The great battle of enterprise storage is on!

The time has come to take sides on the core question of storage for virtual servers: Do you want storage intelligence to live in the hypervisor or the array? Most administrators are already lining up on one side or the other, unintentionally casting their vote while the rest flounder. But the storage industry must wake up and embrace the divide.

Hypervisor Huggers Unite!

Do you "heart" virtualization?

VMware’s vSphere dominates the world of enterprise server virtualization and has become the core element of the modern open systems datacenter. Microsoft recognizes this but has been unable to field a competitive hypervisor ecosystem for the virtual datacenter. Today, vSphere is the state of the art and nowhere is this more apparent than in storage.

In just a few years, VMware has delivered and updated a host of advanced storage functionality, from provisioning to migration and load balancing to backup and data protection. vSphere 5 includes an advanced and scalable storage virtualization layer, delivering everything a datacenter needs. VMFS sculpts basic block storage into a shared resource for virtual machines, with snapshots, policy-based layout and movement, and flexible allocation and thin provisioning.

Most VMware administrators are “server guys” and relish these features. They have never experienced an automated “storage service” like this, and the enterprise storage world has never been able to construct anything remotely as flexible, user-friendly, and functional. And Hypervisor Huggers don’t need complex enterprise storage arrays to do it: They can use basic iSCSI or Fibre Channel devices to provide performance and capacity and let VMware do the rest!

Storage DRS is exemplary of the new virtual datacenter world. Introduced in vSphere 5 (and restricted to the pricey Enterprise Plus license), Storage DRS uses the core technology of Storage vMotion to dynamically balance I/O and capacity across a diverse pool of storage. Storage DRS even uses Policy-Driven Storage and VASA to enforce tiered storage and data placement strategy. This kind of virtualization has been a “holy grail” quest for the enterprise storage industry, but they’ve never delivered on their promises.

Cheers for Storage Stalwarts!

Do you wish all this virtualization nonsense would just go away?

But not every IT environment wants be 100% vSphere focused, and many aren’t convinced that dumb storage is the smartest place for their data. These Storage Stalwarts want smarter and better-integrated storage arrays, and VMware is innovating here as well.

VMware’s Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) technology is squarely aimed at this market. VAAI allows vSphere to hand off heavy storage operations to the high-end storage arrays from the major players. It works transparently, too, coordinating cloning without the kind of scripting and hair-pulling that used to require. VAAI in vSphere 4.1 also includes block zeroing support and something called “atomic test and set” which we’ll get to in a moment. Microsoft announced their own cloning integration, ODX, but it won’t ship until Windows Server 8 appears sometime next year.

But cloning is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Hypervisor-to-array integration. The rising army of NAS users have seen the glory of more-complete array integration for a while, and they’re not quiet about it. They love that VMware’s NFS protocol support makes storage “disappear” in vCenter, becoming just another resource with integrated thin provisioning and flexible allocation and movement.

VMware is moving aggressively to please their Storage Stalwarts, adding more VAAI support for block and file in vSphere 5. But, as the company laid out at VMworld 2011, neither access method is ideal for virtual servers. So VMware has been pushing the enterprise array vendors for ever-greater integration. They see a future where a VAAI-based protocol enables arrays to de-multiplex I/O streams from the hypervisor and intelligently handle per-VM data.

Stephen’s Stance

You can spot a Hypervisor Hugger by their big LUNs: They would rather treat storage as a bulk commodity, and array vendors should be lining up to get their business. Storage Stalwarts will jump on each new VMware innovation, finally making use of the capabilities they have spent over a decade paying for but not utilizing. The only untenable stance is trying to keep a foot in both worlds: It’s foolish to buy an enterprise array and use it as bulk storage!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Are You a Hypervisor Hugger or a Storage Stalwart?
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Features, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Although I’m a long-time Fibre Channel user, and certainly not the sort of person who denies the capabilities of that hallowed storage protocol, is it really necessary anymore? On Thursday, October 6, I’ll be taking up the challenge and debating Stu Miniman on this very topic as part of the Interop Conference and Expo in New York. Knowing my enthusiasm for iSCSI, organizers Mike Fratto and Howard Marks made me the rebel upstart, leaving Stu to defend the tired old lady!

iSCSI is the challenger for long-dominant Fibre Channel protocol SAN

Let me make it perfectly clear ahead of time: I’m actually something of a defender of Fibre Channel myself! I cringe whenever the “superiority” of Ethernet is raised, but this has more to do with the high standards of typical Fibre Channel SAN implementations than any real technical quality. In other words, it’s fairly straightforward to deploy a high-performance, reliable Fibre Channel SAN and fairly difficult to do the same with Ethernet-based protocols.

