Tag: FUD

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Microsoft Hyper-V Is Alive Enhanced With Windows Server 2025

Yes, you read that correctly, Microsoft Hyper-V is alive and enhanced with Windows Server 2025, formerly Windows Server v.Next server. Note that  Windows Server 2025 preview build is just a preview available for download testing as of this time.

What about Myth Hyper-V is discontinued?

Despite recent FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), misinformation, and fake news, Microsoft Hyper-V is not dead. Nor has Hyper-V been discontinued, as some claim. Some Hyper-V FUD is tied to customers and partners of VMware following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware looking for alternatives. More on Broadcom and VMware here, here, here, here, and here.

As a result of Broadcom’s VMware acquisition and challenges for partners and customers (see links above), organizations are doing due diligence, looking for replacement or alternatives. In addition, some vendors are leveraging the current VMware challenges to try and position themselves as the best hypervisor virtualization safe harbor for customers. Thus some vendors, their partners, influencers and amplifiers are using FUD to keep prospects from looking at or considering Hyper-V.

Virtual FUD (vFUD)

First, let’s shut down some Virtual FUD (vFUD). As mentioned above, some are claiming that Microsoft has discontinued Hyper-V. Specifically, the vFUD centers on Microsoft terminating a specific license SKU (e.g., the free Hyper-V Server 2019 SKU). For those unfamiliar with the discontinued SKU (Hyper-V Server 2019), it’s a headless (no desktop GUI) version of Windows Server  running Hyper-V VMs, nothing more, nothing less.

Does that mean the Hyper-V technology is discontinued? No.

Does that mean Windows Server and Hyper-V are discontinued? No.

Microsoft is terminating a particular stripped-down Windows Server version SKU (e.g. Hyper-V Server 2019) and not the underlying technology, including Windows Server and Hyper-V.

To repeat, a specific SKU or distribution (Hyper-V Server 2019) has been discontinued not Hyper-V. Meanwhile, other distributions of Windows Server with Hyper-V continue to be supported and enhanced, including the upcoming Windows Server 2025 and Server 2022, among others.

On the other hand, there is also some old vFUD going back many years, or a decade, when some last experienced using, trying, or looking at Hyper-V. For example, the last look at Hyper-V might been in the Server 2016 or before era.

If you are a vendor or influencer throwing vFUD around, at least get some new vFUD and use it in new ways. Better yet, up your game and marketing so you don’t rely on old vFUD. Likewise, if you are a vendor partner and have not extended your software or service support for Hyper-V, now is a good time to do so.

Watch out for falling into the vFUD trap thinking Hyper-V is dead and thus miss out on new revenue streams. At a minimum, take a look at current and upcoming enhancements for Hyper-V doing your due diligence instead of working off of old vFUD.

Where is Hyper-V being used?

From on-site (aka on-premises, on-premises, on-prem) and edge on Windows Servers standalone and clustered, to Azure Stack HCI. From Azure, and other Microsoft platforms or services to Windows Desktops, as well as home labs, among many other scenarios.

Do I use Hyper-V? Yes, when I  retired from the vExpert program after ten years. I moved all of my workloads from VMware environment to Hyper-V including *nix, containers and Windows VMs, on-site and on Azure Cloud.

How Hyper-V Is Alive Enhanced With Windows Server 2025

Is Hyper-V Alive Enhanced With Windows Server 2025?  Yup.

Formerly known as Windows Server v.Next, Microsoft announced the Windows Server 2025 preview build on January 26, 2024 (you can get the bits here). Note that Microsoft uses Windows Server v.Next as a generic placeholder for next-generation Windows Server technology.

A reminder that the cadence of Windows Server Long Term Serving Channels (LTSC) versions has been about three years (2012R2, 2016, 2019, 2022, now 2025), along with interim updates.

What’s enhanced with Hyper-V and Windows Server 2025

    • Hot patching of running server (requires Azure Arc management) with almost instant implementations and no reboot for physical, virtual, and cloud-based Windows Servers.
    • Scaling of even more compute processors and RAM for VMs.
    • Server Storage I/O performance updates, including NVMe optimizations.
    • Active Directory (AD) improvements for scaling, security, and performance.
    • There are enhancements to storage replica and clustering capabilities.
    • Hyper-V GPU partition and pools, including migration of VMs using GPUs.

