virtualization Archives

November 4, 2014November 26, 2023

Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD StorgeIO lab review

This is the first post of a two part series, read the second post here.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to test drive some Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD’s as a follow-up to some earlier activity trying their Enterprise TurboBoost Drives. Disclosure: Seagate has been a StorageIO client and was also the sponsor of this white paper and associated proof-points mentioned in this post.

The question to ask yourself is not if flash Solid State Device (SSD) technologies are in your future, Instead the questions are when, where, using what, how to configure and related themes. SSD including traditional DRAM and NAND flash-based technologies are like real estate where location matters; however, there are different types of properties to meet various needs. This means leveraging different types of NAND flash SSD technologies in different locations in a complementary and cooperative aka hybrid way. For example nand flash SSD as part of an enterprise tiered storage strategy can be implemented server-side using PCIe cards, SAS and SATA drives as targets or as cache along with software, as well as leveraging SSD devices in storage systems or appliances.

Seagate 1200 SSD
Seagate 1200 Enterprise SAS 12Gbs SSD Image via Seagate.com

Another place where nand flash can be found and compliments SSD devices are so-called Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD) or Hybrid Hard Disk Drives (HHDD) including a new generation that accelerate writes as well as reads such as those Seagate refers to as with Enterprise TurboBoost. The Enterprise TurboBoost drives (view the companion StorageIO Lab review TurboBoost white paper here) were previously known as the Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD) or Hybrid Hard Disk Drives (HHDD). Read more about TurboBoost here and here.

The best server and storage I/O is the one you do not have to do

Keep in mind that the best server or storage I/O is that one that you do not have to do, with the second best being the one with the least overhead resolved as close to the processor (compute) as possible or practical. The following figure shows that the best place to resolve server and storage I/O is as close to the compute processor as possible however only a finite amount of storage memory located there. This is where the server memory and storage I/O hierarchy comes into play which is also often thought of in the context of tiered storage balancing performance and availability with cost and architectural limits.

Also shown is locality of reference which refers to how close data is to where it is being used and includes cache effectiveness or buffering. Hence a small amount of cache of flash and DRAM in the right location can have a large benefit. Now if you can afford it, install as much DRAM along with flash storage as possible, however if you are like most organizations with finite budgets yet server and storage I/O challenges, then deploy a tiered flash storage strategy.

flash cache locality of reference
Server memory storage I/O hierarchy, locality of reference

Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD’s

Back to the Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD which is covered in this StorageIO Industry Trends Perspective thought leadership white paper. The focus of the white paper is to look at how the Seagate 1200 Enterprise class SSD’s and 12Gbps SAS address current and next generation tiered storage for virtual, cloud, traditional Little and Big Data infrastructure environments.

This includes providing proof points running various workloads including Database TPC-B, TPC-E and Microsoft Exchange in the StorageIO Labs along with cache software comparing SSD, SSHD and different HDD’s including 12Gbs SAS 6TB near-line high-capacity drives.

Seagate 1200 Enterprise SSD Proof Points

The proof points in this white paper are from an applications focus perspective representing more of an end-to-end real-world situation. While they are not included in this white paper, StorageIO has run traditional storage building-block focus workloads, which can be found at StorageIOblog (Part II: How many IOPS can a HDD, HHDD or SSD do with VMware?). These include tools such as Iometer, iorate, vdbench among others for various IO sizes, mixed, random, sequential, reads, writes along with “hot-band" across different number of threads (concurrent users). “Hot-Band” is part of the SNIA Emerald energy effectiveness metrics for looking at sustained storage performance using tools such as vdbench. Read more about other various server and storage I/O benchmarking tools and techniques here.

For the following series of proof-points (TPC-B, TPC-E and Exchange) a system under test (SUT) consisted of a physical server (described with the proof-points) configured with VMware ESXi along with guests virtual machines (VMs) configured to do the storage I/O workload. Other servers were used in the case of TPC workloads as application transactional requester to drive the SQL Server database and resulting server storage I/O workload. VMware was used in the proof-points to reflect a common industry trend of using virtual server infrastructures (VSI) supporting applications including database, email among others. For the proof-point scenarios, the SUT along with storage system device under test were dedicated to that scenario (e.g. no other workload running) unless otherwise noted.

Server Storage I/O configuration for proof-points

Microsoft Exchange Email proof-point configuration

For this proof-point, Microsoft Jet Stress Exchange performance workloads were placed (e.g. Exchange Database – EDB file) on each of the different devices under test with various metrics shown including activity rates and response time for reads as well as writes. For the Exchange testing, the EDB was placed on the device being tested while its log files were placed on a separate Seagate 400GB Enterprise 12Gbps SAS SSD.

