Tag: server

Posted on

Dell EMC World 2017 Day One news announcement summary

server storage I/O trends

Dell EMC World 2017 Day One news announcement summary

This is the first day of the first combined Dell EMC World 2017 being held in Las Vegas Nevada. Last year’s event in Las Vegas was the end of the EMC World, while this being the first of the combined Dell EMC World events that succeeded its predecessors.

What this means is an expanded focus because of the new Dell EMC that has added servers among other items to the event focus. Granted, EMC had been doing servers via its VCE and converged divisions, however with the Dell EMC integration completed as of last fall, the Dell Server group is now part of the Dell EMC organization.

The central theme of this Dell EMC world is REALIZE with a focus on four pillars:

  • Digital Transformation (Pivotal focus) of applications
  • IT Transformation (Dell EMC, Virtustream, VMware) data center modernization
  • Workforce transformation (Dell Client Solutions) devices from mobile to IoT
  • Information Security (RSA and Secureworks)

software defined data infrastructures SDDI and SDDC

What Did Dell EMC Announce Today

Note that while there are focus areas of the different Dell Technologies business units aligned to the pillars, there is also leveraging across those areas and groups. For example, VMware NSX spans into security, and  PowerEdge servers span into other pillars as a core data infrastructure building block.

What Dell EMC and Dell Technologies announced today.

  • Wave of Innovations to help customers realize digital transformation
  • New 14th generation PowerEdge Servers that are core building blocks for data infrastructures
  • Flexible consumption models (financing and more) from desktop to data center
  • Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI), Converged (CI) and Cloud like systems
  • New All-Flash (ADA) SSD Storage Systems (VMAX, XtremIO X2, Unity, SC, Isilon)
  • Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) and Cloud Protection solutions
  • Using Gen14 servers several Software Defined Storage (SDS) enhancements
  • Open Networking and software-defined networks (SDN) with 25G
  • Last week Dell EMC announced Microsoft Azure Stack hybrid cloud solutions

New 14th generation PowerEdge Servers that are core building blocks for data infrastructures

Dell EMC has announced the 14th generation of Intel-powered Dell EMC PowerEdge server portfolio systems. These includes servers that get defined with software for software-defined data centers (SDDC), software-defined data infrastructures (SDDI) for the cloud, virtual, the container as well as storage among other applications. Target application workloads and environments range from high-performance compute (HPC), and high-productivity (or profitability) compute (the other HPC), super compute (SC), little data and big data analytics, legacy and emerging business applications as well as cloud and beyond. Enhancements besides new Intel processor technology includes enhanced iDRAC, OpenManage, REST interface, QuickSync, Secure Boot among other management, automation, security, performance, and capacity updates.

Other Dell EMC enhancements with Gen14 include support for various NVDIMM to enable persistent memory also known as storage class memories such as 3D Xpoint among others. Note at this time, Dell EMC is not saying much about speeds, feeds and other details, stay tuned for more information on these in the weeks and months to come.

Dell EMC has also been leaders with deploying NVMe from PCIe flash cards to 8639 U.2 devices such as 2.5” drives. Thus it makes sense to see continued adoption and deployment of those devices along with SAS, SATA support. Note that Broadcom (formerly known as Avago) recently announced the release of their PCIe SAS, SATA and NVMe based adapters.

The reason this is worth mentioning is that in the past Dell has OEM sourced Avago (formerly known as LSI) based adapters. Given Dell EMC use of NVMe drives, it only makes sense to put two and two together.

Let’s wait a few months to see what the speeds, feeds, and specifications are to put the rest of the puzzle together. Speaking of NVMe, also look for Dell EMC to also supporting PCIe AIC and U.2 (8639) NVMe devices, also leverage M.2 Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF) aka Gum sticks as boot devices.

While these are all Intel focused, I would expect Dell EMC not to sit back, instead, watch for what they do with other processors and servers including ARMs among others.

Increased support for more GPUs to support VDI and other graphic intensive workloads such as video rendering, imaging among others. Part of enhanced GPU support is improvements (multi-vector cooling) to power and cooling including sensing the type of PCIe card, and then adjusting cooling fans and subsequent power draw accordingly. The benefit should be more proper cooling to reduce power to support more work and productivity.

Flexible consumption models (financing and more) from desktop to data center

Dell Technologies has announced several financing, procurement, and consumption models with cloud-like flexible options for different IT and data center, along with mobile device technologies. These range from licensing to deployment as a service, consumption and other options via Dell Financial Services (DFS).

Highlights include:

  • DFS Flex on Demand is available now in select countries globally.
  • DFS Cloud Flex for HCI is available now for Dell EMC VxRail and Dell EMC XC Series and has planned availability for Q3 2017 in Dell EMC VxRack Systems.
  • PC as a Service is available now in select countries globally.
  • Dell EMC VDI Complete Solutions are available now in select countries globally.
  • DFS Flex on Demand is available now in select countries globally.
  • DFS Cloud Flex for HCI is available now for Dell EMC VxRail and Dell EMC XC Series and has planned VxRack systems in Q3 2017.
  • PC as a Service solution is available now in select countries globally.
  • Dell EMC VDI Complete Solutions are available now in select countries.
  • Dell Technologies transformation license agreement (TLA) is available now in select countries

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI), Converged (CI) and Cloud like systems

Enhancements to VxRail system, VxRACK Systems, and XC Series leveraging Del EMC Gen14 PowerEdge servers along with other improvements. Note that this also includes continued support for VMware, Microsoft as well as Nutanix software-defined solutions.

New All-Flash (ADA) SSD Storage Systems (VMAX, XtremIO X2, Unity, SC, Isilon)

Storage system enhancements include from high-end (VMAX and XtremIO) to mid-range (Unity and SC) along with scale-out NAS (Isilon)

Highlights of the announcements include:

  • New VMAX 950F all flash array (AFA)
  • New XtremIO X2 with enhanced software, more powerful hardware
  • New Unity AFA systems
  • New SC5020 midrange hybrid storage
  • New generation of Isilon storage with improved performance, capacity, density

Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) and Cloud Protection solutions

Data protection enhancement highlights include:

  • New Turnkey Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) with four models (DP5300, DP5800, DP8300, and DP8800) starting at 34 TB usable scaling up to 1PB usable. Data services including encryption, data footprint reduction such as dedupe, remote monitoring, Maintenance service dispatch, along with application integration. Application integration includes MongoDB, Hadoop, MySQL.

  • Enhanced cloud capabilities powered by Data Domain virtual edition (DD VE 3.1) along with data protection suite enable data to be protected too, and restored from Amazon Web Services (AWS) Simple Storage Service (S3) as well as Microsoft Azure.

Open Networking and software-defined networks (SDN) with 25G

Dell EMC Open Networking highlights include:

  • Dell EMCs first 25GbE open networking top of rack (TOR) switch including S5100-ON series (With OS10 enterprise edition software) complimenting new PowerEdge Gen14 servers with native 25GbE support. Switches support 100GbE uplinks fabric connectivity for east-west (management) network traffic. Also announced is the S4100-ON series and N1100-ON series that are in addition to recently announce N3100-ON and N2100-ON switches.

  • Dell EMCs first optimized Open Networking platform for unified storage network switching including support for 16Gb/32GB Fibre Channel

  • New Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and IoT advisory consulting services

Note that Dell EMC is announcing the availability of these networking solutions in Dell Technologies 2018 fiscal year which occurs before the traditional calendar year.

Using Gen14 servers, several Software Defined Storage (SDS) enhancements

Dell EMC announced enhancements to their Software Defined Storage (SDS) portfolio that leveraging the PowerEdge 14th generation server portfolio. These improvements include ScaleIO, Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS), IsilonSD Edge and Preview of Project Nautilus.

Where to learn more

What this all means

This is a summary of what has been announced so far on the first morning of the first day of the first new Dell EMC world. Needless to say, there is more detail to look at for the above announcements from speeds, feeds, functionality and related topics that will get addressed in subsequent posts. Overall this is a good set of announcements expanding capabilities of the combined Dell EMC while enhancing existing systems as well as well as solutions.

Ok, nuff said (for now…)

Cheers
Gs

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

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

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

Posted on

Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3) Overview Preview Review

server storage I/O trends

Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3) Overview Preview Review

Perhaps you are aware or use Microsoft Azure, how about Azure Stack?

This is part one of a two-part series looking at Microsoft Azure Stack providing an overview, preview and review. Read part two here that looks at my experiences installing Microsoft Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3).

For those who are not aware, Azure Stack is a private on-premises extension of the Azure public cloud environment. Azure Stack now in technical preview three (e.g. TP3), or what you might also refer to as a beta (get the bits here).

In addition to being available via download as a preview, Microsoft is also working with vendors such as Cisco, Dell EMC, HPE, Lenovo and others who have announced Azure Stack support. Vendors such as Dell EMC have also made proof of concept kits available that you can buy including server with storage and software. Microsoft has also indicated that once launched for production versions scaling from a few to many nodes, that a single node proof of concept or development system will also remain available.

software defined data infrastructure SDDI and SDDC
Software-Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) aka Software-defined Data Centers, Cloud, Virtual and Legacy

Besides being an on-premises, private cloud variant, Azure Stack is also hybrid capable being able to work with public cloud Azure. In addition to working with public cloud Azure, Azure Stack services and in particular workloads can also work with traditional Microsoft, Linux and others. You can use pre built solutions from the Azure marketplace, in addition to developing your applications using Azure services and DevOps tools. Azure Stack enables hybrid deployment into public or private cloud to balance flexibility, control and your needs.

Azure Stack Overview

Microsoft Azure Stack is an on premise (e.g. in your own data center) private (or hybrid when connected to Azure) cloud platform. Currently Azure Stack is in Technical Preview 3 (e.g. TP3) and available as a proof of concept (POC) download from Microsoft. You can use Azure Stack TP3 as a POC for learning, demonstrating and trying features among other activities. Here is link to a Microsoft Video providing an overview of Azure Stack, and here is a good summary of roadmap, licensing and related items.

In summary, Microsoft Azure Stack is:

  • A onsite, on premise, in your data center extension of Microsoft Azure public cloud
  • Enabling private and hybrid cloud with strong integration along with common experiences with Azure
  • Adopt, deploy, leverage cloud on your terms and timeline choosing what works best for you
  • Common processes, tools, interfaces, management and user experiences
  • Leverage speed of deployment and configuration with a purpose-built integrate solution
  • Support existing and cloud native Windows, Linux, Container and other services
  • Available as a public preview via software download, as well as vendors offering solutions

What is Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3)

This version of Azure Stack is a single node running on a lone physical machine (PM) aka bare metal (BM). However can also be installed into a virtual machine (VM) using nesting. For example I have Azure Stack TP3 running nested on a VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5 systems with a Windows Server 2016 VM as its base operating system.

Microsoft Azure Stack architecture
Click here or on the above image to view list of VMs and other services (Image via Microsoft.com)

The TP3 POC Azure Stack is not intended for production environments, only for testing, evaluation, learning and demonstrations as part of its terms of use. This version of Azure Stack is associated with a single node identity such as Azure Active Directory (AAD) integrated with Azure, or Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) for standalone modes. Note that since this is a single server deployment, it is not intended for performance, rather, for evaluating functionality, features, APIs and other activities. Learn more about Azure Stack TP3 details here (or click on image) including names of various virtual machines (VMs) as well as their roles.

Where to learn more

The following provide more information and insight about Azure, Azure Stack, Microsoft and Windows among related topics.

  • Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3) Overview Preview Review
  • Azure Stack TP3 Overview Preview Review Part II
  • Azure Stack Technical Preview (get the bits aka software download here)
  • Azure Stack deployment prerequisites (Microsoft)
  • Microsoft Azure Stack troubleshooting (Microsoft Docs)
  • Azure Stack TP3 refresh tips (Azure Stack)
  • Here is a good post with a tip about not applying certain Windows updates to Azure stack TP3 installs.
  • Configure Azure stack TP3 to be available on your own network (Azure Stack)
  • Azure Stack TP3 Marketplace syndication (Azure Stack)
  • Azure Stack TP3 deployment experiences (Azure Stack)
  • Frequently asked questions for Azure Stack (Microsoft)
  • Deploy Azure Stack (Microsoft)
  • Connect to Azure Stack (Microsoft)
  • Azure Active Directory (AAD) and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
  • Azure Stack TP2 deployment experiences by Niklas Akerlund (@vNiklas) useful for tips for TP3
  • Deployment Checker for Azure Stack Technical Preview (Microsoft Technet)
  • Azure stack and other tools (Github)
  • How to enable nested virtualization on Hyper-V Windows Server 2016
  • Dell EMC announce Microsoft Hybrid Cloud Azure Stack (Dell EMC)
  • Dell EMC Cloud for Microsoft Azure Stack (Dell EMC)
  • Dell EMC Cloud for Microsoft Azure Stack Data Sheet (Dell EMC PDF)
  • Dell EMC Cloud Chats (Dell EMC Blog)
  • Microsoft Azure stack forum
  • Dell EMC Microsoft Azure Stack solution
  • Gaining Server Storage I/O Insight into Microsoft Windows Server 2016
  • Overview Review of Microsoft ReFS (Reliable File System) and resource links
  • Via WServerNews.com Cloud (Microsoft Azure) storage considerations
  • Via CloudComputingAdmin.com Cloud Storage Decision Making: Using Microsoft Azure for cloud storage
  • www.thenvmeplace.com, www.thessdplace.com, www.objectstoragecenter.com and www.storageio.com/converge

    • What this all means

    A common question is if there is demand for private and hybrid cloud, in fact, some industry expert pundits have even said private, or hybrid are dead which is interesting, how can something be dead if it is just getting started. Likewise, it is early to tell if Azure Stack will gain traction with various organizations, some of whom may have tried or struggled with OpenStack among others.

    Given a large number of Microsoft Windows-based servers on VMware, OpenStack, Public cloud services as well as other platforms, along with continued growing popularity of Azure, having a solution such as Azure Stack provides an attractive option for many environments. That leads to the question of if Azure Stack is essentially a replacement for Windows Servers or Hyper-V and if only for Windows guest operating systems. At this point indeed, Windows would be an attractive and comfortable option, however, given a large number of Linux-based guests running on Hyper-V as well as Azure Public, those are also primary candidates as are containers and other services.

    Continue reading more in part two of this two-part series here including installing Microsoft Azure Stack TP3.

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Azure Stack TP3 Overview Preview Review Part II

    server storage I/O trends

    Azure Stack TP3 Overview Preview (Part II) Install Review

    This is part two of a two-part series looking at Microsoft Azure Stack with a focus on my experiences installing Microsoft Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3) including into a nested VMware vSphere ESXi environment. Read part one here that provides a general overview of Azure Stack.

    Azure Stack Review and Install

    Being familiar with Microsoft Azure public cloud having used it for a few years now, I wanted to gain some closer insight, experience, expand my trade craft on Azure Stack by installing TP3. This is similar to what I have done in the past with OpenStack, Hadoop, Ceph, VMware, Hyper-V and many others, some of which I need to get around to writing about sometime. As a refresher from part one of this series, the following is an image via Microsoft showing the Azure Stack TP3 architecture, click here or on the image to learn more including the names and functions of the various virtual machines (VMs) that make up Azure Stack.

