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspective (ITP) Report.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Clouds and Data Infrastructure related trends, tools, technologies and topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

When comparing and making data infrastructure resource decisions, consider the application workload PACE characteristics. Also keep in mind that PACE means Performance (productivity), Availability (data protection), Capacity and Economics. This includes making decisions from a technical feature, functionality (speeds and feeds) capacity as well as how the solution supports your application workload. Leverage resources including tools to perform analysis including Cloud File Data Storage Consolidation and Economic Comparison Model approaches.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

Posted on

Not Dead Yet Zombie Technology (Declared Dead yet still alive) October 2018 Update #blogtobertech

Not Dead Yet Zombie Technology (Declared Dead yet still alive) October 2018 Update #blogtobertech

Not Dead Yet Zombie Technology (Declared Dead yet still alive) October 2018 Update

Not Dead Yet Zombie Technology (Declared Dead yet still alive) October 2018 Update. Musician Phil Collins has an excellent name for his current tour Not Dead Yet which is a reminder that he is still alive and performing, at least one more time. With Halloween just around the corner, it is that time of the year to revisit zombie technology, those technologies, tools, techniques, trends that are declared dead yet still alive.

Data Infrastructure Tools Trends Topics

IT Zombie Technology Declared Dead Not Dead Yet

With a concert tour named Not Dead Yet, that sets the stage for this post which is about IT Zombie Technology and in particular data infrastructure related technology, tools, trends and related topics that have been declared dead by some people, yet are still alive. Not only are these tools and techniques being used, but they are also being enhanced to be around for future years of zombie technology updates, not dead yet.

As a refresher, a Zombie technology is one that is declared dead, usually by some upstart vendor and its pundits along with other followers in favor of whatever new has been announced. As luck or fate would have it, some of these startup or new technologies that declare an older established one as being dead, tend to end up on the where are they now list.

In other words, some technologies do survive and gain in both industry adoption, as well as the even more critical customer deployment category. Likewise, some of these technologies that result in something existing being declared dead-end up surviving to live alongside or near what its supporters declared dead.

Another not so uncommon occurrence is when the new technology that its supporters declared something else as being dead joins the ranks of being declared dead by a yet more modern technology thereby becoming a Zombie technology itself.  Put a different way, being on the Zombie technology list may not be the same as being the shiny new popular trendy technology. However, it can be both a badge of honor not to mention revenue and profit maker.

Data Infrastructure components

Zombie Technology List

What are some old and new Zombie technologies that have been declared dead, yet are still alive, being used and enhanced, not dead yet?

IBM Mainframe

This is a perennial favorite, and while not seeing new growth associated with other platforms including Intel, AMD, ARM among others, it has its place with many large organizations. Not only does it continue to be manufactured, enhanced, even some new customers buying them, it also runs native Linux in addition to traditional zOS among other software.

Fibre Channel (FC)

FC has been declared dead for over a decade, and while Ethernet-based server storage I/O networking continues to gain ground in both industry as well as customer deployments, there is still plenty of life in and with FC for years to come, at least for some environments. NVMe over Fabrics (NVMeoF) which is the NVMe protocol carried on top of a fabric network (SAN if you prefer) is gaining industry popularity and customer curiosity.

There are many flavors of NVMe over fabrics including NVMe over Fibre Channel, e.g., FC-NVMe which is similar to mapping the SCSI command set (SCSI_FCP) on to Fibre Channel or what is more commonly known as FCP or simply FC.

What this means if that FC-NVMe is just another upper-level protocol (ULP) that can co-exist with others on the same Fibre Channel network. In other words, FICON, FCP, NVMe among others can co-exist on the same Fibre Channel-based network. Will everybody using Fibre Channel move to FC-NVMe? Good question, ask the FC folks, and the answer not surprisingly would be yes or probably. Will new customers looking to do NVMe over some type of fabric or network use Fibre Channel instead of Ethernet or other transport? Some will while others will go other routes. For now, what is clear is that FC is still alive and thus on the Zombie technology list and not dead yet.

SAS and SATA

Both have been declared dead as they have been around for a while, and over time NVMe will pick up more of their workload, however near term, SAS and SATA will continue as lower cost smaller footprint for general purpose and bulk lower cost direct attachment. Otoh, look for more m.2 NVMe Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF) aka gum sticks appearing on physical servers along with storage systems. Likewise, watch for increased deployment of NVMe U.2. Aka 8639 drive form factor SSDs using NAND flash as well as 3D XPoint and Intel Optane among other mediums as part of new server and storage platforms. BTW, USB is not dead yet either, just saying.

