Tag: Cloud

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Part II: EMC Evolves Enterprise Data Protection with Enhancements

Storage I/O trends

This is the second part of a two-part series on recent EMC backup and data protection announcements. Read part I here.

What about the products, what’s new?

In addition to articulating their strategy for modernizing data protection (covered in part I here), EMC announced enhancements to Avamar, Data Domain, Mozy and Networker.

Data protection storage systems (e.g. Data Domain)

Building off of previously announced Backup Recovery Solutions (BRS) including Data Domain operating system storage software enhancements, EMC is adding more application and software integration along with new platform (systems) support.

Data Domain (e.g. Protection Storage) enhancements include:

  • Application integration with Oracle, SAP HANA for big data backup and archiving
  • New Data Domain protection storage system models
  • Data in place upgrades of storage controllers
  • Extended Retention now available on added models
  • SAP HANA Studio backup integration via NFS
  • Boost for Oracle RMAN, native SAP tools and replication integration
  • Support for backing up and protecting Oracle Exadata
  • SAP (non HANA) support both on SAP and Oracle

Data in place upgrades of controllers for 4200 series models on up (previously available on some larger models). This means that controllers can be upgraded with data remaining in place as opposed to a lengthy data migration.

Extended Retention facility is a zero cost license that enables more disk drive shelves to be attached to supported Data Domain systems. Thus there is a not a license fee, however you do pay for the storage shelves and drives to increase the available storage capacity. Note that this feature increases the storage capacity by adding more disk drives and does not increase the performance of the Data Domain system. Extended Retention has been available in the past however is now supported via more platform models. The extra storage capacity is essentially placed into a different tier that an archive policy can then migrate data into.

Boost for accelerating data movement to and from Data Domain systems is only available using Fibre Channel. When asked about FC over Ethernet (FCoE) or iSCSI EMC indicated its customers are not asking for this ability yet. This has me wondering if it is that the current customer focus is around FC, or if those customers are not yet ready for iSCSI or FCoE, or, if there were iSCSI or FCoE support, more customers would ask for it?

With the new Data Domain protection storage systems EMC is claiming up to:

  • 4x faster performance than earlier models
  • 10x more scalable and 3x more backup/archive streams
  • 38 percent lower cost per GB based on holding price points and applying improvements


EMC Data Domain data protection storage platform family


Data Domain supporting both backup and archive

Expanding Data Domain from backup to archive

EMC continues to evolve the Data Domain platform from just being a backup target platform with dedupe and replication to a multi-function, multi-role solution. In other words, one platform with many uses. This is an example of using one tool or technology for different purposes such as backup and archiving, however with separate polices. Here is a link to a video where I discuss using common tools for backup and archiving, however with separate polices. In the above figure EMC Data Domain is shown as being used for backup along with storage tiering and archiving (file, email, Sharepoint, content management and databases among other workloads).


EMC Data Domain supporting different functions and workloads

Also shown are various tools from other vendors such as Commvault Simpana that can be used as both a backup or archiving tool with Data Domain as a target. Likewise Dell products acquired via the Quest acquisition are shown along with those from IBM (e.g. Tivoli), FileTek among others. Note that if you are a competitor of EMC or simply a fan of other technology you might come to the conclusion that the above may not be different from others. Then again others who are not articulating their version or vision of something like the above figure probably should be also stating the obvious vs. arguing they did it first.

Data source integration (aka data protection software tools)

It seems like just yesterday that EMC acquired Avamar (2006) and NetWorker aka Legato (2003), not to mention Mozy (2007) or Dantz (Retrospect, since divested) in 2004. With the exception of Dantz (Retrospect) which is now back in the hands of its original developers, EMC continues to enhance and evolve Avamar, Mozy and NetWorker including with this announcement.

General Avamar 7 and Networker 8.1 enhancements include:

  • Deeper integration with primary storage and protection storage tiers
  • Optimization for VMware vSphere virtual server environments
  • Improved visibility and control for data protection of enterprise applications

Additional Avamar 7 enhancements include:

  • More Data Domain integration and leveraging as a repository (since Avamar 6)
  • NAS file systems with NDMP accelerator access (EMC Isilon & Celera, NetApp)
  • Data Domain Boost enhancements for faster backup / recovery
  • Application integration with IBM (DB2 and Notes), Microsoft (Exchange, Hyper-V images, Sharepoint, SQL Server), Oracle, SAP, Sybase, VMware images

Note that Avamar dat is still used mainly for ROBO and desktop, laptop type backup scenarios that do not yet support Data Domain. Also see Mozy enhancements below).

Avamar supports VMware vSphere virtual server environments using granular change block tracking (CBT) technology as well as image level backup and recovery with vSphere plugins. This includes an Instant Access recovery when images are stored on Data Domain storage.

Instant Access enables a VM that has been protected using Avamar image level technology on Data Domain to be booted via an NFS VMware Dat. VMware sees the VM and is able to power it on and boot directly from the Data Domain via the NFS Dat. Once the VM is active, it can be Storage vMotion to a production storage VMware Dat while active (e.g. running) for recovery on the fly capabilities.


Instant Access to a VM on Data Domain storage

EMC NetWorker 8.1 enhancements include:

  • Enhanced visibility and control for owners of data
  • Collaborative protection for Oracle environments
  • Synchronize backup and data protection between DBA and Backup admin’s
  • Oracle DBAs use native tools (e.g. RMAN)
  • Backup admin implements organizations SLA’s (e.g. using Networker)
  • Deeper integration with EMC primary storage (e.g. VMAX, VNX, etc)
  • Isilon integration support
  • Snapshot management (VMAX, VNX, RecoverPoint)
  • Automation and wizards for integration, discovery, simplified management
  • Policy-based management, fast recovery from snapshots
  • Integrating snapshots into and as part of data protection strategy. Note that this is more than basic snapshot management as there is also the ability to roll over a snapshot into a Data Domain protection storage tier.
  • Deeper integration with Data Domain protection storage tier
  • Data Domain Boost over Fibre Channel for faster backups and restores
  • Data Domain Virtual Synthetics to cut impact of full backups
  • Integration with Avamar for managing image level backup recovery (Avamar services embedded as part of NetWorker)
  • vSphere Web Client enabling self-service recovery of VMware images
  • Newly created VMs inherit backup polices automatically

Mozy is being positioned for enterprise remote office branch office (ROBO) or distributed private cloud where Avamar, NetWorker or Data Domain solutions are not as applicable. EMC has mentioned that they have over 800 enterprises using Mozy for desktop, laptop, ROBO and mobile data protection. Note that this is a different target market than the Mozy consumer product focused which also addresses smaller SMBs and SOHOs (Small Office Home Offices).

EMC Mozy enhancements to be more enterprise grade:

  • Simplified management services and integration
  • Active Directory (AD) for Microsoft environments
  • New storage pools (multiple types of pools) vs. dedicated storage per client
  • Keyless activation for faster provisioning of backup clients

Note that EMC enhanced earlier this year Data Protection Advisor (DPA) with version 6.0.

What does this all mean?

Storage I/O trends

Data protection and backup discussions often focus around tape summit resources or cloud arguments, although this is changing. What is changing is growing awareness and discussion around how data protection storage mediums, systems and services are used along with the associated software management tools.

Some will say backup is broke often pointing a finger at a media or medium (e.g. tape and disk) about what is wrong. Granted in some environments the target medium (or media) destination is an easy culprit to point a finger to as the problem (e.g. the usual tape sucks or is dead) mantra. However, for many environments while there can be issues, it is more often than not the media, medium, device or target storage system that is broke, instead how it is being used or abused.

This means revisiting how tools are used along with media or storage systems allocated, used and retained with respect to different threat risk scenarios. After all, not everything is the same in the data center or information factory.

Thus modernizing data protection is more than swapping media or mediums including types of storage system from one to another. It is also more than swapping out one backup or data protection tool for another. Modernizing data protection means rethinking what different applications and data need to be protected against various threat risks.

Storage I/O trends

What this has to do with today’s announcement is that EMC is among others in the industry moving towards a holistic data protection modernizing thought model.

In my opinion what you are seeing out of EMC and some others is taking that step back and expanding the data protection conversation to revisit, rethink why, how, where, when and by whom applications and information get protected.

This announcement also ties into finding and removing costs vs. simply cutting cost at the cost of something elsewhere (e.g. service levels, performance, availability). In other words, finding and removing complexities or overhead associated with data protection while making it more effective.

