Prior to the rise of virtualization and the agile data center, IT attempted to consolidate its storage resources into a single shared system. The hope was that a single system would be a more economic capital outlay and be a more efficient use of the storage administrator’s time. But as IT faced increased pressure to be more responsive to the needs of the business, it seemed that no single storage system could meet all the various needs of the data center. As a result, a proliferation of storage devices has occurred in most data centers leading to an increase in both acquisition costs and management costs. Can this sprawl of storage systems be stopped, and more importantly should it?
What Causes Storage Sprawl
Storage sprawl is the result of IT’s need to respond to the organization, and the company’s increased expectations of IT deliverables. Most data centers today have implemented server virtualization, many have implemented desktop virtualization and the performance demands of more traditional backend applications like databases and email are higher than ever. The result is that most data centers have at least one type of storage system for each type of virtualization and an explicit storage system for each database environment. It is not uncommon to find mid-sized data centers with five or more storage systems, and enterprises with at least twice that amount.
The Lost Art of Consolidation
Recently there are an increasing number of storage systems claiming to be able to re-consolidate and eliminate storage sprawl despite all these workloads. This type of system has a particular set of requirements and often require integrating flash and hard disk as well as providing sophisticated QoS to accomplish the consolidation goal. Timing a move to these systems is a big challenge for the data center. Consolidating to a single piece of storage hardware typically occurs during a storage refresh and data centers plan those sparingly. Hardware consolidation also often requires replacing all of the legacy storage systems. For data centers that don’t have a refresh planned or data centers that don’t want to throw out the existing storage, an alternative needs to be found. Finally, storage consolidation, typically means compromise, either in terms of consistent performance or affordable capacity.
The Real Goal of Consolidation
The objective of an IT consolidation process it to simplify operations and management by minimizing the amount of discrete components involved. In a data center dealing with storage sprawl, each system has it own interface as well as its unique way of providing data services like snapshots and replication. Additionally, it is difficult to move data between these different storage systems to better balance storage resource utilization.
Software Defined Storage Instead of Consolidation
An alternative to storage consolidation is software-defined storage (SDS). SDS still consolidates, but it streamlines operations and management instead of the storage hardware. SDS addressed the biggest need; simplification. SDS provides a single software umbrella for managing multiple storage resources. A single interface of storage means that IT only has to learn one way of executing the above services. SDS still allows for specific hardware to be purchased for specific environments limiting the amount of compromise over performance or cost.
SDS Consolidation Requirements
It is important to note that not all SDS solutions can act as a consolidator of storage hardware, some create a brand new silo of storage that essentially replaces legacy storage infrastructures. An essential requirement is that the SDS solution be able to layer its functionality on top of legacy storage systems so that existing investments in hardware don’t have to be thrown out.
A second requirement of a consolidation via SDS is the ability to migrate data between the different storage systems. A migration capability facilitates better data protection processes, reducing Recovery Point and Recovery Time Objectives (RPO/RTO). It also allows for better resource balancing since data can be moved, live, between storage systems and across hypervisors.
Conclusion
While a storage consolidation effort can meet the simplification objective, the initial requirement of refreshing and potentially replacing legacy storage is a show stopper for many data centers. SDS provides a viable alternative if it can be used on existing storage assets so that the management and operation of those devices can be consolidated. The result should be a much simpler, more efficient, better protected and more cost-effective storage infrastructure.
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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