STORAGE

Home

Castagna: Danger!
Disaster! Data
management!
MANAGING THE INFORMATION THAT DRIVES THE ENTERPRISE

Toigo: Superhero SNAPSHOT 1 EDITORS NOTE / CASTAGNA

universe of data
management Core hyper-converged Danger! Disaster!
purchase criteria Data management!
Contain your
storage

Core
hyper-converged
purchase criteria AGILE INFRASTRUCTURE STORAGE REVOLUTION / TOIGO

How NVMe over How NVMe over Superhero universe

Fabrics will change
Fabrics will change of data management
storage
storage
Motivations for
hyper-convergence
buys
SNAPSHOT 2 HOT SPOTS / SINCLAIR
CDM goes
mainstream Motivations for Time to rethink
hyper-convergence software-defined
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- buys storage
defined storage

Matchett: The
power and benefits

Contain your storage

DATA MANAGEMENT READ-WRITE / MATCHETT
of IT disruption
CDM goes The power and
About us Vendors prep enterprise-class persistent mainstream benefits of IT
data storage for the world of containers. disruption

SEPTEMBER 2017, VOL. 16, NO. 7

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 1
 EDITORS LETTER
RICH CASTAGNA
Home

Castagna: Danger!
Disaster! Data

Danger!
management!

Toigo: Superhero
DATA STORAGE GROWTH IS A FACT

Disaster! Data
universe of data That may be a little over the top, but probably uncomfort-
management
ably close to home for some of you. Even as the compli-
ance delete-everything, save-everything debate fades into
Contain your
storage management! a distant memory, companies seem convinced that theres
gold in them thar data points. Hoarding is in, and data
Core Data has taken on a life of its own and
hyper-converged deletion simply isnt an option anymore. And if hanging
purchase criteria keeps growing. Its time to take control. onto everything that naturally finds its way into our data
How NVMe over
centers isnt enough, we keep coming up with things to
Fabrics will change collect even more data and cause even more data storage
storage growthdevices you wear or ones that watch you or track
Motivations for
everything you do on the internet.
hyper-convergence IT HAS ALL the makings of a spine-tingling, modern day Were addicted to data, even if were not sure what to
buys disaster movie. With corporate data growing at the rate of do with it.
CDM goes
about a gazillion percent per year, companies are drown- I expect some companies are spending so much time
mainstream ing in the stuff. And like that great 1958 movie monster, collecting, curating and cracking open their customers
the Blob, much of that binary flotsam is escaping data data that they no longer have to time to actually produce
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- centers and seeping under doorways and out into the wild products to sell.
defined storage where its forming great lakes of data.
Soon, giant chunks of data break off and create an even
Matchett: The
power and benefits more threatening situationjust like that Delaware-sized DATA CAPACITY IS OUT OF CONTROL
of IT disruption iceberg that snapped off Antarctica and is ominously Of course, the problem with the data boom is that you
About us
adrift. Data bergs begin to bounce off data centers, spill- have to have some place to put itand wherever that is,
ing social security and credit card numbers, which are you also must protect it. Both of those issues mean spend-
scooped up by dark web bottom feeders who sell identities ing bucksbig bucks probablyand committing other re-
like popcorn at a disaster flick. sources to the care and feeding of all those zeros and ones.
Did that send a shiver up your spine? Under normal circumstances, that is, in the pre-data

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 2

Home hoarding era, storing and protecting data was no easy task. they do a good job of keeping that data from proliferating
Castagna: Danger!
Ive been covering storage for about 15 years, and I can re- unnecessarilyand unmanageablyand limiting data
Disaster! Data member whenits really not that long agousers would storage growth.
management! tell me that they just rolled out a brand new array with the But adoption of CDM has been a sluggish. Actifioof-
Toigo: Superhero
jaw-dropping capacity of 50 TB or 100 TB. Thats almost ten credited with creating this product categoryrolled
universe of data a single solid-state drive today, and youre more likely to out its first product in 2011 and in the six or so ensuing
management
hear Thankfully, we only have a few petabytes of storage years, more vendors have joined the CDM fray, includ-
Contain your to manage than seeing any jaws drop. ing Catalogic, Cohesity, Rubrick and several backup and
storage Compounding the problem, some data center and busi-
ness execs border on the blas about data storage growth
Core
hyper-converged and protection. I just saw the results of a survey fielded by
purchase criteria Vanson Bourne, a market research outfit, and sponsored
Copy data management
by the NTT Group, a security consulting and managed
How NVMe over
Fabrics will change services provider. The eye-catching stat from the survey adoption
storage was that only 40% of the 1,350 respondents felt that the Not
Motivations for
imminent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) planned
hyper-convergence would affect their companies. But pretty much any orga-
buys 55%
nization that does business in todays global economy will
CDM goes
be affected by the GDPR. Not believing soand not pre-
mainstream paring accordinglymay put customers data in jeopardy
and cost organizations millions of dollars in fines. In use
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- now
14% 15%
defined storage

DATA MANAGEMENT IS POSSIBLE In 12%

Matchett: The
power and benefits Its not like there arent products that can help companies long-term
plan
of IT disruption cope with the data deluge. There are plenty of data man-
4%
About us
agement apps out there as well as systems that can help In In pilot or
near-term
limit and manage the amount of data floating around an plan
evaluation
enterprise. Copy data management (CDM) products, both
appliances and software-only implementations, dont cut SOURCE: TECHTARGET RESEARCH

down on the amount of data pouring into data centers, but

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 3

Home primary storage vendors. Still, the number of companies to software only, DataGravity sold its intellectual property
Castagna: Danger!
using CDM is modest. According to TechTarget Researchs to data security company HyTrust.
Disaster! Data most recent Storage Market Landscape survey, only 15% of Its too bad DataGravity didnt have more impact be-
management! respondents said they were using a CDM product. cause storage systems must get a lot smarter with built-in,
Toigo: Superhero
CDM isnt the only stab at managing data better. A few transparent data management
universe of data years ago, DataGravity rolled out its innovative line of IT typically lurches from challenge to challenge, learn-
management
Discovery arrays for unstructured data that did a whole ing lessons along the way and often coming up with some
Contain your lot more than just store that data. The system stored the pretty good solutions. With the current state of data
storage data intelligently so that it could track who created it, who growth, if we dont become more attentive and develop
could see it, if the data was copied and so on. Thats a lot of more forward-looking data management processes, the
Core
hyper-converged valuable information that most arrays dont come close to next sight you see may be a big chunk of your company
purchase criteria providing. But, alas, DataGravity couldnt stir up enough drifting out of your data center. n
How NVMe over
interest in its novel approach to data storage growth to
Fabrics will change survive on its own. After switching from selling appliances RICH CASTAGNA is TechTargets VP of Editorial.
storage

Motivations for
hyper-convergence
buys

CDM goes
mainstream

Sinclair: Time to
rethink software-
defined storage

Matchett: The
power and benefits
of IT disruption

About us

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 4

 STORAGE REVOLUTION
JON TOIGO
Home

Castagna: Danger!
Disaster! Data

The superhero
management!