Some closing points, thoughts and more links:

There is no such thing as a data or information recession
People and data are living longer while getting larger
Not everything is the same in the data center or information factory
Rethink data protection including when, why, how, where, with what and by whom
There is little data, big data, very big data and big fast data
Data protection modernization is more than playing buzzword bingo
Avoid using new technology in old ways
Data footprint reduction (DFR) can be help counter changing data life-cycle patterns
EMC continues to leverage Avamar while keeping Networker relevant
Data Domain evolving for both backup and archiving as an example of tool for multiple uses

Ok, nuff said (for now).

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

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EMC Evolves Enterprise Data Protection with Enhancements (Part I)

Storage I/O trends

A couple of months ago at EMCworld there were announcements around ViPR, Pivotal along with trust and clouds among other topics. During the recent EMCworld event there were some questions among attendees what about backup and data protection announcements (or lack there of)?

Modernizing Data Protection

Today EMC announced enhancements to its Backup Recovery Solutions (BRS) portfolio (@EMCBackup) that continue to enable information and applications data protection modernizing including Avamar, Data Domain, Mozy and Networker.

Keep in mind you can’t go forward if you can’t go back, which means if you do not have good data protection to go to, you can’t go forward with your information.

EMC Modern Data Protection Announcements

As part of their Backup to the Future event, EMC announced the following:

  • New generation of data protection products and technologies
  • Data Domain systems: enhanced application integration for backup and archive
  • Data protection suite tools Avamar 7 and Networker 8.1
  • Enhanced Cloud backup capabilities for the Mozy service
  • Paradigm shift as part of data protection modernizing including revisiting why, when, where, how, with what and by whom data protection is accomplished.

What did EMC announce for data protection modernization?

While much of the EMC data protection announcement is around product, there is also the aspect of rethinking data protection. This means looking at data protection modernization beyond swapping out media (e.g. tape for disk, disk for cloud) or one backup software tool for another. Instead, revisiting why data protection needs to be accomplished, by whom, how to remove complexity and cost, enable agility and flexibility. This also means enabling data protection to be used or consumed as a service in traditional, virtual and private or hybrid cloud environments.

EMC uses as an example (what they refer to as Accidental Architecture) of how there are different group and areas of focus, along with silos associated with data protection. These groups span virtual, applications, database, server, storage among others.

The results are silos that need to be transformed in part using new technology in new ways, as well as addressing a barrier to IT convergence (people and processes). The theme behind EMC data protection strategy is to enable the needs and requirements of various groups (servers, applications, database, compliance, storage, BC and DR) while removing complexity.

Moving from Silos of data protection to a converged service enabled model

Three data protection and backup focus areas

This sets the stage for the three components for enabling a converged data protection model that can be consumed or used as a service in traditional, virtual and private cloud environments.


EMC three components of modernized data protection (EMC Future Backup)

The three main components (and their associated solutions) of EMC BRS strategy are:

  • Data management services: Policy and storage management, SLA, SLO, monitoring, discovery and analysis. This is where tools such as EMC Data Protection Advisor (aka via WysDM acquisition) fit among others for coordination or orchestration, setting and managing polices along with other activities.
  • Data source integration: Applications, Database, File systems, Operating System, Hypervisors and primary storage systems. This is where data movement tools such as Avamar and Networker among others fit along with interfaces to application tools such as Oracle RMAN.
  • Protection storage: Targets, destination storage system with media or mediums optimized for protecting and preserving data along with enabling data footprint reduction (DFR). DFR includes functionality such as compression and dedupe among others. Example of data protection storage is EMC Data Domain.

Read more about product items announced and what this all means here in the second of this two-part series.

Ok, nuff said (for now).

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

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Web chat Thur May 30th: Hot Storage Trends for 2013 (and beyond)

Storage I/O trends

Join me on Thursday May 30, 2013 at Noon ET (9AM PT) for a live web chat at the 21st Century IT (21cit) site (click here to register, sign-up, or view earlier posts). This will be an online web chat format interactive conversation so if you are not able to attend, you can visit at your convenience to view and give your questions along with comments. I have done several of these web chats with 21cit as well as other venues that are a lot of fun and engaging (time flies by fast).

For those not familiar, 21cIT is part of the Desum/UBM family of sites including Internet Evolution, SMB Authority, and Enterprise Efficiency among others that I do article posts, videos and live chats for.


Sponsored by NetApp

I like these types of sites in that while they have a sponsor, the content is generally kept separate between those of editors and contributors like myself and the vendor supplied material. In other words I coordinate with the site editors on what topics I feel like writing (or doing videos) about that align with the given sites focus and themes as opposed to following and advertorial calendar script.

During this industry trends perspective web chat, one of the topics and themes planned for discussion include software defined storage (SDS). View a recent video blog post I did here about SDS. In addition to SDS, Solid State Devices (SSD) including nand flash, cloud, virtualization, object, backup and data protection, performance, management tools among others are topics that will be put out on the virtual discussion table.

Storage I/O trends

Following are some examples of recent and earlier industry trends perspectives posts that I have done over at 21cit:

Video: And Now, Software-Defined Storage!
There are many different views on what is or is not “software-defined” with products, protocols, preferences and even press releases. Check out the video and comments here.

Big Data and the Boston Marathon Investigation
How the human face of big-data will help investigators piece together all the evidence in the Boston bombing tragedy and bring those responsible to justice. Check out the post and comments here.

Don’t Use New Technologies in Old Ways
You can add new technologies to your data center infrastructure, but you won’t get the full benefit unless you update your approach with people, processes, and policies. Check out the post and comments here.

Don’t Let Clouds Scare You, Be Prepared
The idea of moving to cloud computing and cloud services can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be so if you prepare as you would for implementing any other IT tool. Check out the post and comments here.

Storage and IO trends for 2013 (& Beyond)
Efficiency, new media, data protection, and management are some of the keywords for the storage sector in 2013. Check out these and other trends, predictions along with comments here.

SSD and Real Estate: Location, Location, Location
You might be surprised how many similarities between buying real estate and buying SSDs.
Location matters and it’s not if, rather when, where, why and how you will be using SSD including nand flash in the future, read more and view comments here.

Everything Is Not Equal in the Data center, Part 3
Here are steps you can take to give the right type of backup and protection to data and solutions, depending on the risks and scenarios they face. The result? Savings and efficiencies. Read more and view comments here.

Everything Is Not Equal in the Data center, Part 2
Your data center’s operations can be affected at various levels, by multiple factors, in a number of degrees. And, therefore, each scenario requires different responses. Read more and view comments here.

Everything Is Not Equal in the Data center, Part 1
It pays to check your data center Different components need different levels of security, storage, and availability. Read more and view comments here.

Data Protection Modernizing: More Than Buzzword Bingo
IT professionals and solution providers should put technologies such as disk based backup, dedupe, cloud, and data protection management tools as assets and resources to make sure they receive necessary funding and buy in. Read more and view comments here.

Don’t Take Your Server & Storage IO Pathing Software for Granted
Path managers are valuable resources. They will become even more useful as companies continue to carry out cloud and virtualization solutions. Read more and view comments here.

SSD Is in Your Future: Where, When & With What Are the Questions
During EMC World 2012, EMC (as have other vendors) made many announcements around flash solid-state devices (SSDs), underscoring the importance of SSDs to organizations future storage needs. Read more here about why SSD is in your future along with view comments.

Changing Life cycles and Data Footprint Reduction (DFR), Part 2
In the second part of this series, the ABCDs (Archive, Backup modernize, Compression, Dedupe and data management, storage tiering) of data footprint reduction, as well as SLOs, RTOs, and RPOs are discussed. Read more and view comments here.

Changing Life cycles and Data Footprint Reduction (DFR), Part 1
Web 2.0 and related data needs to stay online and readily accessible, creating storage challenges for many organizations that want to cut their data footprint. Read more and view comments here.

No Such Thing as an Information Recession
Data, even older information, must be protected and made accessible cost-effectively. Not to mention that people and data are living longer as well as getting larger. Read more and view comments here.

Storage I/O trends

These real-time, industry trends perspective interactive chats at 21cit are open forum format (however be polite and civil) as well as non vendor sales or marketing pitches. If you have specific questions you ‘d like to ask or points of view to express, click here and post them in the chat room at any time (before, during or after).

Mark your calendar for this event live Thursday, May 30, at noon ET or visit after the fact.

Ok, nuff said (for now)

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

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Part II: How many IOPS can a HDD HHDD SSD do with VMware?

How many IOPS can a HDD HHDD SSD do with VMware?

server storage data infrastructure i/o iop hdd ssd trends

Updated 2/10/2018

This is the second post of a two-part series looking at storage performance, specifically in the context of drive or device (e.g. mediums) characteristics of How many IOPS can a HDD HHDD SSD do with VMware. In the first post the focus was around putting some context around drive or device performance with the second part looking at some workload characteristics (e.g. benchmarks).

