An Quick Look at Software Defined Storage (SDS)

Looking at traditional virtualization practices compared to this new fangled software defined storage (or SDS), you would think we're just re-branding the same technology in a new way. Not so fast... 

Let's break it down briefly. Look at virtualization and storage specifically. Whether you're running technologies like Hyper-V or vSphere, you're taking raw storage (generally off a shared resource like a NAS or SAN) and carving it into a logical volume or unit (a LUN) or file share (i.e. NFS) from there the hypervisor formats it so you have the flexibility of using that storage for virtual machine use/deployment/storage/etc. VMware calls these datastores, Microsoft calls them virtual hard drives. They serve the same premise; to store VMs. That's where virtualization storage really ends, a means to store VMs. 

Enter software defined storage, we're taking this process and essentially accomplishing two additional things; governance, and management. 

Take a look at the below diagram from VMware we're taking those datastores and enhancing them by providing some additional data services and control policies on top of them. This in theory will allow us to better utilize, protect, and monitor them so our VMs are better sized, managed, and protected. Make sense?

(VMware, 2014)

Let's look a little further here and outline those features that VMware identified around SDS:

Benefits of Software-Defined Storage:

• Faster provisioning. Provisioning of storage becomes extremely fast and simple. Infrastructure and data service do not require complex pre-configurations as the right storage service is created dynamically.
• Granular dynamic control of service levels across heterogeneous resources. Adjusting service levels to an app is as simple as changing a policy. The underlying service delivery dynamically adjusts accordingly.
• Simplified operations and troubleshooting. Storage virtualization eliminates the notion of hard mapping of roles and responsibilities has been eliminated and replaced with automatic enforcement and monitoring of policies.
• Flexible resource management. All components are separable. For instance, the data plane could be replaced without disrupting the data services or the control plane.
• Agility with control. Infrastructure teams can define classes of services by exposing policy tiers to end-users. Compliance and charge back are simplified.
• Increased asset utilization. Composed services will be more precise and aligned on application boundaries. An application container’s storage services are also much better aligned, delivering exactly what’s needed, when it’s needed.

Some of the information here is a little sales pitchy but the key words you should take away here is flexible, agility, and control. With a capability like this, you can really enhance how your storage is utilized. Factor that into some of the other technology features your back end storage architectures provide (i.e. caching, deduplication,etc.) and you have some features that provide a very well rounded and automated solution around your storage provisioning and management. 

Thinking more like a data center service that's provided on demand and by request, it's clear to see that there is plenty of potential around technologies like software defined storage. This is a similar approach we've seen to other technologies like database as a service and software defined networking. Imagine what cloud providers are going to do when they refine the process around software define storage and networking and start providing software defined data centers on demand with the level of policy management, security, and control it will be a true public hosted, private managed, logically dedicated data center in the cloud. 

For more information around SDS from VMware see the article here

Thanks for reading!!!

New job... New thoughts... New direction...

Well it's clear that my availability isn't necessarily conducive of blogging. It's been over a year since my last post and here's a quick recap on where I'm at now and what's changed in a year...

My previous employer was putting a lot of extra work on my plate which prevented me from blogging actively. Furthermore, I've been teaching with a university here in St. Louis part time teaching IT courses in a variety of subjects (Active Directory, Computing Fundamentals, Virtualization, etc.).

In March 2014, I took a new position with a utility company providing gas and electric services to our customers in the bi-state area. Now I focus on technology planning and architectures. As a technical architect, Our team is basically a technical liaison to the CIO of our company. Our range is broad and we posses many skills in a myriad of different areas. While mine still focus on infrastructure capabilities, my focus has expanded to a more true holistic, enterprise (dare I say), agile model.

As a result, my focus isn't going to be driven so much on product and technologies anymore. While the inception of this blog was to discuss virtualization practices and technologies, the drive has evolved beyond conventional virtualization and into new technological avenues. I'm talking Software Defined Storage, Networking, and Data centers. As well as, the Internet of Things, Big Data, and continued improvement and evolution of cloud computing technologies (both managed/un-managed & private/public).

Bottom line, a lot has changed in over a year both in the technology space, and in my roles as a technology professional. As a result, this blog is going to get an attempted revival and I hope people will see potential value in reading it...

We'll have to wait and see...