    Microsoft Azure Stack architecture
    Click here or on the above image to view list of VMs and other services (Image via Microsoft.com)

    Whats Involved Installing Azure Stack TP3?

    The basic steps are as follows:

    • Read this Azure Stack blog post (Azure Stack)
    • Download the bits (e.g. the Azure Stack software) from here, where you access the Azure Stack Downloader tool.
    • Planning your deployment making decisions on Active Directory and other items.
    • Prepare the target server (physical machine aka PM, or virtual machine VM) that will be the Azure Stack destination.
    • Copy Azure Stack software and installer to target server and run pre-install scripts.
    • Modify PowerShell script file if using a VM instead of a PM
    • Run the Azure Stack CloudBuilder setup, configure unattend.xml if needed or answer prompts.
    • Server reboots, select Azure Stack from two boot options.
    • Prepare your Azure Stack base system (time, network NICs in static or DHCP, if running on VMware install VMtools)
    • Determine if you will be running with Azure Active Directory (AAD) or standalone Active Directory Federated Services (ADFS).
    • Update any applicable installation scripts (see notes that follow)
    • Deploy the script, then extended Azure Stack TP3 PoC as needed

    Note that this is a large download of about 16GB (23GB with optional WIndows Server 2016 demo ISO).

    Use the AzureStackDownloader tool to download the bits (about 16GB or 23GB with optional Windows Server 2016 base image) which will either be in several separate files which you stitch back together with the MicrosoftAzureStackPOC tool, or as a large VHDX file and smaller 6.8GB ISO (Windows Server 2016). Prepare your target server system for installation once you have all the software pieces downloaded (or do the preparations while waiting for download).

    Once you have the software downloaded, if it is a series of eight .bin files (7 about 2GB, 1 around 1.5GB), good idea to verify their checksums, then stitch them together on your target system, or on a staging storage device or file share. Note that for the actual deployment first phase, the large resulting cloudbuilder.vhdx file will need to reside in the C:\ root location of the server where you are installing Azure Stack.

    server storageio nested azure stack tp3 vmware

    Azure Stack deployment prerequisites (Microsoft) include:

    • At least 12 cores (or more), dual socket processor if possible
    • As much DRAM as possible (I used 100GB)
    • Put the operating system disk on flash SSD (SAS, SATA, NVMe) if possible, allocate at least 200GB (more is better)
    • Four x 140GB or larger (I went with 250GB) drives (HDD or SSD) for data deployment drives
    • A single NIC or adapter (I put mine into static instead of DHCP mode)
    • Verify your physical or virtual server BIOS has VT enabled

    The above image helps to set the story of what is being done. On the left is for bare metal (BM) or physical machine (PM) install of Azure Stack TP3, on the right, a nested VMware (vSphere ESXi 6.5) with virtual machine (VM) 11 approach. Note that you could also do a Hyper-V nested among other approaches. Shown in the image above common to both a BM or VM is a staging area (could be space on your system drive) where Azure Stack download occurs. If you use a separate staging area, then simply copy the individual .bin files and stitch together into the larger .VHDX, or, copy the larger .VHDX, which is better is up to your preferences.

    Note that if you use the nested approach, there are a couple of configuration (PowerShell) scripts that need to be updated. These changes are to trick the installer into thinking that it is on a PM when it checks to see if on physical or virtual environments.

    Also note that if using nested, make sure you have your VMware vSphere ESXi host along with specific VM properly configured (e.g. that virtualization and other features are presented to the VM). With vSphere ESXi 6.5 virtual machine type 11 nesting is night and day easier vs. earlier generations.

    Something else to explain here is that you will initially start the Azure Stack install preparation using a standard Windows Server (I used a 2016 version) where the .VHDX is copied into its C:\ root. From there you will execute some PowerShell scripts to setup some configuration files, one of which needs to be modified for nesting.

    Once those prep steps are done, there is a Cloudbuilder deploy script that gets run that can be done with an unattend.xml file or manual input. This step will cause a dual-boot option to be added to your server where you can select Azure Stack or your base prep Windows Server instance, followed by reboot.

    After the reboot occurs and you choose to boot into Azure Stack, this is the server instance that will actually run the deployment script, as well as build and launch all the VMs for the Azure Stack TP3 PoC. This is where I recommend having a rough sketch like above to annotate layers as you go to remember what layer working at. Don’t worry, it becomes much easier once all is said and done.

    Speaking of preparing your server, refer to Microsoft specs, however in general give the server as much RAM and cores as possible. Also if possible place the system disk on a flash SSD (SAS, SATA, NVMe) and make sure that it has at least 200GB, however 250 or even 300GB is better (just in case you need more space).

    Additional configuration tips include allocating four data disks for Azure, if possible make these SSDs as well as, however more important IMHO to have at least the system on fast flash SSD. Another tip is to enable only one network card or NIC and put it into static vs. DHCP address mode to make things easier later.

    Tip: If running nested, vSphere 6.5 worked the smoothest as had various issues or inconsistencies with earlier VMware versions, even with VMs that ran nested just fine.

    Tip: Why run nested? Simple, I wanted to be able to use using VMware tools, do snapshots to go back in time, plus share the server with some other activities until ready to give Azure Stack TP3 its own PM.

    Tip: Do not connect the POC machine to the following subnets (192.168.200.0/24, 192.168.100.0/27, 192.168.101.0/26, 192.168.102.0/24, 192.168.103.0/25, 192.168.104.0/25) as Azure Stack TP3 uses those.

    storageio azure stack tp3 vmware configuration

    Since I decided to use a nested VM deploying using VMware, there were a few extra steps needed that I have included as tips and notes. Following is view via vSphere client of the ESXi host and VM configuration.

    The following image combines a couple of different things including:

    A: Showing the contents of C:\Azurestack_Supportfiles directory

    B: Modifying the PrepareBootFromVHD.ps1 file if deploying on virtual machine (See tips and notes)

    C: Showing contents of staging area including individual .bin files along with large CloudBuilder.vhdx

    D: Running the PowerShell script commands to prepare the PrepareBootFromVHD.ps1 and related items

    prepariing azure stack tp3 cloudbuilder for nested vmware deployment

    From PowerShell (administrator):

    # Variables
    $Uri = 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/Azure stack/master/Deployment/'
    $LocalPath = 'c:\AzureStack_SupportFiles'
     
    # Create folder
    New-Item $LocalPath -type directory
     
    # Download files
    ( 'BootMenuNoKVM.ps1', 'PrepareBootFromVHD.ps1', 'Unattend.xml', 'unattend_NoKVM.xml') | foreach { Invoke-WebRequest ($uri + $_) -OutFile ($LocalPath + '\' + $_) }

    After you do the above, decide if you will be using an Unattend.xml or manual entry of items for building the Azure Stack deployment server (e.g. a Windows Server). Note that the above PowerShell script created the C:\azurestack_supportfiles folder and downloads the script files for building the cloud image using the previously downloaded Azure Stack CloudBuilder.vhdx (which should be in C:\).

    Note and tip is that if you are doing a VMware or virtual machine based deployment of TP3 PoC, you will need to change C:\PrepareBootFromVHD.ps1 in the Azure Stack support files folder. Here is a good resource on what gets changed via Github that shows an edit on or about line 87 of PrepareBootFromVHD.ps1. If you run the PrepareBootFromVHD.ps1 script on a virtual machine you will get an error message, the fix is relatively easy (after I found this post).

    Look in PrepareBootFromVHD.ps1 for something like the following around line 87:

    if ((get-disk | where {$_.isboot -eq $true}).Model -match 'Virtual Disk')       {      Write-Host "The server is currently already booted from a virtual hard disk, to boot the server from the CloudBuilder.vhdx you will need to run this script on an Operating System that is installed on the physical disk of this server."      Exit      }

    You can either remove the "exit" command, or, change the test for "Virtual Disk" to something like "X", for fun I did both (and it worked).

    Note that you only have to make the above and another change in a later step if you are deploying Azure Stack TP3 as a virtual machine.

    Once you are ready, go ahead and launch the PrepareBootFromVHD.ps1 script which will set the BCDBoot entry (more info here).

    azure stack tp3 cloudbuilder nested vmware deployment

    You will see a reboot and install, this is installing what will be called the physical instance. Note that this is really being installed on the VM system drive as a secondary boot option (e.g. azure stack).

    azure stack tp3 dual boot option

    After the reboot, login to the new Azure Stack base system and complete any configuration including adding VMware Tools if using VMware nested. Some other things to do include make sure you have your single network adapter set to static (makes things easier), and any other updates or customizations. Before you run the next steps, you need to decide if going to use Azure Active Directory (AAD) or local ADFS.

    Note that if you are not running on a virtual machine, simply open a PowerShell (administrator) session, and run the deploy script. Refer to here for more guidance on the various options available including discussion on using AAD or ADFS.

    Note if you run the deployment script on a virtual machine, you will get an error which is addressed in the next section, otherwise, sit back and watch the progress..

    CloudBuilder Deployment Time

    Once you have your Azure Stack deployment system and environment ready, including a snapshot if on virtual machine, launch the PowerShell deployment script. Note that you will need to have decided if deploying with Azure Active Directory (AAD) or Azure Directory Federated Services (ADFS) for standalone aka submarine mode. There are also other options you can select as part of the deployment discussed in the Azure Stack tips here (a must read) and here. I chose to do a submarine mode (e.g. not connected to Public Azure and AAD) deployment.

    From PowerShell (administrator):

    cd C:\CloudDeployment:\Setup
    
$adminpass = ConvertTo-SecureString "youradminpass" -AsPlainText -Force
    
.\InstallAzureStackPOC.ps1 -AdminPassword $adminpass -UseADFS

    Deploying on VMware Virtual Machines Tips

    Here is a good tip via Gareth Jones (@garethjones294) that I found useful for updating one of the deployment script files (BareMetal_Tests.ps1 located in C:\CloudDeployment\Roles\PhysicalMachines\Tests folder) so that it would skip the bare metal (PM) vs. VM tests. Another good resource, even though it is for TP2 and early versions of VMware is TP2 deployment experiences by Niklas Akerlund (@vNiklas).

    Note that this is a bit of a chick and egg scenario unless you are proficient at digging into script files since the BareMetal_Tests.ps1 file does not get unpacked until you run the CloudBuilder deployment script. If you run the script and get an error, then make the changes below, and rerun the script as noted. Once you make the modification to the BareMetal_Tests.ps1 file, keep a copy in a safe place for future use.

    Here are some more tips for deploying Azure Stack on VMware,

    Per the tip mentioned about via Gareth Jones (tip: read Gareths post vs. simply cut and paste the following which is more of a guide):

    Open BareMetal_Tests.ps1 file in PowerShell ISE and navigate to line 376 (or in that area)
    Change $false to $true which will stop the script failing when checking to see if the Azure Stack is running inside a VM.
    Next go to line 453.
    Change the last part of the line to read “Should Not BeLessThan 0”
    This will stop the script checking for the required amount of cores available.

    After you make the above correction as with any error (and fix) during Azure Stack TP3 PoC deployment, simply run the following.

    cd C:\CloudDeployment\Setup
.\InstallAzureStackPOC.ps1 -rerun

    Refer to the extra links in the where to learn more section below that offer various tips, tricks and insight that I found useful, particular for deploying on VMware aka nested. Also in the links below are tips on general Azure Stack, TP2, TP3, adding services among other insight.

    starting azure stack tp3 deployment

    Tip: If you are deploying Azure Stack TP3 PoC on virtual machine, once you start the script above, copy the modified BareMetal_Tests.ps1 file

    Once the CloudBuilder deployment starts, sit back and wait, if you are using SSDs, it will take a while, if using HDDs, it will take a long while (up to hours), however check in on it now and then to see progress of if any errors. Note that some of the common errors will occur very early in the deployment such as the BareMetal_Tests.ps1 mentioned above.

    azure stack tp3 deployment finished

    Checking in periodically to see how the deployment progress is progressing, as well as what is occurring. If you have the time, watch some of the scripts as you can see some interesting things such as the software defined data center (SDDC) aka software-defined data infrastructure (SDDC) aka Azure Stack virtual environment created. This includes virtual machine creation and population, creating the software defined storage using storage spaces direct (S2D), virtual network and active directory along with domain controllers among others activity.

    azure stack tp3 deployment progress

    After Azure Stack Deployment Completes

    After you see the deployment completed, you can try accessing the management portal, however there may be some background processing still running. Here is a good tip post on connecting to Azure Stack from Microsoft using Remote Desktop (RDP) access. Use RDP from the Azure Stack deployment Windows Server and connect to a virtual machine named MAS-CON01, launch Server Manager and for Local Server disable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security (make sure you are on the right system, see the tip mentioned above). Disconnect from MAS-CON01 (refer to the Azure Stack architecture image above), then reconnect, and launch Internet Explorer with an URL of (note documentation side to use which did not work for me).

    Note the username for the Azure Stack system is AzureStack\AzureStackAdmin with a password of what you set for administrative during setup. If you get an error, verify the URLs, check your network connectivity, wait a few minutes as well as verify what server you are trying to connect from and too. Keep in mind that even if deploying on a PM or BM (e.g. non virtual server or VM), the Azure Stack deployment TP3 PoC creates a "virtual" software-defined environment with servers, storage (Azure Stack uses Storage Spaces Direct [S2D] and software defined network.

    accessing azure stack tp3 management portal dashboard

    Once able to connect to Azure Stack, you can add new services including virtual machine image instances such as Windows (use the Server 2016 ISO that is part of Azure Stack downloads), Linux or others. You can also go to these Microsoft resources for some first learning scenarios, using the management portals, configuring PowerShell and troubleshooting.

    Where to learn more

    The following provide more information and insight about Azure, Azure Stack, Microsoft and Windows among related topics.