That said, I see the era of Fibre Channel coming to an end. 8 Gb Fibre Channel is fairly compelling as an upgrade from 4 Gb, but the jury is out when it comes to 16 Gb or even 32 Gb off in the future. By that time, Ethernet SAN will be widely available and supported, and will likely boast 40 Gb or 100 Gb performance to boot. Who is going to adopt a 32 Gb Fibre Channel SAN when Ethernet is three times faster?

But all of this is the future. Today, the battle lines are drawn between 8 Gb Fibre Channel and 1 Gb or 10 Gb iSCSI and NFS. This is the baseline for my Interop debate. I am not arguing about the future of SAN, or even iSCSI versus NFS. Rather, I am arguing that most businesses would be best served by implementing an iSCSI SAN rather than purchasing Fibre Channel today.

I intend to record and stream our Interop debate, perhaps even real-time. Watch this blog for a recording, and follow me on twitter to see if a live stream is available. See you on Thursday!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Interop NYC and The Great Debate: ISCSI Beats Fibre Channel
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

SANLink is a Fibre Channel interface for the MacBook Pro, and that's no joke!

Thunderbolt was everywhere at the NAB Show, including many new products previewed or unveiled just last week. Beyond the two previously-known storage devices, the Promise Pegasus and LaCie Little Big Disk, a number of interfaces were also on display. Since this was the NAB Show, much of the focus was on the audio and video interfaces from Blackmagic and AJA, but Promise had a surprise in store: Their SANLink is a Fibre Channel interface for Thunderbolt.

SANLink: Connecting MacBook Pros to the SAN?

The SANLink is a compact portable device that allows a Thunderbolt-equipped computer (currently the 2011 MacBook Pro line) to Fibre Channel SAN. Featuring two 4 Gbps Fibre Channel ports, the SANLink demonstrates the kind of high performance that we can expect from future Thunderbolt peripherals.

I have to admit, the SANLink left me scratching my head at first. Why would a MacBook Pro user want to connect to a Fibre Channel SAN? Is this even a good idea? Considering that the slim Thunderbolt connector is not firmly fixed in place, a sudden disconnect is likely and would prove highly disruptive to the SAN, not just the laptop. And what laptop user wants to connect to a Fibre Channel SAN anyway?

I talked to the product manager from Promise, who suggested a use case for this device: Mobile video production systems sometimes use Fibre Channel for high-performance storage connectivity, and a MacBook Pro user could use theSANLink to access these storage devices as well. I will concede that a few people at the NAB Show were probably intrigued by this possibility, but I’m betting that the SANLink will be much more useful in an entirely different market segment.

The SANLink promises massive I/O performance, even on a laptop!

Considering that Apple is set to update the iMac line this month, it seems likely that the SANLink will allow these gorgeous desktop computers finally to meet their destiny as audiovisual workstations. Running Final Cut Pro X on a new Sandy Bridge iMac with high-performance Fibre Channel storage will be a revelation, and will likely cause a raft of Mac Pro users to “switch”. Promise is certainly barred from talking about future Apple products, even if they have inside information, but this is a much more logical use case than the SAN-on-the-go.

SANLink suggests that we may soon see a variety of high-performance interfaces developed for the Thunderbolt ports soon to be found across Apple’s product line. I would not be at all surprised to see 10 Gb Ethernet adapters, P2 and ExpressCard readers, docking stations, and perhaps even a PCI Express expansion bay.

Stephen’s Stance

Although the SANLink appears to be something of an oddball, it indicates the shape of things to come. Thunderbolt will transform the use cases for portable and all-in-one computers, likely spelling the end of the empty boxes for desktop use. In fact, I would not be at all surprised if Apple soon canceled the Mac Pro line entirely in favor of a beefed up Mac Mini and iMac stable. And the dozen or so MacBook Pro users wanting to connect to a Fibre Channel SAN will finally have the opportunity to do so sometime later this year.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Promise SANLink Thunderbolt Preview
This post was categorized as Apple, Enterprise storage, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

How granular is your storage? This question is just as relevant today as when I first published this article in 2008!

Many storage challenges focus on correlating high-level uses of data (such as applications) with the nuts and bolts of storage infrastructure. These discussions often revolve around the conflict between data management, which demands an ever-smaller unit of management, and storage management, which benefits most from consolidation. Developing data management capability that is both granular enough for applications and scalable enough for storage is one key to the future of storage.

