Server and StorageIO, @storageio The EMC2 Advanced Software Division (ASD) recently announced (more here and here) enhancements to its ViPR (v1.1) software-defined storage management solution, as well as a new version of its Storage Resource Management (SRM) product (v3.0). First, keep in mind that SRM, in the traditional server and storage world, means systems or …
Greg Schulz is Founder and Sr. Analyst of independent IT advisory and consultancy firm Server and StorageIO (StorageIO). He has worked in IT at an electrical utility, financial services and transportation firms in roles ranging from business applications development to systems management and architecture planning. Greg has also worked for various vendors in addition to an analyst firm before forming StorageIO. Mr. Schulz is author of several books (Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking – CRC Press, The Green and Virtual Data Center – CRC Press, Resilient Storage Networks: Designing Flexible Scalable Data Infrastructures – Elsevier), active with social media with his engaging approach and a top ranked blogger. He has a degree in computer science and master’s degree in software engineering. Learn more at www.storageio.com
When and Where to Use NAND Flash SSD for Virtual Servers
Keeping in mind that the best server and storage IO is the one that you do not have to do, then second best is that which has the least impact combined with best benefit to an application. This is where SSD, including DRAM- and NAND-flash-based solutions, comes into the conversation for storage performance optimization.
Hard Disk Drives (HDD) for virtual environments (Part IV) from power to warranties
Let us pick up where we left off in part III in our look beyond the covers to help answer the question of which is the best HDD to use.
Hard Disk Drives (HDD) for virtual environments (Part III) from form factor to power
In part II of this series we covered some of the differences between various Hard Disk Drive (HDD) including looking beyond the covers at availability, cache and cost. Let us pick up where we left off on our look beyond the covers to help answer the question of which is the best HDD to use.
Hard Disk Drives (HDD) for virtual environments (Part II) how drives differ
In part I of this series we looked at basic Hard Disk Drive (HDD) characteristics and wrapped up with the question of what is the best type of HDD to use?
Hard Disk Drives (HDD) for virtual environments (Part I)
Unless you are one of the few who have gone all solid-state devices (SSDs) for your virtual environment, hard disk drives (HHDs) still have a role. That role might be for primary storage of your VMs and/or their data, or as a destination target for backups, snapshots, archiving or as a work and scratch area. Or perhaps you have some HDDs as part of a virtual storage appliance (VSA), storage virtualization, virtual storage or storage hypervisor configuration. Even if you have gone all SSD for your primary storage, you might be using disk as a target for backups complimenting or replacing tape and clouds. On the other hand, maybe you have a mix of HDD and SSD for production, what are you doing with your test, development or lab systems, both at work and at home.