Tag: cluster

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Data Protection Diaries Tools Technologies Toolbox Buzzword Bingo Trends

Fundamental Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

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

Data Protection Tools, Technologies, Toolbox, Buzzword Bingo Trends

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

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

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

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

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

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

SDDC SDDI data center data protection toolbox
Data Protection Toolbox

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

Object Storage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

S3 Simple Storage Service

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

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

Additional AWS S3 (service) and related resources include:

Data Infrastructure Environments and Applications

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

Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) Including Dedupe

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

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

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

Tips, Recommendations and Considerations

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

General action items, tips, considerations and recommendations include:

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

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

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

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamentals Walking The Data Protection Talk

Data Protection Diaries Walking The Data Protection Talk

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

Walking The Data Protection Talk What I Do

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why not just rely on cloud copies?

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

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

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

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

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

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

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamentals Who Is Doing What Toolbox Technology Tools

Data Protection Toolbox Whos Doing What Technology Tools

Updated 1/17/2018

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

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

who’s Doing What (Toolbox Technology Tools)

SDDC SDDI data center data protection toolbox
Data Protection Toolbox

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

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

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

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

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

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

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

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Resources Where to Learn More

Data Protection Diaries Fundamental Resources Where to Learn More

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Table of Contents (TOC)

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

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

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

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

Data Protection Resources Where To Learn More

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

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

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


    • The following are various data protection blog posts:

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

    • The following are various data protection tips and articles:

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

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

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

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

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

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

    What This All Means

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

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

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

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    May 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructures Update Newsletter

    Volume 17, Issue V

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

    Summer officially here in the northern hemisphere is still a few weeks away, however for all practical purposes it has arrived. What this means is that in addition to normal workplace activities and projects, there are plenty of outdoor things (as well as distractions) to attend to.

    Over the past several months I have mentioned a new book that is due out this summer and which means it’s getting close to announcement time. The new book title is Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials – Cloud, Converged, and Virtual Fundamental Server Storage I/O Tradecraft (CRC PRess/Taylor Francis/Auerbach) that you can learn more about here (with more details being added soon). A common question is will there be electronic versions of the book and the answer is yes (more on this in future newsletter).

    Data Infrastructures

    Another common question is what is it about, what is a data infrastructure (see this post) and what is tradecraft (see this post). Software-Defined Data Infrastructures Essentials provides fundamental coverage of physical, cloud, converged, and virtual server storage I/O networking technologies, trends, tools, techniques, and tradecraft skills.

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

    Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC
    ISBN-13: 978-1498738156
    ISBN-10: 149873815X
    Hardcover: 672 pages
    Publisher: Auerbach Publications; 1 edition (June 2017)
    Language: English

    Watch for more news and insight about my new book Software-Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials soon. In the meantime, check out the various items below in this edition of the Server StorageIO Update.

    In This Issue

    Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    Cheers GS

    Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

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

    Flackbox.com has some new independent (non NetApp produced) learning resources including NetApp simulator eBook and MetroCluster tutorial. Over in the Microsoft world, Thomas Maurer has a good piece about Windows Server build 2017 and all about containers. Microsoft also announced SQL Server 2017 CTP 2.1 is now available. Meanwhile here are some my experiences and thoughts from test driving Microsoft Azure Stack.

    Speaking of NetApp among other announcements they released a new version of their StorageGrid object storage software. NVMe activity in the industry (and at customer sites) continues to increase with Cavium Qlogic NVMe over Fabric news, along with Broadcom recent NVMe RAID announcements. Keep in mind that if the answer is NVMe, than what are the questions.

    Here is a good summary of the recent OpenStack Boston Summit. Storpool did a momentum announcement which for those of you into software defined storage, add Storpool to your watch list. On the VMware front, check out this vSAN 6.6 demo (video) of stretched cluster via Yellow Bricks.

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

    Server StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

    Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

    Via EnterpriseStorageForum: What to Do with Legacy Assets in a Flash Storage World
    There is still a place for hybrid arrays. A hybrid array is the home run when it comes to leveraging your existing non-flash, non-SSD based assets today.

    Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Where All-Flash Storage Makes No Sense
    A bit of flash in the right place can go a long way, and everybody can benefit from at least a some of flash somewhere. Some might say the more, the better. But where you have budget constraints that simply prevent you from having more flash for things such as cold, inactive, or seldom access data, you should explore other options.

    Via Bitpipe: Changing With the Times – Protecting VMs(PDF)

    Via FedTech: Storage Strategies: Agencies Optimize Data Centers by Focusing on Storage

    Via SearchCloudStorage: Dell EMC cloud storage strategy needs to cut through fog

    Via SearchStorage: Microsemi upgrades controllers based on HPE technology

    Via EnterpriseStorageForum: 8 Data Machine Learning and AI Storage Tips

    Via SiliconAngle: Dell EMC announces hybrid cloud platform for Azure Stack

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

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

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

    August 28-30, 2017 – VMworld – Las Vegas

    Jully 22, 2017 – TBA

    June 22, 2017 – Webinar – GDPR and Microsoft Environments

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

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

    Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – 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.