Test configuration: Seagate 400GB 12000 2.5” SSD (ST400FM0073) 12Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise 15K with TurboBoost™ (ST600MX) 6 Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise Enhanced 15K V4 (15K RPM) HDD (ST600MP) with 6 Gbps SAS, Seagate Enterprise Capacity Nearline (ST6000NM0014) 6TB 3.5” 7.2K RPM HDD 12 Gbps SAS and 3TB 7.2K SATA HDD. Email server hosted as guest on VMware vSphere/ESXi V5.5, Microsoft SBS2011 Service Pack 1 64 bit. Guest VM (VMware vSphere 5.5) was on a SSD based dat, had a physical machine (host), with 14 GB DRAM, quad CPU (4 x 3.192GHz) Intel E3-1225 v300, with LSI 9300 series 12Gbps SAS adapters in a PCIe Gen 3 slot with Jet Stress 2010. All devices being tested were Raw Device Mapped (RDM) where EDB resided. VM on a SSD based separate data store than devices being tested. Log file IOPs were handled via a separate SSD device also persistent (no delayed writes). EDB was 300GB and workload ran for 8 hours.

Microsoft Exchange VMware SSD performance
Microsoft Exchange proof-points comparing various storage devices

TPC-B (Database, Data Warehouse, Batch updates) proof-point configuration

SSD’s are a good fit for both transaction database activity with reads and write as well as query-based decision support systems (DSS), data warehouse and big data analytics. The following are proof points of SSD capabilities for database activity. In addition to supporting database table files and objects, along with transaction journal logs, other uses include for meta-data, import/export or other high-IO and write intensive scenarios. Two database workload profiles were tested including batch update (write-intensive) and transactional. Activity involved running Transaction Performance Council (TPC) workloads TPC-B (batch update) and TPC-E (transaction/OLTP simulate financial trading system) against Microsoft SQL Server 2012 databases. Each test simulation had the SQL Server database (MDF) on a different device with transaction log file (LDF) on a separate SSD. TPC-B for a single device results shown below.

TPC-B (write intensive) results below show how TPS work being done (blue) increases from left to right (more is better) for various numbers of simulated users. Also shown on the same line for each amount of TPS work being done is the average latency in seconds (right to left) where lower is better. Results are shown from top to bottom for each group of users (100, 50, 20 and 1) for the different drives being tested (top to bottom). Note how the SSD device does more work at a lower response time vs. traditional HDD’s

Test configuration: Seagate 400GB 12000 2.5” SSD (ST400FM0073) 12Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise 15K with TurboBoost™ (ST600MX) 6 Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise Enhanced 15K V4 (15K RPM) HDD (ST600MP) with 6 Gbps SAS, Seagate Enterprise Capacity Nearline (ST6000NM0014) 6TB 3.5” 7.2K RPM HDD 12 Gbps SAS and 3TB Seagate 7.2K SATA HDD Workload generator and virtual clients Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 database was on Windows 7 guest. Guest VM (VMware vSphere 5.5) had a dedicated 14 GB DRAM, quad CPU (4 x 3.192GHz) Intel E3-1225 v300, with LSI 9300 series 12Gbps SAS adapters in a PCIe Gen 3 slot along with TPC-B (www.tpc.org) workloads.

VM with guest OS along with SQL tempdb and masterdb resided on separate SSD based data store from devices being tested (e.g., where MDF (main database tables) and LDF (log file) resided). All devices being tested were Raw Device Mapped (RDM) independent persistent with database log file on a separate SSD device also persistent (no delayed writes) using VMware PVSCSI driver. MDF and LDF file sizes were 142GB and 26GB with scale factor of 10000, with each step running for one hour (10-minute preamble). Note that these proof-points DO NOT use VMware or any other third-party cache software or I/O acceleration tool technologies as those are covered later in a separate proof-point.

TPC-B sql server database SSD performance
TPC-B SQL Server database proof-points comparing various storage devices

TPC-E (Database, Financial Trading) proof-point configuration

The following shows results from TPC-E test (OLTP/transactional workload) simulating a financial trading system. TPC-E is an industry standard workload that performs a mix of reads and writes database queries. Proof-points were performed with various numbers of users from 10, 20, 50 and 100 to determine (TPS) Transaction per Second (aka I/O rate) and response time in seconds. The TPC-E transactional results are shown for each device being tested across different user workloads. The results show how TPC-E TPS work (blue) increases from left to right (more is better) for larger numbers of users along with corresponding latency (green) that goes from right to left (less is better). The Seagate Enterprise 1200 SSD is shown on the top in the figure below with a red box around its results. Note how the SSD as a lower latency while doing more work compared to the other traditional HDD’s

Test configuration: Seagate 400GB 12000 2.5” SSD (ST400FM0073) 12Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise 15K with TurboBoost™ (ST600MX) 6 Gbps SAS, 600GB 2.5” Enterprise Enhanced 15K V4 (15K RPM) HDD (ST600MP) with 6 Gbps SAS, Seagate Enterprise Capacity Nearline (ST6000NM0014) 6TB 3.5” 7.2K RPM HDD 12 Gbps SAS and 3TB Seagate 7.2K SATA HDD Workload generator and virtual clients Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 database was on Windows 7 guest. Guest VM (VMware vSphere 5.5) had a dedicated 14 GB DRAM, quad CPU (4 x 3.192GHz) Intel E3-1225 v300, with LSI 9300 series 12Gbps SAS adapters in a PCIe Gen 3 slot along with TPC-B (www.tpc.org) workloads.

