Category: object storage

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Getting Caught Up What Happened In September 2017

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Getting Caught Up, What Happened In September?

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

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

vmworld 2017

VMworld Las Vegas

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

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

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

Software Defined Everything (x)

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

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

Image via snia.org

Role of Storage in a Software Defined Data Infrastructure

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

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

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

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

tape and cloud storage

Tape in a Software Defined and Hybrid Cloud World

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

Focus on Data Protection (and recovery)

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

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

Additional data protection related topics and content include:

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

Expanding Your Data Infrastructure Tradecraft

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

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

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

Where To Learn More

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

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

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

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

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

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August 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter



Server StorageIO August 2017 Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

Volume 17, Issue VII (Pre VMworld 2017)

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

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

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

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

In This Issue

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

Cheers GS

Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

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

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

GPU vendor NVIDIA announced Quadro Virtual Data Center workstation technology.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

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

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

Server StorageIOblog Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

In Case You Missed It #ICYMI

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Tips and Articles

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

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

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

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

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

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

Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers
Gs

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

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

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

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Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch

Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Updated 1/21/2018

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

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

Some Popular Trending Vendors To Watch

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

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

Some Popular Trending Technology Trends

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

Where To Learn More

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

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Travel Fun Crossword Puzzle For VMworld 2017 Las Vegas

Travel Fun Crossword Puzzle For VMworld 2017 Las Vegas

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Some of you may be traveling to VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas next week to sharpen, expand, refresh or share your VMware and data infrastructure tradecraft (skills, experiences, expertise, knowledge). Here is something fun to sharpen your VMware skills while traveling. Most of these should be pretty easy meaning that you do not have to be a Unicorn, full of vCertifications, vCredentials or a 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1st time vExpert or top 100 vBlogger. However if you need the answers they are below.

VMworld 2017 crossword puzzle SDDI, SDDC

Note that you can also click here to get a PDF version that is larger (or click on the image) that also has the answers.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC

For those of you who will be in Las Vegas at VMworld next week, stop by the VMworld Book Store at 1PM on Tuesday (the 29th) where I will be doing a book signing event for my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), stop by and say hello. Note there are also Kindle and other electronic versions of my new SDDI Essentials Book on Amazon.com and other venues if you need something to read during your upcoming travels.

Where To Learn More

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

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

What This All Means

Have a safe and fun trip on your way to Las Vegas for next weeks VMworld, enjoy the crossword puzzle, and if you need the answers, they are located here (PDF), see you at VMworld 2017 in Last Vegas.

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

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

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

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

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Announcing Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book by Greg Schulz

New SDDI Essentials Book by Greg Schulz of Server StorageIO

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Update 1/21/2018
Over the past several months I have posted, commenting, presenting and discussing more about Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials aka SDDI or SDDC and SDI. Now it is time to announce my new book (my 4th solo project), Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book (CRC Press). Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials is now generally available at various global venues in hardcopy, hardback print as well as various electronic versions including via Amazon and CRC Press among others. For those attending VMworld 2017 in Las Vegas, I will be doing a book signing, meet and greet at 1PM Tuesday August 29 in the VMworld book store, as well as presenting at various other fall industry events.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book Announcement

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book topics include:

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

Where To Purchase Your Copy

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

What People Are Saying About Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book

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

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

Gert and Frank Brouwer – Brouwer Storage Consultancy

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

Mark McSherry- Oracle Regional Sales Manager

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

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

SDDI and SDDC components

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC content

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

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

Book Features

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

SDDI and SDDC toolbox

Where To Learn More

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Chelsio Storage over IP and other Networks Enable Data Infrastructures

Chelsio Storage over IP Enable Data Infrastructures

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

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

Server Storage over IP Revisited

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

Who is Chelsio

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

Chelsio data infrastructure focus

Chelsio ecosystem across different data infrastructure focus areas and application workloads

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

Chelsio server storage I/O focus

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

Chelsio enabling various data center resources

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

Chelsio ecosystem

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

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

Chelsio software environments

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

Chelsio server storage I/O performance

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

Chelsio

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

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

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

Chelsio

Where To Learn More

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

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

What This All Means

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

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

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

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

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

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

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Microsoft Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Reference Resources

Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Architecture Resources

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

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

Microsoft Azure Software Defined Cloud
Azure Reference Architectures via Microsoft Azure

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

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

Microsoft Azure Sharepoint HA reference architecture
Sharepoint HA via Microsoft Azure

Where To Learn More

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

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

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

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

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

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

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Like Data They Protect For Now Quantum Revenues Continue To Grow

For Now Quantum Revenues Continue To Grow

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

For Now Quantum Revenues Continue To Grow. The other day following their formal announced, I received an summary update from Quantum pertaining to their recent Q1 Results (show later below).

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

Quantums Revenues Continue To Grow Like Data

One of the certainties in life is change and the other is continued growth in data that gets transformed into information via IT and other applications. Data Infrastructures fundamental role is to enable an environment for applications and data to be transformed into information and delivered as services. In other words, Data Infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve information along with the applications and data they depend on. Quantums role is to provide solutions and technologies for enabling legacy and cloud or other software defined data infrastructures to protect, preserve, secure and serve data.