Toigo: Superhero
dont actually have any superpowers, it seems discordant

universe of data
universe of data to hear some vendor woo me with his data management
management
riff when hes really talking about storage management

management
Contain your or simply flash storage, object storage or a cloud storage
storage service.
Real data management isnt just about moving data
Core Data management is the Superman,
hyper-converged among different storage tiers based on its hotness or
not the Batman, of the storage world.
purchase criteria coldness. No matter how many times IBM says hot edge,
How NVMe over
cold center to describe a managed storage infrastructure,
Fabrics will change it still sounds like they are describing a Pittsburgh-style
storage steak rather than data management technology. And
Motivations for
whether youre Cohesity, Ctera, Nasuni, Panzura or any of
hyper-convergence IS IT JUST me, or are meta-humans becoming meta-bor- a dozen other data management companies, the agenda
buys ing? Summer 2017 seems to have passed by in a blur, youre advancing sounds a heck of a lot more like a pitch
CDM goes
punctuated every few days by yet another blockbuster about the need for more flash, cloud or object storage than
mainstream movie based on a Marvel or DC superhero. My kids want a better enterprise data management strategy.
to see every one, of course, despite the commonality of Dont get me wrong: There may be a lot of value in pro-
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- the plot lines. We usually end up debating the fidelity of viding a better caching algorithm to position frequently
defined storage the movie to the comic or canonicity of this installment accessed data on an edge NAS device to get to that data
to previous films in the series. Frankly, its getting pretty faster than in a public cloud or to let users and apps still
Matchett: The
power and benefits yawn-inducing. tied to file systems, rather than object storage, access it.
of IT disruption This is the same feeling I get when a vendor pitches But this approach is really just adding an armored flying
About us
his latest storage wares, which are increasingly contex- suit to Robert Downey Jr., not gifting us with a meta-hu-
tualized as big wins for data management. Truth be told, man like Superman or the Flash. And while I like Scarlett
most of these products arent doing much at all in the way Johanssons costumery and keen marksmanship as Black
of enterprise data management strategyat least not in Widow, even she cant really wield Thors hammer or im-
the grand sense. Just as most of the Avengers and Batman itate those crazy demigoddess antics of Wonder Woman.

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 5

Home Enterprise data management strategy technology is to REAL ENTERPRISE DATA
storage what real superpowers are to comic book charac-
Castagna: Danger!
Disaster! Data ters. It is built-in by design, not bolted on or a byproduct
MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
management! of something else. TRUMPS COOL VENDOR
Toigo: Superhero
TECHNOLOGIES THAT DONT
universe of data
management
DO A LOT TO MANAGE
LETS GET REAL
DATA IN THE END.
Contain your Technologies such as hierarchical storage management,
storage archive, scale-out storage, storage virtualization engines,
cloud gateways, object storage models and flash storage
Core
hyper-converged arent data management. Theyre storage-focused opti- simply has a lot of money to throw at controlling con-
purchase criteria mizations that have value in terms of capacity allocation ditions in battles. He has lots of accoutrements in his
How NVMe over
efficiency. utility belt and his batcave that sometimes work to bend
Fabrics will change Real data management technology is data-focused, outcomes to his will. That he isnt entirely bulletproof like
storage not storage-focused. Real enterprise data management Superman adds to the drama, but we dont really want that
Motivations for
strategy moves data around infrastructure based on many kind of unpredictability in data management products.
hyper-convergence criteria, but the important ones target business processes We want a real superhero who can handle the trillions of
buys rather than storage capacity. Data management is the out- decisions that go into matching the right resources and
CDM goes
ward expression of data genetics, not simply an external services to the right data at the right time to satisfy pica-
mainstream push-pull engine imposed on data. Its what happens when yunish business and regulatory and legal mandates around
you let data be itself; when you cater to datas lifecycle re- data handling.
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- quirements as defined by the business process that creates
defined storage and uses the data.
The Incredible Hulk is at his best when the Avengers DATA MANAGEMENT SUPERHEROES
Matchett: The
power and benefits understand that his secret is that hes always angry and The meta-humans, those superheroes in the real world
of IT disruption always the Green Guy in potentia. Similarly, data has an of data management, are companies like StrongBox Data
About us
inner life. Its hot for a time, then cools. At each stage, it Solutions and, perhaps, Primary Data and someday IBM.
has different hosting requirements with respect to accessi- They get the fact that data management is more than
bility, protection, preservation and privacy that are mostly storage tiering, archive, scale-out NAS, object storage
defined by the business process. or cloud. Its a brew of a metadata-driven global name-
By contrast, Batman is no superhero. Bruce Wayne space, storage resource and storage services management

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 6

Home engines, as well as cognitive computing processors that architecture. Thats why real enterprise data management
Castagna: Danger!
interpret business policies and open the right doors for strategy trumps a bunch of cool vendor technologies that
Disaster! Data data to move through in order to get to the memory, disk dont do a lot to manage data itself at the end of the day.
management! or tape medium it needs when it needs itall transpar- Now, I realize that if you arent a fan of comic books or
Toigo: Superhero
ently to the end user or application. of the many movies based on them, this months column
universe of data Given the volume of data, we need a superhuman may be meaningless. If so, find a kid to explain it or catch
management
brain to calculate the myriad variables involved in the up on Netflix. n
Contain your exercise of managing files and objects across a constantly
storage changing universe. And you may need some superhuman JON WILLIAM TOIGO is a 30-year IT veteran, CEO and managing
skills to manage the vicissitudes of amorphous clouds or principal of Toigo Partners International, and chairman of the Data
Core
hyper-converged flash technologies that are still more marketecture than Management Institute.
purchase criteria

How NVMe over

Fabrics will change
storage

Motivations for
hyper-convergence
buys

CDM goes
mainstream

Sinclair: Time to
rethink software-
defined storage

Matchett: The
power and benefits
of IT disruption

About us

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 7

CONTAINERS

THE PACE OF change in IT is staggering. Fast growing data,

cloud-scale processing and millions of new internet of
things devices are driving us to find more efficient, reliable
and scalable ways to keep up. Traditional application ar-
chitectures are reaching their limits, and were scrambling
to evaluate the best new approaches for development and
deployment. Fortunately, the hottest prospectcontain-
erizationpromises to address many, if not all, of these
otherwise overwhelming challenges.
In containerized app design, each container hosts an
isolatable, and separately scalable, processing component
of a larger application web of containers. Unlike mono-
lithic application processes of the past, large, container-
ized applications can consist of hundreds, if not thousands,
of related containers. The apps support Agile design, de-
velopment and deployment methodologies. They can scale

Contain readily in production and are ideally suited for hosting in

distributed, and even hybrid, cloud infrastructure.

your storage
Unfortunately, containers werent originally designed
to implement full-stack applications or really any appli-
cation that requires persistent data storage. The original
Heres where enterprise-class persistent idea for containers was to make it easy to create and de-
data storage for containers is headed. ploy stateless microservice application layers on a large
BY MIKE MATCHETT scale. Think of microservices as a form of highly agile
middleware with conceptually no persistent data storage
requirements to worry about.
JJPAN/GETTY IMAGES

