I’m really excited about the prospects of memory-addressable flash. Moving flash closer to the CPU and addressing it as memory rather than block storage brings tremendous performance benefits, and is a once-in-a-generation radical change to system architecture. But questions remain as to how it can be integrated with today’s applications. Now Plexistor is here with a promising solution: Their “Software-Defined Memory” concept is a generic filesystem for storage, from NVDIMM to NVMe to SSD.
Infinidat’s Solution For the I/O Blender: Math
I’ve talked a lot about the I/O blender in the last decade or so.[1. I’ve even been told I invented the term!] I’ve always said that information is the solution, allowing arrays to de-multiplex data. But a new enterprise storage company, Infinidat, claims that they can beat the I/O blender using math. Here’s their concept.
Scaling Storage At The Client
Scaling storage is a serious challenge for the industry, but there is a great deal of thought, effort, and creativity going into it right now. Companies like Gridstore, Oxygen Cloud, and Cleversafe have come up with effective client-side solutions to enable scale-out storage to sing. If you’ve got an appropriate application, client, or gateway, scale-out is a real possibility!
Scaling Storage In Conventional Arrays
It is amazing that something as simple-sounding as making an array get bigger can be so complex, yet scaling storage is notoriously difficult. Our storage protocols just weren’t designed with scaling in mind, and they lack the flexibility needed to dynamically address multiple nodes. So my hat is off to these companies and others who have come up with clever ways to maintain compatibility while scaling out beyond the bounds of a single storage array.
Scale-Out Storage Field Day?
Having wrapped up Storage Field Day 4 this week, it seems that the theme was scaling storage. Delegates learned about scale-out storage from CloudByte, Coho Data, Nimble Storage, Overland Storage, Avere Systems, Gridstore, Oxygen Cloud, and Cleversafe.
Storage Field Day 4: Live This Week!
It’s time once again for Storage Field Day! As most of my blog readers are aware, I run the Tech Field Day event series, bringing together experts in various IT fields with key companies for a few days of deep technical discussion. This week it’s our fourth event focused on enterprise storage, and it’s going to be big!
VMware-Integrated Caching? Not So Fast!
Integrating solid state storage as a VMware cache isn’t a trivial task. In fact, it’s become the core challenge for some of the best minds in storage, and few real answers have yet emerged. This will be a primary area of focus for me and others who watch and comment on virtualization and enterprise storage!
Wherein I Weigh In On Object Storage, SDN, And Commoditization (and Coho Data!)
Today marks the launch of a new enterprise storage company, Coho Data. I’m very excited about the core technology within Coho’s storage solutions, and am pleased to present two video discussions about this.
Storage Field Day 3 Is Here!
As most of my readers are probably aware, I run the Tech Field Day event series, bringing in a panel of independent IT folks like myself with cool companies. This week is Storage Field Day 3, and I thought you might like to know a bit about what we’ve got planned!
Qumulo: An Enterprise Storage Startup Focused on Scale, Simplicity, and Efficiency
Enterprise storage is perhaps the most innovative area of IT these days, with exciting startups springing up right and left. Today, that scene welcomes Qumulo, who are building a new storage platform focused on scalability, efficiency, and simplicity. Qumulo catches my eye for two reasons: The team is heavy with Isilon experience, and CTO Aaron Passey really impressed me with his work at Clustrix.