Parallel Processing and Unstructured Data Transforms Storage

Enterprise storage is trending away from traditional, enterprise managed network-attached storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SAN) towards a more complex environment that includes software-defined and cloud-based solutions. Spinning disks are also being replaced with flash arrays and solid state devices. These transformations are driven by challenges associated with the parallel processing of unstructured data within a near-real-time business operational tempo. Technology advances that exemplify this transition include:

• Big Data – The analysis, capture, data curation, search, sharing, storage, transfer, visualization, querying and information privacy of extremely large, complex and unstructured data sets.
• Enterprise Applications – Business applications characterized by their complexity, scalability requirements, distributed and component-based architecture and mission-critical nature (especially CRM and ERP).
• Microservices – The creation and delivery of software application functionality as a suite of services instead of as a tightly coupled monolith of software code.
• Containers – Operating system level virtualization in which the virtualization layer runs as an application within the operating system. In this approach, the operating system’s kernel runs on the hardware node with several isolated guest virtual machines installed on top of it.
• Social Networking - web-based services that allow individuals to create a public profile, create a list of users with whom to share connections, view, and cross the connections within the system. These platforms are used to build social networks or social relations among people and organizations that share similar interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.

In revolutionizing business models everywhere, these advances are also driving unimagined changes in how businesses use the underlying data. According to Forrester Research, however, 85 percent of production data is inactive and 68 percent of this data is not even accessed for over 90 days. IDC actually enhances the view of operational business data by reporting only 10-20 percent of a company's data is being actively used and the rest is “cold” data.

These statistics describes an enterprise environment that demands heavy and time-sensitive use of recently acquired data. From an economic viewpoint, storage is, in fact, one of the largest single costs in the data center. “About five years ago, storage represented about 20 percent worth of the cost of a fully loaded computing stack. Last year in 2015, it represented about 40 percent of the computing stack thanks to factors like machine-generated and mobile data.” The demands introduced by this sort of environment is why hybrid storage arrays have become popular. This approach to enterprise storage delivers a crucial “middle ground” solution between high speed/high cost solid-state storage pools and more economical hard disk based resources. In doing so, it enables the use of a more optimal 3-tier storage architecture capable of near-real-time optimization across the disparate demand of multiple enterprise application.

Figure 1- Comparative cost of storage technologies

This trend also lends credence to a belief that the 2020 IT infrastructures will be underpinned by storage technologies that can support software-defined management of multiple storage pools across a hybrid IT landscape. New approaches to application virtualization are also having a revolutionizing effect on the use of data storage. Operational requirements for big data analytics on unstructured data
is driving the adoption of "application specific storage architectures" and real-time storage configurability. Tiering is also an enabler for the adoption and efficient operational deployment of container and microservice technologies. This reality presents a compelling case for rapid enterprise adoption of advanced tiered storage architectures.

When selecting storage technologies, the smart money goes to those solutions that support the industry’s need for high performance and economical high density online storage. In order to enable the highest degree of storage automation, the solution should be able to manage the various storage technologies through a consistent interface or API. These minimum requirements provide the dynamism necessary for handling the self-assembling microservice applications of the very near future.

Figure 2- 3-Tier storage architecture enables near-real-time optimization across the disparate demands of multiple enterprise applications

Wheeling Hospital is an example of the importance of having a modern storage strategy. By upgrading to a more modern storage platform, they were able to dramatically improve the performance of its clinical information system. The hospital cut backup time in half and achieved a 40 percent increase in database performance by using the Dell Compellent flash-optimized array and Dell Networking switches. Moreover, the hospital was able to easily upgrade to the latest version of their clinical information system because of the additional capacity and performance it is receiving from the Dell solution.

 (This post was written as part of the Dell Insight Partners program, which provides news and analysis about the evolving world of tech. Dell sponsored this article, but the opinions are my own and don’t necessarily represent Dell’s positions or strategies.)



( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2015)

Getting Your Network in the Cloud

Join us with Virtual Newsmakers on Saturday, May 28th at 11:00am for a YouTube Livestream on cloud computing.

Virtual Newsmakers is a webcast show featuring virtual newsmakers, who are bridging traditional and digital communications and empowering human communications through technology. The show highlights people who are using technology as a conversation to bring communications to a human level and who are making things happen between traditional and digital communications. Some of the aspects of the show will be to bridge alternate communications media (digital and traditional), create a new vocabulary, and bring the world together with human interactions.

Enterprise Networking in a Cloud World

Enterprises must rethink network management in the cloud computing world. This new reality is driven by the rise of software defined networking, the virtualization of everything and a business imperative to create and deploy even newer information delivery models. With the entire infrastructure stack now fully programmable, the need to integrate the network with cloud compute services is essential. Another important environmental change is that both servers and applications have joined data with respect to mobility. This leads to an increased need to categorize those assets and apply appropriate security controls with respect to business/mission functions, data user role, location of access, legal/regulatory guidelines and user devices. In meeting the challenges of mobility and globalization, enterprises must address their lack control or complete visibility into the networks they use.

