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We all know that the likes of Fusion IO have been around now for a few years and selling server based Flash acceleration for high prices.  What is less known is that TMS (Texas Memory Systems) has been selling flash storage (SAN) for several years quite successfully.  TMS is also one of the few storage vendors that has native support for IB storage connectivity.  DDN (Data Direct Networks) is another to have native IB storage controllers.  However, I’ve recently come across a vendor V3, that uses both IB and Solid State storage in an area where commodity has always won the technology battle, not speed or features.

VDI appliances are on the rise, and V3 is known for having a rock solid VDI appliance model.  I’ve seen it recently deployed in an ESX configuration for VMWare View.  This configuration utilized both IB and SSD to provide the fastest access to both data and storage infrastructure.  The use of the V3 appliance proved to be quicker to deploy, scaled to this customers needs, and helped reduce latency and boot times.

The appearance of SSD technology for application acceleration isn’t a new concept, however, it appears recently that it is very prevalent in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure designs.  On the acceleration side, NetApp has been using solid state storage in it’s PAM devices for several years as a caching engine for NAS reads.  NetApp has changed the name of PAM to Flash Cache in recent history, however, the use model is basically the same.  HDS and LSI have implemented models of SSD drives for most of the array models available to end-users.  These disk systems can utilize the SSDs as traditional volumes, or in some cases for specific application acceleration (read HNAS File System cache).  Of course, SSD drives are still at a 10x premium over more traditional spinning disk technologies.  Heck, most storage vendors have some level of support for SSD drives these days, however, I don’ t think there has been a good enough marketing push to show where they are valued.

I’m personally excited to see the movement toward shared SSD storage for use in virtualization, indexes for databases, and application acceleration.

Related articles

• Elgato Thunderbolt SSD(techfresh.net)

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• Migrating to SSD: Get yourself a new computer without getting one (howto.cnet.com)
• SSDs in arrays: the Pure Storage view (storagemojo.com)
• OCZ talks up Thunderbolt-enabled SSD (macworld.com)
• Solid State 101: Where To Deploy SSDs Now(informationweek.com)

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• Are SSD-based arrays a bad idea? (storagemojo.com)
• Researchers and marketers dont agree on future of nand flash SSD (storageioblog.com)
• Hempstead School District Selects Flash-based Storage Leader WhipTail for a More Productive Virtual Desktop in the Classroom (vmblog.com)

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I’ve come to realize that the following is true…

• We’ve been using virtual architectures in the storage marketplace for some time.  In the open systems area, this is pretty much commonplace.
• We’ve come full circle for application and operating system virtualization.  Many companies have the majority of application servers virtualized with some type of hypervisor.
• We’re stuck on the idea that port A(host) must go to Port A(switch)!

HP has something called VirtualConnect which leverages the HP Flex10 architecture to, within a single HP C7000 blade chassis, to create virtual IO resources.  Cisco with UCS has done something very similar to HP.  Both architectures work, but both require you to have a single server and/or server type in order to deploy.  With HP, they require Blade servers in a blade chassis, and only HP products, which eliminates the ability to use very powerful (memory & socket) rack servers if you want to use virtual IO resources.  Cisco, only works with Cisco’s server technology, imagine that!

Dell has taken another route to market, saying that it isn’t the hardware that is difficult, but the management and deployment of IO resources and has tried to solve the problem with VIS (*Thank you M. Rotkiz(s)) and AIM, software products that can help manage configurations of servers, networks, and storage.

Gartner however has taken a look and is developing a new “switch” market for the dynamic virtualized data center.  My current home at Xsigo Systems fits into this new categorization.  The idea is to create a pipe between servers that is low enough in latency to handle any type of application requirement, a pipe large enough in throughput to handle any type of storage or IO needs, and yet remain completely flexible and protocol agnostic.  This has been accomplished using several technologies and I think is where the next part of the virtualization market is moving to.  It is also a technology that allows the hypervisors to grab the last applications that your IT Operations group is fighting to keep on dedicated servers.

IO Virtualization, and I don’t just mean sharing 10Gb TCP/UDP with FCoE, is the next big thing in virtualization, big data, solid state storage, and IT flexibility.  VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Xen, RHOV, OVM, no matter what the hypervisor, IO should be flexible.

Related articles

• Xsigo Systems Provides Kroll Factual Data 50 Percent More Virtual Machine Throughput and Saves 50 Percent on Cost (vmblog.com)
• What Is a Blade Server? (fosketts.net)
• Virsto Creates VMware Storage Hypervisor to Boost VM Density and Performance, Interview with Virsto CEO Davis Part I (dcig.com)
• NextiraOne launches new Data Centre Offering based on Cisco’s Newest 3rd Generation Fabric Computing Platform (vmblog.com)
• Virtually Perfect in Every Way: Dell PowerEdge 12th generation servers (en.community.dell.com)

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5 year OEM of BlueArc’s Titan and Mercury product lines, HDS (Hitachi Data Systems) will be acquiring BlueArc.  This of course will be a great combination of companies, and I imagine will be a very accelerated ramp up as HDS already has everything in place to absorb BlueArc in a great way.  HDS isn’t one to buy companies.  This will be among one few and one of the largest acquisitions for HDS.  Exciting times for BlueArc and HDS, scary times for NetApp I would imagine.

Press Releases here: http://www.hds.com/corporate/press-analyst-center/press-releases/2011/gl110907.html?_p=v

and here:http://www.bluearc.com/storage-news/press-releases/110907-Hitachi-Data-Systems-Announces-Acquisition-of-BlueArc.shtml

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I will be attending VMWare’s VMWorld this year for a few days.  I look forward to meeting new folks as well as seeing faces that I don’t get to see other then on the trade show floor.  Email me if you are going to be in attendance.

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     Well it took me a little bit, but it looks like Marc Farley has stopped the roughly ramblings and industry insights, audio captures, car video recordings, and cartoon parodies.  It was nice to see that Marc wasn’t censored by HP over the past several months, which was a clear action of Dell when Marc’s Equallogic focused blog was filtered by corporate marketing.

      I am sure it will be on to bigger and better things for Marc, maybe 3D video, maybe blogging time travel, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have the first storage blog from outer space.  Regardless, in the current silence he is missed.