Storage Management: Scaling Up

As I discussed in a previous Sunday Series piece, Turning the Page on RAID, the data storage industry has traditionally focused on reducing granularity. Disk capacity has expanded, and RAID technology has multiplied this by combining multiple physical drive mechanisms into a single virtual one. Storage virtualization technologies, from the SAN to the server, have also often been touted primarily as a mechanism to reduce heterogeneity. From a technical perspective, therefore, granularity has been an obstacle to overcome.

The core organizational best practice for storage management is the reduction of complexity and the enforcement of standardization. Consolidation of storage arrays and file servers is a common goal, as IT seeks to benefit from economies of scale. The goal of both initiatives is the creation of a storage utility or managed storage service. This mirrors efforts on the server and network sides to consolidate and virtualize hardware.

Although both technological and organizational factors have traditionally driven granularity out of storage, this does not have to be the case. Virtual pools of storage are ideal for providing storage on demand, as disk-focused RAID groups give way to more flexible sub-disk storage arrangements. And an operational focus on standardized storage service offerings has the potential to enable scalable management of these smaller units.

Filing Service

File-based protocols would seem to have more potential for granular storage management, but they have been undermined by the hierarchical nature of modern file storage. Whether the connection to a file server uses NFS, CIFS, or AFP, the key unit of management is actually the shared directory, not the file. All files in the share \\firefly\backups would be located on the same server and would be managed as a unit.

NAS virtualization can change this somewhat, as can more specialized NAS servers. Although Microsoft DFS enables consolidation and virtualization of NAS shares, it does not allow subdivision of shares below the directory level – all files in a directory must be placed on the same server. Tricks like stubbing and links allow for some movement, but these do not solve the core issue. Specialized virtual NAS devices from F5 (the ARX, nee Acopia), NetApp, BlueArc, Symantec, and others have the ability to move files individually, providing as much a virtualized storage environment as any block-focused enterprise array. Avere is also beginning to talk about granular file management.

But even an ideal virtualized file server lacks the kind of granularity demanded by users. They care about data, not files, and most applications consolidate their data storage into a few files. Consider a database, for example, where users want each record treated uniquely but storage devices see just a few much larger files. We need a storage revolution, where someone creates an ideal storage platform in which each individual record or object includes custom metadata and is managed independently. This would truly be a massive change, however, and it is not clear that all applications will follow the object storage model of Google and Amazon.

Small is Beautiful

Barring a revolution in data management, our best hope is to allow greater granularity in storage management. As mentioned above, virtualization technology has the potential to enable management and protection of any unit of storage, right down to the individual block or record. But the reality of storage virtualization has not matched its promise.

What is needed is greater integration. Each layer of virtualization (file system, volume manager, hypervisor, network, array, and RAID) also hides necessary details from lower layers. Consider the case of a virtual server snapshot: The application and filesystem must be in a quiesced state to allow a snapshot to be taken at the storage level, but the storage array has no intrinsic information about how its capacity is used. A given LUN might contain dozens of servers on a shared VMFS volume, so all must be snapped together.

Integration can be enabled by sharing more information through APIs. VMware leverages Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) integration for shared storage so a VMFS snapshot can call the operating system and even applications (Windows Server 2003 only, for now) to prepare the data. Similarly, VSS can communicate directly with supported iSCSI and Fibre Channel arrays, calling a snapshot at the right moment. And Microsoft is, no doubt, enhancing VSS as we speak.

As virtualization technology matures, expect this type of integration to improve. We hope to see more APIs exposed by VMware and Microsoft, allowing communication up and down the stack to break through the information barrier. Imagine a future where a standard API like VSS can pass a message through VMware, Xen, and Hyper-V to the underlying storage array to initiate a snap. I predict that this kind of integration-enabled granularity is not too far off.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Granularity: The Hidden Challenge of Storage Management
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Do you want X-series or P-series storage? Is A-series networking gear any good? And where did all these HP products come from?

HP has always been an alphabet soup company, assigning just about every item in their bewildering array of products a unique product number. Like Mercedes-Benz cars, even the product names are a mix of letters and numbers that can be off-putting to browsers. Now that they have grown to supersize proportions through internal expansion and acquisition, just about everyone outside the company seems to have trouble decoding the product line, so I decided to take a stab at decoding the enterprise lineup in plain english.

An Important Note

This is not a political activity. I’m not trying to comment on which product is better than which or pigeonhole something by calling it “midrange” when HP thinks it’s “high-end”. I’m trying to be descriptive and helpful to prospective buyers working to understand the multitude of products sold by HP.