TPC-E sql server database SSD performance
TPC-E (Financial trading) SQL Server database proof-points comparing various storage devices

Continue reading part-two of this two-part series here including the virtual server storage I/O blender effect and solution.

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

October 28, 2014March 7, 2022

What does server storage I/O scaling mean to you?

Scaling means different things to various people depending on the context or what it is referring to.

For example, scaling can me having or doing more of something, or less as well as referring to how more, or less of something is implemented.

Scaling occurs in a couple of different dimensions and ways:

Application workload attributes – Performance, Availability, Capacity, Economics (PACE)
Stability without compromise or increased complexity
Dimension and direction – Scaling-up (vertical), scaling-out (horizontal), scaling-down

Scaling PACE – Performance Availability Capacity Economics

Often I hear people talk about scaling only in the context of space capacity. However there are aspects including performance, availability as well as scaling-up or scaling-out. Scaling from application workloads perspectives include four main group themes which are performance, availability, capacity and economics (as well as energy).

Performance – Transactions, IOP’s, bandwidth, response time, errors, quality of service
Availability – Accessibility, durability, reliability, HA, BC, DR, Backup/Restore, BR, data protection, security
Capacity – Space to store information or place for workload to run on a server, connectivity ports for networks
Economics – Capital and operating expenses, buy, rent, lease, subscription

Scaling with Stability

The latter of the above items should be thought of more in terms of a by-product, result or goal for implementing scaling. Scaling should not result in a compromise of some other attribute such as increasing performance and loss of capacity or increased complexity. Scaling with stability also means that as you scale in some direction, or across some attribute (e.g. PACE), there should not be a corresponding increase in complexity of management, or loss of performance and availability. To use a popular buzz-term scaling with stability means performance, availability, capacity, economics should scale linear with their capabilities or perhaps cost less.

Scaling directions: Scaling-up, scaling-down, scaling-out

server and storage i/o scale options

Some examples of scaling in different directions include:

Scaling-up (vertical scaling with bigger or faster)
Scaling-down (vertical scaling with less)
Scaling-out (horizontal scaling with more of what being scaled)
Scaling-up and out (combines vertical and horizontal)

Of course you can combine the above in various combinations such as the example of scaling up and out, as well as apply different names and nomenclature to see your needs or preferences. The following are a closer look at the above with some simple examples.

server and storage i/o scale up
Example of scaling up (vertically)

server and storage i/o scale down
Example of scaling-down (e.g. for smaller scenarios)

server and storage i/o scale out
Example of scaling-out (horizontally)

server and storage i/o scale out
Example of scaling-out and up(horizontally and vertical)

Summary and what this means

There are many aspects to scaling, as well as side-effects or impacts as a result of scaling.

Scaling can refer to different workload attributes as well as how to support those applications.

Regardless of what you view scaling as meaning, keep in mind the context of where and when it is used and that others might have another scale view of scale.

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

March 12, 2014March 7, 2022

Spring 2014 StorageIO Events and Activities Update

Storage I/O trends

Cloud Virtual Server Storage I/O and Networking events

Speaking of Old School, New School, Current and Future School, here are some upcoming events including live in-person as well as virtual or online StorageIO activities. The following calendar also includes a series of one-day workshop sessions that are part of a week of seminars to be held in Nijkerk Netherlands being Organized by Brouwer Storage Consultancy (learn more here).

The current calendar which continues to be updated includes a mix of webinars (playback are available), and live events covering data infrastructure topics from cloud, virtual, physical and software defined across servers, storage I/O networking, SSD, performance, object storage and data protection among other related themes.

June 19, 2014	Server and StorageIO BrightTalk Channel	Evolving from Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity (BC) to Business Resiliency (BR)	Webinar 9AM PT
June 12, 2014	Server and StorageIO BrightTalk Channel	The Many Facets of Virtual Storage and Software Defined Storage Virtualization	9AM PTWebinar
June 11, 2014	Server and StorageIO BrightTalk Channel	The Changing Face and Landscape of Enterprise Storage	9AM PTWebinar
May 16, 2014		What you need to know about virtualization (Demystifying Virtualization)	Nijkerk Holland Netherlands
May 15, 2014		Data Infrastructure Industry Trends: What’s New and Trending	Nijkerk Holland Netherlands
May 14, 2014		To be announced	Nijkerk Holland Netherlands
May 13, 2014		Data Movement and Migration: Storage Decision Making Considerations	Nijkerk Holland Netherlands
May 12, 2014		Rethinking Business Resiliency: From Disaster Recovery to Business Continuance	Nijkerk Holland Netherlands
May 5-7, 2014		EMC World	Las Vegas
April 22-23, 2014	SNIA DSI Event	TBA	Santa Clara CA
April 16, 2014	Server and StorageIO BrightTalk Channel	Open Source and Cloud Storage – Enabling business, or a technology enabler?	9AM PT Webinar
April 9, 2014	Server and StorageIO BrightTalk Channel	Storage Decision Making for Fast, Big and Very Big Data Environments	9AM PT Webinar
April 8, 2014	NAB	National Association Broadcasters (e.g. Very Big Fast data Event)	Las Vegas NV
March 27, 2014		Keynote: The 2017 Datacenter – PREPARING FOR THE 2017 DATACENTER SESSIONS	Edina MN 8:00AM CT Register Here
March 19, 2014	Server and StorageIO BrightTalk Channel	Business Resiliency (BR), Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) Management	9AM PT Webinar
March 19, 2014	Server and StorageIO BrightTalk Channel	Data Center Monitoring – Metrics that Matter for Effective Management	7AM PT Webinar
March 12, 2014	Server and StorageIO BrightTalk Channel	Hybrid Clouds – Bridging the Gap between public and private environments	11AM PT Webinar