A common question is how many IOPS (IO Operations Per Second) can a storage device or system do?

The answer is or should be it depends.

Here are some examples to give you some more insight.

For example, the following shows how IOPS vary by changing the percent of reads, writes, random and sequential for a 4K (4,096 bytes or 4 KBytes) IO size with each test step (4 minutes each).

IO Size for test
Workload Pattern of test
Avg. Resp (R+W) ms
Avg. IOP Sec (R+W)
Bandwidth KB Sec (R+W)
4KB
100% Seq 100% Read
0.0
29,736
118,944
4KB
60% Seq 100% Read
4.2
236
947
4KB
30% Seq 100% Read
7.1
140
563
4KB
0% Seq 100% Read
10.0
100
400
4KB
100% Seq 60% Read
3.4
293
1,174
4KB
60% Seq 60% Read
7.2
138
554
4KB
30% Seq 60% Read
9.1
109
439
4KB
0% Seq 60% Read
10.9
91
366
4KB
100% Seq 30% Read
5.9
168
675
4KB
60% Seq 30% Read
9.1
109
439
4KB
30% Seq 30% Read
10.7
93
373
4KB
0% Seq 30% Read
11.5
86
346
4KB
100% Seq 0% Read
8.4
118
474
4KB
60% Seq 0% Read
13.0
76
307
4KB
30% Seq 0% Read
11.6
86
344
4KB
0% Seq 0% Read
12.1
82
330

Dell/Western Digital (WD) 1TB 7200 RPM SATA HDD (Raw IO) thread count 1 4K IO size

In the above example the drive is a 1TB 7200 RPM 3.5 inch Dell (Western Digital) 3Gb SATA device doing raw (non file system) IO. Note the high IOP rate with 100 percent sequential reads and a small IO size which might be a result of locality of reference due to drive level cache or buffering.

Some drives have larger buffers than others from a couple to 16MB (or more) of DRAM that can be used for read ahead caching. Note that this level of cache is independent of a storage system, RAID adapter or controller or other forms and levels of buffering.

Does this mean you can expect or plan on getting those levels of performance?

I would not make that assumption, and thus this serves as an example of using metrics like these in the proper context.

Building off of the previous example, the following is using the same drive however with a 16K IO size.

IO Size for test
Workload Pattern of test
Avg. Resp (R+W) ms
Avg. IOP Sec (R+W)
Bandwidth KB Sec (R+W)
16KB
100% Seq 100% Read
0.1
7,658
122,537
16KB
60% Seq 100% Read
4.7
210
3,370
16KB
30% Seq 100% Read
7.7
130
2,080
16KB
0% Seq 100% Read
10.1
98
1,580
16KB
100% Seq 60% Read
3.5
282
4,522
16KB
60% Seq 60% Read
7.7
130
2,090
16KB
30% Seq 60% Read
9.3
107
1,715
16KB
0% Seq 60% Read
11.1
90
1,443
16KB
100% Seq 30% Read
6.0
165
2,644
16KB
60% Seq 30% Read
9.2
109
1,745
16KB
30% Seq 30% Read
11.0
90
1,450
16KB
0% Seq 30% Read
11.7
85
1,364
16KB
100% Seq 0% Read
8.5
117
1,874
16KB
60% Seq 0% Read
10.9
92
1,472
16KB
30% Seq 0% Read
11.8
84
1,353
16KB
0% Seq 0% Read
12.2
81
1,310

Dell/Western Digital (WD) 1TB 7200 RPM SATA HDD (Raw IO) thread count 1 16K IO size

The previous two examples are excerpts of a series of workload simulation tests (ok, you can call them benchmarks) that I have done to collect information, as well as try some different things out.

The following is an example of the summary for each test output that includes the IO size, workload pattern (reads, writes, random, sequential), duration for each workload step, totals for reads and writes, along with averages including IOP’s, bandwidth and latency or response time.

disk iops

Want to see more numbers, speeds and feeds, check out the following table which will be updated with extra results as they become available.

Device
Vendor
Make

Model

Form Factor
Capacity
Interface
RPM Speed
Raw
Test Result
HDD
HGST
Desktop
HK250-160
2.5
160GB
SATA
5.4K
HDD
Seagate
Mobile
ST2000LM003
2.5
2TB
SATA
5.4K
HDD
Fujitsu
Desktop
MHWZ160BH
2.5
160GB
SATA
7.2K
HDD
Seagate
Momentus
ST9160823AS
2.5
160GB
SATA
7.2K
HDD
Seagate
MomentusXT
ST95005620AS
2.5
500GB
SATA
7.2K(1)
HDD
Seagate
Barracuda
ST3500320AS
3.5
500GB
SATA
7.2K
HDD
WD/Dell
Enterprise
WD1003FBYX
3.5
1TB
SATA
7.2K
HDD
Seagate
Barracuda
ST3000DM01
3.5
3TB
SATA
7.2K
HDD
Seagate
Desktop
ST4000DM000
3.5
4TB
SATA
HDD
HDD
Seagate
Capacity
ST6000NM00
3.5
6TB
SATA
HDD
HDD
Seagate
Capacity
ST6000NM00
3.5
6TB
12GSAS
HDD
HDD
Seagate
Savio 10K.3
ST9300603SS
2.5
300GB
SAS
10K
HDD
Seagate
Cheetah
ST3146855SS
3.5
146GB
SAS
15K
HDD
Seagate
Savio 15K.2
ST9146852SS
2.5
146GB
SAS
15K
HDD
Seagate
Ent. 15K
ST600MP0003
2.5
600GB
SAS
15K
SSHD
Seagate
Ent. Turbo
ST600MX0004
2.5
600GB
SAS
SSHD
SSD
Samsung
840 PRo
MZ-7PD256
2.5
256GB
SATA
SSD
HDD
Seagate
600 SSD
ST480HM000
2.5
480GB
SATA
SSD
SSD
Seagate
1200 SSD
ST400FM0073
2.5
400GB
12GSAS
SSD

Performance characteristics 1 worker (thread count) for RAW IO (non-file system)

Note: (1) Seagate Momentus XT is a Hybrid Hard Disk Drive (HHDD) based on a 7.2K 2.5 HDD with SLC nand flash integrated for read buffer in addition to normal DRAM buffer. This model is a XT I (4GB SLC nand flash), may add an XT II (8GB SLC nand flash) at some future time.

As a starting point, these results are raw IO with file system based information to be added soon along with more devices. These results are for tests with one worker or thread count, other results will be added with such as 16 workers or thread counts to show how those differ.

The above results include all reads, all writes, mix of reads and writes, along with all random, sequential and mixed for each IO size. IO sizes include 4K, 8K, 16K, 32K, 64K, 128K, 256K, 512K, 1024K and 2048K. As with any workload simulation, benchmark or comparison test, take these results with a grain of salt as your mileage can and will vary. For example you will see some what I consider very high IO rates with sequential reads even without file system buffering. These results might be due to locality of reference of IO’s being resolved out of the drives DRAM cache (read ahead) which vary in size for different devices. Use the vendor model numbers in the table above to check the manufactures specs on drive DRAM and other attributes.

If you are used to seeing 4K or 8K and wonder why anybody would be interested in some of the larger sizes take a look at big fast data or cloud and object storage. For some of those applications 2048K may not seem all that big. Likewise if you are used to the larger sizes, there are still applications doing smaller sizes. Sorry for those who like 512 byte or smaller IO’s as they are not included. Note that for all of these unless indicated a 512 byte standard sector or drive format is used as opposed to emerging Advanced Format (AF) 4KB sector or block size. Watch for some more drive and device types to be added to the above, along with results for more workers or thread counts, along with file system and other scenarios.

Using VMware as part of a Server, Storage and IO (aka StorageIO) test platform

vmware vexpert

The above performance results were generated on Ubuntu 12.04 (since upgraded to 14.04 which was hosted on a VMware vSphere 5.1 (upgraded to 5.5U2) purchased version (you can get the ESXi free version here) with vCenter enabled system. I also have VMware workstation installed on some of my Windows-based laptops for doing preliminary testing of scripts and other activity prior to running them on the larger server-based VMware environment. Other VMware tools include vCenter Converter, vSphere Client and CLI. Note that other guest virtual machines (VMs) were idle during the tests (e.g. other guest VMs were quiet). You may experience different results if you ran Ubuntu native on a physical machine or with different adapters, processors and device configurations among many other variables (that was a disclaimer btw ;) ).

Storage I/O trends

All of the devices (HDD, HHDD, SSD’s including those not shown or published yet) were Raw Device Mapped (RDM) to the Ubuntu VM bypassing VMware file system.