I welcome your input. In fact, I demand it! I don’t know which product is which and need your help to improve this list. Please feel free to comment and suggest corrections and additions (wireless?)

Storage Products (“StorageWorks”)

HP’s storage products are divided into three categories:

• P-series is block (SAN) storage using Fibre Channel or iSCSI
• X-series is file (NAS) storage
• Disk backup will presumably get a letter series in the future

Storage Product Notes

HP engineering input into OEMed products ranges from minimal to substantial. The EML tape library, for example, is very different from the standard Oracle (STK) product on which it is based. The high-end Hitachi-based storage includes substantial HP input as well.

HP StorageWorks VP of Marketing Tom Joyce informed me that the 3PAR T- and F-Class boxes won’t be renamed at this point. This is probably a good move – capitalize on the value of the 3PAR name rather than the virtually-unknown “P-series” nomenclature.

Others tell me that the StorageWorks 4400 is hitting end-of-life in the now-ish timeframe. So it won’t get a new name either.

Networking Products

HP’s networking products are divided into three categories:

• A-series is enterprise-class core switching, routing, and 200+ AP wireless
• E-series is mid-market and SMB switching and smaller wireless
• V-series is SMB and SoHo web-managed and unmanaged switching and wireless

Networking Product Notes

HP’s 3Com acquisition focused primarily on the H3C (former Huawei/3Com joint venture) high-end switching and routing products. Although some 3Com gear remains in the E-series line (particularly stackable switches), the low-end fixed-port switches have seemingly been eliminated from the product line. The Colubris acquisition provided HP with scalable wireless products now slotted below the H3C gear.

Stephen’s Stance

Product lines are always confusing at large companies, and doubly so where acquisitions bring in legacy products and customers. I wish HP the best of luck sorting all this out!

Note: The photo at the top is of a Japanese clone of the Enigma Machine from World War II.

Image credit: Japanese WWII Enigma Machine by Radio Rover

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | Stephen’s HP Product Line Decoder Ring
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The good news is that this is no longer a technical problem: Modern virtualized and networked servers ought to have decent utilization of storage capacity, and technology is improving all the time. Consider the compounded impact of modern technology on storage capacity utilization:

• Shared storage (SAN and NAS) allows different servers to share a common pool of storage, reducing the likelihood that excess capacity will be stranded in isolated “puddles”. Pervasive use of NAS technology, and the rise of simple and inexpensive iSCSI SANs, means that every system in the modern data center can use shared storage.
• Organizational and architectural optimization allows storage to be provisioned from a common pool rather than building “stovepipe systems” with their own resources. Quicker provisioning also helps reduce over-provisioning.
• Network connectivity allows servers to share resources, including storage, on a peer-to-peer or client-server basis, ultimately resulting in things like cloud computing.
• Managed and utility services reduce the impact of low utilization, potentially focusing on efficiency or perhaps passing the buck to a service provider.
• Thin provisioning might help certain systems to keep less storage in reserve.

So why don’t things get better? It’s hard to be sure why people don’t use these pervasive tools to improve storage utilization, but I do have some ideas…

• Storage utilization might not be a priority. Utilization isn’t often in the critical path of performance or availability, so overtaxed IT departments aren’t going to focus on it.
• Incentives can be lacking. With the cost of storage constantly falling, the effort required to improve the efficiency of already-allocated storage can be just as easily spent migrating to a newer, cheaper storage platform.
• Virtualization has perversely harmed the efficiency of allocation. One might think that the ease and flexibility of virtual disks would improve things, but it hasn’t. Server and storage virtualization just adds another place to hide unused storage.
• Metrics remain a problem, since everyone gets all balled up trying even to talk about capacity utilization.

I think this last point is something we in the industry really ought to do something about. We say “utilization” but what do we mean? Chris Evans has proposed a set of metrics for the “storage waterfall“, and I mentioned back in October that this all boils down to three key metrics: Raw, usable, and used. The key question is where to apply them!

Way back before the 2001 bubble-burst, I managed professional services for a company called StorageNetworks. At that time, I was quite aggressive in pushing this same idea, even co-writing a whitepaper on the topic titled Measuring and Improving Storage Utilization. My co-author (Jonathan Lunt) and I recently reminisced about that paper, and we both agreed that everything in it still stands today, apart from the high dollar cost per gigabyte.

