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Getting Caught Up What Happened In September 2017

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Getting Caught Up, What Happened In September?

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

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

vmworld 2017

VMworld Las Vegas

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

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

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

Software Defined Everything (x)

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

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

Image via snia.org

Role of Storage in a Software Defined Data Infrastructure

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

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

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

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

tape and cloud storage

Tape in a Software Defined and Hybrid Cloud World

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

Focus on Data Protection (and recovery)

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

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

Additional data protection related topics and content include:

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

Expanding Your Data Infrastructure Tradecraft

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

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

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

Where To Learn More

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

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

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

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

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

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August 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter



Server StorageIO August 2017 Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

Volume 17, Issue VII (Pre VMworld 2017)

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

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

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

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

In This Issue

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

Cheers GS

Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

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

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

GPU vendor NVIDIA announced Quadro Virtual Data Center workstation technology.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

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

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

Server StorageIOblog Posts

Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

In Case You Missed It #ICYMI

View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Tips and Articles

Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

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

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

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

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

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

Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers
Gs

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

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

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

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Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch

Hot Popular New Trending Data Infrastructure Vendors To Watch

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Updated 1/21/2018

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

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

Some Popular Trending Vendors To Watch

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

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

Some Popular Trending Technology Trends

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

Where To Learn More

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

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Travel Fun Crossword Puzzle For VMworld 2017 Las Vegas

Travel Fun Crossword Puzzle For VMworld 2017 Las Vegas

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

VMworld 2017 crossword puzzle SDDI, SDDC

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC

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

Where To Learn More

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

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

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

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

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

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

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Announcing Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book by Greg Schulz

New SDDI Essentials Book by Greg Schulz of Server StorageIO

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

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book Announcement

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book topics include:

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

Where To Purchase Your Copy

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

What People Are Saying About Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book

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

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

Gert and Frank Brouwer – Brouwer Storage Consultancy

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

Mark McSherry- Oracle Regional Sales Manager

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

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

SDDI and SDDC components

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials SDDI SDDC content

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

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

Book Features

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

SDDI and SDDC toolbox

Where To Learn More

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

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

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

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

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

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

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

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Microsoft Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Reference Resources

Azure Software Defined Data Infrastructure Architecture Resources

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

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

Microsoft Azure Software Defined Cloud
Azure Reference Architectures via Microsoft Azure

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

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

Microsoft Azure Sharepoint HA reference architecture
Sharepoint HA via Microsoft Azure

Where To Learn More

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

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

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

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

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

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

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Like Data They Protect For Now Quantum Revenues Continue To Grow

For Now Quantum Revenues Continue To Grow

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

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

Quantums Revenues Continue To Grow Like Data

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

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

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

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

Here is the excerpt of what Quantum sent out:


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

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

Where To Learn More

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

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.
Gs

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

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

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

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Like IT Data Centers Do You Take Trade Show Exhibit Infrastructure For Granted?

Do You Take Trade Show Exhibit Infrastructure For Granted?

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Think about this for a moment; do you assume that Information Technology (IT) and Cloud based data centers along with their associated Data Infrastructure supporting various applications will be accessible when needed. Likewise, when you go to a trade show, conference, symposium, user group or another conclave is it assumed that the trade show, exposition (expo), exhibits, booths, stands or demo areas will be ready, waiting and accessible?

IT industry cloud software defined events

Fire Disrupts Flash Memory Summit Conference Exhibits

This past week at the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) conference trade show event in Santa Clara California, what normally would be taken for granted (e.g. expo hall and exhibits) were disrupted. The disruption (more here and here) was caused by an early morning fire in one of the exhibitor’s booths (stand) in the expo hall (view some photos here via Toms Hardware.com).

Fortunately, nobody was hurt, at least physically, and damage (physically) appears to have been isolated.

However while the key notes, panels, and other presentations did take place as part of the show must go on, the popular exhibit expo hall did not. Granted for some people who only attend conferences or seminar events for the presentation content, lack of the exhibition hall simply meant no free giveaways.