HOME
STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 8
Home PERSISTENCE IN PERSISTING
Castagna: Danger!
Because the container approach has delivered great
Disaster! Data agility, scalability, efficiency and cloud-readiness, and is
management! lower-cost in many cases, people now want to use it for
Toigo: Superhero
far more than microservices. Container architectures pro-
universe of data vide such a better way to build modern applications that
management
we see many commercial software and systems vendors
Contain your transitioning internal development to container form
storage and even deploying them widely, often without explicit
end-user or IT awareness. Its a good bet that most Fortune
Core
hyper-converged 1000 companies already host third-party production IT
purchase criteria applications in containers, especially inside appliances,
How NVMe over
converged approaches and purpose-built infrastructure.
You might find large, containerized databases and even
Fabrics will change
storage storage systems. Still, designing enterprise persistent
storage for these applications is a challenge, as contain-
Motivations for
hyper-convergence ers can come and go and migrate across distributed and
buys hybrid infrastructure. Because data needs to be mastered,
CDM goes
protected, regulated and governed, persistent data storage
mainstream acts in many ways like an anchor, holding containers down
and threatening to reduce many of their benefits.
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- Container architectures need three types of storage.
defined storage The first is image storage. This can be provided with
existing shared storage and has requirements much like
Matchett: The
power and benefits platforms already built for distributing and protecting
of IT disruption virtual machine (VM) images in server virtualization. A
About us
benefit is container images are much smaller than golden
VM images because they dont duplicate operating system
code. Also, running container images are immutable by
design, so they can be stored and shared efficiently. There
is a consequence, though, as the container image cannot
store dynamic application data.
The second required data store is for container man-
agement. Again, you can readily provide this with existing
storage. Whether you use Docker, Kubernetes, Tectonic,
Rancher or another flavor of container management, it
will need management storage for things like configura-
tion data and logging.
PERSISTENT DATA STORAGE
ACTS IN MANY WAYS LIKE
AN ANCHOR, HOLDING
CONTAINERS DOWN AND
THREATENING TO REDUCE
MANY OF THEIR BENEFITS.
Its the third type of storage, container application
storage, that provides the most difficult challenge. When
only supporting true microservice-style programming,
container code can write directly over image directories
and files. But containers use a type of layered file system
that corrals all newly written data into a temporary, vir-
tual layer. The base container image isnt modified. Once
a container goes awayand containers are designed to be
short-lived compared with VMsall its temporary storage
disappears with it.
If a containerized application needs to persist data, the
first option is to explicitly mount a specific system data
volumeor persistent volume in Kubernetesinto the
containers namespace. This gives the container direct
STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 9
Home access to read/write into a host system directory or file enterprise production environments.
Castagna: Danger!
share. If that container is killed and restarted, it can access The best practice for the container world, however, is
Disaster! Data any of the persisted data that it had previously written. to enable Agile DevOps with identical sandbox, test and
management! However, this can be a tough way to share data between production environments. From the containers perspec-
Toigo: Superhero
containers as the application developer must take care tive, this approach offers end users dynamic provision-
universe of data of all sharing, locking, contention and restart concerns. ing and ensures free container movement and migration.
management
And its not clear how a storage admin can discern and The more static and fragile the systems storage config-
Contain your protectthrough snapshots, backup and disaster recovery uration, the less you can recognize the benefits of con-
storage (DR)thousands of programmer-controlled data volumes tainerization.
at scale. Docker and other container management products
Core
hyper-converged offer pluggable volume systems. Flocker, for example, has
purchase criteria been a popular open source volume plug-in replacement
THE BEST PRACTICE FOR for Docker, intelligently managing and moving data vol-
How NVMe over
Fabrics will change
THE CONTAINER WORLD umes with their containers across a cluster. Although the
storage IS TO ENABLE AGILE DEVOPS now-defunct ClusterHQ was the primary vendor sponsor
Motivations for WITH IDENTICAL SANDBOX, of Flocker, we expect this kind of functionality to continue
hyper-convergence
buys
TEST AND PRODUCTION to evolve and become increasingly native within baseline
container platforms; Rancher Labs Convoy project is
ENVIRONMENTS. moving in this direction. Most, if not all, legacy storage
CDM goes
mainstream vendors and cloud storage service providers produce var-
In addition, if that container is brought up on a differ- ious container system volume plug-ins for their storage
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- ent host within a container cluster, then the storage admin arrays, and these are a good way to continue investing in
defined storage has the challenge of ensuring that a shared or distributed storage.
file systemfor example, NFSremains configured iden-
Matchett: The
power and benefits tically on all cluster hosts, and even then, application
of IT disruption programmers will probably need to add more I/O-related STORAGE AS SOFTWARE

About us
code to ensure reliable cluster-level sharing. The good
news is that expert storage admins can potentially bring
existing enterprise storage, such as NAS and SAN, to bear
in this new container world. And if they work closely
with developers, they can realistically configure high-end
Instead of trying to force legacy storage into new con-
tainer environments, a growing alternative enlists a new
wave of software-defined storage (SDS) to do the job. SDS
consists of a storage operating system and services that are
fully deployed as a software layer, often as VMs, but now,

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 10

Home theyre increasingly deployed as containers. It is easy to use a much more open, expansive and cheaper commodity
Castagna: Danger!
imagine containerized software storage quickly evolving server cloud made up of a more dynamic mix of private,
Disaster! Data to align with how containerized applications consume public and hybrid infrastructure. This is somewhat analo-
management! storage services. gous to how big data projects like Hadoop and Spark take
Toigo: Superhero
While traditional production server virtualization envi- advantage of commodity infrastructure and inherently use
universe of data ronments often end up on clusters of large and expensive SDS and memory services to free us up from proprietary
management
host servers, container hosting architectures can easily and expensive platforms.
Contain your
storage

Core
hyper-converged
purchase criteria
How containers affect storage
CONTAINERS CREATE SEVERAL challenges for existing n Data migration, keeping up with container
How NVMe over
Fabrics will change storage, including the following: migration and avoiding performance degradation.
storage Containers move a lot, and their data should migrate
n Dynamic provisioning of lots of containers. Any- with them to maintain top performance.
Motivations for
hyper-convergence thing other than cloud-scale storage can be strained
buys by container-scale dynamic provisioning demands. n Network issues. Its not just east-west container

CDM goes
talk, but sharing remote storage across a cluster of
mainstream n Lost, isolated and unknown usage. Ongoing con- thousands of containers could bring the network to
tainer development and DevOps can end up creating a crawl. Consider affordable 40 Gigabit Ethernet and
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- lots of fragmented islands of wasted capacity. Thin greater cluster interconnects.
defined storage provisioning, snapshots and automatic recovery of
capacity policies might help. To be sure, there will be more challenges. For ex-
Matchett: The
power and benefits ample, the wide variety of containerized applications
of IT disruption n Difficult to isolate contention. With so much going in your future will probably require choosing from a
on in thousands of containers, resolving deadlocks broader catalog of storage services than just the
About us
and contention can be challenging, especially with traditional three medal levels of bronze, silver and
legacy systems and traditional management tools. gold. n

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 11

Home Another key benefit of SDS, especially for distributed CLOUD-SCALE OBJECT STORAGE

Castagna: Danger!
containerized approaches such as Ceph, Torus and Glus- Containerized applications tend to be cloud-oriented by
Disaster! Data terFS, is it brings storage right into container clusters. nature, with architectures allowing for independent scal-
management! While managing something like GlusterFS can be a big ing of different internal services depending on changing
Toigo: Superhero
departure for traditional SAN administrators, container- external workload profiles or growth. This same cloud
universe of data ized storage naturally gains container-world benefits like approach pervades how modern application developers
management
agility, scalability and availability, while increasing appli- think of, and want to work with, storage. Its natural many
Contain your cation performance by keeping persistent data storage new containerized applications are written for object stor-
storage local to consumption. age I/O instead of traditional file or block.
If this sounds too complex, pre-converged and hy- Even if most current container environments are fairly
Core
hyper-converged per-converged container appliances make it much simpler modest in practiceexcept, of course, in public clouds
purchase criteria with native container storage capabilities built in, such web-scale object storage from the likes of Hedvig, Qumulo
How NVMe over
as Datera and Diamanti. These inherently employ SDS and Scality align well with web-scale container visions.
Fabrics will change to gain the flexibility and agility necessary to converge Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (S3) and
storage everything into a platform appliance format. We havent similar public clouds already use object storage as the
Motivations for
heard much yet from enterprises wanting to seriously persistent storage layer when implementing or migrating
hyper-convergence invest in converged container hosting for production, but container applications.
buys the future of IT infrastructure is going to continue down
CDM goes
the convergence path while building out more cloud-like
mainstream services. FUTURE REQUESTS
Of course, the trick for IT folks is to judge whether pay- We have yet to see the ultimate in persistent data storage
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- ing for a vendors unique intellectual property and value for containers. From past experience in storage evolution,
defined storage on top of free open source is worth the investment and expect to see container-aware storage that knows its
additional lock-in. To benefit from pre-integration, proven being provisioned and used by containers and manages
Matchett: The
power and benefits enterprise-class features and round-the-clock support, itself appropriately. Much like virtual machine-aware
of IT disruption its often worth making a longer-term commitment to a storage, we should see a container storage service that
About us
specific vendor open source distribution or pre-converged persists container data and followsor even leadsthe
stack. In other words, its not just old school IT vendor container across a cluster and maybe even across clouds.
versus vendor, but variations of intellectual property- We fully expect to eventually see container-aware caching
laden vendors versus open source vendors versus do-it- using server-side flash and emerging persistent memory,
yourself projects. such as nonvolatile memory express, hopefully integrated

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 12

Home with tiers of persistence. all times using simple policy mechanisms.
Castagna: Danger!
Expect future container-aligned storage that will be Server virtualization in the form of VMs took more than
Disaster! Data provisionable in all important requirements from within a decade to replace most application-dedicated physical
management! a containers manifest or application blueprint. We also servers in the common enterprise data center. Now, con-
Toigo: Superhero
hope for future overall storage management of multiple tainerized applications appear to be set to replace many of
universe of data container environments that will track, predict and opti- those full virtual machine apps within a year or two. The
management
mize storage subscriptions just enough to meet ongoing biggest challenge is going to be how fast we can stand up
Contain your container operational needs. And, of course, contain- enterprise-class persistent data storage for containers. n
storage er-aligned storage must make sure that all data protection,
high availability and DR bases are covered everywhere at MIKE MATCHETT is a senior analyst at Taneja Group. (@smworldbigdata)
Core
hyper-converged
purchase criteria

How NVMe over

Fabrics will change
storage

Motivations for
hyper-convergence
buys

CDM goes
mainstream

Sinclair: Time to
rethink software-
defined storage

Matchett: The
power and benefits
of IT disruption

About us

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 13

Home
Snapshot 1
Capacity and scalability core to hyper-converged purchase criteria
Castagna: Danger!
Disaster! Data
management!