    Posted on

    VMware vSAN 6.6 hyper-converged (HCI) software defined data infrastructure

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware vSAN 6.6 hyper-converged (HCI) software defined data infrastructure

    In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the first of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. Part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    VMware vSAN 6.6
    Image via VMware

    For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

    Software-defined data infrastructure

    Excuse Me, What is vSAN and who is if for

    Some might find it odd having to explain what vSAN is, on the other hand, not everybody is dialed into the VMware world ecosystem, so let’s give them some help, for everybody else, and feel free to jump ahead.

    For those not familiar, VMware vSAN is an HCI software-defined storage solution that converges compute (hypervisors and server) with storage space capacity and I/O performance along with networking. Being HCI means that with vSAN as you scale compute, storage space capacity and I/O performance also increases in an aggregated fashion. Likewise, increase storage space capacity and server I/O performance you also get more compute capabilities (along with memory).

    For VMware-centric environments looking to go CI or HCI, vSAN offers compelling value proposition leveraging known VMware tools and staff skills (knowledge, experience, tradecraft). Another benefit of vSAN is the ability to select your hardware platform from different vendors, a trend that other CI/HCI vendors have started to offer as well.

    CI and HCI data infrastructure

    Keep in mind that fast applications need a fast server, I/O and storage, as well as server storage I/O needs CPU along with memory to generate I/O operations (IOPs) or move data. What this all means is that HCI solutions such as VMware vSAN combine or converge the server compute, hypervisors, storage file system, storage devices, I/O and networking along with other functionality into an easy to deploy (and management) turnkey solution.

    Learn more about CI and HCI along with who some other vendors are as well as considerations at www.storageio.com/converge. Also, visit VMware sites to find out more about vSphere ESXi hypervisors, vSAN, NSX (Software Defined Networking), vCenter, vRealize along with other tools for enabling SDDC and SDDI.

    Give Me the Quick Elevator Pitch Summary

    VMware has enhanced vSAN with version 6.6 (V6.6) enabling new functionality, supporting new hardware platforms along with partners, while reducing costs, improving scalability and resiliency for SDDC and SDDI environments. This includes from small medium business (SMB) to mid-market to small medium enterprise (SME) as well as workgroup, departmental along with Remote Office Branch Office (ROBO).

    Being a HCI solution, management functions of the server, storage, I/O, networking, hypervisor, hardware, and software are converged to improve management productivity. Also, vSAN integrated with VMware vSphere among other tools enable modern, robust data infrastructure that serves, protect, preserve, secure and stores data along with their associated applications.

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to learn more about vSAN and related technologies.

    What this all means

    Overall a good set of enhancements as vSAN continues its evolution looking back just a few years ago, to where it is today and will be in the future. If you have not looked at vSAN recently, take some time beyond reading this piece to learn some more.

    Continue reading more about VMware vSAN 6.6 in part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) located here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part II (just the speeds feeds features please)

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware vSAN v6.6 Part II (just the speeds feeds features please)

    In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the second of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. View Part I here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    VMware vSAN 6.6
    Image via VMware

    For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

    Just the Speeds and Feeds Please

    For those who just want to see the list of what’s new with vSAN V6.6, here you go:

    • Native encryption for data-at-rest
    • Compliance certifications
    • Resilient management independent of vCenter
    • Degraded Disk Handling v2.0 (DDHv2)
    • Smart repairs and enhanced rebalancing
    • Intelligent rebuilds using partial repairs
    • Certified file service & data protection solutions
    • Stretched clusters with local failure protection
    • Site affinity for stretched clusters
    • 1-click witness change for Stretched Cluster
    • vSAN Management Pack for vRealize
    • Enhanced vSAN SDK and PowerCLI
    • Simple networking with Unicast
    • vSAN Cloud Analytics with real-time support notification and recommendations
    • vSAN ConfigAssist with 1-click hardware lifecycle management
    • Extended vSAN Health Services
    • vSAN Easy Install with 1-click fixes
    • Up to 50% greater IOPS for all-flash with optimized checksum and dedupe
    • Support for new next-gen workloads
    • vSAN for Photon in Photon Platform 1.1
    • Day 0 support for latest flash technologies
    • Expanded caching tier choice
    • Docker Volume Driver 1.1

    What’s New and Value Proposition of vSAN 6.6

    Let’s take a closer look beyond the bullet list of what’s new with vSAN 6.6, as well as perspectives of those features to address different needs. The VMware vSAN proposition is to evolve and enable modernizing data infrastructures with HCI powered by vSphere along with vSAN.

    Three main themes or characteristics (and benefits) of vSAN 6.6 include addressing (or enabling):

    • Reducing risk while scaling
    • Reducing cost and complexity
    • Scaling for today and tomorrow

    VMware vSAN 6.6 summary
    Image via VMware

    Reducing risk while scaling

    Reducing (or removing) risk while evolving your data infrastructure with HCI including flexibility of choosing among five support hardware vendors along with native security. This includes native security, availability and resiliency enhancements (including intelligent rebuilds) without sacrificing storage efficiency (capacity) or effectiveness (performance productivity), management and choice.