What caught my eye in Quantums announcements was that while not earth shattering growth numbers normally associated with a hot startup, being a legacy data infrasture and storage vendor, Quantum’s numbers are hanging in there.

At a time when some legacy as well as startups struggle with increased competition from others including cloud, Quantum appears for at least now to be hanging in there with some gains.

The other thing that caught my eye is that most of the growth not surprisingly is non tape related solutions, particular around their bulk scale out StorNext storage solutions, there is some growth in tape.

Here is the excerpt of what Quantum sent out:


Highlights for the quarter (all comparisons are to the same period a year ago):

•	Grew total revenue and generated profit for 5th consecutive quarter
•	Total revenue was up slightly to $117M, with 3% increase in branded revenue
•	Generated operating profit of $1M with earnings per share of 4 cents, up 2 cents
•	Grew scale-out tiered storage revenue 10% to $34M, with strong growth in video surveillance and technical workflows
o	Key surveillance wins included deals with an Asian government for surveillance at a presidential palace and other government facilities, with a major U.S. port and with four new police department customers
o	Established several new surveillance partnerships – one of top three resellers/integrators in China (Uniview) and two major U.S. integrators (Protection 1 and Kratos)
o	Won two surveillance awards for StorNext – Security Industry Association’s New Product Showcase award and Security Today magazine’s Platinum Govies Government Security award
o	Key technical workflow wins included deals at an international defense and aerospace company to expand StorNext archive environment, a leading biotechnology firm for 1 PB genomic sequencing archive, a top automaker involving autonomous driving research data and a U.S. technology institute involving high performance computing  
o	Announced StorNext 6, which adds new advanced data management features to StorNext’s industry-leading performance and is now shipping
o	Announced scale-out partnerships with Veritone on artificial intelligence and DataFrameworks on data visualization and management  
•	Tape automation, devices and media revenue increased 6% overall while branded revenue for this product category was up 14%
o	Strong sales of newest generation Scalar i3 and i6 tape libraries
•	Established new/enhanced data protection partnerships
o	Enhanced partnership with Veeam, making it easier for their customers to deploy 3-2-1 data protection best practices
o	Became Pure Storage alliance partner, providing our data protection and archive solutions for their customers through mutual channel partners

Where To Learn More

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

What This All Means

Keep in mind that Data Infrastructures fundamental role is to enable an environment for applications and data to be transformed into information and delivered as services. Data Infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, secure and serve information along with the applications and data they depend on. Quantum continues to evolve their business as they have for several years from one focused on tape and related technologies to one that includes tape as well as many other solutions for legacy as well as software defined, cloud and virtual environments. For now, quantum revenues continue to grow and diversify.

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

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

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

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

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Data Infrastructure Industry Trends WekaIO Matrix Software Defined Storage SDS

WekaIO Matrix Scale Out Software Defined Storage SDS

server storage I/O trends

Updated 2/11/2018

WekaIO Matrix is a scale out software defined solution (SDS).

WekaIO Matrix software defined scale out storage SDS

This Server StorageIO Industry Trends Perspective report looks at common issues, trends, and how to address different application server storage I/O challenges. In this report, we look at WekaIO Matrix, an elastic, flexible, highly scalable easy to use (and manage) software defined (e.g. software based) storage solution. WekaIO Matrix enables flexible elastic scaling with stability and without compromise.

Matrix is a new scale out software defined storage solution that:

  • Installs on bare metal, virtual or cloud servers
  • Has POSIX, NFS, SMB, and HDFS storage access
  • Adaptable performance for little and big data
  • Tiering of flash SSD and cloud object storage
  • Distributed resilience without compromise
  • Removes complexity of traditional storage
  • Deploys on bare metal, virtual and cloud environments

Where To Learn More

View additional SDS and related topics via the following links.

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Read more about WekaIO Matrix in this (free, no registration required) Server StorageIO Industry Trends Perspective (ITP) Report compliments of WekaIO.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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July 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructures Update Newsletter

Volume 17, Issue VII

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

It has been busy time with a lot going on, so let’s get right to this months topics which include software defined, data infrastructures, server, I/O networking, storage and related topics.

Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC

A quick update following up from the June newsletter is that my new book is now available via Amazon.com, CRC Press and other venues in hardcopy hardcover as well as electronic versions. Visit storageio.com/book4 to learn more including view table of contents, preface, how organized among other items.

In This Issue

Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

Cheers GS

Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

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

Arcserve who gained their independence from CA a few years ago has now acquired Zetta to expand its data protection solution portfolio for legacy, software defined virtual and cloud data infrastructure environments.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) solution provider Compuverde has been awarded a US Patent for optimal server selection in software defined data centers (SDDC).

The InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) announced its April 2017 integrators list including RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) along with other recent plugfest updates. Learn more about IBTA and related topics at www.infinibandta.org

Next Platform has an interesting piece about a slump in the High Performance Computing (HPC) also known as High Profit Compute (for financial firms among others) along with Super Compute (SC) industry sector. Some of the vendors in the HPC and SC space include AMD, Cisco, Cray, DDN, Dell EMC, Fujifilm, IBM, Intel, HPE/SGI, Mellanox, NetApp, Oracle, Seagate and Western Digital (WD) among others. Check out the piece over at Next Platform here.

