Category: Personal Computing

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Point In Time Granularity Points of Interest

Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Point In Time Granularity

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

This is Part 5 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Part 4 Data Protection Recovery Points (Archive, Backup, Snapshots, Versions), and click here to view the next post Part 6 Data Protection Security Logical Physical Software Defined.

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

In this post the focus is around Data Protection points of granularity, addressing different layers and stack altitude (higher application and lower system level) Chapter 10 . among others.

Point-in-Time Protection Granularity Points of Interest

SDDC SDDI Data Protection Recovery consistency points
Figure 10.1 Recovery and consistency points

Figure 10.1 above is a refresh from previous posts about the role and importance of having various recovery points at different time intervals to enable data protection (and restoration). Building upon figure 10.1, figure 10.5 looks at different granularity of where and how data should be protected. Keep in mind that everything is not the same, so why treat everything the same with the same type of protection?

Figure 10.5 shows backup and Data Protection focus, granularity, and coverage. For example, at the top left is less frequent protection of the operating system, hypervisors, and BIOS, UEFI settings. At the middle left is volume, or device level protection (full, incremental, differential), along with various views on the right ranging from protecting everything, to different granularity such as file system, database, database logs and journals, and operating system (OS) and application software, along with settings.

SDDC SDDI Different Protection Granularity
Figure 10.5 Backup and data protection focus, granularity, and coverage

In Figure 10.5, note that the different recovery point focus and granularity also take into consideration application and data consistency (as well as checkpoints), along with different frequencies and coverage (e.g. full, partial, incremental, incremental forever, differential) as well as retention.

Tip – Some context is needed about object backup and backing up objects, which can mean different things. As mentioned elsewhere, objects refer to many different things, including cloud and object storage buckets, containers, blobs, and objects accessed via S3 or Swift, among other APIs. There are also database objects and entities, which are different from cloud or object storage objects.

Another context factor is that an object backup can refer to protecting different systems, servers, storage devices, volumes, and entities that collectively comprise an application such as accounting, payroll, or engineering, vs. focusing on the individual components. An object backup may, in fact, be a collection of individual backups, PIT copies, and snapshots that combined represent what’s needed to restore an application or system.

On the other hand, the content of a cloud or object storage repository ( buckets, containers, blobs, objects, and metadata) can be backed up, as well as serve as a destination target for protection.

Backups can be cold and off-line like archives, as well as on-line and accessible. However, the difference between the two, besides intended use and scope, is granularity. Archives are intended to be coarser and less frequently accessed, while backups can be more frequently and granular accessed. Can you use a backup for an archive and vice versa? A qualified yes, as an archive could be a master gold copy such as an annual protection copy, in addition to functioning in its role as a compliance and retention copy. Likewise, a full backup set to long-term retention can provide and enable some archive functions.

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

A common theme in this series as well as in my books, webinars, seminars and general approach to data infrastructures, data centers and IT in general is that everything is not the same, why treat it all the same? What this means is that there are differences across various environments, data centers, data infrastructures, applications, workloads and data. There are also different threat risks scenarios (e.g. threat vectors and attack surface if you like vendor industry talk) to protect against.

Rethinking and modernizing data protection means using new (and old) tools in new ways, stepping back and rethinking what to protect, when, where, why, how, with what. This also means protecting in different ways at various granularity, time intervals, as well as multiple layers or altitude (higher up the application stack, or lower level).

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series, Part 6 Data Protection Security Logical Physical Software Defined.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Data Infrastructure Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Security Logical Physical

Data Infrastructure Data Protection Security Logical Physical

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

This is Part 6 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Part 5 – Point In Time Data Protection Granularity Points of Interest, and click here to view the next post Part 7 – Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends.

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

In this post the focus is around Data Infrastructure and Data Protection security including logical as well as physical from chapter 10 , 13 and 14 among others.

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

There are many different aspects of security pertaining to data infrastructures that span various technology domains or focus areas from higher level application software to lower level hardware, from legacy to cloud an software-defined, from servers to storage and I/O networking, logical and physical, from access control to intrusion detection, monitoring, analytics, audit, monitoring, telemetry logs, encryption, digital forensics among many others. Security should not be an after thought of something done independent of other data infrastructure, data center and IT functions, rather integrated.

Security Logical Physical Software Defined

Physical security includes locked doors of facilities, rooms, cabinets or devices to prevent un-authorized access. In addition to locked doors, physical security also includes safeguards to prevent accidental or intentional acts that would compromise the contents of a data center including data Infrastructure resources (servers, storage, I/O networks, hardware, software, services) along with the applications that they support.

Logical security includes access controls, passwords, event and access logs, encryption among others technologies, tools, techniques. Figure 10.11 shows various data infrastructure security–related items from cloud to virtual, hardware and software, as well as network services. Also shown are mobile and edge devices as well as network connectivity between on-premises and remote cloud services. Cloud services include public, private, as well as hybrid and virtual private clouds (VPC) along with virtual private networks (VPN). Access logs for telemetry are also used to track who has accessed what and when, as well as success along with failed attempts.

Certificates (public or private), Encryption, Access keys including .pem and RSA files via a service provider or self-generated with a tool such as Putty or ssh-keygen among many others. Some additional terms including Two Factor Authentication (2FA), Subordinated, Role based and delegated management, Single Sign On (SSO), Shared Access Signature (SAS) that is used by Microsoft Azure for access control, Server Side Encryption (SSE) with various Key Management System (KMS) attributes including customer managed or via a third-party.

SDDC SDDI Data Protection Security
Figure 10.11 Various physical and logical security and access controls

Also shown in figure 10.11 are encryption enabled at various layers, levels or altitude that can range from simple to complex. Also shown are iSCSI IPsec and CHAP along with firewalls, Active Directory (AD) along with Azure AD (AAD), and Domain Controllers (DC), Group Policies Objects (GPO) and Roles. Note that firewalls can exist in various locations both in hardware appliances in the network, as well as software defined network (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV), as well as higher up.

For example there are firewalls in network routers and appliances, as well as within operating systems, hypervisors, and further up in web blogs platforms such as WordPress among many others. Likewise further up the stack or higher in altitude access to applications as well as database among other resources is also controlled via their own, or in conjunction with other authentication, rights and access control including ADs among others.

