Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links U to Z

Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links U to Z

IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Industry Resources

Updated 2/20/2018

Following are some useful Data Infrastructure IT Industry Resource Links U to Z to cloud, virtual and traditional IT data infrastructure related web sites. The data infrastructure environment (servers, storage, IO and networking, hardware, software, services, virtual, container and cloud) is rapidly changing. You may encounter a missing URL, or a URL that has changed. This list is updated on a regular basis to reflect changes (additions, changes, and retirement).

Disclaimer and note: URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site.

Best effort has been made to validate and verify the data infrastructure URLs that appear on this page and web site however they are subject to change. The author and/or maintainer(s) of this page and web site make no endorsement to and assume no responsibility for the URLs and their content that are listed on this page.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Send an email note to info at storageio dot com that includes company name, URL, contact name, title and phone number along with a brief 40 character description to be considered for addition to the above data infrastructure list, or, to be removed. Note that Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC (e.g. StorageIO) does not sell, trade, barter, borrow or share your contact information per our Privacy and Disclosure policy. View related data infrastructure Server StorageIO content here, and signup for our free newsletter here.

Links A-E
Links F-J
Links K-O
Links P-T
Links U-Z
Other Links

  • ubuntu.com    Opensource Linux software and cloud tools
  • unisys.com    Server, storage and managed services
  • unitedlayer.com    Collocation and hosting services
  • unitrends.com    Data protection solutions
  • updraftplus.com/    WordPress Updraft Cloud Backup Plugin
  • uptimeinstitute.org    Uptime Institute
  • uptimesoftware.com    Capacity management tools
  • Logicalis   IT solutions and managed services
  • us.logicalis.com    Cloud, managed and data center services
  • usb.org    USB trade association
  • uscolo.com    Co-location facility and hosting service
  • usenix.org    LISA and data center forums
  • usgbc.org    United States Green Building Council
  • v3sys.com    VDI and desktop cloud solutions
  • vadiumtech.com    Security and encryption tools
  • varonis.com    Unstructured data management and protection
  • vaultive.com    Cloud encryption for hosted exchange
  • vaultize.com    Cloud backup, file and data sharing
  • vaultstor.com    Data protection and cloud storage services
  • vaultus.com   Cloud, colo and manged service hosting –
  • vbridges.com    Virtual desktop management tools
  • vce.com    Converged infrastructure solutions
  • vdbench     vdbench storage testing/workload generation tool
  • veeam.com    Virtual server data protection, reporting, monitoring, cap planning
  • vellosystems.com   Cloud infrastructure technology solutoins –
  • velobit.com    SSD cache software (Bought by WD)
  • veloxum.com   VM performance management tools Added 11/30/10
  • vembu.com    Backup data protection tools
  • Venus   Venus    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
  • venyu.com    Cloud hosting
  • verari.com    Blade servers and blade storage
  • verdiem.com    Infrastructure Resource Management (IRM) and energy reporting tools
  • vericept.com    Network monitoring software
  • Veritest.com    Third party testing service

  • verity.com    Data search, discovery, classification
  • versant.com    Object database management solutions
  • vertinsys.com    Server I/O virtualization
  • Vibe    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
  • victorinox.com    Swiss army knife and USB thumb drive
  • viewfinity.com    Rights management, audit and compliance
  • vigitrust.com    Security management tools
  • vikingmodular.com    FLASH SSD storage solutions
  • violin-memory.com    FLASH SSD storage solutions
  • vion.com    Value added reseller
  • vipreantivirus.com    Security, data loss, data leak prevention
  • virident.com    SSD based database management solutions (Bought by WD)
  • viridity.com    Data center and infrastructure resource management (IRM) tools
  • virsto.com    Server virtualization management tools (Bought by VMware)
  • virtensys.com    Virtual I/O and I/O virtualization (IOV)
  • virtualinstruments.com    SAN probes/analyzers (Formerly Finisar Analyzer tools)
  • VirtualIron.com    Server virtualization (Bought by Oracle)
  • VirtunetSystems    Storage I/O acceleration and cache tools for VMware
  • virtuon-inc.com    Cloud, virtualization IT consulting and staffing
  • visi.com    Managed service provider, cloud and hosting service
  • VisionSolutions.com    BC, DR and data protection solutions
  • visualstorageintelligence.com    Cross vendor cloud storage reporting and srmprovider
  • vitesse.com    Storage networking component supplier
  • vivisimo.com    eDiscovery and search
  • vizoncore.com    Virtualization tools and data protection for virtual servers
  • vizrt.com    Video management software tools
  • vkernel.com    VM performance tools (Bought by Quest, bought by Dell)
  • vmc.com    Cloud consulting and outsourcing
  • vmturbo.com    Cloud and virtualization workload management
  • vmware.com    Server virtualization software (Bought by EMC)
  • Vocus   Vocus    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
  • voltaire.com    InfiniBand Technology
  • vontu.com    Data loss prevention tools (Bought by Symantec)
  • Vormetric   Data security solutions
  • votela.com    Specialized network service provider
  • vscalesystems.com    Virtual and converged networking and consulting
  • vssmonitoring.com    Network monitoring
  • vwsolutions.com    Backup and data protection solutions
  • vyatta.com    Cloud and virtual networking, IOV
  • wanova.com    Desktop management solutions
  • wasabisystems.com    iSCSI storage
  • wdc.com    Western Digital Disk drives
  • WedgeNetworks.com    Security solutions
  • whiptailtech.com    Flash SSD solutions (Bought by Cisco)
  • Microsoft Skydrive   Cloud storage
  • windspring.com    Data management and DFR for mobile access
  • wipro.com    Business services
  • workscomputing.com    VAR
  • wovensystems.com    High speed networking switches
  • wwt.com    VAR/Systems integrator
  • wysdm.com    SRA and DPM management tools (Bought by EMC)
  • Xencode.com    Various open tools
  • XenData   Digital Archive solutions
  • xenos.com    Archive and data footprint reduction solutions
  • xfpmsa.org    10Gb multi-source trade group
  • xiotech.com    Renamed XIO: Storage sub-systems and software
  • xirin.com    Storage adapter (iSCSI) and chip vendor
  • xosoft.com    BC/DR and data protection replication tools (Bought by CA)
  • xsigo.com    I/O virtualization and service oriented connectivity – (Bought by Oracle)
  • xtreemfs.org    scaleout filesystem
  • xtremio.com    SSD startup – Bought by EMC
  • xyratex.com    Storage enclosures, subsystems, test equipmen, Lustre software (Bought by Seagate)t
  • xyxel.com    Networking technologies for cloud and consumer
  • yorktel.com    video solutions
  • Yosemitetech.com    Backup software (Bought by Barracuda)
  • yousendit.com    Cloud backup, storage and file sharing
  • zadarastorage.com    iSCSI cloud storage
  • zenoss.com    Converged, Virtual systems and cloud monitoring, DCIM
  • Zentera   Private cloud and IaaS solutions
  • zerto.com    Data protection for virtual environments
  • Zetera.com    Storage over IP alternative to iSCSI
  • zetta.net    Cloud storage solutions
  • zettapoint.com    Database management tools
  • zintrus.com    Systems development
  • zirtu.com    VDI management tools and platform
  • zlti.com    Email archive and management solutions
  • zmanda.com    Open source data backup
  • zoho.com    Online and cloud management solutions
  • zyrion.com    Network and systems monitoring and management

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Visit the following additional data infrastructure and IT data center related links.

Links A-E
Links F-J
Links K-O
Links P-T
Links U-Z
Other Links

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

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

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

Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links to Others

Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links to Others

IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Industry Resources

Updated 2/20/2018

Following are some useful Data Infrastructure IT Industry Resource Links to cloud, virtual and traditional IT data infrastructure related web sites. The data infrastructure environment (servers, storage, IO and networking, hardware, software, services, virtual, container and cloud) is rapidly changing. You may encounter a missing URL, or a URL that has changed. This list is updated on a regular basis to reflect changes (additions, changes, and retirement).

Disclaimer and note: URL’s submitted for inclusion on this site will be reviewed for consideration and to be in generally accepted good taste in regards to the theme of this site.

