Tag: Software Defined

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Welcome to the Cloud Bulk Object Storage Resources Center

Updated 8/31/19

Cloud Bulk Big Data Software Defined Object Storage Resources

server storage I/O trends Object Storage resources

Welcome to the Cloud, Big Data, Software Defined, Bulk and Object Storage Resources Center Page objectstoragecenter.com.

This object storage resources, along with software defined, cloud, bulk, and scale-out storage page is part of the server StorageIOblog microsite collection of resources. Software-defined, Bulk, Cloud and Object Storage exist to support expanding and diverse application data demands.

Other related resources include:

  • Software Defined, Cloud, Bulk and Object Storage Fundamentals
  • Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book (CRC Press)
  • Cloud, Software Defined, Scale-Out, Object Storage News Trends

    • Object storage SDDC SDDI
    Via Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017)

    Bulk, Cloud, Object Storage Solutions and Services

    There are various types of cloud, bulk, and object storage including public services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) Simple Storage Service (S3), Backblaze, Google, Microsoft Azure, IBM Softlayer, Rackspace among many others. There are also solutions for hybrid and private deployment from Cisco, Cloudian, CTERA, Cray, DDN, Dell EMC, Elastifile, Fujitsu, Vantera/HDS, HPE, Hedvig, Huawei, IBM, NetApp, Noobaa, OpenIO, OpenStack, Quantum, Rackspace, Rozo, Scality, Spectra, Storpool, StorageCraft, Suse, Swift, Virtuozzo, WekaIO, WD, among many others.

    Bulk Cloud Object storage SDDC SDDI
    Via Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press 2017)

    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.

    Object Context Matters

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

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

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

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

    The Need For Bulk, Cloud and Object Storage

    There is no such thing as an information recession with more data being generated, moved, processed, stored, preserved and served, granted there are economic realities. Likewise as a society our dependence on information being available for work or entertainment, from medical healthcare to social media and all points in between continues to increase (check out the Human Face of Big Data).

    In addition, people and data are living longer, as well as getting larger (hence little data, big data and very big data). Cloud products and services along with associated object storage, file systems, repositories and access methods are at the center of 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.

    Click here to view (and hear) more content including cloud and object storage fundamentals

    Click here to view software defined, bulk, cloud and object storage trend news

    cloud object storage

    Where to learn more

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



    Via InfoStor: Object Storage Is In Your Future
    Via FujiFilm IT Summit: Software Defined Data Infrastructures (SDDI) and Hybrid Clouds
    Via MultiChannel: After ditching cloud business, Verizon inks Virtual Network Services deal with Amazon
    Via MultiChannel: Verizon Digital Media Services now offers integrated Microsoft Azure Storage
    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
    Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Book)

    View more news, trends and related cloud object storage activity here.

    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

    What This All Means

    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 soon to this object storage center page including posts, presentations, pod casts, polls, 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.

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    Part II: XtremIO, XtremSW and XtremSF EMC flash ssd portfolio redefined

    Part one of this two-part post provided a summary of today’s EMC (@EMCflash) announcement around XtremIO and renaming VFCache to XtremSF and associated software as XtremSW.

    Storage I/O industry trends and perspectives

    Synopsis of announcement

    • Product rollout and selective availability of the new all flash SSD array XtremIO
    • Rename server-side PCIe ssd flash cards from VFCache to XtremSF
    • New XtremSF models including enhanced multi-level cell (eMLC) with larger capacities
    • Rename VFCache caching software to XtremSW (enables cache mode vs. target mode)

    Now lets take a closer look at what was announced along with what it means in terms of Industry Trends and Perspectives.

    XtremIO  has been in customer beta for some time and now those along with some other early customers are able to acquire the product. In addition, EMC is opening up XtremIO to more prospective customers (Directed Availability) who have requirements or needs that line up with the products target market capabilities.

    Storage I/O industry trends and perspectives

    What this means is that XtremIO is not being simply put out into the general product population for broad distribution. Instead, it is being put into a controlled release (Directed Availability) to help customers, partners and EMC sales decide where best to use it and thus risk revenue prevention in other areas. The criteria or target opportunity (at least initially) are little-data applications including OLTP, server virtualization (where aggregation can cause aggravation) along with virtual desktop or VDI. In other words, many of the traditional or legacy IOP focused SSD opportunities.

    In addition to XtremIO EMC has renamed their VFCache PCIe flash SSD cards (Launched February 2012) to XtremSF along with new models with both SLC and MLC nand flash. Also as part of today’s announcement EMC is renaming the cache software for XtremSF (e.g. VFCache) to be known as XtremSW. Now if that did not prompt the question of if you can now buy XtremSF as a target mode only card without the cache software the answer is yes.

    What is XtremIO?