View other recent and past activities along with new additions at the StorageIO.com/events page. Also check out recent commentary in the news here as well as tips and articles here.

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

January 30, 2014March 7, 2022

Part II Until the focus expands to data protection – What to do about it

Storage I/O trends

Part II – Until the focus expands to data protection – What to do about it

This is the second of a three-part series (read part I here) about how vendors are keeping backup alive, however what they can and should do to shift and expand the conversation to data protection and related themes.

Modernizing data protection and what to do about it

Building off of what was mentioned in the first post, lets take a look at what can be done including expanding the conversation around data protection in support of business continuance (BC), disaster recovery (DR), high availability (HA), business resiliency (BR) not to mention helping backup to actually retire (someday). Now when I backup retire, I’m not necessarily talking about a technology such as hardware, software or a service including clouds, rather when, where, why and how data gets protected. What I mean by this is to step back from looking at the tools and technologies to how they are used and can be used in new and different ways moving forward.

StorageIO people convergence
Converged people and technology teams

All to often I see where new technologies or tools get used in old ways which while providing some near-term relief, the full capabilities of what is being used may not be fully realized. This also ties into the theme of people not technologies can be a barrier to convergence and transformation that you can read more about here and here.

Whats your data protection strategy, business or technology focused?

expand focus beyond tools
Data protection strategy evolving beyond tools looking for a problem to solve

Part of modernizing data protection is getting back to the roots or fundamentals including revisiting business needs, requirements along with applicable threat risks to then align application tools, technologies and techniques. This means expanding focus from just the technology, however also more importantly how to use different tools for various scenarios. In other words having a tool-box and know how to use it vs. everything looking like a nail as all you have is a hammer. Check out various webinars, Google+ hangouts and other live events that I’m involved with on the StorageIO.com events page on data protection and related data infrastructure themes including BackupU (getting back to the basics and fundamentals).

data protection options

Everything is not the same, leverage different data protection approaches to different situations

Wrap up (for now)

Continue reading part three of this series here to see what can be done (taking action) about shifting the conversation about modernizing data protection. Also check out conversations about trends, themes, technologies, techniques perspectives in my ongoing data protection diaries discussions (e.g. www.storageioblog.com/data-protection-diaries-main/).

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

April 17, 2013March 7, 2022

HDS Claus Mikkelsen talking storage from SNW Fall 2012

Now also available via

This is a new episode in the continuing StorageIO industry trends and perspectives pod cast series (you can view more episodes or shows along with other audio and video content here) as well as listening via iTunes or via your preferred means using this RSS feed (https://storageio.com/StorageIO_Podcast.xml)

Storage I/O cloud virtual and big data perspectives

In this episode from SNW Fall 2012 in Santa Clara, I am joined by my co-host Bruce Ravid (@BruceRave) of Ravid and Associates as we catch up with long time storage industry veteran Claus Mikkelsen (@YoClaus) and HDS Chief Scientist.

Bruce and Claus meet for the first time having been around and probably passed each other in the halls at various events, hence, its a small world, however there is always opportunity to meet somebody new. We also chat about SNW past and present, data storage, technologies, networking with people, travel and of course with Claus, touch on wine.

Note that Claus and me were apart of a consortium of people that collaborated on the original book The Resilient Enterprise released in spring of 2012 published by Veritas. Ok, nuff said.

Click here (right-click to download MP3 file) or on the microphone image to listen to the conversation with Claus Mikkelsen.

Also available via

Watch (and listen) for more StorageIO industry trends and perspectives audio blog posts pod casts 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 this episode from SNW Fall 2013 with Claus Mikkelsen.

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

February 27, 2013March 7, 2022

February 2013 Server and StorageIO Update Newsletter

February 2013 News letter

Welcome to the February 2013 edition of the StorageIO Update news letter including a new format and added content.

You can get access to this news letter via various social media venues (some are shown below) in addition to StorageIO web sites and subscriptions.