Each ratio in the storage waterfall can be diagnosed and improved

I suggest that the following key storage utilization ratios (taken directly from this paper) make just as much sense today as they did then:

• Array Overhead is the percentage of installed storage capacity that is not usable. Dividing Array Usable by Array Raw and subtracting that number from 100% yields the percent of overhead. Overhead here is usually due to the desired level of data protection (e.g. RAID, mirroring) rather than to poor management.
• Array Utilization is the percentage of usable array capacity that is allocated to hosts. It indicates the efficiency of storage deployment operations.
• Allocation Efficiency reflects the ratio of storage presented or allocated to hosts to the amount actually seen by them. In many mature environments this ratio is near 100% (i.e. all the storage allocated is being seen), but this ratio can be extremely difficult to determine. It relies on accurate measurements of both Array Used storage and Host Raw.
• Host Overhead reflects the amount of storage configured for use versus the amount the host can see. Since the Host Raw metric is a function of the storage administration team and the Host Usable a function of the systems administration team, this metric is a useful measurement of how well the two functions are cooperating. Data for this classification is collected from the host.
• File System Utilization is the amount of available file system space that actually contains data. File system utilization is familiar to most systems administrators. This metric is often shown in simple system commands like “df” on UNIX or “dir” on Windows. Data for this classification is collected from the host.
• Total Storage Utilization summarizes how well a company manages its storage assets across the entire business. This ratio is the default storage utilization metric used in publications and reflects the actual value an enterprise is deriving from its storage asset. Care is required in calculating this ratio to ensure that it accurately indicates utilization of the storage environment. Since the result of this ratio is often used in business cases and receives wide attention, it must be both logical and defendable.

To these, I would add another intermediate and optional set of virtualization metrics and ratios for environments with storage or server virtualization. One could also presumably add a higher-level set of application efficiency ratios as well.

In the paper, Jon and I also proposed three best practices to improve storage utilization:

1. Drive Array Utilization (Array Usable to Array Used) to greater than 90% (a storage administration responsibility)
2. Drive Allocation Efficiency: Bring Host Usable to be as close to Array Used as possible (a joint responsibility)
3. Drive Filesystem Utilization (“Host Usable to Host Used”) above 80% (a systems administration responsibility)

Go read the paper and let me know what you think. Are we still stuck in 2001?

This post can also be found on Gestalt IT: Storage Utilization Remains at 2001 Levels: Low!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Storage Utilization Remains at 2001 Levels: Low!
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Gestalt IT, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This is part of an ongoing series of longer articles I will be posting every Sunday as part of an experiment in offering more in-depth content.

There has been a lot of discussion in the storage industry about Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), making it the toast of Storage Networking World, but this technology remains relatively unknown to end users. Like so many storage protocols before it, the $10,000 question is whether FCoE will take off like iSCSI or fizzle as a niche product like FCIP, DAFS, and so many others.

If it does succeed, another critical question is what this means for iSCSI, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand, and to a lesser extent AoE, expanded SAS, and other options for SAN storage. The enterprise data center is poised for a complete change in server connectivity, with 10 Gb Ethernet converged network adapters (CNAs) and new core switches carrying both network and storage traffic, and this holds promise, especially in virtualized environments. But CNAs do not equal FCoE, and iSCSI, conventional Fibre Channel, and other protocols are roaring ahead. What impact will FCoE really have?

Why FCoE Matters

With 8 Gb Fibre Channel and alternative storage solutions leveraging InfiniBand now available (and with 10 Gb iSCSI imminent), many would ask why we need another enterprise block storage medium. In real-world applications, FCoE at 10 Gb will likely deliver roughly the same performance as 8 Gb native FC. But FCoE will be one or two years late and (initially) more expensive. Although active standards participation and “plug fests” mean FCoE will likely be more interoperable than Fibre Channel was in its early years, the lack of support from operating system manufacturers is troubling. Plus, users will soon be able to build a very similar infrastructure by mixing iSCSI and 10 Gb Ethernet, and this will include all the advantages of IP and solid support.

So why pay more for the same performance from an untested protocol? It’s all about the future, and enterprise users will go where the market goes, just as wide availability of VHS tapes buried Betamax. Storage, network, and SAN vendors alike are lining up solidly behind FCoE as the next-generation enterprise interconnect. Although InfiniBand plays Betamax in this home video metaphor, with superior technology and availability, FCoE’s VHS camp has all the market ammunition. To paraphrase the (alleged) words of Bob Metcalfe, no matter what the technology looks like, the future of networking will be called Ethernet.