A term that might be new for some is attestation which basically means to authenticate and be validated by a server or service, for example, a host guarded server attests with a attestation server. What this means is that the host guarded server (for example Microsoft Windows Server) attests with a known attestation server, that looks at the Windows server comparing it to known good fingerprints, profiles, making sure it is safe to run as a guarded resources.

Other security concerns for legacy and software defined environments include secure boot, shield VMs, host guarded servers and fabrics (networks or clusters of servers) for on-premises, as well as cloud. The following image via Microsoft shows an example of shielded VMs in a Windows Server 2016 environment along with host guarded service (HGS) components ( see how to deploy here).


Via Microsoft.com Guarded Hosts, Shielded VMs and Key Protection Services

Encryption can be done in different locations ranging from data in flight or transit over networks (local and remote), as well as data at rest or while stored. Strength of encryption is determined by different hash and cipher codes algorithms including SHA among others ranging from simple to more complex. The encryption can be done by networks, servers, storage systems, hypervisors, operating systems, databases, email, word and many other tools at granularity from device, file systems, folder, file, database, table, object or blob.

Virtual machine and their virtual disks ( VHDX and VMDK) can be encrypted, as well as migration or movements such as vMotions among other activities. Here are some VMware vSphere encryption topics, along with deep dive previews from VMworld 2016 among other resources here, VMware hardening guides here (NSX, vSphere), and a VMware security white paper (PDF) here.

Other security-related items shown in Figure 10.11 include Lightweight Direct Access Protocol (LDAP), Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS), and Kerberos network authentication. Also shown are VPN along with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) network security, along with security and authentication keys, credentials for SSH remote access including SSO. The cloud shown in figure 10.11 could be your own private using AzureStack, VMware (on-site, or public cloud such as IBM or AWS), OpenStack among others, or a public cloud such as AWS, Azure or Google (among others).

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

There are many different aspects, as well as layers of security from logical to physical pertaining to data centers, applications and associated data Infrastructure resources, both on-premises and cloud. Security for legacy and software defined environments needs to be integrated as part of various technology domain focus areas, as well as across them including data protection. The above is a small sampling of security related topics with more covered in various chapters of SDDI Essentials as well as in my other books, webinars, presentations and content.

From a data protection focus, security needs to be addressed from a physical who has access to primary and protection copies, what is being protected against and where, as well as who can access logically protection copes, as well as the configuration, settings, certificates involved in data protection. In other words, how are you protecting your data protection environment, configuration and deployment. Data protection copies need to be encrypted to meet regulations, compliance and other requirements to guard against loss or theft, accidental or intentional. Likewise access control needs to be managed including granting of roles, security, authentication, monitoring of access, along with revocation.

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series, Part 7 Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Data Protection Diaries Tools Technologies Toolbox Buzzword Bingo Trends

Fundamental Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

This is Part 7 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Part 6 Data Protection Security Logical Physical Software Defined, and click here to view the next post Part 8 Walking The Data Protection Talk What I Do.

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

In this post the focus is around Data Protection related tools, technologies, trends as companion to other posts in this series, as well as across various chapters from the SDDI book.

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

Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends

There are many data Infrastructure related topics, technologies, tools, trends, techniques and tips that pertain to data protection, many of which have been covered in this series of posts already, as well as in the SDDI Essentials book, and elsewhere. The following are some additional related data Infrastructure data protection topics, tools, technologies.

Buzzword Bingo is a popular industry activity involving terms, trends, tools and more, read more here, here, and here. The basic idea of buzzword bingo is when somebody starts mentioning lots of buzzwords, buzz terms, buzz trends at some point just say bingo. Sometimes you will get somebody who asks what that means, while others will know, perhaps get the point to move on to what’s relevant vs. talking the talk or showing how current they are on industry activity, trends and terms.

Just as everything is not the same across different environments, there are various size and focus from hyper-scale clouds and managed service providers (MSP) server (and storage along with applications focus), smaller and regional cloud, hosting and MSPs, as well as large enterprise, small medium enterprise (SME), small medium business (SMB), remote office branch office (ROBO), small office home office (SOHO), prosumer, consumer and client or edge. Sometimes you will hear server vs. edge or client focus, thus context is important.

Data protection just like data infrastructures span servers, storage, I/O networks, hardware, software, clouds, containers, virtual, hypervisors and related topics. Otoh, some might view data protection as unique to a particular technology focus area or domain. For example, I once had backup vendor tell me that backups and data protection was not a storage topic, can you guess which vendor did not get recommend for data protection of data stored on storage?

Data gets protected to different target media, mediums or services including HDDs, SSD, tape, cloud, bulk and object storage among others in various format from native to encapsulated in save sets, zips, tar ball among others.

Bulk storage can be on-site, on-premises low-cost tape, disk (file, block or object) as well as off-site including cloud services such as AWS S3 (buckets and objects), Microsoft Azure (containers and blobs), Google among others using various Access ( Protocols, Personalities, Front-end, Back-end) technologies. Which type of data protection storage medium, location or service is best depends on what you are trying to do, along with other requirements.

SDDC SDDI data center data protection toolbox
Data Protection Toolbox

SDDC SDDI Object Storage Architecture
Figure 3.18 Generic Object (and Blob) architecture with Buckets (and Containers)

Object Storage

Before discussing Object Storage lets take a step back and look at some context that can clarify some confusion around the term object. The word object has many different meanings and context, both inside of the IT world as well as outside. Context matters with the term object such as a verb being a thing that can be seen or touched as well as a person or thing of action or feeling directed towards.

Besides a person, place or physical thing, an object can be a software defined data structure that describes something. For example, a database record describing somebody’s contact or banking information, or a file descriptor with name, index ID, date and time stamps, permissions and access control lists along with other attributes or metadata. Another example is an object or blob stored in a cloud or object storage system repository, as well as an item in a hypervisor, operating system, container image or other application.

Besides being a verb, object can also be a noun such as disapproval or disagreement with something or someone. From an IT context perspective, object can also refer to a programming method (e.g. object oriented programming [oop], or Java [among other environments] objects and class’s) and systems development in addition to describing entities with data structures.

