Nexenta Blog

Global Leader in Software Defined Storage

Questions from the Field: Hyperconvergence

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By Michael Letschin, Field CTO

Having the most complete portfolio of Software-Defined Storage solutions in the industry is something that Nexenta pride’s itself on, but with that comes questions about all sorts of other storage technologies when I am out talking with our customers and partners.  Their questions range from trying to understand the latest trends like enterprise containers to the impact of the Internet of  Things and augmented reality, but more often than not their questions are about how some of the newer datacenter technologies will help their business.  These technologies range from Software-Defined Networking to public cloud and of course hyperconverged solutions.  Sometimes we integrate very well, for instance with the VMware vCloud Air where we can run inside the public cloud and be a DR target for our existing customers, at a public cloud price point.  In other environments we have to explain that many solutions are not one size fits all.  Hyperconverged falls into that camp and George Crump, an analyst for Storage Switzerland, has a great write-up here – Is Hyperconverged worth the Hype? – on the pros and cons to that market.  I think a key takeaway is that if you’re looking at a new project or a new datacenter with fixed needs, then the simplicity of hyperconverged could be the answer; but if you are growing a datacenter or expect unpredictable growth there are some caveats: the inability to separate storage and compute as you grow can result in over-buying, and losing the benefits you get from virtualization and consolidation.  In those cases, the idea of a traditionally isolated compute and storage solution has real benefit.  Utilizing new technologies like Software-Defined Storage to give you the flexibility of choosing the right hardware for you when you need it gets the enterprise closer and closer to the dream of a next generation or Software-Defined Datacenter.

For more on hyperconverged, check out Is Hyperconverged worth the Hype? by George Crump at Storage Swiss.

Why is Fibre Channel resurging?

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By Michael Letschin, Field CTO

There was a time when Fibre Channel was the only solution for those looking for a high speed transport. But that is not the case anymore. The predominant storage protocol in many virtualization environments is NFS, primarily because virtualization administrators know that administering file-based datastores is much easier than those based on LUNs. In addition, advances in NFS and combining NFS with flash storage make the system’s performance ideal for hosting virtualized workloads.

But Nexenta is seeing a resurgence in customers expressing an interest in using NexentaStor’s Fibre Channel option. This is particularly interesting because, unlike other platforms, NexentaStor does not lock you into a particular protocol. Customers are free to choose NFS, SMB, Fibre Channel, or iSCSI. This means the only reason they would be using Fibre Channel is that it offers something that the other alternatives don’t – performance.

Performance is the main historical reason IT professionals prefer Fibre Channel over Ethernet; however, some may read that statement and disagree. Ethernet offers 40 Gb and Fibre Channel is only 16 Gb. If Ethernet has more bandwidth, how could Fibre Channel have better performance? The answer is bandwidth is not the primary performance consideration for some applications. If an application is looking for low latency, Fibre Channel will win over Ethernet almost every time. A look at the design of the two protocols will explain why.

Fibre Channel design assumes very short connections that are never longer than a Kilometer and usually much shorter. In contrast, Ethernet networks can stretch around the world. Due to this design difference, Fibre Channel can assume that all frames make it to the other side, where Ethernet assumes that many of them will not make it. This means Fibre Channel doesn’t have to do as much error checking and re-transmitting as Ethernet does. This translates into significantly lower latency numbers.

Another low latency device that is quite popular is Flash. Fibre Channel offers a better latency match to Flash than Ethernet does. Perhaps one has to look no further to see the reason behind this resurgence in Fibre Channel. If a customer has a latency-sensitive application, they are going to consider Flash as their storage medium. And if they are going to use Flash, they will want a low-latency protocol to communicate with their storage – and Fibre Channel meets the bill.

Whatever the reason for this particular resurgence in Fibre Channel, Nexenta’s solution allows customers to take advantage of whatever storage protocols they think are appropriate for their environment. And if they change their mind at a later date, they can start using a different protocol without changing their storage product. This is the flexibility of an open storage product like NexentaStor.

For additional information, read up on NexentaStor.

March Madness of Home Brews Community Contest

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They say it takes a village to raise a child and at Nexenta we believe that technology start-ups are similar to children.  The community has been a critical part of Nexenta’s success and we want to share the excitement that our community members have with the world.  To do this, we are kicking off monthly contests to show the growth, support and amazing intelligence of the Nexenta Community.

The first of these contests begins today with the March Madness of Home Brews!  We ask that you submit a brief description of your home storage kit, along with a picture.  After all, a picture is worth 1000 words.  To coincide with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, we will create a bracket of the entries for the community to vote on until we narrow it down to the final four and a champion.

The final four will be sent a gift set of Nexenta swag along with being showcased as a featured build on the Nexenta Community website.  The winner will receive an even larger kit that includes a custom-branded Nexenta Basketball.