    It is a new all flash SSD storage array. XtremIO is a Cluster, grid or collection of nodes called bricks with linear performance scaling providing block based all flash SSD storage. Data services consists of data footprint reduction (DFR) including inline global (across all nodes or bricks) dedupe on 4Kbyte chunks along with thin provisioning. Global dedupe is done on ingest using a combination of flash buffered meta-data (tables, index or dictionary) of what has been seen before along with multi-threaded software to leverage multi-core processors. Using the global dedupe at ingest; only new unique data is saved based on 4 Kbyte chunks.

    Performance per EMC scales from one single node to more second node or a fourth node. Note: architecturally more nodes can be added with EMC indicating added models will be available in the future.

    In addition to DFR, other data services including writable snapshots, and auto-load balancing when new bricks are added. Note that in a normal running XtremIO, data is automatically spread across the nodes for both performance and resiliency. Data only needs to be moved or load-balanced in the background when new bricks are added. Instant copy snapshots are supported along with writable snapshots. Currently replication is done via external EMC products such as VPLEX or RecoverPoint with statement of directions (SOD) for future enhancements.

    Additional attributes of XtremIO include:

    • Each node or brick (X-Brick) has up to 16 (16 was Gen 1 hardware platform, it is now 25 SSD drives)
    • All bricks are involved in IO and storage processing
    • Positioned by EMC as Software Defined (no proprietary hardware)
    • Four x 8Gb Fibre Channel (8GFC) and four x 10Gb Ethernet (iSCSI) per brick
    • Bricks communicate with each other via a separate interconnect network or fabric
    • Bricks have redundant processors (think of as controllers) with multiple sockets and cores
    • 4KB random read IOP’s scale from 250K (one brick), 500K (two bricks) and 1 Million (four bricks). For 4K random write IOPS, the numbers are 100K, 200K and 400K across one, two and four brick configurations with low latency and all data services running (EMC supplied numbers)

    In addition to 4K being a commonly used or referred to IO size, it is also the same size as the new industry standard Advanced Format (AF). Today the standard storage block, page or sector size is 512 bytes however AF moves that to a larger 4,096 bytes (e.g. 4KB) to closer align with larger IO sizes. Note that many HDD’s and some SSD’s today support AF and provide 512 byte emulation modes for compatibility.

    What is XtremSF?

    VFCache is renamed XtremSF with new models using eMLC as companion to existing SLC PCIe  cards and blade server mezzanine cards. EMC is emphasizing performance metrics that matter including IOPs that are relative to customer workloads such as 4K, 8K or larger with mix of reads and writes with low latency. In addition to IOPs with latency, size along with reads or writes for little data, EMC is also showing bandwidth or throughput numbers for big-data and big-bandwidth.

    Model
    Capacity
    Read Transfer GB/sec
    Write Transfer GB/sec
    Random 4K Read (IOPS)
    Random 4K Write (IOPS)

    Random 4K Mixed ( IOPS)

    Read latency (usec)
    Write latency (usec)
    2200 (eMLC)
    2.2 TB
    2.47
    1.1
    343K
    105K
    206K
    87us
    30us
    700 (SLC)
    700 GB
    2.9
    1.8
    712K
    197K
    411K
    50us
    13us
    550 (eMLC)
    550 GB
    1.36
    512 MB/s
    174K
    49K
    96K
    87us
    37us
    350 (SLC)
    350 GB
    2.9
    756 MB/s
    715K
    95K
    267K
    50us
    13us

    Sampling of SLC and eMLC XtremSF PCIe SSD cards performance characteristics (via EMC) including latency measured in microseconds). Note performance differences due to some cards being based on SLC and others on eMLC.

    Additional attributes, some new and some previously announced include:

    • 8X  PCIe bandwidth lanes for performance
    • No IO impact to applications during garbage collection
    • Supports multi-core processor workloads with parallel design
    • Low CPU overhead by off-loading functions to PCIe card
    • Half-height, half-length PCIe form factor
    • Wear-leveling for nand flash program/erase (P/E) cycle duration
    Other storage, server and systems vendors including Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, NetApp and Oracle offer various PCIe nand flash SSD cards either as target, cache or mixed modes. Manufactures or suppliers of PCIe nand flash SSD cache and target cards include among others FusionIO, Intel, LSI, Micron , OCZ and Virident (who is partnered with Seagate).

    What is XtremSW?

    Server side flash software (not to be confused with FAST) for using XtremSF as a tier 0 (server-side) ssd cache or target. In target mode the XtremSF functions as a high performance persistent local dedicated direct attached storage (DAS) device. Cache mode enables frequently accessed data to be kept close to the applications off-loading underlying storage systems to be more effectively used. The XtremSW complements back-end storage systems for data protection and persistence along with investment protection of those assets.

    Storage I/O industry trends and perspectives

    What this all means

    SSD is in your future, question is where, when and with what.

    Why not just use SSD (DRAM and or nand flash) everywhere?

    Keep in mind that in the data center (traditional, virtual or cloud) everything is not the same. Thus the simple answer is that there is not enough of it available at a low enough price point (think closer to Hard Disk Drives (HDD) costs) to fit into customers budget. Sure SSDs provide better performance and productivity benefits, however while there is no such thing as a data or information recession, there are budget constraints.