Click on the following links to view the February 2013 edition as (HTML sent via Email) version, or PDF versions.

Visit the news letter page to view previous editions of the StorageIO Update.

You can subscribe to the news letter by clicking here.

Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO Update news letter, let me know your comments and feedback.

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

February 12, 2013November 26, 2023

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.

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

January 15, 2013March 7, 2022

Thanks for viewing StorageIO content and top 2012 viewed posts

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

2012 was a busy year (it was our 7th year in business) along with plenty of activity on StorageIOblog.com as well as on the various syndicate and other sites that pickup our content feed (https://storageioblog.com/RSSfull.xml).

Excluding traditional media venues, columns, articles, web casts and web site visits (StorageIO.com and StorageIO.TV), StorageIO generated content including posts and pod casts have reached over 50,000 views per month (and growing) across StorageIOblog.com and our partner or syndicated sites. Including both public and private, there were about four dozen in-person events and activities not counting attending conferences or vendor briefing sessions, along with plenty of industry commentary. On the twitter front, plenty of activity there as well closing in on 7,000 followers.

Thank you to everyone who have visited the sites where you will find StorageIO generated content, along with industry trends and perspective comments, articles, tips, webinars, live in person events and other activities.

In terms of what was popular on the StorageIOblog.com site, here are the top 20 viewed posts in alphabetical order.

Amazon cloud storage options enhanced with Glacier
Announcing SAS SANs for Dummies book, LSI edition
Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
AWS (Amazon) storage gateway, first, second and third impressions
EMC VFCache respinning SSD and intelligent caching
Hard product vs. soft product
How much SSD do you need vs. want?
Oracle, Xsigo, VMware, Nicira, SDN and IOV: IO IO its off to work they go
Is SSD dead? No, however some vendors might be
IT and storage economics 101, supply and demand
More storage and IO metrics that matter
NAD recommends Oracle discontinue certain Exadata performance claims
New Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive (SSD and HDD)
PureSystems, something old, something new, something from big blue
Researchers and marketers dont agree on future of nand flash SSD
Should Everything Be Virtualized?
SSD, flash and DRAM, DejaVu or something new?
What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do
Why FC and FCoE vendors get beat up over bandwidth?
Why SSD based arrays and storage appliances can be a good idea

Moving beyond the top twenty read posts on StorageIOblog.com site, the list quickly expands to include more popular posts around clouds, virtualization and data protection modernization (backup/restore, HA, BC, DR, archiving), general IT/ICT industry trends and related themes.

I would like to thank the current StorageIOblog.com site sponsors Solarwinds (management tools including response time monitoring for physical and virtual servers) and Veeam (VMware and Hyper-V virtual server backup and data protection management tools) for their support.

Thanks again to everyone for reading and following these and other posts as well as for your continued support, watch for more content on the above and other related and new topics or themes throughout 2013.

Btw, if you are into Facebook, you can give StorageIO a like at facebook.com/storageio (thanks in advance) along with viewing our newsletter here.

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

January 14, 2013December 24, 2020

EMC VMAX 10K, looks like high-end storage systems are still alive

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

This is the first in a multi-part series of posts looking at if large enterprise and legacy storage systems are dead, along with what todays EMC VMAX 10K updates means.

EMC has announced an upgrade, refresh or new version of their previously announced Virtual matrix (VMAX) 10,000 (10K), part of the VMAX family of enterprise class storage systems formerly known as DMX (Direct Matrix) and Symmetrix. I will get back to more coverage on the VMAX 10K and other EMC enhancements in a few moments in part two and three of this series.

Have you heard the industry myth about the demise or outright death of traditional storage systems? This has been particularly the case for high-end enterprise class systems, which by the way which were first, declared dead back in the mid-1990s then at the hands of emerging mid-range storage systems.

Enterprise class storage systems include EMC VMAX, Fujitsu Eternus DX8700, HDS, HP XP P9000 based on the HDS high-end product (OEM from HDS parent Hitachi Ltd.). Note that some HPers or their fans might argue that the P10000 (formerly known as 3PAR) declared as tier 1.5 should also be on the list; I will leave that up to you to decide.

Let us not forget the IBM DS8000 series (whose predecessors was known as the ESS and VSS before that); although some IBMers will tell you that XIV should also be in this list. High-end enterprise class storage systems such as those mentioned above are not alone in being declared dead at the hands of new all solid-state devices (SSD) and their startup vendors, or mixed and hybrid-based solutions.

Some are even declaring dead due to new SSD appliances or systems, and by storage hypervisor or virtual storage array (VSA) the traditional mid-range storage systems that were supposed to have killed off the enterprise systems a decade ago (hmm, DejaVu?).

