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)
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).
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.
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.
Data Protection Toolbox
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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).
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).
Figure 1.5 Data Infrastructures and other IT Infrastructure Layers
who’s Doing What (Toolbox Technology Tools)
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.
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.
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)
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).
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.
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 ShelfSoftware Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC 2017) BookAdditional 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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Who Will Be At Top Of Storage World Next Decade?
Data Storage regardless of if hardware, legacy, new, emerging, cloud service or various software defined storage (SDS) approaches are all fundamental resource components of data infrastructures along with compute server, I/O networking as well as management tools, techniques, processes and procedures.
Fundamental Data Infrastructure resources
Data infrastructures include legacy along with software defined data infrastructures (SDDI), along with software defined data centers (SDDC), cloud and other environments to support expanding workloads more efficiently as well as effectively (e.g. boosting productivity).
Data Infrastructure and other IT Layers (stacks and altitude levels)
Various data infrastructures resource components spanning server, storage, I/O networks, tools along with hardware, software, services get defined as well as composed into solutions or services which may in turn be further aggregated into more extensive higher altitude offerings (e.g. further up the stack).
Various IT and Data Infrastructure Stack Layers (Altitude Levels)
Focus on Data Storage Present and Future Predictions
Drew Robb (@Robbdrew) has a good piece over at Enterprise Storage Forum looking at the past, present and future of who will rule the data storage world that includes several perspective predictions comments from myself as well as others. Some of the perspectives and predictions by others are more generic and technology trend and buzzword bingo focus which should not be a surprise. For example including the usual performance, Cloud and Object Storage, DPDK, RDMA/RoCE, Software-Defined, NVM/Flash/SSD, CI/HCI, NVMe among others.
Here are some excerpts from Drews piece along with my perspective and prediction comments of who may rule the data storage roost in a decade:
Amazon Web Services (AWS) – AWS includes cloud and object storage in the form of S3. However, there is more to storage than object and S3 with AWS also having Elastic File Services (EFS), Elastic Block Storage (EBS), database, message queue and on-instance storage, among others. for traditional, emerging and storage for the Internet of Things (IoT).
It is difficult to think of AWS not being a major player in a decade unless they totally screw up their execution in the future. Granted, some of their competitors might be working overtime putting pins and needles into Voodoo Dolls (perhaps bought via Amazon.com) while wishing for the demise of Amazon Web Services, just saying.
Voodoo Dolls and image via Amazon.com
Of course, Amazon and AWS could follow the likes of Sears (e.g. some may remember their catalog) and ignore the future ending up on the where are they now list. While talking about Amazon and AWS, one will have to wonder where Wall Mart will end up in a decade with or without a cloud of their own?
Microsoft – With Windows, Hyper-V and Azure (including Azure Stack), if there is any company in the industry outside of AWS or VMware that has quietly expanded its reach and positioning into storage, it is Microsoft, said Schulz.
Microsoft IMHO has many offerings and capabilities across different dimensions as well as playing fields. There is the installed base of Windows Servers (and desktops) that have the ability to leverage Software Defined Storage including Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), ReFS, cache and tiering among other features. In some ways I’m surprised by the number of people in the industry who are not aware of Microsoft’s capabilities from S2D and the ability to configure CI as well as HCI (Hyper Converged Infrastructure) deployments, or of Hyper-V abilities, Azure Stack to Azure among others. On the other hand, I run into Microsoft people who are not aware of the full portfolio offerings or are just focused on Azure. Needless to say, there is a lot in the Microsoft storage related portfolio as well as bigger broader data infrastructure offerings.
NetApp – Schulz thinks NetApp has the staying power to stay among the leading lights of data storage. Assuming it remains as a freestanding company and does not get acquired, he said, NetApp has the potential of expanding its portfolio with some new acquisitions. “NetApp can continue their transformation from a company with a strong focus on selling one or two products to learning how to sell the complete portfolio with diversity,” said Schulz.
NetApp has been around and survived up to now including via various acquisitions, some of which have had mixed results vs. others. However assuming NetApp can continue to reinvent themselves, focusing on selling the entire solution portfolio vs. focus on specific products, along with good execution and some more acquisitions, they have the potential for being a top player through the next decade.
Dell EMC – Dell EMC is another stalwart Schulz thinks will manage to stay on top. “Given their size and focus, Dell EMC should continue to grow, assuming execution goes well,” he said.
There are some who I hear are or have predicted the demise of Dell EMC, granted some of those predicted the demise of Dell and or EMC years ago as well. Top companies can and have faded away over time, and while it is possible Dell EMC could be added to the where are they now list in the future, my bet is that at least while Michael Dell is still involved, they will be a top player through the next decade, unless they mess up on execution.
Various Data Infrastructures and Resources involving Data Storage
Huawei – Huawei is one of the emerging giants from China that are steadily gobbling up market share. It is now a top provider in many categories of storage, and its rapid ascendancy is unlikely to stop anytime soon. “Keep an eye on Huawei, particularly outside of the U.S. where they are starting to hit their stride,” said Schulz.
In the US, you have to look or pay attention to see or hear what Huawei is doing involving data storage, however that is different in other parts of the world. For example, I see and hear more about them in Europe than in the US. Will Huawei do more in the US in the future? Good question, keep an eye on them.