    Another reason why SSD cant simply be used everywhere are physical (and logical) constraints such as amount of memory a server can directly access, or current DDR3 DIMMs (this could change with DDR4 according to Micron) can only address and work with DRAM, PCIe bus physical slot space, operating and hypervisor addressing limits among others.

    If SSD (DRAM and or nand flash) were priced were priced low enough (e.g. much closer to HDDs) and available SSD including both DRAM and nand flash (SLC, MLC, eMLC, TLC, etc) along with emerging Phase Change Memory (PCM) are at the convergence of traditional memory and data storage. While some storage (or server) professionals may not agree, storage is an extension of memory and thus part of the traditional server and storage memory hierarchy shown below.

    Storage I/O and cache locality of reference

    This brings up the locality of reference topic also shown in the following figure where the best IO is the one that does not have to be done. The second best is the one that can be done closest to application to a given level of service. Locality of reference which is important for servers and storage systems including caching refers to how close frequently accessed data is to where it is needed. For some applications this means as much DRAM main memory in a server as possible either clustered, with battery backup or other data persistency protection including onboard HDD or SSD (e.g. towards the top of the hierarchy).

    nand flash SSD and storage I/O location options

    There are other applications where localized SSD (DRAM or nand flash) are a benefit to compliment main memory or as a persistent cache and target such as PCIe cards or SAS and SATA drives. Further down the stack and for housing larger amounts of storage with performance (reads or writes, random or sequential) along with data services is where all SSD and hybrid (mix of SSD and HDD) fit. Even further down the stack and for a broader segment is where cloud storage services based on SSD such as those from Rackspace (Cloud Block Storage with SSD) and Amazon (provisioned IOPS for EBS) have a play. Lets not forget about SSD in laptop, tablets and workstations, for example I have a Samsung model 830 in my Lenvo X1.

    Storage I/O industry trends and perspectives

    Some general industry trends include:

    • SSD is like real estate, location can matter, a little can go a long way
    • SSD media options include DRAM and nand flash (SLC, MLC, eMLC, TLC)
    • Portfolios broadening with different products for various needs
    • SSD functionality in servers, appliances, storage systems and cloud services
    • All flash SSD arrays have not killed off all traditional or hybrid storage arrays
    • Focus expanding from Just a Bunch Of SSD (JBOS) to enterprise like functionality
    • Software needs hardware, hardware needs software, the two work better together
    • Comparing meaningful metrics that matter vs. industry marketing metrics

    Related items about nand flash, SSD and metrics related themes:

    Storage I/O industry trends and perspectives

    Some additional thoughts and perspectives

    Does this mean traditional storage arrays are now dead?

    IMHO, no, there will be some cannibalization of existing storage systems by XtremIO within EMC customers or prospects if not managed, as well as via those from others. Keep in mind that recently EMC announced enhancements to their VMAX including entry-level options for service providers. Some new opportunities opened up will be where traditional all SSD (flash or dram) systems have historically had success.

    Traditional SSD and new dedicated SSD systems include Texas Memory Systems (TMS) bought by IBM in 2012, and the recently announced NetApp EF540 (and future FlashRay) along with startups Solidfire, Violin, Whiptail among others. There will be environments where XtremIO may take care of all storage needs for a customer or specific application or piece of it. Then there will be other situations where XtremIO will go-exist with EMC or other vendor’s storage solutions as part of a data infrastructure.

    Storage I/O industry trends and perspectives

    Who will EMC be competing against with XtremIO?

    Certainly the startups or smaller players such as Violin, Whiptail, Purestorage, Solidfire along with IBM/TMS and NetApp EF540 (eventually FlashRay as well) among others.

    There will also be some competition with other hybrid storage array vendors that have a mix of HDD and SSD. XtremIO will also compete in some situations on its own vs. other PCIe flash target and cache cards such as FusionIO, however for the most part those will up against XtremSF and XtremSW.

    Why the slow or “Directed Availability” rollout?

    Why not? By taking a controlled rollout selecting and qualifying customers for XtremIO, EMC gets to manage how the product goes out into production and control how it is used to increase chances of success. Unlike a startup that would be forced to try to put their new technology anywhere, EMC has the luxury of selecting where it goes, not to mention needing to avoid introducing a revenue prevention play for its other products.

    Overall, I give an Atta boy and Atta girl to the EMC crew for a Product Defined Announcement (PDA) extending their flash portfolio to complement their different customers and prospects various environment needs. Now watch EMC, NetApp and others step up their flash dance moves to see who will out flash the others in the eXtreme flash games, not to mention emerging software defined marketing moves (SDMM) ;) .

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers Gs

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

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

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    XtremIO, XtremSW and XtremSF EMC flash ssd portfolio redefined

    EMC (@EMCflash) today announced some new, enhanced, renamed and a rebrand flash solid-state device (SSD) storage portfolio around theme of XtremIO. XtremIO was the startup company with a new all flash SSD storage array that EMC announced they were buying in May 2012. Since that announcement, Project “X” has been used when referring to the product now known as XtremIO (e.g. all flash new storage array).

