• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
    • Stephen Foskett
      • My Publications
        • Urban Forms in Suburbia: The Rise of the Edge City
      • Storage Magazine Columns
      • Whitepapers
      • Multimedia
      • Speaking Engagements
    • Services
    • Disclosures
  • Categories
    • Apple
    • Ask a Pack Rat
    • Computer History
    • Deals
    • Enterprise storage
    • Events
    • Personal
    • Photography
    • Terabyte home
    • Virtual Storage
  • Guides
    • The iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide
      • The iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Troubleshooting Guide
    • The iPad Exchange ActiveSync Guide
      • iPad Exchange ActiveSync Troubleshooting Guide
    • Toolbox
      • Power Over Ethernet Calculator
      • EMC Symmetrix WWN Calculator
      • EMC Symmetrix TimeFinder DOS Batch File
    • Linux Logical Volume Manager Walkthrough
  • Calendar

Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat

Understanding the accumulation of data

You are here: Home / Everything / Computer History / Is Storage the Killer App for Software-Defined Networking?

Is Storage the Killer App for Software-Defined Networking?

April 15, 2014 By Stephen 2 Comments

Software Defined Networking (SDN) has always looked a bit like a solution in search of a problem, at least in the enterprise data center. But there are lots of potential applications that need a dynamic and scalable network. In my mind, storage is chief among these, since scalability and flexibility has always been extremely difficult to achieve.

As I have written before, one of the most vexing problems in storage is the backwardness and intractability of the protocols for we use. SCSI and NFS simply were not designed for flexibility and scalability, yet they are the primary protocols in use in today’s data center.

Numerous attempts have been made to overcome these limitations, but few have gained any real traction. Where is pNFS? Where is FCoE? Even iSCSI has been relegated to smaller businesses and applications. The only real success in evolving storage protocols for the modern world is Microsoft’s SMB, and that has more to do with Redmond’s ability to push through changes then any real customer demand.

There have long been just three ways to add flexibility to storage:

  1. Change the protocol, switching to something more dynamic like XAM, pNFS, CDMI, etc. But this requires client and server adoption, and one or both of these have derailed each of these efforts. The only real success so far is Amazon’s S3 protocol, and that’s because developers were so fed up with enterprise IT that they simply walked away and wrote their own protocol! And Microsoft is making real advancements in SMB, if anyone pays attention.
  2. Trick the protocol using client or server wizardry to address multiple targets, allow live modification to storage allocation, and the like. This is how Isilon can scale NFS like no one else, but it’s a difficult game to play. I’ve seen dozens of storage companies whose claim to fame is some way to trick SCSI into being more dynamic without the client or server knowing what’s going on, and none have made much impact.
  3. Move up the stack, adding a volume manager or similar host-side storage layer.  This is the VSAN approach, which moves storage allocation and management out of the hands of storage devices while using conventional protocols only for low-level connectivity. It’s worked for decades, from Veritas Volume Manager to Microsoft Storage Spaces, and is the core IP of high-profile newcomers from Nutanix to PernixData.

But what if there was a way to get the network involved? Storage has always treated the network like a dumb pipe, pushing bits from one end to the other with a priority on performance and reliability. Although networks could offer high availability, flexibility, and scale, storage has largely ignored these capabilities.

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) could change this picture. SDN is coming to the datacenter, with pretty much every networking provider adopting the concept and specific implementations, like OpenFlow and OpenDaylight. Eventually, the storage industry will “open its eyes” and realize that this capability has huge potential as a “fourth way” to add flexibility to storage.

The most amazing outcome might be “storage area networks” that finally live up to the promise of that term. To date, Fibre Channel SANs have been quite simple in execution, acting as a bus to push bits from one place to another. But SDN-powered SANs could be something else entirely, bringing dynamic, scale-out attachment and adding storage services in the network, not just at the end points.

If you happen to be in New York on May 5, I suggest you consider stopping in for a panel I’ll be leading on this very topic at the Open Networking User Group (ONUG). My panel, “IP Storage Panel: SDN’s Killer App”, is just one of a number of great topics to be covered during ONUG. Use code “TFD10” to get a 10% discount when signing up!

You might also want to read these other posts...

  • Electric Car Over the Internet: My Experience Buying…
  • GPS Time Rollover Failures Keep Happening (But…
  • Liberate Wi-Fi Smart Bulbs and Switches with Tasmota!
  • What You See and What You Get When You Follow Me
  • Introducing Rabbit: I Bought a Cloud!

Filed Under: Computer History, Enterprise storage, Events, Virtual Storage Tagged With: CDMI, Isilon, Microsoft, Nutanix, ONUG, OpenDaylight, OpenFlow, PernixData, pNFS, SAN, sdn, SMB 3.0, software-defined networking, storage area network, Storage Spaces, Veritas Volume Manager, vSAN, XAM

Primary Sidebar

The work of the information officer [should be] regarded as the natural dynamic extension of that of the librarian.

Douglas John Foskett

Subscribe via Email

Subscribe via email and you will receive my latest blog posts in your inbox. No ads or spam, just the same great content you find on my site!
 New posts (daily)
 Where's Stephen? (weekly)

Download My Book


Download my free e-book:
Essential Enterprise Storage Concepts!

Recent Posts

Electric Car Over the Internet: My Experience Buying From Vroom

November 28, 2020

Powering Rabbits: The Mean Well LRS-350-12 Power Supply

October 18, 2020

Tortoise or Hare? Nvidia Jetson TK1

September 22, 2020

Running Rabbits: More About My Cloud NUCs

September 21, 2020

Introducing Rabbit: I Bought a Cloud!

September 10, 2020

Remove ROM To Use LSI SAS Cards in HPE Servers

August 23, 2020

Test Your Wi-Fi with iPerf for iOS

July 9, 2020

Liberate Wi-Fi Smart Bulbs and Switches with Tasmota!

May 29, 2020

What You See and What You Get When You Follow Me

May 28, 2019

GPS Time Rollover Failures Keep Happening (But They’re Almost Done)

April 6, 2019

Symbolic Links

    Featured Posts

    It’s Fine To Mount Hard Drives On Their Side Or Even Upside-Down

    August 13, 2016

    Microsoft’s Overlooked Innovation

    February 15, 2010

    What You See and What You Get When You Follow Me

    May 28, 2019

    Storage Changes in VMware vSphere 5

    July 16, 2011

    Frequent Flier Kung Fu for Novices

    March 12, 2012

    Download My Free E-Book, “Essential Enterprise Storage Concepts”!

    April 4, 2017

    The Fat Middle: Today’s Enterprise Storage Array

    August 31, 2014

    Review: American Standard’s Champion 4 Toilet Flushes Almost Anything

    July 31, 2012

    Review: Blue Snowball USB Microphone

    March 31, 2010

    Replacing Google Reader With Feedbin and Reeder

    May 5, 2013

    Copyright © 2021 · Log in