The biggest storage vendors are behind FCoE simply because they see that converging and leveraging I/O technology makes sense for them. They can swap out the physical and data link layers from Fibre Channel to Ethernet relatively easily, so the FCoE switch is an easier change than iSCSI. It is likely that they will be able to leverage commodity Ethernet hardware to reduce (their, not your) cost and increase profit margins once this switch is made. Plus, FCoE will potentially increase SAN attachment rates (and thus enterprise storage market penetration) thanks to the potential availability of converged network adapters (CNAs) on the server side, and the cost-effectiveness that sharing a CNA between network and storage implies. From the storage side, FCoE is all good.

Also see my posts on FCoE versus iSCSI and Cisco VFrame

The drive is similar on the network side. The era of differentiated SAN and LAN producers is over – all of the major networking and SAN vendors are repositioning themselves as next-generation I/O providers, setting up a battle in the network space to rival the mainframe shakeout of the 1980s and the PC wars of the 1990s. Converged I/O is the business model for connectivity vendors, and most are taking up the “data center Ethernet” (DCE) charge (also called “converged enhanced or enterprise Ethernet” or CEE) which includes FCoE as the storage protocol for virtual I/O. iSCSI is still there in a DCE world, but FCoE will take center stage for the enterprise market.

Counting the Benefits of FCoE

It may seem strange to declare an upstart like FCoE the winner when established options like InfiniBand, conventional Fibre Channel, and iSCSI are already out in the market, but this examination of the vendors indicates that it is indeed the case. Is this a case of the tail (vendors) wagging the dog (consumers)? Perhaps, but they will come along willingly given the strong case presented by converged and virtualized I/O.

Enterprise buyers are ready for a next-generation SAN technology, and some are beginning to look at 8 Gb Fibre Channel. The few that really need performance will certainly buy 8 Gb FC today, but this has little bearing on the overall prospect for FCoE. When an application requires performance and money is available, purchases will be made regardless of future strategy.

Enterprise storage and network architects are beginning to consider the implications of server consolidation and virtualization. As they see footprint shrink thanks to compact or blade servers and server virtualization, they will begin to question the proliferation of interconnects on the back end required to keep up with the I/O demands of these super servers. Already, virtual I/O purveyors like Xsigo are making hay in this market, and, as mentioned above, their SAN and LAN vendors are spreading the message, too. It won’t be long before they are convinced.

Also see my posts on VMware VDC-OS and VDC-OS vStorage

Many people mistakenly assume that DCE means pushing all protocols through a single LAN, but this is not the case. These networks will be engineered like SANs from the start, with redundant connections and transparent failover. Although storage and network connectivity will share the same physical “pipe”, they will certainly be segregated on separate VLANs and protected with quality of service technologies. They have to be separated – FCoE (lacking IP) will require a totally different network topology than LAN connections.

So Who Buys FCoE?

Note that, throughout this discussion, I am referring only to the large-scale enterprise data center storage market. Smaller corporate environments have already embraced iSCSI en masse, expanding the penetration of consolidated storage concepts beyond anything Fibre Channel could ever accomplish. And small office and home networks are beginning to embrace these concepts as well, but are relying on protocols like CIFS and AFP for file servers and may begin to look at ATA over Ethernet (AoE) and proprietary protocols like the one pushed by Zetera/NetGear instead of iSCSI.

This leaves us with a layer cake of appropriate protocols from the smallest to largest networks. But all have one thing in common: They are all converged and they are all carried in Ethernet packets. Bob Metcalfe was right!

Update: Storagebod points out that FCoE might see its first application in inter-switch links and other similar storage network infrastructure connections. And Chris Mellor at The Register points out that SAS is already displacing FC as an internal drive interconnect.

See my posts on Gestalt IT for similar enterprise IT infrastructure commentary

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Reality Check: The FCoE Forecast
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Homes now need data storage as well as closets...

This is part of an ongoing series of longer articles I will be posting every Sunday as part of an experiment in offering more in-depth content.

Along with my professional focus on enterprise storage systems, I’m enamored of home networking, and recently passed the three terabyte mark at home! This got me thinking about where home storage is heading.

As you can see in the photo, my office closet is overflowing with computer equipment (and one sweet guitar), but my data storage is much better organized. I have a hacked Linksys NSLU2 with 500 GB as a file server, a 500 GB PC backup disk, a 160 GB Time Machine disk, 1 TB of TiVo storage, and the rest. But wouldn’t it be nice if this could all be combined into some kind of super home server?