  • Azure Stack Technical Preview 3 (TP3) Overview Preview Review
  • Azure Stack TP3 Overview Preview Review Part II
  • Azure Stack Technical Preview (get the bits aka software download here)
  • Azure Stack deployment prerequisites (Microsoft)
  • Microsoft Azure Stack troubleshooting (Microsoft Docs)
  • Azure Stack TP3 refresh tips (Azure Stack)
  • Here is a good post with a tip about not applying certain Windows updates to AzureStack TP3 installs.
  • Configure Azure Stack TP3 to be available on your own network (Azure Stack)
  • Azure Stack TP3 Marketplace syndication (Azure Stack)
  • Azure Stack TP3 deployment experiences (Azure Stack)
  • Frequently asked questions for Azure Stack (Microsoft)
  • Azure Active Directory (AAD) and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
  • Deploy Azure Stack (Microsoft)
  • Connect to Azure Stack (Microsoft)
  • Azure Stack TP2 deployment experiences by Niklas Akerlund (@vNiklas) useful for tips for TP3
  • Deployment Checker for Azure Stack Technical Preview (Microsoft Technet)
  • Azure stack and other tools (Github)
  • How to enable nested virtualization on Hyper-V Windows Server 2016
  • Dell EMC announce Microsoft Hybrid Cloud Azure Stack (Dell EMC)
  • Dell EMC Cloud for Microsoft Azure Stack (Dell EMC)
  • Dell EMC Cloud for Microsoft Azure Stack Data Sheet (Dell EMC PDF)
  • Dell EMC Cloud Chats (Dell EMC Blog)
  • Microsoft Azure stack forum
  • Dell EMC Microsoft Azure Stack solution
  • Gaining Server Storage I/O Insight into Microsoft Windows Server 2016
  • Overview Review of Microsoft ReFS (Reliable File System) and resource links
  • Via WServerNews.com Cloud (Microsoft Azure) storage considerations
  • Via CloudComputingAdmin.com Cloud Storage Decision Making: Using Microsoft Azure for cloud storage
  • www.thenvmeplace.com, www.thessdplace.com, www.objectstoragecenter.com and www.storageio.com/converge

    • What this all means

    A common question is if there is demand for private and hybrid cloud, in fact, some industry expert pundits have even said private, or hybrid are dead which is interesting, how can something be dead if it is just getting started. Likewise, it is early to tell if Azure Stack will gain traction with various organizations, some of whom may have tried or struggled with OpenStack among others.

    Given a large number of Microsoft Windows-based servers on VMware, OpenStack, Public cloud services as well as other platforms, along with continued growing popularity of Azure, having a solution such as Azure Stack provides an attractive option for many environments. That leads to the question of if Azure Stack is essentially a replacement for Windows Servers or Hyper-V and if only for Windows guest operating systems. At this point indeed, Windows would be an attractive and comfortable option, however, given a large number of Linux-based guests running on Hyper-V as well as Azure Public, those are also primary candidates as are containers and other services.

    software defined data infrastructures SDDI and SDDC

    Some will say that if OpenStack is struggling in many organizations and being free open source, how Microsoft can have success with Azure Stack. The answer could be that some organizations have struggled with OpenStack while others have not due to lack of commercial services and turnkey support. Having installed both OpenStack and Azure Stack (as well as VMware among others), Azure Stack is at least the TP3 PoC is easy to install, granted it is limited to one node, unlike the production versions. Likewise, there are easy to use appliance versions of OpenStack that are limited in scale, as well as more involved installs that unlock full functionality.

    OpenStack, Azure Stack, VMware and others have their places, alongside, or supporting containers along with other tools. In some cases, those technologies may exist in the same environment supporting different workloads, as well as accessing various public clouds, after all, Hybrid is the home run for many if not most legality IT environments.

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Dell EMC Announce Azure Stack Hybrid Cloud Solution

    server storage I/O trends

    Dell EMC Azure Stack Hybrid Cloud Solution

    Dell EMC have announced their Microsoft Azure Stack hybrid cloud platform solutions. This announcement builds upon earlier statements of support and intention by Dell EMC to be part of the Microsoft Azure Stack community. For those of you who are not familiar, Azure Stack is an on premise extension of Microsoft Azure public cloud.

    What this means is that essentially you can have the Microsoft Azure experience (or a subset of it) in your own data center or data infrastructure, enabling cloud experiences and abilities at your own pace, your own way with control. Learn more about Microsoft Azure Stack including my experiences with and installing Technique Preview 3 (TP3) here.

    software defined data infrastructures SDDI and SDDC

    What Is Azure Stack

    Microsoft Azure Stack is an on-premises (e.g. in your own data center) private (or hybrid when connected to Azure) cloud platform. Currently Azure Stack is in Technical Preview 3 (e.g. TP3) and available as a proof of concept (POC) download from Microsoft. You can use Azure Stack TP3 as a POC for learning, demonstrating and trying features among other activities. Here is link to a Microsoft Video providing an overview of Azure Stack, and here is a good summary of roadmap, licensing and related items.

    In summary, Microsoft Azure Stack and this announcement is about:

    • A onsite, on-premises, in your data center extension of Microsoft Azure public cloud
    • Enabling private and hybrid cloud with good integration along with shared experiences with Azure
    • Adopt, deploy, leverage cloud on your terms and timeline choosing what works best for you
    • Common processes, tools, interfaces, management and user experiences
    • Leverage speed of deployment and configuration with a purpose-built integrated solution
    • Support existing and cloud-native Windows, Linux, Container and other services
    • Available as a public preview via software download, as well as vendors offering solutions

    What Did Dell EMC Announce

    Dell EMC announced their initial product, platform solutions, and services for Azure Stack. This includes a Proof of Concept (PoC) starter kit (PE R630) for doing evaluations, prototype, training, development test, DevOp and other initial activities with Azure Stack. Dell EMC also announced a larger for production deployment, or large-scale development, test DevOp activity turnkey solution. The initial production solution scales from 4 to 12 nodes, or from 80 to 336 cores that include hardware (server compute, memory, I/O and networking, top of rack (TOR) switches, management, Azure Stack software along with services. Other aspects of the announcement include initial services in support of Microsoft Azure Stack and Azure cloud offerings.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    The announcement builds on joint Dell EMC Microsoft experience, partnerships, technologies and services spanning hardware, software, on site data center and public cloud.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Dell EMC along with Microsoft have engineered a hybrid cloud platform for organizations to modernize their data infrastructures enabling faster innovate, accelerate deployment of resources. Includes hardware (server compute, memory, I/O networking, storage devices), software, services, and support.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    The value proposition of Dell EMC hybrid cloud for Microsoft Azure Stack includes consistent experience for developers and IT data infrastructure professionals. Common experience across Azure public cloud and Azure Stack on-premises in your data center for private or hybrid. This includes common portal, Powershell, DevOps tools, Azure Resource Manager (ARM), Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), Cloud Infrastructure and associated experiences (management, provisioning, services).
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Secure, protect, preserve and serve applications VMs hosted on Azure Stack with Dell EMC services along with Microsoft technologies. Dell EMC data protection including backup and restore, Encryption as a Service, host guard and protected VMs, AD integration among other features.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Dell EMC services for Microsoft Azure Stack include single contact support for prepare, assessment, planning; deploy with rack integration, delivery, configuration; extend the platform with applicable migration, integration with Office 365 and other applications, build new services.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Dell EMC Hyper-converged scale out solutions range from minimum of 4 x PowerEdge R730XD (total raw specs include 80 cores (4 x 20), 1TB RAM (4 x 256GB), 12.8TB SSD Cache, 192TB Storage, plus two top of row network switches (Dell EMC) and 1U management server node. Initial maximum configuration raw specification includes 12 x R730XD (total 336 cores), 6TB memory, 86TB SSD cache, 900TB storage along with TOR network switch and management server.

    The above configurations initially enable HCI nodes of small (low) 20 cores, 256GB memory, 5.7TB SSD cache, 40TB storage; mid size 24 cores, 384GB memory, 11.5TB cache and 60TB storage; high-capacity with 28 cores, 512GB memory, 11.5TB cache and 80TB storage per node.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Dell EMC Evaluator program for Microsoft Azure Stack including the PE R630 for PoCs, development, test and training environments. The solution combines Microsoft Azure Stack software, Dell EMC server with Intel E5-2630 (10 cores, 20 threads / logical processors or LPs), or Intel E5-2650 (12 cores, 24 threads / LPs). Memory is 128GB or 256GB, storage includes flash SSD (2 x 480GB SAS) and HDD (6 x 1TB SAS).
    and networking.
    server storage I/O trends
    Image via Dell EMC

    Collaborative support single contact between Microsoft and Dell EMC

    Who Is This For

    This announcement is for any organization that is looking for an on-premises, in your data center private or hybrid cloud turnkey solution stack. This initial set of announcements can be for those looking to do a proof of concept (PoC), advanced prototype, support development test, DevOp or gain cloud-like elasticity, ease of use, rapid procurement and other experiences of public cloud, on your terms and timeline. Naturally, there is a strong affinity and seamless experience for those already using, or planning to use Azure Public Cloud for Windows, Linux, Containers and other workloads, applications, and services.

    What Does This Cost

    Check with your Dell EMC representative or partner for exact pricing which varies for the size and configurations. There are also various licensing models to take into consideration if you have Microsoft Enterprise License Agreements (ELAs) that your Dell EMC representative or business partner can address for you. Likewise being cloud based, there is also time usage-based options to explore.

    Where to learn more

    What this all means

    The dust is starting to settle on last falls Dell EMC integration, both of whom have long histories working with, and partnering along with Microsoft on legacy, as well as virtual software-defined data centers (SDDC), software-defined data infrastructures (SDDI), native, and hybrid clouds. Some may view the Dell EMC VMware relationship as a primary focus, however, keep in mind that both Dell and EMC had worked with Microsoft long before VMware came into being. Likewise, Microsoft remains one of the most commonly deployed operating systems on VMware-based environments. Granted Dell EMC have a significant focus on VMware, they both also sell, service and support many services for Microsoft-based solutions.

    What about Cisco, HPE, Lenovo among others who have to announce or discussed their Microsoft Azure Stack intentions? Good question, until we hear more about what those and others are doing or planning, there is not much more to do or discuss beyond speculating for now. Another common question is if there is demand for private and hybrid cloud, in fact, some industry expert pundits have even said private, or hybrid are dead which is interesting, how can something be dead if it is just getting started. Likewise, it is early to tell if Azure Stack will gain traction with various organizations, some of whom may have tried or struggled with OpenStack among others.

    Given a large number of Microsoft Windows-based servers on VMware, OpenStack, Public cloud services as well as other platforms, along with continued growing popularity of Azure, having a solution such as Azure Stack provides an attractive option for many environments. That leads to the question of if Azure Stack is essentially a replacement for Windows Servers or Hyper-V and if only for Windows guest operating systems. At this point indeed, Windows would be an attractive and comfortable option, however, given a large number of Linux-based guests running on Hyper-V as well as Azure Public, those are also primary candidates as are containers and other services.

    Overall, this is an excellent and exciting move for both Microsoft extending their public cloud software stack to be deployed within data centers in a hybrid way, something that those customers are familiar with doing. This is a good example of hybrid being spanning public and private clouds, remote and on-premises, as well as familiarity and control of traditional procurement with the flexibility, elasticity experience of clouds.

    software defined data infrastructures SDDI and SDDC

    Some will say that if OpenStack is struggling in many organizations and being free open source, how Microsoft can have success with Azure Stack. The answer could be that some organizations have struggled with OpenStack while others have not due to lack of commercial services and turnkey support. Having installed both OpenStack and Azure Stack (as well as VMware among others), Azure Stack is at least the TP3 PoC is easy to install, granted it is limited to one node, unlike the production versions. Likewise, there are easy to use appliance versions of OpenStack that are limited in scale, as well as more involved installs that unlock full functionality.

    OpenStack, Azure Stack, VMware and others have their places, along, or supporting containers along with other tools. In some cases, those technologies may exist in the same environment supporting different workloads, as well as accessing various public clouds, after all, Hybrid is the home run for many if not most legality IT environments.

    Overall this is a good announcement from Dell EMC for those who are interested in, or should become more aware about Microsoft Azure Stack, Cloud along with hybrid clouds. Likewise look forward to hearing more about the solutions from others who will be supporting Azure Stack as well as other hybrid (and Virtual Private Clouds).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Broadcom aka Avago aka LSI announces SAS SATA NVMe Adapters with RAID

    server storage I/O trends

    Broadcom aka Avago aka LSI announces SAS SATA NVMe Adapters with RAID

    In case you missed it, Broadcom formerly known as Avago who bought the LSI adapter and RAID card business announced shipping new SAS, SATA and NVMe devices.

    While SAS and SATA are well established continuing to be deployed for both HDD as well as flash SSD, NVMe continues to evolve with a bright future. Likewise, while there is a focus on software-defined storage (SDS), software defined data centers (SDDC) and software defined data infrastructures (SDDI) along with advanced parity RAID including erasure codes, object storage among other technologies, there is still a need for adapter cards including traditional RAID.

    Keep in mind that while probably not meeting the definition of some software-defined aficionados, the many different variations, permutations along with derivatives of RAID from mirror and replication to basic parity to advanced erasure codes (some based on Reed Solomon aka RAID 2) rely on software. Granted, some of that software is run on regular primary server processors, some on packaged in silicon via ASICs or FPGAs, or System on Chips (SOC), RAID on Chip (RoC) as well as BIOS, firmware, drivers as well as management tools.

    SAS, SATA and NVMe adapters

    For some environments cards such as those announced by Broadcom are used in passthru mode effectively as adapters for attaching SAS, SATA and NVMe storage devices to servers. Those servers may be deployed as converged infrastructures (CI), hyper-converged infrastructures (HCI), Cluster or Cloud in Box (CiB) among other variations. To name names you might find the above (or in the not so distant future) in VMware vSAN or regular vSphere based environments, Microsoft Windows Server, Storage Spaces Direct (S2D) or Azure Stack, OpenStack among other deployments (check your vendors Hardware Compatibility Lists aka HCLs). In some cases these cards may be adapters in passthru mode, or using their RAID (support various by different software stacks). Meanwhile in other environments, the more traditional RAID features are still used spanning Windows to Linux among others.

    Who Is Broadcom?

    Some of you may know of Broadcom having been around for many years with a focus on networking related technologies. However some may not realize that Avago bought Broadcom and changed their name to Broadcom. Here is a history that includes more recent acquisitions such as Brocade, PLX, Emulex as well as LSI. Some of you may recall Avago buying LSI (the SAS, SATA, PCIe HBA, RAID and components) business not sold to NetApp as part of Engenio. Also recall that Avago sold the LSI flash SSD business unit to Seagate a couple of years ago as part of its streamlining. That’s how we get to where we are at today with Broadcom aka formerly known as Avago who bought the LSI adapter and RAID business announcing new SAS, SATA, NVMe cards.

    What Was Announced?

    Broadcom has announced cards that are multi-protocol supporting Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), SATA/AHCI as well as NVM Express (NVMe) as basic adapters for attaching storage (HDD, SSD, storage systems) along with optional RAID as well as cache support. These cards can be used in application servers for traditional, as well as virtualized SDDC environments, as well as storage systems or appliances for software-defined storage among other uses. The basic functionality of these cards is to provide high performance (IOPs and other activity, as well as bandwidth) along with low latency combined with data protection as well as dense connectivity.