    VMware vSAN DaRE
    Image via VMware

    Dat level Data at Rest Encryption (DaRE) of all vSAN dat objects that are enabled at a cluster level. The new functionality supports hybrid along with all flash SSD as well as stretched clusters. The VMware vSAN DaRE implementation is an alternative to using self-encrypting drives (SEDs) reducing cost, complexity and management activity. All vSAN features including data footprint reduction (DFR) features such as compression and deduplication are supported. For security, vSAN DaRE integrations with compliance key management technologies including those from SafeNet, Hytrust, Thales and Vormetric among others.

    VMware vSAN management
    Image via VMware

    ESXi HTML 5 based host client, along with CLI via ESXCLI for administering vSAN clusters as an alternative in case your vCenter server(s) are offline. Management capabilities include monitoring of critical health and status details along with configuration changes.

    VMware vSAN health management
    Image via VMware

    Health monitoring enhancements include handling of degraded vSAN devices with intelligence proactively detecting impending device failures. As part of the functionality, if a replica of the failing (or possible soon to fail) device exists, vSAN can take action to maintain data availability.

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to find out more about vSAN and related technologies.

    What this all means

    With each new release, vSAN is increasing its feature, functionality, resiliency and extensiveness associated with traditional storage and non-CI or HCI solutions. Continue reading more about VMware vSAN 6.6 in Part I here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part III (reducing costs complexity)

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part III (Reducing costs complexity)

    In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the third of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. View Part I here, Part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    VMware vSAN 6.6
    Image via VMware

    For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

    Reducing cost and complexity

    Reducing your total cost of ownership (TCO) including lower capital expenditures (CapEx) and operating (OPEX). VMware is claiming CapEx and OpEx reduced TCO of 50%. Keep in mind that solutions such as vSAN also can help drive return on investment (ROI) as well as return on innovation (the other ROI) via improved productivity, effectiveness, as well as efficiencies (savings). Another aspect of addressing TCO and ROI includes flexibility leveraging stretched clusters to address HA, BR, BC and DR Availability needs cost effectively. These enhancements include efficiency (and effectiveness e.g. productivity) at scale, proactive cloud analytics, and intelligent operations.

    VMware vSAN stretch cluster
    Image via VMware

    Low cost (or cost-effective) Local, Remote Resiliency and Data Protection with Stretched Clusters across sites. Upon a site failure, vSAN maintains availability is leveraging surviving site redundancy. For performance and productivity effectiveness, I/O traffic is kept local where possible and practical, reducing cross-site network workload. Bear in mind that the best I/O is the one you do not have to do, the second is the one with the least impact.

    This means if you can address I/Os as close to the application as possible (e.g. locality of reference), that is a better I/O. On the other hand, when data is not local, then the best I/O is the one involving a local or remote site with least overhead impact to applications, as well as server storage I/O (including networks) resources. Also keep in mind that with vSAN you can fine tune availability, resiliency and data protection to meet various needs by adjusting fault tolerant mode (FTM) to address a different number of failures to tolerate.

    server storage I/O locality of reference

    Network and cloud friendly Unicast Communication enhancements. To improve performance, availability, and capacity (CPU demand reduction) multicast communications are no longer used making for easier, simplified single site and stretched cluster configurations. When vSAN clusters upgrade to V6.6 unicast is enabled.

    VMware vSAN unicast
    Image via VMware

    Gaining insight, awareness, adding intelligence to avoid flying blind, introducing vSAN Cloud Analytics and Proactive Guidance. Part of a VMware customer, experience improvement program, leverages cloud-based health checks for easy online known issue detection along with relevant knowledge bases pieces as well as other support notices. Whether you choose to refer to this feature as advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), proactive rules enabled management problem isolation, solving resolution I will leave that up to you.

    VMware vSAN cloud analytics
    Image via VMware

    Part of the new tools analytics capabilities and prescriptive problem resolution (hmm, some might call that AI or advanced analytics, just saying), health check issues are identified, notifications along with suggested remediation. Another feature is the ability to leverage continuous proactive updates for advance remediation vs. waiting for subsequent vSAN releases. Net result and benefit are reducing time, the complexity of troubleshooting converged data infrastructure issues spanning servers, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software, cloud, and configuration. In other words, enable you more time to be productive vs. finding and fixing problems leveraging informed awareness for smart decision-making.

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to find out more about vSAN and related technologies.

    What this all means

    Continue reading more about VMware vSAN 6.6 in part I here, part II (just the speeds feeds please) located here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) found here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part IV (HCI scaling ROBO and data centers today)

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part IV (HCI scaling ROBO and data centers today)

    In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the fourth of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. View Part I here, Part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here, as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    VMware vSAN 6.6
    Image via VMware

    For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

    Scaling HCI for ROBO and data centers today and for tomorrow

    Scaling with stability for today and tomorrow. This includes addressing your applications Performance, Availability, Capacity and Economics (PACE) workload requirements today and for the future. By scaling with stability means boosting performance, availability (data protection, security, resiliency, durable, FTT), effective capacity without one of those attributes compromising another.

