Since the introduction of flash, two primary methods for addressing application performance have emerged. First, the Hybrid Array that, using algorithms based on a dataset’s frequency of access, caches active data. The challenge with any algorithm that predicts future access…
In this era of the agile data center, the thought of consolidating to a single storage system may seem impossible. But the very technologies, flash and high capacity disk, that lead to storage sprawl can also eliminate it. In this article we discuss how the next generation of storage systems will need to combine flash and disk with software intelligence. This software will need to do more than just automatically move data between these tiers, it will need allow the administrator to set the quality of service policies that will guarantee critical applications consistent performance.
High performance flash based storage has dramatically improved the storage infrastructure’s ability to respond to the demands of servers and the applications that count on it. Nowhere does this improvement have more potential than in the virtualized server environment. The…
When non-volatile flash memory-based solid-state drives (SSDs) were introduced, the protocol support included SAS/SATA. These interfaces were designed for hard disk drives (HDDs) and had more latency than was ideal for flash, but it made for easier integration of SSDs…
The CEO of Unitrends, Kevin Weiss, sits down with Storage Switzerland founder and lead analyst George Crump and the voice of Storage Switzerland, Charlie Hodges. We talk about life before Unitrends, why Mr. Weiss thinks Unitrends is uniquely positioned to…
Virtualized Windows applications suffer from two I/O taxes. First, there is the tax of the I/O blender caused by mixing dozens of VMs on a single server, and then connecting multiple servers to a shared storage array that creates a…
Small to medium sized business (SMB) are a great target for hyper-converged architectures because SMBs don’t typically have the application requirements that would justify dedicated compute and storage hardware. The problem is that many hyper-converged architectures (HCAs) are too expensive…
Desktop and server virtualization have brought many benefits to the data center. These two initiatives have allowed IT to respond quickly to the needs of the organization while driving down IT costs, physical footprint requirements and energy demands. But there…
Server side flash, in its various forms, served as a precursor to shared flash arrays. It allowed IT planners to surgically address specific application response time issues caused by storage without having to implement a flash based array. This saved…
Hyper-converged architectures (HCA) consolidate compute, storage and networking onto a single server and then through software, aggregate these servers, creating a shared pool of resources. These resources can then be allocated to virtual machines (VMs) based on their performance and…
StorageSwiss.com - The Home of Storage Switzerland 