Best effort has been made to validate and verify the data infrastructure URLs that appear on this page and web site however they are subject to change. The author and/or maintainer(s) of this page and web site make no endorsement to and assume no responsibility for the URLs and their content that are listed on this page.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

Send an email note to info at storageio dot com that includes company name, URL, contact name, title and phone number along with a brief 40 character description to be considered for addition to the above data infrastructure list, or, to be removed. Note that Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC (e.g. StorageIO) does not sell, trade, barter, borrow or share your contact information per our Privacy and Disclosure policy. View related data infrastructure Server StorageIO content here, and signup for our free newsletter here.

Links A-E
Links F-J
Links K-O
Links P-T
Links U-Z
Other Links

  • www.10gea.org    10Gb Ethernet industry trade organization
  • www.1394ta.org    1394 (Firewire) trade association
  • www.3com.com    Networking equipment (Bought by HP)
  • www.3leafnetworks.com    I/O virtualization
  • www.3par.com    Clustered storage systems (Bought by HP)
  • www.3tera.com    IT Cloud management tools (Bought by CA)
  • www.4blox.com    Data center design services
  • www.4blox.com    Linux iSCSI target optimization stack
  • www.4bridgeworks.com aka Bridgeworks    SAN networking and connectivity solutions
  • www.80plus.org    Energy efficient power supply trade group

Where To Learn More

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

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

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What This All Means

Visit the following additional data infrastructure and IT data center related links.

Links A-E
Links F-J
Links K-O
Links P-T
Links U-Z
Other Links

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.

Six plus data center software defined management dashboards tools

Software defined data infrastructure management insight tools

server storage I/O trends

Updated 1/17/2018

Managing data infrastructures involves using software defined management dashboards tools. Recently I found in my inbox a link to a piece 6 Dashboards for Managing Every Modern Data Center that caught my attention. I was hoping to see who the six different datacenter technologies, dashboard solutions tools were instead of finding list of dashboard considerations for modern data centers and data infrastructures.

Turns out the piece was nothing more than a list of six items featured as part of the vendors (Sunbird) piece about what to look for in a dashboard (e.g. their product). Sure there were some of the usual key performance indicator (KPI) associated with or related to IT Service Management (ITSM), Data Center Infrastructure (Insight/Information) Management (DCIM), Configuration and Change management databases (CMDB), availability, capacity and Performance Management Databases (PMDB) among others.

  • Space
  • Inventory
  • Connectivity
  • Change
  • Environment
  • Power

Dashboard Discussions

Keep in mind however that there are many different types of dashboards (and consoles), some are active along with analytics including correlation, others are passive simply displaying. The focus area also various from physical data center facilities, to applications, to data infrastructures or components such as servers, storage, I/O networks, clouds, virtual, containers among others modern data centers.

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

This is where some context comes into play as there are different types of dashboards for various audience, technology and focus areas (e.g. domains) across data infrastructure (and other entities). For example do a google search of “dashboard” and see what appears, or “IT dashboard”, “data center dashboard” vs. “datacenter dashboard” among others.

Additional KPIs include:

  • Performance, availability, Capacity and Economic (PACE) attributes
  • Service Level Objectives (SLO), Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
  • Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), Recovery Point Objectives (SLO)
  • IT Service Management (ITSM) and Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM)
  • Configuration and Change Management (e.g. things part of CMDB)
  • Performance, availability and capacity (e.g. things part of PMDB)
  • Various focus and layers, cross domain functionality views
  • Costs management including subscriptions, licenses and others

IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Dashboard Options

For those of you who have made it this far, while not a comprehensive list, the following are some examples of vendors, services or solutions that either are, or have an association with data center, as well as data infrastructure management. Some dashboards or tools are homogenous in that they only work within a given area of focus such as particular cloud, service provider, vendor or solution set. Others are heterogeneous or federated working across different services, solutions, vendors and domain focus areas. Think of these as software defined management (SDM), or, software defined data infrastructure (SDDI) management, software defined data center (SDDC) management among other variations for the modern information factory.

There is a mix of tools that run on site (e.g. on premise) or via cloud services (e.g. manager your on site from the cloud). Likewise, some are for fee, others subscription and some are open source. In addition some of the tools are turnkey while others are do it yourself (DiY) or allow you to customize. Also keep in mind that depending on what your tradecraft (skills, experience, expertise) interest area is, these may or may not be applicable to you, while relevant to others. For example some such as Spiceworks tend to be more helpdesk focused while others on other data center or data infrastructure areas.

There are dashboards for or from AWS, Canonical (Ubuntu), Dell including EMC, Google, HPE, IBM, Microsoft System Center and Azure, NetApp, OpenStack, Oracle, Rackspace, Redhat, Rightscale, Servicenow, Softlayer, Suse and VMware among others.

Blue Medora (various data infrastructure monitoring)
Cloudkitty (open source cloud rating and chargeback)
Collectd (data infrastructure collection and monitoring)
cPanel and whm (web and hosting dashboards)
data infrastructure sddi cpanel

Dashbuilder (customize your dashboard)
Datadog (super easy to get access, download, install, configure and use)
Domo (various data infrastructure monitoring tools)
Extrahop (still waiting to be able to download and try their bits vs. watching a demo)
Firescope (data infrastructure insight and awareness)
Freezer (open source dashboard tools)
Komprise (interesting solution, would like try, however lots of gated material)
Nagios (data infrastructure monitoring)
Openit (data infrastructure tracking, report, monitoring)
Opvizor (data infrastructure monitoring and reporting)

storageio datadog dashboard

Panorama9 (various data infrastructure monitoring and reporting)
Quest (various tools)
Redhat Cloudforms (openstack and cloud management)
Rrdtools (data collection, logging and display)
Sisense (insight and awareness tools)
Solarwinds Server Application Monitor (SAM) among other tools
Teamquest (various monitoring, management, capacity planning tools)
Turbomomic (software defined data infrastructure insight tools)
Virtual Instruments (various monitoring and insight awareness along with analytics)

In addition to the above, there are tools such as Splunk among others that also provide insight and awareness to help avoid flying blind while managing your data center or data infrastructure.

Where to learn more

Learn more via the following links.

  • Data Infrastructure Primer and Overview (Its Whats Inside The Data Center)
  • E2E Awareness and insight for IT environments
  • Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking and Performance Resources
  • Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and IRM
  • The Value of Infrastructure Insight – Enabling Informed Decision Making
  • More storage and IO metrics that matter
  • 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

    Without insight and awareness you are flying blind, how can you make informed decisions about your information factory, data infrastructures, data center along with applications. There are different focus areas for various audiences up and down the stack layers in data infrastructures and data centers. Key is having insight and awareness including knowing what are some different tool options.

    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.

    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.

    January 2017 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Volume 17, Issue I

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

    Now that we are past the holidays, year-end crunch, post new years activity including NFL football playoffs, its time to get back on track for the new year and new things.

    There is a lot going on, in and around data infrastructure server, storage, and I/O networking connectivity from a hardware, software, and services perceptive. From consumer to small/medium business (SMB), enterprise to web-scale and cloud-managed service providers, physical to virtual, spanning structured database (aka “little data”) to unstructured big data and very big fast data, a lot is happening today.

    Watch for more coverage involving data infrastructures as well as other related topics in future newsletters, at StorageIOblog.com as well as in different venues and events.