The mid-range storage systems include among others block (SAN and DAS) and file (NAS) systems from Data Direct Networks (DDN), Dell Complement, EqualLogic and MD series (Netapp Engenio based), EMC VNX and Isilon, Fujitsu Eternus, and HDS HUS mid-range formerly known as AMS. Let us not forget about HP 3PAR or P2000 (DotHill based) or P6000 (EVA which is probably being put out to rest). Then there are the various IBM products (their own and what they OEM from others), NEC, NetApp (FAS and Engenio), Oracle and Starboard (formerly known as Reldata). Note that there are many startups that could be in the above list as well if they were not considering the above to be considered dead, thus causing themselves to also be extinct as well, how ironic ;).

What are some industry trends that I am seeing?

Some vendors and products might be nearing the ends of their useful lives

Some vendors, their products and portfolios continue to evolve and expand

Some vendors and their products are moving into new or adjacent markets

Some vendors are refining where and what to sell when and to who

Some vendors are moving up market, some down market

Some vendors are moving into new markets, others are moving out of markets

Some vendors are declaring others dead to create a new market for their products

One size or approach or technology does not fit all needs, avoid treating all the same

Leverage multiple tools and technology in creative ways

Maximize return on innovation (the new ROI) by using various tools, technologies in ways to boost productivity, effectiveness while removing complexity and cost

Realization that cutting cost can result in reduced resiliency, thus look for and remove complexity with benefit of removing costs without compromise

Storage arrays are moving into new roles, including as back-end storage for cloud, object and other software stacks running on commodity servers to replace JBOD (DejaVu anyone?).

Keep in mind that there is a difference between industry adoption (what is talked about) and customer deployment (what are actually bought and used). Likewise there is technology based on GQ (looks and image) and G2 (functionality, experience).

There is also an industry myth that SSD cannot or has not been successful in traditional storage systems which in some cases has been true with some products or vendors. Otoh, some vendors such as EMC, NetApp and Oracle (among others) are having good success with SSD in their storage systems. Some SSD startup vendors have been more successful on both the G2 and GQ front, while some focus on the GQ or image may not be as successful (or at least yet) in the industry adoption vs. customer deployment game.

For the above mentioned storage systems vendors and products (among others), or at least for most of them there is still have plenty of life in them, granted their role and usage is changing including in some cases being found as back-end storage systems behind servers running virtualization, cloud, object storage and other storage software stacks. Likewise, some of the new and emerging storage systems (hardware, software, valueware, services) and vendors have bright futures while others may end up on the where are they now list.

Are high-end enterprise class or other storage arrays and systems dead at the hands of new startups, virtual storage appliances (VSA), storage hypervisors, storage virtualization, virtual storage and SSD?

Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?

Have SSDs been unsuccessful with storage arrays (with poll)?

Here are links to two polls where you can cast your vote.

Cast your vote and see results of if large storage arrays and systems are dead here.

Cast your vote and see results of if SSD has not been successful in storage systems.

So what about it, are enterprise or large storage arrays and systems dead?

Perhaps in some tabloids or industry myths (or that some wish for) or in some customer environments, as well as for some vendors or their products that can be the case.

However, IMHO for many other environments (and vendors) the answer is no, granted some will continue to evolve from legacy high-end enterprise class storage systems to mid-range or to appliance or VSA or something else.

There is still life many of the storage systems architectures, platforms and products that have been declared dead for over a decade.

Continue reading about the specifics of the EMC VMAX 10K announcement in the next post in this series here. Also check out Chucks EMC blog to see what he has to say.

Ok, nuff said (for now).

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

December 18, 2012November 26, 2023

December 2012 StorageIO Update news letter

December 2012 News letter

Welcome to the December 2012 year end edition of the StorageIO Update news letter including a new format and added content.

You can get access to this news letter via various social media venues (some are shown below) in addition to StorageIO web sites and subscriptions.

Click on the following links to view the December 2012 edition as brief (short HTML sent via Email) version, or the full HTML or PDF versions.

Visit the news letter page to view previous editions of the StorageIO Update.

You can subscribe to the news letter by clicking here.

Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO Update news letter, let me know your comments and feedback.

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

December 13, 2012January 18, 2021

Hardware, Software, what about Valueware?

I am surprised nobody has figured out how to use the term valueware to describe their hardware, software or services solutions, particular around cloud, big data, little data, converged solution stacks or bundles, virtualization and related themes.

Cloud and virtualization building blocks transformed into Valueware

Note that I’m referring to IT hardware and not what you would usually find at a TrueValue hardware store (disclosure, I like to shop there for things to innovate with and address the non IT to do project list).

Instead of value add software or what might otherwise be called an operating system (OS), or middleware, glue, hypervisor, shims or agents, I wonder who will be first to use valueware? Or who will be the first to say they were the first to articulate the value of their industry unique and revolutionary solution using valueware?

For those not familiar, converged solution stack bundles combine server, storage and networking hardware along with management software and other tools in a prepackaged solution from the same or multiple vendors. Examples include Dell VIS (not to be confused with their reference architectures or fish in Dutch), VCE or EMC vBlocks, IBM Puresystems, NetApp FlexPods and Oracle Exaboxes among others.

Why is it that the IT or ICT (for my European friends) industries are not using valueware?