    Synopsis of announcement

    • Product rollout and selective availability of the new all flash SSD array XtremIO
    • Rename server-side PCIe ssd flash cards from VFCache to XtremSF
    • New XtremSF models including enhanced multi-level cell (eMLC) with larger capacities
    • Rename VFCache caching software to XtremSW (enables cache mode vs. target mode)

    What was previously announced:

    • Buying the company XtremeIO
    • Productizing  the new all flash array as part of Project “X”
    • It would formally announce the new product in 2013 (which is now)
    • VFCache and later enhancements during 2012.

    Storage I/O industry trends and perspectives

    Overall, I give an Atta boy and Atta girl to the EMC crew for a Product Defined Announcement (PDA) extending their flash portfolio to complement their different customers and prospects various environment needs. Now let us sit back and watch EMC, NetApp and others step up their flash dance moves to see who will out flash the others in the eXtreme flash games, including software defined storage, software defined data centers, software defined flash, and software defined cache.

    Related items about nand flash and metrics related themes:

    Read more about XtremIO, XtremSF, XtremSW and flash related items here in part II of this post.

    Ok, nuff said (for now).

    Cheers gs

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

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

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    Cloud, virtualization, Storage I/O trends for 2013 and beyond

    StorageIO Industry trends and perspectives image

    It is still early in 2013, so I can make some cloud, virtualization, storage and IO related predictions, or more aptly, talk about some trends, in addition to those that I made in late 2012, looking forward and back. Common over-riding themes will continue to include convergence (people and technology), valueware, clouds (public, private, hybrid and community) among others.

    cloud virtualization storage I/O data center image

    Certainly, solid state drives (SSDs) will remain popular, both in terms of industry adoption, and industry deployment. Big-data (and little data) management tools and purpose-build storage systems or solutions continue to be popular, as are those for supporting little data applications. On the cloud storage front, there are many options for various use cases available. Watch for more emphasis on service-level agreements (SLA), service-level objectives (SLO), security, pricing transparency, and tiers of service.

    storage I/O rto rpo dcim image

    Cloud and object storage will continue to gain in awareness, functionality, and options from various providers in terms of products, solutions, and services. There will be a mix of large-scale solutions and smaller ones, with a mix of open-source and proprietary pieces. Some of these will be for archiving, some for backup or data protection. Others will be for big-data, high-performance computing, or cloud on a local or wide area basis, while others for general file sharing.

    Ceph object storage architecture example

    Along with cloud and object storage, watch for more options about how those products or services can be accessed using traditional NAS (NFS, CIFS, HDFS and others) along with block, such as iSCSI object API’s, including Amazon S3, REST, HTTP, JSON, XML, iOS and CDMI along with programmatic bindings.

    Data protection modernization, including backup/restore, high-availability, business continuity, disaster recovery, archiving, and related technologies for cloud, virtual, and traditional environments will remain popular themes.

    cloud and virtual data center image

    Expect more Fibre Channel over Ethernet for networking with your servers and storage, PCIe Gen 3 to move data in and out of servers, and Serial-attached SCSI (SAS) as a means of attaching storage to servers or as the back-end storage for larger storage systems and appliances. For those who like to look out over the horizon, keep an eye and ear open for more discussion around PCI gen 3 deployment and gen 4 definitions, not to mention DDR4 and nand flash moving close to the processors.

    With VMware buying Virsto, that should keep software defined marketing (SDM) and Storage hypervisors, storage virtualization, virtual storage, virtual storage arrays (VSA’s) active topic themes. Lets also keep in mind for storage space capacity optimization Data footprint reduction (DFR) including archiving, backup and data protection modernization, compression, consolidation, dedupe and data management.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

    twitter @storageio

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

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    Industry trends and perspectives: SNW 2012 Rapping with Dave Raffo of SearchStorage

    Now also available via

    This is the seventh (here is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth) in a series of StorageIO industry trends and perspective audio blog and pod cast discussions from Storage Networking World (SNW) Fall 2012 in Santa Clara California.

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    Given how at conference conversations tend to occur in the hallways, lobbies and bar areas of venues, what better place to have candid conversations with people from throughout the industry, some you know, some you will get to know better.

    In this episode, my co-host Bruce Rave aka Bruce Ravid of Ravid and Associates (twitter @brucerave) meets up Sr. News Director Dave Raffo of TechTarget and Search Storage in the SNW trade show expo hall. Our conversation covers past and present SNWs along with other industry conferences, industry trends, software defined buzzwords, Green Bay Packers smack and more.

    Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with Dave, Bruce and myself.

    StorageIO podcast

    Also available via

    Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts from SNW and other upcoming events. Also be sure to heck out other related pod casts, videos, posts, tips and industry commentary at StorageIO.com and StorageIOblog.com.

