Observations Deck of Sun China University Programs Joey Guo's Blog

I have run into the report of VSAN like, "CISCO VSANS WIN STANDARDIZATION", which says: Playing to its strengths, Cisco is using the standards process to push its technology forward.

So what's the so-called VSAN? Here is the definition from searchstorage technical knowledge base: 

A virtual storage area network (VSAN) is a specific section of a storage area network that has been broken up into logical sections, also called partitions. This approach is used by Cisco Systems. 

The use of VSANs allows traffic to be isolated within specific portions of the network. If a problem occurs in one VSAN, that problem can be handled with a minimum of disruption to the network. The use of multiple VSANs is said to make a system easier to configure and also more scalable.

Subscribers can be added or relocated without the need for changing the physical layout. VSANs can also be configured separately and independently. Security is improved because the independence of VSANs minimizes the total system vulnerability. VSANs also offer the possibility of data redundancy, minimizing the risk of catastrophic data loss. 

Here you could find the products related to VSAN:
>> Find products and vendors related to virtual storage area network.
 

In the long list of VSAN products, I saw so many Sun Storage products. I came to realize that VSAN is just a new nomination for the partitioning or storage domains in Sun Storage. What a late standard! One more time it proves that in Storage area, the standards no driver so far.

Why the Storage market grows into so demanding? Several obvious reasons may account for it partially:

• The customers become demanding
• The competitors turn demanding
• The services become demanding

No wonder the storage market is the overheated section so far, which is easily proven by the inbound of venture capticals (VC). Here is a report saying the one third of the IT VC held by storage area. Wow, it's not a new news.

It's a bit partial to only notice that the storage service without involvement with the data service. IMHO, the storage services is mostly relevant to the block-based storage pools and some management and services upon it, including the online storage (SAN), near-line storage (SATA devices) , off-line storage (Tape libraries), and storage software (backup, remote reprcation, disaster recovery, consolidation, snapshot, volume copy, availability suites) and the services to support all of these. When it comes to the data serving the end users via Filesystem like file sharing or Database transaction, which is either file-based or record based, this is mostly like be an apparent data services. However the likewise between them, the ultimate goal is to provide the customers the data services so as to make their data easy, quick, correct, and efficient access, update and store at their own demand level.

Even the market or the customer demands are #1 considerations to the storage and data service suppliers. The current and potential products which includes the various technologies should be associated with the demand. You could call the on-demand storage services need on-demand products with hold on-demand technologies. Maybe it's a rule of thumb for the storage architect.

Features we notice in storage products: Usability; Interoperational; Manageability; High availablity; Scalable; Functionality; Security; Data Integraty; Data persistence and etc.

To satisfy the features of storage products, out comes colorful Storage Technologies:
    - DAS
       This section is suitable to all customers, first of all, it's platform-oriented, that is, you have to gain the customer with your platform before they could use your storage solutions. So the best winner is M$ for the desktop user. The direction is extremely clear, when the users compose a machine with 2 pieces of 500G Hitachi SATA disk, the storage capacity could arrive at 1 TB. It becomes a demanding issue to handle well such a big space.

       + RAID/RDAP
        RAID is almost the standard configuration on the server. With the comoditization of RAID controller and the maturalization of SATA RAID devices. It'll be a default components in desktops and workstations too.

       + Serialed Storage: SATA/SAS; USB mass storage
        The high speed serial interfaces enabled USB, SATA and SAS, which make possible the mass storage portable and scalable. How to manage and utilize such kind of storage still needs good investigation.
         
    - NAS
       + NFS server vs. NAS applicance

    - SAN
        This is what we call the second net in contrast with the TCP/IP net (ethernet, intranet, internet or special net), most of the new technologies are rolled out for this marketshare, the interoperationality, scalability and manageability are key to the customers. The good news: the market belongs to all; the bad news: no protocol-driven so far. The overheated competition leads to the demanding SAN products and technologies. The SAN includes various online storage, near-line storage, off-line storage and storage software.

       + FC-SAN

       + IP-SAN
        iSCSI makes differences now. And iFCP/FCIP?
         
       + SAN Virtualization
         The virtualization makes the SAN easy to be scalable and manageable.
            
    - HA Storage
       Storage cluster or clustered storage need more feeding.

    - Evolving interfaces
       + OSD
        Object-based Storage Disk once becomes the hit of storage. But what will it impact on storage industry is still unknown.

       + SAS - SATA
        The SAS initiator connect with SATA target will be applicable when the SAS products become mature enough.
         
Take the Solaris as a example of storage platform product, here is the software stack related to storage in Solaris:
    - Applications
    - File system
    - Volume manager
    - Disk Driver
    - Firmware

Some changes is under way in Solaris
    - Integrate the Volume manager into File System
    - s/w RAID -> h/w RAID

No wonder it's better for Solaris to compete with other platform; but it's far from ready to the challenge from the quickly developing demands of the customers, esp. on the x86 platform. To say the least:
1. Make the big volume system ready and high efficient
2. Easy to manage the Solaris file system with GUI
4. Configure the h/w RAID (SCSI/SATA) with GUI
5. Coexistence with other system (Linux, Windows) and share partitions even file systems.

TBC more comparations between the different technologies...