    Specific features include:

    • Broadcom’s Tri-Mode SerDes Technology enables the operation of NVMe, SAS or SATA devices in a single drive bay, allowing for endless design flexibility.
    • Management software including LSI Storage Authority (LSA), StorCLI, HII (UEFI)
    • Optional CacheVault(R) flash cache protection
    • Physical dimension Low Profile 6.127” x 2.712”
    • Host bus type x8 lane PCIe Express 3.1
    • Data transfer rates SAS-3 12Gbs; NVMe up to 8 GT/s PCIe Gen 3
    • Various OS and hypervisors host platform support
    • Warranty 3 yrs, free 5×8 phone support, advanced replacement option
    • RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60

    Note that some of the specific feature functionality may be available at a later date, check with your preferred vendors HCL

    Specification

    9480 8i8e

    9440 8i

    9460 8i

    9460 16i

    Image

    Internal Ports

    8

     

    8

    16

    Internal Connectors

    2 x Mini-SAS HD x4 SFF-8643

    2 x Mini-SAS HD x4 SFF-8643

    2 x Mini-SAS HD x4 SFF-8643

    4 Mini-SAS HD x4
    SFF-8643

    External Ports

    8

     

     

     

    External Connectors

    2 x Mini-SAS HD SFF8644

     

     

     

    Cache Protection

    CacheVault CVPM05

     

    CacheVault CVPM05

    CacheVault CVPM05

    Cache Memory

    2GB 2133 MHz DDR4 SDRAM

     

    2GB 2133 MHz DDR4 SDRAM

    4GB 2133 MHz DDR4 SDRAM

    Devices Supported

    SAS/SATA: 255, NVMe: 4 x4, up to 24 x2 or x4*

    SAS/SATA: 63, NVMe: 4 x4, up to 24 x2 or x4*

    SAS/SATA: 255, NVMe: 4 x4, up to 24 x2 or x4*

    SAS/SATA: 255, NVMe: 4 x4, up to 24 x2 or x4*

    I/O Processors (SAS Controller)

    SAS3516 dual-core RAID-on-Chip (ROC)

    SAS3408 I/O controller (IOC)

    SAS3508 dual-core RAID-on-Chip (ROC)

    SAS3516 dual-core RAID-on-Chip (ROC)

    In case you need a refresher on SFF cable types, click on the following two images which take you to Amazon.com where you can learn more, as well as order various cable options. PC Pit Stop has a good selection of cables (See other SFF types), connectors and other accessories that I have used, along with those from Amazon.com and others.

    Available via Amazon.com sff 8644 8643 sas mini hd cable
    Left: SFF 8644 Mini SAS HD (External), Right SFF-8643 Mini SAS HD (internal) Image via Amazon.com

    Available via Amazon.com sff 8644 8642 sas mini hd cable
    Left: SFF 8643 Mini SAS HD (Internal), Right SFF-8642 SATA with power (internal) Image via Amazon.com

    Wait, Doesnt NVMe use PCIe

    For those who are not familiar with NVMe and in particular U.2 aka SFF 8639 based devices, physically they look the same (almost) as a SAS device connector. The slight variation is if you look at a SAS drive, there is a small tab to prevent plugging into a SATA port (recall you can plug SATA into SAS. For SAS drives that tab is blank, however on the NVMe 8639 aka U.2 drives (below left) that tab has several connectors which are PCIe x4 (single or dual path).

    What this means is that the PCIe x4 bus electrical signals are transferred via a connector, to backplane chassis to 8639 drive slot to the drive. Those same 8639 drive slots can also have a SAS SATA connection using their traditional connectors enabling a converged or hybrid drive slot so to speak. Learn more about NVMe here (If the Answer is NVMe, then what were and are the questions?) as well as at www.thenvmeplace.com.

    NVMe U.2 8639 driveNVMe U.2 8639 sas sata nvme drive
    Left NVMe U.2 drive showing PCIe x4 connectors, right, NVMe U.2 8639 connector

    Who Is This For?

    These cards are applicable for general purpose IT and other data infrastructure environments in traditional servers among others uses. They are also applicable for systems builders, integrators and OEMs whom you may be buying your current systems from, or future ones.

    Where to Learn More

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

    What this all means

    Even as the industry continues to talk and move towards more software-defined focus, even for environments that are serverless, there is still need for hardware somewhere. These adapters are a good sign of the continued maturing cycle of NVMe to be well positioned into the next decade and beyond, while also being relevant today. Likewise, even though the future involves NVMe, there is a still a place for SAS along with SATA to coexist in many environments. For some environment there is a need for traditional RAID while for others simply the need for attachment of SAS, SATA and NVMe devices. Overall, a good set of updates, enhancements and new technology for today and tomorrow, now, when do I get some to play with? ;).

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Cisco Next Gen 32Gb Fibre Channel NVMe SAN Updates

    server storage I/O trends

    Cisco Next Gen 32Gb Fibre Channel and NVMe SAN Updates

    Cisco announced today next generation MDS storage area networking (SAN) Fibre Channel (FC) switches with 32Gb, along with NVMe over FC support.

    Cisco Fibre Channel (FC) Directors (Left) and Switches (Right)

    Highlights of the Cisco announcement include:

    • MDS 9700 48 port 32Gbps FC switching module
    • High density 768 port 32Gbps FC directors
    • NVMe over FC for attaching fast flash SSD devices (current MDS 9700, 9396S, 9250i and 9148S)
    • Integrated analytics engine for management insight awareness
    • Multiple concurrent protocols including NVMe, SCSI (e.g. SCSI_FCP aka FCP) and FCoE

    Where to Learn More

    The following are additional resources to learn more.

    What this all means, wrap up and summary

    Fibre Channel remains relevant for many environments and it makes sense that Cisco known for Ethernet along with IP networking enhance their offerings. By having 32Gb Fibre Channel, along with adding NVMe over Fabric provides existing (and new) Cisco customers to support their legacy (e.g. FC) and emerging (NVMe) workloads as well as devices. For those environments that still need some mix of Fibre Channel, as well as NVMe over fabric this is a good announcement. Keep an eye and ear open for which storage vendors jump on the NVMe over Fabric bandwagon now that Cisco as well as Brocade have made switch support announcements.

    Ok, nuff said (for now…).

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    March 2017 Server StorageIO Data Infrastructure Update Newsletter

    Volume 17, Issue III

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

    First a reminder world backup (and recovery) day is on March 31. Following up from the February Server StorageIO update newsletter that had a focus on data protection this edition includes some additional posts, articles, tips and commentary below.

    Other data infrastructure (and tradecraft) topics in this edition include cloud, virtual, server, storage and I/O including NVMe as well as networks. Industry trends include new technology and services announcements, cloud services, HPE buying Nimble among other activity. Check out the Converged Infrastructure (CI), Hyper-Converged (HCI) and Cluster in Box (or Cloud in Box) coverage including a recent SNIA webinar I was invited to be the guest presenter for, along with companion post below.

    In This Issue

    Enjoy this edition of the Server StorageIO update newsletter.

    Cheers GS

    Data Infrastructure and IT Industry Activity Trends

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

    Dell EMC has discontinued the NVMe direct attached shared DSSD D5 all flash array has been discontinued. At about the same time Dell EMC is shutting down the DSSD D5 product, it has also signaled they will leverage the various technologies including NVMe across their broad server storage portfolio in different ways moving forward. While Dell EMC is shutting down DSSD D5, they are also bringing additional NVMe solutions to the market including those they have been shipping for years (e.g. on the server-side). Learn more about DSSD D5 here and here including perspectives of how it could have been used (plays for playbooks).

    Meanwhile NVMe industry activity continues to expand with different solutions from startups such as E8, Excelero, Everspin, Intel, Mellanox, Micron, Samsung and WD SANdisk among others. Also keep in mind, if the answer is NVMe, then what were and are the questions to ask, as well as what are some easy to use benchmark scripts (using fio, diskspd, vdbench, iometer).

    Speaking of NVMe, flash and SSDs, Amazon Web Services (AWS) have added new Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) storage and I/O optimized i3 instances. These new instances are available in various configurations with different amounts of vCPU (cores or logical processors), memory and NVMe SSD capacities (and quantity) along with price.

    Note that the price per i3 instance varies not only by its configuration, also for image and region deployed in. The flash SSD capacities range from an entry-level (i3.large) with 2 vCPU (logical processors), 15.25GB of RAM and a single 475GB NVMe SSD that for example in the US East Region was recently priced at $0.156 per hour. At the high-end there is the i3.16xlarge with 64 vCPU (logical processors), 488GB RAM and 8 x 1900GB NVMe SSDs with a recent US East Region price of $4.992 per hour. Note that the vCPU refers to the available number of logical processors available and not necessarily cores or sockets.

    Also note that your performance will vary, and while NVMe protocol tends to use less CPU per I/O, if generating a large number of I/Os you will need some CPU. What this means is that if you find your performance limited compared to expectations with the lower end i3 instances, move up to a larger instance and see what happens. If you have a Windows-based environment, you can use a tool such as Diskspd to see what happens with I/O performance as you decrease the number of CPUs used.

    Chelsio has announced they are now Microsoft Azure Stack Certified with their iWARP RDMA host adapter solutions, as well as for converged infrastructure (CI), hyper-converged (HCI) and legacy server storage deployments. As part of the announcement, Chelsio is also offering a 30 day no cost trial of their adapters for Microsoft Azure Stack, Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 client environments. Learn more about the Chelsio trial offer here.

    Everspin (the MRAM Spintorque, persistent RAM folks) have announced a new Storage Class Memory (SCM) NVMe accessible family (nvNITRO) of storage accelerator devices (PCIe AiC, U.2). Whats interesting about Everspin is that they are using NVMe for accessing their persistent RAM (e.g. MRAM) making it easily plug compatible with existing operating systems or hypervisors. This means using standard out of the box NVMe drivers where the Everspin SCM appears as a block device (for compatibility) functioning as a low latency, high performance persistent write cache.

    Something else interesting besides making the new memory compatible with existing servers CPU complex via PCIe, is how Everspin is demonstrating that NVMe as a general access protocol is not just exclusive to nand flash-based SSDs. What this means is that instead of using non-persistent DRAM, or slower NAND flash (or 3D XPoint SCM), Everspin nvNITRO enables high endurance write cache with persistent to compliment existing NAND flash as well as emerging 3D XPoint based storage. Keep an eye on Everspin as they are doing some interesting things for future discussions.

    Google Cloud Services has added additional regions (cloud locations) and other enhancements.

    HPE continued buying into server storage I/O data infrastructure technologies announcing an all cash (e.g. no stock) acquisition of Nimble Storage (NMBL). The cash acquisition for a little over $1B USD amounts to $12.50 USD per Nimble share, double what it had traded at. As a refresh, or overview, Nimble is an all flash shared storage system leverage NAND flash solid storage device (SSD) performance. Note that Nimble also partners with Cisco and Lenovo platforms that compete with HPE servers for converged systems.View additional perspectives here.

    Riverbed has announced the release of Steelfusion 5 which while its name implies physical hardware metal, the solution is available as tin wrapped (e.g. hardware appliance) software. However the solution is also available for deployment as a VMware virtual appliance for remote office branch office (ROBO) among others. Enhancements include converged functionality such as NAS support along with network latency as well as bandwidth among other features.

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

    Server StorageIOblog Posts

    Recent and popular Server StorageIOblog posts include:

    View other recent as well as past StorageIOblog posts here

    Server StorageIO Commentary in the news

    Recent Server StorageIO industry trends perspectives commentary in the news.

    Via InfoStor: 8 Big Enterprise SSD Trends to Expect in 2017
    Watch for increased capacities at lower cost, differentiation awareness of high-capacity, low-cost and lower performing SSDs versus improved durability and performance along with cost capacity enhancements for active SSD (read and write optimized). You can also expect increased support for NVMe both as a back-end storage device with different form factors (e.g., M.2 gum sticks, U.2 8639 drives, PCIe cards) as well as front-end (e.g., storage systems that are NVMe-attached) including local direct-attached and fiber-attached. This means more awareness around NVMe both as front-end and back-end deployment options.

    Via SearchITOperations: Storage performance bottlenecks
    Sometimes it takes more than an aspirin to cure a headache. There may be a bottleneck somewhere else, in hardware, software, storage system architecture or something else.

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

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

    Via SearchDataCenter: New options to evolve data backup recovery

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

    Various Tips, Tools, Technology and Tradecraft Topics

    Recent Data Infrastructure Tradecraft Articles, Tips, Tools, Tricks and related topics.

    Via ComputerWeekly: Time to restore from backup: Do you know where your data is?
    Via IDG/NetworkWorld: Ensure your data infrastructure remains available and resilient
    Via IDG/NetworkWorld: Whats a data infrastructure?

    Check out Scott Lowe @Scott_Lowe of VMware fame who while having a virtual networking focus has a nice roundup of related data infrastructure topics cloud, open source among others.

    Want to take a break from reading or listening to tech talk, check out some of the fun videos including aerial drone (and some technology topics) at www.storageio.tv.

    View more tips and articles here

    Events and Activities

    Recent and upcoming event activities.

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

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

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

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

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


    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    Posted on

    Backup, Big data, Big Data Protection, CMG & More with Tom Becchetti Podcast

    server storage I/O trends

    In this Server StorageIO podcast episode, I am joined by Tom Becchetti (@tbecchetti) for a Friday afternoon conversation recorded live at Meisters in Scandia Minnesota (thanks to the Meisters crew!).

    Tom Becchetti

    For those of you who may not know Tom, he has been in the IT, data center, data infrastructure, server and storage (as well as data protection) industry for many years (ok decades) as a customer and vendor in various roles. Not surprising our data infrastructure discussion involves server, software, storage, big data, backup, data protection, big data protection, CMG (Computer Measurement Group @mspcmg), copy data management, cloud, containers, fundamental tradecraft skills among other related topics.

    Check out Tom on twitter @tbecchetti and @mspcmg as well as his new website www.storagegodfather.com. Listen to the podcast discussion here (42 minutes) as well as on iTunes.

    Also available on 

    Ok, nuff said for now…

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

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

    >

    Posted on

    HPE Continues Buying Into Server Storage I/O Data Infrastructures

    Storage I/O Data Infrastructures trends
    Updated 1/16/2018

    HPE expanded its Storage I/O Data Infrastructures portfolio buying into server storage I/O data infrastructure technologies announcing an all cash (e.g. no stock) acquisition of Nimble Storage (NMBL). The cash acquisition for a little over $1B USD amounts to $12.50 USD per Nimble share, double what it had traded at. As a refresh, or overview, Nimble is an all flash shared storage system leverage NAND flash solid storage device (SSD) performance. Note that Nimble also partners with Cisco and Lenovo platforms that compete with HPE servers for converged systems.

    Earlier this year (keep in mind its only mid-March) HPE also announced acquisition of server storage Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) vendor Simplivity (about $650M USD cash). In another investment this year HPE joined other investors as part of scale out and software defined storage startups Hedvig latest funding round (more on that later). These acquisitions are in addition to smaller ones such as last years buying of SGI, not to mention various divestitures.

    Data Infrastructures

    What Are Server Storage I/O Data Infrastructures Resources

    Data Infrastructures exists 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 give a platform environment for applications and data that is resilient, flexible, scalable, agile, efficient as well as cost-effective.

    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.

    HPE and Server Storage Acquisitions

    HPE and its predecessor HP (e.g. before the split that resulted in HPE) was familiar with expanding its data infrastructure portfolio spanning servers, storage, I/O networking, hardware, software and services. These range from Compaq who acquired DEC which gave them the StorageWorks brand and product line up (e.g. recall EVA and its predecessors), Lefthand, 3PAR, IBRIX, Polyserve, Autonomy, EDS and others that I’m guessing some at HPE (along with customers and partners) might not want to remember.

