SUSE Software-Defined Storage Leverages Open Source to Break Proprietary Lock-in and Reduce Customer Costs

PRAGUE, Sept. 26, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- (SUSECON 2017) -- The power of storage solutions has always resided in the software, and #SUSE® #softwaredefinedstorage is giving customers more flexibility and choice than traditional storage appliances provide. It allows them to meet their growing storage needs more securely and cost effectively using industry-standard hardware and open source-based software-defined storage solutions. Accordingly, SUSE today introduced SUSE Enterprise Storage 5 with enhanced ease of management, improved performance and expanded features including new disk-to-disk backup capabilities for enterprise customers. "Every generation of enterprise infrastructure innovation is now being built on open source," said Gerald Pfeifer, vice president of Products and Technology Programs at SUSE. "SUSE is expert at both contributing to and using upstream innovation to create enterprise-grade, secure solutions that can be combined with other technologies to best address customer needs. This approach applied to software-defined storage delivers highly scalable solutions that radically reduce storage costs in terms of both capital and operations expense." Gartner analysts noted in a recent Cool Vendor report, "It has become painfully evident that storage capacity demands, and expectations for far more rapid provisioning of that storage, have far outpaced the ability of [infrastructure and operations] teams' capabilities. Far-more-automated systems are required to restore a sense of balance, that is, storage solutions that offer much greater scale, but also much more automation."* SUSE Enterprise Storage 5 The latest release of SUSE's intelligent software-defined storage management solution, SUSE Enterprise Storage 5, will enable IT organizations to accelerate innovation and reduce costs by efficiently transforming their enterprise storage infrastructures. It is based on the Luminous release of the Ceph open source project, and it is ideally suited for compliance, archive, backup and large data storage. Large data applications include video surveillance, CCTV, online presence and training, streaming media, X-rays, seismic processing, genomic mapping, and computer-assisted design. Backup and archive applications include Veritas NetBackup, Commvault and Micro Focus Data Protector, along with compliance solutions such as iTernity. SUSE Enterprise Storage 5 is the first commercial offering to support the new BlueStore backend within Ceph. This follows SUSE's first-to-market support for iSCSI and CephFS in previous versions of SUSE Enterprise Storage. Customer benefits of this release include: The ability to service environments that require higher levels of performance through the new BlueStore native object storage backend. SUSE Enterprise Storage 5 offers up to double the write performance of previous releases, coupled with significant reductions in I/O latency. The ability to free up capacity and reduce data footprint via BlueStore-enabled data compression. Increased disk space efficiency of a fault-tolerant solution through enablement of erasure coding for replicated block devices and CephFS data. Lowered operational cost with an expanded advanced graphical user interface for simplified management using the next generation openATTIC open source storage management system. Simplified cluster management and orchestration through enhanced Salt integration. Production support of the Network File System (NFS) Gateway exporting CephFS and enabling users on a client computer to access files over a computer network. Production support for the Network File System (NFS) Gateway exporting the RADOS object gateway (RGW) and enabling legacy file applications that need a filesystem interface to access cloud native Amazon S3 or Swift data. A technical preview of Ceph's ability to export a file system to CIFS/Samba for heterogeneous connectivity. Disk-to-disk backup in SUSE Enterprise Storage SUSE Enterprise Storage now offers an efficient and flexible disk-to-disk backup solution that is scalable, self managing, fault tolerant, always on and easy to upgrade. SUSE Enterprise Storage delivers these capabilities without the costs typically associated with high-end functionality. Inexpensive industry-standard hardware running open source software lets customers avoid the high prices and vendor lock-in of proprietary solutions. SUSE Enterprise Storage also beats the cost of enterprise open source alternatives as well as commercial offerings with an innovative licensing model that avoids per-gigabyte storage costs. In addition, the need for a separate deduplication device (a sophisticated device usually associated with proprietary solutions that is designed to reduce the overall storage volume by eliminating duplicated data) is eliminated through advanced backup software that provides deduplication services. SUSE is certified with leaders in enterprise backup software, including Commvault and Veritas, all of which feature built-in deduplication. In a recent total cost of ownership comparison of disk backup solutions, software-defined storage in general and SUSE specifically came out on top. According to IT Brand Pulse, "The cost data says SUSE is the clear value leader led by best-in-class pricing model which includes support in the software license and, unlike others where license costs are front-loaded, the cost of a software is spread out evenly over the five years." SUSE Enterprise Server 5 will be available in the fourth quarter. For more information, visit www.suse.com/storage. *Gartner, "Cool Vendors in Storage Technologies, 2017," Dave Russell, Arun Chandrasekaran, Julia Palmer, Raj Bala, Alan Dayley, Pushan Rinnen, Garth Landers, 12 May 2017. About SUSE SUSE, a pioneer in open source software, provides reliable, software-defined infrastructure and application delivery solutions that give enterprises greater control and flexibility. More than 20 years of engineering excellence, exceptional service and an unrivaled partner ecosystem power the products and support that help our customers manage complexity, reduce cost, and confidently deliver mission-critical services. The lasting relationships we build allow us to adapt and deliver the smarter innovation they need to succeed – today and tomorrow. For more information, visit www.suse.com. Copyright 2017 SUSE LLC. All rights reserved. SUSE and the SUSE logo are registered trademarks of SUSE LLC in the United States and other countries. All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/suse-software-defined-storage-leverages-open-source-to-break-proprietary-lock-in-and-reduce-customer-costs-300525236.html