    Enjoy listening to Rapping with Dave Raffo of Search Storage from the Fall SNW 2012 pod cast.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2012 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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    Trick or treat and vendor fun games

    Server StorageIO data infrastructure industry trends Trick or treat and vendor fun games
    Trick or treat and vendor fun games
    Updated 6/26/18

    In the spirit of Halloween and zombies season, a couple of thoughts come to mind about vendor tricks and treats. This is an industry trends and perspectives post, part of an ongoing series looking at various technology and fun topics.

    The first trick or treat game pertains to the blame game; you know either when something breaks, or at the other extreme, before you have even made a decision to buy something. The trick or treat game for decision-making goes something like this.

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    Vendor “A” says products succeed with their solution while failure results with a solution from “B” when doing “X”. Otoh, vendor “B” claims that “X” will fail when using a solution from vendor “A”. In fact, you can pick what you want to substitute for “X”, perhaps VDI, Big Data, Little Data, Backup, Archive, Analytics, Private Cloud, Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, eDiscovery you name it.

    This is not complicated math or big data problem requiring a high-performance computing (HPC) platform. A HPC Zetta-Flop processing ability using 512 bit addressing of 9.9 (e.g. 1 nine) PettaBytes of battery-backed DRAM and an IO capability of 9.99999 (e.g. 5 9’s) trillion 8 bit IOPS to do table pivots or runge kutta numerical analysis, map reduce, SAS or another modeling with optional iProduct or Android interface are not needed.

    image of StorageIO big data HPC cloud storageimage of StorageIO big data HPC cloud storage
    StorageIO images of touring Texas Advanced Computing (e.g. HPC) Center

    Can you solve this equation? Hint it does not need a PhD or any other advanced degree. Another hint, if you have ever been at any side of the technology product and services decision-making table, regardless of the costume you wore, you should know the answer.

    Of course the question of would “X” fail regardless of who or what “A” or “B” let alone a “C”, “D” or “F”? In other words, it is not the solution, technology, vendor or provider, rather the problem or perhaps even lack thereof that is the issue. Or is it a case where there is a solution from “A”, “B” or any others that is looking for a problem, and if it is the wrong problem, there can be a wrong solution thus failure?

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    Another trick or treat game is vendors public relations (PR) or analyst relations (AR) people to ask for one thing and delivery or ask another. For example, some vendor, service provider, their marketing AR and PR people or surrogates make contact wanting to tell of various success and failure story. Of course, this is usually their success and somebody else’s failure, or their victory over something or someone who sometimes can be interesting. Of course, there are also the treats to get you to listen to the above, such as tempt you with a project if you meet with their subject, which may be a trick of a disappearing treat (e.g. magic, poof it is gone after the discussion).

    There are another AR and PR trick and treat where they offer on behalf of their representative organization or client to a perspective or exclusive insight on their competitor. Of course, the treat from their perspective is that they will generously expose all that is wrong with what a competitor is saying about their own (e.g. the competitors) product.

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    Let me get this straight, I am not supposed to believe what somebody says about his or her own product, however, supposed to believe what a competitor says is wrong with the competition’s product, and what is right with his or her own product.

    Hmm, ok, so let me get this straight, a competitor say “A” wants to tell me what somebody say from “B” has told me is wrong and I should schedule a visit with a truth squad member from “A” to get the record set straight about “B”?

    Does that mean then that I go to “B” for a rebuttal, as well as an update about “A” from “B”, assuming that what “A” has told me is also false about themselves, and perhaps about “B” or any other?

    Too be fair, depending on your level of trust and confidence in either a vendor, their personal or surrogates, you might tend to believe more from them vs. others, or at least until you been tricked after given treats. There may be some that have been tricked, or they tried applying to many treats to present a story that behind the costume might be a bit scary.

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    Having been through enough of these, and I candidly believe that sometimes “A” or “B” or any other party actually do believe that they have more or better info about their competitor and that they can convince somebody about what their competitor is doing better than the competitor can. I also believe that there are people out there who will go to “A” or “B” and believe what they are told by based on their preference, bias or interests.

    When I hear from vendors, VARs, solution or service providers and others, it’s interesting hearing point, counterpoint and so forth, however if time is limited, I’am more interested in hearing from such as “A” about them, what they are doing, where success, where challenges, where going and if applicable, under NDA go into more detail.

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    Customer success stories are good, however again, if interested in what works, what kind of works, or what does not work, chances are when looking for G2 vs. GQ, a non-scripted customer conversation or perspective of the good, the bad and the ugly is preferred, even if under NDA. Again, if time is limited which it usually is, focus on what is being done with your solution, where it is going and if compelled send follow-up material that can of course include MUD and FUD about others if that is your preference.

    Then there is when during a 30 minute briefing, the vendor or solution provider is still talking about trends, customer pain points, what competitors are doing at 21 minutes into the call with no sign of an announcement, update or news in site

    Lets not forget about the trick where the vendor marketing or PR person reaches out and says that the CEO, CMO, CTO or some other CxO or Chief Jailable Officer (CJO) wants to talk with you. Part of the trick is when the CxO actually makes it to the briefing and is not ready, does not know why the call is occurring, or, thinks that a request for an audience has been made with them for an interview or something else.

