As a term, software-defined storage (SDS) has been around for over a decade. The concept of abstracting storage software from the storage hardware is even older, predating Y2K. Despite its time on the market and many apparent advantages, SDS adoption rates are relatively low. The primary reason for SDS’ tepid acceptance is a lack of performance within the ecosystem that it drives. Today though, flash media is replacing hard drives, and in fact, NVMe flash is replacing SAS SSDs. There is also plenty of computing power available to drive the storage software, in addition to its other responsibilities. Lastly, the missing link, the network, is now set for its major upgrade as NVMe over Fabrics replaces SCSI-based networking.
Tune into this Lightboard Video as George Crump of Storage Switzerland and Cameron Crandall of Kingston map out the current state of SDS and why now is the best possible time to start embracing the technology to not only lower costs but also increase performance.
Twelve years ago George Crump founded Storage Switzerland with one simple goal; to educate IT professionals about all aspects of data center storage. He is the primary contributor to Storage Switzerland and is a heavily sought after public speaker. With over 25 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the US, he has seen the birth of such technologies as RAID, NAS and SAN, Virtualization, Cloud and Enterprise Flash. Prior to 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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