Cloud's ripples on storage

BANGALORE, INDIA: Cloud computing leverages on optimization of resources, idle or redundant, whether on processing, server or storage. When it comes to storage in particular, the uptick taken by cloud-based infrastructures will show its own implications for the storage side of the industry, as experts point out.

Drill in a little further, and there are impacts to be seen on the semiconductor side too. These impacts would be both direct and indirect, observes Ganesh Ramamoorthry a principal research analyst at Gartner.

Ganesh, who tracks the semiconductor manufacturing, electronic equipment production and design market predicts that on the direct side, as the demand for storage goes up, there would be power management issues to tackle.

“On the indirect side, devices like MID (mobile Internet devices) or special Netbooks would be in the highlight, apart from the respective processors. Cloud technology adoption will drive the need for low-power, low-cost devices that can connect to cloud infrastructure and process information faster, besides storing fast and plugging in fast too.”

He points out the fresh impact made by ARM processor and Intel's Atom processor's track as a glimpse of the new direction. Corroborate this with some recent news reports and we find predictions like a trend towards ARM, wherein in 2012 about 55 per cent of the netbook computers, are estimated as per a media research group, to work with a ARM processor.

The reason cited supporting this direction is an increasing number of users of cloud computing. Reports also say that due to the rise of cloud computing the Netbooks can also be made cheaper.

N.K Subramaniyam, executive director - Operations and Technology, Saksoft, a player specializing in de-dupe technology, feels that the storage side of impact will be largely defined by an organization's requirements and security stance. This can lead to three approaches. “One, is taking the entire data on cloud, with nothing on local resources. Second is a hybrid model that uses both internal data centres and others. Third is taking transaction data, with non-core stuff on cloud while letting critical, core data reside internally.”

He adds that everything is at a conceptual stage now and we won't be seeing many people going for high-volume or critical applications due to security concerns. “It is possible to change ahead.”

Bloggers and storage enthusiasts also share the view that if cloud computing takes on to succeed, this would redirect Intel's juggernaut from GHz focus to a emphasis on long battery life and low cost.

The repercussions of cloud's rise on storage are high as for a large cloud service provider, about 50 per cent of the total cost is the compute infrastructure, which comprises servers and storage.

Maybe that is what is driving the fresh thrust on optimization by processor heavyweights like AMD and Intel.

The recent AMD Opteron EE processor is reported to be engineered for the very dense data center environments such as those built for cloud computing, and it also offers up a suite of virtualization and power management capabilities so custom. It is touted as ideal for cloud computing environments, which demand both extreme energy efficiency and a balanced system that can handle high transactional demands.

On the rival side, Intel has pushed its steps further in the clouds with the buzz around launch of "Nehalem" servers. Nehalem, a new chip architecture, is stated to anchor Intel's renewed push into cloud computing, citing how Intel focuses on mega data centers with hundreds of thousands of servers.

Intel has put forth expectations of seeing between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of server shipments going to mega data centers by 2012. That makes sense for the chipmaker to tap cloud architecture aimed at mega data centers with hundreds of thousands of servers that can be balanced, resized and scaled automatically.

As an Intel executive was quoted as saying in a recent media report, “With their relatively low price points, devices based on Intel Ato processors will play a crucial role in stimulating demand for cloud computing in the developing world. We've designed a server for a Nehalem-based board that's optimized for our cloud-computing infrastructure."

There's more expected with the anticipated 'Willowbrook' motherboard to be launched later this quarter. Intel has also claimed its strides towards tackling idle power, another critical factor in cloud environments, by telling how it has optimized the layout of the boards, and how it has been able to get it down a standard Nehalem platform consumption to the sub-85 watt range from the idle range of 110 to 115 watts.

Between ARM, AMD and Atom, there's a lot stirring internally on the storage side of cloud, for sure.

From SaaS, there seems to be a new paradigm shift to another acronym, this time in storage world, JeHw (Just enough Hardware).