We are excited to see how creative you have all been.  Make sure to get your entry submitted no later than midnight PST on March 16th.  We will kick off voting on the 17th with the first round, just like the basketball tournament. Good luck!

To register, please click on the following link and fill out the form:

https://community.nexenta.com/community/nexentastor/march-madness-home-brew-contest

*Note: To win, you must be a registered member of the Nexenta Community.

Citrix and Nexenta Deliver Flexible and Cost-efficient Software-Defined Approach to VDI

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By Michael Letschin, Director of Product Management, Solutions

We had a great time at Citrix Summit 2015 and had a chance to talk to partners about our new converged infrastructure validated solution stack for VDI workloads using Citrix XenServer. XenDesktop and NexentaStor.

Available as an industry standard x86 architecture, this economically viable, converged and integrated solution is geared for small and mid-sized businesses that are looking to embrace and benefit from the security and efficiencies of desktop virtualization and Software-Defined Storage. NexentaStor brings dramatic economic benefits through substantially higher performance, lower cost per terabyte and a pre-integrated converged infrastructure stack based on Citrix XenDesktop MCS.

The solution starts at a minimal 4U of physical space and is able to present 355 desktops at full workload.  The Citrix XenDesktop and Nexenta converged architecture can easily scale to provide up to a 1000 desktops in only 6U, a 25% density improvement compared to EVO: RAIL. The solution minimizes storage latency with over a 98 percent cache hit ratio, giving the fastest possible end user experience.

Over the past few years, we’ve collaborated with Citrix to produce multiple cost-efficient, flexible and scalable infrastructures for customers to build and scale VDI workloads. NexentaStor has proven to deliver the best performance and value on hybrid or pure storage configurations, as part of the Citrix Ready VDI Capacity Validation Program. This is just another step in the collaboration.

“Citrix sees great value for customers from the integration of Citrix XenDesktop and NexentaStor,” said Calvin Hsu, vice president of product marketing, Desktop and Apps, Citrix. “The end result is that our existing customers and prospects will benefit from the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of this solution.”

Details of this solution can be obtained by downloading the Citrix Validated design reference architecture.

Additional Resources: Nexenta Delivers a Converged Infrastructure Citrix Ready Validated Solution Stack

2015 Predictions: What Goes Around Comes Around

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by Michael Letschin, Director of Product Management, Solutions, Nexenta

Everything in culture has a way of repeating itself, it happens in every arena of our life.  In fashion we look at items as vintage, whether it is from the 70s or the roarin’ 20s.  In music, artist like Justin Timberlake harken back to the days of early Michael Jackson and we have some artists today that people view like the modern day Rat Pack of Sinatra’s era.  Technology is no different, and as we move into 2015, life is in fact repeating itself.  I have spent nearly 20 years in technology, starting with working on mainframes and green screen clients, then came the shift to the x86 server. Over the past few years we have seen virtual servers become mainstream, being us back to a centralized server setup and as virtual desktops gain traction we move towards thin clients and back to what I remember from growing up… simplicity and efficiency.

What have we learned from all this?  The importance of versatility, simplicity and efficiency… Over the past few years we have heard buzzwords that have driven the technology decisions but now that IT departments have finally shrunk to point where you can’t “do any more with less”, CIOs have the choice of either outsourcing all their products or going with something that makes it easier on the staff they have.  The efficiency comes from not only simplicity but also on an economic front, you pay for a service like you would electricity.  During 2014 we talked of Software-Defined Data Centers but I have yet to see any single enterprise truly adopt the notion that hardware is not the answer.  Deploying hardware in the traditional sense is starting to move to the wayside, with the software controlling the hardware, the “bent metal” is not the treasure.  Add in the idea that an enterprise can have freedom to deploy their choice of hardware and remove the proprietary upgrades and process of the past and we move towards the software defined future.

2015 will begin with more and more enterprises adopting the idea that hardware independence means that their staff can be more efficient by concentrating on the software and letting the hardware vendors spend their time competing for their business.  The rise of DevOps will continue to make datacenters simpler and more automated.  Projects like OpenCompute can finally gain traction in the enterprise as hardware is bought as simply a platform regardless if the need is for servers, storage or networking.  Software-Defined Storage will continue to grow in the enterprise as IT staff see that they no longer can support the complexity of forklift migrations just to get some more speed.  Software-Defined Networking has been lagging in the past year or so but the efficiency need will surely allow networking teams to built the global enterprise.

We used to say that no one got fired for buying IBM, well now IBM is services and buying from all the cloud based services.  What goes around comes around and the giants in the IT industry may just end up being the users and admins in 2015, not the hardware vendors of the last decade.