Storage Appliances Take Cover!

New performance and sizing guidance on #RedHat #Gluster Storage with QCT hardware I’m an oldest sibling. They say the traits of the oldest include being mature and dependable, while rebellion and excitement are often characteristics of the youngest. Think of the Prodigal Son parable.Brothers in arms On the surface, it’s possible to draw a parallel to the Red Hat Storage products. Red Hat Gluster Storage was the first product in Red Hat’s quiver. Distributed, POSIX­-compatible, scale-out file storage software, Gluster has added several modern architectural features over the years — geo­-replication, erasure coding, bit rot detection, self healing and tiering, to mention a few. #Ceph was recently (April 2014) added to the portfolio and garnered attention as the new kid on the block, but also partly because it addresses the rapidly growing object storage market and has been the most preferred platform for #OpenStack 1. As younger siblings often do, Ceph tends to hog the spotlight. This week, elder sibling Red Hat Gluster Storage made a statement about its maturity in the marketplace and open source community, while also reinforcing the message around choice that Red Hat’s software-defined storage portfolio offers to customers.

http://www.dabcc.com/storage-appliances-take-cover/

Melbourne Uni adds 1.6PB of software-defined storage

The University of Melbourne is entering the final stages of an implementation of around 1.6 petabytes of distributed software-defined storage on commodity hardware for researchers across Victoria, using an open source platform called Gluster.

The large-scale storage refresh project kicked off in October, with the capacity to be made available to researchers across the state through the VicNode partnership with Monash University.

University of Melbourne principal advisor of research computation strategy Steven Manos told iTnews the university has progressively been moving away from high-end disk and NetApp solutions in favour of software-defined storage on commodity hardware using Gluster.

“For us at the University of Melbourne, software-defined networking is the way forward," Manos said.

"Having a platform on which we can deploy new types of storage services without having to necessarily purchase entirely new infrastructure is something that's very important to us."

University of Melbourne system administrators team leader Linh Vu said the storage upgrade is a response to growing file sizes used in academic research projects.

“In the past, VicNode had a limit of 100 terabytes per volume, but it became very limiting as some research projects progressed well past that 100 terabyte mark,” Vu said.

According to Vu, the large files meant a distributed file system optimised to handle sequential I/O on a large scale was required.

“In the past, if you wanted to buy a storage server, you’d buy a commodity box and install NFS, kernel daemon, or Samba daemon. That is OK if you have a small group of users, and everything is stored on that one box,” Vu said.

In the Gluster platform’s file system, known as GlusterFS, each server exports its storage via what are known as ‘bricks’. The platform then assembles these ‘bricks’ into a volume that spans across all the participating nodes, making it appear as if it’s a single storage device.

http://www.itnews.com.au/news/melbourne-uni-adds-16pb-of-software-defined-storage-420895

DataCore Parallel I/O Software Takes the Gold in the Storage System Software Category of StorageMagazine/SearchStorage.com Products of the Year Awards

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#DataCore, the leader in Parallel-Powered #SoftwareDefinedStorage, Application-Adaptive Data Infrastructure and #Hyperconverged Virtual SAN solutions, today announced that its Adaptive Parallel I/O software was named a Gold winner in the Storage System Software category of the 2015 Products of the Year Awards announced this month by StorageMagazine/SearchStorage.com. The awards, presented annually by the editors of TechTarget’s Storage Media Group, were judged by the Storagemagazine/SearchStorage.com editorial staff, in conjunction with a team of users, industry experts, analysts and consultants.