To beef up its storage solution offerings, Cray has done a deal with Seagate who is one of their suppliers of HDDs as well as software defined storage software (ClusterStore) and related systems. In this new deal, Cray will get (e.g. now own) Lustre based ClusterStore storage solution which besides the intellectual property (IP) including software, around 100 or so workers will shift from being Seagate to becoming Cray employees. Note that Seagate acquired ClusterStore solution as part of its acquisition a few years ago of Xyratex (enclosures and Lustre storage system software).

Meanwhile Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo is steeping down from his top leadership position after posting poor earnings and more job cuts. We have heard that HDDs are dead for decades, yet they continue to be consumed, granted with ups and downs, lately more downs for Seagate than its competitor Western Digital (WD). Seagate has dabbled in flash solid state devices (SSDs) ranging from drives to cards including acquisition of the flash business from LSI/Avago a few years ago, along with some partnerships. As a component supplier, does Seagate need to take a bold move and get closer or do a deal with one of the nand flash or other persistent memory chip makers? Or, does Seagate need to continue to move up the stack with solutions building on their previous deals buying Xyratex (enclosure and ClusterStor), Evault (data protection software), DotHill (storage systems), LSI/Avago flash (flash cards)? Lets see what happens with Seagate both from a big picture as well as more focused product, technology, portfolio perspective.

Watch for a flurry of NVMe, along with flash SSD and other non-volatile memory (NVM), persistent memories along with storage class memories over the next few weeks. Keep in mind that If Answer is NVMe, what are the questions? Also watch for a flurry of software defined, cloud, virtual and related news towards the end of the month and into September.

Just for fun, Mike Acton (@mike_acton) has an interesting read on Introductory bullshit detection for non-technical managers that you can check out here. Over at Coding Horror there is another interesting read on the notion of paying down your technical debt, check it out here.

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

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Comments on Who Will Rule the Storage World?
Via SearchDataCenter: Comments on Dell EMC Cisco VxBlock news

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

Server StorageIO Featured White Paper Report

This months featured Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure content is a new white paper industry trends perspective report looking at Weka.IO Matrix Multi-Dimensional Software Based Storage (e.g. software defined storage). In this report, we look at WekaIO Matrix, an elastic, flexible, highly scalable easy to use (and manage) software-defined (e.g. software-based) storage solution. WekaIO Matrix enables radically simple software defined storage that is flexible elastic scaling with stability and without compromise.

Weka.io Matrix software defined storage

  • Matrix is a new storage solution that:
  • Installs on bare metal, virtual or cloud servers
  • Has POSIX, NFS, SMB, and HDFS storage access
  • Adaptable performance for little and big data
  • Tiering of flash SSD and cloud object storage
  • Distributed resilience without compromise
  • Removes complexity of traditional storage

Read more in this StorageIO Industry Trends and Perspective (ITP) Report compliments of WekaIO by clicking here. Visit www.weka.io to learn more about WekaIO and their Matrix solution.

View more Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure White Papers, Lab Reports, Solution Briefs, Research, Polls, Surveys and additional content here on our portfolio page.

 

Server StorageIOblog Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

  • Intel Announces New Xeon Processors for Software Defined Data Infrastructures
    Intel announced a new family of Xeon Scalable Processors (aka Purely) that for some workloads Intel claims to be on average of 1.65x faster than their predecessors. Note your real improvement will vary based on workload, configuration, benchmark testing, type of processor, memory, and many other server storage I/O performance considerations.

  • Who Will Be At Top Of Storage World Next Decade?
    It is safe to say that each new year will bring new trends, techniques, technologies, tools, features, functionality as well as solutions involving data storage as well as data infrastructures. This means a usual safe bet is to say that the current year is the most exciting and has the most new things than in the past when it comes to data infrastructures along with resources such as data storage.

  • Zombie Technology Life after Death Tape Is Still Alive
    A Zombie Technology is one declared dead yet has Life after Death such as Tape which is still alive, despite having declared dead for decades.

In Case You Missed It #ICYMI

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Tips and Articles

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via IDG/NetworkWorld: Ensure your data infrastructure remains available and resilient
Via IDG/NetworkWorld: Whats a data infrastructure?
Via InfoStor: Object Storage Is In Your Future
Via InfoStor: Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
Via InfoStor: SSD Trends, Tips and Topics

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

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

Sep. 21, 2017 – MSP CMG – Minneapolis MN

Sep. 14, 2017 – Fujifilm IT Executive Summit – Seattle WA

Sep. 12, 2017 – SNIA Software Developers Conference (SDC) – Santa Clara CA

Sep. 7, 2017 – TBA – Enabling, Planning and Executing Your Software Defined Journey

August 28-30, 2017 – VMworld – Las Vegas

June 22, 2017 – Webinar – GDPR and Microsoft Environments

May 11, 2017 – Webinar – Email Archiving, Compliance and Ransomware

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

Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers
Gs

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

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

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

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Zombie Technology Life after Death Tape Is Still Alive