    In This Issue

  • Commentary in the news
  • Tips and Articles
  • StorageIOblog posts
  • Events and Webinars
  • Industry Activity Trends
  • Resources and Links
  • Connect and Converse With Us
  • About Us
  • Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    Cheers GS

    Industry Activity Trends

    Recent Industry News and Activity includes:

    Broadcom buying Brocade for $5.5B USD (if you missed last fall)
    Cavium QLogic expands 10GbE connectivity for server and storage I/O
    HPE announces enhancements to flash-ready HPE StoreVirtual 3200
    HPE buying scaleable HCI vendor Simplivity for $650 million USD (Cash)
    LinBit and SUSE providing open source high availability (HA) solutions
    StorageCraft (data protection software) acquires Exablox (object storage)
    Teradata has launched their big data database on Azure

     

    StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    In case you missed it:

  • PCIe Server Storage I/O Network Fundamentals
  • If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?
  • Fixing the Microsoft Windows 10 1709 post upgrade restart loop
  • Data Infrastructure server storage I/O network Recommended Reading
  • Introducing Windows Subsystem for Linux WSL Overview
  • IT transformation Serverless Life Beyond DevOps with New York Times CTO Nick Rockwell Podcast
  • HPE Announces AMD Powered Gen 10 ProLiant DL385 For Software Defined Workloads
  • AWS Announces New S3 Cloud Storage Security Encryption Features
  • NVM Non Volatile Memory Express NVMe Place
  • Data Protection Fundamental Topics Tools Techniques Technologies Tips
  • View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

     

    StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

    Via InfoStor: 10 Top Data Storage Applications
    Via InfoStor: Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
    Via InfoStor: 10 Top Data Storage Applications
    Via InfoStor: SSD Trends, Tips and Topics
    Via HPE: Decision guide: Public cloud versus on-prem storage
    Via InfoStor: Six Ways to Boost Data Storage Performance

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

     

    StorageIO Tips and Articles

    Recent and past Server StorageIO articles appearing in different venues include:

    Via FutureReadyOEM:  When to implement ultra-dense storage
    Via InfoStor: Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
    Via InfoStor: SSD Trends, Tips and Topics

    Check out these resources techniques, trends and tools. View more tips and articles here

     

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

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

    March 15, 2017 – Webinar – SNIA/BrightTalkHyperConverged (HCI) and Storage – 10AM PT

    January 26 2017 – Seminar – Presenting at Wipro SDx Summit London UK

    January 11, 2017 Webinar – Redmond Magazine
    Dell Software – Presenting – Tailor Your Backup Data Repositories to Fit Your Needs

    December 13 VMware webinar – vSAN, HCIBench, vSAN Observer and healthcheck

    December 7, 2016 11AM PT – BrightTalk Webinar: Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

    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/performance – Various server, storage and I/O benchmark and tools
    VMware Technical Network – Various VMware related items

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Data Infrastructure Primer Overview (Its Whats Inside The Data Center)

    Data Infrastructure Primer Overview

    Data Infrastructure Primer Overview

    Updated 1/17/2018

    Data Infrastructure Primer Overview looks at the resources that combine to support business, cloud and information technology (IT) among other applications that transform data into information or services. The fundamental role of data infrastructures is to provide a platform environment for applications and data that is resilient, flexible, scalable, agile, efficient as well as cost-effective. Put another way, data infrastructures exist to protect, preserve, process, move, secure and serve data as well as their applications for information services delivery. Technologies that make up data infrastructures include hardware, software, cloud or managed services, servers, storage, I/O and networking along with people, processes, policies along with various tools spanning legacy, software-defined virtual, containers and cloud.

    Various Types and Layers of Infrastructures

    Depending on your role or focus, you may have a different view than somebody else of what is infrastructure, or what an infrastructure is. Generally speaking, people tend to refer to infrastructure as those things that support what they are doing at work, at home, or in other aspects of their lives. For example, the roads and bridges that carry you over rivers or valleys when traveling in a vehicle are referred to as infrastructure.

    Similarly, the system of pipes, valves, meters, lifts, and pumps that bring fresh water to you, and the sewer system that takes away waste water, are called infrastructure. The telecommunications network. This includes both wired and wireless, such as cell phone networks, along with electrical generating and transmission networks are considered infrastructure. Even the airplanes, trains, boats, and buses that transport us locally or globally are considered part of the transportation infrastructure. Anything that is below what you do, or that supports what you do is considered infrastructure.

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure overview

    Figure 1 Business, IT Information, Data and other Infrastructures

    This is also the situation with IT systems and services where, depending on where you sit or use various services, anything below what you do may be considered infrastructure. However, that also causes a context issue in that infrastructure can mean different things. For example in figure 1, the user, customer, client, or consumer who is accessing some service or application may view IT in general as infrastructure, or perhaps as business infrastructure.

    Those who develop, service, and support the business infrastructure and its users or clients may view anything below them as infrastructure, from desktop to database, servers to storage, network to security, data protection to physical facilities. Moving down a layer (lower altitude) in figure 1 is the information infrastructure which, depending on your view, may also include servers, storage, and I/O hardware and software.

    To help make a point, let’s think of the information infrastructure as the collection of databases, key-value stores, repositories, and applications along with development tools that support the business infrastructure. This is where you may find developers who maintain and create real business applications for the business infrastructure. Those in the information infrastructure usually refer to what’s below them as infrastructure. Meanwhile, those lower in the stack shown in figure 1 may refer to what’s above them as the customer, user, or application, even if the real user is up another layer or two.

    Whats inside a data infrastructure
    Context matters in the discussion of infrastructure. So for our of server storage I/O fundamentals, the data infrastructures support the databases and applications developers as well as things above, while existing above the physical facilities infrastructure, leveraging power, cooling, and communication network infrastructures below.

    SDDI and Data Infrastructure building blocks

    Figure 2 Data Infrastructure fundamental building blocks (hardware, software, services).

    Figure 2 shows the fundamental pillars or building blocks for a data infrastructure, including servers for computer processing, I/O networks for connectivity, and storage for storing data. These resources including both hardware and software as well as services and tools. The size of the environment, organization, or application needs will determine how large or small the data infrastructure is or can be.

    For example, at one extreme you can have a single high-performance laptop with a hypervisor running OpenStack; along with various operating systems along with their applications leveraging flash SSD and high-performance wired or wireless networks powering a home lab or test environment. On the other hand, you can have a scenario with tens of thousands (or more) servers, networking devices, and hundreds of petabytes (PBs) of storage (or more).

    In figure 2 the primary data infrastructure components or pillar (server, storage, and I/O) hardware and software resources are packaged and defined to meet various needs. Software-defined storage management includes configuring the server, storage, and I/O hardware and software as well as services for use, implementing data protection and security, provisioning, diagnostics, troubleshooting, performance analysis, and other activities. Server storage and I/O hardware and software can be individual components, prepackaged as bundles or application suites and converged, among other options.

    Figure 3 shows a deeper look into the data infrastructure shown at a high level in figure 2. The lower left of figure 2 shows the common-to-all-environments hardware, software, people, processes, and practices that include tradecraft (experiences, skills, techniques) and “valueware”. Valueware is how you define the hardware and software along with any customization to create a resulting service that adds value to what you are doing or supporting. Also shown in figure 3 are common application and services attributes including performance, availability, capacity, and economics (PACE), which vary with different applications or usage scenarios.

    Data Infrastructure components

    Figure 3 Data Infrastructure server storage I/O hardware and software components.

    Applications are what transform data into information. Figure 4 shows how applications, which are software defined by people and software, consist of algorithms, policies, procedures, and rules that are put into some code to tell the server processor (CPU) what to do.

    SDDI and SDDC server storage I/O

    Figure 4 How data infrastructure resources transform data into information.

    Application programs include data structures (not to be confused with infrastructures) that define what data looks like and how to organize and access it using the “rules of the road” (the algorithms). The program algorithms along with data structures are stored in memory, together with some of the data being worked on (i.e., the active working set). Additional data is stored in some form of extended memory storage devices such as Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) solid-state devices (SSD), hard disk drives (HDD), or tape, among others, either locally or remotely. Also shown in figure 4 are various devices that do input/output (I/O) with the applications and server, including mobile devices as well as other application servers.

    Bringing IT All Together (for now)

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure overview

    Figure 5 Data Infrastructure  fundamentals “big picture”

    A fundamental theme is that servers process data using various applications programs to create information; I/O networks provide connectivity to access servers and storage; storage is where data gets stored, protected, preserved, and served from; and all of this needs to be managed. There are also many technologies involved, including hardware, software, and services as well as various techniques that make up a server, storage, and I/O enabled data infrastructure.

