Next generation servers will be much more #ServerSAN ready too. Flash memory controllers (or direct PCI access) will be integrated on the motherboards.
David Nicholson You can aggregate lots of cores instead of dividing up BIG ones. There are companies that do this today with "atom-class" microprocessors. "Physicalization" of compute.
Software is that it is easier to change than firmware and an ASIC. Speed of entry and future development wins unless there is a huge advantage from a hardware based implementation. The incumbents defend with their technical base and acquire the new tech.
With a good HW team, HW can deliver innovation very quickly. It also keeps the workload off the Intel CPU and allows that CPU to be used for the customers business apps
What do you folks think about data locality? If the same group of servers are doing compute and storage should the data for a VM be on the server where that VM is running? or is that adding complexity?
Generally speaking, data is sticker, and moving the compute or having it co-resident is an advantage that #serversan has. added benefits are also reduced latency
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...