Tag: NAS

The Current State of Storage in the Container World

Chad Hintz Leave a comment

It seems like everyone is talking about containers these days, but not everyone is talking about storage – and they should be. The first wave of adoption of container technology was focused on micro services and ephemeral workloads.  The next wave of adoption won’t be possible without persistent, shared storage. That’s why the SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum is hosting a live webcast on November 17th, “Current State of Storage in the Container World.” In this webcast, we will provide an overview of Docker containers and the inherent challenge of persistence when containerizing traditional enterprise applications.   We will then examine the different storage solutions available for solving these challenges and provide the pros and cons of each. You’ll hear:

  • An Overview of Containers
    • Quick history, where we are now
    • Virtual machines vs. Containers
    • How Docker containers work
    • Why containers are compelling for customers
    • Challenges
    • Storage
  • Storage Options for Containers
    • NAS vs. SAN
    • Persistent and non-persistent
  • Future Considerations
    • Opportunities for future work

This webcast should appeal to those interested in understanding the basics of containers and how it relates to storage used with containers. I encourage you to register today! We hope you can make it on November 17th. And if you’re interested in keeping up with all that SNIA is doing with containers, please sign up for our Containers Opt-In Email list and we’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Update: If you missed the live event, it’s now available  on-demand. You can also  download the webcast slides.

Ethernet Storage Market Momentum

David Dale Leave a comment

Despite the recession of the past couple of years, the market for Ethernet Storage has shown grown significantly both in terms of equipment shipped and in terms of market share. Last week’s release by IDC of their Q42009 Worldwide Storage Systems Hardware Tracker, gave us an opportunity to see the latest numbers.

For the purposes of classification, IDC calls networked storage (as opposed to direct-attached storage) “Fabric Attached Storage” – which consists of Fibre Channel SAN, iSCSI SAN and NAS.

During 2009, Ethernet Storage revenues (NAS plus iSCSI) grew 51% year-over year to $5.372 billion, following a 5% decline in 2008. This compares with 25% revenue growth for the Fabric Attached Storage market as a whole, following a 17% decline in 2008. The revenue market share of Ethernet Storage climbed to 39% in 2009, up from 32% in 2008 and 28% in 2007.

In terms of capacity shipped, the story is even better. During 2009, vendors shipped 2,829 PB of Ethernet Storage – 128% year-over year, following 22% growth in 2008. This compares with 105% capacity growth for the Fabric Attached Storage market as a whole, following 9% growth in 2008. The capacity market share of Ethernet Storage climbed to 47%, up from 42% in 2008 and 37% in 2007.

The highest growth category of the whole sector was iSCSI, as has been the case for the past few years. In 2007 iSCSI SAN revenues grew by 62%; in 2008 we saw 26% growth (despite a recession which caused a 22% decline in FC SAN revenues); and in 2009 we saw 68% growth to $1.807 billion.

So, what’s contributing to the steady growth in tough economic times? My take is that there are probably three factors:
• Continuing maturity and acceptance of the technology
• Companies’ willingness to try something new to reduce costs in tough economic times
• The continued rapid growth of unstructured data driving NAS capacity.

What’s your take?