Zombie Technology Life after Death Tape Is Still Alive

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

A Zombie Technology is one declared dead yet has Life after Death such as Tape which is still alive.

zombie technology
Image via StorageIO.com (licensed for use from Shutterstock.com)

Tapes Evolving Role

Sure we have heard for decade’s about the death of tape, and someday it will be dead and buried (I mean really dead), no longer used, buried, existing only in museums. Granted tape has been on the decline for some time, and even with many vendors exiting the marketplace, there remains continued development and demand within various data infrastructure environments, including software defined as well as legacy.

data infrastructures

Tape remains viable for some environments as part of an overall memory data storage hierarchy including as a portability (transportable) as well as bulk storage medium.

memory data storage hirearchy classes tiers

Keep in mind that tapes role as a data storage medium also continues to change as does its location. The following table (via Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press)) Chapter 10 shows examples of various data movements from source to destination. These movements include migration, replication, clones, mirroring, and backup, copies, among others. The source device can be a block LUN, volume, partition, physical or virtual drive, HDD or SSD, as well as a file system, object, or blob container or bucket. An example of the modes in Table 10.1 include D2D backup from local to local (or remote) disk (HDD or SSD) storage or D2D2D copy from local to local storage, then to the remote.

Mode – Description
D2D – Data gets copied (moved, migrated, replicated, cloned, backed up) from source storage (HDD or SSD) to another device or disk (HDD or SSD)-based device
D2C – Data gets copied from a source device to a cloud device.
D2T – Data gets copied from a source device to a tape device (drive or library).
D2D2D – Data gets copied from a source device to another device, and then to another device.
D2D2T – Data gets copied from a source device to another device, then to tape.
D2D2C   Data gets copied from a source device to another device, then to cloud.
Data Movement Modes from Source to Destination

Note that movement from source to the target can be a copy, rsync, backup, replicate, snapshot, clone, robocopy among many other actions. Also, note that in the earlier examples there are occurrences of tape existing in clouds (e.g. its place) and use changing.  Tip – In the past, “disk” usually referred to HDD. Today, however, it can also mean SSD. Think of D2D as not being just HDD to HDD, as it can also be SSD to SSD, Flash to Flash (F2F), or S2S among many other variations if you prefer (or needed).

Image via Tapestorage.org

For those still interested in tape, check out the Active Archive Alliance recent posts (here), as well as the 2017 Tape Storage Council Memo and State of their industry report (here). While lower end-tape such as LTO (which is not exactly the low-end it was a decade or so ago) continues to evolve, things may not be as persistent for tape at the high-end. With Oracle (via its Sun/StorageTek acquisition) exiting the high-end (e.g. Mainframe focused) tape business, that leaves mainly IBM as a technology provider.

Image via Tapestorage.org

With a single tape device (e.g. drive) vendor at the high-end, that could be the signal for many organizations that it is time to finally either move from tape or at least to LTO (linear tape open) as a stepping stone (e.g. phased migration). The reason not being technical rather business in that many organizations need to have a secondary or competitive offering or go through an exception process.

On the other hand, just as many exited the IBM mainframe server market (e.g. Fujitsu/Amdahl, HDS, NEC), big blue (e.g. IBM) continues to innovate and drive both revenue and margin from those platforms (hardware, software, and services). This leads me to believe that IBM will do what it can to keep its high-end tape customers supported while also providing alternative options.

Where To Learn More

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

What This All Means

I would not schedule the last tape funeral just yet, granted there will continue to be periodic wakes and send off over the coming decade. Tape remains for some environments a viable data storage option when used in new ways, as well as new locations complementing flash SSD and other persistent memories aka storage class memories along with HDD.

Personally, I have been directly tape free for over 14 years. Granted, I have data in some clouds and object storage that may exist on a very cold data storage tier possibly maybe on tape that is transparent to my use. However just because I do not physically have tape, does not mean I do not see the need why others still have to or prefer to use it for different needs.

Also, keep in mind that tape continues to be used as an economic data transport for bulk movement of data for some environments. Meanwhile for those who only want, need or wish tape to finally go away, close your eyes, click your heels together and repeat your favorite tape is not alive chant three (or more) times. Keep in mind that HDDs are keeping tape alive by off loading some functions, while SSDs are keeping HDDs alive handling tasks formerly done by spinning media. Meanwhile, tape can and is still called upon by some organizations to protect or enable bulk recovery for SSD and HDDs even in cloud environments, granted in new different ways.

What this all means is that as a zombie technology having been declared dead for decades yet still live there is life after death for tape, which is still alive, for now.

Ok, nuff said (for now…).

Cheers
Gs

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

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

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

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Who Will Be At Top Of Storage World Next Decade?

Who Will Be At Top Of Storage World Next Decade?

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Data Storage regardless of if hardware, legacy, new, emerging, cloud service or various software defined storage (SDS) approaches are all fundamental resource components of data infrastructures along with compute server, I/O networking as well as management tools, techniques, processes and procedures.

fundamental Data Infrastructure resource components
Fundamental Data Infrastructure resources

Data infrastructures include legacy along with software defined data infrastructures (SDDI), along with software defined data centers (SDDC), cloud and other environments to support expanding workloads more efficiently as well as effectively (e.g. boosting productivity).