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    A treat is when 3 to 4 minutes into a briefing, the vendor or solution provider has already framed up what and why they are doing something. This means getting to what they are announcing or planning on doing and getting into a conversation to discuss what they are doing and making good follow-up content and resources available.

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    Sometimes a treat is when a briefer goes on autopilot nailing their script for 29 of a 30 minute session then use the last-minute to ask if there are any questions. The reason autopilot briefings can be a treat is when they are going over what is in the slide deck, webex, or press release thus affording an opportunity to get caught up on other things while talk at you. Hmm, perhaps need to consider playing some tricks in reward for those kind of treats? ;)

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    Do not be scared, not everybody is out to trick you with treats, and not all treats have tricks attached to them. Be prepared, figure out who is playing tricks with treats, and who has treats without tricks.

    Oh, and as a former IT customer, vendor and analyst, one of my favorites is contact information of my dogs to vendors who require registration on their websites for basic things such as data sheets. Another is supplying contact information of competing vendors sales reps to vendors who also require registration for basic data sheets or what should otherwise be generally available information as opposed to more premium treats. Of course there are many more fun tricks, however lets leave those alone for now.

    Note: Zombie voting rules apply which means vote early, vote often, and of course vote for those who cannot include those that are dead (real or virtual).

    Where To Learn More

    View additiona related material 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

    Watch out for tricks and treats, have a safe and fun Zombie (aka Halloween) season. See you while out and about this fall and don’t forget to take part in the ongoing zombie technology poll. Oh, and be safe with trick or treat and vendor fun games

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

    Posted on

    What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do

    What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do

    data infrastructure server storage I/O trends

    Updated 2/10/2018

    What is the best kind of IO? If no IO (input/output) operation is the best IO, than the second best IO is the one that can be done as close to the application and processor with best locality of reference. Then the third best IO is the one that can be done in less time, or at least cost or impact to the requesting application which means moving further down the memory and storage stack (figure 1).

    Storage and IO or I/O locality of reference and storage hirearchy
    Figure 1 memory and storage hierarchy

    The problem with IO is that they are basic operation to get data into and out of a computer or processor so they are required; however, they also have an impact on performance, response or wait time (latency). IO require CPU or processor time and memory to set up and then process the results as well as IO and networking resources to move data to their destination or retrieve from where stored. While IOs cannot be eliminated, their impact can be greatly improved or optimized by doing fewer of them via caching, grouped reads or writes (pre-fetch, write behind) among other techniques and technologies.

    Think of it this way, instead of going on multiple errands, sometimes you can group multiple destinations together making for a shorter, more efficient trip; however, that optimization may also take longer. Hence sometimes it makes sense to go on a couple of quick, short low latency trips vs. one single larger one that takes half a day however accomplishes many things. Of course, how far you have to go on those trips (e.g. locality) makes a difference of how many you can do in a given amount of time.

    What is locality of reference?

    Locality of reference refers to how close (e.g location) data exists for where it is needed (being referenced) for use. For example, the best locality of reference in a computer would be registers in the processor core, then level 1 (L1), level 2 (L2) or level 3 (L3) onboard cache, followed by dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Then would come memory also known as storage on PCIe cards such as nand flash solid state device (SSD) or accessible via an adapter on a direct attached storage (DAS), SAN or NAS device. In the case of a PCIe nand flash SSD card, even though physically the nand flash SSD is closer to the processor, there is still the overhead of traversing the PCIe bus and associated drivers. To help offset that impact, PCIe cards use DRAM as cache or buffers for data along with Meta or control information to further optimize and improve locality of reference. In other words, help with cache hits, cache use and cache effectiveness vs. simply boosting cache utilization.

    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

    What can you do the cut the impact of IO

    • Establish baseline performance and availability metrics for comparison
    • Realize that IOs are a fact of IT virtual, physical and cloud life
    • Understand what is a bad IO along with its impact
    • Identify why an IO is bad, expensive or causing an impact
    • Find and fix the problem, either with software, application or database changes
    • Throw more software caching tools, hyper visors or hardware at the problem
    • Hardware includes faster processors with more DRAM and fast internal busses
    • Leveraging local PCIe flash SSD cards for caching or as targets
    • Utilize storage systems or appliances that have intelligent caching and storage optimization capabilities (performance, availability, capacity).
    • Compare changes and improvements to baseline, quantify improvement

    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

    As the Hard Disk Drive HDD continues to spin

    As the Hard Disk Drive HDD continues to spin

    server storage data infrastructure i/o iop hdd ssd trends

    Updated 2/10/2018

    Despite having been repeatedly declared dead at the hands of some new emerging technology over the past several decades, the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) continues to spin and evolve as it moves towards its 60th birthday.

