Webscalestorage

I think @eric_shanks def sees alot of customers environments to chime in on this as he is on the front lines.

To me, a first question to ask is: "What do I do when this box runs out of capacity?"... set-up another island of storage, or just power-on a new node and the increased capacity shows up instantly!

Purchasing additional tools from the same storage vendor to get a view into the storage I have already purchased!

I think no (read: simple) management is better than more management as you continue forward in the storage lifecycle.

@vsamurai_com basically, less is more?

@KoolioKev some storage companies call that innovation..we call that minimum requirement :)

Yes, but offer extensibility in the form of APIs so that customers with lots and lots of nodes can manage like a single system.

@vsamurai_com Exactly. Don't saturate the user. "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler" - Albert Einstein

simplicity is key. managing 100 nodes shouldnt be 100 time the complexity of managing a single node

I think analytics into your workloads and how they can be optimized is something that becomes important at-scale, as well

Need intelligence that helps the consumer and/or manager of the storage resources to respond to bottlenecks automatically and before the problems are visible to end users

managing a single element would be important, as well as being able to see where performance issues lie in the IO blender.

@vsamurai_com or react before there is a bottleneck at all, utilize analytics with that intelligence.

@danablouin Yes & yes!

@danablouin This type of intelligence frees me the admin to focus on other things in my environment like the customer need.

@KoolioKev sounds right. To me, possibilities of #analytics strong across all #SDN architectures.

@KoolioKev The problem I've run into is that I have 5 tools that tell me 5 different things. I then have to piece all that info together to get a true understanding of my workloads

@vWilmo smash head on desk! #Facepalm

@vWilmo so you are saying you still have lots of manual activity, and would like less

I think alot of the legacy vendors have tools that many departments use piece meal to get what they need. As a smaller org and smaller staff I need a singular tool to manage it rather than 5.I think that's beneficial no matter how many staff

@vWilmo Also, off-topic, but maybe we need a #craftbeer dicussion some time. Seems big in #webscalestorage

@andywarfield and @Ramanacoho know their beers along with their #webscalestorage :)

@vWilmo I will agree with you on that point! I am trying to stick with a couple of and pushing vendors to adopt things like vCOPS as the pane of glass.

+1 on #craftbeer I have a 12-pack of Icelandic krækjuber ale in the overhead bin. Greetings from 10,000 meters BTW.

Rip and replace is a hassle for Engineers and CapEx becomes non-linear as an expense

@eric_shanks I remember when I was a #NetApp customer and we had to pay $50,000 for a data migration. I could almost buy an entire new array for that kind of money!

traditional storage arrays struggle to cope with new the new technologies. Flash has been a primary driver, as has the consolidation associated with virtualization

@eric_shanks exactly! thats why no forklift upgrades is a key reqmt

So, interoperability and open-ness is a looming factor.

Not only that, but traditional storage arrays cannot scale performance and capacity as dynamically or independently as some of the new #webcsale approaches.

Cost... Keeping up with the latest technology advances. Why choose a company the bolts on the latest technology instead of designing to take advantage of new tech as it comes available?

I second Eric -- roughly linear scaling of costs is a godsend.

By interoperability, do you mean APIs? We make a huge effort to share lots of details of our implementation, short of giving away our core IP.

@KoolioKev @eric_shanks @plankers Is linear scaling of costs is definitely a key result of #webscalestorage but also the linear performance and elimination of luns/volumes is key for growth in our eyes

I would have to agree with @KoolioKev cost is always a driving factor.

Sounds like another assault on #legacytech. Let the revolution begin!

I imagine that dropping #flash prices and cheap commodity #storage will be a tailwind here.

Long overdue in storage ... Coho leading the charge

It's pretty cool to be part of company that's innovating instead of adjusting & retooling their legacy code to fit within the modern IT landscape.

As I always say, costs should always scale in linear fashion. But my kids don't listen to this.

Exposing storage APIs is very important. Storage control path should be as inviting and useful as the data path.

Key word... legacy. We all have the legacy debt in our DC's. Why not plan a future that can grow with you.

yes, that goes to @KoolioKev point about taking advantage of advances in tech as they happen and not getting stuck in legacy

@vsamurai_com I would imagine it is. That is why I left industry to go back to academia, tired of working for companies that were behind the curve.

Neither does mine...

@KoolioKev Exactly the view @andywarfield and @Ramanacoho share with respect to legacy architectures that require rip and replace. They solved the issues in the past but as workloads/users demands have evolved these systems have not.

thats exactly what @andywarfield and team are aiming for. Predicting hot spots, knowing issues that may arise due to IO before they start.

Any new webscale offering worth its salt is designed from the ground up for automation, i.e. via REST APIs

Performance automation. With NetApp We would have to create tiers of storage and move data around to hopefully get better performance. Or over engineer it so we wouldn't hit it at all.

As for analytics, I think gathering information into the use cases from key customers is paramount to figuring out decisions that can be made from the data.

many storage vendors mention analytics and automation. But bigger concern is what does the storage do with it, how does it handle this information and put it to work. Most can't and wont touch that aspect.

The performance tools that people use for storage today are unbelievably primitive.

Automation is super cool, but it must be easy enough for a storage admin to build quickly. REST APIs require a new skill set for these folks usually.

@KoolioKev Been there man! Glad you've come over from the dark side. As a former #NetApp customer and employee I saw it from both sides of the fence...

Understanding and diagnosing a workloads performance problems demand a lot more than IOPS and latency numbers.

@KoolioKev or over provision to avoid hitting perf problems ... smart analytics should let you provision exactly what you need and use it best

@vsamurai_com Dark side had cookies... but now I have time to make my own cookies!

@eric_shanks True. REST APIs are a starting point. Developing examples using PowerShell and other scripting tools propel it into the mainstream

@eric_shanks Completely agree. REST is like ioctl(). But it's a great substrate for simple libraries/CLis.

the fact that @KoolioKev or any of @eric_shanks customers have to provision or move storage around means more work and #webscalestorage isn't about more work.

@eric_shanks Yep, I'd rather have intelligent tools that do the right thing, rather than build custom scripts myself if possible.

Automation is great, but I shouldn't have to automate something because the UI is tough to navigate or cludgy to use. It should be an extension of a system that's already well thought out and easy to use.

@andywarfield REST is a great start, but something should be on top of it for easier use by administrators

@eric_shanks What would you suggest on top of REST?

@eric_shanks What's your preference: native CLI, powershell, python, ...?

@eric_shanks REST helps us figure out how customers want to automate and orchestrate. The most popular or useful stuff will undoubtedly live on in other forms

@kellandamm would love to hear your thoughts on this!

HMM. Lots of @netapp bashing here. I wonder if they are listening.

@forbesguthrie PoSH would be cool, but how about a simple GUI that allows you to perform something once, and when done copy the REST API to do the same thing?

OH: "Prolly not based on their products"

@eric_shanks You mean like a Project Onyx type thing? Reminds me of the "reveal codes" window in WordPerfect.