Water, Data and Storage Analogy

Recently I did a piece over at InfoStor titled "Water, Data and Storage Analogy". Besides being taken for granted and all of us being dependent on them, several other similarities exist between water, data, and storage. In addition to being a link that piece, this is a companion with some different images to help show the similarities between water, data and storage if for no other reason to have a few moments of fun. Read the entire piece here.

Water, Data and Storage Similarities

Water can get cold and freeze, data can also go cold becoming dormant and a candidate for archiving or cold cloud storage.

Like data and storage water can be frozen

Various types of storage drives (HDD & SSD)

Different types and tiers of frozen water storage containers

Data, like water, can move or be dormant, can be warm and active, or cold, frozen and inactive. Water, data and storage can also be used for work or fun.

Fishing on water vs. phishing for data on storage

Eagle fly fishing on water over st croix river

Data can be transformed into 3D images and video, water transformed into Snow can also be made into various virtual images or things.

Data on storage can be transformed like water (e.g. snow)

Data, like water, can exist in clouds, resulting in storms that if not properly prepared for, can cause problems.

Data and storage can be damaged including by water, water can also be damaged by putting things into it or the environment.

Water can destroy things, data and storage can be destroyed

There are data lakes, data pools, data ponds, oceans of storage and seas of data as well as data centers.

Rows of servers and storage in a data center

An indoor water lake (e.g. not an indoor data lake)

As water flows downstream it tends to increase in volume as tributaries or streams adding to the volume in lakes, reservoirs, rivers and streams. Another similarity is that water will tend to flow and seek its level filling up space, while data can involve a seek on an HDD in addition to filling up space.

Flood of water vs. flood of data (e.g. need for Data Protection)

There are also hybrid uses (or types) of water, just like hybrid technologies for supporting data infrastructures.

Hybrid Automobile on water

What this all means

We might take water, data and storage for granted, yet they each need to be managed, protected, preserved and served. Servers utilize storage to support applications for managing water; water is used for cooling and powering storage, not to mention for making coffee for those who take care of IT resources.

When you hear about data lakes, ponds or pools, keep in mind that there are also data streams, all of which need to be managed to prevent the flood of data from overwhelming you.

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

greg