More Enhancements for Hyper-V and Windows Server 2025

Active Directory (AD)

Enhanced performance using all CPUs in a process group up to 64 cores to support scaling and faster processing. LDAP for TLS 1.3, Kerberos support for AES SHA 256 / 384, new AD functional levels, local KDC, improved replication priority, NTLM retirement, local Kerberos, and other security hardening. In addition, 64-bit Long value IDs (LIDs) are supported along with a new database schema using 32K pages vs the previous 8K pages. You will need to upgrade forest-wide across domain controllers to leverage the new larger page sizes (at least Server 2016 or later). Note that there is also backward compatibility using 8K pages until all ADs are upgraded.

Storage, HA, and Clustering

Windows Server continues to offer flexible options for storage how you want or need to use it, from traditional direct attached storage (DAS) to Storage Area Networks (SAN), to Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) software-defined, including NVMe, NVMe over Fabrics (NVMeoF), SAS, Fibre Channel, iSCSI along with file attached storage. Some other storage and HA enhancements include Storage Replica performance for logging and compression and stretch S2D multi-site optimization.

Failover Cluster enhancements include AD-less clusters, cert-based VM live migration for the edge, cluster-aware updating reliability, and performance improvements. ReFS enhancements include dedupe and compression optimizations.

Other NVMe enhancements include optimization to boost performance while reducing CPU overhead, for example, going from 1.1M IOPS to 1.86M IOPS, and then with a new native NVMe driver (to be added), from 1.1M IOPs to 2.1M IOPs. These performance optimizations will be interesting to look at closer, including baseline configuration, number and type of devices used, and other considerations.

Compute, Hyper-V, and Containers

Microsoft has added and enhanced various Compute, Hyper-V, and Container functionality with Server 2025, including supporting larger configurations and more flexibility with GPUs. There are app compatibility improvements for containers that will be interesting to see and hear more details about besides just Nano (the ultra slimmed-down Windows container).

Hyper-V

Microsoft extensively uses Hyper-V technology across different platforms, including Azure, Windows Servers, and Desktops. In addition, Hyper-V is commonly found across various customer and partner deployments on Windows Servers, Desktops, Azure Stack HCI, running on other clouds, and virtualization (nested). While Microsoft effectively leverages Hyper-V and continues to enhance it, its marketing has not effectively told and amplified the business benefit and value, including where and how Hyper-V is deployed.

Hyper-V with Server 2025 includes discrete device assignment to VM (e.g., resources dedicated to VMs). However, dedicating a device like a GPU to a VM prevents resource sharing, failover cluster, or live migration. On the other hand, Server 2025 Hyper-V supports GPU-P (GPU Partitioning), enabling GPU(s) to be shared across multiple VMs. GPUs can be partitioned and assigned to VMs, with GPUs and GPU partitioning enabled across various hosts.

In addition to partitioning, GPUs can be placed into GPU pools for HA. Live migration and cluster failover (requires PCIe SR-IOV), AMD Lilan or later, Intel Sapphire Rapids, among other requirements, can be done. Another enhancement is Dynamic Processor Compatibility, which allows mixed processor generations to be used across VMs and then masks out functionalities that are not common across processors. Other enhancements include optimized UEFI, secure boot, TPM , and hot add and removal of NICs.

Networking

Network ATC provides intent-based deployments where you specify desired outcomes or states, and the configuration is optimized for what you want to do. Network HUD enables always-on monitoring and network remediation. Software Defined Network (SDN) optimization for transparent multi-site L2 and L3 connectivity and improved SDN gateway performance enhancements.

SMB over QUIC leverages TLS 1.3 security to streamline local, mobile, and remote networking while enhancing security with configuration from the server or client. In addition, there is an option to turn off SMB NTLM at the SMB level, along with controls on which versions of SMB to allow or refuse. Also being added is a brute force attack limiter that slows down SMB authentication attacks.

Management, Upgrades, General user Experience

The upgrade process moving forward with Windows Server 2025 is intended to be seamless and less disruptive. These enhancements include hot patching and flighting (e.g., LTSC Windows server upgrades similar to how you get regular updates). For hybrid management, an easier-to-use wizard to enable Azure Arc is planned. For flexibility, if present, WiFi networking and Bluetooth devices are automatically enabled with Windows Server 2025 focused on edge and remote deployment scenarios.