    In addition to their own in-house including via technology acquisition, HPE also partners for its entry-level and volume low-end MSA (Modular Storage Array) series with DotHill who was acquired by Seagate a year or so ago. In addition to the MSA, other HPE OEMs for storage include Hitachi Ltd. (e.g. parent of Hitachi Data Systems aka HDS) reselling their high-end enterprise class storage system as the XP7, as well as various other partner arrangements.

    Keep in mind that HPE has a large server business from low to high-end, spanning towers to dense blades to dual, quad and cluster in box (CiB) configurations with various processor architectures. Some of these servers are used as platforms for not only HPE, also other vendors software defined storage, as well as tin wrapped software solutions, appliances and systems. HPE is also one of a handful of partners working with Microsoft to bring the software defined private (and hybrid) Azure Stack cloud stack as an appliance to market.

    HPE acquisitions Dejavu or Something New?

    For some people there may be a sense of Dejavu of what HPE and its predecessors have previously acquired, developed, sold and supported into the market over years (and decades in some cases). What will be interesting to see is how the 3PAR (StoreServ) and Lefthand based (StoreVirtual) as well as ConvergedSystem 250-HC product lines are realigned to make way for Nimble and Simplivity.

    Likewise what will HPE do with MSA at the low-end, continue to leverage it for low-end and high-volume basic storage similar to Dell with the Netapp/Engenio powered MD series? Or will HPE try to move the Nimble down market and displace the MDS? What about in the mid-market, will Nimble be unleashed to replace StoreVirtual (e.g. Lefthand), or will they fence it in (e.g. being restricted to certain scenarios?
    Will the Nimble solution be allowed to move up market into the low-end of where 3PAR has been positioned, perhaps even higher up given its all flash capabilities. Or, will there be a 3PAR everywhere approach?

    Then there is Simplivity as the solution is effectively software running on an HPE server (or with other partners Cisco and Lenovo) along with a PCIe offload card (with Simplivity data services acceleration). Note that Simplivity leverages PCIe offload cards for some of their functionality, this too is familiar ground for HPE given its ASIC use by 3PAR.

    Simplivity has the potential to disrupt some low to mid-range, perhaps even larger opportunities that are looking to go to a converged infrastructure (CI) or HCI deployment as part of their data infrastructure needs. One can speculate that Simplivity after repackaging will be positioned along current HPE CI and HCI solutions.

    This will be interesting to watch to see if the HPE server and storage groups can converge not only from a technology point, also sales, marketing, service, and support perspective. With the Simplivity solution, HPE has an opportunity to move the industry thinking or perception that HCI is only for small environments defined by what some products can do.

    What I mean by this is that HPE with its enterprise and SMB along with SME and cloud managed service provider experience as well as servers can bring hyper-scale out (and up) converged to the market. In other words, start addressing the concern I hear from larger organizations that most CI or HCI solutions (or packaging) are just for smaller environments. HPE has the servers, they have the storage from MSAs to other modules and core data infrastructure building blocks along with the robustness of the Simplivity software to enable hyper-scale out CI.

    What about bulk, object, scale-out storage

    HPE has a robust tape business, yes I know tape is dead, however tell that to the customers who keep buying products providing revenue along with margin to HPE (and others). Likewise HPE has VTLs as well as other solutions for addressing bulk data (e.g. big data, backups, protection copies, archives, high volume, and large quantity, what goes on tape or object). For example HPE has the StoreOnce solution.

    However where is the HPE object storage story?

    Otoh, does HPE its own object storage software, simply partner with others? HPE can continue to provide servers along with underlying storage for other vendors bulk, cloud and object storage systems, and where needed, meet in the channel among other arrangements.

    On the other hand, this is where similar to Polyserve and Ibrix among others in the past have come into play, with HPE via its pathfinder (investment group) joining others in putting some money into Hedvig. HPE gets access to Hedvig for their scale out storage that can be used for bulk as well as other deployments including CI, HCI and CIB (e.g. something to sell HPE servers and storage with).

    HPE can continue to partner with other software providers and software-defined storage stacks. Keep in mind that Milan Shetti (CTO, Data Center Infrastructure Group HPE) is no stranger to these waters given his past at Ibrix among others.

    What About Hedvig

    Time to get back to Hedvig which is a storage startup whose software can run on various server storage platforms, as well as in different topologies. Different topologies include in a CI or HCI, Cloud, as well as scale out with various access including block, file and object. In addition to block, file and object access, Hedvig has interesting management tools, data services, along with support for VMware, Docker, and OpenStack among others.

    Recently Hedvig landed another $21.5M USD in funding bringing their total to about $52M USD. HPE via its investment arm, joins other investors (note HPE was part of the $21.5M, that was not the amount they invested) including Vertex, Atlantic Bridge, Redpoint, edbi and true ventures.

    What does this mean for HPE and Hedvig among others? Tough to say however easy to imagine how Hedvig could be leveraged as a partner using HPE servers, as well as for HPE to have an addition to their bulk, scale-out, cloud and object storage portfolio.

    Where to Learn More

    View more material on HPE, data infrastructure and related topics with the following links.

  • Cloud and Object storage are in your future, what are some questions?
  • 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 Infrastructure Primer and Overview (Its Whats Inside The Data Center)
  • January 2017 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter
  • September and October 2016 Server StorageIO Update Newsletter
  • HP Buys one of the seven networking dwarfs and gets a bargain
  • Did HP respond to EMC and Cisco VCE with Microsoft Hyper-V bundle?
  • Give HP storage some love and short strokin
  • While HP and Dell make counter bids, exclusive interview with 3PAR CEO David Scott
  • Data Protection Fundamental Topics Tools Techniques Technologies Tips
  • Hewlett-Packard beats Dell, pays $2.35 billion for 3PAR
  • HP Moonshot 1500 software defined capable compute servers
  • What Does Converged (CI) and Hyper converged (HCI) Mean to Storage I/O?
  • What’s a data infrastructure?
  • Ensure your data infrastructure remains available and resilient
  • Object Storage Center, The SSD place and The NVMe place

    • 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

    Generally speaking I think this is a good series of moves for HPE (and their customers) as long as they can execute in all dimensions.

    Let’s see how they execute, and by this, I mean more than simply executing or terminating staff from recently acquired or earlier acquisitions. How will HPE craft go to the market message that leverages the portfolio to compete and hold or take share from other vendors, vs. cannibalize across its own lines (e.g. revenue prevention)? With that strategy and message, how will HPE assure existing customers will be taken care, be given a definite upgrade and migration path vs. giving them a reason to go elsewhere.

    Hopefully HPE unleashes the full potential of Simplivity and Nimble along with 3PAR, XP7 where needed, along with MSA at low-end (or as part of volume scale-out with servers for software defined), to mention sever portfolio. For now, this tells me that HPE is still interested in maintaining, expanding their data infrastructure business vs. simply retrenching selling off assets. Thus this looks like HPE is interested in continuing to invest in data infrastructure technologies including buying into server, storage I/O network, hardware, software solutions, while not simply clinging to what they already have, or previously bought.

    Everything is not the same in data centers and across data infrastructure, so why have a one size fits all approach for organization as large, diverse as HPE.

    Congratulations and best wishes to the folks at Hedvig, Nimble, Simplivity.

    Now, lets see how this all plays out.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Software Defined Cloud Bulk Object Storage News Trends

    Cloud, Software Defined, Scale-Out, Object Storage News Trends

    Welcome to the Cloud, Big Data, Software Defined, Bulk and Object Storage News Trends page.

    This page contains various links pertaining to Software Defined, scale-out, Cloud, Bulk and Object Storage News Trends and resources. Other resources pertaining to Software Defined, scale-out, Cloud, Bulk and Object Storage include:

    Software defined, Bulk, Cloud and Object Storage exist to support expanding and diverse application data demands. There are various types of cloud, bulk and object storage including public services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) Simple Storage Service (S3), Google, Microsoft Azure, IBM Softlayer, Rackspace among many others. There are also solutions for hybrid and private deployment from Cisco, DDN, Dell EMC, Fujitsu, HDS, HPE, IBM, NetApp, Noobaa, OpenStack, Quantum, Rackspace, Scality, Seagate, Spectra, Storpool, Suse, Swift and WD among others.

    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

    Cloud products and services among others, along with associated data infrastructures including object storage, file systems, repositories and access methods are at the center of bulk, big data, big bandwidth and little data initiatives on a public, private, hybrid and community basis. After all, not everything is the same in cloud, virtual and traditional data centers or information factories from active data to in-active deep digital archiving.

    Via InfoStor: Object Storage Is In Your Future
    Via FujiFilm IT Summit: Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) and Hybrid Clouds
    Via ChannelPartnersOnline: Selling Software-Defined Storage: Not All File Systems Are the Same
    Via ITProPortal: IBM kills off its first cloud storage platform
    Via MultiChannel: After ditching cloud business, Verizon inks Virtual Network Services deal with Amazon
    Via ITBusinessEdge: Time to Rein in Cloud Storage
    Via BusinessInsider: Kodiak Data Brings Enterprise Storage and Database Services to the Cloud Era with StorageCloud
    Via SerchCloudStorge: Ctera Networks’ file-sharing services gain intelligent cache
    Via StorageIOblog: Who Will Be At Top Of Storage World Next Decade?

    cloud object storage

    The following resources provide additional information about big data, bulk, software defined, cloud and object storage.

    Via StorageIOblog: AWS EFS Elastic File System (Cloud NAS) First Preview Look
    Via CloudComputingAdmin: Cloud Storage Decision Making
    Via Wservernews: Cloud storage considerations
    Via PRNewsWire: Scality Accelerates Multi-Cloud Adoption with New Open-Source Release
    Via EnterpriseStorageForum: Top 10 Tips for Software-Defined Storage Deployment
    Via MultiChannel: Verizon Digital Media Services now offers integrated Microsoft Azure Storage
    Via BroadCstingCable: Quantum’s New StorNext 6 Delivers Unparalleled Combination of Best-in-Class 4K Performance and Advanced Data Management
    Via ShootOnLine: Morro Data Accelerates Media Collaboration With Cache and Sync Appliance
    Via TechCrunch: Backblaze drops download pricing for its B2 storage platform by 60%
    Via PRNewsWire: FileCloud Online Launches an All-In-One File Share, Sync and Backup SaaS Offering in a Challenge to Dropbox and Box

    cloud object storage

    Via HITInfrastructure: Benefits of Object Storage to Health IT Infrastructure
    Via ITBusinessedge: Growing Diversity of Cloud Storage Solutions
    Via Telecompaper: Interoute launches storage zones in Switzerland
    Via TradeCalls:
    Object Storage Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022
    Via OpenStack: Creating object storage container causes user to be logged out, OpenStack Dashboard (Horizon)
    Via RethinkResearch: Nokia claims a 40% cut in cloud DVR Capex, using new Skim Storage
    Via Cloudwards: A Beginner’s Guide on How Cloud Backup With Microsoft Azure Works
    Via ITProPortal: Lack of understanding of data inhibits move to the cloud

    cloud object storage

    Via InfoStor:Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
    Via StreetInsider: IBM Announces New Pricing Model for Cloud Storage and NetApp Object Storage Partnership

    Via StorageIOblog: AWS EFS Elastic File System (Cloud NAS) First Preview Look
    Via ComputerWeekly: Storage 101: Object storage vs block vs file
    Via StorageIOblog: AWS EFS Elastic File System (Cloud NAS) First Preview Look
    Via Yahoo Finance: SwiftStack Joins Google Cloud Technology Partner Program
    Via StorageIOblog: AWS EFS Elastic File System (Cloud NAS) First Preview Look

    Via StorageIOblog: HPE Continues Buying Into Server Storage I/O Data Infrastructures
    Via StorageIOblog: AWS EFS Elastic File System (Cloud NAS) First Preview Look
    Via TheStack:Google to launch nine new data centres over three new cloud regions
    Via StorageIOblog: AWS EFS Elastic File System (Cloud NAS) First Preview Look
    Via DigitalJournal:Global Business Cloud Storage market 2017 share, Segmentation and Industrial Overview forecasts to 2022
    Via StorageIOblog: AWS EFS Elastic File System (Cloud NAS) First Preview Look
    Via NextPlatform:How Microsoft Fell Hard for FPGAs
    Via StorageIOblog: AWS EFS Elastic File System (Cloud NAS) First Preview Look
    Via NextPlatform:Google Courts Enterprise For Cloud Platform

    cloud object storage

    Via IBM RedBooks: Cloud Object Storage as a
    Service – IBM Cloud Object Storage from Theory to Practice
    Via VentureBeat: Microsoft confirms Azure storage issues around the world
    Via Microsoft Azure: Azure status history
    Via NextPlatform: Windows Server Comes To ARM Chips, But Only For Azure
    Via NextPlatform: ARM And AMD X86 Server Chips Get Mainstream Lift From Microsoft
    Via ITBusinessEdge: Google Expands Enterprise Cloud Service Footprint
    Via ChannelWorld: Google announces three new cloud regions, contract discounts
    Via AWS: AWS Service Health Status
    Via AWS (S3 Feb 28 2017 Port mortem): Summary of the Amazon S3 Service Disruption
    Via SearchCloudStorage: Open source object storage startup OpenIO adds hardware

    cloud object storage

    Via InfoStor: Comments on Cloud Storage Pros and Cons
    Via CRN: StorageCraft Acquires Exablox
    Via TVtechglobal: Signiant CEO: The media industry isnt just one monolithic thing
    Via Computerweekly: Using the cloud as a storage tier
    Via SearchCloudStorage: OpenIO joins object storage cloud scrum
    Via CRN: Dell Partners With Scality On High-Density Object Storage
    Via BroadwayWorld: The World’s Smallest Object Storage Solution, ‘Ceph on Olive’, is Released
    Via SmartDataCollective: Why You Should Be Securing Big Data In The Cloud?
    Via Geekwire: Feds certify Amazon and Microsoft clouds to handle sensitive government data
    Via NewsFactor: SoftNAS Introduces File Services for NetApp StorageGRID
    Via Redmondmag: AWS Cloud Storage Service Turns 10
    Via DropBox Blog: Scaling to exabytes and beyond
    Via Computerworld: Dropbox quits Amazon cloud, takes back 500 PB of data
    Via HPCwire: Seagate Sets Sights on Broader HPC Market