In other words, a data structure describes an object that can be a simple variable, constant, complex descriptor of something being processed by a program, as well as a function or unit of work. There are also objects unique or with context to specific environments besides Java or databases, operating systems, hypervisors, file systems, cloud and other things.

SDDC SDDI Object Storage Example
Figure 3.19 AWS S3 Object storage example, objects left and descriptive names on right

The role of object storage (view more at www.objectstoragecenter.com) is to provide low-cost, scalable capacity, durable availability of data including data protection copies on-premises or off-site. Note that not all object storage solutions or services are the same, some are immutable with write once read many (WORM) like attributes, while others non-immutable meaning that they can be not only appended to, also updated to page or block level granularity.

Also keep in mind that some solutions and services refer to items being stored as objects while others as blobs, and the name space those are part of as a bucket or container. Note that context is important not to confuse an object container with a docker, kubernetes or micro services container.

Many applications and storage systems as well as appliances support as back-end targets cloud access using AWS S3 API (of AWS S3 service or other solutions), as well as OpenStack Switch API among others. There are also many open source and third-party tools for working with cloud storage including objects and blobs. Learn more about object storage, cloud storage at www.objectstoragecenter.com as well as in chapters 3, 4, 13 and 14 in SDDI Essentials book.

S3 Simple Storage Service

Simple Storage Service ( S3) is the Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud object storage service that can be used for bulk and other storage needs. The S3 service can be accessed from within AWS as well as externally via different tools. AWS S3 supports large number of buckets and objects across different regions and availability zones. Objects can be stored in a hierarchical directory structure format for compatibility with existing file systems or as a simple flat name space.

Context is important with data protection and S3 which can mean the access API, or AWS service. Likewise context is important in that some solutions, software and services support S3 API access as part of their front-end (e.g. how servers or clients access their service), as well as a back-end target (what they can store data on).

Additional AWS S3 (service) and related resources include:

Data Infrastructure Environments and Applications

Data Infrastructure environments that need to be protected include legacy, software defined (SDDC, SDDI, SDS), cloud, virtual and container based, as well as clustered, scale-out, converged Infrastructure (CI), hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI) among others. In addition to data protection related topics already converged in the posts in this series (as well as those to follow), a related topic is Data Footprint Reduction ( DFR). DFR comprises several different technologies and techniques including archiving, compression, compaction, deduplication (dedupe), single instance storage, normalization, factoring, zip, tiering and thin provisioning among many others.

Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) Including Dedupe

There is a long-term relationship with data protection and DFR in that to reduce the impact of storing more data, traditional techniques such as compression and compaction have been used, along with archive and more recently dedupe among others. In the Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book there is an entire chapter on DFR ( chapter 11), as well as related topics in chapters 8 and 13 among others. For those interested in DFR and related topics, there is additional material in my books Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), along with in The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), as well as various posts on StorageIOblog.com and storageio.com. Figure 11.4 is from Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials showing big picture of various places where DFR can be implemented along with different technologies, tools and techniques.

SDDC, SDI, SDDI DFR Dedupe
Figure 11.4 Various points of interest where DFR techniques and technology can be applied

Just as everything is not the same, there are different DFR techniques along with implementations to address various application workload and data performance, availability, capacity, economics (PACE) needs. Where is the best location for DFR that depends on your objectives as well as what your particular technology can support. However in general, I recommend putting DFR as close to where the data is created and stored as possible to maximize its effectiveness which can be on the host server. That however also means leveraging DFR techniques downstream where data gets sent to be stored or protected. In other words, a hybrid DFR approach as a companion to data protection should use various techniques, technologies in different locations. Granted, your preferred vendor might only work in a given location or functionality so you can pretty much guess what the recommendations will be ;) .

Tips, Recommendations and Considerations

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), appendices, as well as tips can be found here.

General action items, tips, considerations and recommendations include:

  • Everything is not the same; different applications with SLO, PACE, FTT, FTM needs
  • Understand the 4 3 2 1 data protection rule and how to implement it.
  • Balance rebuild performance impact and time vs. storage space overhead savings.
  • Use different approaches for various applications and environments.
  • What is best for somebody else may not be best for you and your applications.
  • You cant go forward in the future after a disaster if you cant go back
  • Data protection is a shared responsibility between vendors, service providers and yourself
  • There are various aspects to data protection and data Infrastructure management

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

There are many different buzzword, buzz terms, buzz trends pertaining to data infrastructure and data protection. These technologies span legacy and emerging, software-defined, cloud, virtual, container, hardware and software. Key point is what technology is best fit for your needs and applications, as well as how to use the tools in different ways (e.g. skill craft techniques and tradecraft). Keep context in mind when looking at and discussing different technologies such as objects among others.

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series, Part 8 Walking The Data Protection Talk.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

Posted on

Data Protection Diaries Fundamentals Walking The Data Protection Talk

Data Protection Diaries Walking The Data Protection Talk

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

This is Part 8 of a multi-part series on Data Protection fundamental tools topics techniques terms technologies trends tradecraft tips as a follow-up to my Data Protection Diaries series, as well as a companion to my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, Virtual Server Storage I/O Fundamental tradecraft (CRC Press 2017).

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Click here to view the previous post Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends, and click here to view the next post who’s Doing What ( Toolbox Technology Tools).

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

In this post the focus is around what I (and Server StorageIO) does for Data Protection besides just talking the talk and is a work in progress that is being updated over time with additional insights.

Walking The Data Protection Talk What I Do

A couple of years back I did the first post as part of the Data Protection Diaries series ( view here), that included the following image showing some data protection needs and requirements, as well as what being done, along with areas for improvement. Part of what I and Server StorageIO does involves consulting (strategy, design, assessment), advising and other influencers activities (e.g. blog, write articles, create reports, webinars, seminars, videos, podcasts) pertaining to data Infrastructure topics as well as data protection.

What this means is knowing about the trends, tools, technologies, what’s old and new, who’s doing what, what should be in the data protection toolbox, as well as how to use those for different scenarios. Its one thing to talk the talk, however I also prefer to walk the talk including eating my own dog food applying various techniques, approaches, tools and technologies discussed.