Microsoft Windows

Windows desktop, Windows Servers, even Hyper-V virtualization have been declared dead for some time now, yet all continue to evolve. Just recently, Microsoft released Windows Server 2019 which included many enhancements from software-defined storage (Storage Spaces Direct aka S2D), software-defined networking, converged and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) deployment options, expanded virtualization capabilities, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) enhancements (e.g. bash shell on Windows native), containers with Kubernetes as well as Docker updates among others. In other words, it’s not dead yet.

Hard Disk Drive (HDD)

Having been declared dead for decades, while not the primary frontline storage medium it was in the past, HDDs continue to evolve and be used for alongside faster flash SSD, and as a front-end to magnetic tape. Some of the larger consumers of HDDs continue to be cloud service providers also known as mega scalars for storing large amounts of bulk data. I suspect that HDDs will continue to be on the Zombie technology list for at least another decade or so which has been the case for the past several decades.

Magnetic Tape

Like HDDs, the tape is still in use in some environments, and like HDDs, the cloud service providers are significant users of tape as a low-cost, low access, high-capacity bulk storage for cold archives that are front-ended by HDD or SSD or both.

Cloud (Public, Private and Hybrid)

Yes, believe it or not, some have declared cloud dead, along with hybrid cloud, private cloud among others, oh well.

Physical Machine (PM)

Also known as bare metal, servers were declared dead a decade or so ago at the hands of the then emerging Intel based virtualization hypervisors notably VMware ESXi and to a lesser extent Microsoft Hyper-V. I say lesser extent with Hyper-V in that there was less noise about PM and BMs being dead as there was from some in the ESXi virtual kingdom. Needless to say, PM and BM from Intel to AMD and ARM-based, along with IBM Power among many others are very much alive as dedicated servers in the cloud, VM and container hosts, as well as being accessorized with FPGA, ASIC, GPU, and other resources.

Virtual Machines

Listen to some from the container, serverless or something new crowd, and you will hear that virtual machines (VMs) are dead which for some workloads may be right. On the other hand, similar to the physical machine (PM) or bare metal (BM) servers that were declared dead by the VMs a decade or so ago, VMs are alive and doing well. Not only are they doing well, like containers continued adoption and deployment of VMs will stay on both on-prem as well as cloud, as will BM and PMs now have known as dedicated servers in the clouds.

NAS and Files

If you listened to some of the pundits and press, NAS and files were supposed to have been dead several years ago at the hands of object storage. The reality today is that while object storage continues to grow in customer deployments while the industry is not as enamored (or drunk) with it as it was a few years ago, the new technology is here to stay and will be around for many decades to come.

That brings us back to NAS and files which were declared dead by the object opportunists which is file access is very much alive and continues gain ground. In fact, most cloud providers have either added NAS file-based access (NFS, SMB, POSIX among others) native or via partners to their solutions. Likewise, most object storage platforms have also added or enhanced their NAS file-based access for compatibility while their customers are re-engineering their applications, or create new apps that are object and blob native. Thus, NAS and File-based access are proud members of the Zombie technology list.

Data Infrastructure tools

There are many more tools, technologies, trends, techniques that are part of the above list for example Backup has been declared dead, along with the PCIe bus, NAND flash, programming, data centers, databases, SQL along with many others. What they have in common is that they are part of a growing list of not dead yet, yet declared dead thus are Zombie technologies.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Clouds and Data Infrastructure related trends, tools, technologies and topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

What is your favorite zombie technology, tool, trend or technique?

What zombie technologies, tools, trends or techniques should be added to the list and why?

Many tools, technologies, techniques, trends are often declared dead, sometimes before they are even really alive and mature by those who have something new, or that simply lack creative (e.g., dead marketing?) so it’s easier to declare something dead. While some succeed themselves prospering and being added to the Zombie technology list (a badge of honor), some quietly end up on the where are they now list. The where are they now list are those vendors, tools, technologies, techniques, trends that were on the famous hit parade in the past, having faded away, or end up dead (unlike a zombie).

