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?
Veritas Volume Manager
Mac OS X Lion Adds CoreStorage, a Volume Manager (Finally!)
Apple fan boys won't like to hear this, but Mac OS X was majorly deficient in an area near and dear to my heart. You see, unlike every other modern operating system, Mac OS X lacked a volume manager. This wouldn't seem like a big deal to the average user, but it held back the operating system in many ways. A volume manager brings storage virtualization to an operating system, … [Read more...] about Mac OS X Lion Adds CoreStorage, a Volume Manager (Finally!)
The Bridge: Veritas Thin (Provisioning) API
Thin provisioning needs communication to function, and zero page reclaim is only the array side of the story. WRITE_SAME helps reduce I/O load, but the server needs to use it. Wouldn't it be nice if the operating system, file system, or volume manager would use these commands to help recover capacity? We need a bridge. We need to cross the gulf between the storage array … [Read more...] about The Bridge: Veritas Thin (Provisioning) API