On the other hand, for those who attend events like FMS mainly for the exhibition hall experience, the show did not go on, perhaps resulting in a trip in vain (e.g. how you might be able to recoup some travel costs in some scenarios) for some people. For example, those who were attending to meet with a particular vendor, see a product technology, conduct some business or other meetings, do an interview, video, podcast, take some photos, or simply get some free stuff were disrupted.

Likewise those behind the scenes, from conference organizers, event staff not to mention the vendor’s sponsors who put resources (time, money, people, and equipment) into an exhibit were disrupted. Vendors were still able to issue their press releases and conduct their presentations, keynotes, panel discussions, however what about the lack of the expo.

Do We Take Data and Event Infrastructures For Granted

This begs the question of if trade show exhibits still have value, or can an event function without one?

I am not sure as some events can and do stand on their merit with presentation content being the primary focus, others the expo is the draw, many are hybrid with a mix of both.

A question and point of this piece is that how many people take conferences in general, and exhibits along with their associated Infrastructure for granted?

How many know or understand the amount of time, money, people resources and various tradecraft skills across different disciplines go into event planning, staging, coordination, the execution, so they occur?

This also ties into the theme of how many people only think and assume that IT data centers and clouds along with their data Infrastructure resources, services are available supporting applications along with data access to give information?

The same holds true for your telephone (plain old telephone system [POTS] and cellular or mobile) service, gas, electric, sewer, water, waste (garbage), traditional or network based television, internet provider, highways, railroads, airports, the list goes on.

Where To Learn More

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

What This All Means

The good news is that nobody physically was injured this past week.

Granted some may have incurred emotional, monetary or public and marketing related injuries, however, those can be dealt with over time.

My point is, do we assume too much (perhaps rightfully so) that events, exhibits and other trade show conference related items are always on, always available, accessible open on time? With IT data center and clouds, you have different expectation levels of access, availability, durability, survivability for a given cost to meet service expectations.

Data center, cloud and data infrastructure SDC, SDDI, SDI, SDx

Next time you attend a webinar, seminar, conference, symposium, trade show, presentation, exhibit or expo, take a moment and look around at what you see, as well as what you do not see. Having been in involved in and around conferences, conventions, seminars, expos across different industries, both behind the scenes as well as on the public side, I do not take these events for granted.

Knowing what goes into the planning, coordination, scheduling, promotion, logistics, all the things behind the scenes, next time you go to an event, look around. What you can see that perhaps are not meant to be seen as part of their Infrastructure. In event venue exhibit halls as well as data centers, there are those things you see such as data infrastructure resources including racks of servers, storage, I/O networking, monitors, displays, work areas, heating ventilation air conditioning (HVAC) along with those you might not see.

What you might not see and take for granted are the smoke and fire detection along with suppression systems which at the Santa Clara convention center appeared to have done their job. There are also the electrical power and distribution systems; perhaps battery backed uninterruptible power systems (UPS) along with standby alternate generator power.

How about a big round of applause, thank you, Atta boy and Atta girl, acknowledgment and other signs of appreciation for all those involved behind the scenes who do the planning, preparation, coordination, setup, tear down and in person what you see at events.

Thank you to all who have, and continue to enable trade shows, conferences, seminars, exhibits, road shows among other events to take place, after all, the show must go on. In other words, like IT and cloud Data Centers, do you take trade show exhibit infrastructures for granted?

Ok, nuff said, for now.

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

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

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

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Zombie Technology Life after Death Tape Is Still Alive

Zombie Technology Life after Death Tape Is Still Alive

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

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

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

Tapes Evolving Role

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

data infrastructures

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

memory data storage hirearchy classes tiers

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

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

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

Image via Tapestorage.org

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

Image via Tapestorage.org

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

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

Where To Learn More

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

What This All Means

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

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

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

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

Ok, nuff said (for now…).