Don’t be scared of zombie technology while also being prepared to embrace what is new while using both in new ways. Right now, I don’t have tickets to go see Phil Collins not dead yet tour, maybe that will change. However, for now, keep in mind, don’t be scared when looking at Not Dead Yet Zombie Technology (Declared Dead yet still alive) October 2018 Update #blogtobertech.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

Posted on

Next Generation Hybrid Software Defined Data Infrastructures Are In Your Future #blogtobertech

Next Generation Hybrid Software Defined Data Infrastructures Are In Your Future #blogtobertech

A few weeks ago I was invited to present a keynote at the 1st annual Minnesota VMware User Group (VMUG) Super VMUG mega event in Minneapolis titled Next Generation Hybrid Software Defined Data Infrastructures Are In Your Future (download PDF presentation here).

Key themes of the presentation focused around data infrastructures (e.g. what’s inside physical data centers including server, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, policies, procedures) along with industry trends including hybrid software defined clouds (and containers). Anther aspect of the presentation focused around building, refreshing and expanding our fundamental data infrasture tradecraft skills. Also keep in mind that everything is not the same across different environments, granted there are similarities that can be leveraged.


Data Infrasture’s are defined to support business applications information service delivery

Data Infrastructures

The fundamental role of data infrastructures is to provide a platform environment for applications and data that is resilient, flexible, scalable, agile, efficient as well as cost-effective. Put another way, data infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, process, move, secure and serve data as well as their applications for information services delivery. Technologies that makeup data infrastructures include hardware, software, cloud or managed services, servers, storage, I/O and networking along with people, processes, policies along with various tools spanning legacy, software-defined virtual, containers and cloud.

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

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

The following figure shows various layers or altitudes of encapsulation and abstraction of data infrastructures along with their underlying resources that are defined to support a business enablement outcome, as well as support information services delivery.


Data Infrastructure Stack Layers and Resources Defined To Support Business Information Services

The following figure shows evolution of data infrastructures from on-prem bare metal to software-defined virtual, cloud, containers, converged and hyper-converged packaging as well as emerging composable. Also shown below are a hybrid as well as multi-clouds including bare metal dedicated services in addition to virtual machine instances as well as container-based services.


Data Infrastructure and Resource Packaging Deployment Evolution

Hybrid Software Defined Industry Trends

Some of the trends discussed in the presentation include:

Clouds – Public, Private, Hybrid, Multi and hybrid clouds along with how they are being used, along with technology evolution including virtual machine (VM) instances, bare metal dedicated private servers (DPS) as well as metal as a service. Other cloud trends include data migration appliances such as AWS Snowball Edge, Microsoft Azure Databox among others, VMware on AWS, as well as fog and edge computing.

Other trend topics included converged, hyper-converged, serverless, containers, persistent memory (PMEM) also known as storage class memory (SCM) along with other server storage I/O topics. Additional trend topics included data protection, Azure Stack, security, NVMe as well as NVMe over Fabrics (NVMeoF) along with composable and Gen-Z.

Tradecraft Skills Experience

Expanding your data infrastructure tradecraft means evolving from your primary focus area, gaining insight into other technologies, tools, techniques in adjacent areas outside your comfort zone. For industry veterans with several years to many decades of experience, this means refreshing on what you know, think you know or need to know with what’s new or evolving. On other other hand, for those who are new, expanding your tradecraft means moving beyond learning to memorize to pass a certificate test, to gaining insight on how, when, where, why to apply different tools, technologies, trends to tasks at hand.

For example, developing tradecraft from knowing the different hardware, software, and services resources as well as tools, to what to use when, where, why, and how. Another dimension of expanding data infrastructure tradecraft skills is gaining the experience and insight to troubleshoot problems, gain insight awareness with dashboard or monitoring tools, as well as how to design and manage to cut or reduce the chance of things going wrong.

From Tools and Technologies to Techniques and Tricks of the Trade

Expanding your awareness of new technologies along with how they work is important, so too is understanding application and organization needs. Developing your tradecraft means balancing the focus on new and old technologies, tools, and techniques with business or organizational application functionality.

This is where using various tools that themselves are applications to gain insight into how your data infrastructure is configured and being used, along with the applications they support, is important.