The following are from a previous Data Protection Diaries post where I discuss my data protection needs (and wants) some of which have evolved since then. Note the image on the left is my Livescribe Echo digital pen and paper tablet. On the right is an example of the digital image created and imported into my computer from the Livescribe. In other words, Im able to protect my hand written notes, diagrams and figures.

Data Protection Diaries Data Protection Diaries Walking The Talk
Via my Livescribe Echo digital pen ( get your Livescribe here at Amazon.com)

My Environment and data protection is always evolving, some based on changing projects, others that are more stable. Likewise the applications along with data are varied after all, everything is not the same. My data protection includes snapshots, replication, mirror, sync, versions, backup, archive, RAID, erasure code among others technologies, tools, and techniques.

Applications range from desktop, office, email, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, video, audio and related items in support of day-to-day activities. Then there are items part of various projects that range from physical to virtual, cloud and container leveraging various tools. This means having protection copies (sync, backup, snapshots, consistency points) of virtual machines, physical machine instances, applications and databases such as SQL Server among many others. Other application workloads include web, word press blog and email among others.

The Server StorageIO environment consists of a mix of legacy on-premises technologies from servers, storage, hardware, software, networks, tools as well as software defined virtual (e.g. VMware, Hyper-V, Docker among others), as well as cloud. The StorageIO data Infrastructure environment consists of dedicated private server (DPS) that I have had for several years now that supports this blog as well as other sites and activity. I also have a passive standby site used for testing of the WordPress based blog on an AWS Lightsail server. I use tools such as Updraft Plus Premium to routinely create a complete data protection view (database, plugins, templates, settings, configuration, core) of my WordPress site (runs on DPS) that is stored in various locations, including at AWS.

Data Protection Diaries Walking The Talk
Some of my past data protection requirements (they have evolved)

Currently the Lightsail Virtual Private Server (VPS) is in passive mode, however plans are to enable it as a warm or active standby fail over site for some of the DPS functions. One of the tools I have for monitoring and insight besides those in WordPress and the DPS are AWS Route 53 alerts that I have set up to monitor endpoints. AWS Route 53 is a handy resource for monitoring your endpoints such as a website, blog among other things and have it notify you, or take action including facilitating DNS fail over if needed. For now, Im simply using Route 53 besides as a secondary DNS as a notification tool.

Speaking of AWS, I have compute instances in Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) along with associated Elastic Block Storage (EBS) volumes as well as their snapshots. I also have AWS S3 buckets in different regions that are on various tiers from standard to infrequent access (IA), as well as some data on Glacier. Data from my DPS at Bluehost gets protected to a AWS S3 bucket that I can access from AWS EC2, as well as via other locations including Microsoft Azure as needed.

Some on-premises data also gets protected to AWS S3 (as well as to elsewhere) using various tools, for different granularity, frequency, access and retention. After all, everything is not the same, why treat it the same. Some of the data protected to AWS S3 buckets is in native format (e.g. they appear as objects to S3 or object enabled applications), as well as file to file based applications with appropriate tools.

Other data that is also protected to AWS S3 from different data protection or backup tools are stored in vendor neutral or vendor specific save set, zip, tar ball or other formats. In other words, I need the tool or compatible tool that knows the format of the saved data to retrieve individual data files, items or objects. Note that this is similar to storing data on tape, HDDs, SSD or other media in native format vs. in some type of encapsulate save set or other format.

In addition to protecting data to AWS, I also have data at Microsoft Azure among other locations. Other locations include non-cloud based off-site where encrypted removable media is periodically taken to a safe secure place as a master, gold in case of major emergency, ransomeware copy.

Why not just rely on cloud copies?

Simple, I can pull individual files or relatively small amounts of data back from the cloud sometimes faster (or easier) than from on-site copies, let alone my off-site, off-line, air gap copies. On the other hand, if I need to restore large amounts of data, without a fast network, it can be quicker to get the air gap off-line, off-site copy, do the large restore, then apply incremental or changed data via cloud. In other a hybrid approach.

Now a common question I get is why not just do one or the other and save some money. Good point, I would save some money, however by doing the above among other things, they are part of being able to test, try new and different things, gain insight, experience not to mention walk the talk vs. simply talking the talk.

Of course Im always looking for ways to streamline to make my data protection more efficient, as well as effective (along with remove complexity and costs).

  • Everything is not the same, so why treat it all the same with common SLO, RTO, RPO and retention?
  • Likewise why treat and store all data the same way, on the same tiers of technology
  • Gain insight and awareness into environment, applications, workloads, PACE needs
  • Applications, data, systems or devices are protected with different granularity and frequency
  • Apply applicable technology and tools to the task at hand
  • Any data I have in cloud has a copy elsewhere, likewise, any data on-premises has a copy in the cloud or elsewhere
  • I implement the 4 3 2 1 rule by having multiple copies, versions, data in different locations, on and off-line including cloud
  • From a security standpoint, many different things are implemented on a logical as well as physical basis including encryption
  • Ability to restore data as well as applications or image instances locally as well as into cloud environments
  • Leverage different insight and awareness, reporting, analytics and monitoring tools
  • Mix of local storage configured with different RAID and other protection
  • Test, find, fix, remediate improve the environment including leveraging lessons learned

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Everything is not the same, thats why in my environment I use different technologies, tools and techniques to protect my data. This also means having different RTO, RPO across various applications, data and systems as well as devices. Data that is more important has more copies, versions in different locations as well as occurring more frequently as part of 4 3 2 1 data protection. Other data that does not change as frequently, or time sensitive have alternate RTO and RPO along with corresponding frequency of protection.

Get your copy of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials here at Amazon.com, at CRC Press among other locations and learn more here. Meanwhile, continue reading with the next post in this series Part 9 who’s Doing What (Toolbox Technology Tools).