Also new is an optional subscription-based licensing model for Windows Server 2025 while retaining the existing perpetual use. Let me repeat that so as not to create new vFUD, you can still license Windows Server (and thus Hyper-V) using traditional perpetual models and SKUs.

Additional Resources Where to learn more

The following links are additional resources to learn about Windows Server, Server 2025, Hyper-V, and related data infrastructures and tradecraft topics.

What’s New in Windows Server v.Next video from Microsoft Ignite (11/17/23)
Microsoft Windows Server 2025 Whats New
Microsoft Windows Server 2025 Preview Build Download
Microsoft Windows Server 2025 Preview Build Download (site)
Microsoft Evaluation Center (various downloads for trial)
Microsoft Eval Center Windows Server 2022 download
Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows Information
Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows Server Information
Microsoft Hyper-V on Windows Desktop (e.g., Win10)
Microsoft Windows Server Release Information
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019
Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines Trial
Microsoft Azure Elastic SAN
If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?
NVMe Primer (or refresh), The NVMe Place.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), are found in my Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

Hyper-V is very much alive, and being enhanced. Hyper-V is being used from Microsoft Azure to Windows Server and other platforms at scale, and in smaller environments.

If you are looking for alternatives to VMware or simply exploring virtualization options, do your due diligence and check out Hyper-V. Hyper-V may or may not be what you want; however, is it what you need? Looking at Hyper-V now and upcoming enhancements also positions you when asked by management if you have done your due  diligence vs relying on vFUD.

Do a quick Proof of Concept, spin up a lab, and check out currently available Hyper-V. For example, on Server 2022 or 2025 preview, to get a feel for what is there to meet your needs and wants. Download the bits and get some hands on time with Hyper-V and Windows Server 2025.

Wrap up

Hyper-V is alive and enhanced with Windows Server 2025 and other releases.

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers Gs

Greg Schulz – Nine time Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. 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 UnlimitedIO LLC.

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NVMe Wont Replace Flash By Itself They Complement Each Other

NVMe Wont Replace Flash By Itself They Complement Each Other

server storage I/O data infrastructure trends

Updated 2/2/2018

NVMe Wont Replace Flash By Itself They Complement Each Other

>various NVM flash and SSD devices
Various Solid State Devices (SSD) including NVMe, SAS, SATA, USB, M.2

There has been some recent industry marketing buzz generated by a startup to get some attention by claiming via a study sponsored by including the startup that Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Express (NVMe) will replace flash storage. Granted, many IT customers as well as vendors are still confused by NVMe thinking it is a storage medium as opposed to an interface used for accessing fast storage devices such as nand flash among other solid state devices (SSDs). Part of that confusion can be tied to common SSD based devices rely on NVM that are persistent memory retaining data when powered off (unlike the memory in your computer).

NVMe is an access interface and protocol

Instead of saying NVMe will mean the demise of flash, what should or could be said however some might be scared to say it is that other interfaces and protocols such as SAS (Serial Attached SCSI), AHCI/SATA, mSATA, Fibre Channel SCSI Protocol aka FCP aka simply Fibre Channel (FC), iSCSI and others are what can be replaced by NVMe. NVMe is simply the path or roadway along with traffic rules for getting from point a (such as a server) to point b (some storage device or medium e.g. flash SSD). The storage medium is where data is stored such as magnetic for Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or tape, nand flash, 3D XPoint, Optane among others.

NVMe and NVM better together

NVMe and NVM including flash are better together

The simple quick get to the point is that NVMe (e.g. Non Volatile Memory aka NVM Express [NVMe]) is an interface protocol (like SAS/SATA/iSCSI among others) used for communicating with various nonvolatile memory (NVM) and solid state device (SSDs). NVMe is how data gets moved between a computer or other system and the NVM persistent memory such as nand flash, 3D XPoint, Spintorque or other storage class memories (SCM).

In other words, the only thing NVMe will, should, might or could kill off would be the use of some other interface such as SAS, SATA/AHCI, Fibre Channel, iSCSI along with propritary driver or protocols. On the other hand, given the extensibility of NVMe and how it can be used in different configurations including as part of fabrics, it is an enabler for various NVMs also known as persistent memories, SCMs, SSDs including those based on NAND flash as well as emerging 3D XPoint (or Intel version) among others.