    VMware vSAN data center scaling
    Image via VMware

    Scaling today for tomorrow also means adapting to today’s needs while also flexible to evolve with new application workloads, hardware as well as a cloud (public, private, hybrid, inter and intra-cloud). As part of continued performance improvements, enhancements to optimize for higher performance flash SSD including NVMe based devices.

    VMware vSAN cloud analytics
    Image via VMware

    Part of scaling with stability means enhancing performance (as well as productivity) or the effectiveness of a solution. Keep in mind that efficiency is often associated with storage (or server or network) space capacity savings or reductions. In that context then effectiveness means performance and productivity or how much work can be done with least overhead impact. With vSAN, V6.6 performance enhancements include reduced checksum overhead, enhanced compression, and deduplication, along with destaging optimizations.

    Other enhancements that help collectively contribute to vSAN performance improvements include VMware object handling (not to be confused with cloud or object storage S3 or Swift objects) as well as faster iSCSI for vSAN. Also improved are more accurate refined cache sizing guidelines. Keep in mind that a little bit of NAND flash SSD or SCM in the right place can have a significant benefit, while a lot of flash cache costs much cash.

    Part of enabling and leveraging new technology today includes support for larger capacity 1.6TB flash SSD drives for cache, as well as lower read latency with 3D XPoint and NVMe drives such as those from Intel among others. Refer to the VMware vSAN HCL for current supported devices which continue evolve along with the partner ecosystem. Future proofing is also enabled where you can grow from today to tomorrow as new storage class memories (SCM) among other flash SSD as well as NVMe enhanced storage among other technologies are introduced into the market as well as VMware vSAN HCL.

    VMware vSAN and data center class applications
    Image via VMware

    Traditional CI and in particular many HCI solutions have been optimized or focused on smaller application workloads including VDI resulting in the perception that HCI, in general, is only for smaller environments, or larger environment non-mission critical workloads. With vSAN V6.6 VMware is addressing and enabling larger environment mission critical applications including Intersystem Cache medical health management software among others. Other application workload extensions including support for higher performance demanding Hadoop big data analytics, a well as extending virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) workspace with XenDesktop/XenApp, along with Photon 1.1 container support.

    What about VMware vSAN 6.6. Packaging and License Options

    As part of vSAN 6.6 VMware several solution bundle packaged options for the data center as well as smaller ROBO environment. Contact your VMware representative or partner to learn more about specific details.

    VMware vSAN cloud analytics
    Image via VMware

    VMware vSAN cloud analytics
    Image via VMware

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to find out more about vSAN and related technologies.

    What this all means

    Continue reading more about VMware vSAN 6.6 in part I here, part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) located here as well as part V here (VMware vSAN evolution, where to learn more and summary).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

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    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part V (vSAN evolution and summary)

    server storage I/O trends

    VMware vSAN V6.6 Part V (vSAN evolution and summary)

    In case you missed it, VMware announced vSAN v6.6 hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software defined data infrastructure solution. This is the fifth of a five-part series about VMware vSAN V6.6. View Part I here, Part II (just the speeds feeds please) is located here, part III (reducing cost and complexity) found here, part IV (scaling ROBO and data centers today) located here.

    VMware vSAN 6.6
    Image via VMware

    For those who are not aware, vSAN is a VMware virtual Storage Area Network (e.g. vSAN) that is software-defined, part of being a software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) and software-defined data center (SDDC). Besides being software-defined vSAN is HCI combining compute (server), I/O networking, storage (space and I/O) along with hypervisors, management, and other tools.

    How has vSAN (formerly referred to as VSAN) Evolved

    A quick recap of the VMware vSAN progression which first appeared as part of vSphere 5.5. (e.g. vSAN 5.5 can be thought of 1.0 in some ways) consists of several releases. Since vSAN is tightly integrated with VMware vSphere along with associated management tools, there is a correlation between enhancements to the underlying hypervisor, and added vSAN functionality. Keep in mind sometimes by seeing where something has been, helps to view where going.

    Previous vSAN enhancements include:

    • 5.5 Hybrid (mixed HDD and flash)
    • 6.2 (2016) All flash (e.g. AFA) versions included data footprint reduction (DFR) technologies such as compression and dedupe along with performance Quality of Service (QoS) enhancements.
    • 6.5 Cross Cloud functionality including the announcement of container support, cloud-native apps, as well as upcoming vSphere, vSAN, NSX and other VMware software-defined data center (SDDC) and software-defined data infrastructure (SDDI) technology running natively on AWS (not on EC2) cloud infrastructure.
    • 6.6 Modern data infrastructure flexibility, scalability, resiliency, extensibility including performance, availability, capacity and economics (PACE).