    cloud object storage

    Via Channelnomics.com: Why Samsung’s Joyent buyout could frame its future
    Via GeekyGadgets: Google Drive Cloud Storage Is Now A Little Easier To Organize Thanks To New Tools
    Via ZDnet: Google doubles Cloud Compute local SSD capacity: Now it’s 3TB per VM
    Via AndroidPolice: Barracuda Is Shutting Down The Copy Cloud Storage Service On May 1st
    Via StorageSoup: EMC expands Elastic Cloud (object) Storage
    Via Cloud Review: Access Multiple Cloud Apps from a Unified Interface
    Via CyberSecurity: Cybersecurity and Accessible Storage Trends
    Via eWeek: Cloud Storage Spending Poised for Increase in 2016
    Via InfoStor: Object Storage Is In Your Future
    Via BioScienceTechnology: Six Reasons to Add Object Storage to Your Genomics Lexicon
    Via TechCrunch: Backblaze’s Low-Cost Cloud Storage Service Comes Out Of Beta
    Via CloudComputingAdmin: Cloud Storage Decision Making
    COSbench for cloud and object storage (Various): White Paper (CMU), PDF overview presentation, Get the bits (software) from Github
    Via AWS Blogs: AWS Storage Update – New Lower Cost S3 Storage Option & Glacier Price Reduction
    Via Techcrunch: IBM Acquires Cleversafe To Accelerate Hybrid Cloud Storage Strategy

    cloud object storage

    Via Techcrunch: Developers Can Now Import Data To Google Cloud Storage By Mailing In Their Hard Drives, Tapes And USB Flash Drives
    Via vCloud: VMware vCloud Air Object Storage
    Via SearchStorage: SwiftStack adds new features to object storage software solution
    Via TheVarGuy: Vendor consortium create Ceph advisory board
    Via OpenStack: Whats new in OpenStack Liberty
    Via Microsoft Azure: File access cloud storage in addition to blobs and object storage
    Via AWS: AWS Storage Update – New Lower Cost S3 Storage Option & Glacier Price Reduction
    Via VMware Blogs: Showcasing VMware vCloud Air Object Storage powered by EMC at EMC World!
    Via Venturebeat: Backblaze launches B2 object storage service at 1/4 of the cost of Amazon S3
    Via Techcrunch: Wuala, The Secure P2P Cloud Storage Service Acquired By LaCie, To Shut Down
    Via ChannelworldIN: 13 firms join to open up Ethernet, object-storage to everyone
    Via ITportal: The elephant in the room: The trust deficit issue with public clouds
    Via VCpost: Dropbox latest update: Cloud storage service provider now lets you drag and drop URLs with files
    Via NetworkAsia: HP’s new converged appliance offers a path to hybrid cloud
    Via Techtimes: Google Files For Patent To Search Your Desktop Files, Apps And Cloud Storage

    cloud object storage

    Via CloudTweaks: Questions To Ask Every Cloud Storage Provider
    Via MarketWatch: Linux Foundation Brings Together Industry Leaders to Advance Cloud Object Storage Technologies
    Via CBR: New Kinetic platform targets open source object storage
    Via Techcrunch: Seagate, Toshiba, Scality And Others Launch Kinetic Open Storage Platform For Smart, Low-Overhead Cloud Object Storage
    Via StorageIOblog: July 2015 Newsletter Focus on Content Solution Platforms
    Via ITnewsline: Hitachi Data Systems Announces New Enhancements to the Hitachi Content Platform Portfolio
    Via ITbusinessnet: Caringo Provides Only Software-Based Web-Scale Object Storage for Symantec Enterprise Vault
    Via ITbusinessnet: Caringo Provides Only Software-Based Web-Scale Object Storage for Symantec Enterprise Vault
    Via TopTechNews: Dropbox Adds USB Keys To Boost Security
    Via ZDnet: SUSE brings its management software to the cloud
    Via Forbes: Jumptuit Roadmap Video: A New Search Bar For Your Data At Facebook, Google and Dropbox
    Via Forbes: Panzura Global File System — Disrupting the Storage Industry
    Via TalkinCloud: Barracuda Launches Cloud Storage and Share Service CudaDrive
    Via ITnews: Researchers debut rival to AWS cloud storage
    Via NetworkAsia.net: HP launches new scale-out and scale-up Compute portfolios

    cloud object storage

    Via Server StorageIO: May / June 2015 Newsletter Focus on server storage packaging
    Via Server StorageIO: April 2015 Newsletter Focus on Cloud and Object storage
    Via StudioDaily.com: At NAB, Vendors and Users Both Got Serious About 4K Workflow
    Via OpenSource.com: The unofficial guide to OpenStack Summit Vancouver
    Via InsideHPC: Deploying Hadoop on Lustre Storage: Lessons Learned and Best Practices
    Via Yahoo Engineering Blog: Yahoo Cloud Object Store – Object Storage at Exabyte Scale
    Via the Platform: Inside The Ceph Exascale Storage At Yahoo
    Via Swift Summit: Taking the Mystery out of Erasure Codes: A Swift Implementation
    Via GovTech: Storage Costs Cloud Police Cam Issue
    Via BostonHerald: Booting Up: Storage costs cloud police cam issue
    Via StorageIOblog: S3motion Buckets Containers Objects AWS S3 Cloud and EMCcode (with podcast)
    Via StorageIOblog: If focused on cost you might miss other cloud storage benefits
    Via ComputerWorld: Amazon offers network file storage in the cloud
    Via ComputerWeekly: HGST marries helium HDDs and Himalaya in object storage Active Archive
    Via GoogleCloudPlatform Blog: GCS Nearline Online storage at Offline price

    cloud object storage

    Via MarketWatch: Global Data Center Provider CyrusOne Announces Direct Connectivity to Google Cloud Platform
    Via PRNewsWire: Quantum Announces New Archive Solutions Designed To Reduce Unstructured Data Storage Costs
    Via Enterprise Storage Forum: Lustre buying guide
    Via StorageIOblog: AWS S3 Cross Region Replication storage enhancements
    Via StreetInsider: Western Digital (WDC) to Acquire Object Storage Software Amplidata
    Via Enterprise Storage Forum: Dell Invests in Object Storage Startup Exablox
    Via Enterprise Storage Forum: Introducing s3motion (S3 and object access docker based appliance)
    Via Computerworld: Quantum enhances their cloud and object storage management with new StorNext software version
    Via HealthIndustry: 2014 IDC MarketScape perspectives
    Via MarketWired: ScaleOut Software Releases Version 5.2 of Its In-Memory Computing Platform
    Via CRN: HP Inks Global Reseller Agreement With Object Storage Startup Scality
    Via NetApp: NetApp Introduces Software-Defined Object Storage for the Hybrid Cloud
    Via ZDnet: NetApp intros software-defined object storage for hybrid cloud adoption
    Via SearchCloudStorage: Are more than five nines of availability really possible?

    cloud object storage

    Via SearchCloudStorage: How do primary storage clouds and cloud for backup differ?
    Via SearchCloudStorage: What should I consider when using SSD cloud?
    Via SearchCloudStorage: Given outages, are you concerned with the security of the cloud?
    Via SearchCloudStorage: Is the cost of cloud storage really cheaper than traditional storage?
    Via HostReview: Panzura Collaborates With Microsoft Azure To Transform Cloud Storage Into A Globally Distributed NAS
    Via ITBusinessNet: Caringo Awarded Patent for Erasure Coding, Replication in Storage Cluster
    Via PRWeb: Western Digital Capital Makes Strategic Investment in Amplidata
    Via ITwire: Dovecot in for the long haul
    Via InfoStor: Top Tips for Object Storage
    Via Enterprise Storage ForumObject Storage Buying Guide
    Via Enterprise Networking Planet: Cloud Gateways 101
    Via eWeek: HP Unveils Smaller, Less Costly Helion Cloud Platform
    Via PCadvisor: CA Technologies, AWS and Riverbed bring mainframe Cloud to big four banks
    Via CMS wire: The Enterprise Cloud is Finally Moving Beyond Storage
    Via Edtech: Microsoft 365’s Massive Cloud Storage Is ‘Icing on Cake’ to University’s Upgrade

    cloud object storage

    Via CRN: Quantum Acquires Symform, Plans To Bring Cloud-Based Backups To Enterprise
    Via BusinessWire: OpenStack Object Storage (Swift) Adds Storage Policies for Enterprise Users and Cloud Operators
    Via SearchStorage: EMC ViPR and Data Services (including Object storage)
    Via Enterprise Storage Forum: Cloud Appliance Buying Guide
    Via Datacenter Dynamics: Verizon, Amplidata and Cloud Object Storage
    Via ZDnet: IBM drops SoftLayer cloud storage costs closer to its rivals
    Via YellowBricks: How long will VSAN rebuilding take with large drives? via Duncan Epping (@DuncanYB) and his Yellow-Bricks site. Note that VMware VSAN uses one of many different forms of object storage (e.g. its not S3 or Swift or CDMI) rather a means for storing VMware vSphere entities and items (e.g. various types of objects)
    Via Computerweekly: Object storage: An architecture for the petabyte era? Via Simon Robinson (@simonrob451) appearing at
    Via MarketWatch: Western Digital/HGST announce alternative to Seagate Kinetic HDD for object storage
    Via EMC: EMC Announces Elastic Cloud Storage Appliance via EMC
    Via TechCrunch: RedHat acquires InkTank provider of Ceph services
    Via CompueterWeekly: DataDirect Networks (DDN) WOS enhancements

    cloud object storage

    Hybrid Clouds: Bridging the Gap Between Public and Private Environments (Recorded for Playback: BrightTalk Webinar)
    Book review: Rethinking Enterprise Storage and Hybrid Clouds by Microsoft/Storsimple and Marc Farley aka (@Gofarley (or what ever name he is currently using ;))
    Goodbye 2013, hello 2014 predictions present and future
    Enterprises should just ignore OpenStack via Virtualizedgeek aka Keith Townsend (@virtualizedgeek)
    OpenStack Swift Object Storage for the Cloud Grows via The Var Guy (@thevarguy) aka Christopher Tozzi
    For Seagate Kinetic to fly…it’s gonna take an ecosystem (Via @Seagate The Storage Effect Blog)
    Object-defined storage (it’s not about object storage) (Via Enrico Signoretti @Juku)
    Seagate Kinetic Cloud and Object Storage I/O platform
    Why You Should Consider Object Storage (Via 21CIT)
    Object Storage Is in Your Future, Even if You Use Files (Via 21CIT)
    The Right Storage Option Is Important for Big Data Success (Via FedTech)
    Hybrid cloud storage with an object storage back end(Via Marc Farley aka @MicroFarley at Microsoft Technet Blogs)
    cloud object storage

    Via SearchStorage: EMC ViPR aimed at service providers, enterprise storage (Video)
    EMC ViPR virtual physical object and software defined storage
    EMC ViPR software defined object storage part II
    EMC ViPR software defined object storage part III
    The rise of cloud-integrated storage and EMC’s ViPR (Via Marc Farley of Microsoft aka @MicroFarley)
    ViPR: Under the covers (Via Chad Sakacc of EMC aka @sakacc)
    Introducing EMC ViPR (Via Chuck Hollis aka @Chuckhollis of EMC)
    EMC Tells their SDS story (e.g. ViPR) (Via the Solutions Architect aka Michael Letschin aka @mletschin)
    Object Paucity (Via Martin Glassborow aka @storagebod)
    Object Storage: You can call it NAS 2.0! (Via Enrico Signoretti aka @esignoretti)
    Object storage is the platform, gateways are the solution (Via Enrico Signoretti aka @esignorettii)
    Files Vs. Objects: the difference is in the value (Via Enrico Signoretti aka @esignorettii)
    Conversation with Justin Stottlemyer of Shutterfly and object storage discussion (Pod cast)

    cloud object storage

    Cloud conversations: AWS EBS, Glacier and S3 overview
    Ceph Day Amsterdam 2012 (Object and cloud storage)
    Ceph Day in Amsterdam and Sage Weil on Object Storage (Podcast)
    Mr. Backup (Curtis Preston) goes back to Ceph School (Video and Podcast)
    AWS (Amazon) storage gateway, first, second and third impressions

    cloud object storage

    Where to learn more

    The following resources provide additional information about big data, bulk, software defined, cloud and object storage.

    Click here to view (and hear) more content including cloud and object storage fundamentals.
    Via StorageIOblog: AWS EFS Elastic File System (Cloud NAS) First Preview Look
    Via InfoStor: Cloud Storage Concerns, Considerations and Trends
    Via InfoStor: Object Storage Is In Your Future
    Via Server StorageIO: April 2015 Newsletter Focus on Cloud and Object storage
    Via StorageIOblog: AWS S3 Cross Region Replication storage enhancements
    Cloud conversations: AWS EBS, Glacier and S3 overview
    AWS (Amazon) storage gateway, first, second and third impressions

    Videos and podcasts at storageio.tv also available via Applie iTunes.

    Human Face of Big Data
    Human Face of Big Data (Book review)

    Seven Databases in Seven weeks
    Seven Databases in Seven Weeks (Book review)

    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

    Wrap up and summary

    Object and cloud storage are in your future, the questions are when, where, with what and how among others. Watch for more content and links to be added here as well as on the main object storage center page including posts, presentations, pod casts, perspectives along with services and product solutions profiles.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Kevin Closson discusses SLOB Server CPU I/O Database Performance benchmarks

    Slilly Little Oracle Benchmark (SLOB) Database Server I/O Podcast

    server storage I/O trends

    In this Server StorageIO podcast episode, I am joined by @Kevinclosson who is an Oracle (along with other Databases) performance expert and creator of the Silly Little Oracle Benchmark (SLOB) tool. Not surprising our data infrastructure discussion involves server CPU, software, I/O, storage, performance, software, tools, best practices, fundamental tradecraft skills among other items.

    server storage I/O performance

    Kevin has been involved in database performance (and porting) optimization for decades which means CPU server, memory, I/O and storage issues, resources and tuning. Part of server, storage I/O a tuning is understanding the workloads, also the demands of software such as databases along with how they use CPU and its impact on resources. This means that somewhere in the technology stack, server CPUs are still needed, even in serverless environments.

    We also discuss metrics, gaining insight to resources uses, what they mean including how CPU wait may be costing your lost productivity with overhead, as well as benchmarks, simulations, and related themes. Check out Kevins website www.kevinclosson.net to learn more about Oracle, Databases, SLOB, tools and other content. Listen to the podcast discussion here (42 minutes) as well as on iTunes.

    Where to learn more

    Learn more about Oracle, Database Performance, Benchmarking along with other tools via the following links:

    What this all means and wrap-up

    Check out my discussion here with Kevin Closson where you may have some Dejavu, or learn something new on server, storage I/O, database performance, software, benchmark workloads as well as much more. Also available on 

    Ok, nuff said for now…

    Cheers
    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Data Infrastructure Server Storage I/O Tradecraft Trends

    Data Infrastructure Server Storage I/O Tradecraft Trends

    Data Infrastructure trends include server storage I/O network and associated tradecraft are your skills, experiences, insight as well as tricks of the trade, profession and job function (read more about what is a data infrastructure here).

    This is the second of a two-part series exploring data infrastructure along with serve storage I/O and related tradecraft. Read part one of this series here.

    Data Infrastructures
    Data Infrastructure and IT Infrastructure Layers

    As a refresher from part one, data infrastructure encompasses servers, storage, I/O and networking along with associated hardware, software, services and management tasks including data protection among others. Tradecraft is knowing about tools, technologies, and trends in your primary domain as well as adjacent focus areas. However, tradecraft is also about knowing how and when to use different technologies, tools with various techniques to address different scenarios.