Past Failures: Home Servers

Home storage appliances and servers have come and gone over the year, with none seeming to make much of a mark. The market remains littered with UPNP media servers and home NAS boxes dashed on the shoals of an unappreciative public. Nearly every home network device company has produced one or two home storage servers, none of which have succeeded. Although I use a Linksys NSLU2 at home, I had to hack its Linux software and completely replace Linksys’ features to create a useful device! The un-hacked NAS devices of Buffalo, Western Digital, Netgear, and the rest have generally failed to find buyers as well. So far, consumers seem content with simple USB and FireWire external drives.

The most adventurous home storage servers came from Zetera and Ximeta, both of whom relied on proprietary IP SAN protocols. Note that these were SAN products, sharing block storage over Ethernet, rather than conventional NAS solutions. Both required drivers, limiting client support. The one Zetera buyer I know was pleased by the performance but never used the device as anything but a large hard drive for one PC.

Then there is Microsoft. Recall that the latest Windows Home Server is only their latest attempt to enter this market, and yet I know of no one who has adopted the device. The same can be said of the various media center servers from Microsoft and others. At this point, it seems likely that the future of home storage servers will not come from Microsoft, though their two XBox generations have great potential as clients.

Even EMC has entered the market with their nifty (but largely unnoticed) LifeLine product and Iomega acquisition. Supporting file services and backup for computers as well as audio and video for media players, EMC positions LifeLine much like their Retrospect backup product, but goes further in offering a complete software solution for hardware OEMs wanting to offer a non-Windows home server. Although an impressive offering, it is too early to tell if EMC will have much success with this product.

The Sleek, Shiny Elephant in the Living Room

Of course, there is one company that sells media players and servers by the bushel, complete with sleek, shiny interfaces. Apple’s tremendous success with the iPod has led to their iTunes software becoming the dominant media organization platform, complete with its own proprietary discovery and sharing protocol. Now, with the Apple TV and video iPods, the company is broadening into more media categories. Surely their dominance here puts them in a special position when it comes to setting the stage for a home server or storage revolution.

They also have a strong position in the world of dedicated home storage. Their Airport products are among the only routers to be widely implemented with shared storage. Although many other companies offer similar products, low customer understanding means that these functions are not widely used. And the new Time Capsule device is surely already the most widely-used home NAS product.

But Apple has not yet shown any home server strategy. Administering multiple iTunes servers can be frustrating for users, with no inter-iTunes synchronization or centralization capability. Although the Mac Mini, Apple TV, or Time Capsule could certainly be seen as a home server, the company does not position them as such in the market. Indeed, some iTunes users like myself rely on compatible third party media servers like Firefly and TwonkyVision rather than using iTunes itself. Still, rumors of an Apple home server persist.

One issue for Apple is their reliance on proprietary protocols. Although the Bonjour discovery protocol is certainly simpler than UPnP in practice, Apple stands alone in relying on it. They also steadfastly stick to AFP for NAS and DAAP for remote media streaming. This limits the number of third-party clients and servers that can be used with their hardware and software.

The Future is Friendly

Although Apple has not yet tipped a home storage strategy beyond Time Capsule and Airport Extreme, they are best positioned to deliver a real home storage solution. A simple step would be to create an iTunes media server integrated with Time Capsule and add client/server media synchronization. The company already has OS X backup and file services integrated, and this move would further centralize the digital home around Apple products. But the company’s reliance on closed protocols like DAAP is worrisome, since it locks consumers into nearly all-Apple solutions.

Microsoft’s Media Center and Home Server combination, based around UPnP, shows great promise, with many compatible third-party clients and servers already available. But my own experience with the solution has not been at all positive (I still can’t get my Roku SoundBridge, Vista Ultimate laptop, and Media Center PC to see each other!), leading me to question the viability of this option.

Although Apple or Microsoft could come to dominate, I suspect the future of home storage is out of both companies hands. A number of others are working on improved home server experiences, including EMC’s LifeLine and the expanding use of Debian Linux and open source tools. But all could be sidelined by improved Internet-based services. Google, Microsoft, and Apple continue to expand their online consumer suites with greater storage, synchronization, multimedia integration, and all have the potential to reduce or eliminate the need for in-home storage.

Although I cannot yet tell which service will win, one thing is certain: Consumers demand friendly, flexible solutions. They don’t want to fuss with their media, and they don’t want simple shared storage. They want integration with multiple devices and flexibility to access their content on any device. The first company to offer a simple, flexible storage server for the home will surely be on the right track!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | The Future of Home Storage
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

I am not the typical enterprise storage user. In fact, I am not an enterprise storage user at all – I am a consultant focused for over a decade on assisting enterprises with their storage architecture and strategy, working with businesses of all sizes. My background is both a blessing and a curse – I have seen far more enterprise storage environments in much more detail than most people, but I am unable to truly empathize with my corporate storage compatriots since it’s not really my gear and data that I am working with.