Data Infrastructure Tools Tradecraft
Data Infrastructure Toolbox (Hardware, Software, Scripts)

Next Generation Hybrid Software Defined Data Infrastructures What Next


Balance head in the clouds (thinking, strategy, vision) with feet on the ground (what you can do today)

The following are some additional tips, comments, recommendations to keep in mind for enabling your next generation hybrid software defined data infrastructure.

Where to learn more

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Everything is not the same across different organizations, IT environments, application workloads and the data infrastructures that support them. Data Infrasture’s span from legacy on-prem to software-defined cloud (public, private, hybrid, multi-cloud), container, serverless, virtual, hybrid, converged and hyper-converged, as well as central, core and distributed edge or remote office branch office (ROBO). Even though everything is not the same, there are similarities across different environments, technologies and workloads that can be leveraged. Fundamental tradecraft skills and experiences are what enable you to know what to use when, where, why and how including using new as well as old things in new ways, while not making old mistakes in new ways.

Some other tips include avoid flying blind, particular in software defined and cloud environments, have situational awareness, end to end (E2E) insight leveraging metrics that matter, are relevant, timely, accurate and hold context to the data infrastructures as well as applications they support. Part of expanding your tradecraft skills is refreshing on what you know, also expanding into new adjacent areas getting out of your comfort zone. Also understand the context of different terms, technologies and tools. For example, SAS can be big data analytic statistical analysis software, serial attached SCSI storage device as well as shared access signature for Azure clouds among others.

Also keep in mind that while software defined things are popular and trendy with the industry, keep the focus on what is being defined to enable an outcome or business enablement In other words, the emphasis should not be on the software aspect per say, rather how something (hardware, software, service) is defined to enable something. Also keep in mind with software defined marketing and trends such as serverless, servers and software still need hardware (somewhere), and hardware still needs software from micro code to firmware to many other places in the data infrasture layers or stack. Meanwhile, keep in mind that it is #blogtobertech and Next Generation Hybrid Software Defined Data Infrastructures Are In Your Future.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

Posted on

Server StorageIO 2018 VMworld Data Infrastructure Buzzword Bingo Puzzle

Server StorageIO 2018 VMworld Data Infrastructure Buzzword Bingo Puzzle

Server StorageIO 2018 VMworld Data Infrastructure Buzzword Bingo Puzzle

Following up from last years 2017 crossword puzzle for travel fun, here is the Server StorageIO 2018 VMworld Data Infrastructure Buzzword Bingo Puzzle (click on the below image for PDF version that includes answers). The Server StorageIO 2018 VMworld Data Infrastructure Buzzword Bingo Puzzle can be something to do while traveling, taking a break between (or during) sessions as well as keynotes. I wonder which buzzword term will get used the most, as well as new ones to be added to an updated version of this?

Server StorageIO 2018 VMworld Data Infrastructure Buzzword Bingo Puzzle

Where to learn more

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Next week is VMworld 2018 in Las Vegas which means for some traveling and long week. Feel free to suggest additions as there could be a revision, update or two between now and VMworld. Have fun, safe travels, hope to see you next week in the meantime enjoy the Server StorageIO 2018 VMworld Data Infrastructure Buzzword Bingo Puzzle.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

Posted on

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Kinetic Based Data Infrastructure Architecture

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Kinetic Based Data Infrastructure Architecture

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Kinetic Based Data Infrastructure Architecture

Dell EMC today announced with a tag line IT Unbound their new PowerEdge MX 7000 Kinetic Based Data Infrastructure Architecture slated for general availability September 21, 2018. Previewed earlier this year at Dell Technology World in Las Vegas, PowerEdge MX 7000 is a new family of modular, scalable servers for various data infrastructure roles.

What is different with PowerEdge MX 7000 compared to other new 14th generation (Gen 14) Dell servers is the finer granularity of resource allocation based around the new Kinetic composable infrastructure. Also previewed at Dell Technology World earlier this year in Las Vegas, Kinetic (not to be confused the Seagate Kinetic object storage key value drive initiative) is a new composable architecture.