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamentals Who Is Doing What Toolbox Technology Tools

Data Protection Toolbox Whos Doing What Technology Tools

Updated 1/17/2018

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

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

who’s Doing What (Toolbox Technology Tools)

SDDC SDDI data center data protection toolbox
Data Protection Toolbox

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

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

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

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

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

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

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

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Resources Where to Learn More

Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Resources Where to Learn More

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Table of Contents (TOC)

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

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

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

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

Data Protection Resources Where To Learn More

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

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

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


    • The following are various data protection blog posts:

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

    • The following are various data protection tips and articles:

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

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

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

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

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

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

    What This All Means

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

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

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

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

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends recommended reading list

    Updated 7/30/2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Seven Databases in Seven Weeks including NoSQL

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

    Additional Data Infrastructure and related topic sites

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

    aiim.com – Archiving and records management trade group

    apache.org – Various open-source software

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

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

    brendangregg.com – Linux performance-related topics

    cablemap.info – Global network maps

    CMG.org – Computer Measurement Group (CMG)

    communities.vmware.com – VMware technical community and resources

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

    cormachogan.com – Cormac Hogan VMware and vSAN related topics

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

    dmtf.org – Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF)

    ethernetalliance.org – Ethernet industry trade group

    fibrechannel.org – Fibre Channel trade group

    github.com – Various open-source solutions and projects

    Intel Reading List – recommended reading list for developers

    ieee.org – Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

    ietf.org – Internet Engineering Task Force

    iso.org – International Standards Organizations

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

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

    nist.gov – National Institute of Standards and Technology

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

    objectstoragecenter.com – Various object and cloud storage items

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

    opendatacenteralliance.org – Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA)

    openfabrics.org – Open-fabric software industry group

    opennetworking.org – Open Networking Foundation (ONF)

    openstack.org – OpenStack resources

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

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

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

    SNIA.org – Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA)

    Speakingintech.com – Popular industry and data infrastructure podcast

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

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

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

    thevpad.com – Collection of various virtualization and related sites

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

    tpc.org – Transaction Performance Council benchmark site

    vmug.org – VMware User Groups (VMUG)

    wahlnetwork.com – Chris Whal Networking and related topics

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

    Additional Data Infrastructure Venues

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

    Where To Learn More

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    What This All Means

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

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Introducing Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL Overview #blogtober

    Introducing Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL Overview #blogtober

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Updated 1/21/2018

    Introducing Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL and Overview. Microsoft has been increasing their support of Linux across Azure public cloud, Hyper-V and Linux Integration Services (LIS) and Windows platforms including Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) as well as Server along with Docker support.

    WSL installed with Ubuntu on Windows 10

    WSL with Ubuntu installed and open in a window on one of my Windows 10 systems.

    WSL is not a virtual machine (VM) running on Windows or Hyper-V, rather it is a subsystem that coexists next to win32 (read more about how it works and features, enhancements here). Once installed, WSL enables use of Linux bash shell along with familiar tools (find, grep, sed, awk, rsync among others) as well as services such as ssh, MySQL among others.

    What this all means is that if you work with both Windows and Linux, you can do so on the same desktop, laptop, server or system using your preferred commands. For example in one window you can be using Powershell or traditional Windows commands and tools, while in another window working with grep, find and other tools eliminating the need to install things such as wingrep among others.

    Installing WSL

    Depending on which release of Windows desktop or server you are running, there are a couple of different install paths. Since my Windows 10 is the most recent release (e.g. 1709) I was able to simply go to the Microsoft Windows Store via desktop, search for Windows Linux, select the distribution, install and launch. Microsoft has some useful information for installing WSL on different Windows version here, as well as for Windows Servers here.

    Get WSL from Windows Store

    Get WSL from Windows Store or more information and options here.

    Microsoft WSL install

    Click on Get the app

    Select which Linux for WSL to install

    Select desired WSL distribution

    SUSE linux for WSL

    Lests select SUSE as I already have Ubuntu installed (I have both)

    WSL installing SUSE

    SUSE WSL in the process of downloading. Note SUSE needs an access code (free) that you get from https://www.suse.com/subscriptions/sles/developer/ while waiting for the download and install is a good time to get that code.

    launching WSL on Windows 10

    Launching WSL with SUSE, you will be prompted to enter the code mentioned above, if you do not have a code, get it here from SUSE.

    completing install of WSL

    The WSL installation is very straight forward, enter the SUSE code (Ubuntu did not need a code). Note the Ubuntu and SUSE WSL task bar icons circled bottom center.

    Ubuntu and SUSE WSL on Windows 10

    Provide a username for accessing the WSL bash shell along with password, confirm how root and sudo to be applied and that is it. Serious, the install for WSL at least with Windows 10 1709 is that fast and easy. Note in the above image, I have WSL with Ubuntu open in a window on the left, WSL with SUSE on the right, and their taskbar icons bottom center.

    Windows WSL install error 0x8007007e

    Enable Windows Subsystem for Linux Feature on Windows

    If you get the above WSL error message 0x8007007e when installing WSL Ubuntu, SUSE or other shell distro, make sure to enable the Windows WSL feature if not already installed.

    Windows WSL install error fix

    One option is to install additional Windows features via settings or control panel. For example, Control panel -> Programs and features -> Turn Windows features on or off -> Check the box for Windows Subsystem for Linux

    Another option is to install Windows subsystem feature via Powershell for example.

    enable-windowsoptionalfeature -online  -featurename microsoft-windows-subsystem-linux

    Using WSL

    Once you have WSL installed, try something simple such as view your present directory:

    pwd

    Then look at the Windows C: drive location

    ls /mnt/c -al

    In case you did not notice the above, you can use Windows files and folders from the bash shell by placing /mnt in front of the device path. Note that you need to be case-sensitive such as User vs. user or Documents vs. documents.

    As a further example, I needed to change several .htm, .html, .php and .xml files on a Windows system whose contents had not yet changed from https://storageio.com to https://storageio.com. Instead of installing wingrep or some tools, using WSL such as with Ubuntu finding files can be done with grep such as:

    grep "https://storageio.com" /mnt/c/Users/*.xml

    And then making changes using find and sed such as:

    find /mnt/c/Users -name \*.xml -exec sed  -i "s,https://storageio.com,https://storageio.com,g" {} \;

    Note that not all Linux apps and tools can use file via /mnt in which case a solution is to create a symbolic link.