Example of creating an RDM for local SAS or SATA direct attached device.

vmkfstools -z /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600605b0005f125018e923064cc17e7c /vmfs/volumes/dat1/RDM_ST1500Z110S6M5.vmdk

The above uses the drives address (find by doing a ls -l /dev/disks via VMware shell command line) to then create a vmdk container stored in a dat. Note that the RDM being created does not actually store data in the .vmdk, it’s there for VMware management operations.

If you are not familiar with how to create a RDM of a local SAS or SATA device, check out this post to learn how.This is important to note in that while VMware was used as a platform to support the guest operating systems (e.g. Ubuntu or Windows), the real devices are not being mapped through or via VMware virtual drives.

vmware iops

The above shows examples of RDM SAS and SATA devices along with other VMware devices and dats. In the next figure is an example of a workload being run in the test environment.

vmware iops

One of the advantages of using VMware (or other hypervisor) with RDM’s is that I can quickly define via software commands where a device gets attached to different operating systems (e.g. the other aspect of software defined storage). This means that after a test run, I can quickly simply shutdown Ubuntu, remove the RDM device from that guests settings, move the device just tested to a Windows guest if needed and restart those VMs. All of that from where ever I happen to be working from without physically changing things or dealing with multi-boot or cabling issues.

Where To Learn More

View additional NAS, NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and HDD related topics via the following links.

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

So how many IOPs can a device do?

That depends, however have a look at the above information and results.

Check back from time to time here to see what is new or has been added including more drives, devices and other related themes.

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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How many I/O iops can flash SSD or HDD do?

How many i/o iops can flash ssd or hdd do with vmware?

sddc data infrastructure Storage I/O ssd trends

Updated 2/10/2018

A common question I run across is how many I/O iopsS can flash SSD or HDD storage device or system do or give.

The answer is or should be it depends.

This is the first of a two-part series looking at storage performance, and in context specifically around drive or device (e.g. mediums) characteristics across HDD, HHDD and SSD that can be found in cloud, virtual, and legacy environments. In this first part the focus is around putting some context around drive or device performance with the second part looking at some workload characteristics (e.g. benchmarks).

What about cloud, tape summit resources, storage systems or appliance?

Lets leave those for a different discussion at another time.

Getting started

Part of my interest in tools, metrics that matter, measurements, analyst, forecasting ties back to having been a server, storage and IO performance and capacity planning analyst when I worked in IT. Another aspect ties back to also having been a sys admin as well as business applications developer when on the IT customer side of things. This was followed by switching over to the vendor world involved with among other things competitive positioning, customer design configuration, validation, simulation and benchmarking HDD and SSD based solutions (e.g. life before becoming an analyst and advisory consultant).

Btw, if you happen to be interested in learn more about server, storage and IO performance and capacity planning, check out my first book Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) that has a bit of information on it. There is also coverage of metrics and planning in my two other books The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press). I have some copies of Resilient Storage Networks available at a special reader or viewer rate (essentially shipping and handling). If interested drop me a note and can fill you in on the details.

There are many rules of thumb (RUT) when it comes to metrics that matter such as IOPS, some that are older while others may be guess or measured in different ways. However the answer is that it depends on many things ranging from if a standalone hard disk drive (HDD), Hybrid HDD (HHDD), Solid State Device (SSD) or if attached to a storage system, appliance, or RAID adapter card among others.

Taking a step back, the big picture

hdd image
Various HDD, HHDD and SSD’s

Server, storage and I/O performance and benchmark fundamentals

Even if just looking at a HDD, there are many variables ranging from the rotational speed or Revolutions Per Minute (RPM), interface including 1.5Gb, 3.0Gb, 6Gb or 12Gb SAS or SATA or 4Gb Fibre Channel. If simply using a RUT or number based on RPM can cause issues particular with 2.5 vs. 3.5 or enterprise and desktop. For example, some current generation 10K 2.5 HDD can deliver the same or better performance than an older generation 3.5 15K. Other drive factors (see this link for HDD fundamentals) including physical size such as 3.5 inch or 2.5 inch small form factor (SFF), enterprise or desktop or consumer, amount of drive level cache (DRAM). Space capacity of a drive can also have an impact such as if all or just a portion of a large or small capacity devices is used. Not to mention what the drive is attached to ranging from in internal SAS or SATA drive bay, USB port, or a HBA or RAID adapter card or in a storage system.

disk iops
HDD fundamentals

How about benchmark and performance for marketing or comparison tricks including delayed, deferred or asynchronous writes vs. synchronous or actually committed data to devices? Lets not forget about short stroking (only using a portion of a drive for better IOP’s) or even long stroking (to get better bandwidth leveraging spiral transfers) among others.

Almost forgot, there are also thick, standard, thin and ultra thin drives in 2.5 and 3.5 inch form factors. What’s the difference? The number of platters and read write heads. Look at the following image showing various thickness 2.5 inch drives that have various numbers of platters to increase space capacity in a given density. Want to take a wild guess as to which one has the most space capacity in a given footprint? Also want to guess which type I use for removable disk based archives along with for onsite disk based backup targets (compliments my offsite cloud backups)?

types of disks
Thick, thin and ultra thin devices

Beyond physical and configuration items, then there are logical configuration including the type of workload, large or small IOPS, random, sequential, reads, writes or mixed (various random, sequential, read, write, large and small IO). Other considerations include file system or raw device, number of workers or concurrent IO threads, size of the target storage space area to decide impact of any locality of reference or buffering. Some other items include how long the test or workload simulation ran for, was the device new or worn in before use among other items.

Tools and the performance toolbox

Then there are the various tools for generating IO’s or workloads along with recording metrics such as reads, writes, response time and other information. Some examples (mix of free or for fee) include Bonnie, Iometer, Iorate, IOzone, Vdbench, TPC, SPC, Microsoft ESRP, SPEC and netmist, Swifttest, Vmark, DVDstore and PCmark 7 among many others. Some are focused just on the storage system and IO path while others are application specific thus exercising servers, storage and IO paths.

performance tools
Server, storage and IO performance toolbox

Having used Iometer since the late 90s, it has its place and is popular given its ease of use. Iometer is also long in the tooth and has its limits including not much if any new development, never the less, I have it in the toolbox. I also have Futremark PCmark 7 (full version) which turns out has some interesting abilities to do more than exercise an entire Windows PC. For example PCmark can use a secondary drive for doing IO to.

PCmark can be handy for spinning up with VMware (or other tools) lots of virtual Windows systems pointing to a NAS or other shared storage device doing real world type activity. Something that could be handy for testing or stressing virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) along with other storage systems, servers and solutions. I also have Vdbench among others tools in the toolbox including Iorate which was used to drive the workloads shown below.

What I look for in a tool are how extensible are the scripting capabilities to define various workloads along with capabilities of the test engine. A nice GUI is handy which makes Iometer popular and yes there are script capabilities with Iometer. That is also where Iometer is long in the tooth compared to some of the newer generation of tools that have more emphasis on extensibility vs. ease of use interfaces. This also assumes knowing what workloads to generate vs. simply kicking off some IOPs using default settings to see what happens.

Another handy tool is for recording what’s going on with a running system including IO’s, reads, writes, bandwidth or transfers, random and sequential among other things. This is where when needed I turn to something like HiMon from HyperIO, if you have not tried it, get in touch with Tom West over at HyperIO and tell him StorageIO sent you to get a demo or trial. HiMon is what I used for doing start, stop and boot among other testing being able to see IO’s at the Windows file system level (or below) including very early in the boot or shutdown phase.

Here is a link to some other things I did awhile back with HiMon to profile some Windows and VDI activity test profiling.

What’s the best tool or benchmark or workload generator?

The one that meets your needs, usually your applications or something as close as possible to it.

disk iops
Various 2.5 and 3.5 inch HDD, HHDD, SSD with different performance

Where To Learn More

View additional NAS, NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and HDD related topics via the following links.

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

That depends, however continue reading part II of this series to see some results for various types of drives and workloads.

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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Spring SNW 2013, Storage Networking World Recap

Storage I/O trends

A couple of weeks ago I attended the spring 2013 Storage Networking World (SNW) in Orlando Florida. Talking with SNIA Chairman Wayne Adams and SNIA Director Leo Legar this was the 28th edition of the US SNW (two shows a year), plus the international ones. While I have not been to all 28 of the US SNWs, I have been to a couple of dozen SNWs in the US, Europe and Brazil going back to around 2001 as an attendee, main stage as well as breakout, and tutorial presenter (see here and here).

SNW image

For the spring 2013 SNW I was there for a mix of meetings, analyst briefings, attending the expo, doing some podcasts (see below), meeting with IT professionals (e.g. customers), VARs, vendors along with presenting three sessions (you can download them and others backup, restore, BC, DR and archiving).