Cheers
Gs

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

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

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

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GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) Resources Are You Ready?

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

What Is GDPR

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

Where To Learn More

Acronis GDPR Resources

  • Acronis Outlines GDPR position

Quest GDPR Resources

Microsoft and Azure Cloud GDPR Resources

Do you have or know of relevant GDPR information and resources? Feel free to add them via comments or send us an email, however please watch the spam and sales pitches as they will be moderated.

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said (for now…).

Cheers
Gs

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

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

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

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Part II Revisting AWS S3 Storage Gateway (Test Drive Deployment)

server storage I/O trends

Part II Revisiting AWS S3 Storage Gateway (Test Drive Deployment)

This Amazon Web Service (AWS) Storage Gateway Revisited posts is a follow-up to the AWS Storage Gateway test drive and review I did a few years ago (thus why it’s called revisited). As part of a two-part series, the first post looks at what AWS Storage Gateway is, how it has improved since my last review of AWS Storage Gateway along with deployment options. The second post in the series looks at a sample test drive deployment and use.

What About Storage Gateway Costs?

Costs vary by region, type of storage being used (files stored in S3, Volume Storage, EBS Snapshots, Virtual Tape storage, Virtual Tape storage archive), as well as type of gateway host, along with how access and used. Request pricing varies including data written to AWS storage by gateway (up to maximum of $125.00 per month), snapshot/volume delete, virtual tape delete, (prorate fee for deletes within 90 days of being archived), virtual tape archival, virtual tape retrieval. Note that there are also various data transfer fees that also vary by region and gateway host. Learn more about pricing here.

What Are Some Storage Gateway Alternatives

AWS and S3 storage gateway access alternatives include those from various third-party (including that are in the AWS marketplace), as well as via data protection tools (e.g. backup/restore, archive, snapshot, replication) and more commonly storage systems. Some tools include Cloudberry, S3FS, S3 motion, S3 Browser among many others.

Tip is when a vendor says they support S3, ask them if that is for their back-end (e.g. they can access and store data in S3), or front-end (e.g. they can be accessed by applications that speak S3 API). Also explore what format the application, tool or storage system stores data in AWS storage, for example, are files mapped one to one to S3 objects along with corresponding directory hierarchy, or are they stored in a save set or other entity.

AWS Storage Gateway Deployment and Management Tips

Once you have created your AWS account (if you did not already have one) and logging into the AWS console (note the link defaults to US East 1 Region), go to the AWS Services Dashboard and select Storage Gateway (or click here which goes to US East 1). You will be presented with three options (File, Volume or VTL) modes.

What Does Storage Gateway and Install Look Like

The following is what installing a AWS Storage Gateway for file and then volume looks like. First, access the AWS Storage Gateway main landing page (it might change by time you read this) to get started. Scroll down and click on the Get Started with AWS Storage Gateway button or click here.

AWS Storage Gateway Landing Page

Select type of gateway to create, in the following example File is chosen.

Select type of AWS storage gateway

Next select the type of file gateway host (EC2 cloud hosted, or on-premises VMware). If you choose VMware, an OVA will be downloaded (follow the onscreen instructions) that you deploy on your ESXi system or with vCenter. Note that there is a different VMware VM gateway OAV for File Gateway and another for Volume Gateway. In the following example VMware ESXi OVA is selected and downloaded, then accessed via VMware tools such as vSphere Web Client for deployment.

AWS Storage Gateway select download

Once your VMware OVA file is downloaded from AWS, install using your preferred VMware tool, in this case I used the vSphere Web Client.

AWS Storage Gateway VM deploy

Once you have deployed the VMware VM for File Storage Gateway, it is time to connect to the gateway using the IP address assigned (static or DHCP) for the VM. Note that you may need to allocate some extra VMware storage to the VM if prompted (this mainly applies to Volume Gateway). Also follow directions about setting NTP time, using paravirtual adapters, thick vs. thin provisioning along with IP settings. Also double-check to make sure your VM and host are set for high-performance power setting. Note that the default username is sguser and password is sgpassword for the gateway.