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Kinetic What Was Announced

  • First instantiation of Kinetic composable based data infrastructure resources
  • OpenManage Enterprise Modular Edition
  • PowerEdge MX 7000 modular data infrastructure server

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 and Kinetic Architecture
Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 and Kinetic Architecture Image via Dell.com

Dell EMC Kinetic Composability What Is It

By being a composable data infrastructure resource and server, Dell EMC Kinetic based solutions can be decomposed with finer granularity than previous servers. What this means is that in the past, memory, I/O network, physical storage devices, compute sockets and cores were assigned to a single image instance. The only image instance could be an operating system (OS) such as Linux or Windows based, a hypervisor such as KVM, Microsoft Hyper-V, Nitro (AWS), Oracle, VMware vSphere ESXi, or Xen among others, as well as proprietary decomposition and aggregation software (and hardware) technology (ScaleMP among others).

With a composable based solution, instead of the entire server, or motherboard(s) and its resources allocated to a single OS as a bare metal (BM) or Metal as a Service (MaaS) instance, or to a hypervisor, different resources can be allocated to various instances. On the surface it would be easy to say that sounds a lot like what hypervisors such as those from Microsoft, VMware, and others are doing, particular with clusters.

Dell EMC Kinetic Data Infrastructure Architecture
Dell EMC Kinetic Data Infrastructure Architecture Image via Dell.com

However, the difference is that with hypervisors, all of a server’s physical resources (compute, memory, I/O, storage devices, GPU, FPGA/ASIC) are allocated to the OS, hypervisor, or composition software, that then creates vCPU, vRAM, and related resources. Emphasis is on enabling more granular resource allocation as well as scaling out. The business or organizational outcome is what is essential which means, better allocation and effective use of resources to boost productivity vs. merely driving up utilization and efficiency.

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Eliminates traditional hardware-based mid-plane with an internal fabric connector per node that can also be exposed outside of the physical MX enclosure. By using an industry standard connector on the edge of server motherboard resource nodes, different server I/O connectivity can be leveraged as it becomes available or improves. For example, IMHO it is not too complicated to envision a time in the not so distant future when Kinetic enabled resources (e.g., server nodes) evolve to support the emerging Gen-Z server I/O connectivity protocol.

What is Gen-Z

Does PowerEdge MX 7000 and Kinetic use Gen-Z today? Not yet, however, Dell has been showing demos and technology proof of concepts at various events.

Why bring up Gen-Z now? Simple, it’s something that will be part of many data infrastructure, the server I/O, storage, networking, hardware and software-defined discussions in the not so distant future.

As a refresher or primer, Gen-Z is a new server I/O fabric interface that supports access of and by CPU sockets along with their cores or memory including DRAM as well as emerging SCM as well as PMEM. In addition to server memory access. Gen-Z also enables local as well as remote access to memory, storage, GPU, FPGA, ASIC among other resources. For backward compatibility as well as investment protection, Gen-Z is intended to work with existing PCIe, Ethernet, Fibre Channel, SAS, SATA, NVMe, InfiniBand among another server I/O interconnects and protocols.

Does this mean Gen-Z is a challenger for Ethernet and another IP-based general LAN networking? IMHO no, at least not in the foreseeable future, granted like PCIe, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand, Ethernet and some others that have joined the where are they now list of technologies that promised to be the end all network for everything, near-term Gen-Z is focused on inside a modular enclosure or perhaps within a rack. Read more about Gen-Z here, as well as Dell EMC blog The Gen-Z Journey road to composability.

Dell OpenManage Enterprise
Dell OpenManage Management Interface Image via Dell.com

OpenManage Enterprise Modular Edition

Management for PowerEdge MX 7000 utilizes OpenManage Enterprise Modular Edition that is an HTML5 REST based with API tool. Management capabilities include workflow’s for simplicity of operation and lifecycle management. OpenManage Enterprise Module Edition besides being HTML5 REST API is also RedFish inspired for further interoperability. Note that PowerEdge MX 7000 is also integrated with Dell iDRAC physical machine level management interface provides unified management from a single to multiple server groups spanning towers to racks.

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000
Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Image via Dell.com

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Kinetic Based Data Infrastructure Server

The new Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 is the first installment of their new Kinetic based composable architecture. The new Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 components consist of a 7U chassis with power and cooling fans, along with compute sled, storage sled, I/O connectivity and inner fabric, along with management tools.