Is Valueware not being used because it has not been brought to their attention yet or part of anybody’s buzzword bingo list or read about in an industry trade rag (publication) or blog (other than here) or on twitter?

Is it because the term value in some marketers opinion or view their research focus groups associate with being cheap or low-cost? If that is the case, I wonder how many of those marketing focus groups actually include active IT or ICT professionals. If those research marketing focus groups contact practicing IT or ICT pros, then there would be a lower degree of separation to the information, vs. professional focus group or survey participants who may have a larger degree of separation from practioneers.

Depending on who uses valueware first and how used, if it becomes popular or trendy, rest assured there would be bandwagon racing to the train station to jump on board the marketing innovation train.

On the other hand, using valueware could be an innovative way to help articulate soft product value (read more about hard and soft product here). For those not familiar, hard product does not simply mean hardware, it includes many technologies (including hardware, software, networks, services) that combined with best practices and other things to create a soft product (solution experience).

Whatever the reason, I am assuming that valueware is not going to be used by creative marketers so let us have some fun with it instead.

Let me rephrase that, let us leave valueware alone, instead look at the esteemed company it is in or with (some are for fun, some are for real).

APIware (having some fun with those who see the world via APIs)
Cloudware (not to be confused with cloud washing)
Firmware (software tied to hardware, is it hardware or software? ;) )
Hardware (something software, virtualization and clouds run on)
Innovationware (not to be confused with a data protection company called Innovation)
Larryware (anything Uncle Larry wants it to be)

Marketware (related to marketecture)
Middleware (software to add value or glue other software together)
Netware (RIP Ray Noorda)
Peopleware (those who use or support IT and cloud services)
Santaware (come on, tis the season right)
Sleepware (disks and servers spin down to sleep using IPM techniques)
Slideware (software defined marketing presentations)
Software (something that runs on hardware)
Solutionware (could be a variation of implementation of soft product)
Stackware (something that can also be done with Tupperware)
Tupperware (something that can be used for food storage)
Valueware (valueware.us points to this page, unless somebody wants to buy or rent it ;) )
Vaporware (does vaporware actually exist?)

More variations can be added to the above list, for example substituting ware for wear. However, I will leave that up to your own creativity and innovation skills.

Let’s see if anybody starts to use Valueware as part of their marketware or value proposition slideware pitches, and if you do use it, let me know, be happy to give you a shout out.

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

December 12, 2012May 24, 2020

Predictions, did Mayans have it right, or did we read it wrong?

It is late in the day December 12, 2012 and best I can tell, we are still here, and for some, by time you read this it will be a few days or weeks later which means that either the Mayan calendar had it wrong, or we misinterpret it. Some would say that December 12, 2012 is not the important date, that it is really December 21, 2012 that the world will end, ok, lets wait and see what happens in a few more days.

However taking a step back from the Mayan calendar it dawned on me that some predictions such today’s Mayan calendar forecast is similar to others that happen around this time of the year. That is the annual information technology or IT related predictions made by pundits or anybody else with an opinion, most of which in theory their concepts are not even close. Granted many predictions make good press and media things to read or listen to for entertainment. In some cases, these predictions are variations of what we’re predicted last year in 2011 and the year before in 2010 and they year before that and so forth.

I’m still working on my predictions for 2013 and forward-looking into 2014, however I keep getting interrupted fending off vendors and their PR surrogates calling or emailing asking me if they can make contributions, or write my list for me (how thoughtful of them ;) ). For now one of my predictions is that I hope to get my predictions for 2013 done before 2013, however if you need something to hold you over, check this out from last year, or this from a few months ago.

I will also say that for 2013, those who see or view cloud, virtualization, big data (and little data) in pragmatic terms will be very prosperous. On the other hand, those who have narrow or constrained views will be envious of the others. Likewise plenty of new additions to the buzzword bingo line up with software defined having strong representation.

Like the Mayan calendar predictions, with annual technology predictions, are we reading them wrong, or are they simply wrong and who if anybody cares, or are they just garbage in and garbage out, or big data garbage in, big data garbage out results?

In the meantime, I need to check that my local and cloud backups are working, try a restore test, have plenty of cash on hand, gas tanks full, cerveza in the fridge, propane for the generator and other things ready if the Mayans had it right, just off by a few days ;) .

Ok, nuff said (for now).

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

October 6, 2012May 24, 2020

Does Dell have a cloudy cloud strategy story (Part II)?

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

This is the second of two posts (here is the first post) that are part of ongoing industry trends and perspectives cloud conversations series that looks at Dell and their cloud strategy story.

So what does the first post have to do with Dell having a cloudy cloud strategy story?

Simple, there have been some rather low-key, almost quiet or muddled announcements (also here, here and here) about Dell and Nirvanix collaborating around public cloud storage. Keep in mind that Nirvanix and IBM not too long ago also announced a partnership that some jumped to the conclusion that big blue was about to buy the startup vendor, even though IBM already has other cloud and storage as a service, or backup as a service and DR as a service offerings, what the heck, the more the merrier for big blue?