    For example:

    ln -s "/mnt/c/Users/Test1/Documents"  /home/Test1/Projects

    Where To Learn More

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    What This All Means

    If you primarily work on (or have a preference for) Linux systems and need to do some functions from development to the administration or other activity on a Windows system, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) provides a bash shell to do familiar tasks. Likewise, if you are primarily a Windows person and need to brush up on your Linux skills, WSL can help. If you need to run Linux server applications or workloads, put those into a Docker container, Hyper-V instance or Azure VM.

    Overall I like WSL for what it is, a tool that eliminates the need of having to install several other tools to do common tasks, plus makes it easier to work across various Linux and Windows systems including bare metal, virtual and cloud-based. Now that you have been introduced to Windows Subsystems for Linux WSL and an overview including install as well as using, add it to your data infrastructure toolbox.

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Fixing the Microsoft Windows 10 1709 post upgrade restart loop

    Fixing the Microsoft Windows 10 1709 post upgrade restart loop

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Updated 1/21/2018

    Recently I needed to upgrade one of my systems to Microsoft Windows 10 1709 (e.g. the September 2017) release that post upgrade resulted in Windows Explorer, desktop and taskbar going into an endless loop. For those not familiar with Windows 10 1709 learn more here, and here including on how to get the bits (e.g. software). Windows 10 1709 is a semi-annual channel (SAC) Microsoft is following to enable a faster cadence or pace of releases making new features available faster. Note that there is a Windows 10 1709 SAC, as well as Windows Server 2017 SAC (more on that here).

    All was well with the 1709 install on Windows 10 until post upgrade when I logged into my account on my laptop (Lenovo X1). Once logged in initially everything looked good until about 10 to 20 seconds later, the screen flickered, the desktop refreshed as did the taskbar. All was well for about another 10 to 20 seconds and again the desktop refreshed as did the taskbar. Trying to use the Windows key plus other keys was no success, likewise trying to use command prompt, Powershell or other tools was futile given how quick the refresh occurred.

    Powering off the system and rebooting seemed normal, until once logged in and again the desktop and taskbar reset in the same looping fashion. Once again did a shutdown and restart, logged in and the same result.

    The Safe Mode Fix

    Unless you can access a command prompt or Powershell with administrator privileges, boot into Windows Safe mode.

    The solution to the post Windows 10 1709 upgrade desktop and taskbar restart loop was to boot into safe mode and run the following three commands.

    sfc /scannow

    
dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth

    
dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

    Before you can run the above commands, access Windows Safe Mode. Tip if your Windows 10 system presents a login screen, in the lower right corner select the Shutdown, Restart icon holding down the SHIFT key and select Restart. Your system should reboot presenting you with the following options, selecting Troubleshoot.

    Windows 10 Troubleshoot

    Next select Advanced options shown below.

    Windows 10 Advanced Repair Options

    Next select Startup Settings shown below. Note that this sequence of commands are also used for other troubleshooting scenarios including boot problems, restore image or to a previous protection point among other options.

    Windows 10 System Repair Options

    The following Startup Settings screen appears, select Restart to enter Safe Mode.

    Windows 10 Startup Settings

    Your system should then present the following options, select Safe Mode with Command Prompt (option 6).

    Windows Safe Mode Options

    Next your system should display a Command Prompt where the following three commands are run:

    sfc /scannow
    dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth
    dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

    Windows Command Prompt in safe mode

    Exit, shutdown, reboot and all should be good.

    Some Tips and Recommendations

    Before any upgrade, make sure you have good backups to enable various recovery points if needed.

    If you have not done so recently, make sure you have system restore enabled, as well as underlying hypervisors or storage system snapshot.

    If you have bitlocker enabled, before you do any upgrade, make sure to have a copy of your keys handy if you need to use them.

    If you rely on PIN or fingerprint for login, make sure you have your real password handy.

    If you have not done so recently, make sure your secondary standby emergency access account is working, if you dont have one, create one.

    Where To Learn More

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    What This All Means

    For those who are planning on upgrading to Windows 10 1709 or any system for that matter, being ready for the unexpected can help when the unexpected does occur. While the above is focused on Windows 10 1709 upgrade, the tips and tools including safe mode are used for many other situations. Keep in mind that if something can go wrong sometime, sometime it will go wrong, so be prepared. As for Microsoft Windows 10 1709 post upgrade, all is good and it is running well on my different systems including physical as well as virtual devices.

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    August 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter



    Server StorageIO August 2017 Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

    Volume 17, Issue VII (Pre VMworld 2017)

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

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

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

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

    In This Issue

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

    Cheers GS

    Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

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

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

    GPU vendor NVIDIA announced Quadro Virtual Data Center workstation technology.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

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

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

    Server StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    In Case You Missed It #ICYMI

    View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

    Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Tips and Articles

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

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

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

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

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

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

    Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Announcing Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book by Greg Schulz

    New SDDI Essentials Book by Greg Schulz of Server StorageIO

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

    server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

    Update 1/21/2018

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book Announcement

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials

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

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book topics include:

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

    Where To Purchase Your Copy

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

    What People Are Saying About Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book

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

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

    Gert and Frank Brouwer – Brouwer Storage Consultancy

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

    Mark McSherry- Oracle Regional Sales Manager

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

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

    SDDI and SDDC components

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC content

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

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

    Book Features

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

    SDDI and SDDC toolbox

    Where To Learn More

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

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    What This All Means

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

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    GDPR goes into effect May 25 2018 Are You Ready?

    server storage I/O trends

    GDPR goes into effect May 25 2018 Are You Ready?

    The new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) go into effect in a year on May 25 2018 are you ready?

    Why Become GDPR Aware

    If your initial response is that you are not in Europe and do not need to be concerned about GDPR you might want to step back and review that thought. While it is possible that some organizations may not be affected by GDPR in Europe directly, there might be indirect considerations. For example, GDPR, while focused on Europe, has ties to other initiatives in place or being planned for elsewhere in the world. Likewise unlike earlier regulatory compliance that tended to focus on specific industries such as healthcare (HIPPA and HITECH) or financial (SARBOX, Dodd/Frank among others), these new regulations can be more far-reaching.