Some of the buzz and themes heard included big data was a little topic at the event, while cloud was in the conversations, dedupe and data footprint reduction (DFR) do matter for some people and applications. However also a common theme with customers including Media and Entertainment (M&E) is that not everything can be duped thus other DFR approaches are needed.

There was some hype in and around hybrid storage along with storage hypervisors, which was also an entertaining panel discussion with HDS (Claus Mikkelsen aka @YoClaus), Datacore, IBM and Virstro.

The theme of that discussion seemed for the most part to gravitate towards realities of storage virtualization and less about the hypervisor hype. Some software defined marketing hype I heard is that it is impossible to spend more than a million dollars on a server today. I guess with the applicable caveats, qualifiers and context that could be true, however I also know some vendors and customers that would say otherwise.

Lunch
Lunchtime at SNW Spring 2013

Not surprisingly, there was an increase in vendors wanting to jump on the software defined and object storage bandwagons; however, customers tended to be curious at best, confused or concerned otherwise. Speaking of object storage, check out this podcast discussion with Cleversafe customer Justin Stottlemyer of Shutterfly and his 80PB environment.

In addition to Cleversafe, heard from Astute (if you need fast iSCSI storage check them out), Avere has a new NAS for dummies book out, Exablox a storage system startup with emphasis on scalability, ease of use and NAS access and hybrid storage Tegile. Also, check out SwifTest for generating application workloads and measurement that had their customer Go Daddy presenting at the event. A couple of others to keep an eye on include Raxco with their thin provision storage reclamation tool, and Infinio with their NAS acceleration for VMware software tools among others.

backup, restore, BC, DR and archiving

Here are the three presentations that I did while at the event:

Analyst Perspective: Increase Your Return on Innovation (The New ROI) With Data Management and Dedupe
There is no such thing as an information recession with more data to move, process and store, however there are economic challenges. Likewise, people and data are living longer and getting larger which requires leveraging data footprint reduction (DFR) techniques on a broader focus. It is time to move upstream finding and fixing things at the source to reduce the downstream impact of expanding data footprints, enabling more to be done with what you have.

Analyst Perspective: Metrics that Matter – Meritage of Data Management and Data Protection
Not everything in the data center or information factory is the same. This session recaps and builds off the morning increase your ROI with data footprint and data management session while setting the stage for the rethinking data protection (backup, BC and DR). Are you maximizing the return on innovation in how using new tools and technology in new ways, vs. using new tools in old ways? Also discussed performance capacity planning, forecasting analysis in cloud, virtual and physical environments. Without metrics that matter, you are flying blind, or perhaps missing opportunities to further drive your return on innovation and return on investment.

Analyst Perspective: Time to Rethink Data Protection Including BC and DR
When it comes to today’s data centers and information factories including physical, virtual and cloud, everything is not the same, so why treat business continuance (BC), disaster recovery (DR) and data protection in general the same? Simply using new tools, technologies and techniques in the same old ways is no longer a viable option. Since there is no such thing as a data or information recession, yet there are economic and budget challenges, along with new or changing threat risks, now is the time to review data protection including BC and DR including using new technologies in new ways.

You can view the complete SNW USA spring 2013 agenda here.

audio
Podcasts are also available on

Here are links to some podcasts from spring 2013 SNW:
Stottlemyer of Shutterfly and object storage discussion
Dave Demming talking tech education from SNW Spring 2013
Farley Flies into SNW Spring 2013
Talking with Tony DiCenzo at SNW Spring 2013
SNIA Spring 2013 update with Wayne Adams
SNIA’s new SPDEcon conference

Also, check out these podcasts from fall 2012 US and Europe SNWs:
Ben Woo on Big Data Buzzword Bingo and Business Benefits
Networking with Bruce Ravid and Bruce Rave
Industry trends and perspectives: Ray Lucchesi on Storage and SNW
Learning with Leo Leger of SNIA
Meeting up with Marty Foltyn of SNIA
Catching up with Quantum CTE David Chapa (Now with Evault)
Chatting with Karl Chen at SNW 2012
SNW 2012 Wayne’s World
SNW Podcast on Cloud Computing
HDS Claus Mikkelsen talking storage from SNW Fall 2012

Storage I/O trends

What this all means?

While busy, I liked this edition of SNW USA in that it had a great agenda with diversity and balance of speaker sessions (some tutorials, some vendors, some IT customers, and some analysts) vs. too many of one specific area.

In addition to the agenda and session length, the venue was good, big enough, however not spread out so much to cause loss of the buzz and energy of the event.

This SNW had some similar buzz or energy as early versions granted without the hype and fanfare of a startup industry or focus area (that would be some of the other events today)

Should SNW go to a once a year event?

While it would be nice to have a twice a year venue for convenience, practicality and budgets say once would be enough given all the other conferences and venues on the agenda (or that could be).

The next SNW USA will be October 15 to 17 2013 in Long Beach California, and Europe in Frankfurt Germany October 29-30 2013.

Thanks again to all the attendees, participants, vendor exhibitors, event organizers and SNIA, SNW/Computerworld staffs for another great event.

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

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March 2013 Server and StorageIO Update Newsletter

StorageIO News Letter Image
March 2013 News letter

Welcome to the March 2013 edition of the StorageIO Update news letter including a new format and added content.

You can get access to this news letter via various social media venues (some are shown below) in addition to StorageIO web sites and subscriptions.

Click on the following links to view the March 2013 edition as (HTML sent via Email) version, or PDF versions.

Visit the news letter page to view previous editions of the StorageIO Update.

You can subscribe to the news letter by clicking here.

Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO Update news letter, let me know your comments and feedback.

Nuff said for now

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

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Cloud conversations: AWS EBS, Glacier and S3 overview (Part III)

Storage I/O industry trends image

Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently added EBS Optimized support for enhanced bandwidth EC2 instances (read more here). This industry trends and perspective cloud conversation is the third (tying the posts together) in a three-part series companion to the AWS EBS optimized post found here. Part I is here (closer look at EBS) and part II is here (closer look at S3).

AWS image via Amazon.com

Cloud storage and object storage I/O figure
Cloud and object storage access example via Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking

AWS cloud storage gateway

In 2012 AWS released their Storage Gateway that you can use and try for free here using either an EC2 Amazon Machine Instance (AMI), or deployed locally on a hypervisor such as VMware vSphere/ESXi. About a year ago I did a storage gateway post (First, second and third impressions) when it was first released. I will do a new post soon following up with my later impressions and experiences of having used it recently. For now, my quick (fourth impressions can be found here in this AWS Marketplace review). In general, the gateway is an AWS alternative to using third product gateway, appliances of software tools for accessing AWS storage.

AWS Storage Gateway
Image courtesy of www.amazon.com

When deployed locally on a VM, the storage gateway communicates using the AWS API’s back to the S3 and EBS (depending on how configured) storage services. Locally, the storage gateway presents an iSCSI block access method for Windows or other servers to use.

There are two modes with one being Gateway-Stored and the other Gateway-Cached. Gateway-Stored uses your primary storage mapped to the storage gateway as primary storage and asynchronous (time delayed) snapshots (user defined) to S3 via EBS volumes. This is a handy way to have local storage for low latency access, yet use AWS for HA, BC and DR, along with a means for doing migration into or out of AWS. Gateway-cache mode places primary storage in AWS S3 with a local cached copy to reduce network overhead.

Storage I/O industry trends image

When I tried the gateway a month or so ago, using both modes, I was not able to view any of my data using standard S3 tools. For example if I looked in my S3 buckets the objects do not appear, something that AWS said had to do with where and how those buckets and objects are managed. Otoh, I was able to see EBS snapshots for the gateway-stored mode including using that as a means of moving data between local and AWS EC2 instances. Note that regardless of the AWS storage gateway mode, some local cache storage is needed, and likewise some EBS volumes will be needed depending on what mode is used.

When I used the gateway, a Windows Server mounted the iSCSI volume presented by the storage gateway and in turn served that to other systems as a shared folder. Thus while having block such as iSCSI is nice, a NAS (NFS or CIFS) presentation and access mode would also be useful. However more on the storage gateway in a future post. Also note that beyond the free trial period (you may have to pay for storage being used) for using the gateway, there are also fees for S3 and EBS storage volumes use.

AWS image via Amazon.com

What about Glacier?

Shortly after its release last year, I did this piece about Glacier and have since been doing some testing proof of concepts with it.

I like Glacier and its prospects for doing some various things, particular for inactive data including deep archives that will seldom if every be accessed, yet need to be retained. The business value proposition of Glacier is that it has a very high durability and low-cost assuming that you do not need to frequently access your data, and when you do, that you can wait 3 to 5 hours before retrieving it from your S3 buckets.