What about Dell and their partnership with Nirvanix, (more on that in the first post) did somebody jump the gun, or jump the shark?

Is Dell trying to walk the tightrope between being a supplier to major cloud providers while carefully moving into the cloud services market themselves, or are they simply addressing point customer situation or opportunities, at least for the time being?

Alternatively, is this nothing more than Dell establishing another partnership with a technology partner who also happens to be in the services business, similar to what Dell is doing with OpenStack and others?

IMHO Dell has some of the pieces and partnerships and could be a strong contender in the SMB and SME private cloud space, along with VDI and related areas with their Citrix, Microsoft and VMware partnerships. This is also also leveraging their servers and, storage, software, networking and other solutions to supply service providers.

The rest comes down to what markets or areas of focus does Dell want to target, that would in turn dictate how to extend what they already have or what they need to go out and get or partner around.

What say you, what’s your take on Dells cloud strategy story and portfolio?

Ok, nuff said (for now).

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

October 6, 2012December 24, 2020

Does Dell have a cloudy cloud strategy story (Part I)?

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

This is first of a two-part post (click here for second post) that is part of ongoing industry trends and perspective cloud conversations series that looks at Dell and their cloud strategy story. For background, some previous Dell posts are found here, here, here and here. Here is a link that has video of the live Dell Storage Customer Advisory (CAP) panel that Dell asked me to moderate back in June that touches on some related themes and topics. Btw, fwiw and for disclosure Dell AppAssure is a site advertiser on storageioblog.com ;).

Depending on your view of what is or is not a cloud service, product or solution, naturally you will then have various opinions of where Dell is at with their cloud strategy and story.

If you consider object based storage to be part of or a component of private clouds or at least for medical, healthcare and related focus, then Dell is already there with their DX object storage solutions (Caringo based).

From a scale out, clustered or grid file system, Dell bought Exanet in a post holiday shopping sale a few years back and has invested in its development having renamed it Fluid File System and initially available as the FS7000 series (EqualLogic) and more recently expanded systems such as the FS8600 (Compellent based), EqualLogic and NX3500 (MD3000 based).

If you view clouds as being part of services provided including via hosting or similar, Dell is already there via their Perot systems acquisitions.

If you view cloud as being part of VDI, or VDI being part of cloud, Dell is there with their tools including various acquisitions and solution bundles.

On the other hand if you view clouds as reference architectures across VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix Xen among others, guess what, Dell is also there with their VIS.

Or, if you view private clouds as being a bundled solution (server, storage, hardware, software) such as EMC vBlock or NetApp FlexPod, then Dell vStart (not to be confused as being a service) is on the list with other infrastructure stack solutions.

How about being a technology supplier to what you may consider as being true cloud providers or enables including those who use OpenStack or other APIs and cloud tools, guess what, Dell is also there including at Rackspace (via public web info).

So the above all comes back to that Dell like many vendors who offer services, solutions and related items for data and information infrastructures have diverse offerings including servers, storage, networking, hardware, software and support. Dell like others similar to them has to find a balance between providing services that compete with their customers, as well as supplier such as to Rackspace. In this case Dell is no different from EMC who happened to move their Mozy backup service off to their VMware subsidiary and has managed to help define where VCE (and here) and ATMOS fit as products while being services capable. IBM has figured this out having a mix of old school services such as SmartCloud Services (or here), IBM Global Services and BCRS (business continuity recovery services), not to mention newer backup and storage cloud services, products and solutions they have acquired, or OEM or have reseller agreements with.

StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

HP has expanded their traditional focused EDS as well as other HP services along with products being joined by their Amazon like Cloud Services including compute, storage and content distribution network (CDN) capabilities. NetApp is taking the partnering route along with Cisco staying focused for at least now on being a partner supplier. Oracle, well Oracle is Oracle and they have a mix of products and services. In fact some might say Oracle is late to the cloud game however they have been in the game since the late 90s when they came out with Oracle online, granted the cloud purist will call that application service provider (e.g. ASP) vs. today’s applications as a service (AaaS) models.

Continue with the second post here, ok, nuff said (for now).

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

Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD StorgeIO lab review

The best server and storage I/O is the one you do not have to do

Seagate 1200 12Gbs Enterprise SAS SSD’s

Seagate 1200 Enterprise SSD Proof Points

Microsoft Exchange Email proof-point configuration

TPC-B (Database, Data Warehouse, Batch updates) proof-point configuration

TPC-E (Database, Financial Trading) proof-point configuration

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What does server storage I/O scaling mean to you?

Scaling PACE – Performance Availability Capacity Economics

Scaling with Stability

Scaling directions: Scaling-up, scaling-down, scaling-out

Summary and what this means

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Cloud Virtual Server Storage I/O and Networking events

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Part II – Until the focus expands to data protection – What to do about it

Modernizing data protection and what to do about it

Whats your data protection strategy, business or technology focused?

Wrap up (for now)

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