The growing popularity of object-based storage has resulted in the development of Ethernet-connected storage devices, also referred to as IP-Based Drives, that support object interfaces, and in some cases the ability to run applications on the drives themselves. These scale-out storage nodes consist of relatively inexpensive drive-sized enclosures with IP network connectivity, CPU, memory and storage. While inexpensive to deploy, these solutions require more management than a traditional drive. In order to simplify management of these drives, SNIA has developed and approved the release of the IP-Based Drive Management Specification. On April 20^th, the SNIA Cloud Storage Initiative is hosting a live webcast, “Object Drives Now Have a Management Standard.” It will be a unique opportunity to learn about this specification from the authors who wrote it. In this webcast, we’ll discuss:

• Major components of the IP-Based Drive Management Standard
• How the standard leverages the DMTF Redfish management standard to manage IP-Based Drives
• The standard management interface for drives that are part of JBOD (Just A Bunch Of Disks) or JBOF (Just A Bunch Of Flash) enclosures

This standard allows drive management to scale to data centers and beyond, enabling high degrees of automation and software only management of data centers. Reserve your spot today to learn more and ask questions to the folks behind the spec. I hope to see you on April 20^th.    

What are the issues emerging for Hyperscalers and storage? Find out on March 10^th when I’ll be presenting at Storage Field Day. The brainchild of Stephen Foskett, Storage Field Day brings together thought leaders to share information and opinions in a presentation and discussion format with a carefully selected delegate panel of independent bloggers, speakers, freelance writers, and other social media tech influencers. As large enterprise customers take a queue from Hyperscalers like Google and Amazon and build their own storage systems using software defined storage and best-in-class commodity components, assembled in racks, a range of issues around drives, APIs and tail latency are emerging. Join me on March 10^th at 9:00 am PT via live stream to hear:

• Increasing attention to the fast growing Hyperscaler storage market by drive and SDS vendors
• Metrics for disk: IOPS, capacity, lower tail latency, security and lower TCO
• The importance of tail latency and tail latency remediation
• Current fractured approach of new features via RFP procurement does not scale
• The impact on the supply chain
• How the industry can respond to these technical requirements to promote adoption and standards for Hyperscaler storage
• Case study – large global bank goes Hyperscaler

And keep an eye on Twitter during Storage Field Days for what we hope will be a lively debate on the issues raised during this Hyperscaler storage presentation.

What are the issues emerging for Hyperscalers and storage? Find out on March 10^th when I’ll be presenting at Storage Field Day. The brainchild of Stephen Foskett, Storage Field Day brings together thought leaders to share information and opinions in a presentation and discussion format with a carefully selected delegate panel of independent bloggers, speakers, freelance writers, and other social media tech influencers. As large enterprise customers take a queue from Hyperscalers like Google and Amazon and build their own storage systems using software defined storage and best-in-class commodity components, assembled in racks, a range of issues around drives, APIs and tail latency are emerging. Join me on March 10^th at 9:00 am PT via live stream to hear:

• Increasing attention to the fast growing Hyperscaler storage market by drive and SDS vendors
• Metrics for disk: IOPS, capacity, lower tail latency, security and lower TCO
• The importance of tail latency and tail latency remediation
• Current fractured approach of new features via RFP procurement does not scale
• The impact on the supply chain
• How the industry can respond to these technical requirements to promote adoption and standards for Hyperscaler storage
• Case study – large global bank goes Hyperscaler

And keep an eye on Twitter during Storage Field Days for what we hope will be a lively debate on the issues raised during this Hyperscaler storage presentation.

New solid state storage technologies are forcing the industry to refine distinctions between networks and other types of system interconnects.   The question on everyone's mind is: when is it beneficial to use networks to access solid state storage, particularly persistent memory? It's not quite as simple as a "yes/no" answer. The answer to this question involves application, interconnect, memory technology and scalability factors that can be analyzed in the context of a latency budget. On April 19^th, Doug Voigt, Chair SNIA NVM Programming Model Technical Work Group, returns for a live SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum webcast, "Architectural Principles for Networked Solid State Storage Access - Part 2" where we will explore latency budgets for various types of solid state storage access.  These can be used to determine which combinations of interconnects, technologies and scales are compatible with Load/Store instruction access and which are better suited to IO completion techniques such as polling or blocking. In this webcast you'll learn:

• Why latency is important in accessing solid state storage
• How to determine the appropriate use of networking in the context of a latency budget
• Do's and don'ts for Load/Store access

This is a technical seminar built upon part 1 of this series. If you missed it, you can view it on demand at your convenience. It will give you a solid foundation on this topic, outlining key architectural principles that allow us to think about the application of  networked  solid state technologies more systematically. I hope you will register today for the April 19^th event. Doug and I will be on hand to answer questions on the spot. Update: If you missed the live event, it's now available  on-demand. You can also  download the webcast slides.