Access to Glacier is via API or AWS console so getting things into and out of it can be a challenge. For example I wanted to see if I could use AWS storage gateway to more easily bulk move things into Glacier via S3, however no luck, or at least today. Speaking of S3, by setting your policies you determine when objects get moved into Glacier as well as how long they will stay there, you can read more about Glacier here and via AWS here.

Storage I/O industry trends image

How much do these AWS services cost?

Fees vary depending on which region is selected, amount of space capacity, level or durability and availability, performance along with type of service. S3 pricing can be found here including a free trial tier along with optional fees. Other AWS fees for EC2 can be found here, EBS pricing here, Glacier here, and storage gateway costs are located here.

Note that there is a myth that cloud vendors have hidden fees which may be the case for some, however so far I have not seen that to be the case with AWS. However, as a consumer, designer or architect, doing your homework and looking at the above links among others you can be ready and understand the various fees and options. Hence like procuring traditional hardware, software or services, do your due diligence and be an informed shopper.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) image

Some more service cost notes include:

Note that with S3 Standard and RRS objects there is not a charge for deletion of objects, however there is a pro-rated charge per GByte of Glacier objects removed prior to 90 days. Glacier also allows up to 5% of your average monthly storage usage (pro-rated daily) to be restored with no charge, other fees apply for restoring larger amounts in a given period. Thus if you are planning on accessing and using data, analyze what your activity and usage will be as part of calculating your costs with Glacier. Read more about Glacier here.

Standard EBS volumes are changed by the amount of storage space capacity you provision in GB until released. For EBS snapshot copies there are fees for transferring data across regions, once moved, the rates of the new region apply for the snapshot.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) image

As with Standard volumes, volume storage for Provisioned IOPS volumes is charged by the amount you provision in GB per month. With Provisioned IOPS volumes, you are also charged by the amount you provision in IOPS pro-rated as a percentage of days you have it in use for the month.

Thus important for cloud storage planning to know not only your space requirements, also IOP’s, bandwidth, and level of availability as well as durability. so for Standard volumes, you will likely see a lower number of I/O requests on your bill than is seen by your application unless you sync all of your I/Os to disk. Thus pay attention to what your needs are in terms of availability (accessibility), durability (resiliency or survivability), space capacity, and performance.

Leverage AWS CloudWatch tools and API’s to monitoring that matter for timely insight and situational awareness into how EBS, EC2, S3, Glacier, Storage Gateway and other services are being used (or costing you). Also visit the AWS service health status dashboard to gain insight into how things are running to help gain confidence with cloud services and solutions.

Storage I/O industry trends image

When it comes to Cloud, Virtualization, Data and Storage Networking along with AWS among other services, tools and technologies including object storage, we are just scratching the surface here.

Hopefully this helps to fill in some gaps giving more information addressing questions, along with generating new ones to prepare for your journey with clouds. After all, don’t be scared of clouds. Be prepared, do your homework, identify your concerns and then address those to gain cloud confidence.

Additional reading and related items:

  • Cloud conversations: AWS EBS optimized instances
  • Cloud conversations: AWS EBS, Glacier and S3 overview (Part I)
  • Cloud conversations: AWS EBS, Glacier and S3 overview (Part II)
  • Cloud conversations: AWS Government Cloud (GovCloud)
  • Cloud conversations: Gaining cloud confidence from insights into AWS outages
  • AWS (Amazon) storage gateway, first, second and third impressions
  • Cloud conversations: Public, Private, Hybrid what about Community Clouds?
  • Amazon cloud storage options enhanced with Glacier
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the NetFlix Fix?
  • Cloud conversation, Thanks Gartner for saying what has been said
  • Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking via Amazon.com
  • Seven Databases in Seven Weeks
  • www.objectstoragecenter.com

    • Ok, nuff said (for now).

    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

    Cloud conversations: AWS EBS Optimized Instances

    Storage I/O industry trends image

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently announced global availability of Elastic Block Storage (EBS) optimized support for four extra Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) instance types. The support enables optimized performance between standard and provisioned IOP EBS volumes and EC2 instances to meet different bandwidth or throughput needs (learn more about AWS EBS, EC2, S3 and Glacier here).

    AWS image via Amazon.com

    The four EBS optimized instance types are m3.xlarge, m3.2xlarge, m2.2xlarge and c1.xlarge for dedicated bandwidth or throughput between the EC2 instances and EBS volumes. The performance or bandwidth ranges from 500 Mbits (500 / 8 = 62.5 MBytes) per second, to 1,000 Mbits (1,000 / 8 = 125MBytes) per second depending on the type of instance. As a refresher, EC2 instances (why by time you read this could change) vary in size and functionality with different amounts of EC2 Unit of Compute (ECU), number of virtual cores, amount of storage space included, 32 or 64 bit, storage and networking IO performance, and EBS Optimized or not. In addition to instances, different operating system images can be installed using those licensed from AWS such as various Windows and Unix or supply your own.

    Image of EC2 instance

    There are also different generations of instances such as M1 (first generation where one ECU = 1.0 to 1.2 Ghz of a 2007 era Opteron or Xeon processor), M3 (second generation with faster processors) along with Micro low-cost options. There are also other optimized instances including high or large amounts of memory, high CPU or compute processing, clustered compute, high memory clustered, clustered GPU (e.g. using Nivida Tesla GPUs), high IO and high storage space capacity needs.

    Here is the announcement from AWS:

    Dear Amazon Web Services Customer,

    We are delighted to announce the global availability of EBS-optimized support for four additional instance types: m3.xlarge, m3.2xlarge, m2.2xlarge, and c1.xlarge. EBS-optimized instances deliver dedicated throughput between Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS, with options between 500 Megabits per second and 1,000 Megabits per second depending on the instance type used. The dedicated throughput minimizes contention between EBS I/O and other traffic from your Amazon EC2 instance, providing the best performance for your EBS volumes.

    EBS-optimized instances are designed for use with both Standard and Provisioned IOPS EBS volumes. Standard volumes deliver 100 IOPS on average with a best effort ability to burst to hundreds of IOPS, making them well-suited for workloads with moderate and bursty I/O needs. When attached to an EBS-optimized instance, Provisioned IOPS volumes are designed to consistently deliver up to 2000 IOPS from a single volume, making them ideal for I/O intensive workloads such as databases. You can attach multiple Amazon EBS volumes to a single instance and stripe your data across them for increased I/O and throughput performance.

    Amazon EBS-optimized support is now available for m3.xlarge, m3.2xlarge, m2.2xlarge, m2.4xlarge, m1.large, m1.xlarge, and c1.xlarge instance types, and is currently supported in the US-East (N. Virginia), US-West (N. California), US-West (Oregon), EU-West (Ireland), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Japan), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and South America (São Paulo) Regions.

    You can learn more by visiting the Amazon EC2 detail page.

    Sincerely,

    The Amazon EC2 Team

    What this means is that AWS is enabling customers to size their compute instances and storage volumes with more flexibility to meet different needs. For example, EC2 instances with various compute processing capabilities, amount of memory, network and storage I/O performance to volumes. In addition, storage volumes based on different space capacity size, standard or provisioned IOP’s, bandwidth or throughput performance between the instance and volume, along with data protection such as snapshots.

    This means that the cost per space capacity of an EBS volume varies based on which AWS availability zone it is in, standard (lower IOP performance) or provisioned IOP’s (faster), along with instance type. In other words, cloud storage is not just about the cost per GByte, it’s also about the cost for IOPS, bandwidth to use it, where it is located (e.g. with AWS which Availability Zone), type of service, level of availability and durability among other attributes.

    Additional reading and related items:

    Continue reading part I (closer look at EBS) here, part II (closer look at S3) here and part III (tying it all together) here.

    Ok, nuff said (for now)

    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

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    Are your analyst, blogger, media or press requests being read?

    Storage I/O cloud virtual and big data perspectives

    Are you a marketing or public relations, press or analyst relations or social media expert and your email messages, notes, updates or requests get overlooked? Are you in the first paragraph or couple of sentences indicating who you are representing, what the info or request is about as well as what call to action you are looking for? If you are doing what is done in many of the requests for coverage or meetings or even announcements, you may be getting overlooked resulting in a missed opportunity, that is unless your goal is to simply gauge how many requests you send out.

    Now do I have your attention?

    Time for some tough love.

    Almost every day (not as much on weekends) my email inbox gets filled up with notes from vendor marketing and public relations (PR) firms organizations telling about an announcement, requesting a briefing, giving heads up for something that will be occurring, pitching a story, idea or looking for coverage.