    Server storage I/O and data infrastructure fundamental focus areas include:

    • Organizations: Markets and industry focus, organizational size
    • Applications: What’s using, creating, and resulting in server storage I/O demands
    • Technologies: Tools and hard products (hardware, software, services, packaging)
    • Trade craft: Techniques, skills, best practices, how managed, decision making
    • Management: Configuration, monitoring, reporting, troubleshooting, performance, availability, data protection and security, access, and capacity planning

    Where To Learn More

    View additional 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

    Whether you realize it or not, you may already be using, rely upon, affiliated with, support or otherwise involved with data infrastructures. Granted what you or others generically refer to as infrastructure or the data center may, in fact, be the data infrastructure. Watch for more discussions and content about as well as related technologies, tools, trends, techniques and tradecraft in future posts as well as other venues, some of which involve legacy, others software-defined, cloud, virtual, container and hybrid.

    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.

    SDx Summit London UK (Planning and Enabling Your Journey to Software Defined)

    Planning and Enabling Your Journey to Software Defined)

    server storage I/O trends

    Will 2017 be there year of all software-defined X (e.g. SDx) where X can be everything from data centers (SDDC), data infrastructures (SDDI), infrastructure (SDI), storage (SDS), network (SDN) or marketing (SDM) among others? What about IoT, IoD, ByoD, ByoL (bring your own license), MaaS (metal as a service), clouds, containers, object storage, OpenStack, Mesos, Docker, Kubernetes, NVMe, flash SSD, SCM (Storage Class Memory) among other buzzword bingo terms, technologies and trends, will 2017 be there year for those among others?

    What is safe to say is that the above buzzword items, topics, trends, technologies, tools and techniques are in your future, what varies is when, where, how, why, with what and whom to assist you on your journey.

    server storage I/O events

    On January 26 2017 join me and others at the Savoy hotel in London UK for the SDx summit organized by Wipro.

    My presentation titled Planning and Enabling Your Journey to SDx will have a theme of Transiting from Hype and Marketing Hope to Deployment and Management. In other words, moving beyond SDBS and SDM to how to prepare, plan and what you can do today including hybrid deployments. Some of the topics, themes, trends, technologies, tools and tips in my discussion will include among others:

    • Software Defined Management and Data Protection
    • How to pack and prepare for your Software Defined Journey
    • Be prepared, plan for the unexpected, manage your journey
    • Learn the local language, expand your trade craft (skills)
    • Moving and migrating (brownfield) vs. start from scratch (greenfield)
    • ByoD, DiY, IoD, IoT, Cloud and Container conversations
    • What you can do today to prepare for your upcoming journey

    Where To Learn More

    Learn more and register here for the London UK SDx summit.

    What This All Means

    Regardless of if 2017 will be the year of SDx or any of the other industry popular buzz term trends, technologies and techniques, it is time to start planning as well as preparing. This means identifying questions, concerns and learning about the new tools and technologies that can be used in new ways, while also leveraging old things in new ways to enable a resilient, scalable, flexible as well as cost-effective data infrastructure. For those of you in the London UK area, learn more about the SDx summit organized by Wipro here and hope to see you there.

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, vSAN and VMware vExpert. 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.

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

    Overview Review of Microsoft ReFS (Reliable File System) and resource links

    server storage I/O trends

    This is an overview review of Microsoft ReFS (Resilient File System) along with some resource links. ReFS is part of some Windows operating system platforms including Server 2016.

    Some context here is that review can mean an in-depth deep dive product or technology review, while another meaning is to simply to refresh what you may already know about ReFS. For this post, the focus is on the latter, that is a bit of overview that also functions as a refresh review of what you may already know. However click here to see how ReFS and NTFS compare.

    Click here to read more about Windows Server 2016, Storage Spaces Direct (S2D), Storage Replica (SR) and other related topics (or click on the image below).

    Microsoft Windows Server 2016
    Windows Server 2016 Welcome Screen – Source Server StorageIOlab.com

    What Is Microsoft ReFS and Why It Matters

    Microsoft ReFS (Resilient File System) is part of Windows Servers 2012, 2012 R2, 2016 as well as Windows 8.1 and 10 platforms as an alternative to NTFS file system. ReFS is designed not only for resiliency, also for scaling volumes beyond 256 TBytes (NTFS) to 4.7 Zettabytes (ZB). Note files size for both NTFS and ReFS is 18 Exabytes (EB). Click here to view various ReFS and NTFS data services, feature functionality along with limits. Part of being resilient means that ReFS is able to provide more data integrity protection to guard against logical data corruption.

    Note while ReFS is the future for Windows-based platforms, NTFS is not going away anytime soon, after all, FAT (File Allocation Table) volumes are still supported after how many decades of being around? ReFS has been around for several years having existed in earlier WIndows operating systems as an option, however with Server 2016, its status is promoted to a more prominent role with more features, data services and functionality.

    ReFS data services, features and functionality include:

    • Resiliency – Automatic detection and online repair of data corruption issues
    • Online repair – Isolate faults to localized area of data corruption for repair enabling volumes to stay online
    • Storage Spaces integration – Leverage mirror or parity spaces for automatic detect and repair via alternate data copies. Note that with Windows Server 2016 Microsoft also has introduced Storage Spaces Direct (S2D).
    • Data salvage – Should a volume become corrupt with no alternate copy (you should still have a backup), ReFS removes corrupt data from name space on a live volume. This capability enables surviving data to stay accessible while isolating the fault to the corrupted or damaged data.
    • Integrity streams – Checksums for metadata and optionally file data that enable ReFS to detect corruptions in a reliable way.
    • Proactive error correction – Besides validating data before reads and writes, ReFS also has a background scrubber data integrity check of volumes. This capability enables ReFS to proactively detect latent or silent data corruption so that corrective repair of damaged data can occur.
    • Real-time tiering – When combined with S2D maximizes performance and space capacity across performance and capacity tiers using NVMe, flash SSD and HDDs devices. Writes occur to the performance tier, with large chunks de-staged to capacity tier. Read acceleration enabled via cache. Can support all flash (e.g. performance NVMe and capacity TLC or other flash SSD) as well as hybrid mix of HDD and SSD configurations.
    • Block cloning for dynamic workloads including server virtualization such as accelerating checkpoint merge operations.
    • Sparse VDL (Valid Data Length) improves virtual machine (VM) operations reducing time needed to create fixed size VHDs from 10s of minutes to seconds.
    • Variable storage allocation cluster size of 4KB (for most environments) and 64KB (for environments with larger sequential file processing needs).

    ReFS Deployment Options

    Microsoft ReFS deployment options include:

    • Basic disk (HDD, and SSD) – Leverage applications or other resiliency and protection solutions.
    • SAS drive enclosures with storage spaces provides more data protection including availability as well as integrity and accessibility. Leverages classic storage spaces mirroring and parity protection for increased resiliency and availability.
    • Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) – Increased scalability, real-time tiering and cache server storage I/O performance (effectiveness) and capacity (efficiency) optimization. For increased resiliency adds block clone and sparse Valid Data Length (VDL) to boost VHDX file performance operations (create, merge, expand). For resiliency, built-in checksums, online repair as well as leverage alternate data copies combined with S2D to detect as well as correct both metadata as well as primary data corruption issues. Optimized for large-scale and virtualized application workloads.

    Where To Learn More

    For those of you not as familiar with Microsoft Windows Server and related topics, or that simply need a refresh, here are several handy links as well as resources.