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Context matters for example, NVM as the medium compared to NVMe as the interface and access protocols. With context in mind you can compare like or similar apples to apples such as nand flash, MRAM, NVRAM, 3D XPoint, Optane among other persistent memories also known as storage class memories, NVMs and SSDs. Likewise with context in mind NVMe can be compared to other interfaces and protocols such as SAS, SATA, PCIe, mSATA, Fibre Channel among others. The following puts all of this into context including various packaging options, interfaces and access protocols, functionality and media.

NVMe is the access for NVM flash
Putting IT all together

Will NVMe kill off flash? IMHO no not by itself, however NVMe combined with some other form of NVM, SCM, persistent memory as a storage medium may eventually combine as an alternative to NVMe and flash (or SAS/SATA and flash). However, for now at least for many applications, NVMe is in your future (along with flash among other storage mediums), the questions include when, where, why, how, with what among other questions (and answers). NVMe wont replace flash by itself (at least yet) as they complement each other.

Keep in mind, if NVMe is the answer, what are the questions.

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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Do you want a side of serverless BS (SLBS) for your data infrastructure fud?

Did you want a side of SLBS with your software or hardware FUD?

server storage I/O trends

Updated 1/17/2018

Did you want a side of serverless bs (SLBS) with your software or hardware FUD?

A few years ago a popular industry buzzword term theme included server less and hardware less.

It turns out, serverless BS (SLBS) and hardware less are still trendy, and while some might view the cloud or software-defined data center (SDDC) virtualization, or IoT folks as the culprits, it is more widespread with plenty of bandwagon riders. SLBS can span from IoT to mobile, VDI and workspace clients (zero or similar), workstations, server, storage, networks. To me what’s ironic is that many purveyors of of SLBS also like to talk about hardware.

Whats the issue with SLBS?

Simple, on the one hand, there is no such thing as software that does not need hardware somewhere in the stack. Second, many purveyors of SLBS are solutions that in the past would have been called shrink-wrap. Thirdly IMHO SLBS tends to take away from the real benefit or story of some solutions that can also prompt questions or thoughts of if there are other FUD (fear uncertainty doubt) or MUD (marketing uncertainty doubt). Dare to be different, give some context about what your server less means as opposed to being lumped in with other SLBS followers.

Data Infrastructures and SDDI, SDDC, SDI
Data Infrastructures (hardware, software, services, servers, storage, I/O and networks)

Moving beyond SLBS

Can we move beyond the SLBS and focus on what the software or solution does, enables, its value proposition vs. how it is dressed, packaged or wrapped?

IMHO it does not matter who or why SLBS appeared or even that it exists, rather clarifying what it means and what it does not mean, adding some context. For example, you can acquire (buy, rent, subscribe) software without a server (or hardware). Likewise, you can get the software that comes bundled prepackaged with hardware (e.g. tin-wrapped), or via a cloud or other service.

The software can be shrink wrapped, virtual wrapped or download to run on a bare metal physical machine, cloud, container or VMs. Key is the context of does the software come with, or without hardware. This is an important point in that the software can be serverless (e.g. does not come with, or depend on specific hardware), or, it can be bundled, converged (CI), hyper-converged (HCI) among other package options.

software wrapping, packaging tin-wrapped software
Software needs hardware, hardware need software, both get defined and wrapped

All software requires some hardware somewhere in the stack. Even virtual, container, cloud and yes, software-defined anything requires hardware. What’s different is how much hardware is needed, where it is located, how is it is used, consumed, paid for as well as what the software that it enables.

Whats the point?

There are applications, solutions and various software that use fewer servers, less hardware, or runs somewhere else where the hardware including servers are in the stack. Until the next truly industry revolutionary technology occurs, which IMHO will be software that no longer requires any hardware (or marketing-ware) in the stack, and hardware that no longer needs any software in the stack, hardware will continue to need software and vice versa.

This is where the marketing-ware (not to be confused with valueware) comes into play with a response along the lines of clouds and virtual servers or containers eliminate the need for hardware. That would be correct with some context in that clouds, virtual machines, containers and other software-defined entities still need some hardware somewhere in the stack. Sure there can be less hardware including servers at a given place. Hardware still news software, the software still needs hardware somewhere in the stack.

data infrastructure stack layers
Data Infrastructure stack layers (hardware and software get defined with increasing value)

Show me some software that does not need any hardware anywhere in the stack, and I will either show you something truly industry unique, or, something that may be an addition to the SLBS list.

