Software-defined storage (SDS) solutions a popular technology of today are alternative data storage programs where you can decouple the storage resources from the underlying physical hardware. These are more flexible than traditional storage area networks (SAN) or network-attached storage (NAS) programs that are attached to the hardware. Software-defined storage solutions programs typically run on either the server operating system (OS) or virtual machines (VM). However, certain programs may run on a hypervisor kernel so that multiple VMs to be used simultaneously on one device.
Related post – How Cloud storage works?
How SDS differs from a normal storage solution
Normal storage solutions follow-
- Monolithic as well as siloed storage architecture
- They can run into vendor lock-in
- They are rigid, hardware-bound storage infrastructure
- Premium devices are stressed with overload
- Storage refresh and data migration are tedious
- Add more hardware when low on capacity
The popularity of software-defined storage solutions has become very popular recently for a few key reasons that include:
- the increasingly and evolving unstructured nature of data
- rising demand for cloud storage technologies
- increasing customer need for data virtualization capabilities
Common SDS use cases
- DevOps
- Virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI)
- Workflow automation
- Data management of integrated public and private cloud systems
- Data security and protection
- Increasing data storage efficiency by eliminating silos
- Providing better data access for remote offices
- Extending the life of more traditional storage systems
SDS Features and Capabilities
Most SDS products include a number of features and capabilities that targets storage management and functionality such as:
- Virtualization of pooled storage resources
- Abstraction of storage resources from the underlying hardware
- Policy-based management of storage resources
- Ability to manage pooled storage via one administrative interface
- Compatibility with industry-standard hardware (x86 servers and API)
- Ability to increase storage capacity through scaling-out the system across a server cluster
- Access to different types of storage interfaces such as block, file, and object storage
However, there are multiple storage options to consider when selecting an SDS product. These include:
- different scale-out and/or block
- file
- object options
- container-based software
- virtualized software
- hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software.
How software-defined storage works
Software-defined storage is a data management approach in which data there is an abstraction between storage resources and the underlying physical storage hardware. Therefore SDS is more flexible. Resource flexibility is paired with programmability to enable storage that rapidly and automatically adapts to new demands. This programmability includes policy-based management of resources and automated provisioning and reassignment of the storage capacity.
The software-independent nature of this deployment model also greatly facilitates SLAs and QoS and makes security, governance, and data protection much easier to implement.
When administered correctly, this model increases performance, availability, and efficiency.
Benefits of SDS
There are several benefits of using an SDS solution compared with traditional SAN or NAS style storage. Most importantly, you can update storage capacity while not altering the underlying physical hardware. They also enable the expansion of existing storage capacity to a virtually unlimited degree.
With Software-Defined Storage you will get the following benefits:
- Centrally pooled and fluid storage architecture
- Ultimate freedom to choose any storage vendor/model/type
- Flexible and hardware-independent storage infrastructure (hardware is decoupled from storage software)
- Non-disruptive storage refresh and data migration
- Optimize unused capacity intelligently and defer new hardware expenditure
- Balance capacity and load uniformly across diverse and unlike storage systems
SDS products also offer cost-related benefits which include:
- lower upfront and operational costs
- eliminate costs by ‘scaling out’ current storage capacity and adding on additional storage resources as needed
- buyers avoid being ‘locked in’ to one software vendor (since they not tied to any specific hardware)
Why move to SDS and SDDC?
- Accelerate speed of business
- Data center automation
- Need for new applications
- Improved visibility, tracking of utilization and changes to the infrastructure and data
Types of software-defined storage
A range of software-defined storage types exists in the market today, including:
- Hypervisor-based
- Container-based (for example, running in a Docker container)
- Distributed file systems for object storage offload
- Scale-out storage for unstructured data
- HCI software (storage is combined with networking, compute, and virtualization software in the same package)
Popular vendors
- Cloudian
- DataCore
- DDN
- Dell Technologies
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise
- Hitachi Vantara
- IBM
- Infinidat
- NetApp
- Nutanix
- Pivot3
- Pure Storage
- Qumulo
- Scale Computing
- Scality
- Silk