    Being an analyst, author, advisory consultant, blogger among other roles, getting all of those emails as well as phone calls or other messages comes with the territory. However to get to the point or, the point of this post, most of those notes or messages I receive do not get to the point. More importantly I’m noticing on an increasing basis that many of the request for meetings, coverage, or introductions to announcements are not passing the quick scan test.

    Storage I/O cloud virtual and big data perspectives

    The trend that I have noticed for a couple of years now is that what is being announced or what the topic is or worse, who it is about gets lost in the paragraph or two or three or more of content. Thus for those who get lots of messages a day, get to the point, save the prose and sample article or content for later, unless that is what you are sending.

    In other words, tell the reader who you are representing (e.g. the company), product or focus area, what the news is about, why relevant, and call to action. Skip the long intro citing marketing research or testimonials and what read like mini articles, not to mention mentioning other vendors that might cause a quick scan to confuse the message about them vs. you or your client.

    The other day I received one of many announcements or briefing and meeting requests and this one stood out. In fact it stood out so much not for what was actually being announced or by whom or what it pertained to (all of which are relevant btw). It stood out because it did what most are not doing these days. It got to the point and in about the time required for a sip of coffee, I new what I needed to know as opposed to a trip to the coffee pot to refill to read the piece.

    The note impressed me so much that I asked Melissa Kolodziej who sent it to me if I could repost her note here as an example of how to do it.

    Subject: News: Attunity Enhances Big Data Replication Solution for Data Warehousing & Cloud Initiatives

    Dear Greg,
    Good morning. I wanted to share with you the exciting product news we announced regarding  Attunity Replicate 2.1. This latest release of our high-performance data delivery solution now features several new enhancements for data warehousing and the cloud. One key optimization is the addition of Attunity  TurboStream CDC, an innovative feature designed to significantly enhance delivery performance of changed data. This proprietary technology stages source data, consolidates changes, and delivers data in parallel to the target, optimizing change data capture (CDC) for high-volume and low-bandwidth scenarios. The enhanced Attunity Replicate solution is ideal for strategic initiatives including Big Data analytics and business intelligence typically seen in data warehouse and cloud environments.

    Please review the release below and contact me at your earliest convenience (Tel. 781-730-4073) to set up a time to interview Matt Benati, Attunity’s VP of Global Marketing. He is available for briefings this week and next.  I would also appreciate hearing back from you if you plan to cover this news.

    Thank you for your time and best regards,

    Melissa Kolodziej
    Director of Marketing Communications, Attunity
    Tel. 781-730-4073
    melissa.kolodziej@attunity.com

    I thought about showing an example of what not to do, however for now, lets leave sleeping dogs lay where the rest. Although I will say make sure you put a name in the name field for your email blasts vs. receiving Dear <Name_Goes_Here> or using the wrong name. The wrong name I’m used to however I may respond and have some fun at your expense so that you don’t forget ;).

    Kudos and nice job Melissa for doing what should be common knowledge or basic best practices however what I now see as the exception vs. the norm from many public relations firms or vendors.

    Ok, nuff said (for now).

    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

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    Some things keep going around, Seagate ships 2 Billion HDD’s

    Seagate

    Seagate (@Seagate) announced today that it reached a milestone of having shipped 2 Billion hard disk drives (HDD’s), something that is round stores data that keeps growing. As part of their announcement, Seagate has a good info graphics and facts page here going back to 1979 when it was founded as Shugart Technology (read about Al Shugart here).

    By coincidence, just a few years before Seagate was founded, McDonalds (who makes round things as well) announced that they had served over 20 billion hamburgers. Thus McDonald feeds the appetites of consumers hungry for a quick meal while Seagate feeds the information demands, perhaps while stopping for a quick breakfast, lunch, coffee or dinner. Speaking of things that go around (like HDD’s), check out what NAS, NASA and NASCAR have in common all of which are also involved in big data as well as little data.

    Storage I/O industry trends image

    Both Seagate and McDonalds have also expanded their menu of offerings over the years maintaining their core products while expanding into new and adjacent areas given different appetites and preferences. After all, in the data cloud, virtual or physical data center also known as an information factory not everything is the same either.

    Cloud

    Granted Seagate is helping to feed or fuel the internet along with traditional hungry demand for data, not to mention people and data are living longer, as well as getting larger.

    Cloud, virtual server, big data and little data storage I/O image

    In the case of Seagate and other driver manufactures of which have consolidated down to three (Toshiba, Seagate and Western Digital), the physical devices are getting smaller, however capacities are increasing.

    Storage I/O

    Why the continued growth? As mentioned data is getting larger (big data and little data) and living longer, there is also no such thing as a data or information recession. Consequently data storage is an important pillar or part of cloud, virtual and traditional information services with HDD’s remaining popular along side nand flash solid state devices (SSD).

    The Seagate info graphic page can be seen here and is a good walk back in time for some, perhaps a history lesson for others. It goes back to the Sony Walkman which some might remember, launch of the PC and Apple Macintosh in the 80s, Linux and the web in the 90s and moving forward from then to now.

    HDD
    A few of my HDD’s, different types for various tasks.

    If you think or believe HDD’s are a dead technology, take a few minutes to view the info graphic to update your insight on what has been an important aspect of computing and remains popular in cloud environments. Otoh, if you believe that HDD’s are still a core piece of computing and will remain so including in roles in the future, have a look to see how things have progressed, maybe some Dejavu.

    Oh, for those who are thinking that the HDD did not begin in 1979, you are absolutely correct as it dates back into the 1950s. Here is a link to something that I wrote a few years ago on the HDD’s 50th birthday and looks like it will easily celebrate 60 and beyond.

    Additional related reading:
    In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
    Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) for virtual and physical environments
    Happy 50th, hard drive. But will you make it to 60?
    Seagate to say goodbye to Cayman Islands, Hello Ireland
    More Storage IO momentus HHDD and SSD moments part II
    In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
    The Human Face of Big Data, a Book Review

    Congratulations to Seagate, now how long until the 3 billion served, excuse me, shipped HDD occurs?

    Disclosure: Its been almost a month since my last visit to McDonalds or buying another HDD (or SSD) from Amazon.com.

    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

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    February 2013 Server and StorageIO Update Newsletter

    StorageIO News Letter Image
    February 2013 News letter

    Welcome to the February 2013 edition of the StorageIO Update news letter including a new format and added content.

    You can get access to this news letter via various social media venues (some are shown below) in addition to StorageIO web sites and subscriptions.

    Click on the following links to view the February 2013 edition as (HTML sent via Email) version, or PDF versions.

    Visit the news letter page to view previous editions of the StorageIO Update.

    You can subscribe to the news letter by clicking here.

    Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO Update news letter, let me know your comments and feedback.

    Nuff said for now

    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

    VCE revisited, now & zen

    StorageIO Industry trends and perspectives image

    Yesterday VCE and their proud parents announced revenues had reached an annual run rate of a billion dollars. Today VCE announced some new products along with enhancements to others.

    Before going forward though, lets take go back for a moment to help set the stage to see where things might be going in the future. A little over a three years ago, back in November 2009 VCE was born and initially named ACADIA by its proud parents (Cisco, EMC, Intel and VMware). Here is a post that I did back then.

    Btw the reference to Zen might cause some to think that I don’t how to properly refer to the Xen hypervisor. It is really a play from Robert Plants album Now & Zen and its song Tall Cool One. For those not familiar, click on the link and listen (some will have DejaVu, others might think its new and cool) as it takes a look back as well as present, similar to VCE.

    Robert plant now & zen vs. Xen hypervisor

    On the other hand, this might prompt the question of when will Xen be available on a Vblock? For that I defer you to VCE CTO Trey Layton (@treylayton).

    VCE stands for Virtual Computing Environment and was launched as a joint initiative including products and a company (since renamed from Acadia to VCE) to bring all the pieces together. As a company, VCE is based in Plano (Richardson) Texas just north of downtown Dallas and down the road from EDS or what is now left of it after the HP acquisition  The primary product of VCE has been the Vblock. The Vblock is a converged solution comprising components from their parents such as VMware virtualization and management software tools, Cisco servers, EMC storage and software tools and Intel processors.

    Not surprisingly there are many ex-EDS personal at VCE along with some Cisco, EMC, VMware and many other people from other organizations in Plano as well as other cites. Also interesting to note that unlike other youngsters that grow up and stay in touch with their parents via technology or social media tools, VCE is also more than a few miles (try hundreds to thousands) from the proud parent headquarters on the San Jose California and Boston areas.

    As part of a momentum update, VCE and their parents (Cisco, EMC, VMware and Intel) announced annual revenue run rate of a billion dollars in just three years. In addition the proud parents and VCE announced that they have over 1,000 revenue shipped and installed Vblock systems (also here) based on Cisco compute servers, and EMC storage solutions.

