I've posted before about the spot where most successful enterprise storage arrays sit: The "fat middle" between performance and capacity. But software is driving a wedge into the SAN, and I see radical architectural change on the horizon. There are so many storage virtualization technologies sneaking into server architecture that it's impossible to think one won't take hold. … [Read more...] about Virtualized and Distributed Storage: This Time For Sure!
Virtual Storage
#VMEspresso with @SolarWinds at #VMworld: “Storage I/O is About to Get Crazy”
Storage interconnects are about to be revolutionized, and virtualization is the driving force. Traditional SAN and NAS has been augmented with technologies like VAAI to work with the “I/O Blender” presented by the hypervisor, but this is just the first step. Next comes distributed and converged storage technologies like VSAN. But this opens the doors to new I/O technologies … [Read more...] about #VMEspresso with @SolarWinds at #VMworld: “Storage I/O is About to Get Crazy”
Cloud Without Virtualization
Lots of folks conflate cloud computing and virtualization, but these are not necessarily intrinsically related. Although most cloud servers today use a hypervisor like KVM or Xen to share compute hardware, there's no reason it has to be this way. My takeaway from Gigaom Structure this week is that an alternative paradigm is emerging: Cloud without traditional … [Read more...] about Cloud Without Virtualization
Is Storage the Killer App for Software-Defined Networking?
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, … [Read more...] about Is Storage the Killer App for Software-Defined Networking?
Software-Defined Data Center Symposium, April 22 in Santa Clara, CA
I've written and spoken quite a bit on the "software-defined" future, what it means and how it will come about. Although it seems like a marketing buzzword to some, I feel it is a fairly accurate description of the future of the enterprise and service provider data center. That's why I'm working to organize the next Software-Defined Data Center Symposium, and am happy to … [Read more...] about Software-Defined Data Center Symposium, April 22 in Santa Clara, CA