Data Infrastructures and workloads
Data Infrastructure and other IT Layers (stacks and altitude levels)

Various data infrastructures resource components spanning server, storage, I/O networks, tools along with hardware, software, services get defined as well as composed into solutions or services which may in turn be further aggregated into more extensive higher altitude offerings (e.g. further up the stack).

IT and Data Infrastructure Stack Layers
Various IT and Data Infrastructure Stack Layers (Altitude Levels)

Focus on Data Storage Present and Future Predictions

Drew Robb (@Robbdrew) has a good piece over at Enterprise Storage Forum looking at the past, present and future of who will rule the data storage world that includes several perspective predictions comments from myself as well as others. Some of the perspectives and predictions by others are more generic and technology trend and buzzword bingo focus which should not be a surprise. For example including the usual performance, Cloud and Object Storage, DPDK, RDMA/RoCE, Software-Defined, NVM/Flash/SSD, CI/HCI, NVMe among others.

Here are some excerpts from Drews piece along with my perspective and prediction comments of who may rule the data storage roost in a decade:

Amazon Web Services (AWS) – AWS includes cloud and object storage in the form of S3. However, there is more to storage than object and S3 with AWS also having Elastic File Services (EFS), Elastic Block Storage (EBS), database, message queue and on-instance storage, among others. for traditional, emerging and storage for the Internet of Things (IoT).

It is difficult to think of AWS not being a major player in a decade unless they totally screw up their execution in the future. Granted, some of their competitors might be working overtime putting pins and needles into Voodoo Dolls (perhaps bought via Amazon.com) while wishing for the demise of Amazon Web Services, just saying.

Voodoo Dolls via Amazon.com
Voodoo Dolls and image via Amazon.com

Of course, Amazon and AWS could follow the likes of Sears (e.g. some may remember their catalog) and ignore the future ending up on the where are they now list. While talking about Amazon and AWS, one will have to wonder where Wall Mart will end up in a decade with or without a cloud of their own?

Microsoft – With Windows, Hyper-V and Azure (including Azure Stack), if there is any company in the industry outside of AWS or VMware that has quietly expanded its reach and positioning into storage, it is Microsoft, said Schulz.

Microsoft IMHO has many offerings and capabilities across different dimensions as well as playing fields. There is the installed base of Windows Servers (and desktops) that have the ability to leverage Software Defined Storage including Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), ReFS, cache and tiering among other features. In some ways I’m surprised by the number of people in the industry who are not aware of Microsoft’s capabilities from S2D and the ability to configure CI as well as HCI (Hyper Converged Infrastructure) deployments, or of Hyper-V abilities, Azure Stack to Azure among others. On the other hand, I run into Microsoft people who are not aware of the full portfolio offerings or are just focused on Azure. Needless to say, there is a lot in the Microsoft storage related portfolio as well as bigger broader data infrastructure offerings.

NetApp – Schulz thinks NetApp has the staying power to stay among the leading lights of data storage. Assuming it remains as a freestanding company and does not get acquired, he said, NetApp has the potential of expanding its portfolio with some new acquisitions. “NetApp can continue their transformation from a company with a strong focus on selling one or two products to learning how to sell the complete portfolio with diversity,” said Schulz.

NetApp has been around and survived up to now including via various acquisitions, some of which have had mixed results vs. others. However assuming NetApp can continue to reinvent themselves, focusing on selling the entire solution portfolio vs. focus on specific products, along with good execution and some more acquisitions, they have the potential for being a top player through the next decade.

Dell EMC – Dell EMC is another stalwart Schulz thinks will manage to stay on top. “Given their size and focus, Dell EMC should continue to grow, assuming execution goes well,” he said.

There are some who I hear are or have predicted the demise of Dell EMC, granted some of those predicted the demise of Dell and or EMC years ago as well. Top companies can and have faded away over time, and while it is possible Dell EMC could be added to the where are they now list in the future, my bet is that at least while Michael Dell is still involved, they will be a top player through the next decade, unless they mess up on execution.

Cloud and software defined storage data infrastructure
Various Data Infrastructures and Resources involving Data Storage

Huawei – Huawei is one of the emerging giants from China that are steadily gobbling up market share. It is now a top provider in many categories of storage, and its rapid ascendancy is unlikely to stop anytime soon. “Keep an eye on Huawei, particularly outside of the U.S. where they are starting to hit their stride,” said Schulz.

In the US, you have to look or pay attention to see or hear what Huawei is doing involving data storage, however that is different in other parts of the world. For example, I see and hear more about them in Europe than in the US. Will Huawei do more in the US in the future? Good question, keep an eye on them.

VMware – A decade ago, Storage Networking World (SNW) was by far the biggest event in data storage. Everyone who was anyone attended this twice yearly event. And then suddenly, it lost its luster. A new forum known as VMworld had emerged and took precedence. That was just one of the indicators of the disruption caused by VMware. And Schulz expects the company to continue to be a major force in storage. “VMware will remain a dominant player, expanding its role with software-defined storage,” said Schulz.

