Tag: Storage

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.

The Everything You Want To Know About Storage Is On Again With Part Mauve – The Architecture Pod

J Metz Leave a comment

The first installment of our “colorful” Webcast series, “Everything You Wanted To Know about Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask – Part Chartreuse,” covered the fundamental elements of storage systems. If you missed it, you can check it out on-demand. On November 1st, we’ll be back at it, focusing on the network aspect of storage systems with “Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask – Part Mauve.”

As with any technical field, it’s too easy to dive into the jargon of the pieces and expect people to know exactly what you mean. Unfortunately, some of the terms may have alternative meanings in other areas of technology. In this Webcast, we look at some of those terms specifically and discuss them as they relate to storage networking systems.

In particular, you’ll find out what we mean when we talk about:

  • Channel versus Busses
  • Control Plane versus Data Plane
  • Fabric versus Network

Register now for Part Mauve of “Everything You Wanted To Know About Storage But Were Too Proud to Ask.

For people who are familiar with data center technology, whether it be compute, programming, or even storage itself, some of these concepts may seem intuitive and obvious… until you start talking to people who are really into this stuff. This series of Webcasts will help be your Secret Decoder Ring to unlock the mysteries of what is going on when you hear these conversations. We hope to see you there!

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

 

 

New Webcast: The Life of a Storage Packet (Walk)

J Metz Leave a comment

Wonder how storage really works? When we talk about “Storage” in the context of data centers, it can mean different things to different people. Someone who is developing applications will have a very different perspective than someone who is responsible for managing that data on some form of media. Moreover, someone who is responsible for transporting data from one place to another has their own view that is related to, and yet different from, the previous two.

Add in virtualization and layers of abstraction, from file systems to storage protocols, and things can get very confusing very quickly. Pretty soon people don’t even know the right questions to ask! That’s why we’re hosting our next SNIA Ethernet Storage Webcast, “Life of a Storage Packet (Walk).”

Join us on November 19th to learn how applications and workloads get information. Find out what happens when you need more of it, or faster access to it, or move it far away. This Webcast will take a step back and look at “storage” with a “big picture” perspective, looking at the whole piece and attempting to fill in some of the blanks for you. We’ll be talking about:

  • Applications and RAM
  • Servers and Disks
  • Networks and Storage Types
  • Storage and Distances
  • Tools of the Trade/Offs

The goal of the Webcast is not to make specific recommendations, but equip you with information that will help you ask the relevant questions, as well as get a keener insight to the consequences of storage choices.  As always, this event is live, so please bring your questions, we’ll answer as many as we can on the spot. I encourage you to register today. Hope to see you on November 19th!

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

Flash Webcast Q&A

David Fair Leave a comment

Our recent Webcast: Flash – Plan for the Disruption was very well received and well attended. We thank everyone who was able to make the live event. For those of you who couldn’t make it, it’s now available on demand. Check it out here.

There wasn’t enough time to respond to all of the questions during the Webcast, so we have consolidated answers to all of them in this blog post from the presentation team. Feel free to comment and provide your input.

Q. Are you going to cache both read and writes in NetApp FlashCache?
A. Flash Cache is a level 2 Read cache and it is used to accelerate random read operations. NetApp offers an additional capability called Flash Pool which caches both random reads and random overwrites. Both technologies are part of the NetApp Virtual Storage Tier family within the Data ONTAP operating environment.

Q. Is eMLC flash available today?
A. Yes, a number of Flash vendors are shipping eMLC today.

Q. Also can you review the write cycle performance of SLC vs. MLC?
A. Write cycles for SLC are typically around 100,000. With eMLC, write cycles of 30,000 per bit can be achieved.

Q. Has specific analysis been conducted on what applications and relative data can be cached at the server versus at the storage controller (tolerance for latency, user patience, etc.)?
A. This varies but server caching will typically be used for applications with the most hot spots such as databases. If there is a particular requirement for ultra low latency such as in OLTP environments, server caching may be appropriate. Server caching can also yield significant benefit to increase VM density. Generally, server caching will be deployed to accelerate a specific application while storage controller caching will be used to accelerate storage which is shared across multiple applications.
Q. Does the data running over the network storage PDUs or Ethernet Layer2/IP traffic?
A. Ethernet Layer 2 in this demo, thought it could have been scaled to for L3 IP routed traffic.
Q. What is the difference between flash tier and flash cache?
A. A flash tier is persistent storage whereby datasets are pinned to flash technology for some period of time (or permanently). In Automated Storage Tiering, data may be migrated to and from the flash tier based on the temperature of the data. A flash cache, on the other hand is a caching technology in which the most frequently accessed data is copied to flash for data access but then evicted as the data cools down. Data is copied to the flash cache either on the basis of calculated data temperature or on a first-in first-out basis.
Q. Given the large advantages of flash on power (direct), cooling, and DC footprint, why do enterprise data centers not just completely switch out their HDDs? It seems like there is a good ROI even without considering performance. Is it the operational complexities that make this challenging?
A. For many applications, this is not cost justified given the significant price difference of the SSD and HDD devices. Since hot data typically amounts to less than 20% of total data, a small amount of flash can be deployed successfully. In the caching case, this can be around 1%.

Flash Webcast – Are You Ready for the Disruption?

David Fair Leave a comment

There’s no doubt that flash is a game changer. Even a relatively small percentage of flash can drive a significant improvement in peak storage performance. How are you planning for the disruption? Join me and my SNIA colleague, Paul Feresten, for a live Webcast next week, Thursday, September 20th (11:00 a.m. ET, 8:00 am. PT) as we discuss the impact of flash. We’ll take a look at how flash is being deployed in storage systems, key considerations and tradeoffs, performance benefits, trends in non-volatile memory and more. And because it’s live we’ll take your questions on the spot. We hope to see you there. Register now.