New solid state storage technologies are forcing the industry to refine distinctions between networks and other types of system interconnects.  The question on everyone’s mind is: when is it beneficial to use networks to access solid state storage, particularly persistent memory?

It’s not quite as simple as a “yes/no” answer. The answer to this question involves application, interconnect, memory technology and scalability factors that can be analyzed in the context of a latency budget.

On April 19^th, Doug Voigt, Chair SNIA NVM Programming Model Technical Work Group, returns for a live SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum webcast, “Architectural Principles for Networked Solid State Storage Access – Part 2” where we will explore latency budgets for various types of solid state storage access. These can be used to determine which combinations of interconnects, technologies and scales are compatible with Load/Store instruction access and which are better suited to IO completion techniques such as polling or blocking.

In this webcast you’ll learn:

• Why latency is important in accessing solid state storage
• How to determine the appropriate use of networking in the context of a latency budget
• Do’s and don’ts for Load/Store access

This is a technical seminar built upon part 1 of this series. If you missed it, you can view it on demand at your convenience. It will give you a solid foundation on this topic, outlining key architectural principles that allow us to think about the application of networked solid state technologies more systematically.

I hope you will register today for the April 19^th event. Doug and I will be on hand to answer questions on the spot.

If you haven’t caught the updates on SNIA Swordfish^TM lately, please read on because it’s swimming fast! The new SNIA specification offers a unified approach to managing storage and servers in environments like hyperscale and cloud infrastructures. SNIA’s Scalable Storage Management Technical Work Group (SSM TWG) just announced completion of Version 1.0.3. The new version reflects specification enhancements in multiple areas plus a User’s Guide, multiple new use cases and a new document section. “Because SNIA Swordfish is an extension to DMTF’s (Distributed Management Task Force) open industry Redfish™ standard, it specifies the same RESTful interface and utilizes JavaScript Object Notation and Open Data Protocol to help customers integrate solutions within their existing tool chains,” said Don Deel, Chairman, SNIA Storage Management Initiative. “The SSM TWG members responsible for helping develop SNIA Swordfish represent many of the leading companies in the storage industry today, including Broadcom, Dell EMC, HPE, Intel, Microsoft, NetApp, Nimble Storage and VMware.” You can also keep up with the latest Swordfish updates by continually visiting the SNIA Swordfish website. If you’re interested in helping shape the future of storage management by getting involved in the development of SNIA Swordfish, please e-mail storagemanagement@snia.org.

Server Message Block (SMB) is the core file-transfer protocol of Windows, MacOS and Samba, and has become widely deployed. It’s ubiquitous – a 30-year-old family of network code.

However, the latest iteration of SMB3 is almost unrecognizable when compared to versions only a few years old. That’s why the SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum (ESF) has invited Microsoft’s Ned Pyle, program manager of the SMB protocol, to speak at our live webcast, “Rockin’ and Rollin’ with SMB3.”

Extensive reengineering has led to advanced capabilities that include multichannel, transparent failover, scale out, and encryption. SMB Direct makes use of RDMA networking, creates block transport system and provides reliable transport to zetabytes of unstructured data, worldwide.

SMB3 forms the basis of hyperconverged and scale-out systems for virtualization and SQL Server. It is available for a variety of hardware devices, from printers, network-attached storage appliances, to Storage Area Networks. It is often the most prevalent protocol on a network, with high-performance data transfers as well as efficient end-user access over wide-area connections. Register now for the live event on April 5^th to hear:

• Brief background on SMB
• An overview of the SMB 3.x family, first released with Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, MacOS 10.10, Samba 4.1, and Linux CIFS 3.12
• What changed in SMB 3.1.1
• Understanding SMB security, scenarios, and workloads
• The deprecation and removal of the legacy SMB1 protocol
• How SMB3 supports hyperconverged and scale-out storage

This is a unique opportunity to “rock out” with an SMB3 expert on the front lines at Microsoft. We hope to see you on April 5^th.

