all flash

By: George Crump, Storage Swiss

Flash often makes the hardware selection less important, but makes the software selection very important. The right software can not only ensure optimal flash performance, but also extend flash implementation beyond the typical high-transaction database use cases and into modern apps and big data analytics. It is critical though that IT professionals make sure software defined storage solutions (SDS) include core enterprise features that they have come to count on.

Why is Storage Hardware Less Important?

Storage systems used to be full of proprietary hardware so they could extract every last drop of performance from the array. These custom chips were used because CPUs were relatively slow, software was cumbersome to create and maintain, and rotational hard disks were highly latent. Times have changed. CPU processing power is almost too plentiful, software development is much easier to start and continuously maintain, and most importantly, flash media has almost no latency when comparing the alternatives.