Toigo: Superhero
universe of data  ost critical features in recent
DM D Number of server cores in recent
management
hyper-converged infrastructure hyper-converged infrastructure
Contain your purchases* purchases
storage

Core >
_ 5,000
33% Overall capacity
hyper-converged
purchase criteria
One to nine

27% Scalability 1,000-

How NVMe over 4,999
Fabrics will change
4% 20%
storage 26% Configurability of flash or SSDs 6%
500- 7%
Motivations for 999
hyper-convergence 20% Virtual machine-specific configuration
buys

18% High I/O

34% 10-99
CDM goes
mainstream
29%
16% Per-node capacity
Sinclair: Time to
100-499
rethink software-
defined storage 15% Advanced storage features

Matchett: The
power and benefits 13% Can be optimized for specific apps
of IT disruption

About us
11% Data protection type
11% Advanced networking features
*MULTIPLE SELECTIONS ALLOWED
D938 TERABYTES
Average storage capacity IT shops
added with recent hyper-converged
infrastructure deployments

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 14

AGILE INFRASTRUCTURE

How NVMe
over Fabrics will
change storage STORAGE NETWORKS STARTED becoming popular in the late
1990s and early 2000s with the widespread adoption of
Fibre Channel technology. For those who didnt want the
The future of storage performance and transport
lies in this type of connectivity and protocol. expense of installing dedicated Fibre Channel hardware,
the iSCSI protocol provided a credible Ethernet-based
BY CHRIS EVANS
alternative a few years later. Both transports rely on the
use of SCSI as the storage protocol for communicating be-
tween source (initiator) and storage (target). As the stor-
age industry moves to adopt flash as the go-to persistent
medium, were starting to see SCSI performance issues.
This has led to the development of NVMe, or nonvola-
tile memory express, a new protocol that aims to surpass
SCSI and resolve performance problems. Lets take a look
at NVMe and how it differs from other protocols. Well
also explore how NVMe over Fabrics changed the storage
networking landscape.

HOW WE GOT HERE

Storage networking technology is based on the evolution
of storage hardware and the need for consolidated and
centralized storage. We can trace Fibre Channels origins
back to ESCON on the mainframe, a Fibre-based connec-
tion protocol. SCSI, on the other hand, comes from the
physical connection of hard drives within servers.
SCSI was originally a parallel communication protocol
ORPHEUSXL/STOCK.ADOBE.COM

HOME
STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 15
Home anyone familiar with installing disks into servers will
Castagna: Danger!
remember ribbon cables. It transitioned to a serial inter-
Disaster! Data face with the development of SAS. The PC counterpart
management! was Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI), which
Toigo: Superhero
developed into SATA. You find both protocols on current
universe of data hard drives and solid-state disks.
management
Fibre Channel or Ethernet provides the physical con-
Contain your nectivity between servers and storage, with SCSI still
storage acting as the high-level storage communication protocol.
However, the industry developed SCSI to work with
Core
hyper-converged HDDs, where response times are orders of magnitude
purchase criteria slower than system memory and processors. As a result,
How NVMe over
although we may think SSDs are fast, we see serious per-
Fabrics will change formance issues with internal ones. Most SATA drives are
storage still based on the SATA 3.0 specification with an interface
Motivations for
limit of 6 Gbps and 600 MBps throughput. SAS drives
hyper-convergence have started to move to SAS 3.0, which offers 12 GBps
buys throughput, but many still use 6 Gbps connectivity.
CDM goes
The issue for both SAS and SATA, however, is the ability
mainstream to handle concurrent I/O to a single device. Look at the
geometry of a hard drive, and its easy to see that handling
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- multiple concurrent I/O requests ranges from hard to
defined storage impossible. With some serendipity, the read/write heads
may align for multiple requests. And you can use some
Matchett: The
power and benefits buffering, but its not a scalable option. Neither SAS nor
of IT disruption SATA were designed to handle multiple I/O queues. AHCI
About us
has a single queue with a depth of only 32 commands.
SCSI is better and offers a single queue with 128 to 256
commands, depending on the implementation.
Single queues negatively affect latency. As queue size
increases, new requests see a greater latency because they
must wait behind other requests to be completed. This was
less of an issue with hard drives, but a single queue is a
big bottleneck with solid-state media where there are no
moving parts and individual I/O latency is low.
ENTER NVMe
The industrys answer to the interface problem is NVMe
as a replacement for SCSI, both at the device and network
levels. Nonvolatile memory express uses the PCIe bus,
rather than a dedicated storage bus, to provide greater
bandwidth and lower latency connectivity to internally
connected disk devices. A PCIe 3.0 four-lane device, for
example, has around 4 Gbps of bandwidth per device.
The biggest change in NVMe has been the optimization
of the storage protocol. The amount of internal locking
needed to serialize I/O access has been reduced, while
the efficiency of interrupt handling has increased. In
addition, NVMe supports up to 65,535 queues, each with
a queue depth of 65,535 entries. So rather than having a
single queue, NVMe provides for massive parallelism for
the I/O to a connected device. In modern IT environments
where so much work is done in paralleljust think of the
number of cores in modern processorswe can see the
benefits of having storage devices capable of processing
multiple I/O queues and how this will improve the exter-
nal I/O throughput.
The NVM Express working group, a consortium of
about 90 companies, developed the NVMe specification
in 2012. Samsung was first to market the next year with
an NVMe drive. The working group released version 1.3
STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 16
Home of the NVMe specification in July, with features added to
security, resource sharing and SSD endurance manage-
Castagna: Danger!
Disaster! Data ment issues. A closer look at NVMe
management!
n A higher-level protocol
Toigo: Superhero NVMe is a higher-level protocol, like SCSI, that
universe of data NVMe OVER FABRICS manages storage requests across either a phys-
management
If NVMe is a replacement for the storage protocol in ical internal bus, such as PCIe, or externally with
Contain your device connectivity, it isnt difficult to see that NVMe Fibre Channel or converged Ethernet.
storage could also replace SCSI in the iSCSI and Fibre Channel
protocols. Thats exactly whats happening with the devel- n Performance game-changer
Core
hyper-converged opment of fabrics-based NVMe standards, which started NVMe allows massively parallel access to flash
purchase criteria in 2014 and published last year. devices, opening up the possibility of fully ex-

How NVMe over

There are two types of transport in development, NVMe ploiting the performance of SSDs and, in the fu-
Fabrics will change over Fabrics using remote direct memory access (RDMA) ture, 3D XPoint. Its a game-changer in terms of
storage and NVMe over Fabrics using Fibre Channel (FC-NVMe). performance.