VMware – A decade ago, Storage Networking World (SNW) was by far the biggest event in data storage. Everyone who was anyone attended this twice yearly event. And then suddenly, it lost its luster. A new forum known as VMworld had emerged and took precedence. That was just one of the indicators of the disruption caused by VMware. And Schulz expects the company to continue to be a major force in storage. “VMware will remain a dominant player, expanding its role with software-defined storage,” said Schulz.
VMware has a dominant role in data storage not just because of the relationship with Dell EMC, or because of VSAN which continues to gain in popularity, or the soon to be released VMware on AWS solution options among others. Sure all of those matters, however, keep in mind that VMware solutions also tie into and work with other legacies as well as software-defined storage solution, services as well as tools spanning block, file, object for virtual machines as well as containers.
"Someday soon, people are going to wake up like they did with VMware and AWS," said Schulz. "That’s when they will be asking ‘When did Microsoft get into storage like this in such a big way.’"
What the above means is that some environments may not be paying attention to what AWS, Microsoft, VMware among others are doing, perhaps discounting them as the old or existing while focusing on new, emerging what ever is trendy in the news this week. On the other hand, some environments may see the solution offerings from those mentioned as not relevant to their specific needs, or capable of scaling to their requirements.
Keep in mind that it was not that long ago, just a few years that VMware entered the market with what by today’s standard (e.g. VSAN and others) was a relatively small virtual storage appliance offering, not to mention many people discounted and ignored VMware as a practical storage solution provider. Things and technology change, not to mention there are different needs and solution requirements for various environments. While a solution may not be applicable today, give it some time, keep an eye on them to avoid being surprised asking the question, how and when did a particular vendor get into storage in such a big way.
Is Future Data Storage World All Cloud?
Perhaps someday everything involving data storage will be in or part of the cloud.
Does this mean everything is going to the cloud, or at least in the next ten years? IMHO the simple answer is no, even though I see more workloads, applications, and data residing in the cloud, there will also be an increase in hybrid deployments.
Note that those hybrids will span local and on-premises or on-site if you prefer, as well as across different clouds or service providers. Granted some environments are or will become all in on clouds, while others are or will become a hybrid or some variation. Also when it comes to clouds, do not be scared, be prepared. Also keep an eye on what is going on with containers, orchestration, management among other related areas involving persistent storage, a good example is Dell EMCcode RexRay among others.
Various data storage focus areas along with data infrastructures.
What About Other Vendors, Solutions or Services?
In addition to those mentioned above, there are plenty of other existing, new and emerging vendors, solutions, and services to keep an eye on, look into, test and conduct a proof of concept (PoC) trial as part of being an informed data infrastructure and data storage shopper (or seller).
Keep in mind that component suppliers some of whom like Cisco also provides turnkey solutions that are also part of other vendors offerings (e.g. Dell EMC VxBlock, NetApp FlexPod among others), Broadcom (which includes Avago/LSI, Brocade Fibre Channel, among others), Intel (servers, I/O adapters, memory and SSDs), Mellanox, Micron, Samsung, Seagate and many others.
E8, Excelero, Elastifile (software defined storage), Enmotus (micro-tiering, read Server StorageIOlab report here), Everspin (persistent and storage class memories including NVDIMM), Hedvig (software defined storage), NooBaa, Nutanix, Pivot3, Rozo (software defined storage), WekaIO (scale out elastic software defined storage, read Server StorageIO report here).
Some other software defined management tools, services, solutions and components I’m keeping an eye on, exploring, digging deeper into (or plan to) include Blue Medora, Datadog, Dell EMCcode and RexRay docker container storage volume management, Google, HPE, IBM Bluemix Cloud aka IBM Softlayer, Kubernetes, Mangstor, OpenStack, Oracle, Retrospect, Rubrix, Quest, Starwind, Solarwinds, Storpool, Turbonomic, Virtuozzo (software defined storage) among many others
What about those not mentioned? Good question, some of those I have mentioned in earlier Server StorageIO Update newsletters, as well as many others mentioned in my new book "Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials" (CRC Press). Then there are those that once I hear something interesting from on a regular basis will get more frequent mentions as well. Of course, there is also a list to be done someday that is basically where are they now, e.g. those that have disappeared, or never lived up to their full hype and marketing (or technology) promises, let’s leave that for another day.
Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.
Where To Learn More
Learn more about related technology, trends, tools, techniques, and tips with the following links.
Data Infrastructures Resources (Servers, Storage, I/O Networks) enabling various services
What This All Means
It is safe to say that each new year will bring new trends, techniques, technologies, tools, features, functionality as well as solutions involving data storage as well as data infrastructures. This means a usual safe bet is to say that the current year is the most exciting and has the most new things than in the past when it comes to data infrastructures along with resources such as data storage. Keep in mind that there are many aspects to data infrastructures as well as storage all of which are evolving. Who Will Be At Top Of Storage World Next Decade? What say you?
Ok, nuff said (for now…).
Cheers
Gs
Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert (and vSAN). Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Watch for the spring 2017 release of his new book "Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials" (CRC Press).
Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.
All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved.