Organizations often lose the economic and operational benefits of the cloud if the network provider lacks the agility afforded by network management automation. Requirements to support cloud brokerage and to bridge services between different cloud service vendor marketplaces are also coming to the forefront. Network performance expectations that are driving more advanced network management requirements include:

• Data-intensive analytics;
• Parallel and clustered processing;
• Telemedicine;
• Remote expert consultation and collaboration; and
• Community cloud services.

Real-time network analytics is also needed to manage user application experience. Service capabilities should include:

• Network latency management - Acceptable response times on the web have steadily been decreasing. While 10 seconds used to be considered reasonable, a 2009 study showed that 40 percent of visitors will abandon a web page if it takes more than three seconds to load. Interactions that take 1 second or less maintain a user’s seamless flow of thought.

• Network Reliability - Reliability is an attribute of any computer-related component that consistently performs according to its specifications. It has long been considered one of three related attributes that must be considered when making, buying, or using a computer product or component.

• Network Performance - Metrics of the service quality of a network as seen by the customer. These metrics usually address bandwidth, throughput, latency, jitter and error rate. All of these factors, coupled with user requirements and user perceptions, play a role in determining the perceived utility of a network connection.

• Internet path visibility - Cloud computing’s placement of critical infrastructure components outside traditional network boundaries increases enterprise IT dependence on the complex interactions between enterprise and public IP networks. In order to ensure reliable application delivery, this fact drives a requirement to provide visibility into the routing and traffic dynamics spanning enterprise and Internet domains to the enterprise network manager.

• Automated routing ruleset – the real-time use of genetic adaptive routing algorithms (e.g. path mutation and path crossover) to identify and make available new network paths for message propagation

• Dynamic bandwidth allocation - Dynamic bandwidth allocation is a technique by which traffic bandwidth in a shared telecommunications medium can be allocated on demand and fairly between different users of that bandwidth. This is a form of bandwidth management, and is essentially the same thing as statistical multiplexing.

These capabilities must be broadened in order to deal with dynamic operational or application demands of even the smallest organization. Cloud-based service-level agreement will eventually require the network service provider to enable both planned and unplanned bandwidth variations as well. Service-level agreement will also be needed for in-sequence packet delivery and jitter. In the near future, these types of network quality of service metrics will be crucial to enterprises when they consider moving to new network operators.

New identity access and authorization use cases are also challenging current network design best practices. Virtual equivalences to physical and infrastructure-centric protection norms are mostly non-existent. An inability to enforce current, geographic-centric legal frameworks in the virtual world poses a major barrier to the development of a practical, economical and international cloud computing legal framework. Some of the operational issues dependent on major advances in this realm include:

• Mobile device-based access to everything;
• Internet-of-Things;
• Mobile office productivity;
• The broadening project economy;
• Virtual organizations; and
• Virtual reality.

Network management foundational changes include the discovery of new network traffic patterns. The client-server past is quickly morphing into a future in which server-to-server traffic predominates. This transition unveils location-independent endpoints on both sides of a service or transaction. The growing operational use of content delivery network “walled gardens” for network quality-of-service management contributes to these changing patterns.

When accepting this network management leap forward, enterprises need vendor partners that provide tools necessary to manipulate the operational levers of cloud networking. Your network may, in fact, be impeding your efforts to embrace cloud, big data, mobile, social and security technology trends. Primary among these tools is a software-defined networking (SDN) solution. Such a solution can virtualize your network and create centralized controls to provide more agile and flexible network services. When built on open standards, a software-defined network helps you:

• Realize faster time to market by deploying networks in minutes
• Reduce management complexity and operating expenses through automated controls
• Enhance security by inserting patterns in the software
• Boost innovation by using cloud resources more easily
• Build an agile platform to enable analytics and gain actionable business insights

Dynamic network optimization is also a key network operational lever. A key technology in this area is network function virtualization. In addition, network architecture standardization can be used to improve availability, temper costs and reduce the risk of security breaches

 Software Defined Networking - Nothing works without the Networking

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2016)

The Game of Clouds 2016

In the mythical, medieval land of AWS, a civil war brews between the several noble Cloud Services over rulership. Meanwhile, across the sea, the former controlling dynasty, Traditional IT, attempts to make its way back home and reclaim the throne with the help of the "Do It Yourself" old guard. While the conflict of political power ensues in the civilized world, an ancient, forgotten army of an undead race located far north of any inhabited territory begin traveling south for a chilling invasion, known fearfully by living IT professionals as the CFOs! 






( This content is being syndicated through multiple channels. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of GovCloud Network, GovCloud Network Partners or any other corporation or organization.)




( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS - © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2016)