Motivations for
RDMA enables the transfer of data to and from the
n SAS replacement
hyper-convergence application memory of two computers without involving
buys NVMe will supplant SAS as the main internal pro-
the processor, providing low latency and fast data transfer.
tocol for storage arrays. In correctly architected
CDM goes
RDMA implementations include Infiniband, iWARP and
products, this change will result in significant
mainstream RDMA over Converged Ethernet, or RoCE (pronounced
performance improvements as the benefits of
rocky). Vendors, such as Mellanox, offer adaptor cards
Sinclair: Time to flash are unlocked.
rethink software- capable of speeds as much as 100 Gbps for both Infiniband
defined storage and Ethernet, including NVMe over Fabrics offload. n Easier transitions
NVMe over Fibre Channel uses current Fibre Channel NVMe over Fabrics can coexist within Fibre Chan-
Matchett: The
power and benefits technology that can be upgraded to support SCSI and nel Gen 6 technology and onwards.This allows a
of IT disruption NVMe storage transports. This means customers could transition to storage arrays supporting NVMe over
About us
potentially use the technology they have in place by sim- Fabrics and an easier transition than the rip-and-
ply upgrading switches with the appropriate firmware. replace approach required for a move to NVMe
At the host level, host bus adapters (HBAs) must support over Ethernet. n
NVMetypically 16 Gbps or 32 Gbpsand, obviously,
storage devices have to be NVMe over Fabrics capable, too.

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 17

Home IMPLEMENTING NVMe Fabrics will offer. Prospective customers have the two
Castagna: Danger!
As NVMe takes hold in the data center, the most obvious implementation options described above, with a potential
Disaster! Data option is to use NVMe devices in servers. Vendors are al- transition to FC-NVMe available for data centers that have
management! ready starting to bring NVMe-capable servers to market, the right infrastructure in place. Earlier this year, Cisco
Toigo: Superhero
with physical connector and BIOS support. announced support for FC-NVMe with its high-end MDS
universe of data Most modern operating systems already support NVMe, 9710 Fibre Channel director. Brocade already supports
management
as do hypervisor platforms such as VMware vSphere. VM- NVMe in its Gen6 32 Gbps switches, including the re-
Contain your wares vSAN platform has been supporting NVMe devices cently announced G610.
storage for more than 18 months.
Another option is to support NVMe as the back-end
Core
hyper-converged storage connectivity in a storage appliance. Storage ven- WHEN NVME-CAPABLE
purchase criteria dors have already made the transition to SAS as a back-end STORAGE ARRAYS COME
How NVMe over
interface, replacing Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop and ALONG, CUSTOMERS MAY NOT
Fabrics will change parallel SCSI over time. HAVE TO UPGRADE TO NVME
storage Implementing NVMe would deliver fast, low-latency
connectivity for flash devices with significant improve-
ALL AT ONCE SINCE SCSI AND
Motivations for
hyper-convergence ment in array performance subject to efficient storage op- NVME CAN COEXIST.
buys erating system code. To date, weve seen Hewlett Packard
CDM goes
Enterprise announce NVMe support for 3PAR, NetApp Fibre Channel manufacturers claim customers moving
mainstream introduce NVMe as a read cache in FlashCache and Pure to NVMe can avoid having to rip and replace if they have
Storage provide it for its FlashArray//X platform. suitable Fibre Channel equipment. Thats true for data
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- Pures FlashArray//X with NVMe claims to provide half centers already supporting 32 Gbps connectivity; how-
defined storage the latency of the previous generation with twice the write ever, most servers probably arent using 32 Gbps HBA
bandwidth. However, these specifications dont include cards.
Matchett: The
power and benefits host-based NVMe over Fabrics support, so theres still a When NVMe-capable storage arrays come along, its
of IT disruption potential performance increase to come. possible customers wont have to upgrade to NVMe all at
About us
once because SCSI and NVMe can coexist on the same
infrastructure. Any hardware savings will depend on the
NVMe OPTIONS environment. Data centers and IT departments familiar
Full adoption of NVMe technology means implementing with Fibre Channel from a management and operational
an entire SAN using NVMe, exactly what NVMe over perspective may find the transition easier than moving to

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 18

Home converged Ethernet, which never really took off because switches with 32 Gbps HBAs. Pure also announced the
Castagna: Danger!
of the expense of replacing hardware. ability to support additional shelves on a single controller
Disaster! Data The alternative to Fibre Channel is to use NVMe over using NVMe over Fabrics for back-end shelf connectivity.
management! RDMA and implement a new storage network for slightly Yet another startup, Apeiron Data Systems, is develop-
Toigo: Superhero
higher performance at the expense of scalability. Several ing an NVMe array architecture based on 40 GbE and an
universe of data vendors offer products using this approach. Startup E8 externalized hyper-converged design that enables storage
management
Storage has developed an NVMe-based storage array that and compute to scale independently.
Contain your uses 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) converged switches and
storage RDMA network interface cards to implement a high-per-
formance SAN. The company claims as much as 10 million MOVING FORWARD
Core
hyper-converged read and 2 million write IOPS with 100 s (microseconds) We see NVMe supplanting SCSI and SAS as the default
purchase criteria read and 40 s write latency. connectivity for SSD devices. High-end deployments will
How NVMe over
Excelero, another startup, has developed what it calls make use of NVMe over Fabrics, where the expense can
Fabrics will change NVMesh, a software-based product that uses a mesh of be justified for the benefit of application performance.
storage NVMe-enabled servers to create a distributed compute It will be interesting to see NVMe used in existing
Motivations for
and storage fabric to implement a range of systems, such array platforms, retaining features such as snapshots,
hyper-convergence as a hyper-converged compute environment. The com- replication, compression and deduplication, as well as the
buys pany has partnered with Micron to produce a platform adoption of new platform architectures like Excelero and
CDM goes
called SolidScale based on Micron 3.2 TB SSDs and Mel- Apeiron, that wont be as feature rich. In the past, this lack
mainstream lanox Ethernet RoCE switches. of features has kept NVMe-based products from gaining
At Pure Storages Accelerate conference in June, the traction. However, over time, surely NVMe will supplant
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- company announced support for NVMe over Fabrics with the legacy architectures that survived the move to all-flash
defined storage Cisco as part of its FlashStack reference architecture. This but dont allow solid-state to reach its full potential. n
will include FlashArray//X, Cisco MDS 9700 directors
Matchett: The
power and benefits and Cisco UCS, or Unified Computing System, C-Series CHRIS EVANS is an independent consultant with Langton Blue.
of IT disruption

About us

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 19

Home

Castagna: Danger!
Snapshot 2
Simplicity and price motivate hyper-convergence buys
Disaster! Data
management!

Toigo: Superhero
universe of data D Whats driving new hyper-converged D What do you look for in a hyper-
management
infrastructure purchases?* converged infrastructure vendor*
Contain your
storage
37% Easier to purchase 69% Price
Core
hyper-converged
purchase criteria 33% Quicker deployment 51% Product features, functions and performance

How NVMe over

30% Simplifies infrastructure 30% Market leadership
Fabrics will change
storage
28% Saves money 23% Customizable technology
Motivations for
hyper-convergence
buys 16% Consolidates management 23% Maintenance and support agreements

CDM goes
14% Easier to add future capacity or capability 21% Preassembled technology (plug-and-play)
mainstream

*MULTIPLE SELECTIONS ALLOWED

Sinclair: Time to 12% Migration support
rethink software-
defined storage
09% Supplies other key technology
Matchett: The
power and benefits *UP TO THREE SELECTIONS ALLOWED

of IT disruption

About us 6% 8%
of enterprises have plan to deploy it
hyper-converged-based within a year.
primary storage deployed.

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 20

DATA MANAGEMENT

YEARS OF DATA backups have left many organizations with

multiple copies of data thats hard to track and manage.
Data access has also become a challenge. When applica-
tion owners want copies of production data, they must
often submit a ticket to IT and wait days, or even weeks,
for a response.
These data management practices arent optimal and
have led to higher-than-necessary storage costs, data com-
pliance issues and constraints on agility and productivity,
among other problems. In addition, digital transformation
is driving massive data growth, and malicious activity is
widespread. Given all this, its easy to see why most orga-
nizations are placing a high priority on modernizing data
protection and secondary data environments.
Copy data management is an exciting answer to these

CDM goes
problems. It focuses on both protecting production data
and improving the management of production data cop-
ies. The goals are to cut storage costs, improve data visi-

mainstream bility and compliance, and speed data access.