    • Benchmarking Microsoft Hyper-V server, VMware ESXi and Xen Hypervisors (Via cisjournal PDF)
    • BrightTalk Webinar – Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDC) are in your Future (if not already here)
    • BrightTalk Weibniar – Software-Defined Data Infrastructures Enabling Software-Defined Data Centers
    • Choosing drives and resiliency types in Storage Spaces Direct to meet performance and capacity requirements (Via TechNet)
    • Data Protection for Modern Microsoft Environments (Redmond Magazine Webinar)
    • Deep Dive: Volumes in Storage Spaces Direct (Via TechNet Blogs)
    • Discover Storage Spaces Direct, the ultimate software-defined storage for Hyper-V (YouTube Video)
    • DUPLICATE_EXTENTS_DATA structure (Via MSDN)
    • Block cloning on ReFS (Via TechNet)
    • DISKSPD now on GitHub, and the mysterious VMFLEET released (Via TechNet)
    • Erasure Coding in Windows azure storage (Via Microsoft)
    • Fault domain awareness in Windows Server 2016 (Via TechNet)
    • Fault tolerance and storage efficiency in Storage Spaces Direct (Via TechNet)
    • FSCTL_DUPLICATE_EXTENTS_TO_FILE control code (Via MSDN)
    • Gaining Server Storage I/O Insight into Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (StorageIOblog)
    • General information about SSD at www.thessdplace.com and NVMe at www.thenvmeplace.com
    • Get the Windows Server 2016 evaluation bits here
    • Happy 20th Birthday Windows Server, ready for Server 2016?
    • How to run nested Hyper-V and Windows Server 2016 (Via Altaro and via MSDN)
    • How to run Nested Windows Server and Hyper-V on VMware vSphere ESXi (Via Nokitel)
    • Hyper-converged solution using Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016 (Via TechNet)
    • Hyper-V large-scale VM performance for in-memory transaction processing (Via Technet)
    • Introducing Windows Server 2016 (Free ebook from Microsoft Press)
    • Large scale VM performance with Hyper-V and in-memory transaction processing (Via Technet)
    • Microsoft Resilient File System (ReFS) overview (Via TechNet)
    • Microsoft S2D Software Storage Bus (Via TechNet)
    • Microsoft Storage Replica (SR) (Via TechNet)
    • Microsoft Windows S2D Software Defined Storage (Via TechNet)
    • NVMe, SSD and HDD storage configurations in Storage Spaces Direct TP5 (Via TechNet)
    • Microsoft Azure Stack overview and related material via Microsoft
    • ReFS integrity streams (Via TechNet)
    • ReFS and NTFS feature, data services and functionality comparisons (Via TechNet)
    • ReFS and NTFS limits (speeds and feeds via TechNet)
    • Resilient File System aka ReFS (Via TechNet)
    • Server 2016 Impact on VDI User Experience (Via LoginVSI)
    • Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I
    • Setting up S2D with a 4 node configuration (Via StarWind blog)
    • Setting up testing Windows Server 2016 and S2D using virtual machines (Via MSDN blogs)
    • SQL Server workload (benchmark) Order Processing Benchmark using In-Memory OLTP (Via Github)
    • Storage IOPS update with Storage Spaces Direct (Via TechNet)
    • Storage throughput with Storage Spaces Direct (S2D TP5 (Via TechNet)
    • Storage Spaces Direct hardware requirements (Via TechNet)
    • Storage Spaces Direct in Windows Server 2016 (Via TechNet with Video)
    • Storage Spaces Direct – Lab Environment Setup (Via Argon Systems)
    • Understanding Software Defined Storage with S2D in Windows Server 2016 (Via TechNet)
    • Understanding the cache in Storage Spaces Direct (Via TechNet)
    • Various Windows Server and S2D lab scripts (Via Github)
    • Volume resiliency and efficiency in Storage Spaces Direct (Via TechNet Blogs)
    • What’s New in Windows Server 2016 (Via TechNet)
    • Windows Server 2016 Getting Started (Via TechNet)
    • Windows Server 2016 and Active Directory (Redmond Magazine Webinar)
    • Server StorageIO resources including added links, tools, reports, events and more

    What This All Means

    Now is as good of time as any to refresh (or enhance) your knowledge of ReFS and its current capabilities particular if you are involved with Microsoft environments. On the other hand, if you are not involved with Microsoft, take a few moments to update your insight and awareness of ReFS, storage spaces, S2D and other related capabilities including Windows Servers converged (desegregated) and hyper-converged (aggregated) options to avoid working off of or with stale data.

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, vSAN and VMware vExpert. 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.

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

    September and October 2016 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter

    Volume 16, Issue IX

    Hello and welcome to this September and October 2016 Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    In This Issue

  • Commentary in the news
  • Tips and Articles
  • StorageIOblog posts
  • Events and Webinars
  • Industry Activity Trends
  • Resources and Links
  • Connect and Converse With Us
  • About Us
  • Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    Cheers GS

    Industry Activity Trends

    Recent Industry Activates and Trends

    EMC is now Dell EMC – What this means is that EMC is no longer a publicly traded company instead now being privately held under the Dell Technologies umbrella. In case you did not know or had forgotten, one of the principal owners of Dell Technologies is Michael Dell aka the founder of Dell Computers which itself went private a few years ago. Read more in this Server StoageIOblog update post.

    While Michael Dell and Dell Technologies continues to expand by acquiring companies (granted also shedding some assets to support that growth), HP Enterprise (HPE) is taking a different approach. Similar to Dell, HPE has been offloading some of its divisions and assets since its split into two separate companies about a year ago.

    More recently HPE has announced it is selling off some of its software assets to which follows other deals where HPE created a new partnership with CSC to offload or park some of its services assets. What’s not clear is HPE CEO Meg Whitman leveraging the trend that some Private Equity (PE) firms are interested in acquiring under performing companies or assets to prepare them as part of a pivot to profit scenario, or something else?

    • HPE selling off business units including software group here, here, here and here
    • HPE looking to boost its HPC and super compute business with $275B acquisition of SGI
    • Announced new shared storage for SMB and mid-size environments including for sub $10K price points. These include HPE StoreVirtual 3200 and HPE MSA 2042.
    • HPE and Dropbox partnership
    • Various other HPE news and updates

    Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) startup vendor Nutanix finally IPO (NTNX) after a not so consolidated IPO cycle. Prior to the IPO NTNX acquired other startup Pernix (VMware cache software solution) and calmio to beef up their product portfolio. Congratulations to NTNX and best wishes, hopefully the public markets will provide risk vs. reward, on the other hand, now being public, the spotlight will be on them.

    Nutanix Stock via Yahoo 10/31/16
    NTNX Stock Trading via Yahoo Finance 10/31/16 (Click to see current status)


    Microsoft has extended its software defined storage (SDS) along with software defined data center (SDDC) as well as software defined networking (SDN) capabilities by formerly announcing Windows Server 2016. A month or so ago Microsoft announced the 20th birthday or anniversary of Windows Server as well as having previously released Tech Previews (TP).
    See what’s new in Server 2016 here. For those not aware, With Windows Server 2016, you can configure it to be CI, HCI, legacy or various hybrid ways to meet your needs, along with your choice of hardware from your preferred vendor or solution provider. Read more about Microsoft Windows Server 2016 and related topics in this Server StorageIOblog post.

    Needless to say there is a lot of other activity in the works including VMware enhancements with vSphere 6.5 as well as VMware vSphere (and related tools) being announced as hosted on bare metal (BM) dedicated private servers (DPS) via AWS among other updates.

     

    StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

     

    StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

    Via InfoStor Top Ten Data Storage Performance Tips: Improving Data Storage
    Via ChannelProNetwork Your Time Will Come, All-Flash Storage
    Via FutureReadyOEM When to implement ultra-dense CI or HCI storage
    Via EnterpriseStorageForum Top 10 Enterprise SSD Market Trends
    Via EnterpriseStorageForum Storage Hyperconvergence: When Does It Make Sense?
    SearchCloudStorage: EMC VxRack Neutrino Nodes launched for OpenStack cloud storage
    EnterpriseStorageForum: Looking Beyond the Hype at Hyperconvergence in Storage
    CDW Digital: Transitioning Data Centers To Hybrid Environment
    SearchDataCenter: EMC, VCE, CI and Hyperconverged vs. Hyper-small
    InfoStor: Docker and Containerization Storage Buying Guide
    NetworkComputing: Dell-EMC: The Storage Ramifications
    EnterpriseTech: VMware Targets Synergies in Dell-EMC Deal 
    HPCwire: Dell to Buy EMC Focus on Large Enterprises and High-End Computing
    EnterpriseStorageForum: Storage Futures: Do We Really Need to Store Everything?

