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!
VMFS
Storage Changes in VMware vSphere 5.1
As I have done since version 3.5, I'm charting the storage changes in VMware's latest release of vSphere, 5.1. Detailed at VMworld but not released as of this writing, vSphere 5.1 is lauded for eliminating the "vTax" and bringing features like replication, a revised backup application, and shared-nothing vMotion. Unlike version 5, which included many new technical storage … [Read more...] about Storage Changes in VMware vSphere 5.1
Storage Changes in VMware vSphere 5
VMware officially launched their next-generation (version 5) enterprise server virtualization product line this week under the "vSphere 5" name. As I've been doing for the last few major VMware releases, I'm focusing this post on the storage changes present in vSphere 5. For more information on earlier updates, see my articles: Storage Fixes in VMware ESX Server 3.5 Update … [Read more...] about Storage Changes in VMware vSphere 5
Changes in Technology Drive Changes in IT Organizations and Roles
Lots of my IT infrastructure management clients are talking about how the advent of Ethernet/IP and virtualization is changing the roles of storage, server, and network administrators. The evolution of the storage role in particular in enterprise IT organizations has been a topic of particular interest to me for a while: I definitely remember thinking about this as iSCSI and … [Read more...] about Changes in Technology Drive Changes in IT Organizations and Roles
Granularity: The Hidden Challenge of Storage Management
Many storage challenges focus on correlating high-level uses of data (such as applications) with the nuts and bolts of storage infrastructure. These discussions often revolve around the conflict between data management, which demands an ever-smaller unit of management, and storage management, which benefits most from consolidation. Developing data management capability that is … [Read more...] about Granularity: The Hidden Challenge of Storage Management