Based on this experience, what does the future hold? Where is enterprise storage heading? Read on for my thoughts.

Fibre Channel

Although the commoditizing storage market would seem ripe for stagnation, the opposite is happening. In fact, the enterprise storage market has continued to diversify, with iSCSI recently expanding the options for storage connectivity to a new market and FC seeing rapid uptake in the virtual server arena. Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), whether or not part of the datacenter Ethernet push, is joining virtualized I/O technology based on InfiniBand as the next wave in connectivity. Simply put, the market is not standing still.

Focus on the new world of storage area network (SAN) connectivity can take away from the basics, however. Traditional switched Fibre Channel (FC) remains the healthy market leader, and the recent upgrade to 8 Gb speed has attracted customer attention. Although they are unlikely to run out and perform a mass upgrade, 8 Gb FC is as as much of an inevitability as 4 and 2 Gb before it. The switch will be made, and customers will upgrade organically.

One of the big beneficiaries of 8 Gb FC will be those with virtual servers. This new hardware is coming just as N_Port ID virtualization (NPIV) is maturing, and this technology, which enables multiple servers to share a single FC interface, in combination with a doubling of bandwidth will make modern Fibre Channel tech extremely attractive to virtual server shops.

Even those who do not adopt 8 Gb FC connectivity in their SAN will benefit from the upshift in throughput, as native 8 Gb disks appear and enterprise arrays are redesigned to accept them, just as devices like the DMX-4 from EMC benefited from 4 Gb FC back ends.

IP Storage: iSCSI and NAS

As far as iSCSI goes, those of us who saw the promise of this technology can finally declare victory. Every storage device that matters offers iSCSI as a connectivity option, and most buyers are considering adopting it. It is being weighed fairly against FC, and the promise of reduced heterogeneity and cost are proving attractive to many. In fact, it is wrong to continually compare it against FC, since many iSCSI buyers would never adopt an FC SAN due to concerns about cost or learning curve. Indeed, much of the uptake in iSCSI comes from areas where SAN was never adopted, and iSCSI’s growth can be partly attributed to these happy customers spreading the technology wider than originally intended.

A hidden benefit of iSCSI adoption is the technologies and techniques that have come along with it. Clustering of smaller storage systems has become a common option for scalability, and has proven itself against old modular “head/shelf” arrays. Although the rate of adoption for security technologies like CHAP and IPsec in iSCSI remains low, they are far more common than their FC relatives. And Microsoft’s simplified and universal iSCSI drivers, which include multi-path and snapshot technologies, have been much more successful than their proprietary equivalents.

Let us not forget humble old network attached storage (NAS), either. File server consolidation to NAS filers continues to be a healthy (but less flashy) market, and NAS virtualization is on the rise as these devices proliferate. And some in the server virtualization community are beginning to consider NFS for their servers, especially when it comes to VMware. NAS definitely still has life and legs and will benefit from the shift to 10 Gb Ethernet just like iSCSI and FCoE.

The Future

As for the future, it is clear that most storage vendors are lining up behind Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) . Although true I/O virtualization, as envisioned by datacenter Ethernet (DCE) and InfiniBand, may not gain traction outside the largest data centers, FCoE seems to be the inevitable next generation for massive enterprise storage. Just about every vendor is committed to it, and the customers I have spoken to accept it as the future. Although 8 Gb FC might delay FCoE in some cases, it will almost certainly be the predominant SAN connectivity mechanism for large block storage devices within five years.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | A Consultant’s View Of The Enterprise Storage Market
This post was categorized as Computer History, Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

So without further ado, I present three lessons on SAN storage:

• SAN School Lesson One: Building a SAN - In this first lesson of SAN School, I discuss the different types of storage arrays, switches, and software that make up a storage network.
• SAN School Lesson Two: SAN Architecture and Topology - In lesson two, I discuss the evolution of SANs from standalone entities, to islands and beyond. Discover techniques that can make a substantial difference in the way data is moved and processed, as well as in your company’s consolidation plans.
• SAN School Lesson Three: SAN Management and Security - In this Podcast, I explain what the options are for management tools. I cover array management, change management, virtualization and more to help you manage your environment. 

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | SAN School Podcast Series Posted
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.