    Tradecraft Trends
    Trends involving tradecraft include capturing existing experiences and skills from those who are about to retire or simply move on to something else, as well as learning for those new to IT or servers, storage, I/O, and data infrastructure hardware, software, and services. This means being able to find a balance of old and new tools, techniques, and technologies, including using things in new ways for different situations.

    Part of expanding your tradecraft skill set is knowing when to use different tools, techniques, and technologies from proprietary and closed to open solutions, from tightly integrated to loosely integrated, to bundled and converged, or to a la carte or unbundled components, with do-it-yourself (DIY) integration.

    Tradecraft also means being able to balance when to make a change of technology, tool, or technique for the sake of change vs. clinging to something comfortable or known, vs. leveraging old and new in new ways while enabling change without disrupting the data infrastructure environment or users of its services.

    A couple of other trends include the convergence of people and positions within organizations that may have been in different silos or focus areas in the past. One example is the rise of Development Operations (also known as DevOps), where instead of separate development, administration, and operations areas, they are a combined entity. This might be déja vu for some of you who grew up and gained your tradecraft in similar types of organizations decades ago; for others, it may be something new.

    Regarding fundamental tradecraft skills, if you are a hardware person it is wise to learn software; if you are a software person, it is advisable to acquire some hardware experience. Also, don’t be afraid to say “I do not know” or “it depends on on” when asked a question. This also means learning how information technology supports the needs of the business, as well as learning the technology the business uses.

    Put another way, in addition to learning server storage I/O hardware and software tradecraft, also learn the basic tradecraft of the business your information systems are supporting. After all, the fundamental role of IT is to protect, preserve, and serve information that enables the company or organization; no business exists just to support IT.

    Data Infrastructure Tool Box

    How to develop tradecraft?
    There are many ways, including reading this book along with the companion websites as well as other books, attending seminars and webinars, participating in forums and user groups, as well as having a test lab to learn and try things. Also, find a mentor you can learn from to help capture some of his or her tradecrafts, and if you are experienced, become a mentor to help others develop their tradecraft.

    Toolbox tips, reminders, and recommendations:

    • Create a virtual, software-defined, and physical toolbox.
    • Include tip sheets, notes, hints, tricks, and shortcuts.
    • Leverage books, blogs, websites, tutorials, and related information.
    • Implement a lab or sandbox to try things out
    • Do some proof of concepts (POC) and gain more experience

    Tradecraft Tips
    Get some hands-on, behind-the-wheel time with various technologies to gain insight, perspective, and appreciation of what others are doing, as well as what is needed to make informed decisions about other areas. This also means learning from looking at demos, trying out software, tools, services, or using other ways to understand the solution. Knowing about the tools and technology is important; however, so too is knowing how to use a tool (techniques) and when along with where or for what. This means knowing the tools in your toolbox, but also knowing when, where, why, and how to use a given tool (or technology), along with techniques to use that tool by itself or with multiple other tools.

    Additional tips and considerations include:

    • Expand your social and technical network into adjacent areas.
    • Get involved in user groups, forums, and other venues to learn and give back.
    • Listen, learn, and comprehend vs. only memorizing to pass a test.
    • Find a mentor to help guide you, and become a mentor to help others.
    • Collaborate, share, respect and be respected; the accolades will follow.
    • Evolve from focus on certificates or credentials to expansion of experiences.
    • Connect with others to expand your network

    Where to learn more

    Continue reading more and expanding your tradecraft experiences with the following among other resources:

    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 means

    Remember that tradecraft is skills, experiences, tricks, and techniques along with knowing what as well as how to use various related tools as part of what it is that you are doing. Your data infrastructure tradecraft is (or should be):

    • Essential skills and experiences spanning different technologies and focus areas
    • Knowing various techniques to use new and old things in new as well as hybrid ways
    • Expanding awareness into adjacent areas around your current focus or interest areas
    • Leveraging comprehension, understanding application of what you know
    • Evolving with new knowledge, experiences, and insight about tools and techniques
    • Hardware, software, services, processes, practices, and management
    • From legacy to software-defined, cloud, virtual, and containers

    Part of server storage I/O data infrastructure tradecraft is understanding what tools to use when, where, and why, not to mention knowing how to adapt with those tools, find new ones, or create your own.

    Remember, if all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. On the other hand, if you have more tools than you know what to do with, or how to use them, perhaps fewer tools are needed along with learning how to use them by enhancing your skillset and tradecraft.

    In-between the known data infrastructure server, storage, I/O network, converged infrastructure (CI), hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), Docker and other containers, cloud, hardware software-defined known, and unknown is your tradecraft. The narrow the gap between the known and the unknown as well as how to apply your experience is the diversity of your tradecraft.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Server Storage I/O network Data Infrastructure Tradecraft Overview

    Server Storage I/O network Data Infrastructure Tradecraft Overview

    Updated 1/17/2018

    Data Infrastructure Tradecraft includes server storage I/O network and associated technology, technique, skills, experiences. Tradecraft includes insight as well as tricks of the trade, profession and job function (read more about what is a data infrastructure here). This is the first of a two-part series exploring data infrastructure along with serve storage I/O and related tradecraft. Read part two of this series here.

    Data Infrastructures Tradecraft Overview
    Data Infrastructure and IT Infrastructure Layers

    Data infrastructure encompasses servers, storage, I/O and networking along with associated hardware, software, services and management tasks including data protection among others. Tradecraft is knowing about tools, technologies, and trends in your primary domain as well as adjacent focus areas. However, tradecraft is also about knowing how and when to use different technologies, tools with various techniques to address different scenarios.

    What Is Your Tradecraft
    An example of expanding tradecraft is, for instance, an automobile technician who has learned how to change oil, check tire air pressure, or other essential entry-level functions. On the other hand, a master mechanic knows how to do more involved tasks, from the engine to transmission repair or rebuilding, bodywork, along with troubleshooting. A master mechanic not only knows what buttons, knobs, tools, and techniques to use for different tasks, he also knows how to diagnose problems, as well as what usually causes those problems to occur.

    There are many other examples, including salespeople who have the tradecraft of selling, including account as well as relationship building along with the ability to learn new tradecraft related to the trade or items they are or will be selling. Moreover, then there are pre-sales and systems engineers, technical marketing, product and program management, test and development, R&D engineering, IT and technology architects, among many others.
    IT Data Infrastructure Professionals

    Another example is engineers and architects (non-IT) who have basic design along with engineering discipline tradecraft, as well as specialties such as mechanical, electrical, heating ventilation air condition (HVAC), or environmental, among others. They can leverage their basic tradecraft while extending and enhancing it by gaining insight as well as experience in adjacent areas of focus.

    For IT and data infrastructure tradecraft this means expanding from basic tasks to being able to do more advanced things. For example, developing tradecraft from knowing the different hardware, software, and services resources as well as tools, to what to use when, where, why, and how. Another dimension of expanding data infrastructure tradecraft skills is gaining the experience and insight to troubleshoot problems, gain insight awareness with dashboard or monitoring tools, as well as how to design and manage to cut or reduce the chance of things going wrong.

    From Tools and Technologies to Techniques and Tricks of the Trade
    Expanding your awareness of new technologies along with how they work is important, so too is understanding application and organization needs. Developing your tradecraft means balancing the focus on new and old technologies, tools, and techniques with business or organizational application functionality.

    This is where using various tools that themselves are applications to gain insight into how your data infrastructure is configured and being used, along with the applications they support, is important.

    Data Infrastructure Tool Box

    Learning the Talk and Walking the Talk
    For some people their tradecraft is only learning the talk, so that they can talk the talk of trends, techniques, technology buzzwords to do their job (or get a job) and fit in. The next step is comprehending the talk, gaining more insight and experience ability of what to do (and not do) by walking the talk. Sometimes this means learning from mistakes (yours or others) to prevent them in the future.

    Expanding your tradecraft means learning the talk as well as how to walk the talk for adjacent areas. This can mean new skills, ability, tools, and technologies along with proper terminology. For your data infrastructure tradecraft, you need to acquire competencies in these different yet related areas.

    Even if your focus is to be a hardware or software or services person, there are opportunities to expand your tradecraft. For example extend into physical, virtualization, cloud, container, networking, storage, performance, data protection, or security, among others. This also means comprehending how the pieces work together to support the business applications, as well as the impact on each other (e.g. cause and effect).

    Part of tradecraft is also understanding that various terms and acronyms have different context meaning. For example, SAS can mean big data statistical analysis software or Serial Attached SCSI among others. What this means is as your tradecraft expands, so too does awareness that different terms have various meaning along with the importance of asking for context.

    Another example of understanding context is Fabric. Fabric can also have different context and meaning. It can refer to a network of switches, directors, and routers tying together servers, storage, bridges, gateways, and other devices, but it can also be associated with higher-level application functions, or a cluster of servers or services, as well as data. Keep context in mind about fabric: whether it is referring to lower-level physical and logical networks, or applications and data, among others.

    Yet another context example includes that client can have different meanings, including software or applications that communicate with a server or service, local or in the cloud. A variation of client can also be a type of device, such as a tablet, laptop, mobile device or phone, as well as a workstation with varying software for accessing different data infrastructure as well as applications. Another context for client is the user, person, or thing such as IoT that accesses and interacts with client software or server and services of application or data resources. Yet another context for client is a consumer of lower-level data infrastructure resources or higher-level applications services.

    Where To Learn More

    View additional Data Infrastructure and tradecraft 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 SDDC Data Infrastructure Tradecraft Overview

    What this means

    Remember that tradecraft is skills, experiences, tricks, and techniques along with knowing what as well as how to use various related tools as part of what it is that you are doing.  Continue reading more about data infrastructure along with server storage I/O network hardware software as well as associated management tradecraft in part two of this series here.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

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

    Posted on

    Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links A to E

    Data Infrastructure IT Industry Related Resource Links A to E

    IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Industry Resources

    Updated 2/20/2018

    Following are some useful Data Infrastructure IT Industry Resource Links A to E 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