SNIA will be out and about in February in San Francisco and Santa Clara, CA, focused on their security, container, and file storage activities. February 14-17 2017, join SNIA in San Francisco at the RSA Conference in the OASIS Interop: KMIP & PKCS11 booth S2115. OASIS and SNIA member companies will be demonstrating OASIS Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) through live interoperability across all participants. SNIA representatives will be on hand in the booth to answer questions about the Storage Security Industry Forum KMIP Conformance Test Program, which enables organizations with KMIP implementations to validate the protocol conformance of those products and meet market requirements for secure, plug-and-play storage solutions. And Eric Hibbard, Chair of the SNIA Security Technical Work Group and CTO Security and Privacy, HDS Corporation, will participate in the “Can I Get a Witness? Technical Witness Bootcamp” session on February 17. The following week, February 21-23, join SNIA at Container World in Santa Clara CA. Enabling access to memory is an important concern to container designers, and Arthur Sainio, SNIA NVDIMM Special Interest Group Co-Chair from SMART Modular, will speak on Boosting Performance of Data Intensive Applications via Persistent Memory. Integrating containers into legacy solutions will be a focus of a panel where Mark Carlson, SNIA Technical Council Co-Chair from Toshiba, will speak on Container Adoption Paths into Legacy Infrastructure. SNIA experts will be joined by other leaders in the container ecosystem like Docker, Twitter, ADP, Google, and Expedia . The SNIA booth will feature cloud infrastructure and storage discussions and a demonstration of a multi-vendor persistent memory solution featuring NVDIMM!  (P.S. – Are you new to containers? Get a head start on conference discussions by checking out a December 2016 SNIA blog on Containers, Docker, and Storage.)   Closing out February, find SNIA at their booth at USENIX FAST from February 27-March 2 in Santa Clara, CA, where you can engage with SNIA Technical Council leaders on the latest activities in file and storage technologies. We look forward to seeing you at one (or more) of these events!  

Would you like some ros̩ with your iSCSI? I'm guessing that no one has ever asked you that before. But we at the SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum like to get pretty colorful in our "Everything You Wanted To Know about Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask" webcast series as we group common storage terms together by color rather than by number. In our next live webcast, Part Ros̩ РThe iSCSI Pod, we will focus entirely on iSCSI, one of the most used technologies in data centers today. With the increasing speeds for Ethernet, the technology is more and more appealing because of its relative low cost to implement. However, like any other storage technology, there is more here than meets the eye. We've convened a great group of experts from Cisco, Mellanox and NetApp who will start by covering the basic elements to make your life easier if you are considering using iSCSI in your architecture, diving into:

• iSCSI definition
• iSCSI offload
• Host-based iSCSI
• TCP offload

Like nearly everything else in storage, there is more here than just a protocol. I hope you'll register today to join us on March 2^nd and learn how to make the most of your iSCSI solution. And while we won't be able to provide the rosé wine, our panel of experts will be on-hand to answer your questions. Update: If you missed the live event, it's now available  on-demand. You can also  download the webcast slides.

Would you like some rosé with your iSCSI? I’m guessing that no one has ever asked you that before. But we at the SNIA Ethernet Storage Forum like to get pretty colorful in our “Everything You Wanted To Know about Storage But Were Too Proud To Ask” webcast series as we group common storage terms together by color rather than by number.

In our next live webcast, Part Rosé – The iSCSI Pod, we will focus entirely on iSCSI, one of the most used technologies in data centers today. With the increasing speeds for Ethernet, the technology is more and more appealing because of its relative low cost to implement. However, like any other storage technology, there is more here than meets the eye.

We’ve convened a great group of experts from Cisco, Mellanox and NetApp who will start by covering the basic elements to make your life easier if you are considering using iSCSI in your architecture, diving into:

• iSCSI definition
• iSCSI offload
• Host-based iSCSI
• TCP offload

Like nearly everything else in storage, there is more here than just a protocol. I hope you’ll register today to join us on March 2^nd and learn how to make the most of your iSCSI solution. And while we won’t be able to provide the rosé wine, our panel of experts will be on-hand to answer your questions.