VMware has a dominant role in data storage not just because of the relationship with Dell EMC, or because of VSAN which continues to gain in popularity, or the soon to be released VMware on AWS solution options among others. Sure all of those matters, however, keep in mind that VMware solutions also tie into and work with other legacies as well as software-defined storage solution, services as well as tools spanning block, file, object for virtual machines as well as containers.

"Someday soon, people are going to wake up like they did with VMware and AWS," said Schulz. "That’s when they will be asking ‘When did Microsoft get into storage like this in such a big way.’"

What the above means is that some environments may not be paying attention to what AWS, Microsoft, VMware among others are doing, perhaps discounting them as the old or existing while focusing on new, emerging what ever is trendy in the news this week. On the other hand, some environments may see the solution offerings from those mentioned as not relevant to their specific needs, or capable of scaling to their requirements.

Keep in mind that it was not that long ago, just a few years that VMware entered the market with what by today’s standard (e.g. VSAN and others) was a relatively small virtual storage appliance offering, not to mention many people discounted and ignored VMware as a practical storage solution provider. Things and technology change, not to mention there are different needs and solution requirements for various environments. While a solution may not be applicable today, give it some time, keep an eye on them to avoid being surprised asking the question, how and when did a particular vendor get into storage in such a big way.

Is Future Data Storage World All Cloud?

Perhaps someday everything involving data storage will be in or part of the cloud.

Does this mean everything is going to the cloud, or at least in the next ten years? IMHO the simple answer is no, even though I see more workloads, applications, and data residing in the cloud, there will also be an increase in hybrid deployments.

Note that those hybrids will span local and on-premises or on-site if you prefer, as well as across different clouds or service providers. Granted some environments are or will become all in on clouds, while others are or will become a hybrid or some variation. Also when it comes to clouds, do not be scared, be prepared. Also keep an eye on what is going on with containers, orchestration, management among other related areas involving persistent storage, a good example is Dell EMCcode RexRay among others.

Server Storage I/O resources
Various data storage focus areas along with data infrastructures.

What About Other Vendors, Solutions or Services?

In addition to those mentioned above, there are plenty of other existing, new and emerging vendors, solutions, and services to keep an eye on, look into, test and conduct a proof of concept (PoC) trial as part of being an informed data infrastructure and data storage shopper (or seller).

Keep in mind that component suppliers some of whom like Cisco also provides turnkey solutions that are also part of other vendors offerings (e.g. Dell EMC VxBlock, NetApp FlexPod among others), Broadcom (which includes Avago/LSI, Brocade Fibre Channel, among others), Intel (servers, I/O adapters, memory and SSDs), Mellanox, Micron, Samsung, Seagate and many others.

E8, Excelero, Elastifile (software defined storage), Enmotus (micro-tiering, read Server StorageIOlab report here), Everspin (persistent and storage class memories including NVDIMM), Hedvig (software defined storage), NooBaa, Nutanix, Pivot3, Rozo (software defined storage), WekaIO (scale out elastic software defined storage, read Server StorageIO report here).

Some other software defined management tools, services, solutions and components I’m keeping an eye on, exploring, digging deeper into (or plan to) include Blue Medora, Datadog, Dell EMCcode and RexRay docker container storage volume management, Google, HPE, IBM Bluemix Cloud aka IBM Softlayer, Kubernetes, Mangstor, OpenStack, Oracle, Retrospect, Rubrix, Quest, Starwind, Solarwinds, Storpool, Turbonomic, Virtuozzo (software defined storage) among many others

What about those not mentioned? Good question, some of those I have mentioned in earlier Server StorageIO Update newsletters, as well as many others mentioned in my new book "Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials" (CRC Press). Then there are those that once I hear something interesting from on a regular basis will get more frequent mentions as well. Of course, there is also a list to be done someday that is basically where are they now, e.g. those that have disappeared, or never lived up to their full hype and marketing (or technology) promises, let’s leave that for another day.

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

Where To Learn More

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

Data Infrastructures and workloads
Data Infrastructures Resources (Servers, Storage, I/O Networks) enabling various services

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

It is safe to say that each new year will bring new trends, techniques, technologies, tools, features, functionality as well as solutions involving data storage as well as data infrastructures. This means a usual safe bet is to say that the current year is the most exciting and has the most new things than in the past when it comes to data infrastructures along with resources such as data storage. Keep in mind that there are many aspects to data infrastructures as well as storage all of which are evolving. Who Will Be At Top Of Storage World Next Decade? What say you?

Ok, nuff said (for now…).

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the spring 2017 release of his new book "Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials" (CRC Press).

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

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

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New family of Intel Xeon Scalable Processors enable software defined data infrastructures (SDDI) and SDDC

Intel Xeon Scalable Processors SDDI and SDDC

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Today Intel announced a new family of Xeon Scalable Processors (aka Purely) that for some workloads Intel claims to be on average of 1.65x faster than their predecessors. Note your real improvement will vary based on workload, configuration, benchmark testing, type of processor, memory, and many other server storage I/O performance considerations.

Intel Scalable Xeon Processors
Image via Intel.com

In general the new Intel Xeon Scalable Processors enable legacy and software defined data infrastructures (SDDI), along with software defined data centers (SDDC), cloud and other environments to support expanding workloads more efficiently as well as effectively (e.g. boosting productivity).