The judging panel rated DataCore™ Adaptive Parallel I/O first in performance among the 13 finalists in the Storage System Software category. Comments from the judges included that there is nothing else like DataCore's Adaptive Parallel I/O on the market, and one called the software "potentially revolutionary." Another noted that most software-defined storage products, or storage virtualization, are not capable of parallel I/O.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160310006163/en/DataCore-Parallel-IO-Software-Takes-Gold-Storage20160310006163/en/DataCore-Parallel-IO-Software-Takes-Gold-Storage

The VMware Virtual SAN is the company's software defined storage play and is primarily aimed at Nutanix.

#VMware launched a new release of its Virtual SAN platform as it rounds out its #software-defined stack for private and public cloud infrastructure.

The VMware #VirtualSAN is the company's software defined storage play and is primarily aimed at Nutanix. The company said that it has more than 3,000 hyper-converged infrastructure customers since VMware Virtual SAN launched 21 months ago. VMware Virtual SAN 6.2 will be available in the first quarter with a starting price of $2,495 per CPU.

Software defined storage is shifting the landscape for vendors. More storage is being consumed, but the traditional system vendors in the market are seeing slowing growth. The cloud is partly to blame, but there's also the hardware end of the equation. Software defined storage means that arrays can be built with commodity x86 servers. As a result, those sales that were once recognized by storage vendors shows up as a server sale. VMware is using the trend to work both the storage and networking markets.

"Our vision is that everything can run off of a x86 node with one building block that cascades out at scale," said Gaetan Castelein, product marketing and management chief for VMware's software-defined data center unit.

VMware's so-called hyperconverged stack, which collapses storage and networking and compute into one box, features vSphere, vCenter Server and Virtual SAN. The stack is available through server vendors and soon as an appliance via EMC's VCE unit.

Here's a look at the stack and distribution model. VMware has 11 server manufacturing partners for precertified systems.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/vmware-updates-virtual-san-converged-infrastructure-stack/

Israeli Flash Storage Startup Elastifile Raises $35M

Israeli flash storage startup #Elastifile has raised $35 million in a Series B round of financing. Six data center and server industry leaders have joined existing investors #BatteryVentures and #LightspeedVentures as strategic investors in the second round. Founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneurs CEO Amir Aharoni, CTO Shahar Frank, and VP R&D Roni Luxenburg, Elastifile has developed an all-flash, software-defined storage solution for enterprises. Based in Herzliya, the company has so far raised a total of $44 million.

http://news.nocamels.com/2016/01/14/storage-startup-elastifile-raises-35m/

AMD and Key Industry Partners Welcome the AMD Opteron(TM) A1100 SoC to the 64-Bit ARM Datacenter Arena Launch Marks Era of Innovation, Choice and Scalable Performance in Servers, Embedded Networking and Storage Applications

#AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) marks a major step toward delivering choice and innovation in the datacenter with the launch of the AMD #Opteron™ A1100 System-on-Chip (SoC), formerly codenamed "Seattle." Jointly with its software and hardware partners, AMD is accelerating time-to-deployment of ARM®-based systems and driving forward ecosystem support for ARM in the datacenter.

"The ecosystem for ARM in the datacenter is approaching an inflection point, and the addition of AMD's high-performance processor is another strong step forward for customers looking for a datacenter-class ARM solution," said Scott Aylor, corporate vice president and general manager, Enterprise Solutions, AMD. "The macro trend of convergence between networking, storage and servers is an important catalyst in this evolution. Customers now have access to 64-bit ARM processors from the only silicon provider that also has decades of experience delivering professional enterprise and embedded products."

The AMD Opteron A1100 SoC represents a key milestone for establishing ARM in the datacenter as well. "The AMD Opteron A1100 processor brings a new choice in scalability across network infrastructure and datacenters," said Lakshmi Mandyam, director of server systems and ecosystems, ARM. "AMD brings recognized expertise in the server and embedded markets, making them an ideal partner to deliver a 64-bit ARM processor with the impressive balance of performance and power-efficiency to address an increasingly diverse set of workloads."

The AMD Opteron A1100 Series SoC is the first 64-bit ARM Cortex-A57-based platform from AMD. Utilizing ARM Cortex®-A57 processors with high-speed network and storage connectivity and outstanding energy efficiency, the AMD Opteron A1100 Series SoC delivers a balanced total cost of ownership for storage, Web and networking workloads.

AMD Opteron A1100 Series SoC specifications:

The AMD Opteron A1100 SoC is powering enterprise-class systems from SoftIron with its Overdrive 3000 system for developers, as well as an upcoming lineup of software-defined storage solutions taking advantage of the processor's rich feature set.