    The VCE announcement consists of:

    • SAP HANA database application optimized Vblocks (two modes, 4 node and 8 node)
    • VCE Vision management tools and middleware or what I have refered to as Valueware
    • Entry level Vblock (100 and 200) with Cisco C servers and EMC (VNXe and VNX) storage
    • Performance and functionality enhancements to existing Vblock models 300 and 700
    • Statement of direction for more specialized Vblocks besides SAP HANA


    Images courtesy with permission of VCE.com

    While VCE is known for their Vblock converged, stack, integrated, data center in a box, private cloud or among other descriptors, there is more to the story. VCE is addressing convergence of common IT building blocks for cloud, virtual, and traditional physical environments. Common core building blocks include servers (compute or processors), networking (IO and connectivity), storage, hardware, software, management tools along with people, processes, metrics, policies and protocols.

    Storage I/O image of cloud and virtual IT building blocks

    I like the visual image that VCE is using (see below) as it aligns with and has themes common to what I have discussing in the past.


    Images courtesy with permission of VCE.com

    VCE Vision is software with APIs that collects information about Vblock hardware and software components to give insight to other tools and management frameworks. For example VMware vCenter plug-in and vCenter Operations Manager Adapter which should not be a surprise. Customers will also be able to write to the Vision API to meet their custom needs. Let us watch and see what VCE does to add support for other software and management tools, along with gain support from others.


    Images courtesy with permission of VCE.com

    Vision is more than just an information source feed for VMware vCenter or VASA or tools and frameworks from others. Vision is software developed by VCE that will enable insight and awareness into the Vblock and applications, however also confirm and give status of physical and logical component configuration. This means the basis for setting up automated or programmatic remediation such as determining what software or firmware to update based on different guidelines.


    Images courtesy with permission of VCE.com

    Initially VCE Vision provides (information) inventory and perspective of how those components are in compliance with firmware or software releases, so stay tuned. VCE is indicating that Vision will continue to evolve after all this is the V1.0 release with future enhancements targeted towards taking action, controlling or active management.

    StorageIO Industry trends and perspectives image

    Some trends, thoughts and perspectives

    The industry adoption buzz is around software defined X where X can be data center (SDDC), or storage (SDS) or networking (SDN), or marketing (SDM) or other things. The hype and noise around software defined which in the case of some technologies is good. On the marketing hype side, this has led to some Software Defined BS (SDBS).

    Thus, it was refreshing at least in the briefing session I was involved in to hear a minimum focus around software defined and more around customer and IT business enablement with technology that is shipping today.

    VCE Vision is a good example of adding value hence what I refer to as Valueware around converged components. For those vendors who have similar solutions, I urge them to streamline, simplify and more clearly articulate their value proposition if they have valueware.

    Vendors including VCE continue to evolve their platform based converged solutions by adding more valueware, management tools, interfaces, APIs, interoperability and support for more applications. The support for applications is also moving beyond simple line item ordering or part number skews to ease acquisition and purchasing. Some solutions include VCE Vblock, NetApp FlexPod that also uses Cisco compute servers, IBM PureSystems (PureFlex etc) and Dell vStart among others are extending their support and optimization for various software solutions. These software solutions range from SAP (including HANA), Microsoft (Exchange, SQLserver, Sharepoint), Citrix desktop (VDI), Oracle, OpenStack, Hadoop map reduce along with other little-data, big-data and big-bandwidth applications to name a few.

    Additional and related reading:
    Acadia VCE: VMware + Cisco + EMC = Virtual Computing Environment
    Cloud conversations: Public, Private, Hybrid what about Community Clouds?
    Cloud, virtualization, Storage I/O trends for 2013 and beyond
    Convergence: People, Processes, Policies and Products
    Hard product vs. soft product
    Hardware, Software, what about Valueware?
    Industry adoption vs. industry deployment, is there a difference?
    Many faces of storage hypervisor, virtual storage or storage virtualization
    The Human Face of Big Data, a Book Review
    Why VASA is important to have in your VMware CASA

    Congratulations to VCE, along with their proud parents, family, friends and partners, now how long will it take to reach your next billion dollars in annual run rate revenue. Hopefully it wont be three years until the next VCE revisited now and Zen ;).

    Disclosure: EMC and Cisco have been StorageIO clients, I am a VMware vExpert that gets me a free beer after I pay for VMworld and Intel has named two of my books listed on their Recommended Reading List for Developers.

    Ok, nuff said, time to head off to vBeers over in Minneapolis.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

    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

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    Cloud conversations: Public, Private, Hybrid and Community Clouds? (Part II)

    StorageIO Industry trends and perspectives image

    This is the second of a two part series, read part I here.

    Common community cloud conversation questions include among others:

    Who defines the standards for community clouds?
    The members or participants, or whoever they hire or get to volunteer to do it.

    Who pays for the community cloud?
    The members or participants do, think about a co-op or other resource sharing consortium with multi-tenant (shared) capabilities to isolate and keep members along with what they are doing separate.

    cloud image

    Who are community clouds for, when to use them?
    If you cannot justify a private cloud for yourself, or, if you need more resiliency than what can be provided by your site and you know of a peer, partner, member or other with common needs, those could be a fit. Another variation is you are in an industry or agency or district where pooling of resources, yet operating separate has advantages or already being done. These range from medical and healthcare to education along with various small medium businesses (SMBs) that do not want to or cannot use a public facility for various reasons.

    What technology is needed for building a community cloud?
    Similar to deploying a public or private cloud, you will need various hard products including servers, storage, networking, management software tools for provisioning, orchestration, show back or charge back, multi-tenancy, security and authentication, data protection (backup, bc, dr, ha) along with various middleware and applications.

    Storage I/O cloud building block image

    What are community clouds used for?
    Almost anything, granted there are limits and boundaries based tools, technologies, security and access controls among other constraints. Applications can range from big-data to little-data on all if not most points in between. On the other hand, if they are not safe or secure enough for your needs, then use a private cloud or whatever it is that you are currently using.

    What about community cloud security, privacy and compliance regulations?
    Those are topics and reasons why like-minded or affected groups might be able to leverage a community cloud. By being like-minded or affected groups, labs, schools, business, entities, agencies, districts, or other organizations that are under common mandates for security, compliance, privacy or other regulations can work together, yet keep their interests separate. What tools or techniques for achieving those goals and objectives would be dependent on those who offer services to those entities now?

    data centers, information factories and clouds

    Where can you get a community cloud?
    Look around using Google or your favorite search tool; also watch the comments section to see how long it takes someone to jump in to say how he or she can help. Also talk with solution providers, business partners and VARs. Note that they may not know the term or phrases per say, so here is what to tell them. Tell them that you would like to deploy a private cloud at some place that will then be used in a multi-tenant way to safely and securely support different members of your consortium.

    For those who have been around long enough, you can also just tell them that you want to do something like the co-op or consortium time-sharing type systems from past generations and they may know what you are looking for. If although they look at you with a blank deer in the head-light stare eyes glazed over, just tell them it’s a new lead-edge, software defined new and revolutionary (add some superlatives if you feel inclined) and then they might get excited.  If they still don’t know what to do or help you with, have them get in touch with me and I will explain it to them, or, I’ll put you in touch with those can help.

    data centers, information factories and clouds

    Where do you put a community cloud?
    You could deploy them in your own facility, other member’s locations or both for resiliency. You could also use a safe secure co-lo facility already being used for other purposes.

    Do community clouds have organizers?
    Perhaps, however they are probably more along the lines of a coordinator, administrator, manager, controller as opposed to a community organizer per say. In other words, do not confuse a community cloud with a cloud community organized, aligned and activated for some particular cause. On the other hand, maybe there is value prop for some cloud activist to be  organized and take up the cause for community clouds in your area of interest ;).

    data centers, information factories and clouds

    Are community clouds more of a concept vs. a product?
    If you have figured out that a community or peer cloud is nothing more than a different way of deploying, using and managing a combination of private, public and hybrid and putting a marketing name on them, congratulations, you are now thinking outside of the box, or outside of the usual cloud conversations.

    What about public cloud services for selected audiences such as Amazons GovCloud? On one hand, I guess you could call or think of that as a semi-private public cloud, or a semi-public private cloud, or if you like superlatives an uber gallistic hybrid community cloud.

    How you go about building, deploying and managing your community, coop, consortium, and agency, district or peer cloud will be how you leverage various hard and software products. The results of which will be your return on innovation (the new ROI) to address various needs and concerns or also known as valueware. Those results should be able to address or help close gaps and leverage clouds in general as a resource vs. simply as a tool, technology or technique.

    Ok, nuff said…

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

    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