http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2013/01/24/beware-%E2%80%9Cold-acquaintance%E2%80%9D-hardware-vendors%E2%80%99-claims-virtualization-and-software-defined-st
2013 is the year of
the phrase “software defined” infrastructures. Virtualization has taught us that
the efficiency and economy of complex, heterogeneous, IT infrastructures are
created by enterprise software that takes separate infrastructure components and
turns them into a coherent manageable whole—allowing the many to work as
‘one.’
Infrastructures are
complex and diverse, and as such, no one device defines them. That’s why phrases
like “we’re an IBM shop” or “we’re an EMC shop,” once common are heard less
often today. Instead, the infrastructure is defined where the many pieces come
together to give us the flexibility, power and control over all this diversity
and complexity—at the software virtualization layer.
Beware of “Old
Acquaintance” Hardware Vendors’ Claims that They are
“Software-Defined.”
It’s become “it’s
about the software, dummy” obvious. But watch- In 2013, you’ll see storage
hardware heavyweights leap for that bandwagon, claiming that they are
“software-defined storage,” hoping to slow the wheels of progress under their
heft. But, like Auld Lang Sine, it’s the same old song they sing every year:
ignore the realities driving today’s diverse infrastructures—buy more hardware;
forget that the term ‘software-defined’ is being applied exclusively to what
runs on their storage hardware platforms and not all the other components and
players—beware, the song may sound like ‘software-defined’ but the end objective
is clear: ‘buy more hardware.’
Software is what
endures beyond hardware devices that 'come and go.'
Think about it. Why
would you want to lock yourself into this year’s hardware solution or have to
buy a specific device just to get a software feature you need? This is old
thinking, before virtualization, this was how the server industry worked. The
hardware decision drove the architecture, today with software-defined computing
exemplified by VMware or Hyper-V, you think about how to deploy virtual machines
versus are they running on a Dell, HP, Intel or IBM system. Storage is going
through this same transformation and it will be smart software that makes the
difference in a ‘software-defined’ world.
So What Do Users
Want from “software-defined storage,” and Can You Really Expect It to Come from
a Storage Hardware Vendor?
The move from
hardware-defined to a software-defined virtualization-based model supporting
mission-critical business applications is inevitable and has already redefined
the foundation of architectures at the computing, networking and storage levels
from being ‘static’ to ‘dynamic.’ Software defines the basis for managing
diversity, agility, user interactions and for building a long-term virtual
infrastructure that adapts to the constantly changing components that ‘come and
go’ over time.
Ask yourself, is it
really in the best interest of the traditional storage hardware vendors to go
‘software-defined’ and avoid their platform lock-ins?
Hardware-defined =
Over Provisioning and Oversizing
Fulfilling
application needs and providing a better user experience are the ultimate
drivers for next generation storage and software-defined storage
infrastructures. Users want flexibility, greater automation, better response
times and ’always on’ availability. Therefore IT shops are clamoring to move all
the applications onto agile virtualization platforms for better economics and
greater productivity. The business critical Tier 1 applications (ERP, databases,
mail systems, OLTP etc.) have proven to be the most challenging. Storage has
been the major roadblock to virtualizing these demanding Tier 1 applications.
Moving storage-intensive workloads onto virtual machines (VMs) can greatly
impact performance and availability, and as the workloads grow, these impacts
increase, as does cost and complexity.
The result is that
storage hardware vendors have to over provision, oversize for performance and
build in extra levels of redundancy within each unique platform to ensure users
can meet their performance and business continuity
needs.
The costs needed to
accomplish the above negate the bulk of the benefits. In addition, hardware
solutions are sized for a moment in time versus providing long term flexibility,
therefore enterprises and IT departments are looking for a smarter and more
cost-effective approach and are realizing that traditional ‘throw more hardware’
solutions at the problem are no longer feasible.
Tier 1 Apps are
Going Virtual; Performance and Availability are Mission
Critical
To address these
storage impacts, users need the flexibility to incorporate whatever storage they
need to do the job at the right price, whether it is available today or comes
along in the future. For example, to help with the performance impacts, such as
those encountered in virtualizing Tier 1 applications, users will want to
incorporate and share SSD, flash-based technologies. Flash helps here for a
simple reason: electronic memory technologies are much faster than mechanical
disk drives. Flash has been around for years, but only recently have they come
down far enough in price to allow for broader adoption.
Diversity and
Investment Protection; One Size Solutions Do Not Fit
All
But flash storage is
better for read intensive applications versus write heavy transaction-based
traffic and it is still significantly more expensive than a spinning disk. It
also wears out. Taxing applications that prompt many writes can shorten the
lifespan of this still costly solution. So, it makes sense to have other choices
for storage alongside flash to keep flash reserved for where it is needed most
and to use the other storage alternatives for their most efficient use cases,
and to then optimize the performance and cost trade-offs by placing and moving
data to the most cost-effective tier that can deliver acceptable performance.
Users will need solutions to share and tier their diverse storage arsenal – and
manage it together as one, and that requires smart and adaptable
software.
And what about
existing storage hardware investments, does it make sense to throw them away and
replace them with this year’s new models when smart software can extend their
useful life? Why ‘rip and replace’ each year? Instead, these existing storage
investments and the newest Flash hardware devices, disk drives and storage
models can easily be made to work together in harmony; within a software-defined
storage world.
Better Economics and
Flexibility Make the Move to ‘Software-defined Storage’
Inevitable
Going forward, users
will have to embrace ‘software-defined storage’ as an essential element to their
software-defined data centers. Virtual storage infrastructures make sense as the
foundation for scalable, elastic and efficient cloud computing. As users have to
deal with the new dynamics and faster pace of today’s business, they can no
longer be trapped within yesterday’s more rigid and hard-wired architecture
models.
‘Software-defined’ architecture and not the hardware is what matters.
‘Software-defined’ architecture and not the hardware is what matters.
Clearly the success
of software-defined computing solutions from VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V have
proven the compelling value proposition that server virtualization delivers.
Likewise, the storage hypervisor and the use of virtualization at the storage
level are the key to unlocking the hardware chains that have made storage an
anchor to next generation data centers.
‘Software-defined
Storage’ Creates the Need for a Storage Hypervisor
We need the same
thinking that revolutionized servers to impact storage. We need smart software
that can be used enterprise-wide to be the driving force for change, in effect
we need a storage hypervisor whose main role is to virtualize storage resources
and to achieve the same benefits – agility, efficiency and flexibility – that
server hypervisor technology brought to processors and
memory.
Virtualization has
transformed computing and therefore the key applications we depend on to run our
businesses need to go virtual as well. Enterprise and cloud storage are still
living in a world dominated by physical and hardware-defined thinking. It is
time to think of storage in a ‘software-defined’ world. That is, storage system
features need to be available enterprise-wide and not just embedded to a
particular proprietary hardware device.
For 2013, be
cautious and beware of “old acquaintance” hardware vendors’ claims that they are
“software-defined.”
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