    More recently HDDs have been declared dead due to flash SSD that according to some predictions, should have caused the HDD to be extinct by now.

    Meanwhile, having not yet died in addition to having qualified for its AARP membership a few years ago, the HDD continues to evolve in capacity, smaller form factor, performance, reliability, density along with cost improvements.

    Back in 2006 I did an article titled Happy 50th, hard drive, but will you make it to 60?

    IMHO it is safe to say that the HDD will be around for at least a few more years if not another decade (or more).

    This is not to say that the HDD has outlived its usefulness or that there are not other tiered storage mediums to do specific jobs or tasks better (there are).

    Instead, the HDD continues to evolve and is complimented by flash SSD in a way that HDDs are complimenting magnetic tape (another declared dead technology) each finding new roles to support more data being stored for longer periods of time.

    After all, there is no such thing as a data or information recession!

    What the importance of this is about technology tiering and resource alignment, matching the applicable technology to the task at hand.

    Technology tiering (Servers, storage, networking, snow removal) is about aligning the applicable resource that is best suited to a particular need in a cost as well as productive manner. The HDD remains a viable tiered storage medium that continues to evolve while taking on new roles coexisting with SSD and tape along with cloud resources. These and other technologies have their place which ideally is finding or expanding into new markets instead of simply trying to cannibalize each other for market share.

    Here is a link to a good story by Lucas Mearian on the history or evolution of the hard disk drive (HDD) including how a 1TB device that costs about $60 today would have cost about a trillion dollars back in the 1950s. FWIW, IMHO the 1 trillion dollars is low and should be more around 2 to 5 trillion for the one TByte if you apply common costs for management, people, care and feeding, power, cooling, backup, BC, DR and other functions.

    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

    IMHO, it is safe to say that the HDD is here to stay for at least a few more years (if not decades) or at least until someone decides to try a new creative marketing approach by declaring it dead (again).

    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

    Who is responsible for vendor lockin?

    Who is responsible for vendor lockin?

    data infrastructure server storage I/O vendor lockin

    Updated 1/21/2018

    Who is responsible for vendor lockin?

    Is vendor lockin caused by vendors, their partners or by customers?

    In my opinion vendor lockin can be from any or all of the above.

    What is vendor lockin

    Vendor lockin is a situation where a customer becomes dependent or locked in by choice or other circumstances to a particular supplier or technology.

    What is the difference between vendor lockin, account control and stickiness?

    Im sure some marketing wiz or sales type will be happy to explain the subtle differences. Generally speaking, lockin, stickiness and account control are essentially the same, or at least strive to obtain similar results. For example, vendor lockin too some has a negative stigma. However vendor stickiness may be a new term, perhaps even sounding cool thus it is not a concern. Remember the Mary Poppins song a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down? In other words sometimes changing and using a different term such as sticky vs vendor lockin helps make the situation taste better.

    Is vendor lockin or stickiness a bad thing?

    No, not necessarily, particularly if you the customer are aware and still in control of your environment.

    I have had different views of vendor lockin over the years.

    These have varied from when I was a customer working in IT organizations or being a vendor and later as an advisory analyst consultant. Even as a customer, I had different views of lockin which varied depending upon the situation. In some cases lockin was a result of upper management having their favorite vendor which meant when a change occurred further up the ranks, sometimes vendor lockin would shift as well. On the other hand, I also worked in IT environments where we had multiple vendors for different technologies to maintain competition across suppliers.

    As a vendor, I was involved with customer sites that were best of breed while others were aligned around a single or few vendors. Some were aligned around technologies from the vendors I worked for and others were aligned with someone elses technology. In some cases as a vendor we were locked out of an account until there was a change of management or mandates at those sites. In other cases where lock out occurred, once our product was OEMd or resold by an incumbent vendor, the lockout ended.

    Some vendors do a better job of establishing lockin, account management, account control or stickiness than compared to others. Some vendors may try to lock a customer in and thus there is perception that vendors lock customers in. Likewise, there is a perception that vendor lockin only occurs with the largest vendors however I have seen this also occur with smaller or niche vendors who gain control of their customers keeping larger or other vendors out.

    Sweet, sticky Sue Bee Honey

    Vendor lockin or stickiness is not always the result of the vendor, var, consultant or service provider pushing a particular technology, product or service. Customers can allow or enable vendor lockin as well, either by intent via alliances to drive some business initiative or accidentally by giving up account control management. Consequently vendor lockin is not a bad thing if it brings mutual benefit to the suppler and consumer.

    On the other hand, if lockin causes hardship on the consumer while only benefiting the supplier, than it can be a bad thing for the customer.

    Do some technologies lend themselves more to vendor lockin vs others?

    Yes, some technologies lend themselves more to stickiness or lockin then others. For example, often big ticket or expensive hardware are seen as being vulnerable to vendor lockin along with other hardware items however software is where I have seen a lot of stickiness or lockin around.

    However what about virtualization solutions after all the golden rule of virtualization is whoever controls the virtualization (hardware, software or services) controls the gold. This means that vendor lockin could be around a particular hypervisor or associated management tools.