"The secret of the AMD Opteron A1100 SoC's appeal is not just the cores, it's everything around the cores," said Norman Fraser, CEO of SoftIron. "If you've got an application where you need to move large amounts of data around quickly, you're going to love it."

AMD is also collaborating with Silver Lining Systems (SLS) to integrate SLS' fabric technology in innovative dense server designs featuring the Opteron A1100 Series, targeted at streaming, Web and storage workloads for cloud and hyperscale datacenters. The SLS Fabric Interconnect incorporates a low-latency, energy-efficient 60Gbps switching fabric and is available as a PCI Express® expansion card or a standalone ASIC for custom server applications.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/1238854.htm

Software defined? No no no, it's poorly defined storage (and why Primary Data is different)

Comment " #Softwaredefinedstorage " is something end users love, and the industry is going precisely in that direction. The only problem I have with it is that, as happens with other buzzwords, the term is being over-abused, and generalization leads to confusion.

I know that I'm not the first to raise this problem, but now that real software-defined storage solutions are appearing in the market, the terminology issue has become more problematic. As always, marketing is the first to be blamed, but finding someone who is NOT responsible for this situation can be quite difficult.

According to Wikipedia, in networking "software-defined" means:

Software-defined networking ( #SDN ) is an approach to computer networking that allows network administrators to manage network services through abstraction of higher-level functionality. This is done by decoupling the system that makes decisions about where traffic is sent (the control plane) from the underlying systems that forward traffic to the selected destination (the data plane). The inventors and vendors of these systems claim that this simplifies networking.
In my humble opinion, the last sentence is the best part. To simplify, #SDS means a separation between the control plane (where things are decided) and the data plane (where things happen).

The only two examples of true software-defined storage that I'm aware of are #EMC #ViPR and #PrimaryData (but feel free to leave a comment if you think differently). The first one has failed miserably because it just wasn't enough – I'd say rudimentary and incomplete – while the latter has all the potential to revolutionize the way large enterprises can do storage.

I've already talked about Primary Data in the past (comparing them to Nicira – now #VMware #NSX), and given that I've met them twice in the last two months I can confirm that, on paper, the solution is really great. Now that the product is available, it's up to them to demonstrate what they can really do. Looking at the various demos available and at the features they already have (and are promising), I think they deserve a lot of attention.

By the way, if you look at Primary Data's home page and collateral, they are the first to be uncomfortable using the term "software-defined." It isn't mentioned, and even though the Wikipedia definition fits very well with what it describes on its home page, Primary Data doesn't use it. I can understand why; it doesn't want to be associated with a meaningless word.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/04/poorly_defined_storage_vs_primary_data/

Nexenta to Bring Open Source-Driven Software-Defined Storage Focus to the Software-Defined Infrastructure Summit

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#Nexenta (@Nexenta) the global leader in Open Source-Driven Software-Defined Storage ( #OpenSDS ) solutions, today announced that it will be speaking at the Software-Defined Infrastructure Summit, Santa Clara. Held at the Santa Clara Convention Center, California (December 1-3), the summit will focus on infrastructure for Big Data and cloud computing and will bring together the industry leading experts and professionals who will showcase the latest innovation.

As the world continues to become more data-driven due to #BigData and cloud computing, the traditional infrastructure relied upon to support such demanding processes has been a constraint. Unable to provide the necessary scalability and consistent performance, the industry needs data center technology to evolve in order to support today’s mass data activities. Software-Defined technology is the next evolutionary step and summit attendees will discover first-hand how Nexenta, with its award winning OpenSDS solutions, is leading the way.

During the summit, Nexenta will be participating and leading the following panel discussions and seminars.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151201005790/en/Nexenta-Bring-Open-Source-Driven-Software-Defined-Storage-Focus

For today's government data security, trust no one

https://gcn.com/articles/2015/10/16/virtualilzed-security.aspx?m=1

Atlantis Computing and SSC Zwolle Win Best of VMworld User Award 2015 for Hyper-Converged Stretched Cluster Solution Project

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - October 15, 2015) - Atlantis Computing®, the leading provider of #Software-DefinedStorage (#SDS), today announced that following the deployment of its hyper-converged solution at SSC Zwolle, a Netherlands public sector data centre project, it has been awarded a prestigious Best of #VMworld2015 award.

Source: http://m.marketwired.com/press-release/atlantis-computing-ssc-zwolle-win-best-vmworld-user-award-2015-hyper-converged-stretched-2064363.htm