    V5.5

    • Distributed RAID
    • Per-VM SPBM
    • Set and change FTT via policy
    • In-kernel hyper-convergence engine
    • RVC and Observer

    V6.0

    • All-flash architecture
    • Perf improvements (4xIOPS)
    • 64-node support
    • High-density storage blades
    • Fault domain awareness
    • Scalable snapshots and clones
    • Disk enclosure management

    V6.1

    • Windows Failover Clustering
    • Oracle RAC support
    • HW checksum and encryption
    • 2-node ROBO mode
    • UltraDIMM and NVMe support
    • Stretch clusters
    • 5 min RPO (vSphere Rep)
    • SMP-FT support
    • Health Check, vROps, Log Insight

    V6.2

    • IPv6 support
    • Software checksum
    • Nearline dedupe and compression on all-flash
    • Erasure coding on all-flash
    • QoS IOPS limits
    • Performance monitoring service

    V6.5

    • iSCSI
    • 2-Node direct connect
    • PowerCLI
    • Public APIs and SDK
    • 512e support
    • All-Flash to all editions

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to find out more about vSAN and related technologies.

    What this all means, wrap up and summary

    VMware continues to extend the software-defined data center (SDDC) and Software-Defined Data Infrastructure (SDDI) ecosystem with vSAN to address the needs from smaller SMB and ROBO environments to larger SME and enterprise workloads. To me a theme with V6.6 is expanding resiliency, scalability with stability to expand vSAN upmarket as well as into new workloads similar to how vSphere has evolved.

    With each new release, vSAN is increasing its feature, functionality, resiliency and extensiveness associated with traditional storage and non-CI or HCI solutions. Overall a good set of enhancements as vSAN continues its evolution looking back just a few years ago, to where it is today and will be in the future. If you have not looked at vSAN recently, take some time beyond reading this piece to learn some more.

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Ceph Day Amsterdam 2012 (Object and cloud storage)

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    Recently while I was in Europe presenting some sessions at conferences and doing some seminars, I was invited by Ed Saipetch (@edsai) of Inktank.com to attend the first Ceph Day in Amsterdam.

    Ceph day image

    As luck or fate would turn out, I was in Nijkerk which is about an hour train ride from Amsterdam central station plus a free day in my schedule. After a morning train ride and nice walk from Amsterdam Central I arrived at the Tobacco Theatre (a former tobacco trading venue) where Ceph Day was underway, and in time for lunch of Krokettens sandwich.

    Attendees at Ceph Day

    Lets take a quick step back and address for those not familiar what is Ceph (Cephalanthera) and why it was worth spending a day to attend this event. Ceph is an open source distributed object scale out (e.g. cluster or grid) software platform running on industry standard hardware.

    Dell server supporting ceph demoSketch of ceph demo configuration

    Ceph is used for deploying object storage, cloud storage and managed services, general purpose storage for research, commercial, scientific, high performance computing (HPC) or high productivity computing (commercial) along with backup or data protection and archiving destinations. Other software similar in functionality or capabilities to Ceph include OpenStack Swift, Basho Riak CS, Cleversafe, Scality and Caringo among others. There are also the tin wrapped software (e.g. appliances or pre-packaged) solutions such as Dell DX (Caringo), DataDirect Networks (DDN) WOS, EMC ATMOS and Centera, Amplidata and HDS HCP among others. From a service standpoint, these solutions can be used to build services similar Amazon S3 and Glacier, Rackspace Cloud files and Cloud Block, DreamHost DreamObject and HP Cloud storage among others.

    Ceph cloud and object storage architecture image

    At the heart of Ceph is RADOS a distributed object store that consists of peer nodes functioning as object storage devices (OSD). Data can be accessed via REST (Amazon S3 like) APIs, Libraries, CEPHFS and gateway with information being spread across nodes and OSDs using a CRUSH based algorithm (note Sage Weil is one of the authors of CRUSH: Controlled, Scalable, Decentralized Placement of Replicated Data). Ceph is scalable in terms of performance, availability and capacity by adding extra nodes with hard disk drives (HDD) or solid state devices (SSDs). One of the presentations pertained to DreamHost that was an early adopter of Ceph to make their DreamObjects (cloud storage) offering.

    Ceph cloud and object storage deployment image

    In addition to storage nodes, there are also an odd number of monitor nodes to coordinate and manage the Ceph cluster along with optional gateways for file access. In the above figure (via DreamHost), load balancers sit in front of gateways that interact with the storage nodes. The storage node in this example is a physical server with 12 x 3TB HDDs each configured as a OSD.

    Ceph dreamhost dreamobject cloud and object storage configuration image

    In the DreamHost example above, there are 90 storage nodes plus 3 management nodes, the total raw storage capacity (no RAID) is about 3PB (12 x 3TB = 36TB x 90 = 3.24PB). Instead of using RAID or mirroring, each objects data is replicated or copied to three (e.g. N=3) different OSDs (on separate nodes), where N is adjustable for a given level of data protection, for a usable storage capacity of about 1PB.

