#serversan - CrowdChat

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I think in general we've ignored the fact that on a Server SAN the server CPU being used for storage is going to mean there's less CPU for VMs. If running ServerSAN means I need 36 servers instead of 32 is that better than 32 and a storage system or 3.

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Don't forget the consider the soft costs that come from the simplicity in the solution. That can't be overstated enough.

Ditto on the simplicity and consistency angle -- comes out all the time in customer discussions.

Jesse St. Laurent

I spoke with a customer recently who told me the OPEX cost of an additional platform was 10x the cast of buying more Lego blocks

Howard Marks Question there is what the additional platform was. Best in class storage (TinTri, Tegile, Nimble) a lot easier than Clariion

David Nicholson

Haven't ignored it. Cores become expensive real estate when an Oracle license moves in. The ability to fence off cores from #serversan duty can be beneficial.

And, don't forget that these are building block solutions with small increments. Other solutions eventually require a forklift at some point in many cases.

Howard Marks True enough but again there have to be times when best of breed beats the really good swiss army knife

Scott D. Lowe Howard - agreed. Server SAN is just another option in the arsenal.

Jesse St. Laurent @deepstoragenet Sometimes theSwiss Army knife is the "best of breed" :)

Chuck Hollis and that's what I see customers trying to figure out now -- where does it fit in the landscape?

Perhaps we should be thinking in terms of CPU cores rather than servers...plus with software defined storage you can manage and balance the system dynamically, right?

Enrico Signoretti1

sorry, I have to leave the conversation. great chat BTW

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thanks for all of your interaction!

great contribution Enrico

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtbBbdLHJI0 Comment on Msft?

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@satyanadella talk about modern enterprise what do you guys think about Microsoft's prospects
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtbBbdLHJI0

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David Nicholson

I think Windows 95 is a rip off of Mac's OS

David Nicholson

But seriously, they are focusing on the Enterprise. In a new era. They should be taken seriously.

see www.crowdchat.net/microsoft our crowd commentary from yesterday live as the moment was happening

Discuss Microsoft New CEO
"On the Record" CrowdChat to discuss the new CEO Satya Nadella starts at 9am to 3pm pst.

Enrico Signoretti4

Next generation servers will be much more #ServerSAN ready too. Flash memory controllers (or direct PCI access) will be integrated on the motherboards.

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how does the rise in ARM based servers (vs x86) impact this trend?

John F. Kim Some big vendor thinks x86 is too power hungry for cartridge servers. Will same thinking expand to blade servers?

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.

David Nicholson

That will be on display at PEX next week.

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.

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But anything can be committed to silicon...including "programmable" ASICs...:-)

Amen to that. Doing things in software makes it WAY easier to patch things in the field and speeds development.

Jesse St. Laurent

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

Jesse St. Laurent

Every CPU cycle the storage consumes also consumes part of a vSphere (or other hypervisor) license

Depends on the hardware. I like the SW only approach, but SimpliVity is doing some cool stuff with hardware that helps them enable their value prop.

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?

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David Nicholson

It is a trade off. Parallelism can be powerful. Compromise is an ability to create "domains" and "pick your media/connectivity".

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

Howard Marks some of the products do locality and others don't. Which has lower latency and net traffic? We'll have to see.

@dfloyer -> Part of David Floyer's Mega Data Center story.

John F. Kim Not to be confused with BMW's Mega City (i3) story

Why would you want that in a virtualized server San fabric? What about VM migrations to other physical hosts?

Ideally you'd like it close but the devil will be in the detail. What happens when you want to replace a node(s)....

We go back and forth. For some apps (e.g. Hadoop), the benefit could be worthwhile. For others, not so clear. And then there is the complexity factor.

Jesse St. Laurent

It is almost always easier to move the VM than the data. A few GB of vRAM vs. 100s of GB of data

then the system needs to be smart enough to handle that in a resilient elegant manner

Jesse St. Laurent

The admin should not need to know or care. The system should simply make this decision.

http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Keep_Your_Own_Data_Close_and_Your_Competitors_Data_Closer

Keep Your Own Data Close And Your Competitors Data Closer - Wikibon
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Kevin Deierling9

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.

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Bingo! And applications and storage are closer to the CPU. Cutting out the middleman and SAN tax is also key

Jeff Frick Even at the speed of light, latency raises its ugly head

continuing the trend of increasing control by isolating, scaling parts

Enrico Signoretti4

@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)

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Gabriel Chapman

thats 40GbE port adoption will eclipse IB in short order, more vendors will offer it

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.

Gunnar Berger11

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

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Speaking as a former CIO: Simplicity good. Increased service fees bad. :-)

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.

the value chain is always flexible - if VAR is making $ for not adding value they need to reevaluate skill set and solution development.

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.

I see this a huge opportunity for VARS to add value in services esp in light of hybrid cloud and big data plans coming together