AWS Storage Gateway Connect

Once you successfully connect to the gateway, next step will be to configure file share settings.

AWS Storage Gateway Configure File Share

Configure file share by selecting which gateway to use (in case you have more than one), name of an S3 bucket name to create, type of storage (S3 Standard or IA), along with Access Management security controls.

AWS Storage Gateway Create Share

Next step is to complete file share creation, not the commands provided for Linux and Windows for accessing the file share.

AWS Storage Gateway Review Share Settings

Review file share settings

AWS Storage Gateway access from Windows

Now lets use the file share by accessing and mounting to a Windows system, then copy some files to the file share.

AWS Storage Gateway verify Bucket Items

Now let’s go to the AWS console (or in our example use S3 Browser or your favorite tool) and look at the S3 bucket for the file share and see what is there. Note that each file is an object, and the objects simply appear as a file. If there were sub-directory those would also exist. Note that there are other buckets that I have masked out as we are only interested in the one named awsgwydemo that is configured using S3 Standard storage.

AWS Storage Gateway Volume

Now lets look at using the S3 Storage Gateway for Volumes. Similar to deploying for File Gateway, start out at the AWS Storage Gateway page and select Volume Gateway, then select what type of host (EC2 cloud, VMware or Hyper-V (2008 R2 or 2012) for on-premises deployment). Lets use the VMware Gateway, however as mentioned above, this is a different OVA/OVF than the File Gateway.

AWS Storage Gateway Configure Volume

Download the VMware OVA/OVF from AWS, and then install using your preferred VMware tools making sure to configure the gateway per instructions. Note that the Volume Gateway needs a couple of storage devices allocated to it. This means you will need to make sure that a SCSI adapter exists (or add one) to the VM, along with the disks (HDD or SSD) for local storage. Refer to AWS documentation about how to size, for my deployment I added a couple of small 80GB drives (you can choose to put on HDD or SSD including NVMe). Note that when connecting to the gateway if you get an error similar to below, make sure that you are in fact using the Volume Gateway and not mistakenly using the File Gateway OVA (VM). Note that the default username is sguser and password is sgpassword for the gateway.

AWS Storage Gateway Connect To Volume

Now connect to the local Volume Storage Gateway and notice the two local disks allocated to it.

AWS Storage Gateway Cached Volume Deploy

Next its time to create the Gateway which are deploying a Volume Cached below.

AWS Storage Gateway Volume Create

Next up is creating a volume, along with its security and access information.

AWS Storage Gateway Volume Settings

Volume configuration continued.

AWS Storage Gateway Volume CHAP

And now some additional configuration of the volume including iSCSI CHAP security.

AWS Storage Gateway Windows Access

Which leads us up to some Windows related volume access and configuration.

AWS Storage Gateway Using iSCSI Volume

Now lets use the new iSCSI based AWS Storage Gateway Volume. On the left you can see various WIndows command line activity, along with corresponding configuration information on the right.

AWS Storage Gateway Being Used by Windows

And there you have it, a quick tour of AWS Storage Gateway, granted there are more options that you can try yourself.

AWS

Where To Learn More

What This All Means

Overall I like the improvements that AWS has made to the Storage Gateway along with the different options it provides. Something to keep in mind is that if you are planning to use the AWS Storage Gateway File serving sharing mode that there are caveats to multiple concurrent writers to the same bucket. I would not be surprised if some other gateway or software based tool vendors tried to throw some fud towards the Storage Gateway, however ask them then how they coordinate multiple concurrent updates to a bucket while preserving data integrity.

Which Storage Gateway variant from AWS to use (e.g. File, Volume, VTL) depends on what your needs are, same with where the gateway is placed (Cloud hosted or on-premises with VMware or Hyper-V). Keep an eye on your costs, and more than just the storage space capacity. This means pay attention to your access and requests fees, as well as different service levels, along with data transfer fees.