    Note that for more usable capacity and lower availability, N could be set lower, or a larger value of N would give more durability or data protection at higher storage capacity overhead cost. In addition to using JBOD configurations with replication, Ceph can also be configured with a combination of RAID and replication providing more flexibility for larger environments to balance performance, availability, capacity and economics.

    Ceph dreamhost and dreamobject cloud and object storage deployment image

    One of the benefits of Ceph is the flexibility to configure it how you want or need for different applications. This can be in a cost-effective hardware light configuration using JBOD or internal HDDs in small form factor generally available servers, or high density servers and storage enclosures with optional RAID adapters along with SSD. This flexibility is different from some cloud and object storage systems or software tools which take a stance of not using or avoiding RAID vs. providing options and flexibility to configure and use the technology how you see fit.

    Here are some links to presentations from Ceph Day:
    Introduction and Welcome by Wido den Hollander
    Ceph: A Unified Distributed Storage System by Sage Weil
    Ceph in the Cloud by Wido den Hollander
    DreamObjects: Cloud Object Storage with Ceph by Ross Turk
    Cluster Design and Deployment by Greg Farnum
    Notes on Librados by Sage Weil

    Presentations during ceph day

    While at Ceph day, I was able to spend a few minutes with Sage Weil Ceph creator and founder of inktank.com to record a pod cast (listen here) about what Ceph is, where and when to use it, along with other related topics. Also while at the event I had a chance to sit down with Curtis (aka Mr. Backup) Preston where we did a simulcast video and pod cast. The simulcast involved Curtis recording this video with me as a guest discussing Ceph, cloud and object storage, backup, data protection and related themes while I recorded this pod cast.

    One of the interesting things I heard, or actually did not hear while at the Ceph Day event that I tend to hear at related conferences such as SNW is a focus on where and how to use, configure and deploy Ceph along with various configuration options, replication or copy modes as opposed to going off on erasure codes or other tangents. In other words, instead of focusing on the data protection protocol and algorithms, or what is wrong with the competition or other architectures, the Ceph Day focused was removing cloud and object storage objections and enablement.

    Where do you get Ceph? You can get it here, as well as via 42on.com and inktank.com.

    Thanks again to Sage Weil for taking time out of his busy schedule to record a pod cast talking about Ceph, as well 42on.com and inktank for hosting, and the invitation to attend the first Ceph Day in Amsterdam.

    View of downtown Amsterdam on way to train station to return to Nijkerk
    Returning to Amsterdam central station after Ceph Day

    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 2006-2012 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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    HDS buys BlueArc, any surprises here?

    Technically here in the northern hemisphere it is still summer, so there is another summer wedding to announce.

    The other day Hitachi Data Systems (aka HDS) announced that they finally tied the knot buying their Network Attached Storage (NAS) partner BlueArc whom they have been in a OEM premarital arrangement for the last five years or so (wow, was that a long engagement or what?). HDS being a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. a Japanese company it should be no surprise that they operate in a cool, calculated conservative manner with products that have over the past several decades been known for delivering resiliency, functionality, performance and value.

    To those in the IT and specifically data storage industry, the only surprise about HDS buying BlueArc should be what took them so long to do so myself included. With unstructured data, big data, high performance computing, high productivity computing (aka HPC), and big bandwidth needs expanding, it only makes sense that HDS finally ties the knot formally acquiring BlueArc signaling what I hope are a few things for their collective future together.

    Things that I hope HDS can accomplish with their acquisition of BlueArc include among others:

    • Leverage the BlueArc hardware and performance combine with the HDS software suite to expand further upstream (and downstream) as well as into different adjacent markets leveraging their success over the long courtship where both parties got to know each other more.
    • Signal to the industry that they are truly committed to a long term NAS product solution strategy. HDS has been doing a good job of sticking with BlueArc for the past five or so years having had several previous NAS partner relationships including with NetApp, NSS and others besides their own internal projects.
    • Expand their focus to lead with NAS pulling storage with it in addition to using NAS to accessorize (or bling aka Mr. T starter kit to go with Mr. T storage videos) storage systems which means of course, going more direct toe to toe with the likes of former partner NetApp, EMC, HP (with IBRIX), IBM and Dell among many others. Ironically former HDS partner NetApp acquired the Engenio storage group from LSI whose products competed with HDS in some spaces, while BlueArc was a Engenio partner.
    • Continue to develop both the hardware and software feature functionality around the BlueArc products in addition to further integration across the joint product lines for both traditional, as well as clustered, scale out, bulk, big data, big bandwidth and HPC environments.
    • Sharpen their NAS message and solution offerings including providing the support, tools and programs to enable both their joint direct sales forces as well as their partner value added reseller (VAR) and channel networks.

    Check out (here) some additional comments and perspectives by Ray Lucchesi (aka twitter @raylucchesi) over on his blog pertaining to HDS buying BlueArc.

