Is seems that Apple has another success on its hands in the Apple Watch, but did you know that the Apple Watch could also be considered Software-Defined Storage (SDS)? I come to this conclusion based on the definition (a.k.a. rationalization) that some storage vendors have used to claim their storage systems are software-defined. The apple watch is clearly more software than it is “watch” and it does have the ability to store data, albeit a limited amount. To some extent you could even claim it has built-in data services like replication, but I don’t think the Apple Watch is what we had in mind when the term “Software-Defined Storage” first showed up on the market. Clearly, thanks to some of these vendor rationalizations, the SDS market is a mess.
Cleaning up the SDS Mess
At its core, SDS is the abstraction of storage services from dedicated physical storage hardware. The original intent of this definition was to provide customers the ability to mix and match storage hardware from multiple vendors under a single storage services platform. SDS allows for the selection of best-of-breed storage hardware for specific use cases within the data center. As software, the data services engine can run anywhere, on a dedicated appliance, as a virtual machine or in the core of the hypervisor. But we have also seen a few storage vendors use this approach to free themselves from being too closely tied to hardware, while not passing that flexibility on to their customers.
None of these approaches are particularly bad, but they certainly have their pros and cons. In our on demand webinar “Cleaning up the SDS Mess” we help attendees understand what SDS really is, why the definition has become so watered down and most importantly, how exactly SDS can be used to improve IT’s ability to respond to the needs of the organization.
All registrants for this webinar will receive a copy of Storage Switzerland’s white paper “Can Your Software-Defined Solution Deliver ALL the SDS Benefits”.
In addition, all registrants will be able to access Storage Switzerland’s extensive library of on demand webinars, many with exclusive white papers, without having to re-register.
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George Crump is the Chief Marketing Officer at VergeIO, the leader in Ultraconverged Infrastructure. Prior to VergeIO he was Chief Product Strategist at StorONE. Before assuming roles with innovative technology vendors, George spent almost 14 years as the founder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland. In his spare time, he continues to write blogs on Storage Switzerland to educate IT professionals on all aspects of data center storage. He is the primary contributor to Storage Switzerland and is a heavily sought-after public speaker. With over 30 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the US, he has seen the birth of such technologies as RAID, NAS, SAN, Virtualization, Cloud, and Enterprise Flash. Before founding Storage Switzerland, he was CTO at one of the nation's largest storage integrators, where he was in charge of technology testing, integration, and product selection.
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