You might wonder what about EFS and why you would want to use AWS Storage Gateway? Good question, at the time of this post EFS has evolved from being internal (e.g. within AWS and across regions) to having an external facing end-point however there is a catch. That catch which might have changed by time you read this is that the end-point can only be accessed from AWS Direct Connect locations.

This means that if your servers are not in a AWS Direct Connect location, without some creative configuration, EFS is not an option. Thus Storage Gateway File mode might be an option in place of EFS as well as using AWS storage access tools from others. For example I have some of my S3 buckets mounted on Linux systems using S3FS for doing rsync or other operations from local to cloud. In addition to S3FS, I also have various backup tools that place data into S3 buckets for backup, BC and DR as well as archiving.

Check out AWS Storage Gateway yourself and see what it can do or if it is a fit for your environment.

Ok, nuff said (for now…).

Cheers
Gs

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

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

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

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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

GDPR goes into effect May 25 2018 Are You Ready?

server storage I/O trends

GDPR goes into effect May 25 2018 Are You Ready?

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

Why Become GDPR Aware

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

GDPR Looking Beyond Compliance

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

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

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

GDPR and Microsoft Environments

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

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

What you will learn during this discussion:

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

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

What This All Means

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

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers
Gs

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

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

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

Posted on

April 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructures Update Newsletter

Volume 17, Issue IV

Hello and welcome to the April 2017 issue of the Server StorageIO data infrastructures update newsletter.

Spring is here in the northern hemisphere which means that there is a lot of things going on, or about to be occurring soon. April has been a busy month for me including spending time in Europe doing some seminar and workshop presentations, along with other consulting advisory activities involving data infrastructures.

Besides travel, I have been busy working on client projects, attending to various post-production activities for my new book Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (more about this in the May issue). Other things I have been doing include being briefed on upcoming technology announcements along with some hands activities trying out things that will be covered in future updates, as well as working with some interesting NDA items that, well, are NDA.

Be sure to check out the recent blog posts, as well as industry trends perspectives commentary below, along with recent and upcoming webinar among events.

In This Issue

Enjoy this abbreviated edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

Cheers GS

 

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 SearchCloudComputing: Virtual private clouds an alternative to on-premisess computing
Hybrid clouds continue to grow in popularity as well as deployed usage, from storage to compute to networking, said Greg Schulz, the senior advisory analyst at StorageIO in Stillwater, Minn. Most cloud and service providers talk about hybrid along with public clouds, while AWS tends to talk about [VPC aka virtual private clouds].

Via SearchDataCenter: Ask the right questions before committing to a collocation SLA policy
Do you just need a physical space to put things, or do you need high bandwidth and ultra-reliable power? asked Greg Schulz, senior advisory analyst at StorageIO, a consultancy in Stillwater, Minn.

Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Tips for Enterprise SSD Form Factor Selection Deployment
It’s doubtful that there is one form factor to rule them all. Some may be best for X but lousy for Y. But Greg Schulz, an analyst at StorageIO Group notes that many vendors attempt to champion a particular flash SSD form factor and interface, claiming it’s the best and only fit for the enterprise.

Via SearchITOperations: Storage performance analysis reveals IT’s ongoing bottleneck
Sometimes it takes more than an aspirin to cure a headache, said Greg Schulz

Via SearchDNS: Parsing through the software-defined storage hype
Beyond scalability, SDS technology aims for freedom from the limits of proprietary hardware, explained StorageIO analyst Greg Schulz.

Via InfoStor: Data Storage Industry Braces for AI and Machine Learning
AI could also lead to untapped hidden or unknown value in existing data that has no or little perceived value, said Greg Schulz.

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

Events and Activities

Recent and upcoming event activities.

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

May 8-10, 2017 – Dell EMCworld – Las Vegas

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

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

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

Server StorageIO Industry Resources and Links

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

Cheers
Gs

Greg Schulz – 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) and 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.