    View more Server, Storage and I/O hardware as well as software trends comments here

     

    StorageIO Tips and Articles

    Recent and past Server StorageIO articles appearing in different venues include:

    Via Iron Mountain  Is Your Data Infrastructure Prepared for Storm Season?
    Via Iron Mountain  Preventing Unexpected Disasters: IT and Data Infrastructure
    Via FutureReadyOEM  When to implement ultra-dense storage
    Via Micron Blog (Guest Post)  Whats next for NVMe and your Data Center
    Redmond Magazine  Data Protection Trends – Evolving Data Protection and Resiliency
    Virtual Blocks (VMware Blogs)  EVO:RAIL Part III – When And Where To Use It?
    Virtual Blocks (VMware Blogs)  EVO:RAIL Part II – Why And When To Use It?
    Virtual Blocks (VMware Blogs)  EVO:RAIL Part I – What Is It And Why Does It Matter?

    Check out these resources techniques, trends as well as tools. View more tips and articles here

     

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

    December 7, 2016 11AM PT – BrightTalk Webinar: Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

    November 29-30, 2016 – Nijkerk Netherlands Workshop Seminar (Presenting)
    Organized by Brouwer Storage Consultancy

    Converged and Other Server Storage Decision Making

    November 28, 2016 – Nijkerk Netherlands Workshop Seminar (Presenting)
    Organized by Brouwer Storage Consultancy
    – Industry Trends Update

    November 23, 2016 10AM PT – BrightTalk Webinar: BCDR and Cloud Backup
    Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) and Data Protection

    November 23, 2016 9AM PT – BrightTalk Webinar: Cloud Storage
    Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

    November 22, 2016 10AM PT – BrightTalk Webinar: Cloud Infrastructure
    Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

    November 15, 2016 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and SolarWinds
    Presenting – The O.A.R. of Virtualization Scaling

    November 3, 2016 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and Dell Software
    Presenting – Backup, Data Protection and Security Management

    October 27, 2016 10AM PT – Virtual Instruments Webinar
    The Value of Infrastructure Insight

    October 20, 2016 9AM PT – BrightTalk Webinar: Next-Gen Data Centers
    Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) – Servers, Storage and Virtualization

    September 20, 2016 8AM PT – BrightTalk Webinar
    Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)
    Enabling Software Defined Data Centers

    September 13, 2016 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and Dell Software
    Windows Server 2016 and Active Directory
    What’s New and How to Plan for Migration

    See more webinars and other 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/performance – Various server, storage and I/O performance and benchmarking
    VMware Technical Network – Various VMware related items

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, vSAN and VMware vExpert. 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

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

    Updated Software Defined Data Infrastructure Webinars and Fall 2016 events

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Webinars and Fall 2016 events

    server storage I/O trends

    Here is the updated Server StorageIO fall 2016 webinar and event activities covering software defined data center, data infrastructure, virtual, cloud, containers, converged, hyper-converged server, storage, I/O network, performance and data protection among other topics.

    December 7, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – BrightTalk
    Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Decision Making

    Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, HCI and CI Decision Making

    Are Converged Infrastructures (CI), Hyper-Converged Infrastructures (HCI), Cluster in Box or Cloud in Box (CiB) solutions for you? The answer is it depends on what your needs, requirements, application among other criteria are. In addition are you focused on a particular technology solution or architecture approach, or, looking for something that adapts to your needs? Join us in this discussion exploring your options for different scenarios as we look beyond they hype including to next wave of hyper-scale converged along with applicable decision-making criteria. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – What are your application and environment needs along with other objectives
    – Explore various approaches for hyper-small and hyper-large environments
    – What are you converging, hardware, hypervisors, management or something else?
    – Does HCI mean hyper-vendor-lock-in, if so, is that a bad thing?
    – When, where, why and how to use different scenarios

    November 29-30, 2016 (New) – Converged & Hyper-Converged Decision Making
    Is Converged Infrastructure Right For You?
    Workshop Seminar – Nijkerk The Netherlands

    Converged and server storage I/O data infrastructure trends
    Agenda and topics to be covered include:

    • When should decide to evaluate CI/HCI vs. traditional approach
    • What are decision and evaluation criteria for apples to apples vs. Apples to pears
    • What are the costs, benefits, and caveats of the different approaches
    • How different applications such as VDI or VSI or database have different needs
    • What are the network, storage, software license and training cost implications
    • Different comparison criteria for smaller environments remote office vs. Larger enterprise
    • How will you protect and secure a CI, HCI environment (HA, BC, BR, DR, Backup)
    • What is the risk and benefit of startups, companies with limited portfolios vs. Big vendors
    • Do it yourself (DiY) vs. Turnkey software vs. Bundled tin wrapped software solution
    • We will also look at associated trends including software-defined, NVM/SSD, NVMe, VMware, Microsoft, KVM, Citrix/Xen, Docker, OpenStack among others.

    Organized by:
    Brouwer Storage Consultancy

    November 28, 2016 (New) – Server Storage I/O Fundamental Trends V2.1116
    Whats New, Whats the buzz, what you need to know about and whos doing what
    Workshop Seminar – Nijkerk The Netherlands

    Converged and server storage I/O data infrastructure trends
    Agenda and topics that will be covered include:

    • Who’s doing what, who are the new emerging vendors, solutions and technologies to watch
    • Non-Volatile Memory (NVM), flash solid state device (SSD), Storage Class Memory (SCM)
    • Networking with your servers and storage including NVMe, NVMeoF and RoCE
    • Cloud, Object and Bulk storage for data protection, archiving, near-line, scale-out
    • Data protection and software defined storage management (backup, BC, BR, DR, archive)
    • Microsoft Windows Server 2016, Nano, S2D and Hyper-V
    • VMware, OpenStack, Ceph, Docker and Containers, CI and HCI
    • EMC is gone, now there is Dell EMC and what that means
    • Various vendors and solutions from legacy to new and emerging
    • Recommendations, usage or deployment scenarios and tips
    • Some examples of who’s doing what includes AWS, Brocade, Cisco, Dell EMC, Enmotus, Futjistu, Google, HDS, HP and Huawei, IBM, Intel, Lenovo, Mellanox, Micron, Microsoft, NetApp, Nutanix, Oracle, Pure, Quantum, Qumulo, Reduxio, Rubrik, Samsung, SANdisk, Seagate, Simplivity and Tintri, Veeam, Veritas, VMware and WD among others.

    Organized by:
    Brouwer Storage Consultancy

    November 23, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT BrightTalk
    BCDR and Cloud Backup Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) and Data Protection

    BC DR Cloud Backup and Data Protection

    The answer is BCDR and Cloud Backup, however what was the question? Besides how to protect preserve and secure your data, applications along with data Infrastructures against various threat risk issues, what are some other common questions? For example how to modernize, rethink, re-architect, use new and old things in new ways, these and other topics, techniques, trends, tools have a common theme of BCDR and Cloud Backup. Join us in this discussion exploring your options for protecting data, applications and your data Infrastructures spanning legacy, software-defined virtual and cloud environments. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Various cloud storage options to meet different application PACE needs
    – Do clouds need to be backed-up or protected?
    – How to leverage clouds for various data protection objectives
    – When, where, why and how to use different scenarios

    November 23, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk
    Cloud Storage – Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

    Cloud Storage Decision Making

    You have been told, or determined that you need (or want) to use cloud storage, ok, now what? What type of cloud storage do you need or want, or do you simply want cloud storage? However, what are your options as well as application requirements including Performance, Availability, Capacity and Economics (PACE) along with access or interfaces? Where are your applications and where will they be located? What are your objectives for using cloud storage or is it simply you have heard or told its cheaper. Join us in this discussion exploring your options, considerations for cloud storage decision-making. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Various cloud storage options to meet different application PACE needs
    – Storage for primary, secondary, performance, availability, capacity, backup, archiving
    – Public, private and hybrid cloud storage options from block, file, object to application service
    – When, where, why and how to use cloud storage for different scenarios

    November 22, 2016 – Webinar 10AM PT – BrightTalk
    Cloud Infrastructure Hybrid and Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI)

