Why software defined storage makes sense?

 Neeraj Matiyani

We have entered the era of the software-defined. Today software is simplifying, automating, providing greater agility, efficiency, flexibility and cost-efficiency in the data centre.

Software defined storage is the fastest growing segment of the software-everything universe and it runs on the simple concept of removing the additional storage services such as management, data protection, data placement, I/O, etc. and manage it under a single platform.

Software Defined Storage(SDS) maybe understood in several ways. The most common definition for SDS is as a technology that separates the storage software and services from the underlying hardware for increased flexibility, scalability, automation and cost benefits.

According to the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), SDS should include automation; standard interfaces; virtualized data path; and scalability.

Need for Software-Defined Storage

Enterprise storage today has become fragmented in many ways in order to cater to different demands placed on data. Today there are multiple types of technologies such as SAN, NAS, Flash, Object etc. governing enterprise storage from multiple vendors, different tools and management software, different types of data – structured, unstructured, rich or complex data, Big Data and the Internet of Things.

This variety only grows in volume day by day making the whole affair of the management of storage expensive and complex. Automation therefore is necessary in the enterprise storage domain as storage management becomes easy and will require less man power.

Convergence is now becoming a popular option for organisations as it reduces the complexity and eases management of IT in general. This has been one of the contributors to the growing popularity of Software Defined Storage which makes the prospect of having storage, servers and networking components in one device more practical.

Finding best practices

One of the most important factors that underline the success of Software Defined Storage is intelligent deployment. We believe that in order to find this success, SDS must be adapted and brought to such a level where the services available on storage hardware such as: snapshots, deduplication, replication, and thin provisioning on a software layer that can be deployed on industry standard servers.

The idea is to make use of flexible solutions that can be added to any environment, without having to rip and replace existing infrastructure.

The approach to SDS must be built on three codes: abstract data from the hardware; integrate storage, compute and networking; and orchestrate via software.

The software thus creates a unified pool of hardware resources consisting of automation and monitoring tools, thereby transcending storage virtualisation. The traditional function of the storage appliance are moved closer to compute, enabling better load balancing, reducing operation task loads, and improving responsiveness and flexibility.

By creating a unified pool of hardware resources and adding automation and monitoring tools, SDS transcends storage virtualization. It moves functions out of the storage appliance and places them close to compute, enabling better load balancing, reducing operational task loads, and improving responsiveness and flexibility.

SDS in the present scenario

Software Defined Storage is still in the early stage of its adoption and is yet to gain widespread adoption. IDC believes that SDS platforms will continue to grow faster than any other market segment in the file- and object-based storage market and will be driven by a rich and diverse set of data-intensive use cases across industries and geographies.

Deploying SDS on a tried-and-tested enterprise-class server with the appropriate hardware configurations, and working with a vendor with global services and support are critical to an enterprise-quality SDS implementation.

The success of SDS will depend on how well it serves in providing customers with the freedom of choice, agility, scalability, manageability, and affordability.

The author is Director, Storage Solutions, Dell India