    GDPR Looking Beyond Compliance

    Taking a step back, GDPR, as its name implies, is about general data protection including how information is protected, preserved, secured and served. This also includes taking safeguards to logically protect data with passwords, encryption among other techniques. Another dimension of GDPR is reporting and ability to track who has accessed what information (including when), as well as simply knowing what data you have.

    What this means is that GDPR impacts users from consumers of social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin among others, to cloud storage and related services, as well as traditional applications. In other words, GDPR is not just for finance, healthcare, it is more far-reaching making sure you know what data exists, and taking adequate steps to protect.

    There is a lot more to discuss of GDPR in Europe as well as what else is being done in other parts of the world. For now being aware of initiatives such as GDPR and its broader scope impact besides traditional compliance is important. With these new initiatives, the focus expands from the compliance office or officers to the data protection office and data protection officer whose scope is to protect, preserve, secure and serve data along with associated information.

    GDPR and Microsoft Environments

    As part of generating awareness and help planning, I’m going to be presenting a free webinar produced by Redmond Magazine sponsored by Quest (who will also be a co-presenter) on June 22, 2017 (7AM PT). The title of the webinar is GDPR Compliance Planning for Microsoft Environments.

    This webinar looks at the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and its impact on Microsoft environments. Specifically, we look at how GDPR along with other future compliance directives impact Microsoft cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments, as well as what you can do to be ready before the May 25, 2018 deadline. Join us for this discussion of what you need to know to plan and carry out a strategy to help address GDPR compliance regulations for Microsoft environments.

    What you will learn during this discussion:

    • Why GDPR and other regulations impact your environment
    • How to assess and find compliance risks
    • How to discover who has access to sensitive resources
    • Importance of real-time auditing to monitor and alert on user access activity

    This webinar applies to business professionals responsible for strategy, planning and policy decision-making for Microsoft environments along with associated applications. This includes security, compliance, data protection, system admins, architects and other IT professionals.

    What This All Means

    Now is the time to start planning, preparing for GDPR if you have not done so and need to, as well as becoming more generally aware of it and other initiatives. One of the key takeaways is that while the word compliance is involved, there is much more to GDPR than just compliance as we have seen in the part. With GDPR and other initiatives data protection becomes the focus including privacy, protect, preserve, secure, serve as well as manage, have insight, awareness along with associated reporting. Join me and Quest on June 22, 2017 7AM PT for the webinar GDPR Compliance Planning for Microsoft Environments to learn more.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – 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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    February 2017 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Server and StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Volume 17, Issue II

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

    With world backup (and recovery) day coming up on March 31, it makes sense to plan, review, assess, remediate, test and prepare in advance, to avoid or prevent a disaster later. Some of the themes in this months newsletter thus have a data protection angle which includes availability, resiliency, security, and backup/restore along with associated topics. Keep in mind that there are many aspects to data protection, along with various tools, technologies, techniques along with tradecraft skills (experience).

    Speaking of tradecraft, the tips section has been expanded with more content to help refresh, or expand your fundamental data infrastructure skills and experiences. Watch for more about trade craft in future newsletters as well as elsewhere.

    Speaking of data protection, if you had not heard or forgot, some recent events included the Australian Tax Office (ATO) whose resiliency solution appears to not have been configured for, well, availability, resiliency along with durability. You can read more about the ATO, lessons learned as well as fall out doing a Google search such as "australian tax office disaster". Another recent disaster or disruption was Gitlab (not to be confused with Github) that lost around 300GB of data. Google something like "gitlab disaster" to see more.
    In the case of Gitlab, it seems that a DevOp admin accidentally did something like a rm -rf (e.g. recursive and force) that if you know what that means, you know it might not be good.

    As is the case with many disasters or near disasters and disruptions, they are usually the result of a chain of events, thus the mantra or isolate, contain faults to prevent snowballing into something worse. What’s concerning about Gitlab is that there are decades of lessons to be learned, known and preventable.

    Hopefully Gitlabs experiences will prompt others in or moving to so-called platform 3 or new DevOps environment to use things in new ways, as well as prevent old problems using known tradecraft skills, lessons, experiences.
    Also keep in mind that while technology can and will fail, hardware and software including clouds are defined by people, and when people are involved, human error is also present.

    In This Issue

  • Server StorageIO News Commentary
  • Trade craft Articles, Tips & Tricks Topics
  • Server StorageIOblog posts
  • Various Events and Webinars
  • IT Industry Activity Trends
  • Industry Resources and Links
  • Connect and Converse With Us
  • About Us

    • Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    Cheers GS

    Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

    Some recent Industry Activities, Trends Announcements

    Cloud and object storage vendor Cloudian announced a new appliance (e.g. tin-wrapped software) that they claim give high density low (cloud service like) pricing.

    Check out iosafe who has a line of fire (and water) proof NAS and Windows Servers as part of availability data protection that can compliment clouds. For those of you who are also Synology fans (or users) take a look at what iosafe is doing for consumer, SOHO, ROBO, workgroup, SMB among other environments.

    Speaking of data protection, how are you going about wiping or digital bleaching your storage including nand flash SSDs? Particularly are you doing deep cleaning including those hard to reach persistent non-volatile memory (NVM) cell locations in SSDs? Check out what Blancco is doing for deep cleaning to wipe or digital bleach your storage including SSDs. Another aspect of data protection includes after your physical assets have been wiped clean (e.g. digital bleach), how will you safely dispose of the items? That’s where various vendors such as OceanTech among others come into play.

    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 SearchDataCenter: New options to evolve your data backup and recovery plan
    Via SmallBusinessComputing: Easy Storage for the Little Guy: Has the Time Come?
    Via InfoStor: 10 More Top Data Storage Applications
    Via Infostor: 10 Top Data Storage Applications

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

    Various Tips, Tools, Technology and Tradecraft Topics

    Recent Data Infrastructure Tradecraft Articles, Tips, Tools, Tricks and related topics.