    Congratulations to both HDS and BlueArc along with best wishes, this is a deal that is good for both, now, or once the honeymoon is over, lets see how this is executed upon building on their prior joint success to expand into new market opportunities on a global basis. HDS has tools and people to move into and leverage these new as well as existing opportunities, lets see how they can execute on those hopefully not spending too much time or money on the honeymoon while their competitors are out being busy in some of those same accounts in this last month of an important sales quarter (all quarters are important when it comes to sales).

    Disclosure for those interested and FWIW: BlueArc had been a client of StorageIO a few years ago, however not currently. HDS is not nor have they been a client of StorageIO, however in prior life I was a customer of theirs in addition to being a partner and supplier when I was on the vendor side of the table.

     

    Ok, nuff said for now.

    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 2006-2011 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    Getting SASy, the other shared storage option for disk and SSD systems

    Here is a link to a recent guest post that I was invited to do over at The Virtualization Practice (TVP) pertaining to Getting SASsy, the other shared server to storage interconnect for disk and SSD systems. Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is better known as an interface for connecting hard disk drives (HDD) to servers and storage systems; however it is also widely used for attaching storage systems to physical as well as virtual servers. An important storage requirement for virtual machine (VM) environments with more than one physical machine (PM) server is shared storage. SAS has become a viable interconnect along with other Storage Area Network (SAN) interfaces including Fibre Channel (FC), Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and iSCSI for block access.

    Read more here.

    Ok, nuff said for now.

    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 2006-2011 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

    Posted on

    Gregs StorageIO Out and About Update: June 2010

    With the 2010 summer solstice having occurred in the northern hemisphere that means it is time for a quick out and about update. It has been a busy winter and spring in the office, on the road as well as at home.

    Some results of this recent activity have appeared in blog, on my web site as well as via other sites and venues. For example, activity or content ranges from Industry Trends and Perspectives white papers, reports, blogs, newsletter commentary, interviews, Internet TV, videos, web cast, pod casts (including several appearances on StorageMonkeys Infosmack as well as Rich Brambleys Virtumania), ask the expert (ATE) questions, twitter tweets, tips and columns. Then there were the many in person presentations, key note and seminar events, conferences, briefing sessions along with virtual conferencing and advisory consulting sessions (read and see more here).

    Greg Schulz and StorageIO in the news

    Regarding having new content appearing in different or new venues, Silicon Angle (including a video), Newstex and Enterprise Efficiencies join the long list of industry and vertical, traditional along with new world venues that my content as well as industry trends and perspective commentary appear in. Read more about events and activities here, content here or commentary here.

    Speaking of books, there is also some news in that The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC) is now available on Amazon Kindle (click on links below) as well as having been translated and published in China not to mention having undergone another round of printing keeping up with demand to make more copies available via global venues.

    The Green and Virtual Data Center Chineese Edition: ISBN 978-7-115-21827-8

    As for what am I seeing and hearing, check out the new series of Industry Trends and Perspective (ITP) short blog posts that compliment other posts as well as content found on the main web site. These ITP pieces capture what I am hearing and seeing (that is of those what I can talk about that are not under NDA of course) while out and about.

    Some of the cities that I have been at while out and about doing keynote speaking and seminar events as well as for other meetings have included Minneapolis, Miami, San Diego, Beverly Hills, San Jose, San Diego (again), Hollywood (again), Austin, Miami (again), New York City, Reston, Minneapolis (again), Irvine, New York City (again), Boston, Toronto, Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, Philadelphia, Mountain View, Mahtomedia (Minneapolis area), Boston (again) and Indianapolis, Calgary, Jasper (Alberta), Vancouver in Canada as well as Nijkerk (Netherlands) for a one day seminar covering Industry Trends and Perspectives in addition to changing planes in Atlanta, Detroit, Memphis and Las Vegas.

    The Planes should be obvious, however what about automobiles you ask? How about the following taken from my rental car while driving north of LAX on the 405 after a January storm during my trip from San Diego after a morning event to Beverly Hills to do an evening keynote.

    Rainbow seen from 405 north of LAX
    Driving north of LAX on the 405 with a rainbow after rain storm

    Another car trip a few weeks later after a different event in San Diego I had a driver from a service behind the wheel so that I could get some work done before an evening meeting. Also on the car front, after flying into Indianapolis there was a car ride to Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) to do a keynote for a CDW sponsored event in gasoline alley a few days before the big race there. While we are on the topic of automobiles and technology, if you have not seen it, check out a post I did about what NAS, NASA and NASCAR have in common.

    Gasoline Alley at Indy 500 Practice during a speaking eventIndy 500 Practice during a speaking event

    What about trains you ask?

    VIA Rail: The CanadianWaiting for morning Train at Nijkerk Station to take me to Amsterdam Airport

    Besides the normal airport trams or trains, there was a fun Amtrak Acela ride from New York City Penn station after a morning event in the city up to Boston so as to be in place for a morning event the next day. Other train activity besides airport, subway or commuter light rail in the US and Europe (Holland), there was also an overnight trip on VIA Rail Canada the Canadian from Jasper Alberta to Vancouver (some business tied into a long weekend). If you have never been to the Canadian Rockies, let alone traveled via train, check this one, it was a blast and I highly recommend it.

