Although the core issues with thin provisioning revolve around communication, it presents unique challenges to the storage array as well. We talked about granularity of pages, and the comments for that piece were extremely enlightening. Now let's consider another key factor: Scheduling. Note that the "provisioning" part is relatively easy to do on the fly: An array just has … [Read more...] about Processing and Scheduling Thin Provisioning
Thin Reclamation
Is TRIM Useful For Thin Provisioning?
If WRITE_SAME can be a semaphore for thin un-provisioning, what about TRIM? It sounds like a perfect fit, and has wider implementation to boot! Let's take a deeper look. First, I'd like to remind the reader that I'm not some specialist storage engineer. I am regular guy who wanted to know about this TRIM thing. I welcome corrections and feedback on this piece! We … [Read more...] about Is TRIM Useful For Thin Provisioning?
Thin Provisioning: Playing the Telephone Game
I began by introducing the core problem: Storage isn't getting any cheaper due to storage utilization and provisioning problems. Thin provisioning isn't all it's cracked up to be, but it has a place. So what's wrong with it? The problem with thin provisioning starts with the telephone game. Did you ever play the telephone game as a kid? Maybe you whisper "I like … [Read more...] about Thin Provisioning: Playing the Telephone Game
De-Allocating is the Core Issue for Thin Provisioning
I began by introducing the core problem: Storage isn't getting any cheaper, even though raw capacity is cheap. Then I talked about storage utilization and provisioning problems. Now we're going to talk about thin provisioning. So, what is thin provisioning? I imagine everybody can just figure it out by the name. It means that instead of allocating storage that we're not even … [Read more...] about De-Allocating is the Core Issue for Thin Provisioning
Symantec’s Thin API: The Plot Thickens
Last week, I lauded Symantec for introducing an API in Storage Foundation which will interact with the thin storage capabilities of supported arrays. Since then, I've learned more about this capability, and I am writing this update to share that knowledge. As I noted last week, the press release was a bit hard to follow and comprehend (and not just for me), and one of my … [Read more...] about Symantec’s Thin API: The Plot Thickens