    Cloud Infrastructure and Hybrid Software Defined

    At the core of cloud (public, private, hybrid) next generation data centers are software defined data infrastructures that exist to protect, preserve and serve applications, data along with their resulting information services. Software defined data infrastructure core components include hardware, software servers and storage configured (defined) to provide various services enabling application Performance Availability Capacity and Economics (PACE). Just as there are different types of environments, applications along with workloads various options, technologies as well as techniques exist for cloud services (and underlying data infrastructures). Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services options for cloud infrastructures. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Software Defined Infrastructures (SDDI) are what enable Software Defined Data Centers and clouds
    – Various types of clouds along with cloud services that determine how resources get defined
    – When, where, why and how to use cloud Infrastructures along with associated resources

    November 15, 2016 (New) – 11AM PT Webinar – Redmond Magazine and Solarwinds
    The O.A.R. of Virtualization Scaling
    A journey of optimization, automation, and reporting

    Your journey to a flexible, scalable and secure IT universe begins now. Join Microsoft MVP and VMware vSAN and vExpert Greg Schulz of Server StorageIO along with VMware vExpert, Cisco Champion and Head Geek of Virtualization and Cloud Practice Kong Yang of SolarWinds for an interactive discussion empowering you to become the master of your software defined and virtual data center. Topics will include:

    • Trust your instruments and automation, however, verify they are working properl
    • Insight into how your environment, as well as automation tools, are working
    • Leverage automation to handle recurring tasks so you can focus on more productive activities
    • Capture, retain and transfer knowledge and tradecraft experiences into automation policies
    • Automated system management is only as good as the policies and data they rely upon
    • Optimize via automation that relies on reporting for insight, awareness and analytics 

    November 3, 2016 (New) – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and
    Dell Software
    Tailor Your Backup Data Repositories to
    Fit Your Security and Management Needs

    Does data protection storage have you working overtime to take care of it? Do you have the flexibility to protect, preserve, secure and serve different workgroups or customers in a shared environment? Is your environment looking to expand with new applications and remote offices, yet your data protection is slowing you down? 

    In this webinar we will look at current and emerging trends along with issues including how different threat risk challenges impact your evolving environment, as well as opportunities to address them. It’s time to deploy technology that works for you and your environment instead of you working for the solution. 

    Attend and learn about:

    • Data protection trends, issues, regulatory compliance, challenges and opportunities
    • How to utilize purpose built appliances to protect and defend your systems, applications and data from various threat risks
    • Importance of timely insight and situational awareness into your data protection infrastructure
    • Protecting centralized and distributed remote office branch offices (ROBO) workgroups
    • What you can do today to optimize your environment

    October 27, 2016 (New) – Webinar 10AM PT – Virtual Instruments
    The Value of Infrastructure Insight

    This webinar looks at the value of data center infrastructure insight both as a technology as well as a business productivity enabler. Besides productivity, having insight into how data infrastructure resources (servers, storage, networks, system software) are used, enables informed analysis, troubleshooting, planning, forecasting as well as cost-effective decision-making. In other words, data center infrastructure insight, based on infrastructure performance analytics, enables you to avoid flying blind, having situational awareness for proactive Information Technology (IT) management. Your return on innovation is increased, and leveraging insight awareness along with metrics that matter drives return on investment (ROI) along with enhanced service delivery.

    October 20, 2016 – Webinar 9AM PT – BrightTalk
    Next-Gen Data Centers Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) including Servers, Storage and Virtualization

    Cloud Storage Decision Making

    At the core of next generation data centers are software defined data infrastructures that enable, protect, preserve and serve applications, data along with their resulting information services. Software defined data infrastructure core components include hardware, software servers and storage configured (defined) to provide various services enabling application Performance Availability Capacity and Economics (PACE). Just as there are different types of environments, applications along with workloads various options, technologies as well as techniques exist for virtual servers and storage. Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services around storage and virtualization for today, tomorrow, and in the years to come. Topics include:

    – Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs
    – Software Defined Infrastructures (SDDI) are what enable Software Defined Data Centers
    – Server and Storage Virtualization better together, with and without CI/HCI
    – Many different facets (types) of Server virtualization and virtual storage
    – When, where, why and how to use storage virtualization and virtual storage

    September 20, 2016 – Webinar 8AM PT – BrightTalk
    Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) Enabling Software Defined Data Centers – Part of Software-Defined Storage summit

    Cloud Storage Decision Making

    Data Infrastructures exist to support applications and their underlying resource needs. Software-Defined Infrastructures (SDI) are what enable Software-Defined Data Centers, and at the heart of a SDI is storage that is software-defined. This spans cloud, virtual and physical storage and is at the focal point of today. Join us in this session to discuss trends, technologies, tools, techniques and services around SDI and SDDC- today, tomorrow, and in the years to come.

    September 13, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT – Redmond Magazine and
    Dell Software
    Windows Server 2016 and Active Directory
    Whats New and How to Plan for Migration

    Windows Server 2016 is expected to GA this fall and is a modernized version of the Microsoft operating system that includes new capabilities such as Active Directory (AD) enhancements. AD is critical to organizational operations providing control and secure access to data, networks, servers, storage and more from physical, virtual and cloud (public and hybrid). But over time, organizations along with their associated IT infrastructures have evolved due to mergers, acquisitions, restructuring and general growth. As a result, yesterday’s AD deployments may look like they did in the past while using new technology (e.g. in old ways). Now is the time to start planning for how you will optimize your AD environment using new tools and technologies such as those in Windows Server 2016 and AD in new ways. Optimizing AD means having a new design, performing cleanup and restructuring prior to migration vs. simply moving what you have. Join us for this interactive webinar to begin planning your journey to Windows Server 2016 and a new optimized AD deployment that is flexible, scalable and elastic, and enables resilient infrastructures. You will learn:

    • What’s new in Windows Server 2016 and how it impacts your AD
    • Why an optimized AD is critical for IT environments moving forward
    • How to gain insight into your current AD environment
    • AD restructuring planning considerations

    September 8, 2016 – Webinar 11AM PT (Watch on Demand) – Redmond Magazine, Acronis and Unitrends
    Data Protection for Modern Microsoft Environments

    Your organization’s business depends on modern Microsoft® environments — Microsoft Azure and new versions of Windows Server 2016, Microsoft Hyper-V with RCT, and business applications — and you need a data protection solution that keeps pace with Microsoft technologies. If you lose mission-critical data, it can cost you $100,000 or more for a single hour of downtime. Join our webinar and learn how different data protection solutions can protect your Microsoft environment, whether you store data on company premises, at remote locations, in private and public clouds, and on mobile devices.

    Where To Learn More

    What This All Means

    Its fall back to school and learning time, join me on these and other upcoming event activities.

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, vSAN and VMware vExpert. 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

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

    Server storage I/O performance benchmark workload scripts Part I

    Server storage I/O performance benchmark workload scripts Part I

    Server storage I/O performance benchmark workload scripts

    Update 1/28/2018

    This is part one of a two-part series of posts about Server storage I/O performance benchmark workload tools and scripts. View part II here which includes the workload scripts and where to view sample results.

    There are various tools and workloads for server I/O benchmark testing, validation and exercising different storage devices (or systems and appliances) such as Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) flash Solid State Devices (SSDs) or Hard Disk Drives (HDD) among others.

    NVMe ssd storage
    Various NVM flash SSD including NVMe devices

    For example, lets say you have an SSD such as an Intel 750 (here, here, and here) or some other vendors NVMe PCIe Add in Card (AiC) installed into a Microsoft Windows server and would like to see how it compares with expected results. The following scripts allow you to validate your system with those of others running the same workload, granted of course your mileage (performance) may vary.

    server storage I/O SCM NVM SSD performance

    Why Your Performance May Vary

    Reasons you performance may vary include among others:

    • GHz Speed of your server, number of sockets, cores
    • Amount of main DRAM memory
    • Number, type and speed of PCIe slots
    • Speed of storage device and any adapters
    • Device drivers and firmware of storage devices and adapters
    • Server power mode setting (e.g. low or balanced power vs. high-performance)
    • Other workload running on system and device under test
    • Solar flares (kp-index) among other urban (or real) myths and issues
    • Typos or misconfiguration of workload test scripts
    • Test server, storage, I/O device, software and workload configuration
    • Versions of test software tools among others

    Windows Power (and performance) Settings

    Some things are assumed or taken for granted that everybody knows and does, however sometimes the obvious needs to be stated or re-stated. An example is remembering to check your server power management settings to see if they are in energy efficiency power savings mode, or, in high-performance mode. Note that if your focus is on getting the best possible performance for effective productivity, then you want to be in high performance mode. On the other hand if performance is not your main concern, instead a focus on energy avoidance, then low power mode, or perhaps balanced.