Add some context to what you are saying; some examples include that your software:

  • works with your existing hardware (or software)
  • does not need you to buy new or extra hardware
  • can run on the cloud, virtual, container or physical
  • requires fewer servers, less hardware, less cloud, container or virtual resources
  • is the focus being compatible with various data infrastructure resources
  • can be deployed and packaged as shrink-wrap, tin-wrapped or download
  • is packaged and marketed with less fud, or, fudless if you prefer

In other words, dare to be different, stand out, articulate your value proposition, and add some context instead of following behind the SLBS crowd.

Where to learn more

  • EMCworld 2015 How Do You Want Your Storage Wrapped?
  • Software Defined Storage Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Algorithms + Data Structures
  • Data Infrastructure Primer and Overview (Its Whats Inside The Data Center)
  • Whats a data infrastructure?

    • 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

    Watch out for getting hung up on, or pulled into myths about serverless or hardware less, at least until hardware no longer needs software, and software no longer needs hardware somewhere in the stack. The other point is to look for solutions that enable more effective (not just efficient or utilization) use of hardware (as well as software license) resources. Effective meaning more productive, getting more value and benefit without introducing bottlenecks, errors or rework.

    The focus does not have to be eliminating hardware (or software), rather, how to get more value out of hardware costs (up front and recurring Maintenance) as well as software licenses (and their Maintenance among other fees). This also applies to cloud and service providers, how to get more value and benefit, removing complexity (and costs will follow) as opposed to simply cutting and compromising.

    Next time somebody says serverless or hardware less, ask them if they mean fewer servers, less hardware, making more effective (and efficient) use of those resources, or if they mean no hardware or servers. If the latter, then ask them where their software will run. If they say cloud, virtual or container, no worries, at least then you know where the servers and hardware are located. Oh, and by the way, just for fun, watch for vendors who like to talk serverless or hardware less yet like to talk about hardware.

    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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    What does gaining industry traction or adoption mean too you?

    Storage I/O trends

    What does gaining industry traction or adoption mean too you?

    Is it based on popularity or how often something that is talked about, blogged, tweeted, commented, video or similar?

    What are the indicators that something is gaining traction?

    Perhaps it is tied to the number of press releases, product or staffing announcements including who has joined the organization along with added coverage of it?

    Maybe its based on how many articles, videos or some other content and coverage that helps to show traction and momentum?

    On the other hand is it tied to how many prospects are actually trying a product or service as part of a demo or proof of concept?

    Then again, maybe it is associated with how many real paying or revenue installed footprints and customers or what is also known as industry deployment (customer adoption).

    Of those customers actually buying and deploying, how many have continued using the technology even after industry adoption subsides or does the solution become shelf ware?

    Does the customer deployment actually continue to rise quietly while industry adoption or conversations drop off (past the cycle of hype)?

    buzzword bingo

    Gaining context with industry traction

    Gaining traction can mean different things to people, however there is also a difference between industry adoption (what’s being talked about among the industry) and industry deployment (what customers are actually buying, installing and continue to use).

    Often the two can go hand in hand, usually one before the other, however they can also be separate. For example it is possible that something new will have broad industry adoption (being talked about) yet have low customer deployment (even over time). This occurs when something is new and interesting that might be fun to talk about or the vendor, solution provider is cool and fun to hang out and be with, or simply has cool giveaways.

    On the other hand there can be customer deployment and adoption with little to no fan fare (industry adoption) for different reasons.

    Storage I/O trends

    Here’s my point

    Not long ago if you asked or listened to some, you would think that once high-flying cloud storage vendor Nirvanix was gaining traction based on their marketing along with other activities, yet they recently closed their doors. Then there was Kim Dotcoms hyped Megacloud launch earlier this year that also has now gone dark or shutting down. This is not unique to cloud service providers or solutions as the same can, has and will happen again to traditional hardware, software and services providers (startups and established).

    How about former high-flying FusionIO, or the new startup by former FusionIO founder and CEO David Flynn called Primary Data. One of the two is struggling to gain or keep up revenue traction while having declined in industry popularity traction. The other is gaining in industry popularity traction with their recently secured $50 Million in funding yet are still in stealth mode so rather difficult to gain customer adoption or deployment traction (thus for now its industry adoption focus for them ;).

    in the news

    If you are a customer or somebody actually deploying and using technology, tools, techniques and services for real world activity vs. simply trying new things out, your focus on what is gaining traction will probably be different than others. Granted it is important to keep an eye on what is coming or on futures, however there is also the concern of how it will really work and keep working over time.