Data Infrastructures and workloads

Some target application and environment workloads Intel is positioning these new processors for includes among others:

  • Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), advanced analytics, deep learning and big data
  • Networking including software defined network (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV)
  • Cloud and Virtualization including Azure Stack, Docker and Kubernetes containers, Hyper-V, KVM, OpenStack VMware vSphere, KVM among others
  • High Performance Compute (HPC) and High Productivity Compute (e.g. the other HPC)
  • Storage including legacy and emerging software defined storage software deployed as appliances, systems or server less deployment modes.

Features of the new Intel Xeon Scalable Processors include:

  • New core micro architecture with interconnects and on die memory controllers
  • Sockets (processors) scalable up to 28 cores
  • Improved networking performance using Quick Assist and Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK)
  • Leverages Intel Quick Assist Technology for CPU offload of compute intensive functions including I/O networking, security, AI, ML, big data, analytics and storage functions. Functions that benefit from Quick Assist include cryptography, encryption, authentication, cipher operations, digital signatures, key exchange, loss less data compression and data footprint reduction along with data at rest encryption (DARE).
  • Optane Non-Volatile Dual Inline Memory Module (NVDIMM) for storage class memory (SCM) also referred to by some as Persistent Memory (PM), not to be confused with Physical Machine (PM).
  • Supports Advanced Vector Extensions 512  (AVX-512) for HPC and other workloads
  • Optional Omni-Path Fabrics in addition to 1/10Gb Ethernet among other I/O options
  • Six memory channels supporting up to 6TB of RDIMM with multi socket systems
  • From two to eight  sockets per node (system)
  • Systems support PCIe 3.x (some supporting x4 based M.2 interconnects)

Note that exact speeds, feeds, slots and watts will vary by specific server model and vendor options. Also note that some server system solutions have two or more nodes (e.g. two or more real servers) in a single package not to be confused with two or more sockets per node (system or motherboard). Refer to the where to learn more section below for links to Intel benchmarks and other resources.

Software Defined Data Infrastructures, SDDC, SDX and SDDI

What About Speeds and Feeds

Watch for and check out the various Intel partners who have or will be announcing their new server compute platforms based on Intel Xeon Scalable Processors. Each of the different vendors will have various speeds and feeds options that build on the fundamental Intel Xeon Scalable Processor capabilities.

For example Dell EMC announced their 14G server platforms at the May 2017 Dell EMC World event with details to follow (e.g. after the Intel announcements).

Some things to keep in mind include the amount of DDR4 DRAM (or Optane NVDIMM) will vary by vendors server platform configuration, motherboards, several sockets and DIMM slots. Also keep in mind the differences between registered (e.g. buffered RDIMM) that give good capacity and great performance, and load reduced DIMM (LRDIMM) that have great capacity and ok performance.

Various nvme options

What about NVMe

It’s there as these systems like previous Intel models support NVMe devices via PCIe 3.x slots, and some vendor solutions also supporting M.2 x4 physical interconnects as well.

server storageIO flash and SSD
Image via Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC)

Note that Broadcom formerly known as Avago and LSI recently announced PCIe based RAID and adapter cards that support NVMe attached devices in addition to SAS and SATA.

server storage data infrastructure sddi

What About Intel and Storage

In case you have not connected the dots yet, the Intel Xeon Scalable Processor based server (aka compute) systems are also a fundamental platform for storage systems, services, solutions, appliances along with tin-wrapped software.

What this means is that the Intel Xeon Scalable Processors based systems can be used for deploying legacy as well as new and emerging software-defined storage software solutions. This also means that the Intel platforms can be used to support SDDC, SDDI, SDX, SDI as well as other forms of legacy and software-defined data infrastructures along with cloud, virtual, container, server less among other modes of deployment.

Image Via Intel.com

Moving beyond server and compute platforms, there is another tie to storage as part of this recent as well as other Intel announcements. Just a few weeks ago Intel announced 64 layer triple level cell (TLC) 3D NAND solutions positioned for the client market (laptop, workstations, tablets, thin clients). Intel with that announcement increased the traditional aerial density (e.g. bits per square inch or cm) as well as boosting the number of layers (stacking more bits as well).

The net result is not only more bits per square inch, also more per cubic inch or cm. This is all part of a continued evolution of NAND flash including from 2D to 3D, MCL to TLC, 32 to 64 layer.  In other words, NAND flash-based Solid State Devices (SSDs) are very much still a relevant and continue to be enhanced technology even with the emerging 3D XPoint and Optane (also available via Amazon in M.2) in the wings.

server memory evolution
Via Intel and Micron (3D XPoint launch)

Keep in mind that NAND flash-based technologies were announced almost 20 years ago (1999), and are still evolving. 3D XPoint announced two years ago, along with other emerging storage class memories (SCM), non-volatile memory (NVM) and persistent memory (PM) devices are part of the future as is 3D NAND (among others). Speaking of 3D XPoint and Optane, Intel had announcements about that in the past as well.

Where To Learn More

Learn more about Intel Xeon Scalable Processors along with related technology, trends, tools, techniques and tips with the following links.