    For Microsoft Windows Servers, Desktop Workstations, Laptops and Tablets you can adjust power settings via control panel and GUI as well as command line or Powershell. From command line (privileged or administrator) the following are used for setting balanced or high-performance power settings.

    Balanced

    powercfg.exe /setactive 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e

    High Performance

    powercfg.exe /setactive 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c

    From Powershell the following set balanced or high-performance.

    Balanced
    PowerCfg -SetActive "381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e"

    High Performance
    PowerCfg -SetActive "8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c"

    Note that you can list Windows power management settings using powercfg -LIST and powercfg -QUERY

    server storage I/O power management

    Btw, if you have not already done so, enable Windows disk (HDD and SSD) performance counters so that they appear via Task Manager by entering from a command prompt:

    diskperf -y

    Workload (Benchmark) Simulation Test Tools Used

    There are many tools (see storageio.com/performance) that can be used for creating and running workloads just as there are various application server I/O characteristics. Different server I/O and application performance attributes include among others read vs. write, random vs. sequential, large vs. small, long vs. short stride, burst vs. sustain, cache and non-cache friendly, activity vs. data movement vs. latency vs. CPU usage among others. Likewise the number of workers, jobs, threads, outstanding and overlapped I/O among other configuration settings can have an impact on workload and results.

    The four free tools that I’m using with this set of scripts are:

    • Microsoft Diskspd (free), get the tool and bits here or here (open source), learn more about Diskspd here.
    • FIO.exe (free), get the tool and bits here or here among other venues.
    • Vdbench (free with registration), get the tool and bits here or here among other venues.
    • Iometer (free), get the tool and bits here among other venues.

    Notice: While best effort has been made to verify the above links, they may change over time and you are responsible for verifying the safety of links and your downloads.

    Where To Learn More

    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

    Remember, everything is not the same in the data center or with data infrastructures that support different applications.

    While some tools are more robust or better than others for different things, ultimately it’s usually not the tool that results in a bad benchmark or comparison, it’s the configuration or lack of including workload settings that are not relevant or applicable. The best benchmark, workload or simulation is your own application. Second best is one that closely resembles your application workload characteristics. A bad benchmark is one that has no relevance to your environment, application use scenario. Take and treat all benchmark or workload simulation results with a grain of salt as something to compare, contrast or make reference to in the proper context. Read part two of this post series to view test tool workload scripts along with sample results.

    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.

    vSphere Software Defined Beta, Something for free from VMware

    vSphere Beta, Something free from VMware (other than your time)

    server storage I/O trends

    Something free from VMware (other than time)

    VMware is looking for candidate beta test sites and environments for an upcoming vSphere release. Target audience or environments are those who have deployed vSphere 5.5 and 6.0 in your environment and looking to test the new software (e.g. bits).

    What VMware is looking for

    For this private community

    vSphere beta, VMware is looking for participants with expectations including:

    • Online acceptance of the Master Software Beta Test Agreement will be required prior to visiting the Private Beta Community
    • Install beta software within 3 days of receiving access to the beta product
    • Provide feedback within the first 4 weeks of the beta program
    • Submit Support Requests for bugs, issues and feature requests
    • Complete surveys and beta test assignments
    • Participate in the private beta discussion forum and conference calls

    How to get involved and test the bits?

    To get involved (and get the bits), simply fill out the VMware form found here (no credit card or money required, just some of your time).

    The VMware vSphere team will grant access to the program to selected candidates in stages. This vSphere Beta Program leverages a private Beta community to download software and share information. VMware will provide discussion forums, webinars, and service requests to enable you to share your opinion with them.

    VMware cites the following reasons to participate in this vSphere beta opportunity:

    • Receive early access to the vSphere Beta products
    • Interact with the vSphere Beta team consisting of Product Managers, Engineers, Technical Support, and Technical Writers
    • Provide direct input on product functionality, configurability, usability, and performance
    • Provide feedback influencing future products, training, documentation, and services
    • Collaborate with other participants, learn about their use cases, and share advice and learnings

    Where To Learn More

    What This All Means

    Having been involved in earlier vSphere betas this is a great way to get an early glimpse and hands on behind the wheel real-world experience with new technology for the experience, as well as testing to see how things will work in yours, or in a VMware hosted environment. You are free to use and test the bits (e.g. software) in your environment (or VMware hosted) how you like in a free-form real-world way. In addition to hands on time, you also get exposure and chance to interact with the VMware folks.

    This experience can be useful for planning on how to use new feature functionality, as well as strategy planning for deployment once the production bits get released down the road.

    Remember to sign up if interested here, see you in the beta.

    Ok, nuff said, for now

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

    Part V – NVMe overview primer (Where to learn more, what this all means)

    This is the fifth in a five-part mini-series providing a NVMe primer overview.

    View Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V as well as companion posts and more NVMe primer material at www.thenvmeplace.com.

    There are many different facets of NVMe including protocol that can be deployed on PCIe (AiC, U.2/8639 drives, M.2) for local direct attached, dedicated or shared for front-end or back-end of storage systems. NVMe direct attach is also found in servers and laptops using M.2 NGFF mini cards (e.g. “gum sticks”). In addition to direct attached, dedicated and shared, NVMe is also deployed on fabrics including over Fibre Channel (FC-NVMe) as well as NVMe over Fabrics (NVMeoF) leveraging RDMA based networks (e.g. iWARP, RoCE among others).

    The storage I/O capabilities of flash can now be fed across PCIe faster to enable modern multi-core processors to complete more useful work in less time, resulting in greater application productivity. NVMe has been designed from the ground up with more and deeper queues, supporting a larger number of commands in those queues. This in turn enables the SSD to better optimize command execution for much higher concurrent IOPS. NVMe will coexist along with SAS, SATA and other server storage I/O technologies for some time to come. But NVMe will be at the top-tier of storage as it takes full advantage of the inherent speed and low latency of flash while complementing the potential of multi-core processors that can support the latest applications.

    With NVMe, the capabilities of underlying NVM and storage memories are further realized Devices used include a PCIe x4 NVMe AiC SSD, 12 GbpsSAS SSD and 6 GbpsSATA SSD. These and other improvements with NVMe enable concurrency while reducing latency to remove server storage I/O traffic congestion. The result is that application demanding more concurrent I/O activity along with lower latency will gravitate towards NVMe for access fast storage.

    Like the robust PCIe physical server storage I/O interface it leverages, NVMe provides both flexibility and compatibility. It removes complexity, overhead and latency while allowing far more concurrent I/O work to be accomplished. Those on the cutting edge will embrace NVMe rapidly. Others may prefer a phased approach.

    Some environments will initially focus on NVMe for local server storage I/O performance and capacity available today. Other environments will phase in emerging external NVMe flash-based shared storage systems over time.

    Planning is an essential ingredient for any enterprise. Because NVMe spans servers, storage, I/O hardware and software, those intending to adopt NVMe need to take into account all ramifications. Decisions made today will have a big impact on future data and information infrastructures.

    Key questions should be, how much speed do your applications need now, and how do growth plans affect those requirements? How and where can you maximize your financial return on investment (ROI) when deploying NVMe and how will that success be measured?

    Several vendors are working on, or have already introduced NVMe related technologies or initiatives. Keep an eye on among others including AWS, Broadcom (Avago, Brocade), Cisco (Servers), Dell EMC, Excelero, HPE, Intel (Servers, Drives and Cards), Lenovo, Micron, Microsoft (Azure, Drivers, Operating Systems, Storage Spaces), Mellanox, NetApp, OCZ, Oracle, PMC, Samsung, Seagate, Supermicro, VMware, Western Digital (acquisition of SANdisk and HGST) 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

    NVMe is in your future if not already, so 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.