Copy data management plays a key role

CHANGING COPY DATA MANAGEMENT MARKET
in protecting data and controlling its growth.
Until last year, the copy data management market was
BY STEVE RICKETTS
mostly CDM point products from companies such as
Actifio and Catalogic Software. But the CDM market is
rapidly changing as some of the largest storage and data
MIRAGEC/GETTY IMAGES

HOME
STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 21
Home protection vendors jump in. provide an understanding of where the copy data man-
Castagna: Danger!
EMC (now Dell EMC) and IBM introduced CDM prod- agement market is having the greatest impact. They also
Disaster! Data ucts last year, and early this year, Veritas came out with identify which vendors are leading the effort to provide
management! Veritas Velocity CDM. Its not surprising that vendors universal data visibility, instant access to data, automated
Toigo: Superhero
are interested in copy data management. Its a natural data protection, and data portability that capitalizes on
universe of data extension of their storage and data protection products, hybrid and multicloud environments.
management
and many organizations have moved beyond tire kicking
Contain your to implementing CDM. A 2017 Taneja Group study found
storage that more than 30% of companies are evaluating CDM CDM PRIORITIES
products or have implemented them. IT pros responding to the Taneja Group survey listed low-
Core
hyper-converged So what CDM capabilities do companies value the ering storage costs; better data visibility, insight and com-
purchase criteria most? And how are vendors responding to user demand pliance; and the ability to consolidate secondary storage
How NVMe over
for CDM functionality? The answers to these questions as the top three CDM capabilities beyond data protection.
Fabrics will change
storage

Motivations for

Top CDM capabilities*

hyper-convergence
buys

CDM goes
mainstream Lower storage costs by using fewer data copies
41%
Provide better data visibility and insight to find
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software-
out-of-place confidential data and ensure compliance 34%
defined storage Consolidate secondary storage use cases,
such as backups, file services and object storage 32%
Matchett: The
power and benefits Improve data lifecycle management using
of IT disruption policy-based orchestration 29%
Enable automated copy creation and
About us management for DevOps workflows 24%

SOURCE: TANEJA GROUP SURVEY OF MORE THAN 300 IT PROFESSIONALS. *MULTIPLE SELECTIONS ALLOWED

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 22

Home Better data lifecycle management and automated copy
Castagna: Danger!
management with DevOps workflows also ranked in the
Disaster! Data top five CDM capabilities.
management! Customers often point to the importance of data re-
Toigo: Superhero
duction for lowering storage costs. Compression and
universe of data deduplication have been a major part of data protection
management
products for a long time. Copy data management vendors,
Contain your such as Cohesity, are maximizing data reduction with
storage global, variable-length deduplication that works across
a customers entire storage footprint. Actifio also offers
Core
hyper-converged global deduplication, and Dell EMC Enterprise Copy Data
purchase criteria Management (eCDM) and Veritas Velocity provide global
How NVMe over
deduplication when implemented as an extension of Dell
Fabrics will change EMC Data Domain and Veritas NetBackup, respectively.
storage Another aspect of lowering storage costs is the ease of
Motivations for
maintaining a storage system. Cohesitys DataPlatform
hyper-convergence sets the bar high here, with the inherent simplicity in its
buys hyper-converged storage architecture. It simplifies system
CDM goes
upgrades and recovery from node failures because theres
mainstream no disruption, no manual configuration and no need for
data migration.
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- The flexibility to use cost-effective storage is also
defined storage important. In-place CDM products that arent tied to
purpose-built appliances have an advantage here. For
Matchett: The
power and benefits instance storage companies, such as Dell EMC, Hitachi
of IT disruption and IBM, prioritize CDM support for specific storage de-
About us
vices. Independent software providers, such as Catalogic
and Commvault, deliver in-place support for a variety of
storage devices, using the native snapshot and replication
capabilities of the storage arrays for which they provide
CDM support. CDM products with a scale-out, nodal
architecture, such as Cohesity DataPlatform, use nodes
that run on commodity hardware. Copy data management
vendors that support disaster recovery as a service in the
cloud can further reduce storage costs by eliminating the
need to maintain multiple physical data centers.
DATA VISIBILITY IMPROVED
Reducing the number of data copies is another way to
cut storage costs. This leads to another top capability
highlighted by survey respondents: having better data
visibility, insight and compliance. All CDM vendors offer
a comprehensive metadata catalog that provides insight
into physical and virtual infrastructure resources, let-
ting administrators quickly determine where copy data
lives and when data is accessed. Copy data management
vendors also provide analytics with predefined reports,
dashboards with filters and the ability to create custom
reports for specific needs.
Search is another essential capability. Search filters
help administrators quickly find objects that match cer-
tain criteria, such as virtual machines (VMs), volumes in
a certain location or data copies bigger than a certain size.
Vendors in the copy data management market that stand
out here are those that deliver deep file search function-
ality, which is required for security compliance.
A core tenant of CDM is giving application owners fast
self-service access to data copies. This is another top capa-
bility from the survey: Enable automated copy creation
and management for DevOps workflows. Developers,
QA staff and database administrators have pushed for this
STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 23
Home capability, demanding timely data access and the ability Providing application owners and admins instant ac-
Castagna: Danger!
to get copies without IT involvement. Self-service has cess through self-service includes finding, provisioning
Disaster! Data become a popular CDM use case, supported by all major and managing resources using a service fabric, portal or
management! vendors in the market. Its the on-ramp to CDM for many marketplace; role-based access controls; data virtualiza-
Toigo: Superhero
companies. Self-service for DevOps or test-dev data man- tion; integrated lifecycle management; data masking,
universe of data agement is increasingly the first CDM use case customers or obfuscation; and integration with developer tools,
management
deploy, according to Actifio. Dell EMC reported that ap- database tools and management platforms. Application
Contain your plication admins now do 20% to 25% of their customers and database support can be a differentiator, and vendors
storage backup jobs rather than centralized IT. are continually expanding the list of virtual and physical
applications and databases they support. IBM recently
Core
hyper-converged added support for SAP HANA, EPIC Cache databases and
purchase criteria Microsoft SQL Server on physical servers.
CDM and data protection:
How NVMe over
Fabrics will change Is CDM a replacement
storage
or complement? DATA LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT

Motivations for
CDM also enables data lifecycle management through
hyper-convergence THREE-QUARTERS OF respondents to a recent Taneja policy-based orchestration. True automation requires
buys Group survey said copy data management, or spinning up and down an entire infrastructure, which
CDM goes
CDM, was either complementary to data protec- means creating policies that provision data copies; setting
mainstream tion or a whole new category of technology that network parameters, refresh frequencies and retention
will replace data protection. periods; and cleaning up copies and VMs as needed.
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- Interviews revealed that while IT professionals All major vendors in the copy data management mar-
defined storage dont necessarily agree on whether CDM is a data ket offer policy-based orchestration, but managing ser-
protection complement or replacement, they do vice-level agreement (SLA) compliance and cloud support
Matchett: The
power and benefits agree that its functionality should be seamlessly can set a vendor apart. For example, Dell EMCs eCDM
of IT disruption integrated with data protection. This must be offers comprehensive functionality when it comes to
About us
done in a way that provides a unified experience full-lifecycle SLA compliance that monitors SLA quality of
whether the goal is to monitor, protect, manage service. Also, having a visual workflow builder is beneficial
or optimize the secondary data environment. n for ease of use. Hitachi Data Instance Director is strong
in this area.
Cloud support has become an important aspect of or-