What This All Means

Some say the PC is dead and IMHO that depends on what you mean or define a PC as. For example if you refer to a PC generically to also include servers besides workstations or other devices, then they are alive. If however your view is that PCs are only workstations and client devices, then they are on the decline.

However if your view is that a PC is defined by the underlying processor such as Intel general purpose 64 bit x86 derivative (or descendent) then they are very much alive. Just as older generations of PCs leveraging general purpose Intel based x86 (and its predecessors) processors were deployed for many uses, so to are today’s line of Xeon (among others) processors.

Even with the increase of ARM, GPU and other specialized processors, as well as ASIC and FPGAs for offloads, the role of general purpose processors continues to increase, as does the technology evolution around. Even with so called server less architectures, they still need underlying compute server platforms for running software, which also includes software defined storage, software defined networks, SDDC, SDDI, SDX, IoT among others.

Overall this is a good set of announcements by Intel and what we can also expect to be a flood of enhancements from their partners who will use the new family of Intel Xeon Scalable Processors in their products to enable software defined data infrastructures (SDDI) and SDDC.

Ok, nuff said (for now…).

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the spring 2017 release of his new book "Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials" (CRC Press).

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

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

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June 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructures Update Newsletter

Volume 17, Issue VI

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

For those of you in the northern hemisphere it is time for summer holidays, while in the southern hemisphere its winter time. That means there is a lot going on outside of work, however June has also seen a lot of activity in and around IT data infrastructure along with data centers. Check out some of the industry trends news and updates below.

Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC

A quick update following up from the May newsletter is that my new book is now available via Amazon.com, CRC Press and other venues in hardcopy hardcover as well as electronic versions. Think of this as the soft launch with a formal launch and more information being rolled out soon. For now, you can visit the landing page for Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, and Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft (CRC PRess/Taylor Francis/Auerbach) at storageio.com/book4 to learn more including view table of contents, preface, how organized among other items.

In This Issue

Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

Cheers GS

Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

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

Cavium announced 10, 25, 50 and 50Gbps Ethernet server storage I/O NIC solutions (e.g. FastLine 41000 series).

The NVMe Express trade group (e.g. nvmexpress.org) announced the completion of NVMe 1.3 specification. New optional features include support for mobile platforms and book, along with scaling for enterprise as well as cloud environments. Learn more about specifications at the NVMexpress.org site as well as more NVMe material at thenvmeplace.com.

Keep in mind that if the answer is NVMe, what are the questions along with various options from front end to back-end, NVMe and PCIe, NVMeoF, U.2/8639, M2/NGFF among others.

The Fibre Channel Industry Association announced FC-NVMe interoperability plugfest and Gen 6 32GFC activity to support next generation data infrastructures and data centers.

Storage vendor Tegile announced they are joining the growing ranks of vendors adding NVMe support with their InteliFlash OS 3.7 along with other enhancements.

For those of you who are involved with Windows Servers environments along with server, storage and I/O networks, check out Darryl VanderPeijl multi-part series on RDMA, DCB, PFC, ETS and related topics.

HPE and Hedvig announced solutions combing forces to address hybrid cloud storage needs.

IBM and Cisco announced enhancements around their converged (Cisco powered servers) solution for VDI and Hybrid cloud workloads.

Big Data and Analytics vendor Mapr announced enhancements to their converged data management platform for cloud scale data fabrics.

Panzura has enhanced its Freedom software defined storage management solution with version 7 to support expanded unstructured data growth while easing management functions, along with performance updates.

Red Hat announced Ceph Storage 2.3 including Ceph 10.2 (Jewel) combing an NFS gateway.

Scality announced enhancements to its Ring software defined storage cloud and object solution including enhanced security along with data protection capabilities.

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

 

Server StorageIOblog Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

Via EnterpriseStorageForum: 5 Hot Storage Technologies to Watch
Storage can be held back by slow I/O performance, which caused expensive compute resources and memory to be consumed. NVMe reduces wait time while increasing the amount of effective work, enabling higher-profitability compute. The storage I/O capabilities of flash can be fed across PCIe faster to enable multi-core processors to complete more useful work in less time.

Via EnterpriseStorageForum: 10-Year Review of Data Storage
The adoption of hybrid cloud and hybrid converged server storage has appeared more rapidly than many expected. And despite firm pronouncements of their demise, FC, tape and HDD are still very much with us.

Via CDW: Your IT Department Can Help Your Companys Bottom Line Heres How
Not only are the servers more robust performance wise, but they’ve got more compute capability, can handle more workloads, have more memory and also have better resiliency.

Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Top 10 Tips for Software-Defined Storage Deployment
Dell 14g PowerEdge Servers give you greater compute and IO capability, as well as the density you need, NVMe and 25 Gig Ethernet on board,

Via CDW: Meeting IoTs Demands for Networking

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

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

Sep. 13-15, 2017 – Fujifilm IT Executive Summit – Seattle WA

August 28-30, 2017 – VMworld – Las Vegas

June 22, 2017 – Webinar – GDPR and Microsoft Environments

May 11, 2017 – Webinar – Email Archiving, Compliance and Ransomware

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

Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

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

Cheers
Gs

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

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

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