The really interesting aspect of ServerSAN in virtualized environment is that compute and storage are now co-equal. They can be collapsed or distributed. That is data moves to the compute node or vice versa - whichever is faster.
@daven007 I'm not a IB fan at the front-end (I like it in the backend of commodity storage). But, If I'm not wrong, 56GB IB is cheaper than 40GB eth... (and it's too much for 99,9% of the cases anyway)
You are not wrong... FDR 56Gb InfiniBand has better price performance and network effiiciency than 40Gb Ethernet, but 40GbE with RoCE is pretty damn fast too.
Question for VARs: I see the ServerSAN as an enabler to a simpler datacenter. For VARs this could be bad as complexity increases service fees. I often wonder how the mighty dollar works against a simpler solution
Gunnar Berger Agreed, end user customers would like this, which is why I asked for a VAR. Most of my experience is as a VAR and when a sales guy makes more selling X, they will try and sell it.
VARs like both more service fees from complexity *and* simple easy solutions to increase deal velocity. Okay, maybe not always the same VAR liking both.
Jesse St. Laurent I agree. The channel is in the process of reinventing itself right now. The best ones embrace compelling technology and take the opportunity to move their value up the stack.
Honestly, I think VARs in some cases are going to need to reinvent. Between this and things like O365 (i.e. MS reducing shared profits), the model is not turning in their favor.
@tier1storage Latency could be a serious problem, in certain situations Infiniband could be better. but I'm not sure that enterprises like infiniband anymore...
Enrico Signoretti larry loves catamarans too but they are not in the DCs. In any case, they use infiniband primarly in the backend (which I like a lot!)
I think we're just seeing the very beginnings here of what we can do with this stuff. I see a primary goal as simplifying the data center. Any CIOs out there want to comment on this?
John Furrier great point about Nadella he's going to be a good CEO for the product revamp/tweaks at msft expect some cloud mojo and infra mojo to come forth
@stu Sure, most of them can but think about 10Gbe and then think about your legacy Unix server. it probably has good FC stack but not very optimized iSCSI implementation...
I see potential for improving security in some cases. Storage is certainly more isolated in these models (ie. accessible only to the hosts and not available from elsewhere)
Security w/software defined architectures provide more flexibility, enabling isolation and multi tenancy, both important considerations for large enterprises and Service Providers
Software Defined Security will address any issues. I am only half-joking. We have more abstraction/virtualization to deal with. Threats that dwell need to be ferreted out with analytics. Not good enough to build a wall. P or V.
@daven007 I don't get your point. if we talk about scale-out infrastructure you obtain the maximum efficiency and predictability with identical nodes. Perhaps 40GB can avoid network congestion but the we talk BIG!
Some #serversan can be divided into domains for protection, performance, etc. 40Gb for part works just fine where needed. Corner of the chart at this stage.