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 24

Home chestration and data lifecycle management. Look for ven- evaluating CDM products should ask vendors about
Castagna: Danger!
dors that offer policy-based cloud tiering for data archival support for the VMware vStorage APIs for Data Protec-
Disaster! Data and support for on-demand cloud workloads, as well as tion, vSAN and the vRealize Suite. Scalability is another
management! disaster recovery in the cloud. Also, look for vendors that important factor for workload consolidation. Vendors
Toigo: Superhero
support major public cloudsAmazon Web Services, commonly support a scale-up architecture, or the ability
universe of data Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azureand offer to expand capacity by adding disks. Some offer a scale-out
management
native cloud support rather than relying on third-party architecture that lets companies expand horizontally by
Contain your cloud gateways. Actifio, Cohesity and Dell EMC offer adding more nodes. Scale-out architecture is less familiar
storage extensive cloud support. to most companies, but worth considering. For example,
Cohesity offers a scale-out architecture that enables
Core
hyper-converged throughput and IOPS to increase linearly with cluster
purchase criteria CONSOLIDATING SECONDARY STORAGE WORKLOADS size. This helps companies consolidate workloads and
How NVMe over
Another high-ranking capability was the ability to consol- scale as storage demands grow, without compromising
Fabrics will change idate secondary storage workloads or use cases, such as performance.
storage backups, data archival, test-dev and analytics workloads, Its hard to say if or when copy data management will be-
Motivations for
and shared file services. Flexibility and scalability are the come synonymous with data protection in terms of impor-
hyper-convergence two factors that play an important role in workload con- tance and adoption. But its fair to say that CDM is going
buys solidation. Theyre enabled by support for multiple storage mainstream. Many companies are considering, evaluating
CDM goes
devices; multiple protocols, such as iSCSI, NFS, SMB and and implementing copy data management as they look
mainstream Amazon Simple Storage Service; and multiple hypervisors beyond centralized data protection and toward modern-
or virtual environments, including Microsoft Hyper-V izing secondary data environments. In doing this, theyre
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- and VMware vSphere. Most vendors start with VMware providing on-demand, self-service access to copies of
defined storage vSphere support and then add support for Hyper-V and production data and secondary storage for file services, as
other hypervisors, such as Oracle Virtual Box, but not all well as using indexing, advanced search, and analytics to
Matchett: The
power and benefits vendors in the copy data management market support all find out-of-place confidential data and ensure data
of IT disruption environments. compliance. n
About us
The depth of support for virtual environments should
be examined. For VMware environments, companies STEVE RICKETTS is a senior analyst at Taneja Group.

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 25

 HOT SPOTS
SCOTT SINCLAIR
Home

Castagna: Danger!
Disaster! Data

Time to rethink
management!

Toigo: Superhero
achieved by those who had deployed it, including the

software-defined
universe of data following:
management

storage
Contain your
n r educing storage operational expenses;
storage n simplifying or expediting new storage deployments;

and
Core Dont get hung up on the software
n simplifying storage management.
hyper-converged
purchase criteria
part of SDS at the expense of what
really matters.
How NVMe over
These are only the top three of a longer list. It appears
Fabrics will change the software-defined storage market is delivering value
storage to its users, so why hasnt adoption taken off? While
Motivations for
on-premises SDS deployments continue to grow, they
hyper-convergence havent grown as much as alternatives that take advantage
buys FEW STORAGE TERMS have been hyped as much in recent of software-defined storage technologymost notably,
CDM goes
years as software-defined storage. It seems that every new public cloud services and hyper-converged infrastructure
mainstream storage player has an SDS-based offering in some shape or (HCI). One issue could be that the do-it-yourself SDS
form. The question remains though, despite the hype and deployment model hasnt been widely accepted.
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- the abundance of offerings, why hasnt SDS technology
defined storage taken over the data center?
It isnt due to a lack of advantages. To better understand THE DO-IT-YOURSELF FALLACY
Matchett: The
power and benefits the software-defined storage market, Enterprise Strategy When vendors introduced SDS technology, the storyline
of IT disruption Group (ESG) conducted a research study of more than 300 was often about SDS using commodityor serverhard-
About us
IT professionals responsible for evaluating, purchasing ware to reduce hardware lock-in. The net result touted
and managing data storage technology. Respondents had was a lower capital cost of infrastructure. While this has
to be using, evaluating or at least be interested in SDS as happenedthe fourth SDS benefit identified in ESGs
a long-term strategy. This survey provided insight into study is reduced capital cost of storagethe ability to use
whats driving IT to the technology, as well as benefits commodity hardware hasnt been enough to sway typical

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 26

Home storage buyers. In other words, hardware abstraction abstraction isnt enough. The complexities of these prod-
Castagna: Danger!
alone isnt driving SDS adoption. ucts can often outweigh the benefit of hardware choice.
Disaster! Data For one thing, freedom to choose hardware ends up Transformational SDS delivers more capabilities and
management! increasing the storage management cost burden. You can benefits than traditional storage systems, even when its
Toigo: Superhero
use any hardware you want, but which will meet your deployed with hardware.
universe of data specific performance and resiliency needs? What com- Regardless of whether a product uses the SDS termin-
management
ponents are supported? What drivers are supported? Do ology, the following list presents some capabilities of next-
Contain your different SSDs or HDDs matter? What about different generation products that capitalize on SDS technology:
storage generations? When given the ultimate choice in hardware
selection, the responsibility of integrating and validating n Data access persists as the hardware evolves. The real
Core
hyper-converged the hardware configuration falls to IT. abstraction benefit the software-defined storage market
purchase criteria While some relish this opportunity, these do-it-your- offers isnt the ability to select hardware for deployment.
How NVMe over
selfers are in the minority. Most still want to procure SDS Its the ease with which you can change hardware when
Fabrics will change technology already installed on the hardware, according to workload demands change. When new technology or
storage ESGs research. As the demands on IT increase, the trend an upgrade comes out, or you need more performance
Motivations for
has been to decrease IT administrators responsibilities, or capacity, if you have to do a data migration, thats a
hyper-convergence not increase it. nonstarter. Storage products that maximize the benefits
buys These concerns have led many, if not all, software-de- of SDS enable the hardware to evolve to the needs of the
CDM goes
fined storage market vendors to offer either hardware data.
mainstream reference configurations or appliance versions to reduce
complexity. But these efforts have only confused the point n Data can span multiple infrastructure types. This is sim-
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- of what SDS is. If SDS technology comes with hardware, ilar to the first benefit, but you also should be able to use
defined storage how do these approaches differ from traditional storage SDS-enabled technology for whatever infrastructure and
arrays? And why should I buy them? workload you want. You can consolidate data on fast SSDs,
Matchett: The
power and benefits higher-capacity hard drives and even the public cloud,
of IT disruption while having the intelligence to automatically allocate the
About us
WILL THE REAL SDS STAND UP? right infrastructure to the right workload, with any of it
Maybe another way to say it is, if SDS comes with hard- changing on the fly, nondisruptively.
ware, is the software-defined storage market dead? No,
quite the contrary, but we need to rethink SDS. Delivering n The data center footprint is reduced. Extending the idea
storage intelligence as software and claiming hardware of infrastructure choice is the ability to use the internal

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 27

Home SSDs in the application server, in other words, an HCI-like deliver the benefits listed above to storage decision-mak-
Castagna: Danger!
deployment. This reduces the on-premises infrastructure ers in easily consumable packages. These may come as
Disaster! Data footprint, eliminating substantial capital and operational software, an appliance, HCI or possibly all three. The SDS
management! costs. story has become too hung up on the software. What really
Toigo: Superhero
matters is the resulting benefits the technology provides
universe of data The software-defined storage market is already trans- to IT and to the business. n
management
forming data centers, but often not as the do-it-yourself
Contain your science projects you might expect. The next-generation SCOTT SINCLAIR is a storage analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group
storage products applying SDS architecture to the fullest extent in Austin, Texas.

Core
hyper-converged
purchase criteria

How NVMe over

Fabrics will change
storage

Motivations for
hyper-convergence
buys

CDM goes
mainstream

Sinclair: Time to
rethink software-
defined storage

Matchett: The
power and benefits
of IT disruption

About us

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 28

 READ / WRITE
MIKE MATCHETT
Home

Castagna: Danger!
Disaster! Data

The power and

management!

Toigo: Superhero
CRT monitors. But usually, they get subsumed as a lower

benefits of
universe of data tier inside a larger, newer umbrella and relegated to nar-
management
rower, less prestigious use cases.

