3. Software-defined storage
• Software-defined storage (SDS) enables users and organizations
to uncouple or abstract storage resources from the underlying
hardware platform for greater flexibility, efficiency and faster
scalability by making storage resources programmable.
• This approach enables storage resources to be an integral part of a
larger software-designed data center (SDDC) architecture, in
which resources can be easily automated and orchestrated rather
than residing in siloes.
• Most comprehensive application integrations require open
programmable APIs for workflow automation, which SDS is uniquely
designed for.
4. How software-defined storage works
• Software-defined storage is an approach to data management in
which data storage resources are abstracted from the underlying physical
storage hardware and are therefore 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.
5. Benefits of software-defined storage
• Future-proof with independence from hardware vendor lock-in
• Programmability and automation
• Faster changes and scaling up and down
• Greater efficiency
6. Storage virtualization
• Storage virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple
storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device -- or pool
of available storage capacity -- that is managed from a central console.
The technology relies on software to identify available storage capacity
from physical devices and to then aggregate that capacity as a pool of
storage that can be used by traditional architecture servers or in a virtual
environment by virtual machines.
• The virtual storage software intercepts input/output (I/O) requests from
physical or virtual machines and sends those requests to the appropriate
physical location of the storage devices that are part of the overall pool of
storage in the virtualized environment. To the user, the various storage
resources that make up the pool are unseen, so the virtual storage
appears like a single physical drive, share or logical unit number (LUN)
that can accept standard reads and writes.
7. Types of storage virtualization: Block vs. file
• There are two basic methods of virtualizing storage: file-based or block-based.
File-based storage virtualization is a specific use case, applied to network-
attached storage (NAS) systems. Using the Server Message Block (SMB) or
Common Internet File System (CIFS) in Windows server environments, or
Network File System (NFS) protocols for Linux systems, file-based storage
virtualization breaks the dependency in a normal NAS array between the data
being accessed and the location of physical memory. The pooling of NAS
resources makes it easier to handle file migrations in the background, which will
help improve performance. Typically, NAS systems are not that complex to
manage, but storage virtualization greatly simplifies the task of managing multiple
NAS devices via a single management console.
• Block-based or block access storage -- storage resources typically accessed via
a Fibre Channel (FC) or Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI)
storage area network (SAN) -- is more frequently virtualized than file-based
storage systems. Block-based systems abstract the logical storage, such as a
drive partition, from the actual physical memory blocks in a storage device, such
as a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state memory device. Because it operates in
a similar fashion to the native drive software, there's less overhead for read and
write processes, so block storage systems will perform better than file-based
systems.
8. Hyperconverged Storage
• Hyperconverged storage is one facet of hyperconverged
infrastructure (HCI), in which storage is bundled with compute and
networking in a single virtualized system. With this software-defined
approach, flexible pools of storage replace dedicated hardware.
Each node includes a software layer that virtualizes the resources in
the node and shares them across all the nodes in a cluster, creating
one large storage pool. Software-defined networking (SDN) and load
balancing determine which hardware to serve requests from.
• Hyperconverged storage makes it easier for administrators to
manage resources and lower total cost of ownership for storage—
securing better pricing on storage than from public cloud service
providers in many situations.
9. Essential Features of an IT Disaster Recovery program
IT disaster recovery is the practice of anticipating, planning for,
surviving, and recovering from a disaster that may affect a business.
Disasters can include:
• Natural events like earthquakes or hurricanes
• Failure of equipment or infrastructure, such as a power outage or
hard disk failure
• Man-made calamities such as accidental erasure of data or loss of
equipment
• Cyber attacks by hackers or malicious insiders
An IT disaster recovery plan enables businesses to respond quickly to
a disaster and take immediate action to reduce damage, and resume
operations as quickly as possible.
10. A disaster recovery plan typically includes:
• Emergency procedures staff can carry out when a disaster
occurs
• Critical IT assets and their maximum allowed outage time
• Tools or technologies that should be used for recovery
• A disaster recovery team, their contact information and
communication procedures (e.g. who should be notified in
case of disaster)