    For example while Hard Disk Drives (HDD) continue to support industry deployment traction (customer adoption and usage) traction. However they are not new and when new models apear (such as Seagate Ethernet based Kinetic) they may not get the same industry adoption traction as a newer technology might. Case in point Solid State Devices (SSD) continue to gain in customer deployment adoption with some environments doing more than others, yet have very high industry adoption traction status.

    Storage I/O SSD trends
    Relative SSD customer adoption and deployment along with future opportunities

    On the other hand if your focus is on what’s new and emerging which is usually more industry centered, then it should be no surprise what traction means and where it is focused. For example the following figure shoes where different audiences have various timelines on adoption (read more here).

    SSD trends
    Current and emerging memory, flash and other SSD technologies for different audiences

    Wrap up

    When you hear that something is gaining traction, ask yourself (or others) what that means along with the applicable context.

    Does that mean something is popular and trending to discuss (based on GQ or looks), or that it is actually gaining real customer adoption based on G2 (insight – they are actually buying vs. simply trying our a free version).

    Does it mean one form of traction along with industry adoption (what’s being talked about) vs. industry deployment (real customer adoption) is better than the other?

    No, it simply means putting things into the applicable context.

    Ok, nuff said (for now).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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    Does software eliminate or move location of vendor lockin?

    Does software eliminate or move location of vendor lockin?

    data infrastructure server storage I/O vendor lockin

    Updated 1/21/2018

    Does software eliminate or move location of vendor lockin?

    I’m always interested when I hear or read a software vendor or their value added reseller (VAR) or business partner claim that their solution eliminates vendor lockin.

    More often than not, I end up being amazed if not amused over the claims which usually should be rephrased as eliminating hardware vendor lock-in.

    What is also amazing or amusing is that while some vendors make claims of eliminating (hardware) vendor lock-in, there is also some misdirection taking place. While some solutions may be architected to cut hardware vendor lock-in, how they are sold or packaged can force certain vendors technology into your solution. For example, the EMC Centera software in theory and architecture is hardware vendor independent, however it is sold as a solution (hardware and software), similar to how Dell sells the DX which uses software from Caringo and you guessed right, Dell hardware among many other similar scenarios from other vendors.

    How about virtualization or other abstraction software tools along with cloud, object storage, clustered file systems and related tools.

    StorageIO industry trends and perspectives, I/O, clouds, virtualization

    Keep in mind the gold rule of management software and tools which includes virtualization, cloud stacks, clustered file systems among other similar tools. The golden rule is simply who ever controls the software and management controls the gold (e.g. your budget). In the case of a storage software tools such as virtualization, cloud or object storage, cluster or NAS system among others, while they can be correct depending on how packaged and sold of eliminating hardware vendor lock-in, the lock-in also moves.

    The lock-in moves from the hardware to the software which even though a particular solution may be architected to use industry standard components, often to make it easy for acquisition, a vendor packages the solution with hardware. In other words, sure, the vendor unlocked you from one vendors hardware with their software only to lock you into theirs or somebody else’s.

    Now granted, it may not be a hard lock (pun intended), rather a soft marketing and deployment packaging decision. However there are some solutions that give themselves or at least via their marketing on hardware independence only to force you into buying their tin wrapped software (e.g. an appliance) with their choice of disk drives, network components and other items.

    So when a software or solution vendor claims to cut vendor lock-in, ask them if that is hardware vendor lock-in and if they are moving or shifting the point of vendor lock-in. Keep in mind that vendor lock-in does not have to be a bad thing if it provides you the customer with value. Also keep in mind that only you can prevent vendor lock-in which is like only you can prevent cloud data loss (actually its a shared responsibility ;) ).

    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

    Here is my point, so what if a vendor chooses to wrap their software with an appliance to make it easy for you to buy and deploy, however unless they are willing to work with you on what hardware that will be, perhaps they should think about going a bit easier on the vendor lock-in theme.

    In the quest to race from hardware vendor lock-in, be aware with ears and eyes wide open to make sure that you are not fleeing from one point of lock-in to another. In other words, make sure that the cure to your vendor lock-in challenge is not going to be more painful than your current ailment.

    What is your take on vendor lockin? Cast your vote and see results in the following polls.

    Is vendor lockin a good or bad thing?

    Who is responsible for managing vendor lockin

    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.

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