    Via IDG/NetworkWorld:  Whats a data infrastructure?
    Via Computerweekly:  NVMe: What to use, PCIe card vs U.2 and M.2
    Via InfoStor:  Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
    Via InfoStor:  SSD Trends, Tips and Topics

    Check out Neil Anderson(@flackboxtv) flackbox.com site to view various video and tutorials about NetApp, Cisco along with VMware among others. Sharpen your data infrastructure server storage I/O tradecraft skills with the various labs and simulators that Neil has covered.

    Speaking of tradecraft skills and experience development, check out VMware Staff Architect William Lam (@lamw) virtuallyghetto.com site for a news software defined data center (SDDC) lab. This new lab focuses on automated deployment for vSphere 6.0u2 along with vSphere 6.5. In other related news, VMware has made generally available (GA) vSphere 6.0 Update 3 including enhancements to vSAN and vCenter. View more details here at Duncan Epping (@DuncanYB) of VMware Yellow Bricks site.

    If you are interested in Microsoft Azure, check out this piece on SQL Server failover clustering, along with other Windows Server, Hyper-V, Nano, Powershell and related topics here. Want to build a software defined data center (SDDC) or software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) based on Microsoft Windows Server, Hyper-V and related technologies, check out this Github lab as well as this one for S2D among others.

    View more tips and articles here

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

    April 3-7, 2017 – Seminars – Dutch workshop seminar series – Nijkerk Netherlands

    March 15, 2017 – Webinar – SNIA/BrightTalk – HyperConverged and Storage – 10AM PT

    January 26 2017 – Seminar – Presenting at Wipro SDx Summit London UK

    January 11, 2017 Webinar – Redmond Magazine
    Dell Software – Presenting – Tailor Your Backup Data Repositories to Fit Your Needs

    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/performance – Various server, storage and I/O benchmark and tools
    VMware Technical Network – Various VMware related items

    Ok, nuff said

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    Server Storage I/O network Data Infrastructure Tradecraft Overview

    Server Storage I/O network Data Infrastructure Tradecraft Overview

    Updated 1/17/2018

    Data Infrastructure Tradecraft includes server storage I/O network and associated technology, technique, skills, experiences. Tradecraft includes insight as well as tricks of the trade, profession and job function (read more about what is a data infrastructure here). This is the first of a two-part series exploring data infrastructure along with serve storage I/O and related tradecraft. Read part two of this series here.

    Data Infrastructures Tradecraft Overview
    Data Infrastructure and IT Infrastructure Layers

    Data infrastructure encompasses servers, storage, I/O and networking along with associated hardware, software, services and management tasks including data protection among others. Tradecraft is knowing about tools, technologies, and trends in your primary domain as well as adjacent focus areas. However, tradecraft is also about knowing how and when to use different technologies, tools with various techniques to address different scenarios.

    What Is Your Tradecraft
    An example of expanding tradecraft is, for instance, an automobile technician who has learned how to change oil, check tire air pressure, or other essential entry-level functions. On the other hand, a master mechanic knows how to do more involved tasks, from the engine to transmission repair or rebuilding, bodywork, along with troubleshooting. A master mechanic not only knows what buttons, knobs, tools, and techniques to use for different tasks, he also knows how to diagnose problems, as well as what usually causes those problems to occur.

    There are many other examples, including salespeople who have the tradecraft of selling, including account as well as relationship building along with the ability to learn new tradecraft related to the trade or items they are or will be selling. Moreover, then there are pre-sales and systems engineers, technical marketing, product and program management, test and development, R&D engineering, IT and technology architects, among many others.
    IT Data Infrastructure Professionals

    Another example is engineers and architects (non-IT) who have basic design along with engineering discipline tradecraft, as well as specialties such as mechanical, electrical, heating ventilation air condition (HVAC), or environmental, among others. They can leverage their basic tradecraft while extending and enhancing it by gaining insight as well as experience in adjacent areas of focus.

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

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

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

    Data Infrastructure Tool Box

    Learning the Talk and Walking the Talk
    For some people their tradecraft is only learning the talk, so that they can talk the talk of trends, techniques, technology buzzwords to do their job (or get a job) and fit in. The next step is comprehending the talk, gaining more insight and experience ability of what to do (and not do) by walking the talk. Sometimes this means learning from mistakes (yours or others) to prevent them in the future.

    Expanding your tradecraft means learning the talk as well as how to walk the talk for adjacent areas. This can mean new skills, ability, tools, and technologies along with proper terminology. For your data infrastructure tradecraft, you need to acquire competencies in these different yet related areas.

    Even if your focus is to be a hardware or software or services person, there are opportunities to expand your tradecraft. For example extend into physical, virtualization, cloud, container, networking, storage, performance, data protection, or security, among others. This also means comprehending how the pieces work together to support the business applications, as well as the impact on each other (e.g. cause and effect).

    Part of tradecraft is also understanding that various terms and acronyms have different context meaning. For example, SAS can mean big data statistical analysis software or Serial Attached SCSI among others. What this means is as your tradecraft expands, so too does awareness that different terms have various meaning along with the importance of asking for context.

    Another example of understanding context is Fabric. Fabric can also have different context and meaning. It can refer to a network of switches, directors, and routers tying together servers, storage, bridges, gateways, and other devices, but it can also be associated with higher-level application functions, or a cluster of servers or services, as well as data. Keep context in mind about fabric: whether it is referring to lower-level physical and logical networks, or applications and data, among others.

    Yet another context example includes that client can have different meanings, including software or applications that communicate with a server or service, local or in the cloud. A variation of client can also be a type of device, such as a tablet, laptop, mobile device or phone, as well as a workstation with varying software for accessing different data infrastructure as well as applications. Another context for client is the user, person, or thing such as IoT that accesses and interacts with client software or server and services of application or data resources. Yet another context for client is a consumer of lower-level data infrastructure resources or higher-level applications services.

    Where To Learn More

    View additional Data Infrastructure and tradecraft 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 SDDC Data Infrastructure Tradecraft Overview

    What this means

    Remember that tradecraft is skills, experiences, tricks, and techniques along with knowing what as well as how to use various related tools as part of what it is that you are doing.  Continue reading more about data infrastructure along with server storage I/O network hardware software as well as associated management tradecraft in part two of this series here.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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