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Modules
Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Modules Image via Dell.com

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Server Compute modules

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Compute sleds include MX740c (single width) and MX840c (double width) that are two and four socket modules with local on-board NVMe (e.g., U.2 8639 small form factor SFF) drives (per module). These initial compute modules support Intel Xeon processors and up to six (6) TBytes of memory. The MX740c supports up to six (6) local NVMe, SAS or SATA drives (e.g., 8639 connectors), while the MX840c supports up to eight (8) local drives. Note that these local onboard drives can be shared with other sled modules, as well as compute sleds can access the shared storage sled-based drives.

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Server Storage modules

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Storage sled consists of MX5016s holding up to 16 hot-pluggable SAS HDD, up to seven MX5016s sleds can be configured per MX chassis for up to 112 direct attached storage (DAS) drives. Each of the drives can be individually mapped to one or more servers supporting aggregated (e.g., HCI) as well as disaggregated (CI and legacy) deployment topologies.

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Server I/O Networking Modules

Initial server I/O modules for the new Dell EMC PowerEdge MX include 25GbE and 32G Fibre Channel (GFC) host connectivity along with 100GbE and 32 GFC uplink capabilities with the top of rack (ToR)support built in along with Open Networking OS10EE software enabled. The server I/O modules provide both north-south, as well as east-west connectivity inside and outside the chassis for data plane and management plane traffic.

Server I/O connectivity options include:

  • MX5108n Ethernet Switch with 8 x 25GbE (server facing ports), 2 x 100GbE ports, 1 x 40GbE port, 4 x 10GbE ports.
  • MX9116n Fabric Switching Engine (e.g., Kinetic fabric) with 16 x 25GbE server facing ports, 2 x 100GbE/8 x 32GFC unified ports, 2 x 100 GbE ports and 12 fabric expansion ports.
  • MXG610s Fibre Channel Switch with 16 x 32GFC internal ports, 8 x 32 GFC SFP+ ports and 2 QSFP (4 x 32GFC) uplink ports.

Where to learn more

Learn more about Dell EMC PowerEdge MX, Kinetic, Composable and data infrastructures related topics via the following links:

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Overall this is a good announcement of technology, product, as well as where resources are headed to meet different workload demands and look forward to getting some test time with a Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000.

Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Three Tenants
Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Three Tenants Image via Dell.com

The new Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 Provides a data infrastructure resource platform for deploying traditional, cloud, software-defined, composable, as well as converged infrastructure (CI) disaggregated, as well as hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) aggregated along with hybrid configurations.

With the Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000, there is more resource granularity and future-proof capabilities than traditional high-density blade, as well as twin, quad or eight node server configuration solutions.

Many vendors talk about solutions being future proof or enabling investment protection, with PowerEdge MX 7000, Dell EMC is taking the next step in discussing trends, technology, and what you can do today. Unlike traditional dual, quad, eight or high-density node and blade servers with dedicated discrete mid-planes tied to a given technology, Dell PowerEdge MX 7000 and Kinetic based architecture are mid planes aka back plane free. Now there is still connectivity between the different PowerEdge MX 7000 chassis modules which is a fabric (network if you prefer).

For example, server compute sled modules have an industry standard connector that connects with other components in the chassis. What differs from the traditional blade and multi-node server configurations is that on board the compute sleds; an adapter module can be changed to support a new interface over different generations of technology (as an example, keep an eye on what happens with Gen-Z).

The result is that the Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 should be an excellent platform for software-defined data centers (SDDC), software-defined data infrastructures (SDDI), software-defined infrastructures (SDI) as well as other software defined or traditional deployments. The Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 will make for a good CI, HCI, SDDC, SDDI, SDI platform for public, private as well as hybrid clouds, PaaS as well as IaaS deployments, along with VMware, Microsoft (Hyper-V, Windows Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), as well as Azure Stack) among other scenarios.

By being flexible, scalable, agile and adaptable, easy management, responsive design that is future proof enabling a pool of dynamic data infrastructure resource, the Dell EMC PowerEdge MX 7000 should be good allowing IT Unbound.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

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Catching Up With Summer 2018 IBM Cloudy Software Defined Storage Announcements

Summer 2018 IBM Cloudy Software Defined Storage Announcements

Catching Up With Summer 2018 IBM Cloudy Software Defined Storage Announcements

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

What was announced

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where to learn more

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

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

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

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

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Amazon Web Services AWS July 2018 Updates

Amazon Web Services AWS July 2018 Updates

Amazon Web Services (AWS) July 2018 Updates

Amazon Web Services AWS July 2018 Updates

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where to learn more

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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