Storage Transition, Not Disruption

 Storage Transition, Not Disruption Monday Sep 19th 2016 by Arthur Cole Share: Does software-defined storage really portend massive disruption in the data center?  Software-Defined Networking and the Enterprise  Development of software-defined storage ( #SDS ) is moving at a steady clip, promising streamlined infrastructure, improved flexibility and dramatically lower costs than today’s massive arrays. But while the trend lines toward smaller, leaner storage infrastructure seem clear, does this really portend massive disruption in the data center? Perhaps not, if history, and the continued presence of giant mainframes in the age of virtual servers, is any guide. To be sure, there is no shortage of storage upstarts who are ready to proclaim a new era in data preservation. Nexenta, for one, is counting on its newest line of open source SDS platforms to lead the way to all-Flash virtual- and cloud-scale infrastructure for next-generation workloads. The NexentaFusion 1.0 management system provides the intuitive provisioning and workflow configuration that is supported by the RESTful API design of the NexentaStor 5.0 platform. At the same time, it offers proactive alerting and rapid troubleshooting to ensure smooth operations in highly dynamic data environments, plus the ability to oversee multiple NexentaStor appliances from a single management interface. Meanwhile, advanced container management is starting to makes its presence known in the storage farm. As Red Hat’s Irshad Raihan points out, the need for persistent application states and data preservation remains, even as microservices and other container-level tools come and go – something that cannot be addressed by independent storage clusters. What’s needed, he says, is a containerized SDS layer that exists on the same host as the container and can be provisioned dynamically using a management platform like Kubernetes. In this way, there can be a single control plane that allows applications and storage to be orchestrated in tandem, while at the same time eliminating the need for independent storage appliances. But if these market forces are causing any worry in the boardrooms of traditional storage vendors, they aren’t showing it. In fact, they seem more than willing to ride the storage array train as long as possible while filling out dynamic, scale-out product lines of their own. Dell-EMC, for instance, recently tied the ScaleIO SDS block storage solution to the PowerEdge server to create an all-Flash “Ready Node” that provides server-side SAN performance in a form that can be easily integrated into legacy data infrastructure. In this way, the enterprise maintains critical functions like advanced caching and dynamic I/O provisioning while maintaining application performance as older storage systems are decommissioned

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