    How about bundled solutions or what are now called integrated vendor technology stacks including PODs (here or here) or vBlocks among others? How about databases, do they enable or facilitate vendor lockin? Perhaps, just like virtualization or operating systems or networking technology, storage system, data protection or other solutions, if you let the technology or vendor manage you, then you enable vendor lockin.

    Where can vendor lockin or stickiness occur?

    Application software, databases, data or information tools, messaging or collaboration, infrastructure resource management (IRM) tools ranging from security to backup to hypervisors and operating systems to email. Lets not forget about hardware which has become more interoperable from servers, storage and networks to integrated marketing or alliance stacks.

    Another opportunity for lockin or stickiness can be in the form of drivers, agents or software shims where you become hooked on a feature functionality that then drives future decisions. In other words, lockin can occur in different locations both in traditional IT as well as via managed services, virtualization or cloud environments if you let it occur.

     

    Keep these thoughts in mind:

    • Customers need to manage their resources and suppliers
    • Technology and their providers should work for you the customer, not the other way around
    • Technology providers conversely need to get closer to influence customer thinking
    • There can be cost with single vendor or technology sourcing due to loss of competition
    • There can be a cost associated with best of breed or functioning as your own integrator
    • There is a cost switching from vendors and or their technology to keep in mind
    • Managing your vendors or suppliers may be easier than managing your upper management
    • Vendors sales remove barriers so they can sell and setting barriers for others
    • Virtualization and cloud can be both a source for lockin as well as a tool to help prevent it
    • As a customer, if lockin provides benefits than it can be a good thing for all involved

    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

    Ultimately, its up to the customer to manage their environment and thus have a say if they will allow vendor lockin. Granted, upper management may be the source of the lockin and not surprisingly is where some vendors will want to focus their attention directly, or via influence of high level management consultants.

    So while a vendors solution may appear to be a locked in solution, it does not become a lockin issue or problem until a customer lets or allows it to be a lockin or sticky situation.

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

    Is vendor lockin a good or bad thing?

    Who is responsible for managing vendor lockin

    Where is most common form or concern of vendor lockin

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

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

    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

    What is DFR or Data Footprint Reduction?

    What is DFR or Data Footprint Reduction?

    What is DFR or Data Footprint Reduction?

    Updated 10/9/2018

    What is DFR or Data Footprint Reduction?

    Data Footprint Reduction (DFR) is a collection of techniques, technologies, tools and best practices that are used to address data growth management challenges. Dedupe is currently the industry darling for DFR particularly in the scope or context of backup or other repetitive data.

    However DFR expands the scope of expanding data footprints and their impact to cover primary, secondary along with offline data that ranges from high performance to inactive high capacity.

    Consequently the focus of DFR is not just on reduction ratios, its also about meeting time or performance rates and data protection windows.

    This means DFR is about using the right tool for the task at hand to effectively meet business needs, and cost objectives while meeting service requirements across all applications.

    Examples of DFR technologies include Archiving, Compression, Dedupe, Data Management and Thin Provisioning among others.

    Read more about DFR in Part I and Part II of a two part series found here and here.

    Where to learn more

    Learn more about data footprint reducton (DFR), data footprint overhead and related topics via the following links:

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

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    What this all means

    That is all for now, hope you find these ongoing series of current or emerging Industry Trends and Perspectives posts of interest.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Cheers Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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

    Posted on

    Server Storage I/O Network Virtualization Whats Next?

    Server Storage I/O Network Virtualization Whats Next?
    Server Storage I/O Network Virtualization Whats Next?
    Updated 9/28/18

    There are many faces and thus functionalities of virtualization beyond the one most commonly discussed which is consolidation or aggregation. Other common forms of virtualization include emulation (which is part of enabling consolidation) which can be in the form of a virtual tape library for storage to bridge new disk technology to old software technology, processes, procedures and skill sets. Other forms of virtualization functionality for life beyond consolidation include abstraction for transparent movement of applications or operating systems on servers, or data on storage to support planned and un-planned maintenance, upgrades, BC/DR and other activities.

    So the gist is that there are many forms of virtualization technologies and techniques for servers, storage and even I/O networks to address different issues including life beyond consolidation. However the next wave of consolidation could and should be that of reducing the number of logical images, or, the impact of the multiple operating systems and application images, along with their associated management costs.

    This may be easier said than done, however, for those looking to cut costs even further than from what can be realized by reducing physical footprints (e.g. going from 10 to 1 or from 250 to 25 physical servers), there could be upside however it will come at a cost. The cost is like that of reducing data and storage footprint impacts with such as data management and archiving.

    Savings can be realized by archiving and deleting data via data management however that is easier said than done given the cost in terms of people time and ability to decide what to archive, even for non-compliance data along with associated business rules and policies to be defined (for automation) along with hardware, software and services (managed services, consulting and/or cloud and SaaS).

    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

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2018. Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

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