    • A3Cube    Computer I/O solution startup
    • AAPT   AAPT    AWS connect partner, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • abiquo.com    Cloud development and management tools
    • Above.net/Zayo Group    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • abrevity.com    eDiscovery, search, indexing, classification
    • accellion.com    File transfer tools
    • accessopt.com    Holographic storage
    • acinion.com    Video solutions
    • acopia.com    NAS aggregation and global name space (bought by F5)
    • acronis.com    Backup and data protection tools
    • acsacs.com    Value added reseller (VAR)
    • acs-inc.com    Hosting, outsourcing and managed services (Bought by Xerox)
    • actifio.com    Data protection solutions
    • active-circle.com    Data archiving and storage solutions
    • activestate.com    Stackato PaaS for cloud tools
    • adaptec.com    Adapters, iSCSI storage, data backup solutions (See PMC)
    • adesto.com    CBRAM startup
    • addonics.com    SSD storage solutions
    • adic.com    Backup, Dedupe and data protection solutions (Bought by Quantum)
    • adinfa.com        Energy and resource management tools
    • AdRem Netcrunch        Monitoring of Networks, Systems and Applications, DCIM
    • Adtran    Datacom and networking solutions
    • advancedvault.com    Business continuity solutions
    • advaoptical.com    Optical networking
    • afcom.com    Data center industry user group
    • aforesolutions.com    Cloud storage and infrasture management tools
    • agami.com    High performance NAS storage (Shutdown)
    • agilent.com    Host adapters and test equipment
    • agility.com    Optical solutions and components
    • agilysys.com    VAR
    • aiim.com    Archiving and records management trade group
    • ait.com    Cloud and web hosting
    • Ajubeo    Cloud and management solutions
    • akamai.com    Content distribution network (CDN)
    • akitio.com    Storage systems
    • akorri.com    Storage resource and capacity management
    • alacritech.com    Storage networking adapters for iSCSI
    • alacritus.com    Data Protection Software
    • alcatel.com    Networking and storage networking equipment
    • alliance-it.com    Value added reseller (VAR)
    • allstorage.nl    Storage services solution provider
    • amazon.com    Cloud compute and storage services
    • AmberPoint.com    SOA management tools
    • amcc.com    Storage networking components (aka JNI & 3ware Bought by LSI)
    • amd.com    Server and processor chips
    • americanfibersystems.com    Metropolitan storage networks and fiber bandwidth
    • amphenol.com    Storage Networking connectors and cables
    • Amplidata.com    Object and wide area based storage
    • ancot.com    Storage networking testing equipment
    • anixter.com    Networking components
    • Anobit.com    Memory components
    • ansi.org    American National Standards Institute
    • Anstor64.com    iSCSI storage software
    • anuesystems.com    SONET’/SDH and network test equipment
    • apc.com    Environmental and power systems and DCIM solutoins
    • apcon.com    Physical cabling and management
    • aperture.com    Data center tools including CMDB (Bought by Emerson)
    • appassue.com    SQL server and data protection tools (Bought by Dell)
    • Appcore    Cloud management tools
    • Appfirst    IT Ops, Development and DCIM monitoring and PKI metrics
    • appiq.com    Storage Management Software (Bought by HP)
    • appirio.com    Cloud and content tools and services
    • apple.com    Server and storage
    • apprenda.com    Grid and data management tools
    • Apprenda   Platform as a service tools
    • aprius.com    PCIe Server I/O virtualization (IOV) technology
    • aptare.com    Data protection management and backup reporting
    • arasan.com    IP Networking components
    • Archivas.com    Archiving and data management software (Bought by HDS)
    • arcmail.com    Email archiving
    • Arcplace    Data management archiving
    • arcsight.com    Compliance solutions
    • argent.com    Data center management and CMDB tools
    • ariodata.com    Scalable data storage and blade storage systems
    • aristanetworks.com    Networking technologies
    • aristoslogic.com    Storage controller technology (Bought by Adaptec)
    • Arkeia.com    Backup and data protection software (Bought by WD)
    • arkivio.com    Storage management and ILM software
    • arm.com    Microprocessor producer
    • armor247.com    SMB focused data protection solutions
    • arrow.com    Distributor
    • arsenaldigital.com    Managed backup service (Bought by IBM)
    • arxscan.com    SRM and file reporting software
    • asankya.com    Application delivery and cloud access
    • asciitable.com    Site containing the ASCII character set table
    • ashare.org    HVAC Engineers Association
    • asigra.com    Backup and data protection solutions
    • asnp.org    Association Storage Networking Professionals
    • asperasoft.com    High speed file and data transfer tools
    • astaro.com    Security tools
    • astutenetworks.com    iSCSI storage optimized for VMware
    • atempo.com    Backup Software
    • Atlantic Metro Communications    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • Atlantiscomputing    ILIO VDI and I/O optimization, cache tools
    • atmforum.com    ATM trade association
    • atrato.com    Storage systems
    • attachmate.com    IT management tools (bought Novell)
    • attotech.com    Storage networking adapters and gateways
    • Attunesystems.com    NAS and file virtualization (Assets bought by F5)
    • attunity.com    File and data movement tools
    • autonomy.com    Data management and cloud services (Bought by HP) –
    • autovirt.com    Storage automation tiering tools
    • avagotech.com    Semiconductor technologies
    • availl.com    Data movement and replication solutions
    • avamar.com    Dedupe, Backup and Restoration Solutions (Bought by EMC)
    • avanade.com    Var
    • avaya.com    Networking and communications
    • averesystems.com    NAS caching and automated tiering
    • avg.com    Security and anti-virus software
    • avnet.com    Distributor
    • www.avocent.com    Infrastructure resource management tools
    • axcient.com    Cloud data protection solutions
    • axiossystems.com    IRM and service management tools
    • axsone.com    Records and document management
    • axxana.com    Data protection and replication tools
    • Backblaze    Online and cloud backup storage
    • BackupAssist    Backup and Recovery software
    • backupify.com    Backup for google apps
    • BUMI    Backup and data protection tools
    • backupright.com    Online and cloud backup
    • Backula    Opensource Backup and data protection
    • bakbone.com    Backup Software (Bought by Quest bought by Dell)
    • balesio.com    File compression solutions
    • barracudanetworks.com    Networking devices, backup software
    • basho.com    NOSQL Database and object storage technology –
    • batblue.com    Cloud, application delivery networking services
    • Bestel   Bestel    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • Beyondtust    Vulnerability assessment and detection
    • bigswitch.com    Openflow based network switches
    • BitArmor.com    Data security software
    • bitcasa.com    Cloud storage and backup
    • Bitcentral    Video management solutions
    • Bitmicro    Solid state devices and other solutions
    • Blackbox    Data center infrastructure, DCIM, KVM and other solutions
    • BlackMESH    FedRAMP and DevOPs hosting
    • blade.org    Trade group for blade servers
    • bladelogic.com    Server management and discovery software
    • BladeNetwork.net    Server and storage blades (Bought by IBM)
    • Bladeroom    Data center and hosting
    • bladesystems.org    Industry trade group for blade servers and storage
    • bladetechnologies.net    Networking technologies
    • blockbridge.com    Elastic Storage Software and Tools
    • bluearc.com    High performance NAS enterprise class storage (Bought by HDS)
    • bluecoat.com    WAN optimization
    • bluecorenetworks.com    Networking infrastructure solutions
    • Bluehost    Web hosting, dedicated and virtual private servers
    • bluelock.com    Hosting, managed service and cloud provider
    • BlueOSS    Cloud and business inteligence solutions
    • www.bluestripe.com     Software for managing virtual data centers
    • bmc.com    Storage management software
    • bocada.com    Backup and management software
    • bowindustries.com    Tape media cleaning tools
    • box.net    Internet/web/cloud storage services
    • bphx.com    Legacy application transformation
    • bridgestor.com    Data reduction and storage optimization
    • Bridghead.com    Storage management software
    • broadband.com    Portal site for finding network bandwidth services
    • broadbandreports.com    Portal site for finding high speed internet access
    • broadcom.com    Storage networking component supplier
    • brocade.com    Switches, WAN gateways, software
    • brouwerconsultancy.com    Storage consultancy service
    • bswd.com    Brian Berg’s Storage Cornucopia web site
    • btiphotonics.com    WDM and Optical networking technologies
    • buffalotech.com    SMB and SOHO NAS storage
    • bustech.com    IBM Mainframe to open systems gateways (Bought by EMC)
    • bycast.com    Grid based fixed content, archive and object storage (Bought by NetApp)
    • c2c.com    Email archiving solutions
    • c2esoft.com    Data center operations and insight management tools
    • ca.com    Data management software
    • Computer Associates    Various data center, DCIM, data protection and other solution tools
    • call-recall.com    Optical storage
    • Canonical   Ubuntu Linux
    • carbonite.com    Cloud storage and backup
    • caringo.com    CAS archiving and object storage tools
    • casecentral.com    Cloud ediscovery
    • cassandra.apache.org    Data management and database alternative software
    • Apache Cassandra    NOSql Data Management tools
    • cassat.com    IRM management tools (Bought by CA)
    • Catalogic Software    Data protection and management tools
    • cataphora.com    Data management tools
    • catbird.com    VM security tools
    • caviumnetworks.com    Networking processors and chip technologies
    • cdproject.net    Carbon Disclosure Project
    • cdrive.com    VAR
    • cdw.com    VAR
    • celion.com    Network services for storage over distance
    • celona.com    Data migration tools
    • cemaphore.com    Messaging solutions
    • centos.org    Cluster Storage
    • centrepath.com    Storage management solutions (formerly Giant Loop)
    • centrify.com    Digital rights management for cloud, virtual, server, desktop and storage
    • Tier3/CenturyLink   Cloud, hosting and managed services
    • Centurylinkg/Savvis    Cloud and hosting solutions
    • Ceph   Cloud and object storage solutions
    • cert.org    Internet Security information
    • certesnetworks.com    Cloud security tools
    • certon.com    VAR
    • CFN Services    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • chelsio.com    High speed Ethernet adapters
    • chicorporation.com    Data protection, cloud and storage VAR
    • ciena.com    Optical networking
    • Cinenet    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • ciphermax.com    Data Storage Encryption Tools
    • cipheroptics.com    Storage networking security
    • ciprico.com    Storage systems (Bought by DotHill)
    • cirrustore.com    Backup data protection tools
    • cirtas.com    Cloud Storage Appliance – Added 6/9/10
    • cisco.com    Switches, WAN and Optical networking
    • Citrix.com    Virtualization solutions
    • ClearDB.com/.com    Local and distributed (GEO) MySQL database software and service
    • clearpace.com/.com    Large scale archive and data management tools
    • CleverSafe.com    Distributed object/esrasure storage
    • climatesaverscomputing.com    Green computing industry trade group
    • Clonix   Data cloning, duplication and protection tools
    • CloudByte   Scale-out and cloud storage
    • cloudera.com    Hadoop data storage and analytics tools
    • CloudFlare   CDN and Web Cache solutions
    • cloudfuzion.com    High performance servers
    • Cloudian   Cloud and object storage tools
    • Cloudphysics   Big data and virtualization tools
    • cloudreplica.com    Cloud data protection tools
    • cloudscaling.com    Open cloud platforms
    • Apache CloudStack   Open Source Cloud tools
    • cloudtp.com    Open cloud deployment solutions
    • CloudVelocity   Hybrid Cloud and data protection management solutins
    • cloverleafcomm.com    Storage Virtualization tools (Bought by DotHill)
    • clustrix.com    Storage software startup
    • cmg.org    Computer Measurement Group
    • cnt.com    Switches, WAN gateways, software (Bought by McData bought by Brocade)
    • Cobalt Iron   Data protection tools
    • code42.com    Cloud storage and backup aka Crashplan
    • Codenomicon.com    Data and security tools
    • cofio.com    Backup and data protection tools
    • CohesiveFT   Cloud solution and management tools
    • colliercomputing.com    VAR
    • colo-america.com    Co-location and hosting services

    • communities.vmware.com    VMware community
    • commvault.com    Data management software
    • comodo.com    Encryption tools
    • Comparitech    Consumer tech reviews
    • compellent.com    SMB Storage sub-systems and software – (Bought by Dell)
    • comptia.org    Computer and Technology Industry Association
    • compucom.com    VAR
    • computergamedesign.org    Computer game design
    • compuverde.com    Big data management tools and object storage
    • compuware.com    IT management and performance tools
    • condre.com    VAR/distributor
    • Condusiv   Data and storage management tools including Diskeeper
    • XO Communications    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • Connected Cloud    Cloud management tools
    • connectwise.com    IT automation tools
    • conres.com    Value added reseller (VAR)
    • consiliant.com    VAR
    • ConstantData.com    Real time data replication and mirroring
    • continuitysoftware.com    Replication and Snapshot data protection management
    • convirture.com    Cloud and virtualization tools
    • copansys.com    Secondary storage for backup and archiving (Assets Bought by SGI)
    • coraid.com    SATA over Ethernet storage
    • CoreSite    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • corevault.com    Cloud services
    • Cormant    DCIM and data center and infrastructure management tools
    • corning.com    Fiber optic cabling
    • corsair.com    SSD
    • corvis.com    Networking solutions
    • cPanel    Web, cloud and hosting management tools
    • crashplan.com    Cloud storage and backup aka Code42
    • creekpath.com    Storage management software
    • www.critical-links.com    Office in a box
    • crossroads.com    Storage routers and data protection management tools
    • Crosswalkinc.com    Clustered NAS storage (Ceased Operations)
    • crucial.com    Memory and SSD solutions
    • cru-dataport.com    Data Archive solutions
    • Crypto.com    Crypto resource site
    • www.ctera.com    Cloud storage appliance
    • Cumulus Networks    Open networking
    • curtisssd.com    SSD solution provider
    • cya.com    Document management and data protection
    • cyber-ark.com    Security data protection tools
    • cypress.com    Storage and networking components
    • dantz.com    Data protection and backup solutions (Aka Retrospect Bought by EMC, EMC sold off)
    • datacentertechnologies.com    Data management solutions (Bought by Symantec)
    • datacore.com    Storage management software
    • datadepositbox.com    Online backup and data protection
    • datadirectnetworks.com    Aka DDN Storage systems, SAN, NAS, Object and cloud
    • datadomain.com    Data Deduplication System (Bought by EMC)
    • Data Dynamics Inc    StorageX Data Movement, Migration and management
    • datafort.com    Online cloud backup
    • dataglobal.com    Data and storage management
    • Data Gravity    Big Data solutions
    • datagres.com    Cloud and application caching acceleration
    • dataguise.com/    Data security solutions
    • datalink.com    VAR
    • datallegro.com    Data warehouse storage solution (Bought by Microsoft)
    • datamirror.com    Data replication solutions
    • DataON Storage    Storage solutions
    • Datapipe    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • dataprotection.com    Vaultlogix data protection tools for cloud
    • DataRAM.com    SSD solutions
    • Data sales    Storage systems sales and leasing
    • dataslide.com    Hard rectangular disk (HRD)
    • datastor.com    Windows based backup data protection
    • datcollaborative.org    Data collaboration group and DAPL material
    • datoptic.com    Storage VAR
    • daymarksi.com    Value added reseller (VAR)
    • DBR360    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • ddifrontline.com    Security and access control
    • debian.org    Open source operating system
    • Debriefing software    Storage SRM tools
    • decru.com    Storage networking security solutions (Bought by NetApp)
    • Asempra.com    Data protection bought by Dell via Quest
    • dell.com    Storage networking equipment
    • Delphix    Storage, data management and data protection tools
    • demandtechnology.com    Demand technology software (performance software)
    • Denodo    Data virtualization tools
    • dexrexgear .com    Social media cloud storage
    • www.dey-sys.com    Open source software based sotrage
    • www.dh2i.com    Database virtualization software tools
    • digidata.com    Storage solutions
    • digistoresolutions.com    Archiving and data protection solutions
    • Digitalocular.com     Video data management tools
    • digitalreefinc.com    eDiscovery and compliance tools
    • digitiliti.com    Cloud and managed service backup
    • diligent.com    Virtual Tape Library (VTL) and Dedupe (Bought by IBM)
    • dimensiondata.com    VAR
    • Dimension Data    Hosting and managed services
    • dincloud.com    Cloud virtual desktop
    • directtextbook.com    Online book venue
    • discoverybox.net    Data protection for legal hold and compliance
    • diskkeeper.com    File and disk storage defragmentation (Condusiv)
    • Disklace.com    Disk storage optimization tools
    • dlink.com    Storage, network and cloud technologies
    • dmtf.org    Distributed Management Task Force
    • dnfstorage.com    iSCSI and hybrid storage (formerly Stonefly)
    • dothill.com    Distributed storage solutions
    • Doubletake.com    Data replication software
    • driveoncloud.com    Cloud drive online storage
    • drivesaversdatarecovery.com    Data protection and recovery
    • drobo.com    SMB and SOHO NAS storage
    • dropbox.com    Cloud storage and file sharing
    • druva.com    Backup, Storage, network and cloud technologies
    • dsireusa.org    Database of State Incentives and Renewable Energy
    • Dundas    Data Visualization and mobile dashboards
    • dvs.de    Digital video systems and storage
    • dynamicsolutions.com    Storage and data protection VAR
    • EaseUS    Backup, data protection and cloning tools
    • ecctek.com    Rugged data storage components
    • econnectix.com    Data and storage management solutions
    • eds.com    Data outsourcing and cloud provider (Bought by HP)
    • eere.energy.gov     U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) web site
    • egenera.com    Blade server and server virtualization management software
    • eginnovations.com    Application and infrastructure monitoring
    • egnyte.com    Cloud backup and data protection
    • eia.doe.gov/fuelelectric.html    Portal for electrical power generation, use and costs
    • emc.com    Storage sub-systems software
    • Emerson.com    DCIM IT Data center power, cooling and environmental management tools
    • Empired FlexScale    IT and business cloud solutions
    • emprisanetworks.com    Network management solutions (Bought by BMC)
    • emulex.com    Host bus adapters and embedded switches
    • enclarity.com    Healthcare CRM and analysis tools
    • encryptstick.com    USB based encryption device
    • enduradata.com    Data distribution and protection
    • energycenter.org    California Center for Sustainable Energy
    • energyshop.com    Portal for energy pricing and options
    • energystar.gov    United States EPA Energy Star web site
    • Enhance-tech.com    Storage VAR
    • enmotus.com    SSD storage tiering technology
    • Ensim   IT and cloud provisioning/management tools
    • enstratus.com    Amazon cloud computing management tools (Bought by Dell)
    • enterprisedb.com    Enterprise Database tools
    • epeat.net    Site for comparing desktop and related products
    • epic.com    Medical Information Technology software
    • equallogic.com    iSCSI storage systems (Bought by Dell)
    • Equinix, Inc.    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • equivio.com    Email data protection and retention
    • ericom.com    Desktop and VDI tools
    • esilicon.com    ASIC and custom silicon development
    • essextec.com    VAR
    • Eucalyptus    Open source cloud solutions
    • Evault.com    aka i365 – Remote (Cloud) backup service provider (Bought by Seagate)
    • Everspin Technologies    MRAM memories
    • evolvingsol.com    VAR
    • evostor.com    Storage startup
    • exablade.com    High performance application acceleration
    • Exablox    SMB storage solutions
    • Exabyte.com    Removable tape and robotics
    • exagrid.com    Backup Storage
    • exanet.com    Clustered NAS Storage (Bought by Dell aka FluidFileSystem)
    • exar.com    Server, Storage and Networking components
    • exavio.com    HD and SD data capture
    • exludus.com    Multi core optimize
    • Expand.com    Network and WAN optimization
    • Expertanalyticalsystems.com    Storage analysis tools
    • Exponential-e Ltd.    AWS connect parter, Hosting/cloud/access services
    • expresscomputersystems.com    Storage solutions VAR
    • extremenetworks.com    Networking switches

    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.