IT disruption
Contain your Emerging disruptive storage technologies include
storage nonvolatile memory express server-side flash and per-
sistent memory; in-storage data processing, combining
Core IT must become a cutthroat provider
hyper-converged software-defined storage, containerization and in-stream
and champion of disruptive technologies.
purchase criteria processing; global file systems and databases with global
How NVMe over
consistency, security, protection and access features; per-
Fabrics will change vasive machine learning; and truly distributed internet of
storage things data processing.
Motivations for
hyper-convergence I HAVE A theory that true IT disruption happens when
buys something nonlinear occurs to change the traditional IF YOU KNOW ITS COMING, IS IT DISRUPTIVE?

CDM goes
expectation or baseline for a key operating capability. In
mainstream storage, this could be related to capacity, performance or
value. Weve seen great market disruptionnot to men-
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- tion data center evolutionwith the rise of scale-out vs.
defined storage scale-up storage architectures, flash vs. disk and big data
analytics vs. data warehouse business intelligence, for
Matchett: The
power and benefits example. These disruptions have all brought orders of
of IT disruption magnitude improvement, enabling many new ways to
About us
distill more value out of data.
Im not saying we leave disrupted technologies com-
pletely behind, but old top-tier technologies can quickly
drop down our perceptual pyramids of perceived value.
Some older techs do disappearthink floppy drives and
You might think its been the monstrous, growing volume
of data, which is certainly growing nonlinearly, thats
given birth to these disruptive technologies. Thats the
story told by all the vendor presentations Ive seen in the
last few years. Ive even presented that line of thinking.
The problem with that interpretation is that it makes
the storage industry look reactive instead of proactive.
And it also makes them look like heroes or at least para-
gons of product management, figuring out exactly what
people need and delivering it just in time to save IT from
certain disaster.
If were honest, the truth is more likely that newer
generations of storage technologies let us retain massively

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 29

Home growing volumes of data, access that data faster and in-
Castagna: Danger!
crease the ROI for keeping and analyzing ever bigger data
Disaster! Data sets. In other words, its new technology that enables more
management! data, not the fact of more data causing new technology.
Toigo: Superhero
Creating disruptive technology may be as much a matter
universe of data of luck as intentional design.
management
Disruptive technologies arise out of vendors serving
Contain your our competitive natures. We are always looking for the
storage next available advantage. But an advantage neednt be dis-
ruptive. It can be incremental. Its also easier for vendors
Core
hyper-converged to positionand their clients to consumeincremental
purchase criteria upgrades. You know the drill, dont rock the boat too far
How NVMe over
at once. Many vendors dont even know if what theyre
Fabrics will change rolling out is incremental or actually disruptive.
storage Successful IT disruption requires that early adopters be
Motivations for
willing to take some risks and then allow gestation time
hyper-convergence to make a real splash. These can be big hurdles, and lots
buys of potentially disruptive technologies and products simply
CDM goes
dont make it to market. Interestingly, some big company
mainstream marketeers will do anything to dress up a lackluster incre-
mental offering as disruptive to show leadership, while
Sinclair: Time to
rethink software- smaller vendors will sometimes desperately repackage
defined storage their potentially disruptive technology as an easier-to-sell,
incremental offering.
Matchett: The
power and benefits When a real nonlinear IT disruption becomes widely
of IT disruption recognized in a market, its no longer sufficient for tra-
About us
ditional incumbents to show incremental improvement.
They must quickly get onboard with the disruption, which
means your favorite vendors need to disrupt themselves
over and over again. The bigger the company, the harder
staying on top of IT disruption becomes. Instead of
contracting with big vendors known for their deep pat-
ent portfolio and long-term support of legacy solutions,
it may pay to look at open source-based, faster evolving
approaches from more-agile and, often, service-oriented
providers.
Truly disruptive platforms are going to be far more
lucrative for both vendors and adopters. No matter the
sales pitch, you should be on the lookout for projects with
potential orders of magnitude improvement. While IT is
responsible for keeping its ship upright and on course,
we IT folks should also be looking to continually upgrade
our ship, too.
Its never easy to upgrade core IT capabilities, but help-
ing shift to new technologies is a valuable skill that great
practitioners can provide their organizations. (It also
helps to justify a good salary.) If the pace of technological
disruption keeps increasing, the ability to shift midstream
will become increasingly important.
STORAGE CHICKEN OR DATA EGG?
Does it really matter which came first, the data or the stor-
age? Perhaps not, but spotting disruptive advances early,
and adopting or planning to adopt them quickly, matching
technology maturity to organizational aggressiveness, is
becoming a key IT management skill. Evolving your stor-
age infrastructure to be more agile and capable of adopting
disruptive technology sooner should become a major IT
management goal for your enterprise.
With increasingly fast nonlinear advances in technical
capabilities, its as much art as science to stay on top of,
STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 30
Home and harvest the most advantage from, the latest technolo- Facebook to Uber and Apple, have been powered by fast
Castagna: Danger!
gies. This isnt just about storage and IT. If your company and deep IT disruption. n
Disaster! Data isnt being disruptive with its own products and services,
management! its simply not going to prosper. All 21st century examples MIKE MATCHETT is a senior analyst at Taneja Group.
Toigo: Superhero
of tremendously successful companies, from Google and (@smworldbigdata)
universe of data
management

Contain your
storage

Core
hyper-converged
purchase criteria

How NVMe over

Fabrics will change
storage

Motivations for
hyper-convergence
buys

CDM goes
mainstream

Sinclair: Time to
rethink software-
defined storage

Matchett: The
power and benefits
of IT disruption

About us

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 31

Home TechTarget Storage Media Group
Castagna: Danger!
Disaster! Data
management!
STORAGE MAGAZINE STORAGE DECISIONS TECHTARGET CONFERENCES
Toigo: Superhero VP EDITORIAL Rich Castagna EDITORIAL EXPERT COMMUNITY COORDINATOR Kaitlin Herbert
universe of data
EXECUTIVE EDITOR James Alan Miller
management
MANAGING EDITOR Stacey Peterson SUBSCRIPTIONS
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS George Crump, Chris Evans, Jeff Kato, www.SearchStorage.com
Contain your
Mike Matchett, Steve Ricketts, Scott Sinclair, Jon Toigo
storage
DIRECTOR OF ONLINE DESIGN Linda Koury STORAGE MAGAZINE
ASSOCIATE MANAGING EDITOR, E-PRODUCTS Nick Arena 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466
Core
hyper-converged editor@storagemagazine.com
purchase criteria SEARCHSTORAGE.COM
SEARCHCLOUDSTORAGE.COM TECHTARGET INC.
How NVMe over SEARCHCONVERGEDINFRASTRUCTURE.COM 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466
Fabrics will change EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Dave Raffo www.techtarget.com
storage SENIOR WRITER Carol Sliwa
2017 TechTarget Inc. No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced
SENIOR NEWS WRITER Garry Kranz
in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Motivations for SENIOR SITE EDITOR Rodney Brown TechTarget reprints are available through The YGS Group.
hyper-convergence SENIOR SITE EDITOR Maggie Jones
buys About TechTarget: TechTarget publishes media for information technology
ASSISTANT SITE EDITOR Erin Sullivan
professionals. More than 100 focused websites enable quick access to a deep store
of news, advice and analysis about the technologies, products and processes crucial
CDM goes
SEARCHDATABACKUP.COM to your job. Our live and virtual events give you direct access to independent expert
mainstream commentary and advice. At IT Knowledge Exchange, our social community, you can
SEARCHDISASTERRECOVERY.COM
get advice and share solutions with peers and experts.
SEARCHSMBSTORAGE.COM
Sinclair: Time to
SENIOR NEWS WRITER Sonia R. Lelii
rethink software-
defined storage SITE EDITOR Paul Crocetti COVER IMAGE AND PAGE 8: JJPAN/GETTY IMAGES

Matchett: The
power and benefits
of IT disruption

About us

Stay connected! Follow @SearchStorageTT today.

STORAGE SEPTEMBER 2017 32