Software based storage solutions - Memory 2.0
Software Defined Storage (short SDS), is currently very much in vogue. Every storage manufacturer sees his product as Software defined. Is this why any software providing the storage should be called software defined? We see that a little more differentiated.
The following points make for us an SDS.
- Runs on standard server hardware.
- Runs under a standard operating system (eg Red Hat Linux).
- Does not require hardware RAID but provides itself for the reliability.
- Any hardware can fail and it still continues
(Ideally across system boundaries) - Provides fully integrated storage and system management.
- Easy to scale and automate.
- Offers modern interfaces and innovative concepts.
- Central platform for controlling all important processes.
- Provides customized storage services per application.
- Changes in the infrastructure can be adapted quickly.
To offer these many advantages of software-based storage and to minimize the problems of today's businesses in terms of growing data lengths, many manufacturers have developed their own special Software Defined Storage solutions. This makes it possible to operate the hyperconvergent systems with high-performance, scalable and high-availability on the basis of cost-effective hardware.
Here is a brief overview of the manufacturers.
Quobyte Datacenter Filesystem
Developing a new scaleout filestorage is not child's play. Felix Hupfeld and Björn Kolbeck have proven that a successful storage startup does not have to come from Silicon Valley. The novel concept enables high performance storage for all IO behavior. Integrations with OpenStack and Kubernetes and standard interfaces like S3 complete the portfolio. The intelligent Self Healing enables operation without having to replace the defective hard disks and is not at a loss for further innovations. For example, a TensorFlow plugin to accelerate machine learning applications.
StorONE TRU Storage
The new startup from Storwize (purchased by IBM) founder Gal Naor, has set itself the goal of building its storage solution from the ground up using state-of-the-art storage concepts for maximum performance and flexibility. So far, StorONE has already submitted 50 patents, others will follow shortly.
Excelero NVMesh
For whom the maximum of storage performance is not enough yet, Excelero sets the appropriate milestone. A NVMe block storage that can be scaled flexibly across server boundaries. Sounds easy? Once it would describe better. 100GB/s (gigabytes per second)? No problem.