    Lake Louise Alberta CanadaBear family seen near Jasper Alberta
    Lake Louise and Jasper area bear family in Alberta Canada

    It just dawned on me, what about any out and about via boats?

    Other than the Boston water taxi to Logan Airport from the convention center where EMCworld was held and that I did an Internet TV interview along with @Stu and @Scott_Lowe, boat activity has been so far relegated to relaxation.

    However, as all work and no play could make for a dull boy (or girl), I can update you that the out and about via boat fishing and sightseeing activity has been very good so far this fall even with high (then low, then high) water on the scenic St. Croix river way.

    Here are some scenes from out and about on the St. Croix river including an eagle in its nest tending to its young who can not be seen in this photo as well as fishing (and catching and releasing).

    Greg and his Fish Guide: Out and About on St. Croix River Photos by Karen SchulzWaleye Fish: Out and About on St. Croix River Photos by Karen Schulz
    This is Walter: Out and About on St. Croix River Photos by Karen SchulzOne of our Neighbors who had an addition to their family this year: Out and About on St. Croix River Photos by Karen Schulz

    In between travels (as well as during on planes, trains and in hotel rooms) as well as relaxation breaks, I have been also working on several other projects. Some of these can be seen on the news or tips and articles as well as video and pod cast pages in addition to custom research as well as advisory consulting services. I have also been working on some other projects some of which will become visible over the next weeks and months, others not for a longer period of time yet and yet others that fall under the NDA category so that is all I have to say about that.

    If you are not receiving or have seen them, the inaugural issue of the Server and StorageIO newsletter appeared in late February followed by the second edition (Spring 2010) this past week. Both can be found here and here as well as at www.storageio.com/newsletter or subscribing via newsletter@storageio.com.

    StorageIO Newsletter

    A question I often get asked is what am I hearing or seeing particularly with regards to IT customers as well as with vars during my travels. Here are some photos covering some of the things that I have seen so far this year while out and about.


    Super TV or Visualization device at Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) in Austin
    Note all of the dell servers side by side under the screens required to drive the image.


    Taking a walk inside a supercomputer (left) and Texas Supercomputer (Note the horns)

    View of MTC during one of stops part of a five city server virtualizaiton series I did
    Microsoft Technology Center (MTC)

    view from coach classFlight travel tools
    View from the back of the plane (left), Airplane long haul essentials: water, food, ipod, coffee, eye shades

    Dutch boats
    Boats in Holland taken after dinner before recent seminar I did in Nijkerk

    Dutch snack (yum yum) foodDutch Soccer or Pub Grub
    Dutch Soccer (Pub) food and snacks being enjoyed after a recent seminar in Nijkerk

    Waiting at AMS for flight to MSPAirplane food and maps
    Airport waiting for planes in AMS (left), more airplane snacks and a map (right)

    As to what am I seeing and hearing pertaining to IT, storage, networking and server trends or issues they include among others (see the newsletter):

    Whats on deck and and that I am working on?

    Having had a busy fun winter and spring Im going to get some relaxation time in during a couple of week period of no travel, however there is plenty to do and get ready for. The summer months will slow down a bit on the out and about travel events scene, however not to a complete stop. In between preparing for upcoming events, advisory and consulting activities as well as researching new material and topics not to mention working on some projects that you will see or hear more about in the weeks and months to come.

    For example I will be a guest on a webcast sponsored by Viridity discussing the importance of data center metrics, measurement and insight for effective management to enable energy efficient and effective data centers on July 8th. In addition, I will also be doing another five city storage virtualization series in Stamford, Cleveland, Miami, Tampa and Louisville during mid to late July among other upcoming activities including VMworld in San Francisco.


    Check out the events page for more details, specific dates and venues.

    What about you?

    What have you been doing or have planned for your summer?

    Let me know what you are seeing or hearing as well as have been doing.

    In the meantime however keep these hints and tips in mind:

    • Have plenty of reading material (real physical books or magazines) or virtual (Kindle or other) as well as via Internet or online to read while at the beach (make sure your computer or PDA is backed up), pool side, in the backyard or elsewhere
    • Remember your eye shades (sun glasses or eye wear), hat and sun screen and if applicable, inspect or bug repellant (e.g. RAID is still useful)

    • Drink plenty of liquid fluids while outside in the summer heat including non alcoholic ones that do not have umbrellas or other interesting garnish
    • Have a place to backup and protect all those summer photos, videos and audio clips that you record while on your out and about adventure. However, keep in mind privacy concerns when uploading them to various social mediums. After all, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas and what happens on the web stays on the web!

    Thanks to everyone involved in the recent events which can be seen here, as well for those who will be participating in upcoming ones I look forward to meeting and talking with you.

    Until next time have a fun, safe and relaxing summer if you are in the northern hemisphere and for those down under, not to worry, spring is on the way soon for you as well.

    Cheers gs

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

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