Posts Tagged ‘software-defined storage’

Software-defined Storage = Virtualized Storage = vSAN?

I recently get more and more into discussions around Software-defined storage and storage virtualization. Is it the same, is it partly the same, is it something totally different? In this blog post I’ll try to shed some light on the technologies of today around these buzzwords and try to make some sense at the same time.

What we used to call virtualizing storage

Before we launched the idea of the Software-defined Datacenter (SDDC) and Software-defined Storage (SDS), we were already putting hardware between storage and hosts creating an abstraction layer between the two. Good examples of this technologies are IBM’s SVC and EMC’s VPLEX.

A good example of abstraction of storage from the underlying hardware - VPLEX in a metro configuration abstracting the underlying storage to add value of stretching a LUN across phyisical locations

A good example of abstraction of storage from the underlying hardware – VPLEX in a metro configuration abstracting the underlying storage to add value of stretching a LUN across phyisical locations



These technologies look south for their storage requirements, abstract this storage and Read the rest of this entry »

Software-defined Storage: Fairy tale or Reality?

Nowadays the air is filled with the Software-defined Datacenter or SDDC for short. The idea behind this is awesome: As soon as we are able to define and manage compute, storage and networking using software only, we can define, build, scale and destroy virtual datacenters at the press of a button. On top, there’s a web portal. Underneath, there is just a generic x86 hardware platform.

Software-defined Storage

Software-defined compute is something that has been going on for years already. Most vendors that sell hypervisors, especially VMware have a lot of work into the software-defined pillar that is called “compute”.

But when we look at the storage component of the Software-defined Datacenter (often called SDS or Software-defined Storage), things aren’t as advanced as in the compute pillar. Or are they? Read the rest of this entry »

Soon to come
  • Coming soon

    • Determining Linked Clone overhead
    • Designing the Future part1: Server-Storage fusion
    • Whiteboxing part 4: Networking your homelab
    • Deduplication: Great or greatly overrated?
    • Roads and routes
    • Stretching a VMware cluster and "sidedness"
    • Stretching VMware clusters - what noone tells you
    • VMware vSAN: What is it?
    • VMware snapshots explained
    • Whiteboxing part 3b: Using Nexenta for your homelab
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